Being an Extra Actor in an Escape Game

... How can someone's brain circuit grow like this? ? ?

In the live broadcast room, the audience burst into laughter.

Who would have thought that Xu Beijin's devious move to clear himself of the suspicion of murder without his own image being destroyed would be nothing but a loss?

"Beibei, forget it, forget it."

"Beibei, you... well, accept your fate."

"Beibei, you are a little self-aware of your appearance."

"Beibei, look at how scared people are by you."

Xu Beijin: "..."

He hadn't escaped from the shadow of the bald man's chanting, and the barrage from the audience caused tons of damage to him.

After the audience laughed and laughed for a while, they still said something serious.

"This group of players have preconceived that Beibei is the murderer. No matter how Beibei explains it, it's useless. Beibei is really miserable."

"...Then Beibei also had a bad face..."

"Hey! I think the villain's face is awesome! These players have no aesthetics at all!"

"Compared to this, I'm quite curious about where the murderer is."

Xu Beijin caught a glimpse of this barrage and thought, yes.The murderer—where exactly?

At this moment, Xu Beijin managed to adjust his mentality, but the taskers were all stunned by the bald-headed voice.

They didn't even bother to talk to Xu Beijin, and hurriedly looked at the bald head, asking him to explain what he was talking about and what "rooftop" meant.

Among them, the most active ones are naturally collectors.

The bald head was half-deadly annoyed by the collector's sly words, and almost gritted his teeth, telling him the information that Xu Beijin had told him before.

After a while, the taskers all became thoughtful because of what the bald head said.

"The rooftop and... the bookstore?" Wu Jian turned to look at Xu Beijin, and hurriedly turned around because of the slight smile on Xu Beijin's lips, "The bookstore is also understandable, but the rooftop...why?"

They just blatantly commented on Xu Beijin's bookstore in front of Xu Beijin.

No matter what, no matter how terrifying and frightening the appearance and identity of these narrow-building residents, in the eyes of the taskers, they are just narrow-building residents after all, just a group of NPCs.

Mu Jiashi paid a little attention to Xu Beijin, but at this time, he was also attracted by what the bald head said.

He thought for a moment, then suddenly looked at Xu Beijin, and asked, "Do you know someone will die?"

Mu Jiashi was aware of part of his purpose, which made Xu Beijin very pleased; but Mu Jiashi's hidden statement that he would do nothing to save him made Xu Beijin a little helpless.

How did he know that someone would die!He even came to this nightmare to play for the first time!

He recalled it carefully and thought, it was indeed the first time.

The bald head suddenly said: "We didn't meet him when we came to this nightmare last time." He pointed to Xu Beijin, as if he suddenly realized the strangeness of this matter, "How could this happen?"

Fei said: "Because, what will happen to make him leave here?"

Xu Bei was startled.

Although the group of taskers were discussing him, only Mu Jiashi was actually communicating with him, and the rest completely ignored his existence.

He said to Mu Jiashi: "I don't know exactly who will die. However, the rooftop is indeed a scene worth exploring." He looked at the rest of the taskers, "If there is nothing else, you can leave. "

The mission workers were shocked by Xu Beijin's statement of driving people away.

Xu Beijin felt a little sleepy, he narrowed his eyes slightly, and said with a smile, "If you need me, I'll wait for you here."

All he meant was, if you don't want to talk to him now, come back later, he's always here anyway.He was a little sleepy, so he didn't want these people to stay in his bookstore to get in the way... um, it was a bit noisy.

He can completely watch remotely from the perspective of the live broadcast room.

But when he said these words, it was quite subtle.

The taskers hesitated for a moment, and the bald heads wanted to leave the bookstore first.

But at this time, the collector said with great interest: "However, I remember you said just now that you follow the principle of equivalent exchange. So, can we conduct a transaction now?"

At this time, he didn't give the bald head any face at all, and even flung his face on purpose.

The bald head stopped and looked at this guy with some resentment.Flower Arm hesitated for a moment.He didn't want his companions to have so many conflicts with other taskers, but he was a little at a loss.

After all...he never knew why the bald head would do this?Will there be any benefit in conflicting with collectors?Just because you feel uncomfortable at first glance, you will be so tit for tat?

