‘Paper substitute’ steps in again.

 

Lu Mingze: “???”

Why were two people suddenly eliminated? This was only the first stop — almost all passengers who boarded the train would at least have a ticket to the first stop. Even if someone were kicked out for fare-dodging, it wouldn’t happen at the first stop; at the earliest it would be the second.

“Of course it wasn’t fare-dodging,” Xing Ye said. “But I think they must’ve done something that violated the train’s rules, which got them eliminated.”

“I’ll go gather some intel,” Lu Mingze said.

With that, he vanished, and Xing Ye rummaged through his backpack. Seeing that everything he had listed in his notes was included, it was time to prepare for the next phase.

About ten minutes later, Lu Mingze returned. Through ‘Hearts as one’ link he told Xing Ye: “A player killed someone!”

He gave a general account of the information he had gathered — conclusions drawn from checking every washstand mirror on the entire train.

First, there had been several people fighting by a washstand, and soon several staff members in railway uniforms were walking back and forth across multiple carriages’ washstands. Finally, based on the conversations of people chatting in front of the mirrors, Lu Mingze pieced together what had happened.

“They said it was a man and a woman, two adults, who viciously lured a little girl who was eating a lollipop into the restroom and killed her. When the girl’s parents noticed she hadn’t returned for a long time, they went to check the restroom, smelled blood, and had the train staff open the door — the child was already dead. Many passengers saw that it was the two of them who did it, so the train police took action, arrested them, and at the next stop sent them, the victim’s parents, the body, and the witnesses to the local police station,” Lu Mingze told Xing Ye.

Xing Ye thought: “A little girl eating a lollipop?”

“Yeah, they especially emphasized that she was a little girl eating a lollipop — every traveller in front of me… no, in front of the washstand mirror chatting, all stressed the ‘eating a lollipop’ part,” Lu Mingze conveyed.

Xing Ye recalled the list of selectable roles the system had provided before entering the game and couldn’t help but smile.

Back then, the black-and-white cube had sworn up and down that the system absolutely wouldn’t trick anyone this time — and yet even before the first stop, someone had already attacked a role similar to one of the selectable options. There was no way he believed the system hadn’t leaked hints to the hunters.

“So shady!” Lu Mingze raged. “The system must have leaked your options somehow. Luckily you chose something else… wait, your custom settings won’t be leaked too, right?”

Xing Ye said: “Maybe — but probably not yet. The more crucial the information, the harder it is to access. What I filled in will probably only appear as a hint at the end. Of course, it’s possible it might never appear.”

Lu Mingze asked: “How did they even get hold of the ‘little girl eating a lollipop’ option?”

Xing Ye thought for a moment and said: “If this is a kind of battle-royale game, then for me, the goal is to evade nineteen players hunting me; for the other nineteen, they should need to complete certain tasks to acquire clues. The two players who got eliminated weren’t weak — they quickly locked onto one role option. Unfortunately, they overlooked two things.

“First, the system will never give up on screwing players over. Even if I’m the main target this time, that doesn’t mean it won’t screw others.

“Second, the mention of ‘civilized and harmonious’ behaviour on the train means players need to act with sophistication. Even if they’re hunting other players, they can’t be discovered by the train police. If they break the law or violate major train rules, they’ll be eliminated.”

Lu Mingze recalled the worlds he’d experienced — the True Ending, the Perfect Victory, the real/fake final stage — and thought: “So for you, this is a hunt-and-escape game, but for the other players, they’re still stuck repeating the usual cycle of finding clues, eliminating clues, defining rules, and finally uncovering the truth?”

“Exactly,” Xing Ye said with a smile. “The system thinks it’s leaking my information bit by bit to make me nervous. But what it didn’t realize is: if one role option can be fake, then the others can also be fake. And if there are enough fakes, even when a real clue appears, the hunters will start doubting it. The system clearly hasn’t understood the story of ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf’.”

“What are you going to do?” Lu Mingze immediately sensed that Xing Ye was about to take his first action.

Xing Ye said: “Try playing with the rules a little.”

With that, he picked up his backpack and went into the carriage restroom.

Inside, he drew the QR code for “Paper Substitute,” and an identical paper version of the sunglasses-wearing fashion-boy appeared in the restroom, grabbed the backpack, and walked out.

Xing Ye said: “Do you know why I chose such a conspicuous persona? First, to take advantage of people’s habitual thinking so the other players won’t suspect me; second, because someone that flashy attracts constant attention.”

From the restroom mirror, Lu Mingze clapped his hands in realization: “With a paper substitute there, everyone will think the sunglasses fashion-boy is obediently sitting in his seat playing on his phone — meanwhile you’re already disguised in another carriage! The players won’t link the fashion-boy to you!”

Xing Ye said: “A fashion-boy is someone people can’t help noticing, yet don’t dare look at directly. People will only sneak glances at him from the corner of their eyes. So even if the paper substitute’s movement details differ slightly from my own, no one will notice, because most people don’t dare stare closely at a person like that. And most importantly, the fashion-boy inherently embodies one trait — exaggeration. People will automatically treat that trait as the defining characteristic and thus ignore other information.”

