The Earth is Online

The two men gazed silently at each other through the red film.

After a few seconds, Bai Ruoyao smiled. “I have partic.i.p.ated in four a.s.sembly instances and each one won’t have a dead end. The game failing doesn’t mean I am bound to die. It is likely to trigger other games or give some type of bearable punishment. There is a certain danger but I won’t necessarily die. The a.s.sembly instance is a shortcut that the black tower gives for players to boost their strength. Tang Tang, you are so angry with me that I suddenly feel a bit happy. You care so much about me that you are deliberately dragging out the time. It turns out that I am so important in your heart.”

Tang Mo wondered, “Is that what you think?”

Bai Ruoyao blinked. “You are holding the number 6 lucky die. Even if Santa wants to eat you, he can at most open three punishments. With your strength, going through three punishment grids isn’t difficult. You might not be able to use your props or abilities but you can get through it in a minute if you hurry.”

Tang Mo pretended to be surprised and then asked, “What if I jump in the wrong order?”

Bai Ruoyao acted even more exaggerated than Tang Mo as he covered his mouth. “Wow, Tang Tang, if you get this wrong then you really are stupid. Such a stupid Tang Mo isn’t my good friend.”

Tang Mo didn’t say anything and Bai Ruoyao kept teasing him with a few words.

One person sat firmly in the grid while the other person kept smiling.

There was no tension on Bai Ruoyao’s face, as if he really didn’t care about the result of the game. It was obviously impossible for Tang Mo to play the game quickly and he was doomed to fail. However, he didn’t care.

In the other two groups, some people noticed that Tang Mo was sitting down in the first grid and no longer moving. They looked at him with amazement before looking away. Everyone was busy clearing their own games and no one had time to waste with strangers.

There were only four minutes left and a strong player who wanted to clear the nine grids would take at least one minute.

Fu Wenduo’s group played smoothly and Mu Huixue’s group also had few incidents. No one knew that before her game started, the two children found the woman in black and told her something. Once the woman started the game, she acted normally at first. She threw the die and played the game. Then when she threw the die into the sixth grid, she chose the little boy as the target of the duel.

This was normal.

In this group, Chen Shanshan and Fu Wensheng were the most preferred duel targets for all players.

The players with 2 points might choose players with 5 points, increasing the probability of them clearing the game. The players with 5 points would choose these two kids because they immediately admitted defeat and didn’t waste the game time.

Sure enough, after going to the sixth grid, Fu Wensheng threw the die into the stocking and quickly said, “I... I admit defeat!” The child’s eyes widened nervously as he watched Mu Huixue.

Mu Huixue smiled at the little boy and turned to the boy’s companion, the short-haired girl. Then she reached out and took the die from the boy’s sock.

The players watched Mu Huixue with astonishment.

She got it wrong!

They couldn’t understand what the female player was thinking.

The boy’s die was 2 and her die was 5. Did she get the wrong sock? No, the boy had just thrown the die in there a second ago. Even a fool wouldn’t make this mistake!

The players were confused as Mu Huixue returned to the starting point and... threw the die into the sixth grid again!

At this moment, there were six players left in this group. Apart from Fu Wensheng, there were three players with the number 5 die. They were two male players and one female player. One of the male players saw Mu Huixue throwing the die into the sixth grid and his expression became dark. Mu Huixue pointed to the female player and asked her to come up to fight. The expression of the male player became uglier.

He ran to the only remaining player with 5 points and whispered, “She is deliberately helping people change the number of their die!”

The man was shocked. “What?”

The male player hurriedly said, “Didn’t you see it? She deliberately exchanged her number 5 die with the boy. Now she called the woman to take the number 5 die from her hand. If I’m not mistaken, the two children said something to her that made her willing to help them get the number 5 die!”

The man was surprised. “No, even if the two children get the number 5 die, we can just get them back in a duel. The two children are so weak that they can’t hold the die.”

“If you take it back then she will certainly help them again. Will you still be able to get the die from these kids?”

The situation went as the male player predicted.

