nightmare exec

The game had just started when a notification came from the headset that "one player will be eliminated from nine groups".

This rhythm is a little too fast - Qi Zhengnan thought silently.

Although it is said that "strike first is the strongest" in everything, but in this competition, the sooner the better.

Now the 24 players are scattered in nine different starting points, and they will not be able to meet each other for a while.Most of the eliminations that occurred at this time were caused by internal strife in the team.

That is to say, the other surviving players in the nine groups have most likely already shared the 9 points of the eliminated players, and they have become the "broilers" coveted by others as a matter of course.

However, Qi Zhengnan's own situation is not optimistic.

In front of him, two players with the same score who were rejected as a team had already rushed towards him, one left and one right.

Qi Zhengnan nimbly avoided the attacks from both sides, knocked down one of them with his fist, and threw a ball of flames before the other made a move, scorching the bangs in front of the other's nose.

The other party obviously didn't expect that he would meet a master who could flexibly manipulate his talent, so he stopped abruptly, his momentum visibly frightened.

"Are you still fighting? If you don't fight, get out of here." Qi Zhengnan didn't want to expose his strength prematurely, and made a gesture of chasing him by shaking his fingers.

Although they couldn't figure out why Qi Zhengnan would let them go, the two defeated people still gritted their teeth and fled away with each other's support.

Qi Zhengnan was the only one left in the dark ruins.He quickly understood the top priority - he should find Song Yin as soon as possible.

But it is easier said than done.

It was useless to stand still, Qi Zhengnan picked a direction at random and started walking.

Considering factors such as viewing and game duration, this copy will not be particularly large.No matter which direction you go in, you should meet people from other groups soon, and then inquire about the situation.

Qi Zhengnan kept walking, and he had walked twenty or thirty steps in a blink of an eye.Suddenly there were a few howling screams ahead, followed by the sound of messy footsteps.

It was the two people who ran away just now and ran back again.One of them did not know what happened to him. He lost an arm and was covered in blood. He was dragged and hugged by his companions.

"What's going on." Seeing the two of them approaching, as if they wanted to ask for help, Qi Zhengnan asked.

The uninjured man tremblingly said: "We were walking on the road in good order, a monster on the side of the road... the gargoyle suddenly came alive, and knocked off his entire arm in one fell swoop!"

Qi Zhengnan briefly checked the condition of the injured, then shook his head coldly: "Exit, you are hopeless."

The man was obviously unwilling, but the severe pain of the broken arm was unbearable, and even if he tried his best to support it, he might not be able to pass the level.After weighing the two, he nodded painfully: "Then... I'll give you my points. If you win, how about going out and giving me five thousand later?"

"I don't want it." Qi Zhengnan refused to bargain with the gambler.

"...What about you?" The man turned his urgent gaze to his companion who was supporting him.The companion showed an unconfident expression, but agreed anyway.

And just like that, the man who lost an arm voluntarily withdrew from the game.As his figure completely disappeared, a notice came out of Qi Zhengnan's earphones, "One player will be eliminated from the fifth group, leaving 19 players remaining."

At the end of the broadcast, the man who received five points from his broken-arm companion looked at Qi Zhengnan eagerly.

"Big Brother, Big Brother, Big Brother! I was wrong before!! You and me, no, I will team up with you, okay?"

The man took the initiative to make a request: "If we win, I will give you half of my money! Just let me be your follower, I really really really can't afford to lose!"

Qi Zhengnan still didn't want to talk to him, but seeing his pitiful face and thinking that it would be impossible to be pestered by him all the way, he sighed reluctantly.

"I can't form a team with anyone at the moment. Because the person I'm looking for may be the captain, I must rush over to join their team as soon as possible. If you trust me, follow me together, and we'll talk about it later."

Because there were so-called stone monsters on the road ahead, Qi Zhengnan turned around and walked in another direction with his newly acquired "follower".However, he didn't take more than a dozen steps, and when he turned a corner, he saw a row of stone statues standing in the corridor in front of him.

"It's just this kind of stone statue that can move!" The follower shuddered and hid behind Qi Zhengnan.

Qi Zhengnan took a closer look, and saw that the sculptures were all holding axes in their hands, and he immediately understood how the unlucky ghost's arm was broken just now.Right now they are unarmed, obviously they should not risk their way forward, they have to come up with a safe way.

After thinking for a while, Qi Zhengnan looked around and found that there were many large and small gravels falling on the ground.He turned his wrist to wind up a few of them, and quickly shot towards the row of stone statues.

After a series of crackling sounds, the four stone statues on the right remained motionless, but only the first one on the left suddenly walked down from the stone platform.

With just one, it shouldn't be difficult to deal with.

Qi Zhengnan grabbed the follower's arm and dragged him to hide behind the pillar at the corner, while continuing to manipulate the gravel to attack the stone statue.

Although the body of the stone statue was revived, its mind still seemed to be a stone, completely unaware of who its real enemy was.It walked in the direction of the stone with heavy steps.Along the way, there are more and more stones "guiding" its direction.

According to Qi Zhengnan's plan, as long as the stone statue walked past the stone pillar where they were hiding, they could take advantage of the opportunity to divert the tiger away from the mountain and escape this level smoothly.

