Chapter 273: Online Dating Scam Record (Thirty-Six)
"Guo Guo? Guo Guo!"
The second before he lost consciousness, Guo Guo heard a familiar voice.
When she opened her eyes, she found herself sitting in a spacious and bright office.
The layout of the office was very similar to the two times she had seen it before, but the difference was that this office had two large, transparent windows. The shadows of green trees and sunlight shone through the glass, leaving mottled shadows in the room.
Such an ordinary scene made Guo Guo stunned for several seconds.
Since entering the game, every window she had seen had been shrouded in fog. The few sights and sunlight she had seen felt fake and cold.
But this office feels real and real, a feeling I haven't had in a long time...even warm?
To put it simply, the world of the living made her feel a little uncomfortable.
Her second subconscious reaction after coming to her senses was to look for the shadow of the stickman.
Because the three stick figure students were already in the first two offices, she assumed she had intruded into their territory again. But after looking around, she saw no one else in the room except her.
...Then was the scene she saw before she fell into a coma also fake?
Where is this place?
A ding sound from the phone brought Guo Guo back to his senses. However, this time, the pop-up wasn't a message, but a call screen:
[Your contact [Tang Xin Jue] requests a call, do you accept?]
!!!
Guo Guo answered the call in 0.01 seconds, and a familiar female voice rang out from the other end of the line:
"Don't look around, I'm right here."
Guo Guo: ???!!!
She immediately asked, "Then why can't I see you? You, you are the Heart Technique, right?"
Tang Xin Jue: "It's me. Is it time for the familiar exposé of your dark past again? The first time you were posted on the campus lost and found wall was because you left a schoolbag in the classroom. Unfortunately, the bag was filled with □□ fanfiction..."
Guo Guo: "Okay, okay, okay! I believe you are the God of Secret!"
She rubbed her forehead guiltily and asked quickly, "So what's going on with you now? Is there something wrong? Do you need my help?"
Tang Xin Jue: "It's not a problem, but I'm afraid that showing up might scare you, so it's better to contact you by phone. "
"Will showing up scare me?" Guo Guo repeated this sentence, his heart sinking immediately. Countless terrifying images flashed through his mind, and his eyes reddened. "It's okay, Xin Jue. I won't be afraid no matter what you become. Woohoo, I also brought a lot of medicine. Zhang You said it has all kinds of medicine! Are you in pain now? I'm sorry I'm late..."
Tang Xin Jue: "...I'm not injured, don't worry. At least I definitely don't have the injuries you imagine in your head right now."
She explained, "It's mainly because the situation is a bit strange, and you might not be able to accept it for a while. If I had to describe it, well, can you imagine someone as tall as me, able to move normally in three-dimensional space, but with a two-dimensional body... a stick figure?"
Stickman?
Guo Guo was silent for a few seconds, then said sincerely: "No, I think I should be used to it."
After all, is there anything more normal in the world than seeing a stick figure in three dimensions?
Of course, there may be a slight difference between seeing a strange stickman and seeing the person you are most familiar with turned into a stickman.
Despite Tang Xinjue's solemn declaration of her adaptability, she still insisted on not meeting him for the time being. However, she took the initiative to answer Guo Guo's questions:
"I'm only half free at the moment. My body is still trapped here, and I can only move around in the limited room. I can't go out to look for you, so I sent you a message asking you to come find me."
"You're really great, Guoguo. Your will is stronger than I expected. You weren't affected by the illusion until you came in. Take a good rest first. At least for the time being, this place is absolutely safe."
Guo Guo chuckled: "I'm actually fine! The main thing is that I think Wanqing and Zhang You are lying in the dormitory, and I'm the only one left, so I must persevere to the end. Even if knives rain down from the sky, I will find you, woo..."
As she spoke, she couldn't help choking up again.
When facing danger and the unknown alone, she could remain strong and calm. However, once she returned to her trusted teammates, all the tenderness and grievances came flooding back uncontrollably. Guo Guo tried to hold back her tears but couldn't hold them back, and tears streamed down her face like crazy:
"You don't even know the Heart Sutra. There was a particularly disgusting monster pretending to be you and staying with us. We were terrified but had to pretend we didn't know. We eventually fought it off, but Wanqing and Sister You were both injured. I used props to keep them alive, but I was terrified that their breath would die. I was afraid there would be no chance of resurrection and I would never see you again."
