Players, Please Board the Train

The two returned to the mayor’s office building and stayed inside overnight, only leaving the next morning when the bus came back to town.

”Did anything happen last night?” Shen Yi noticed traces of a fight on the street.

Lin Pei briefly explained how the Doll had lured the Mutant and then added, ”It’s extremely risky.”

”If that’s the case, I’d rather starve than face a Mutant.” Shen Xin shook her head.

”Starving isn’t a solution. Sooner or later we’ll have to face the Mutants. The sooner we act, the better.” Xu Huo said.

”Do we really have to try every riddle?” Shen Yi looked around.

”I think he has a point.” Gu Yu said. ”The longer we stall, the less stamina we’ll have, and the higher the risk.”

”Do you have a better plan?” Wu Qiuyi asked.

”One person answers the question while the others lie in ambush nearby. If a Mutant appears, kill it.” Gu Yu was the first to suggest.

”But fighting will inevitably make more noise,” Shen Yi said. ”What if that attracts other Mutants?””Mutants could be distributed across different areas of this town,” Lin Pei pondered. ”The game said the town only hired a few security guards. Let’s count ourselves as nine. If we could find where each of them hid, that would be ideal.”

”It’s just that the game has a rule: no three people are allowed to appear simultaneously in any one public place. That ’any one’ is hard to define, and if we want to lure the Mutants out and then track them to the Pit Cages, we don’t have enough people to pull it off.”

”Also, what to use to seal the entrances and exits is another problem.”

Shen Yi frowned. ”It has to be strong enough to hold back a Mutant, but also silent. Is that even possible?”

”Let’s just start searching the whole town house by house today.” Wu Qiuyi said. ”Two people get off each time and search.”

”How many days would it take to search such a big town?” Gu Yu objected. ”If we can’t find them in the end, won’t we have wasted our time? My method is still to lure the Mutants out and take them to a place where they won’t make much noise, then kill them. The woods outside town are perfect.”

”That won’t work.” Lin Pei said. ”You can avoid making noise, but Mutants are unpredictable. If they cross the town, they could draw out other Mutants. If there is more than one of the kind that appeared at the east gate, even if we bring more people, it could still go wrong.”

Gu Yu fell silent. After a few seconds she asked, ”Then what do you propose?”

”First we need to find something that can seal the Pit Cages.” Xu Huo spoke up. ”The metal used to build the town’s walls—there might be leftovers in town. Maybe the town’s basic facilities used this metal too. Leave two people with the bus and have the rest spread out to search.”

He took out the picture book and crayons he had taken from the mayor’s office and roughly sketched a layout of the town.

”Seven people, each go in seven directions.”

”Any shop, gas station, the mayor’s office, clinic, streets—these are public places. But if the game’s ’public places’ can overlap, it means we could all be in different shops at the same time.”

”Every location in town, every store shows signs of people. If we treat whole blocks as a public place, we won’t have enough Mutants for so many people. I prefer to divide streets into regions, though there are no clear landmarks.”

”To avoid these risks, the best method is to act in shifts.”

”Limit the time and locations of activity to prevent three people from being in what might be public places at once.”

Wu Qiuyi looked at his scattered marks of houses across town. ”We can follow the bus schedule.”

”Houses aren’t public areas, that works.” Lin Pei said. ”Whether it succeeds or not, at least we search once.”

They set their destinations, disembark times, and limits for how long people could move in public areas.

”The bus must refuel once a day. At least two people need to stay on the bus.” Wu Qiuyi glanced at Nian Hong’an and Wang Chaoqing — she didn’t trust leaving either on their own, whether on or off the bus.

”Nian Hong’an stays on the bus.” Xu Huo’s gaze swept across the two men.

Nian Hong’an breathed a sigh of relief immediately, but Wang Chaoqing forced a smile and said, ”Brother, how about I stay on the bus too? My trait hasn’t proven useful at all. What if I cause trouble for you?”

”If you cause trouble, you’ll be the first to die.” Xu Huo said coolly. ”For your own sake, refuel.”

Fifteen minutes later, Wang Chaoqing got off first with a mournful face.

Next were Wu Qiuyi and Gu Yu, followed by the Shen siblings, and finally Lin Pei and Xu Huo.

Most houses in town were small standalone buildings; only a few were terraced. So each residence would be searched for twenty minutes. After twenty minutes, starting from the first person off the bus, every time two people had five minutes to enter public areas, finish houses, then search shops.

Xu Huo finished searching the first house and waited fifteen minutes before entering the next.

After three or four houses in a row, his unease grew.

Although these places showed signs of habitation—apparently the occupants moved hastily and left most clothes, bedding, and daily necessities—the houses all shared one trait: a weak sense of living.

Simple kitchens, simple bathrooms. Beyond the bare essentials, there were almost no bookshelves, no storage rooms, almost nothing placed inside. There were no traces of children.

Every house was unusually clean.

He couldn’t understand why, but the plainly furnished homes obviously offered nothing useful. He was about to move to the next house when he suddenly noticed a glint on the roof of a small building across the street. Looking closer, it was a clock. On the clock’s second hand there was a reflective crystal—the same as the clock on the mayor’s office building.

His mind sharpened and he went straight to that building.

Crossing the street, he pushed open the heavy door and walked in. The walls were lined with clocks, but these were broken, their hands stopped at different positions.

There was a photo in the middle of the wall: an elderly man and a little girl bundled up tight. The old man held the half-closed-eyed child with a serious expression, neither looking at the camera but staring to the side. Both seemed out of sorts.

The old man in the photograph was the same elder he’d seen in the clock shop picture the day before.

Treading on thick carpet, Xu Huo walked up to the second floor with almost no sound. He opened the first room. This should be Master Nise’s bedroom. Most belongings had also been moved, except for some photos on the wall and children’s doodles.

Unlike the downstairs photo, the people in these pictures smiled brightly. Besides Nise and the little girl, there was a young couple; the man bore a strong resemblance to Nise.

”Death Certificate: Verified by Stellar Authority Five-Star Medical Research Group, confirming that Logan Nise and Marjorie Ye, husband and wife, died in a car accident. Hereby certified.”