Netherworld Investigator

The "fantasy" mentioned by Xiao Bakou is at the end of a mural corridor on the seventh floor, where there is a machine similar to a gashapon machine.He took out two gold coins from his body and threw them in with ease. After a while, the machine "boomed" and laid two eggs.

Xiao Ba couldn't wait to drag Joker to a double cabin not far away, opened the cabin door, bent over and climbed in, took out the two magnetic cards in the Gacha, and put them in the sensor.

"I drew the forest, and yours is...unknown territory? It's too powerful, I've never drawn it before." Xiao Ba was obviously very satisfied with Joker's invader aura, "Because it's a two-player mode, so We can go to both places, now - let's go!"

It turns out that the so-called illusion is a game within a game, a virtual within a virtual.

Nature is originally something that arouses imagination, but in this world completely ruled by overly mechanical human brains and overly intelligent programs, it is a world that can only exist in imagination.

He and Xiao Ba walked in the forest, warm rain clouds slid over the treetops, and mist filled the branches and leaves.

In this quiet and dreamy illusion, Xiao Ba breathed a long sigh of relief, the depression remaining in his young body evaporated like dewdrops on the tip of a leaf.

This almost inaudible sigh exploded in Joker's ears like a thunderbolt.

At that moment, he had a strong intuition that Xiao Ba was not an NPC.

—He, like me, is a person who does not belong to this world.

However, who am I?A name, a string of numbers, or a symbol?

If the truth at this moment is just a lie conspired by everyone...then, where do I belong?from where?Abyss, clouds, crumbling temples, or crumbling ruins?

A burst of sharp pain came from his skull in front of the frontal lobe, and fragmented and sharp-edged images churned in his mind.It's just that the real pain is fleeting, like a frightened hare fleeing in the grass.

"Ah, the sky is losing hair." Xiao Ba wiped the rainwater off his face and giggled, "It's a little itchy."

"Hairfall?" Joker was taken aback for a moment, and then realized that in this world without the sun, Xiao Ba probably had no chance to touch real rain.

The water droplets slid down the leaf tips and hit the plump flower buds, and the spores were sprayed fluffy and scattered all over the ground.

"It sounds really nice."

"Yeah." Joker's hearing became extremely sensitive, and the sound seemed to be amplified several times in his ears, ding dong ding dong, the whirling flowers and leaves became the keys of the rain.

Xiao Ba squatted on the ground, like a gentle unicorn, he stroked a layer of soft pine needles with his hands, as if feeling the trembling of life, "Seeds of chaos..."

The two wandered in the forest for a while, only to see a small wooden house with a pointed roof appearing in front of them.

"I've never seen this place before!" Xiao Ba's eyes lit up, and he flicked the water droplets from his hair happily, "It should be the unknown area you drew."

Xiao Ba briskly knocked on the door, but no one answered, he pushed the door open and entered.

The room was empty, with no one and no furniture, only a small wooden table in the middle with a dusty book on it.

Xiao Ba stepped forward curiously, opened the book, and was choked by Xiao Xiao.

In the next second, the raised dust condensed in the air the face of a disheveled old man.

Xiao Ba was taken aback, "Who are you?"

"I am the god who manages the Book of Fate." The god spoke very slowly and clearly, as if he was writing what he said, "My name is Aladdin, maybe you have heard of it before, another The famous Aladdin is my brother."

"Oh." It's a pity that Xiao Ba obviously doesn't understand the stalk.

Allah Bing gave an unappreciated wit, felt a little lonely, and then reminded, "In exchange for waking me up, you can take a look at the Book of Fate."

"Okay." Xiao Ba answered readily.

Allah Bing quickly added: "One gold coin reads one page."

This kind of malicious income-generating behavior of charging additional tickets in scenic spots was resisted by Xiaoba: "It costs money, so I won't watch it."

"It's not good." Allah Bing persuaded him earnestly.

Xiao Ba muttered: "Why?"

Aladdin uttered the famous four-character motto: "All come."

"Wow, that makes sense." Xiao Ba pointed his fingers and said shyly, "But I don't have any money."

"If you don't have money, you can talk about a little caterpillar." Allah Bing resumed his normal speech speed, his face was serious, and he was about to pull the figure floating in the air back into the book neatly.

"Wait, why don't you let me take a look first." Xiao Ba said softly, "I don't know if what you said is accurate."

Alabing said angrily: "My business here is honest, so don't ask for money."

"Then show me what is inaccurate, and I will go back and deduce an accurate one." Xiao Ba was obsessed with nonsense.

