Read Novel Full Chapter 584
Chapter 584
The clay figurines on the high platform were wearing bright red clothes with big red flowers. The color was very glaring.
It looked lively yet eerie.
Those clothes seemed odd so Bai Lixin moved closer to see clearly.
When his face was almost touching the photo, he finally saw what they were wearing.
The material wasn’t fabric, but paper. There were also blood-red maple leaves stuck on the red paper. Due to the color difference, they looked like bright red flowered clothes due to the color difference.
The fog on the window gradually dissipated, and he could vaguely see the faces of the onlookers around.
One dark face.
Two dark faces.
Three dark faces…
It turns out that it wasn’t the photo that was blurry, but their faces were inherently blurry.
These people seemed like they had been roasted over charcoal, their hair bald, and their exposed skin all charcoal-black.
Only their clear eyes allowed Bai Lixin to discern where their faces were.
[Hiss.] S419M drew a cold breath in his mind. [This wedding is so creepy.]
Bai Lixin blinked, and the scene in the photo moved.
The groom who was originally kowtowing on the ground stood up straight, clasping his fists as if saluting the two clay figurines on the high platform.
Bai Lixin’s pupils involuntarily contracted.
S419M: [This groom seems to be the only normal person here, Host.]
Bai Lixin: [Do you recognize this groom?]
S419M: [I’ve never seen him before, but he looks decent.]
Bai Lixin: “…”
S419M didn’t recognize him, but he did.
Wasn’t the groom in this photo the Lin Xiao he had been trying to find?
Lin Xiao was wearing a gold-trimmed red robe, and he looked a few years younger than when he last saw him.
Bai Lixin blinked quickly, and the scene changed again.
He noticed a pattern.
The photo combined stillness with motion.
Still meant that as long as he stared at the photo, it remained static.
Only when he closed his eyes and stopped looking at it did the photo change.
The Lin Xiao he knew wore a well-tailored suit, his hair meticulously combed back. Regardless of what happened around him, his breathing and expression remained unchanged. The words he wrote were neater than printed fonts, like a precise calculating robot.
Lin Xiao had many secrets. For example, except for himself, everyone else would forget Lin Xiao’s existence, even Dijia and the system would forget.
Another secret was the tattoo on his back of nine dragons carrying a coffin. And there was something strange in that coffin, as if it carried a soul. Lin Xiao had once released this soul from his back to save his life in a copy.
He had asked about the origin of Lin Xiao’s back tattoo and the soul within it. Lin Xiao’s response was, “That was his lover’s child.”
Now, the one marrying him in this wedding ceremony, could she be his lover?
He seemed to be everywhere yet nowhere.
Now, he saw Lin Xiao again in the ancient predecessor of this horror game.
A small wooden house, a heavy snowfall and a tightly closed wooden door seemed to separate the people inside the house from those outside into two different worlds.
Outside the house were adventurers taking photos, unaware of the eerie wedding inside.
Those inside didn’t know about those outside, and vice versa.
Wasn’t this just like how they always entered copies?
They entered game copies as players, unaware of the worldview of the copy, and the NPCs in the game copy don’t know that they were outsiders.
Could his previous guesses have been wrong?
Was Lin Xiao not a player but an NPC like Samael?
If Samael could leave the copy and enter the game lobby, maybe Lin Xiao could too.
Bai Lixin blinked again, and the scene inside the room changed.
This time, the couple turned to face each other, and Lin Xiao lifted the bride’s red veil.
She was also completely black.
They faced each other with Lin Xiao facing the window, and the person in the bride’s dress with her back to Bai Lixin.
Bai Lixin couldn’t see the bride’s face, only her bald head and the charred back of her head and neck.
Lin Xiao’s eyes were not on the bride, but over her shoulders and at the window.
He stared at the window. It was unknown as to what he saw, and his expression was extremely shocked.
Bai Lixin blinked again.
The tightly closed wooden door of the house opened.
Several people with normal skin color like Lin Xiao rushed in. Unlike those who were well dressed but had charred skin, these people, although normal, wore tattered clothes full of patches, apparently not living well.
Bai Lixin blinked again.
The charred people in the room disappeared, and Lin Xiao, who was still in his wedding attire, was lying on the ground unconscious and held in the woman’s arms.
The woman was not the bride from before. She had half-long hair and wore a plain blue Zhongshan suit.
Surrounding them was a crowd of people wearing patched clothes.
Bai Lixin wanted to see what happened next, so he blinked again.
However, this time everything inside the wooden house disappeared, no red clothes, no crowd, and no Lin Xiao.
Only an empty house, as if it had been looted.
“Brother.” Someone tapped his shoulder, and Xia Chi’s deliberately low voice came to his ear, “Brother?”
