Chapter 60 NPC Theory
Lu Xin followed the man and dog in front of her, walking through the damp alley. Looking at the man lying on the ground with all four limbs, she still did not feel the slightest bit of disobedience in her heart. Instead, the current act of investigating the case made her feel very disobedient.
She really wanted to end this ridiculous farce, but the words the man said were like a rope that tied her feet, making it impossible for her to turn back.
This is the most counterintuitive thing a police officer must do—
All calls for help are worth heeding. I would rather be deceived three thousand times than miss someone who is worth saving.
It was this belief that made her follow the man's actions and walk into the alley.
The alley was dripping with water, which would occasionally drip onto her shoulders and soak her medal.
The man's name was Li Mang. He struggled to avoid the obstacles at the alley entrance, mumbling to himself, not knowing whether he was talking to Lu Xin or to his inner self.
"Officer, I know you don't remember. I'll report all the progress and conclusions you've made. As for what you were going to do in the end, you didn't have time to tell me."
"You just said...you will understand today."
"Excuse me, Officer Lu, please open the door for me."
"I can't even straighten my arms today... I'm sorry."
Taking the key from Li Mang's pocket, Lu Xin opened the door. The door was made of the oldest type of iron fence. He pushed the rusty iron fence aside and then opened the wooden door. Lu Xin was stunned to see a boy squatting in front of a chair doing his homework.
The lighting in this house was very poor, relying entirely on the yellow light bulb hanging from the ceiling. Hearing the sound of the door opening, the boy looked towards the door excitedly, then a puzzled expression appeared on his face, and he said timidly:
"Dad, you're back... Hello, police sister."
"Quanquan, go out and play first. Let Daddy talk to the police."
"good."
After stuffing all the homework into the schoolbag, Quanquan walked out of the house with the schoolbag on his back. Lu Xin lowered his head and met Li Mang's ashamed face. He said regretfully:
"Please sit down, Officer Lu."
"This should be our last conversation, because my time is running out. Tomorrow I will be completely reduced to a dog."
In Lu Xin's impression, this was probably their first conversation.
"Was that your child just now?"
"That's right... If it weren't for the child, I probably wouldn't have been able to hold on until now."
Li Mang just sighed for a while. He knew that time was running out. When Lu Xin was about to touch the truth, her cognition would be forced to change. This was almost unsolvable.
Li Mang couldn't think of any solution. If it weren't for Lu Xin's last words yesterday, he might have given up.
He sighed, then immediately pulled himself together and began to speak:
"Officer Lu, first, let me briefly tell you what I went through."
"A few days ago, I received a strange photo. The photo said that if I did what was in the photo, I would receive a large sum of money to solve my urgent needs."
"I didn't think too much of it at the time. I just thought it was some rich guy who was bored and playing a prank on us. Money is so important to us as a single-parent family. We can hardly even pay the rent."
"In the beginning, we did receive some money and we solved the problem."
"But then, I realized something was wrong."
"The photos become increasingly difficult, and the tasks required are increasingly contrary to common sense, from eating disgusting things, to harming others, to... killing a dog."
"From all the traces in the photo, I suddenly realized that this might be a trap."
"Following up, I told you to call the police, but you ignored me completely. You even ignored me at the beginning."
"And from that day on, my body began to twist and deform, accepting the punishment of not completing the photo."
"Until one day, Tang Cheng suddenly announced the existence of ghosts. I realized that I was haunted by a ghost, so I went to the police for help again. This time, you finally paid attention to me."
"You didn't fully believe what I said on the first day, but it doesn't matter. I answered all your questions in advance on the second day."
"I'm not bewitched by religion, and I don't usually keep puppies. The reason I became a dog is because I never killed the dog as shown in the photo."
"My inaction really can't change the death of dogs. The dogs in the photos are constantly dying. The photos are meant to show me that I really want to take action and kill the dogs."
"But I didn't."
"You asked me why I didn't do it."
Li Mang paused and said:
"Because I'm also afraid that if I kill the dog today, maybe my son will be killed tomorrow."
"And as long as the photo appears, there will definitely be a result."
"I simply couldn't bear to have the picture of my son being murdered appear."
The woman paused and looked at Li Mang's serious eyes. Although she didn't see anything strange, she... began to believe what Li Mang said.
His logic is self-defeating.
"After that day, our experiment officially began."
Li Mang spoke, and scenes of each day appeared in Lu Xin's mind as the words described them.
"On the first day, you asked me to use Photoshop to simulate a photo so that it looked real."
"But the experiment failed."
"This photo is completely useless. It may be a technical issue, but I think it's also because of the desire for a 'real' photo."
"The next day, we faked the scene of the photo together and took an almost identical photo with a camera."
"The difference is, the dog is alive."
"But...it still failed."
“My health deteriorated again and I got closer and closer to the dog.”
"On the third day, you didn't choose the previous method. Instead, you chose to fight hard. You raised your gun and tried to find those strange beings."
"But you failed again . No monster appeared at all, and my punishment appeared out of the blue."
"At the last moment, I want you to kill me. I want to abort this mission."
"You pointed the gun at me, ready to kill me as I wished."
"But...it still failed."
Li Mang showed a bitter smile on his face at this moment. He smiled awkwardly with despair in his eyes.
"You have no way to kill me. If you try to kill me, your cognition will be distorted and you will not be able to shoot me."
"And there are only two solutions I can think of in the end."
"Or commit suicide."
"Either give up resistance and become a human dog."
As Lu Xin listened to Li Mang's fantastic words, she began to believe them vaguely in her heart.
Although Li Mang did not have the symptoms he said, all his sequences... seemed to be smooth. Even if Lu Xin started to verify it again from the beginning, it would still be the same sequence.
"And when all this happened, you also came to a conclusion."
Li Mang turned to look at Lu Xin and said exactly the same words that Lu Xin said at that time.
"Experimental conclusion three: The photo is absolute, and the person who has received the photo is also absolute. Those who have not received the photo cannot interfere with the person in the photo."
"You call it —NPC theory."