However, it turned out to be more smooth than he planned-there was another heavy footstep coming from the fork on their right.

Another gargoyle slowly appeared on the stage, the ax in his hand was shining coldly, and blood was splashed all over his body.

Needless to say, this must be the culprit who chopped off the unlucky guy's arm just now.It seems that they didn't find the attack target along the way, so they walked here slowly.

Seeing that the two stone statues were about to meet relatives and friends, Qi Zhengnan pressed his follower's shoulders, signaling him to keep quiet, and then evened out some stones to hit the new stone statue.

Just as he expected, these stone statues couldn't help provoking, and turned against each other all at once.

In the next 1 minute, the secluded palace corridor turned into a noisy quarry, with cracked stones and dust flying everywhere.The two stone statues slashed at each other passionately. You hammered off one of my arms, and you smashed half of my head. After a while, both of them turned into a pile of limbs and broken corpses.

And after the battle was over, a strange object with a faint light appeared in the rubble pile.

Qi Zhengnan was overjoyed, and after confirming that the danger was over, he quickly walked out of the hiding place and picked up the things.

That is not a common item in everyday life.At first glance, it looks like a huge "daisy", but the "petals" are entirely made of metal.If you look closely, the tip of each petal is inlaid with colored gemstones the size of rice grains.

If this thing is placed in a window, it should be regarded as a very delicate handicraft.However, at this moment, Qi Zhengnan didn't care about admiring it at all - because this daisy is "alive", and the densely packed petals are slowly rotating around the center of the flower.

"Brother, what is this...?" The follower hid behind Qi Zhengnan, making a curious voice.

"compass."

Qi Zhengnan has already seen the clues.There are nineteen petals in total, exactly corresponding to the nineteen players who are still in the arena today.The color of the gems inlaid on the petals is also consistent with the representative colors of the groups announced in the broadcast.

Immediately afterwards, Qi Zhengnan did a very intuitive experiment - he turned the flower half a circle around himself, and found that one of the petals inlaid with pink gemstones was always flexibly pointing to his direction.

Yes, as a member of the fifth group, Qi Zhengnan is now covered in girly tender pink from head to toe.

The follower finally saw the usefulness of this thing: "Wow, wouldn't you be able to know the location of everyone in this way, so you can ambush and attack casually?!"

indeed so.But for Qi Zhengnan, there is undoubtedly only one biggest function of this flower plate - to improve the efficiency of finding Song Yin.

But the question also arises: Which group is that little lunatic Song Yin in?

Five is Song Yin's lucky number. Originally, he was most likely to choose five.But if it wasn't five, what choice would he have made?

Qi Zhengnan stared down at the flowers in his hands, trying to find some clues from the clueless rotation.

经过点数，余下的八组中，人数最多的是拥有五名选手的8组、最少的是完全无人问津的4组；此外，1组和6组各有三人；2组和7组各有两人，3组和9组则仅有一人。

Not to mention anything else, the "single seedling" in the third group is very likely to be alexandrite.

Qi Zhengnan certainly has the basis for such a judgment.

After so many years, he still clearly remembers Alexandrite's strange talk about numbers - all the numbers from one to one hundred have unique colors: 1 is snow-white, 4 is snow-blue, 7 is snow-white. is dark green, 5 is turmeric.

3 is Alexandrite's favorite number, but it is pitch black.

"If 1 represents yourself, and 2 represents the whole world that you can observe; then 3 is the eye that stares at you all the time, but you cannot perceive it. Because it cannot be perceived by you, it is absolute darkness. "

These remarks were born on a well-lit afternoon.Of course, the afternoon in Purgatory is always well-lit, because there is neither the sun nor clouds overhead, and everything is in the best simulated state.

Zi Cuiyu at that time and Qi Zhengnan at that time were sitting in a garden that did not belong to any of them, holding a book in each hand.

Qi Zhengnan's is "The Kite Runner", and Zi Cuiyu's is "The Birth of a Prison".

After recovering from the meaningless memories, Qi Zhengnan reminded himself to focus on the first priority in front of him.

Excluding 3 and 5, the remaining seven groups, which group will Song Yin be in?

Qi Zhengnan looked around the flower plate, and suddenly found that petal 3 was slowly approaching petal 9, and the two finally overlapped.

He waited for a while, but there was no new elimination notification from the headset.

So, 3 and 9 are allied?Alexandrite, who has a weird personality, who did he choose this time?

Ready-made answers are almost on the horizon.Qi Zhengnan stared at the purple gemstone on the No. 9 petal.In a faint thought like a gossamer, he suddenly recalled that "9" was actually his own lucky number.

Could it be that just like he gave up 9 and chose 5, Song Yin also gave up 5 and chose 9?

No, how is it possible.It is impossible for Song Yin to see through the disguise of "Yun Shi", let alone keep quiet after seeing through.

...but what if?

In just one second, Qi Zhengnan had made a decision.

He took a step forward and headed towards the direction indicated by the purple gem without hesitation.

The author has something to say: "The Birth of a Prison": a philosophical work by French philosopher Michel Foucault.The "dark observer" mentioned by Alexandria (Alexander) comes from Foucault's most famous "ring prison" theory.

The Kite Runner read by Qi Zhengnan is a novel by Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini.