Dice In The Darkness: Cthulhu Calls-Chapter 569: Mirror World (2)

Zhang Wenbing sighed and said a bit helplessly, "To be honest, the module I least want to reminisce about is the one where I entered the Mirror World a second time, because although I cleared that module, it caused me to be in a state of isolation in the real world for a full month, and I even ended up staying in the real world for more than a year. At that time, I really wanted to spend all my points to have Cthulhu Role-Playing Game Hall directly eliminate me, but in the end, I still gave in, because I still have family and friends in the real world, and I didn’t want to die in such a mysterious way."

The others all looked at Zhang Wenbing with surprise, because everyone found it hard to believe that this seemingly cheerful person could become so isolated because of a single module... Of course, Liu Xing, who had nearly been driven mad in the Mirror World today, felt that he could understand Zhang Wenbing’s mood at the time.

After all, although this is said to be a game world created by the Cthulhu Role-Playing Game Hall, this game world is now no different from the real world.

Especially after players have used the same character card to go through multiple modules, a lot of NPC friends will gather around them, and these NPCs with blood, flesh, and emotions will make the players further blur the boundaries between the game and reality.

Just like Liu Xing now, he had to admit that his attitude towards the NPCs had undergone a earth-shattering change compared to when he first entered the Cthulhu Role-Playing Game Hall.

Liu Xing still remembered that when he first joined the Cthulhu Role-Playing Game Hall, he had set a flag for himself, which was to be a resolute egoist, to help if he could, and to not bother if he couldn’t, and he would absolutely not take risks for his teammates. As for NPC friends, he would try to squeeze out their utility value as much as possible, and could even use these NPCs to seek his own interests when necessary.

But now, Liu Xing felt that as long as it was not a situation where certain death was inevitable, he would definitely try his best to help Ling Ishikawa and the others. As for if Juri Sonoda, Alice, or Nan Xiaoniao were in danger, he would also try to rescue them, even if it meant putting himself in a passive position.

In short, Liu Xing could no longer bear to watch his friends, whether they were players or NPCs, die, even if he was just playing a game.

After all, this is an extremely realistic game, a game that will affect the real world!

Of course, if the ones in trouble were people like HonekawaSuneo, then Liu Xing would still have to consider whether it was necessary for him to take the risk...

Humans, after all, always have distinctions between close and distant relationships, only gods can love all people equally.

Liu Xing is not a god.

Back to the main topic.

After taking a sip of water, Zhang Wenbing began to recount his experience of entering the Mirror World for the second time.

At that time, Zhang Wenbing had already gone through his internship period and officially became a member of the China Dao Sect. Although Zhang Wenbing still couldn’t cast any Magic Spells, due to Qin Yi’s special care, he had obtained many useful items.

Then one night, Qin Yi suddenly found Zhang Wenbing and told him that there was a special mission the next day that he needed to participate in.

Of course, since Zhang Wenbing was already a member of the China Dao Sect, but not a combat member, he had the right to refuse any combat missions. However, in the end, Zhang Wenbing unhesitatingly agreed to Qin Yi’s request, because if he didn’t agree, the next module would not exist...

As for the content of this special mission, it was to investigate a known mirror point, or more precisely, to investigate the Mirror World after that mirror point.

And that Mirror World, Qin Yi had already entered once before, and this time Qin Yi’s main goal in entering that Mirror World was to rescue his wife, Li Xinyang!

The time went back five years ago, when Qin Yi was not yet the head of the China Dao Sect’s branch in the Yunnan-Guizhou region, he and his wife Li Xinyang were both members of the investigation department, often carrying out missions together.

Then one afternoon, Qin Yi and Li Xinyang suddenly received a mission, asking them and three other teammates to investigate a mysterious collective disappearance case that had occurred in a high-end restaurant in the city center - thirteen diners in a private room had suddenly disappeared.

And so, Qin Yi led the team to that high-end restaurant, but as soon as Qin Yi and the others stepped into the private room and were about to start the investigation, the mirror point suddenly opened again and they entered the Mirror World.

The scope of this Mirror World was very large, simply put, it was the shopping mall where the high-end restaurant was located, as well as the middle school across the street from the shopping mall.