"I know, you did very well, really well. Believe me, we will never be separated again."
Tang Xinjue's voice softened. Although he couldn't see her, Guo Guo could feel her presence.
Guo Guo cried bitterly, then quickly sniffed and wiped away his tears: "Yeah! I will definitely be more powerful in the future, huh? What's that sound?"
She suddenly became alert: "I thought I heard a shutter sound just now. Are you going to take a picture of me crying?"
Tang Xinjue said innocently, "No, I'm talking to you right now, how can I take a picture?"
"Huh, that's good..."
“I recorded the video.”
“???”
Seeing Guo Guo about to explode, Tang Xinjue changed the subject in time: "Have you seen the new candidates?"
"That's right! How did you do that, Jue Shen?" Guo Guo's attention was successfully diverted, and his expression instantly turned into admiration: "Did you use those experience cards?"
Tang Xin Jue smiled and said, "Originally, it was useless. But who knew they would assign me a customer service position?"
…
It was from Tang Xin Jue that Guo Guo finally understood what was happening in the place where the candidates could not see.
Although they had anticipated many traps in the dungeon before entering this exam, the one they actually encountered was still the most vicious one - Tang Xin Jue, who disappeared at the beginning, was not attacked or injured, but was "changed".
"Remember before I went to college, I worked part-time as a customer service representative in a non-existent [university town]?" Tang Xinjue said calmly, "I've been dragged into that situation again, except this time the customer service target is you."
She still retained some of her habits and thoughts, but she had lost her specific consciousness and memories. Her body and soul were compressed into a strange, inhuman state, and at the same time, her position had changed from that of the examinee to that of a ghost.
For 606, this was undoubtedly a double-edged sword. Whether Guo Guo and his three men won, or whether Tang Xinjue's "represented" ghosts won, it would mean the demise of the other side. But no matter how hard they tried, they were destined to never be considered successful.
"This is a trap. The person behind it is very clever. Even if you find out later, you won't be able to rescue me."
In order to ensure that they would die, the other party even specially arranged for a zombie to come in and impersonate Tang Xin Jue, one to delay the progress of 606, and the other to stab them in the back at any time.
Of course, the task of erasing their last hope of survival fell on the customer service staff.
From this point of view, the other party at least understood their habit of diligently reporting. Somehow, they had caused all reports and complaints in this instance to be processed in a delayed manner. By the time the 606 report was actually submitted, the entire instance had already been wiped out.
Even though he had already overcome most of the crisis, Guo Guo still felt a little breathless when he looked back at the situation as Tang Xinjue narrated: "What a cruel situation! Xinjue, how did you escape?"
"That's why I said they only knew a little about us." Tang Xin Jue said, "There's no necessary connection between replacing me and 606's inability to pass the level. Similarly, there's no necessary connection between using the rules to temporarily trap me and successfully erasing my consciousness."
She left three restrictions for herself in advance.
The first step is to prevent identities from being impersonated, so that the other party cannot attack Guo Guo and the other two.
The second one prevents the consciousness from being manipulated, seals some abilities and delays their unlocking, just in time to break the constraints of the rules.
Of course, when she was talking, she only told Guo Guo the first two and concealed the third restriction.
She would not tell Guo Guo that the third restriction was to prevent herself from completely losing herself and leaving behind a self-destructive program.
The "key" to unlock this program is divided into three parts: one is in Zheng Wanqing's right arm, one is in Zhang You's glasses, and the last is in Guo Guo's mind. When the other two lose consciousness and Guo Guo perceives that she is in danger, this judgment will automatically take effect.
But it doesn’t matter. This restriction will no longer be needed in the future, so there is no need to tell Guo Guo.
"So, you were actually the customer service representative for that fraud gang from the very beginning?" Guo Guo counted on his fingers as he recovered his strength, recalling, "You also cheated me out of 128.8 yuan!"
"I hadn't awakened at that time." Tang Xinjue said helplessly, "I had no choice. I was just doing my duty. But thanks to you, I was able to wake up early."
The fire that Zheng Wanqing and Zhang You set before leaving on the evening study day was the most useful to her. Although it didn't cause much damage to the teaching building, it did manage to temporarily loosen the control of the rules, speeding up her "awakening."
