Forces of Temptation

The two people in the car also heard the movement outside.

Li Yinhang probed from the carriage: "Xiao Chen?"

With lingering fear, Chen Sufeng tried to steady his voice: "...I'm back."

As soon as he opened his mouth, he inhaled a sufficient amount of moist water vapor, his throat constricted, and he coughed violently.

"Cough-cough cough!!"

Li Yinhang took out two soft handkerchiefs, one to cover his mouth and nose, lowered his head and got out of the carriage, followed the low coughing sound, and handed the other to Chen Sufeng.

She was sure that the outside environment was no longer suitable for human beings.

After a few breaths, she obviously felt that the handkerchief covering her mouth and nose became wet and limp.

Holding Chen Sufeng with one hand, she twisted her body and shouted at the mist, "Mr. Nan, get in the car! This mist—"

Nanzhou's voice came from the mist: "I won't go up."

Li Yinhang: "???"

Without thinking too much, she supported Chen Sufeng's hand, groped the outer wall of the carriage, found the nearest door, and led him in.

This is the fourth car.

Chen Sufeng's mind and body were obviously not completely separated from the dungeon, his gaze was momentarily confused as he looked at the surrounding environment, and his feet were not very stable.

When he walked to a window, he tripped because the rubber on the ground of the train turned up at a corner. He grabbed the blue curtain of the train and tried to keep his balance. As a result, the plastic ring that was set on the iron shaft Tore off two or three pieces.

The curtains hung down like they couldn't fall off.

Li Yinhang gave him a hand: "Be careful."

Chen Sufeng nodded gratefully to her.

Finally, they successfully reached the third carriage.

He was supported to sit down, looking at the thick fog outside the window for a long time, with a dazed and vigilant look, as if he was worried about some monster hidden behind the fog.

Li Yinhang didn't understand at first why Chen Sufeng's reaction after leaving the dungeon was so strange.

Until Yuan Mingqing next to her made a "open panel" gesture to her.

Inspired, Li Yinhang checked the real-time san value of his teammate Chen Sufeng.

She is sensitive to numbers, so she remembers the basic panel data of all teammates.

In her memory, Chen Sufeng's San value has always been 5, which is an ordinary level.

And now, his san value is "1".

Li Yinhang returned to the No. 1 car, and found that the mineral water in the iron water tank had reached 7 or 80 degrees, so he unscrewed the two bottles of water, poured one bottle into a paper bowl filled with vermicelli, and poured the other bottle into the In the cups taken out of the warehouse.

The hot temperature permeated from the cup, carrying a bit of reassuring power.

Because the hot water is not hot enough, it takes a certain amount of time to soak the vermicelli, so Li Yinhang didn't bring it over immediately.

She put two empty bottles on the table in the No. 1 car, returned to the No. 3 car, and first handed the water glass to Chen Sufeng.

Drink some hot water to at least soothe some tension.

It wasn't until 5 minutes passed and his san value jumped to "2" that Chen Sufeng let out a breath slowly.

The breath was extremely long, as if it had been stagnated in his chest for a long time.

After he let out a sigh of relief, Nan Zhou's voice sounded outside at the right time: "How long is the stipulated time for your copy to be completed?"

Chen Sufeng took a sip of water: "Me? I... 16 hours."

Hearing this answer, Li Yinhang couldn't hide his surprise, and exchanged a glance with Yuan Mingqing.

... She thought that except for Nanzhou, everyone had 24 hours to complete the dungeon.

She also secretly thought about the mystery of the two time points of "12 hours" and "24 hours". Now it seems that she is probably thinking too much.

Li Yinhang glanced at the simple timeline he had drawn on his notebook, and calculated the time: "Then you escaped before... the dungeon time limit was approaching?"

Chen Sufeng smiled wryly: "It's a fluke."

Nan Zhou asked outside: "What is your game?"

Chen Sufeng stood up and took a look outside: "It's so foggy outside, why don't you come in and talk."

Nanzhou didn't answer.

Chen Sufeng: ...?

He looked back at Li Yinhang and Yuan Mingqing.

Yuan Mingqing shrugged at him.

Neither of them knew where Nanzhou's inexplicable persistence came from.

In order for Nanzhou to hear more clearly, Chen Sufeng sat at the train door.