Flower Arm suddenly felt something was wrong.

Xu Bei didn't pay much attention to the turbulent undercurrent of the taskers.He said calmly, "Of course."

...The conversation with the questers made him a little tired.

So the collector thought for a while and said, "Not long ago, we found the old site of the playground in the middle of the ruins. A group of people gathered there, and there seems to be some secret."

Xu Beijin said in a low voice, "What's the secret?"

The collector said: "This message itself is exactly what I want to exchange with you." He shrugged and said with a smile, "I don't know what secrets there are, but I know there are.

"It's like a treasure map. No one knows what treasure is there, but it can't be said that a treasure map is worthless, right?"

Xu Bei laughed, and said, "There is a black-robed man in the middle of the playground, and he knows what the secret is."

He responded with collector's words.

"Hey..." The collector clapped his hands regretfully, but still showed a smile, "Actually, you know—the secret?"

Xu Bei yawned in annoyance.

...That's why he likes to deal with people like Ringo who are simple-minded and straightforward.What's the point of getting along with a snarky riddle like the Collector?

He might as well just say what price he would have to pay for wanting Xu Beijin to tell that secret.

But collectors are not.

Such a young man with a smile on his face and an out-of-the-box personality seems to be very deep in his thoughts.

So Xu Beijin said coldly: "If you want to know, you can exchange it with your secret?"

"……what?"

The collector was taken aback.

Xu Beijin's deep gaze seemed to have seen through his heart, and he said, "Treasure maps are exchanged for treasure maps, and secrets are exchanged for secrets. This is the real exchange of equal value."

The collector opened his mouth, but didn't know what to say.

His secret... what secret does he have?

Inexplicably, he remembered a scene from a nightmare.

Doomsday... The Collector glanced at the scene of ruins outside the window, thinking for a while.

Fei said impatiently: "Don't waste time!" She glanced at the bald head and the collector, "I don't care about your conflicts, but please note that we are in a nightmare, not a kindergarten!"

kindergarten……

Mu Jiashi's mouth twitched.

He looked at the woman and thought, that's great, he can paddle now.

Mu Jiashi, a paddling expert, listened to the conversation of the mission workers.

After the collector returned without success once, Fei finally exchanged the news that she saw "a survivor walked into the fog" in exchange for a slightly useful message.

Xu Beijin said, "I've been sitting here. I didn't see anyone coming in, nor did I see anyone leaving." He looked over at the bald head again, "But these two people came here once before."

For a moment, the taskers were stunned.

Fei couldn't help asking: "You mean...the two people, the deceased and the murderer, you didn't see them coming in and out?"

Xu Beijin nodded, and he added: "About 15 minutes before the deceased fell from the building, I went to the rooftop once. But at that time, there was no one on the rooftop either."

At this time, he somehow felt that he was actually in a mystery novel.You see, a murder case similar to a murder in a secret room, with only one suspect, the whereabouts of the murderer and the victim are all a mystery...

The suspect knew that he was innocent.

He looked at Fei, and could even imagine what Fei's next question would be.

Fei said, "Why did you go to the rooftop?"

Xu Beijin couldn't help chuckling, which made several taskers feel strange.

He replied: "The view from the roof is very good."

He resigned himself to realizing that this reason would definitely not make the tasker give up his suspicion of him, but he couldn't say that he deliberately went up to see it because there was a rooftop in the scene listed by the live broadcast system, right?

...Forget it, as the audience in the live broadcast room said, he must be self-aware.

But to his surprise, Fei didn't show too much doubt because of his answer.Xu Beijin didn't want to continue to answer, and said again: "The transaction is over, you can leave."

The missionaries left one after another.

Mu Jiashi looked at him hesitantly.

Xu Beijin nodded slightly at him as a greeting, but this seemed to make Mu Jiashi more entangled.

Soon, the bookstore returned to calm.

Xu Beijin heaved a sigh of relief.

He inexplicably felt that it might be because of living alone for many years that he had lost part of his communication skills, so the scene of talking with multiple taskers at the same time just now made him somewhat uncomfortable.