Bai Lixin turned his head and Xia Chi’s enlarged face came into view without warning.
He subconsciously blinked and stepped back slightly, “Hmm?”
Xia Chi sighed in relief and continued in a lowered voice, whispering, “Brother, you finally came to your senses. What were you thinking just now? You’ve been in a daze for so long. I called you several times, but you didn’t hear me.”
Bai Lixin was puzzled, “You called me?”
Xia Chi: “Yeah, didn’t you hear? Is there something strange about this photo? You’ve been staring at it for over an hour.”
Bai Lixin blinked again and discreetly checked the time in the top right corner of the task panel.
It had indeed been over an hour since he entered the library until now.
An hour had passed, but it felt like just a blink of an eye to him.
“Brother,” Xia Chi pointed to the annotation in the bottom right corner of the photo, [Strange Events in Snow Village Copy Record.]
“Shouldn’t we check the details of this [Strange Events in Snow Village] copy?”
Bai Lixin switched to private chat mode: [What’s your plan?]
Xia Chi: [Didn’t you say we could find their whereabouts as soon as we came to the library? Now that we’ve found this photo with Tan Yue in it, it must be the clue you mentioned.]
Bai Lixin: [You’ve forgotten the rules of this game. Once we know the details of a copy, we can no longer enter it.]
Xia Chi looked stunned, [Damn, I forgot about that.]
[Eh,] Xia Chi then looked at Baili Xin with wide eyes, [Brother, what does that mean?]
He grabbed Bai Lixin’s hand excitedly, looking at him eagerly, [Are you saying we should go to this copy?]
Bai Lixin: [Yes, I want to go to this copy. What about you?]
Xia Chi: [Of course I want to go too!]
[Sister System,] Bai Lixin called out to the escape system, [Can we still enter the [Strange Events in Snow Village] copy?]
No matter how many times players enter a copy, the general storyline and NPCs in the copy usually do not change.
If Lin Xiao was indeed an NPC of this copy, as long as he entered this copy, he could find Lin Xiao.
Moreover, Tan Yue had entered this copy before, maybe he could get some news about Dijia and the others.
Escape System: [Master Bai Lixin, please wait a moment. I will check the copy library.]
A few seconds later, the escape system replied to Bai Lixin: [Master Bai Lixin, this copy has already entered a sealed mode and cannot be started again.]
Bai Lixin frowned: […]
Cannot be started again?
The progress seemed to have fallen into a quagmire again, unable to move forward.
Bai Lixin: [Is there any way we can enter?]
Escape System: [Hmm… it’s not impossible to enter. The main brain once set up a gameplay in my database. There was a period when nostalgic copies were opened, allowing players to enter and experience the previously sealed games again. However…]
Bai Lixin: [However?]
Escape System: [However, this gameplay was abandoned after a period of testing.]
Bai Lixin: [Why?]
Escape System: [Because the stability was too poor. Copies are sealed either because they lost their obsession or they lost their. Such copies that have lost their obsession are uncontrollable. Those that lost connection have very chaotic and powerful obsessions, also making them uncontrollable. The teleportation process alone posed great risks, not to mention completing the copy tasks.]
Bai Lixin pondered over the Escape System’s explanation, [So, in nostalgic copies, the main brain’s control over players weakens? The danger for players in these copies increases, but their possibility of breaking free from the system also increases?]
The Escape System perhaps hadn’t considered this angle and paused for several seconds before responding, [Theoretically speaking, what you said is not wrong.]
S419M: [Destroy before you can build, put to death before you can live.]
Bai Lixin looked at the photo of the snowy mountain on the wall, and a light flashed in his eyes.
Could this be what Lin Xiao wanted to tell him?
It was almost midnight when he returned from the library to the player dormitory.
Most lights in the castle had been extinguished, leaving only a few small night lights casting dim, yellowish light ahead.
Following his memory back, he returned back to his bedroom. But as soon as he entered, he noticed a bulge on the bed. It looked like there was something there.
He walked over quietly and gently lifted a corner of the blanket, only to find that it was the five or six years old Tuanzi. He had curled up into a ball and stuffed himself in the blanket.
Bai Lixin’s heart stirred slightly, and he reached out and gently poked Tuanzi’s round face.
The texture was smooth and delicate, just like real human skin.
He wondered how the system created these fake people that seemed more real than real humans.
Tuanzi slept soundly, a thin layer of sweat on his forehead. Bai Lixin took a tissue from the bedside and gently wiped him. He pulled the blanket down a bit, and let the Tuanzi’s head peek out before letting go.
The sleeping Tuanzi turned over in his sleep, giggling a couple of times, then whimpering a few times.
Bai Lixin sighed and decided to spend the night in the adjacent study room.
Just as he was about to get up and leave, Tuanzi behind him suddenly called out.