After determining the scope of the Mirror World, Qin Yi, as the team leader, realized that the situation was not good, because the China Dao Sect had already summarized an iron law of the Mirror World - the difficulty of escaping the Mirror World is proportional to the scope of that Mirror World.

After all, to escape the Mirror World, they need to find certain things within a limited time, and these things are usually not large items. The things Qin Yi’s team needed to find were a pair of chopsticks and a bowl.

And according to the experience summarized by the China Dao Sect, Qin Yi and the others could only stay in a Mirror World of this scale for about 40 minutes at most.

It was already not an easy task to search through a shopping mall and a middle school within 40 minutes, let alone having to find a pair of chopsticks and a bowl while being chased by mythical creatures.

So when the time reached 30 minutes, Qin Yi’s team had obtained a pair of chopsticks and had already discovered the location of the bowl - on a ping-pong table on the middle school’s sports field.

Since it would take about 8 minutes to return to the private room of the high-end restaurant, the time left for Qin Yi’s team to retrieve the bowl was only 2 minutes, but guarding the bowl were three Ancient Rugged Giants!

And unfortunately, the speeds of Qin Yi’s team were all quite close, so they could not create a speed gap with those Ancient Rugged Giants.

Thus, with no other choice, Qin Yi’s team could only forcibly confront the three Ancient Rugged Giants, and in the end they forcibly seized the bowl... The price for this was the lives of the other three team members, and Li Xinyang was seriously injured.

The seriously injured Li Xinyang knew that Qin Yi could not possibly bring her back to the private room of the high-end restaurant before the time was up, so Li Xinyang decisively chose to stay behind and let Qin Yi go first. Of course, Qin Yi could not abandon his wife, so he wanted to stay in the Mirror World with Li Xinyang, but Li Xinyang directly used her Magic Spells to teleport Qin Yi to the entrance of the high-end restaurant.

At the time, Qin Yi knew that he could no longer waste Li Xinyang’s sincerity, so he could only painfully return to the real world alone.

However, because Qin Yi knew that Li Xinyang had an artifact that could instantly put the user into a state of apparent death, with their body covered in a layer of solid ice, Qin Yi was convinced that Li Xinyang was still alive, and had been monitoring the dynamics of that mirror point all along.

But that mirror point did not show any activity for a full five years, until the day Qin Yi came to find Zhang Wenbing.

The reason why Qin Yi wanted to take action with Zhang Wenbing was because all the people who came out of the Mirror World would be branded with the Mirror World’s mark, and when people with this Mirror World mark entered the range of other mirror points, they would have a higher chance of being transported to the Mirror World, and if this mirror point had just opened once, the chance would be even higher.

Of course, if multiple people with the Mirror World mark entered the range of the mirror point, the chance of the mirror point opening would increase even further.

So this is the reason why Qin Yi treated Zhang Wenbing so well...

And so, Qin Yi took Zhang Wenbing and two other players and successfully entered the Mirror World.

And this time, the thing Zhang Wenbing and the others needed to find was downright crazy - a mobile phone memory card!

Fortunately, Zhang Wenbing’s luck was still strong, and he succeeded in a critical inspiration roll, so he knew that the mobile phone memory card was in Li Xinyang’s hands!

After all, that module was triggered because Zhang Wenbing wanted to rescue Li Xinyang, so it was only natural for the important item to be with Li Xinyang.

So Zhang Wenbing and the others spent 20 minutes, finally finding Li Xinyang in the principal’s office of the middle school, and Li Xinyang was still in a state of icy encasement.

However, what surprised Zhang Wenbing was that the currently frozen Li Xinyang had an angry expression on her face, and her right hand seemed to be tightly grasping something.

Seeing this situation, Zhang Wenbing realized that something might be wrong, and the things Qin Yi had said before might not match reality.

In simple terms, Zhang Wenbing felt that Qin Yi might have been lying.

However, since time was pressing, Zhang Wenbing and the others could only follow Qin Yi’s arrangements, while searching the principal’s office for the whereabouts of the mobile phone memory card, and at the same time placing the still "frozen" Li Xinyang on a small cart that had been prepared earlier.