Through the external glass window, he saw the missionaries standing next to the corpse for a while, and then gradually left the building, as if planning to explore elsewhere.

Xu Beijin looked at the back of them leaving, his eyes gradually became thoughtful.

His eyes shifted to the corpse—it was pushed off from the roof.And from beginning to end, no one saw the murderer and the victim come to the building, and no one saw the murderer walk out of the building.

The only time they appeared was at the moment on the rooftop.

Xu Beijin felt a little regretful. He didn't move the view of the live broadcast room to the rooftop at that time, because everything happened too fast, and the taskers gathered together again. Of course, he chose to watch what the taskers had to say .

But... the matter of falling from the building is too strange.

He was lost in thought.

He once said to Ringo that in all mystical mystery novels, the murderer, the victim, the crime scene, the time of the crime, the method of the crime, the clues, the witnesses... there is always a problem.

In this falling incident, the murderer——doesn't know where he went.

Victim - unknown, but dead.

The crime scene - no one saw it, they all took a look from a distance.Even now that Xu Beijin adjusted the live broadcast angle, he didn't find anything abnormal.

The timing of the crime, the method of the crime—very clear.

Clues - don't see much.They also don't have a forensic doctor here to examine the corpse.

Witnesses—the taskers, Xu Beijin, and the audience in the live broadcast room—clearly saw someone push another person off the roof.

After careful analysis, Xu Beijin has no clue.However, he did analyze a few problems.

The first question is, why kill?What is the purpose?What are the identities of the murderer and the victim?

And the second question is even more important. In this nightmare, what does this death mean?Why doesn't this death bring about a nightmare reboot?

Xu Beijin couldn't think of anything.

At this time, he really missed the days when the reasoning boss was around, at least he could discuss with him.

Xu Beijin sighed faintly, and then yawned.

He didn't find water, or anything else to drink, in the bookstore, but he did find a roll of sugar in a drawer.He prayed in his heart that this thing would not expire, and then he thought, there is nothing in the narrow building that is not expired.

With a feeling of rejoicing or depression, he peeled off the wrapping paper, ate a piece of candy, and barely cheered himself up.

In a way, he thought, he had actively intervened in this nightmare.

Perhaps Mu Jiashi, who knew him well, still had doubts about his identity in the nightmare, but the rest of the taskers obviously regarded him as some important role.

But in fact he is not.He just used some information he got through the live broadcast system, and took advantage of the time difference and information difference to create a mysterious and powerful image.

From the looks of it, he did a good job, even allowing the taskers to rule out his suspicion of murder in a short period of time.

Although the bald-headed statement is a possibility, it is indeed too much to demonize Xu Beijin's character.After getting in touch with him, the taskers will naturally find that Xu Beijin's temper is actually quite gentle.

However, Xu Beijin didn't really know much about this nightmare.In this case, sooner or later he will reveal his secrets.

After eating a candy, he felt that his mental state had improved a lot, so he replayed the information he had obtained in the first round of nightmares in his mind.

He was contemplating, when suddenly, another person walked in outside the bookstore.

The man walked to the counter of the bookstore and knocked on the counter, which brought Xu Beijin back to his senses and looked up at him.

Afterwards, Xu Bei was taken aback: "Dai Wu?!"

Aren't there too many acquaintances in this nightmare?

"Ahem, logically speaking, you shouldn't know me now." Dai Wu shrugged, "But whatever you want. Come with me."

Xu Beijin was a little puzzled, and asked, "Is this part of the nightmare?"

"Of course. You can't escape the plot of the game." Dai Wu said, "But there is no danger."

After they talked for a few words, the mastermind seemed to decide that they had completed the plot—there was no quest person there anyway—so they sent relevant information to Xu Beijin.

After a while, Xu Beijin's expression changed slightly.

Dai Wu smiled and said: "In this nightmare, the role of the bookstore owner is both important and important; if it is not important, it can be replaced by any actor. I didn't expect it to be your turn this time. Of course, my current one The same goes for characters."

Xu Beijin stood up and left with Dai Wu.

He thought, this might be the reason why the bald head and the flower arm didn't see the bookstore owner when they came to this nightmare last time.