"I went to an AVG game with Cthulhu's world view. In the setting, I was the captain of a team of researchers. I wanted to enter an ancient tomb to investigate mysterious phenomena. The general task description is...'Humans are in front of the gods. It's an ant, but an ant also has a heart that wants to look up to a god'...and so on."

...Li Yinhang understood.

No wonder his san value dropped like this.

Chen Sufeng's game is relatively special, it is a text adventure game.

Once the key point of the plot is reached, the game will enter a time-stop state, and several multiple-choice questions will pop up in front of Chen Sufeng.

Different choices will lead him to different fate branch lines.

And unlike ordinary text adventure games, Chen Sufeng has no save points.

This also means that if you choose the wrong item, you will lose the whole game.

As the captain, he even had to choose whether to go east or west in the tomb passage with many traps.

Every time at a fork in the road, three or even five floating options pop up in front of you. Everyone stops together and stares at him like a robot, waiting for his choice. If you don’t choose, you can’t move forward or move. , this invisible pressure, coupled with the suffocating underground air, is enough to drive people crazy.

After hearing his description, Li Yinhang was stunned for a long time, and said sincerely: "...that's really difficult."

Chen Sufeng scratched the back of his head: "It's actually not bad. My task is to survive within 16 hours, as long as I can survive, it doesn't matter if things like 'exploration failure'. My birth point is in the tomb, I can only use The map drawn along the way is going backwards, and I want to take the team out and stay away from danger."

"But later, the way out was destroyed, and my purpose of leaving was also discovered."

"My team members suddenly started chasing me..." Chen Sufeng shook his head helplessly, "I...was tricked by them. Only two or three of them are still loyal to me as the 'captain', and the rest have all become gods. slaves and fanatics."

"They were originally loyal believers in science, but when their beliefs deepened to a certain level, their thinking changed 180 degrees. ——This is the case in the setting, as long as his belief in science is pure to a certain extent, Breaking through a certain critical value, the spirit will be impregnated with that indescribable thing under the influence of the evil god."

"It can be seen from the notes I carry with me that I, the captain, probably have too many mundane things to consider and scruples, but I don't study as devoutly and deeply as these team members, so I gradually become the leader among them. 'Heterogeneous'."

When this cruel fact was exposed, facing the team members with scarlet eyes and murmuring indescribable words, the system popped up in front of Chen Sufeng: "Escape!", "Talk, try it", "Coincidentally, I Is also a believer in the gods" three options.

Chen Sufeng made a decisive decision and chose to "escape".

He didn't dare to make false claims with these people, and he didn't have much confidence in his ability to pretend.

"I ran away for a long time, hiding while hiding. The tomb passage is very long and the tomb chamber is huge. I thought I could hide, but I was still caught at the 14th hour."

When he was pressed against the wall by a fanatic and stabbed in the waist with a dagger, in severe pain and dizziness, Chen Sufeng managed to open his eyes, but saw a string of nails on a tomb not far away. Blood writing on the wall: "You can't escape."

At the center of the word "的", there is an index fingernail embedded.

Chen Sufeng lowered his head, and found that the nail on his right index finger had fallen off and disappeared at some point.

He was creepy.

Li Yinhang's palms were sweating just by hearing it.

Nan Zhou outside also nodded slightly.

Li Yinhang was right.

The riddles that Gaowei people gave Chen Sufeng were very difficult.

...The point of leaving the copy is clearly "voluntarily choosing to die".

However, on the one hand, the game form of "multiple choice questions" is extremely easy to solidify people's judgment, and induces Chen Sufeng to focus more on the question of "how to choose".

On the other hand, as soon as he came up, he was faced with a dead end, and he naturally thought "I can't die, I can't be arrested, and I can't be sacrificed" from the beginning to the end.

The psychological suggestion he received would make him have no time to think about the matter of "I want to die voluntarily".

Inside the train, Li Yinhang thought about it but couldn't think of how Chen Sufeng would break the situation: "Then how did you—"

Chen Sufeng said: "They escorted me and a few others to go down and deep."

"Later, we entered a huge stone gate."

"There's a space in there that's so big that it makes me dizzy. . . . It's so big, so big."

Chen Sufeng obviously didn't want to recall much, but he clenched his fists in a masochistic manner, forcing himself to restore the details.

