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"Is that so?"
Xu Nuan couldn't help but loosen her grip on He Min's collar, her expression and emotions becoming somewhat complicated.
"I was wondering why there were other people's scratches on your hands. Those must have been left when Fan Beibei was struggling, right?"
Xu Nuan looked at He Min with a complex expression, refraining from direct accusations; she felt she had no right to blame her.
He Min lowered her head slightly, her loose hair obscuring her face, making it difficult to discern her true feelings.
"Yes, but I cut her throat with a knife while she was struggling."
Xu Nuan did not doubt He Min's honesty at that moment; she hesitated for a moment before asking, "Do you really like Yu Yu that much?"
Because she liked Yu Yu, she killed Fan Beibei. This was the conclusion Xu Nuan reached; she could not imagine any other reason. After all, He Min had shown no unusual behavior in daily life and had only been somewhat indifferent toward Fan Beibei.
"Yes, I really like him."
He Min said this without looking up, and Xu Nuan thought it was because He Min didn't want anyone to see her current embarrassment. She should have ended the topic there since the fact that He Min killed Fan Beibei was already unchangeable. However, recalling Yu Yu's indifferent reaction to Fan Beibei's disappearance, she couldn't help but ask again.
"Does Yu Yu know about this?"
Yu Yu appeared to be a refined person but was filled with ulterior motives. However, his main motive was to obtain the prize money and leave the game, which only slightly bothered Xu Nuan. Yet considering how Yu Yu had cared for Fan Beibei in the past and their previous relationship, his reaction raised doubts in Xu Nuan's mind.
"I don't know."
He Min gently shook her head.
Xu Nuan felt a pang of reluctance and hurriedly asked one last question.
"Did you bury Fan Beibei?"
Finding peace in burial was Xu Nuan's consistent belief. Although it couldn't make up for anything, she sought a sliver of solace in it. She had buried Rao Tingxue, Wang Yiyun, and others, while Yu Hao and Qin Yaojie's bodies were the ones she wanted to take away from the game.
"I buried her."
He Min's voice grew softer, her head bowed even lower. From Xu Nuan's angle, she couldn't see the faint smile at the corner of He Min's lips. Xu Nuan, feeling a bit guilty, didn't dwell on it. When she had woken up, He Min had not changed her clothes, and there were no traces of dirt on her. The time difference between Fan Beibei's disappearance and when she woke was not significant.
With a gentle sigh, Xu Nuan picked up the short knife covered in sand, wiped it casually on her clothes, and returned it to its sheath.
Turning around to stand in front of He Min, Xu Nuan extended her hand.
"Do you still have the strength to walk? We need to hurry and find the others."
Xu Nuan wasn't very good at expressing her concern. At that moment, she simply respected He Min without probing too much into what she had seen or what she had experienced on her way here. If He Min was willing to share and open up, there was no need for Xu Nuan to push for it.
He Min used Xu Nuan's support to stand up, hesitantly glancing at Xu Nuan's bleeding hand with a hint of guilt on her face.
"Sorry, Nuan. I didn't mean to hurt you."
Following He Min's gaze, Xu Nuan realized her hand was still dripping blood. Strangely enough, she didn't feel any pain. Frowning slightly, she took out a bandage while dismissing the situation.
"It's nothing."
The two tidied themselves up briefly before stepping back into the town. During this time, He Min said nothing about her ordeal. Xu Nuan felt a slight disappointment but sighed inwardly without pressing the matter.
The main street of the town was enveloped in silence, the fierce wind sweeping through with clouds of yellow sand. Xu Nuan and He Min walked in silence for a long time, not reaching the end of the street, let alone leaving the town. With this thought in mind, Xu Nuan decided to take out a piece of glass to look through the layer of scenery ahead, hoping it would help her find a way out.
Xu Nuan's actions caught He Min's attention.
"Nuan, what are you doing?"
With that question, Xu Nuan realized that He Min had not discovered the intricacies of this mechanism. She casually handed over the glass, indicating for He Min to take a look at the different scene on the other side.
"What do you want me to do with this?"
He Min took the glass and held it up to her eyes, but in the next moment, she was startled and took a step back, dropping the glass onto the ground.
Xu Nuan bent down to pick up the piece of glass, missing the look of terror and hatred on He Min's face.
"How is it? Isn’t it amazing? The other side of the glass reveals a desert shrouded in darkness, while here it’s midday in the town."
Xu Nuan chuckled lightly, trying to break the slightly awkward atmosphere between them. Before she could finish her sentence, He Min had already adjusted her expression and nodded gently.