But even if she regained consciousness, she couldn't contact her roommates immediately. Firstly, they were still under surveillance, and secondly, the situation in the dungeon was already set, making it difficult to find a way out from the inside.
However, the forces that arranged all this would never have imagined that they would give her the tool that would be most effective in breaking the impasse - a customer service identity.
Being able to "abuse public power for personal gain" in the copy system in a reasonable, legal and compliant manner, even Tang Xinjue himself could not think of any more convenient way to cause trouble.
Is it appropriate not to do a big thing?
Guo Guo's eyes widened: "And then you brought in more than a hundred candidates?"
"I didn't pull more than a hundred."
Tang Xin Jue corrected him: "I pulled more than 300."
After testing them, she found the most effective ones were the various experience cards for the study committee members. With a little backend manipulation and a bit of time, she could combine the effects of the props, then remove the points required to spend them, shifting the cost to the dungeon, thus successfully achieving a free "large-scale visit event."
"Please understand that the dungeon has limited energy. Pulling too many people at once might cause it to get stuck. The second and third waves might take a while."
Out of Guo Guo's sight, Tang Xinjue shrugged and glanced at his phone: "But we're almost there."
Guo Guo: "Are the candidates arriving soon?"
"No, it wasn't the candidate." Tang Xinjue denied with a smile: "It was another person - if he can still be called a person."
Guo Guo was startled, then he looked towards the door. He saw the door handle gently pressed down, and the door opened.
A thin man in a black suit and a black top hat walked in.
The man's hat was pulled down so low that his face was almost invisible, but this did not seem strange, because if you looked closely, you would find that no part of his body was actually visible.
But when he opened his mouth to speak, Guo Guo immediately knew who he was:
"Long time no see, classmates. Your behavior truly earns my respect and surprises me—especially this classmate Tang. The damage you've caused me in such a short time has already exceeded the total damage from all the accidents in the university town over the past year. Hello again."
The man in the black hat, or Mr. Bu, symbolically raised his hat, revealing a little of his pale chin as a sign of respect.
Tang Xinjue's clear voice came from the phone: "Then you should have adapted sooner, Mr. Bu. After all, you know that with the current number of students in the game, sooner or later countless people will find similar paths to mine, or even more imaginative ones. It's only a matter of time before the system collapses. Can your university city control a group of ghosts, or hundreds or thousands of times more living people?"
"Thank you for your good wishes." Mr. Bu nodded gently and asked, "But before that, can I ask if I can see your figure in the room? It feels like I'm talking to the air, which is quite scary."
"No." Tang Xinjue ruthlessly refused: "Because I'm just a stick figure."
Mr. Bu: “…”
"Okay," he compromised. "But before we get down to business, I need to clarify one thing: University Town is not mine. Whether it's the original version or the current version, University Town doesn't belong to me."
Guo Guo subconsciously asked, "Then who does it belong to?"
Mr. Bu turned his hat towards Guo Guo. "Why does it have to belong to someone? I think this is something that everyone can easily understand: the university town is an objective existence."
"You can think of it as a city, a school, a world, or a sewer, but no matter what you think, like or dislike, how you speculate on history or deconstruct it, it is just an objective existence in operation, nothing more."
He turned slightly again: "Now, let's return to a more interesting topic. Tang Xinjue, what do you want?"
The man spread his hands. "Due to certain equally objective rules, even if you've committed such a serious disruption of order, we can't arbitrarily erase or dispose of you. This is because it proves that even under such a rigorous test, you still possess the most vigorous vitality a human can possess. According to the rules, the instance will collapse on its own, and you will receive even greater rewards. Many new students will use this remaining energy to further their studies in the university town—but this is not what you want, is it?"
"From the few remaining thoughts I have that can truly sense your sincere emotions, I believe these rewards are not what you truly desire. Otherwise, your destruction of the system wouldn't contain so much anger. Let's make a deal. Spare me, an old and lonely worker."
Mr. Bu repeated word for word:
"Mr. Tang, what do you want?"
Tang Xinjue listened to him quietly, and then replied:
"We have only one demand from the beginning to the end, as you should be aware."
"Leave here and return to reality."
“That ’s what we want.”