Once Mu Huixue played the game again, she really chose Chen Shanshan as the duel target and exchanged the number 5 die with her. At this time, she happened to see the young woman in Tang Mo’s group choose Ning Zheng as the duel target. She raised her eyebrows and wondered, “We can still do this?”

Then Mu Huixue didn’t challenge the players who didn’t pa.s.s the instance. She challenged one of the two players who cleared the instance.

The man was upset and didn’t know why Mu Huixue challenged him.

He knew his strength wasn’t a match for this terrible woman and he had already cleared the game. Thus, he immediately conceded defeat.

The result was that in the last three minutes, Mu Huixue, Chen Shanshan and Fu Wensheng had the number 5 die.

Time pa.s.sed and as more players reached the end, the remaining players scrambled to challenge the game. No one was willing to let go of a challenge because every second meant one second closer to the end of the game.

Only Tang Mo’s group was different.

The young man sat cross-legged on the ground while the baby-faced youth smiled brightly at him.

Bai Ruoyao grinned when there were two minutes left. “Tang Tang, if you do this then that woman will be very sad. It turns out that you are such a Tang Tang.”

Half an hour ago, Tang Mo promised the young woman that he would help her clear the game. Now Tang Mo sat here. It stopped Bai Ruoyao from clearing the game but it also prevented the young woman from clearing the game.

The woman had beads of sweat on her forehead and her pale face seemed to prove that Bai Ruoyao spoke her heart.

In the last minute and a half, Bai Ruoyao was still teasing Tang Mo. His tone was happy but the smile on his face was so bright that it was obviously acting. Then in the last minute, Bai Ruoyao found that Tang Mo was still sitting on the ground and smiling at him. Bai Ruoyao’s words stopped.

Tang Mo quietly observed him and smiled. “Why aren’t you speaking?”

Bai Ruoyao raised his head and looked at Santa Claus.

The next moment, his eyes became cold and his expression unsightly. Bai Ruoyao’s face became like an ice cellar as he shouted loudly, “Why the h.e.l.l aren’t you picking up your die?”

Santa Claus was startled and couldn’t help asking, “What’s going on?”

Bai Ruoyao stepped forward and pointed to Tang Mo. “He isn’t thinking about clearing this game!”

Santa Claus touched his beard and spoke to Tang Mo, “Child, don’t you want to play the game? You are really making me feel lost. Is this game not good enough so you don’t want to play? My child, why are you doing this?”

Tang Mo repeated his words. “Yes, why am I doing this?”

In the other group, Fu Wensheng couldn’t hear Tang Mo’s words buthe could see Bai Ruoyao’s sudden change in expression and Santa Claus’ question.

Fu Wensheng frowned. “Why is Brother Tang doing this?”

“In this game, clearing the game doesn’t mean victory. Not clearing it doesn’t mean failure.” Chen Shanshan touched the die with 5 points and carefully put it in her pocket. “Santa Claus told us the answer before the game started.” Chen Shanshan paused and looked at Fu Wensheng. “Xiao Sheng, do you remember what Santa said before we threw the lucky die and decided the points?”

Fu Wensheng thought for a moment before suddenly understanding. “Ah.. he said that this is the last reward he will give us!”

“YEs, the lucky die is the last reward that players can get in Santa’s a.s.sembly instance.”

The two children turned and looked at the woman in black who came over.

Mu Huixue crossed her arms and smiled. “Go on, I’d like to hear your opinions.”

Chen Shanshan glanced at her and continued:, “I think that all 11 players present (eight dead) should now be aware of the correct order to clear the game. Santa Claus is a democratic black tower monster and is very concerned about the feelings of the children. The numbers floating above the grid are in the order he marked but it isn’t the order we chose. The order we chose is the order we voted on when we first went through the candy house.

“The map of the hopscotch game is—

1

2

3

4、5

6

7、8

9.”

Chen Shanshan looked at the huge game map in front of her. “The seventh and eighth rooms are fine. We voted in the same order as Santa Claus. The fourth and fifth ones are the problem since we chose the opposite order. So in order to clear this game, the right order is 1, 2, 3, 5, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9. We just need to exchange 4 and 5 to be successful. This is what Major Fu did.”