Lu Mingze nodded: “Everyone will believe the fashion-boy stayed in his seat the whole time. And because the system provides misleading options, once the real option appears, the hunters will instead assume it’s fake!”

While explaining, Xing Ye removed the rhinestones at the corners of his eyes, the lip ring, and all the other messy decorations from his face.

He hadn’t actually pierced anything — whether his ears or his lip, all the accessories were clip-on. Wearing them hurt a bit, but it made distinguishing between two “versions” of himself effortless. Most people would never imagine a person full of piercings and a person with none at all could be the same person.

Xing Ye’s body was very young—only about eighteen or nineteen. He put on a casual T-shirt, stuffed the thin clothing and accessories into a cross-body bag he had prepared in advance, then put on a wig, a baseball cap, and a mask, turning into an unimpressive, ordinary young man.

This was only the first set of clothes he had prepared in his backpack.

This time, instead of a mirror-finish phone case, he had placed a small mirror in his bag. Ever since obtaining the skill “‘hearts connected as one”, he no longer needed to hold the mirror in his hand to communicate with Lu Mingze. It made contacting each other far more convenient.

Lu Mingze made a round by the washbasin. On high-speed trains, the washbasin area was right next to the restroom. After confirming that no one was outside the restroom, he told Xing Ye it was safe, and Xing Ye, wearing his baseball cap, walked out.

After washing his hands, he glanced at his own carriage—Car 12.

Xing Ye smiled and walked toward Car 11.

He was deliberately going to wander through the entire train, letting any attentive players assume he was constantly on the move. And a baseball cap naturally covered part of the face, giving a light disguise effect—useful for the next time he needed to change appearance again.

People were always walking back and forth between carriages; this time, Xing Ye not only needed to confuse other players—he also needed to counter-hunt.

His target was a chef in Car 8’s dining car. Earlier, this chef had insisted on swapping positions with the snack-cart attendant, but the middle-aged woman pushing the snack cart refused to cook and absolutely didn’t want to switch with him.

It was this chef whom Lu Mingze had identified as a likely player.

A dining-car chef wore a white uniform, making him highly noticeable when moving around the train, so he wanted to become the snack-cart attendant instead. That role made it easier to search for the thirty-million-points target.

Xing Ye walked all the way to the dining car, constantly observing the passengers’ reactions. Sure enough, after seeing him, two passengers frowned while silently following him.

The frown probably meant his current appearance didn’t match their phone clues. Following him meant they suspected he might be another hunter-player like themselves.

Another feature of this game was that the nineteen hunters were not necessarily united.

Thirty million was a lot. Even split among twenty people, that was 1.5 million points each. If the nineteen players could form a temporary team, Xing Ye would indeed be in danger.

But there were always players who wanted a bigger share, and always players who didn’t trust others.

Thus, after failing to team up, hunters often turned on each other to prevent someone else from monopolizing the thirty million.

When Xing Ye reached the washbasin area of Car 9 and saw no one around, he suddenly turned and stared directly at the two passengers tailing him, examining their faces.

One was a middle-aged man with a bit of a beer belly; the other was a sharp-looking white-collar professional in a suit. Judging by appearance, one seemed like a fate-defying type and the other a following-fate type—though that might not mean anything; after all, Xing Ye was handsome in every world.

There was no need waiting for them to attack—Xing Ye spoke first, in a cold, eerie tone: “You two are also players hunting the thirty million?”

The two men clearly didn’t expect Xing Ye to be so direct. They froze for a moment and said, “You too?”

Xing Ye snorted coldly: “What do you think? Stop following me. You’re interfering with my hunt for the thirty million.”

The beer-belly uncle shook his head cautiously: “What if you’re the thirty-million target and you’re trying to trick us? According to the phone hint, the thirty-million player is currently within five carriages around Car 9. That means you’re suspicious too.”

Xing Ye narrowed his eyes. “You haven’t received the system’s hint yet? Don’t you know that completing tasks earns you identity clues?”

The white-collar man in the suit said, “There are more hints? My phone only shows a small prompt about chatting with passengers and helping them solve problems.”

The middle-aged man said, “Huh? You have that? Why don’t I? Are the game hints also separated into ‘following-fate’ and ‘fate-defying’?”

“If you don’t even know this much, you might as well wait to be eliminated.” Xing Ye gave a cold laugh and turned to leave.

The white-collar man said, “Wait—let’s team up. The thirty-million player can’t form a team. That’s the easiest way to confirm if someone is the thirty-million target.”

A scalpel suddenly appeared in Xing Ye’s hand. He said to the two: “My goal is to take the thirty million alone. I have no interest in splitting it with people like you. Don’t forget—this world uses independent-team rules. If only one person obtains the thirty million, then the other eighteen hunters all count as failures and lose three-quarters of their points. That makes us competitors. I’m certainly not teaming up with two people who don’t even know basic information.”

Translator : DarNan