Because in this nightmare, as time goes by, the bookstore owner will leave the bookstore at a certain moment.

Xu Beijin glanced at the time subconsciously—almost an entire hour had passed.

An hour after the nightmare started, Xu Beijin followed Dai Wu and left the bookstore.

The taskers didn't know that the mysterious bookstore owner in their hearts had left the bookstore.

They came to an open space a little closer to the "treasure house".There were no other survivors around, but the ash accumulated on the ground was still blown by the strong wind, and was randomly carried away to the ruins farther away.

Several taskers were a little silent.

The collector still had a smile on his lips, and he said, "Are you in trouble? Why don't you start using item cards at this time, if you run out of usage times..."

"I just tore up that item card!"

The bald man's irritable voice made the rest of the taskers look at him strangely.

Hua Bi hesitated for a moment, then said: "Brother, you...?"

The bald head glanced at him, closed his eyes, and then slowly calmed down.He stopped talking.

The Collector's smiling eyes stared at him for a moment, then murmured, "An item card."

Everyone present understood what he meant: maybe the bald head targeted him so much because an item card that had already taken effect affected the bald head's mental state.

It was precisely because of the existence of this item card that every time the collector mentioned the item card, it would annoy the bald head more and more, making him dislike the collector even more.

And it is.

"Brand Name: Mad Scientist

"Card pattern: (an image of an afro wearing strange glasses and a white coat)

"Interpretation: You are the product of a mad scientist's transformation. You will gain an infinitely stronger memory, but as a price, you will become painful and sensitive because of those unforgettable memories. Your emotions will become extreme and violent. impulse.

"Number of uses: 2/3 times (the duration is constant for the duration of a complete nightmare)."

This is a revamp card.

Transformation card is a relatively rare prop card, its function is to temporarily (or permanently) transform a part of one's body into another shape or state of existence.

However, the transformation card does not actually provide a fixed transformation effect, but is just an empty card.

The taskers who get the modification card need to decide the reference object when using the modification card. The final modification effect, number of uses, duration, etc. are also determined according to the reference object.

Baldhead hadn't used this modification card since he got it, and he didn't make up his mind until he entered this nightmare.

He went to a nightmare he once went to, and used a certain narrow building resident in the nightmare as a reference object, and finally generated this transformation card.

The object of reference is naturally an experiment of that mad scientist.The mad scientist made some inhumane actions to the brain of his experimental subject, which eventually caused the experimental subject to suffer from hyperamnesia.

After the bald head used this as a reference, although he did not gain the powerful (and painful) memory ability of hyperamnesia, his memory was also enhanced.That's exactly what he's aiming for.

However, he did not imagine that the side effects of this item card were also powerful, which made him unconsciously conflict with the scrap card collector he disliked in this nightmare.

Even though he realized that he was affected by the item card at this time, his mouth still seemed to be sealed by something, and he couldn't say "sorry" at all.

What's more, a burst of anger rose even more in his heart - why?Why is it his fault?

The bald head was taken aback, and quickly pinched the flesh on his arm with his nails, using pain to calm himself down.

He regretted it a little.If I had known that there would be such annoying ghosts as collectors in this nightmare, plus the function of this item card I used...

Could this nightmare of theirs have a true ending?

He couldn't help feeling intense anger and resentment against the existence of the Collector once again.

Fei bit her lip, leaving a deep tooth mark on her lower lip.The pain made her calm down slowly, but there was still a little annoyance in her heart.

She thought, damn it, they obviously came down to investigate, so why did they get into such trouble!

What she originally thought was that she didn't want the group of questers to have a real ending or anything, but only hoped that they could conduct a good investigation, and then they would collect some information along the way.

But... damn, they're not stuck in this nightmare, are they?

No matter how confident Fei is, she is not Mu Jiashi who gives up on herself.

So she couldn't help but sighed deeply, and after looking at Wu Jian, she accidentally assumed the leading task in this nightmare.

...and originally this task should belong to the bald head...

"Let's reassemble the information we've got," she said.

"First of all, the scene of this nightmare is the ruins after the apocalypse, and our identities are all survivors. Hunger will force us to collect food, which can be found from the ruins.