"Tianji can't be routine. I mean no money is not allowed, no money is not required, but money is necessary." Alabin snorted softly, and then said to him earnestly: "Little friend, you have to know that fate has no way It was deduced, and there are countless clues and interlocking links. If you make a mistake, what will happen later will be completely different."

"It's changing dynamically, that is to say, even if I see it, it might not happen." Xiaoba pouted, "Then I'll eat enough to hold on, and use a gold coin to watch the real-time monitoring of a section of the road ahead."

Allah Bing choked on him, "What if there is a traffic jam ahead, you can change the road."

Xiao Ba retorted confidently, "Then what if the road I changed collapsed."

"Hmph, stop messing around, you little poor man who can't bear to spend even one gold coin." Allah Bing couldn't answer him, his jaw trembled with anger, and he made a gesture to leave.

Seeing that he was about to leave, Xiao Ba hurriedly tried to persuade him to stay, and said pitifully, "Give me a look, okay, please, Grandpa God of Wealth."

"I'm not the God of Wealth, I'm Alaka, the God of Destiny." Alabing corrected sternly, and then glanced at Xiao Ba with disgust, "Don't do this to me, it's useless to pretend to be cute, I'll tell you Tell me, besides, your face looks like it was dug out of a coal pile, it's not cute at all."

I don't know if he can't stand the chattering of the old and the young, or simply can't stand Aladdin saying that Xiao Ba is not cute, Joker coughed lightly, took out five gold coins and put them on the table, "You can see it now .”

"You only need one gold coin per page, there are too many here." The old man's eyes lit up first, then he looked at Joker for a moment, and said slowly, "You are not a native of this world, so you can't see your own destiny. Your destiny, That is the fate of the world."

Joker was noncommittal: "Then do you have any other business?"

"for example?"

"Answer me a few questions." The old man's words just now made Qiao Kejun suddenly remember his identity as a player. He must break the illusion as soon as possible to pass the game.

"One gold coin per question." The old man nodded and made the deal.

Joker asked: "I am not a native of this world, so how can I return to the real world?"

"There is no real world." Allah Bing stroked his non-existent beard, touched his lips, and then threw out a set of professional mystifying rhetoric: "It's all true, and it's all false. Reality is a vain name created by the world, just like an onion, if you want to layer by layer..."

"Okay." Joker asked another way, "Then I want to leave this world, what should I do?"

"Besides natural death, suicide is the only way for each of us to leave the world. Oh, wait a minute, according to the relevant regulations, when such high-risk keywords appear, I must..." Alabin lazily lowered his head and flipped through the words Word catalog, "Friendly reminder: Although this world is not perfect, we can still heal ourselves, 24-hour free psychological crisis counseling hotline..."

Joker knew that the old man was doing Tai Chi with him, but he was very calm, so he changed the expression, "If I want to break an illusion, what should I do."

Alabin raised his eyelids and glanced at him: "Kill that big boss who created the illusion."

Joker recalled the plot of the last world view, he also cleared the level after killing the king, so he nodded.

It took a full three gold coins to ask a question, this old man is really dark.

At the moment when the two were talking, Xiao Ba was lying next to a dusty book of fate, frowning while reading it, and muttered to himself: "I don't understand."

"You go to school every day, so you can't read?" Joker thought it was funny.

"What are characters?" Xiao Ba raised his head to look at him, "We usually use codes when we write, so are characters codes?"

"I'll take a look."

On the catalogue, the verdict corresponding to J-08 has only one word of unknown meaning: "Icarus".

Icarus, a tragic figure in mythology, tried to escape from an isolated island by sticking candles and feathers into wings, but because he flew too high, the wax on his wings melted, and he fell into the water and died.

Wings are a symbol of flight, a primitive imagination of bionics, but in this social system that has replaced words with codes, it is obviously difficult for Joker to simply explain to Xiaoba what wings are.Coupled with the fact that Icarus is a character with a tragic end, this negative implication made Joker feel uncomfortable, so he had to say that he couldn't understand it either.

Xiao Ba didn't care, and asked him again, "Have you finished asking all the questions?"

"I'm done asking."

"Then there is one left." The stingy little money fan glanced at the gold coins on the table.

Allah Bing hurriedly clutched the gold coin, "There is no change."

"I don't need it anymore, you can take a look at your friends." Joker didn't care much.

Xiao Ba thought for a moment: "Then let's take a look at Xiao Qi."

"Who is Xiao Qi?"

