“Not necessarily.” Yan Qingwen fixed his gaze on the inspector, his voice dropping to an unusually low register. “Even if I never encounter it, that doesn’t mean no one else will. As long as even one person has made it out of that game alive, there will always be intelligence to be gathered.”

“That is a sound idea.” The rabbit-headed figure smiled pleasantly. “You are a perceptive man. I hope you get what you wish for.”

In the end, however, it revealed no clues about that particular game.

The rabbit-headed inspector raised the black top hat with one hand, then reached the other hand inside—

“And now, the time has come to settle the game rewards…”

It pulled a cloth doll out of the top hat.

Everyone’s nerves snapped taut in an instant, every pair of eyes locking onto it in frozen attention.

Because the cloth doll in the inspector’s hands was the spitting image of Mali.

The rabbit-headed figure introduced it: “Mali, who loves hide-and-seek, is also Mali, who loves making dolls. As your reward, Mali will craft a doll tailored specifically to each of you.”

It paused for two seconds, smiled faintly, and said, “This is the finest reward we can offer you — because each is custom-made, it will fulfill what your heart truly desires at this very moment.”

With that, it set the cloth doll down on the ground, speaking in a gentle tone: “Off you go.”

The cloth doll landed with a soft thud, stood before Yan Qingwen, and regarded him with solemn attention.

Then it took a few steps and came to stand before Shen Fei, studying him with the same careful gravity.

Last came Shen Mo and Bai Youwei.

It looked over all four of them in turn, then shuffled off at an unhurried pace and disappeared.

Just as everyone was exchanging bewildered glances, the inspector spoke to explain: “Mali requires some time to craft the dolls for each of you. Please wait patiently for a short while.”

How unusual.

In past games, items had always been distributed directly. This time, they were apparently being made on the spot.

They held their impatience in check and waited, somewhat curious as to what the cloth doll would actually produce.

While they waited, Bai Youwei asked the rabbit-headed figure: “You mentioned earlier that there are a total of 7,124 game types, of which only 172 are currently running normally. Is that number fixed? Will it decrease or increase over time?”

The rabbit-headed figure replied courteously: “Indeed, that number is subject to change at any time. For instance, games requiring larger player counts will be shut down in the near future.”

The world’s population was in rapid decline. Games that required thirty to fifty simultaneous participants to trigger had already outlived their purpose.

Because there was simply no one left to trigger them.

Yan Qingwen recalled something else and turned to the others: “The games near the base have maintained a high clear rate thanks to the strategy guides the organization provides. But it just said that 343 games were shut down because their clear rate exceeded 10%. It seems that even if the organization prevents the anti-farming system from activating, it can’t stop new games from arriving.”

Shen Fei felt a knot of worry tighten in his chest. “We have to report this to Professor Song when we get back. If the games near the base start closing one after another, new games will inevitably emerge to fill the void, and everyone will be in serious danger.”

“The 10% threshold is probably calculated against the total participant count,” Shen Mo said. “Right now, even an average game has claimed several thousand lives at minimum. Ten percent of one thousand is one hundred — meaning the organization would need to send a hundred people to clear a game before it disappears. At a rate of five people per group entering once every seven days, reaching that number would take at least 140 days.”

That figure of 140 days was a rough estimate based on the premise of only 1,000 total participants per game — but in reality, every game drew far more than that: typically several thousand, tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands.

So in truth, the base’s current situation was still relatively stable.

—