"But I don't think it's possible for the mastermind to make us truly like survivors. This is a nightmare, and our ultimate goal is to solve the knot of the master of the nightmare..."

"But we don't even know where the owner of the nightmare is." Mu Jiashi couldn't help but mention, "Have you ever met someone who is suspected to be the owner of the nightmare?"

Fei Wei frowned, and then said: "If you say that, the survivor who walked into the mist looks very suspicious."

When she said that, she thought of the information she had obtained before.According to the tasker who had experienced this nightmare, the normal ending they played was indeed related to the man who walked into the mist.

Mu Jiashi said: "Then let's go there and have a look."

Fei nodded and said, "That's in the southwest corner."

After Mu Jiashi said this, he fell silent.He thought to himself, didn't he agree to paddle in this nightmare?

Fei ignored his mental activities. She glanced at the bald head and the flowery arm, and after confirming that the two of them had nothing to add, she thought that the last time they played was just a bad ending...

Also, it's normal to not know a lot of things if it's a bad ending.

So she went on to talk about the second thing: "Secondly, it's about the playground. The playground occupies the center of the entire scene of the nightmare, and a large number of people gathered there.

"In other words, it must be very important there. We should go there later. Maybe we can go to the playground first, pass through the center of the ruins, and then go to the southwest corner to look for the survivor who disappeared in the mist. "

At this time, Mu Jiashi glanced at the collector, and after confirming that the young man didn't intend to speak, he had no choice but to say: "We passed by the playground before, and then we were stopped.

"People there seem to have a lot of hostility to outsiders and keep talking about...impurities."

Fei's eyes lit up, and she quickly asked: "Are you sure it's an impurity?!"

Mu Jiashi didn't know why, but nodded.

"Impurities..." Fei whispered the word.

Mu Jiashi looked at her suspiciously and frowned.He thought, what does Fei know?She seems to know what the word "impurity" really means?

He was about to ask, but at this time, Fei had already recovered.

She said: "Sorry, I can't tell you these things now. But when we go back to the playground, we can talk slowly."

Since she said so, Mu Jiashi had no choice but to temporarily put down the plan to ask questions.

Fei continued: "Then there is the third issue, which I think is very critical - the death of the person who was pushed down the stairs.

"Who is he? Why was he pushed down? Who killed him? Where did the murderer go? Why, his death won't bring about a restart of the nightmare?"

Fei thought for a moment, then shook her head again: "Perhaps this issue can also be discussed later, it is a bit complicated. If the death of this person is really important, we should be able to find some clues from other places."

Mu Jiashi nodded.

There are many possibilities, for example, the death of that person is something that must happen in the nightmare, and it is the source of the psychological shadow of the owner of the nightmare.

This is like the nightmare of the little boy that Mu Jiashi once experienced. In that nightmare, the mother of the little boy kept repeating the fate of death, but that is the only way of the nightmare, so it will not cause the nightmare reboot.

The only problem is that the death of the little boy's mother is not so intuitively presented in front of them, but the death of the woman is hinted at in various ways.

But in this nightmare, the death of the person who fell from the building happened right under the noses of all of them.

... Could such a nightmare really exist?

When Mu Jiashi was thinking, Fei took advantage of the opportunity to skip this question, no longer delved into it, but talked about the fourth question: "...the owner of the bookstore."

The taskers present couldn't help being silent for a moment.

At this time, the collector suddenly raised a guess with great interest: "Could he be the master of this nightmare?"

The rest were stunned for a moment.

"Look, he is so special..." the collector said, "and he has so much information..."

Fei frowned: "It seems...it's also possible."

Mu Jiashi had no choice but to speak, lest they be misled by this guess: "He is not the master of this nightmare."

The collector immediately turned his gaze to him, and asked curiously and earnestly, "Why? What evidence do you have?"

The collector who was refuted seemed a little unhappy. Although there was still a smile between his brows and eyes, the line of his lips was flattened.

Mu Jiashi gave him a strange look, he felt that this guy was a little... inexplicably arrogant.

He was too lazy to talk nonsense with this guy, and looked at the others strangely.He couldn't help being speechless: "Are you really the taskers at the bottom of the narrow building?"