"...It's pitch black ahead, the lights don't seem to be illuminating the road, it seems to be swallowed by the darkness little by little....We seem to be walking in the esophagus."

"They pushed me to kneel in front of a magic circle....I know, they want to execute the alien. Because I am their captain, they can't tolerate the alien like me even more."

"They began to mutter words, fanatically praising the greatness of the evil god."

Because of the gradual agitation, Chen Sufeng's tone became faster and faster, and Li Yinhang's heart was lifted higher and higher.

"I've been waiting for options to come up - I've been waiting, I've been waiting all the way."

"But there are no options."

"I didn't realize it until I was pushed to the altar and knelt down. The game might be over the moment I was caught."

"My mind was empty at the time. I knew I was going to die. But I couldn't figure out what went wrong. I chose to escape, no problem. I don't understand this Cthulhu civilization, even if I want to Pretending to be a believer can't pretend at all, if you miss the chance to escape, it's really over."

"Moreover, there are too many of them, and they are more familiar with the terrain here than I am with only one map. Even if I run, I can't run for less than 16 hours."

Speaking of this, Chen Sufeng's tone became ruthless.

"I know I'm going to die. But I can't just die like this."

"When they started dancing around me, I was the first to yell—"

"—Honorable God, all believers here will be your sacrifices!"

Li Yinhang suddenly became enlightened.

Since he called the evil god "the noble god" and made a sacrifice, then Chen Sufeng himself would also become a believer of the evil god and voluntarily became the object of the sacrifice.

...This in disguise satisfies the condition of "voluntary sacrifice".

Chen Sufeng closed his eyes.

In the darkness, dazzling and even infinite colors glowed.

He knew from the notes that he couldn't look directly at the image of the "god" in the depth of the color, otherwise his San value would return to zero, and even if he returned alive, he would be insane.

The indescribably excited cries and murmurs of the fanatics came from beside him.

I don't know whether it is because of fear, or the excitement of the ants finally seeing the gods.

The god's feet stomped heavily, crushing the ants into fine powder.

...As soon as he opened his eyes again, Chen Sufeng came to the foggy train station.

After roughly speaking, he calmed down and took two sips of hot water to regain his composure.

After looking around, Chen Sufeng confirmed the current situation: "Apart from me, only brother Jiang Fang hasn't come back yet, right?"

Yuan Mingqing gave a "hmm" and looked out the window thoughtfully.

Knowing his customs clearance process, although it was thrilling, Li Yinhang's heart was also at ease.

There are still two hours or so.

If Chen Sufeng can come back, Brother Fang will definitely be able to come back——

As if all wishes came true, a series of footsteps suddenly came from outside the platform.

Li Yinhang was overjoyed, he opened his mouth and said, "Fang—"

Nanzhou's voice came from deep in the thick fog: "...it's me."

Li Yinhang thought that Jiang Fang had returned, and his heart tightened slightly.

However, it would be good if Nan Zhou is willing to get in the car...

In the next second, there was a muffled sound of glass shattering in the depths of the fog, followed by the sound of a metal trash can rolling to the ground.

Li Yinhang was startled, and got up abruptly, and just about to go out, Yuan Mingqing pressed her shoulder: "You and Chen Sufeng stay here, I'll go down and have a look."

Yuan Mingqing stepped into the thick fog, traced the source of the sound, and went all the way.

click.

He stepped on a piece of broken glass.

Yuan Mingqing looked down and found that the broken glass stretched all the way forward, leading directly to the newsstand in the station.

... Nan Zhou broke the glass of the locked newsstand.

Because the newsstand hadn't been soaked in fog yet, Yuan Mingqing noticed that Nan Zhou was standing next to the dusty drink stand, looking down at the drinks on the shelf, wondering what he was thinking.

Yuan Mingqing picked up a magazine and put it in front of his nose, so as to block the uncomfortable over-humid air: "Why do you have to stay outside? Is there anything in this car that you are afraid of?" ?"

Nan Zhou glanced at him, unwilling to answer: "I have to wait for someone."

Yuan Mingqing took a step forward and grabbed his arm: "What exactly do you want?"

"Is the purpose of your playing tricks to make us afraid of the train?" He stared at Nan Zhou, saying every word to his heart, "You want us all to stay and wait for Jiang Fang, don't you?"