Mu Huixue smiled. “You really do know Tang Mo and Fu Wenduo.”

The little girl realized she was careless and revealed that she knew Fu Wenduo and Tang Mo. She was silent for a moment before speaking more cautiously, “The players in this game are basically senior players. It isn’t difficult to guess the correct order. After Mu... Sister Mu’s failure, many people guessed the truth.” Since it had been revealed, Chen Shanshan didn’t hide it. “However, most people don’t realize that the true purpose of the game isn’t for players to pa.s.s it. The real purpose is... the sixth grid.”

In Tang Mo’s group, Tang Mo looked up. “The sixth grid, the lucky fighting stage. On the surface, this grid is designed to allow players to interact, turning it from a single player game to one where players can fight. This is also in line with Santa Claus wanting players to consume their strength and die.”

Santa smiled. “Hey, the great Santa Claus really likes children. How can I want children to die?”

Tang Mo ignored him. “Suppose that the lucky die is Santa Claus’ last reward to players. Then clearing the game won’t give any rewards. Santa Claus will never set up a useless game and the black tower would never allow it. Just like the black tower would never measure players by a single standard of who is lucky and who can throw a bigger number. It is impossible.”

The fairness of the black tower could be seen from the Earth survivors and returnees.

The returnees were unfortunate because they experienced a more brutal world. However, they weren’t forever unfortunate. They could return to Earth through their own strength and they were more powerful than Earth survivors.

The black tower never gave only one way.

Tang Mo continued, “A person who is lucky might be able to get the number 6 die in the beginning. However, his strength is so poor that he can’t keep the die on the fighting stage and he will end up with the number 1 die. For players who don’t have enough strength but a good mind, they can use other means. For example, share their information with powerful players to get a die with higher points.”

Tang Mo sitting on the ground paused and smiled. “Is clearing the game important? It doesn’t matter at all. The important thing at the end of the game is the die you are holding in your hand. I have forgotten. Fly, what is the number of the die you are holding right now?”

The moment his words ended, the cheerful Christmas song filled the candy house.

Santa jumped off the giant lollipop and landed on the ground, making a loud noise.

“Hahaha, children, the game is over! Merry Christmas!”

Players who didn’t clear the game were pale because they were afraid of being punished. Not all players who cleared the game were happy. Ning Zheng’s expression hadn’t changed when Tang Mo started speaking. Once Tang Mo was halfway, he already guessed the truth of the whole game.

“Tang Mo!” Ning Zheng gripped his lucky die, almost turning it into powder.

In fact, from the beginning, the black tower reminded players of what was truly important in the game.

It was the sixth grid.

The Santa Claus’ Quirky Commercial Street instance opened at 6:06 on June 6th, 2018.

The lucky die was the last reward that Santa would give to players.

Santa Claus wouldn’t hurt the children. Even if he wanted to kill, he was restricted by the black tower so failing the game didn’t mean death.

Abilities were restricted and only props could be used on the duel stage. This was the last bit of fairness to players with poor physical ability, allowing them the possibility of getting higher points.

In this game, guessing the correct order didn’t mean they could clear the game. Those with a low number of points would encounter more penalties so players would want to get higher points.

Bai Ruoyao and Ning Zheng hadn’t thought that this game didn’t want players to clear it at all. It wanted the players to exchange die points through this game.

Bai Ruoyao’s head lowered, his face shadowed so that people couldn’t see his expression. After a long time, he raised his head. His lips were curved but he no longer made the strange and deliberate smile. “Tang Mo, why are you so sure that nothing will happen if you don’t clear the game?”

It was the one thing Bai Ruoyao didn’t understand.

Not clearing the game didn’t mean death. Bai Ruoyao could guess this but he didn’t dare be as certain as Tang Mo. This was the fundamental reason why he didn’t perceive the truth and didn’t dare take risks.

For this matter, Tang Mo learnt from Bai Ruoyao. “You guess.”

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