The other five were silent for a while in embarrassment.

Mu Jiashi: "..."

Good guy, they all came down from a higher floor!

Plus he...

Mu Jiashi suddenly wanted to ask, as for it?A nightmare at the bottom of a narrow building, as for tossing the six taskers from higher floors into this dazed and bewildered state?

He couldn't help sighing with a headache.

He said: "Well, I'm not curious about where you all come from. Anyway, this bookstore owner was once very famous on the bottom floor of the narrow building, and there were a lot of questers who wanted to enter his nightmare, but he never told Anyone ever opened up about their nightmares..."

"Wait, you mean," Fei suddenly reacted, "he is the owner of 'that' bookstore?!"

There are many bookstore owners in the narrow building, which is just a profession after all.But Xu Beijin is the only one who can make all the taskers at the bottom of the narrow building and some higher-level taskers react when it is mentioned.

Fei asked in surprise: "That's him?!"

Of course Fei knew Xu Beijin, but she didn't participate in the farce at that time, so she didn't recognize Xu Beijin just now.

At that time, the woman who had come to a higher floor of the Narrow Building and obtained the code name "Fei" once wanted to go to Xu Beijin's nightmare. After all, at that time, the rumors had really spread like a god.

However, because Xu Beijin never opened up about his nightmare, Fei could only give up regretfully.

And she didn't expect that in the first nightmare after arriving at the bottom of the narrow building, she would meet this narrow building resident.

Mu Jiashi nodded: "If there is only one bookstore owner who is the most famous in the narrow building, then it is him."

He observed the faces of other taskers, and it was not difficult to see from their expressions that these people actually knew of Xu Beijin's existence, but they had never actually seen him.

Even the collector with the most eccentric and casual attitude has a look of interest in his eyes.

Although the nightmare they lived in was also said to be the "ultimate nightmare", since anyone can enter this nightmare, it is not as mysterious and curious as Xu Beijin's nightmare.

After all, which tasker would not want to leave the narrow building?

Mu Jiashi felt a little sorry for the trouble he had caused Xu Beijin, but he quickly put such emotions behind him.No matter what, Xu Beijin's troubles always existed.

and……

Mu Jiashi couldn't help but think of Lingo, who blocked Xu Beijin's many hidden arrows.

Fei said: "Since the owner of the bookstore is not the owner of the nightmare, then we should spend more time looking for suspicious characters."

The owner of the nightmare may be hiding in any corner of the nightmare scene, or he may only be found under certain conditions, or... he may show a completely different appearance from the image in the narrow building.

Therefore, if "finding the owner of the nightmare" can also be said to be a part of the nightmare, or even the difficulty of the nightmare, then they may have to spend a little time.

On this point, Mu Jiashi can completely understand, after all, in the nightmare he entered recently, they still need to crack the "password" to find the owner of the nightmare.

Fei roughly analyzed the clues they got after entering this nightmare, and the situation became much clearer, and what they should do gradually became clearer.

They were about to set off, but Wu Jian said a little embarrassedly: "Well...don't you feel hungry?"

The rest of the taskers were taken aback for a moment, and then realized that they were indeed a little hungry.

After all, the nightmare had already begun for an hour.The endless changes just now made them overwhelmed, and they also forgot about hunger, but when Wu Jian mentioned it, they immediately felt a stomach-burning hunger.

"Let's do this." Fei said, "We'll just look for food around here. Ten minutes should be enough, after all, we've already looked here before..."

"What?" Wu Jian was taken aback, and said without thinking, "Have we been here before?"

The rest of the taskers originally planned to look for food, or took out the food they had found before and ate it, but at the same time Wu Jian said this, they stopped their movements for an instant, and they all agreed looked at him.

Wu Jian was terrified and a little baffled.

He said blankly: "We... After we entered the nightmare, we walked in three ways, and then didn't we just go to the building to meet up?" His stomach growled, "I don't remember that we have been here, but anyway, I am now I'm about to starve to death, so first..."

As he talked, he couldn't continue.

Because the taskers in front of him were looking at him with very strange eyes.

He couldn't figure it out either.

——Because he has completely forgotten the memory of them searching for food in the treasure house.