While Bai Youwei was turning this over in her mind, Fu Miaoxue asked her, “How do you know about test games? I’ve only ever told my boyfriend about that.”
There were probably very few people in the world who knew — after all, everyone who entered a test game had died.
Bai Youwei said, “I heard it from an inspector. Both me and my boyfriend know.”
Shen Mo: “……”
He’d noticed that ever since entering this game, he and Du Lai seemed to have lost their names entirely.
“An inspector told you all that?” Fu Miaoxue looked baffled. “I never encountered anything like that. There were no inspectors in the test game — just an instruction document telling us what to do first, and then what to do next…”
Bai Youwei asked, “What kind of game was it?”
Fu Miaoxue’s expression soured at the question, unpleasant memories rising to the surface. “Back then, the widespread blackouts and power cuts hadn’t happened yet, and the news about people turning into dolls had only just emerged. I was taking a walk in my own home garden, and then suddenly I was transported somewhere completely unfamiliar — a place called the Riddle Kingdom!”
Unlike official games, test games had no formal entry point, so there was no trigger to speak of — the system simply selected players at random.
Fu Miaoxue said in exasperation: “That game was completely unhinged! Players had to find the clues on their own to escape the Riddle Kingdom — but the kingdom’s residents each required you to answer one of their questions before they’d let you ask them anything. My answers were clearly *correct*, and yet I still died!”
“You died even when you answered correctly?” Bai Youwei said in astonishment. “That game has some serious bugs.”
Fu Miaoxue said, “One of the residents asked me: ‘The King of the Riddle Kingdom threw a crystal cup — why didn’t the cup shatter?'”
“Why?” Bai Youwei asked.
“The correct answer was: because it was caught.” Fu Miaoxue gave a cold laugh. “Absurd, isn’t it? Completely baffling!”
“And what was your answer?” Bai Youwei couldn’t help asking.
“My answer was: the cup was thrown into water, so it didn’t break. I thought that was perfectly reasonable — if a cup is thrown into water, it genuinely *won’t* break! But they insisted I was wrong, and then they threw *me* into the water, and I drowned!”
Bai Youwei: “……”
Shen Mo: “……”
What an unjust death. Truly worthy of a test game — completely unreliable from start to finish!
“And after that — did you stay in the Riddle Kingdom the whole time?” Bai Youwei continued.
“No.” Fu Miaoxue shook her head gently. “I was there for five or six rounds, and then the system moved me to other games. In the games, there’s no real death — it comes down to each person’s willpower, and everyone’s situation is different.
“Some people, by the third or fourth round, couldn’t hold on anymore. They gradually became residents of the Riddle Kingdom — no longer remembering who they were, no longer aware of any game objectives. They only knew to follow the rules — asking, asking, asking — and whenever a new player asked how to leave the Riddle Kingdom, those residents would recite the crystal cup riddle for the player to guess.”
“You’re very impressive,” Bai Youwei said sincerely. “To endure that many rounds without giving up.”
“Not as impressive as you two.” Fu Miaoxue smiled and looked her and Shen Mo over. “You’ve been winning from the very start. As for me — I lost from the very beginning.”
No matter how well she performed afterward, it didn’t change anything.
Because from the very start, she had already lost. Lost. Even if someone brought her back, she could never go back…
“Whether you’re impressive or not doesn’t come down to winning or losing,” Shen Mo said evenly. “You know what it means to lose — which means you know how to guard against danger. Du Lai is also someone with sharp instincts for danger. Together, the two of you may well be greater than the sum of your parts and produce unexpected results.”
—