"I don't know, it should be my younger brother, just like his Aladdin, a younger brother." Xiao Ba learned and used it flexibly.

"You are Xiaoba, Xiaojiu is your younger brother, and Xiaoqi is your elder brother." Allah Bing corrected him angrily, and urged, "There is only one chance left, which one do you want to see?"

"Then look at Xiaoqi." Xiaoba's thinking is a one-way road, and he subconsciously chooses the latter one.

Joker turned a page backwards, and saw that the entry for J-07 read: Regeneration.

That night, Joker was invited to live in the energy cabin next to Xiaoba. "I live in a two-person room. This was supposed to be Xiaoqi's cabin, but I have never seen him appear."

There seems to be some kind of celebration recently, and Xiao Ba didn't have to go to class for several days in a row, and his mood has always been very good.However, on this day, he went out in a hurry, but when he came back, he was crying.

"I'm sad today, do you know why?" Before joker could say anything, Little Ba poured out beans from the bamboo tube and shook them one by one, "Because I failed in the trials."

"What trials?"

"I want to be a singer in the audition for the gala." Xiao Ba said with a sad face, "The judges said that I can sing well, but my appearance is too bad."

Joker's heart skipped a beat when he heard the word "singer", and he didn't feel relieved until he heard that he had lost the election.He didn't know why he had such an idea, and subconsciously felt that Xiaoba's singing must be ugly.

But regardless of this point, Xiao Ba's appearance...is pretty good.

The facial features are very agile.

It's just that the skin is a little darker, which is different from most people here.

But no matter how you look at it, it can't be discussed in the category of "poor", right?

Xiaoba asked him to accompany him to watch the rehearsal of the selected candidates and find out his own shortcomings. Joker thought about it and agreed.

"If only I could look like that." Xiao Ba looked sadly and enviously at the lead singer on stage, "I really want to look so good-looking."

"Which one?" Joker followed his line of sight to look at the stage, and suddenly showed an expression of disbelief.

He really wanted to ask, in Xiaoba's eyes, whether he looked good or not.

But he held back.

Because no matter what the result is, it will not be what he wants to hear.

The performance started, and a noise-like accompaniment sounded. The performers on the stage twisted their bodies pretentiously, and the singing tune was so vulgar and redundant that it was unbearable to listen to.

"Does it sound good?"

"Of course it sounds good." Xiao Ba nodded, thought for a while, and added, "But it sounds uncomfortable, and I can't learn it."

Joker sighed, thinking that the child must have misunderstood the concept of "good sound", and he asked again: "In the illusion that day, did the sound of rain sound good?"

Xiao Ba thought hard for a long time before he could hold back a sentence: "That sounds...comfortable."

"Compared to these songs, is it the same?"

"It's not the same." Xiaoba replied honestly.

Joker sighed.Even though they accepted all kinds of weird settings in this world, when they found that their views on beauty were so subversive, a strong sense of alienation and strangeness came to mind.

This is a time and space full of traps constructed by codes. Even lofty and illusory words such as talent, ideal, mission... are nothing but large sections of well-designed programs.

He must escape as soon as possible.

"This game is very interesting, isn't it?" A shadow-like figure sitting next to Joker suddenly said.

"...Ethan?"

"Not bad, it seems that you still remember who you are." Ethan whistled frivolously, raising his eyebrows unexpectedly, "As the one who is doomed to lose, Joe, you are a man more valuable than your father." opponent."

Qiao Kejun ignored his provocation.

"The most interesting part of this game is not with me, but with you." Ethan spoke in a contradictory manner, both a humble gentleman and an ambitious killer overlooking his own territory. "I can't design a wonderful and unique plot for each of you, so I decided to connect your thinking world together. Everyone who participates in the game is the most detailed architect. Everything projected by your consciousness , making this world infinitely closer to reality. Of course, the higher the spiritual power of a person, the stronger and harder it is to weave illusions. The most exciting, cruel, and passionate confrontation comes from the storm in people's hearts."

Ethan gave him an interesting look, "You have created a world of distorted values, which shows that you have already seen through the rhetorical trap in your consciousness, and you have a desire to break and subvert the life swept by words. Am I right, Joe, that you see the horror for what it is, but you can't escape its fascination?" He ends the arrogant reading with a polite rhetorical question.

"Xiaoba, you actually sing very well." Before leaving, Ethan made a tempting suggestion to the kid sitting next to Joker, "I can let you participate in the big party, but you must make sure you can sing well with everyone." The tone is the same, are you willing to abide by it?"

Xiao Ba hastily nodded.