Another 5 minutes passed, and Zhang Wenbing and the others still couldn’t find the mobile phone memory card, so after another round of Judgment, they felt that the memory card was most likely in Li Xinyang’s right hand.

So Zhang Wenbing and the others planned to melt the solid ice on Li Xinyang’s body, but at this time Qin Yi reacted very strongly, saying that they could not easily melt the solid ice, because this could cause injury or even death to Li Xinyang, after all, the solid ice on Li Xinyang’s body was composed of Magic Spells, and its nature was very different from ordinary ice.

But now time was pressing, if they couldn’t find the mobile phone memory card, Zhang Wenbing and the others would all have to stay in this Mirror World, so the players did not hesitate to use rhetoric Judgment against Qin Yi... However, the alert Zhang Wenbing left a mental note and also gave Qin Yi a psychology resistance roll.

Then Zhang Wenbing found that Qin Yi’s state of mind could be described as reluctant to act, as if he was specifically waiting for Zhang Wenbing and the others to persuade him to make up his mind to take action against Li Xinyang.

In the end, Qin Yi did agree to Zhang Wenbing’s request, and prepared to personally melt the solid ice on Li Xinyang’s body, and the method Qin Yi chose was to use a fire-based artifact to directly burn the solid ice on Li Xinyang.

Moments later, the solid ice on Li Xinyang’s body completely melted, but Zhang Wenbing, who had been secretly observing Qin Yi, suddenly found that Qin Yi had suddenly produced a silver needle when he was retrieving the fire-based artifact.

Qin Yi’s unreasonable behavior made Zhang Wenbing realize that something was wrong, so he hurried to give Li Xinyang a medicinal pill he had bought from the Cthulhu Role-Playing Game Hall Shop before Qin Yi, and then Zhang Wenbing saw Qin Yi put the silver needle away and look at Li Xinyang with some tension.

Then, Li Xinyang woke up.

The moment Li Xinyang opened her eyes, she immediately slapped the Qin Yi in front of her and began to accuse Qin Yi of what he had done that year.

In simple terms, that year Qin Yi had betrayed the other team members, including Li Xinyang, in order to escape the Mirror World, and this time Qin Yi came back, not to rescue Li Xinyang, but to eliminate her!

Because in this Mirror World, in addition to the Ancient Rugged Giants, there was also a Mysterious Elder who could control the Ancient Rugged Giants, and Qin Yi had sworn allegiance to that Mysterious Elder, and used Li Xinyang and the others as sacrifices to offer to that Mysterious Elder. If Li Xinyang had not used Magic Spells to encase herself in ice, she would have already died.

Seeing this, Qin Yi also dropped his pretense and revealed the true purpose of his mission.

After betraying Li Xinyang and the others, Qin Yi not only successfully escaped the Mirror World, but also obtained the power bestowed by the Mysterious Elder. But because Qin Yi knew that Li Xinyang was not dead, he was very worried that someone would enter this Mirror World and rescue Li Xinyang, and then all his actions would be exposed, and he would be done for.

So Qin Yi went to great lengths to become the head of the China Dao Sect’s branch in the Yunnan-Guizhou region, and closely monitored the situation of this mirror point. And after learning that the intern Zhang Wenbing had also entered the Mirror World before, Qin Yi was worried that Zhang Wenbing might become the one to rescue Li Xinyang.

So Qin Yi had been deliberately nice to Zhang Wenbing, in fact just to monitor Zhang Wenbing’s actions. And this time Qin Yi led Zhang Wenbing and the others into the Mirror World, partly to get rid of the hidden danger Li Xinyang, and partly to bring a few more sacrifices to offer to the Mysterious Elder.

After Qin Yi said all this, he took the initiative to attack Zhang Wenbing and the others. In the end, Li Xinyang and Qin Yi perished together, with a raging fire burning them to ashes, and although Zhang Wenbing and the others suffered some minor injuries, they still managed to escape the Mirror World unharmed.

"Before that module, I always thought Qin Yi was a good brother and a good husband, but Qin Yi suddenly tore off his mask in that module, which was something I never expected, and it also made me afraid to do modules again, because I was afraid of being betrayed by the people around me," Zhang Wenbing said seriously.

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