"It is quite amazing, but which scene we see is real?"
Her hidden hand continued to tremble, cold sweat trickling down her back, yet He Min still managed to appear puzzled, as if she hadn’t just been terrified moments ago. She concluded in her mind that what she saw through the glass was an illusion; what she saw now was reality. If she didn’t convince herself of this, she would have to continue living in that nightmare.
"Both are real."
Xu Nuan tilted her head slightly and picked up the glass again for a closer inspection, determined to find a way forward.
"Both exist; it just depends on which environment you find yourself in."
"It means that if I keep looking through the glass, I will always be in the world of the scene I see."
Xu Nuan did not notice the oddity in He Min's words; after all, Xu Nuan had previously seen only yellow sand. If she had realized this, perhaps she would have immediately overturned her earlier conclusion.
"It should be like this; this level must have used special technology to create such an effect. It's nothing to worry about."
Xu Nuan did not clarify that the scene they were directly observing represented their presence within a mechanism, while what they saw through the glass was the scenery from before they entered it. This meant that unless they left the mechanism, they would need something like glass to maintain their view of the outside world.
Xu Nuan believed that with He Min's intelligence, she would quickly figure it out, so she did not notice that He Min had not taken out her sunglasses from her backpack but was silently following Xu Nuan.
After a long time of looking through the glass at this level, Xu Nuan realized they were still wandering above the yellow sand and occasionally saw the skeleton she had first observed. It dawned on her that to escape this level, they needed to unravel its secrets. Just as she had previously navigated through a massive building and encountered many zombies, she had managed to escape because she knew how to deal with those zombies and understood how they changed with different light—this was the secret that allowed her to move forward.
In essence, this level was not about players figuring out how the game's mechanisms were designed but rather about allowing different players to encounter various situations that would unearth their deepest fears. These mechanisms did not attack players from the outside; instead, they caused players to collapse from within.
Thus, to progress further in this game, one needed strong psychological resilience. Of course, each mechanism would not constantly push individuals to their limits; if all players ended their gaming experience at once, the game would lose its meaning. Therefore, every mechanism contained hints so that whether a player could decipher the tricks using their knowledge or was an ordinary player with keen observation skills and meticulous thinking, they could continue advancing.
The game designers understood human psychology very well. If a mechanism was designed to be too difficult, once triggered, players would feel certain of failure and give up without trying. Conversely, if mechanisms were set up with gradually increasing difficulty, players would feel motivated to push forward and continuously gain experience and skill, which justified the existence of the game.
Xu Nuan gradually realized this point. If the first batch of players was designed by an unseen founder to self-destruct within the game, and if the third batch of players was unexpected for that person, then the second batch of players were truly ordinary players in every sense.
Thus, the second batch of players were indeed the first group to experience this cruel yet remarkable game. Their objectives were purest; because of their simplicity of purpose, this group of players was most easily manipulated.
Xu Nuan sighed as she put away the glass into her pocket. Her expression changed constantly as she recognized herself as an anomaly among the second batch of players. Strictly speaking, she belonged to the first batch of players who were designed by another founder to self-destruct. However, that person surely wanted to learn all secrets from her before his death.
"Warm, what's wrong?"
He Min, who had also been lost in her thoughts, asked in confusion when she saw Xu Nuan stop.
He Min's face looked terrible at that moment, and her appearance was equally disheveled, yet she did not express any desire to tidy herself up. Xu Nuan, realizing this, assumed that He Min was still immersed in her previous fear, so she patiently explained her analysis once more before making a decision.
"It seems the secret to this level lies in the first room I entered when I arrived. Let's head back the way we came."
He Min had no objections and took the opportunity to share with Xu Nuan the oddities she had encountered in that first room after arriving in the town.
"The light fixture clearly had no bulb, but when I turned around, a bulb appeared and lit up. At first, I thought it was haunted and ran out. Now that I think about it, I should have observed more closely."
Xu Nuan understood He Min's unspoken words immediately; what He Min meant was that if she had known running out would lead to a scene that terrified her, she would have preferred to stay in that seemingly haunted house.
"Weren't you the one who didn't believe in ghosts before?"
Xu Nuan felt happy that He Min was willing to talk about past events, and her expression relaxed considerably as she quickly retracted her earlier thoughts.
"I still don't believe in them."
He Min keenly sensed Xu Nuan's change in mood and swallowed the rest of her sentence. She did not believe in ghosts because the true evil spirits were humans, living among them.
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