CH 61

(Who is it?)

Edited by Silver Wind 

As Zhou Wenyan was sitting back down, he turned his head back to scan his surroundings and noticed that the airplane cabin was mostly emptied out except for four passengers.

The young girl with braided pigtails had just woken up and she was licking her cracked lips as she stopped the stewardess: “Could you bring me something to eat?”

The stewardess smiled, “Of course.”

At the side, there was a refined and cultured-looking man wearing golden-rimmed glasses clutching onto his neck, and he was vocalising his pain in a series of groans. Then, he said: “Do I have a stiff neck or something?” 

A lady with an oval face that was similar to the standards of an Internet celebrity clamoured, “Why is it so cold on the plane? Make the temperature a little higher!”

A middle-aged man with a potbelly said with a fierce tone: “I’m going to die of hunger! Hurry up!”

In a moment’s work, the tranquillity of the plane cabin shattered with the din the various passengers made.

However, the stewardess maintained her smile and satisfied the passengers’ request one by one. As she was walking past Zhou Wenyan’s seat, she even specifically stopped down and made an inquiry to the two quiet passengers.

“Excuse me, would you like to read any newspapers or magazines?”

Zhou Wenyan raised his head.

He did not know if it was because she had been thoroughly trained but the stewardess’ smile was unfaltering and unchanging, so perfect that it seemed like she was not a living person.

“Give me a copy of the newspaper,” Zhou Wenyan replied. 

Stewardess: “Okay.”

Very quickly, she brought two copies of the newspaper over and handed them one each.

Shen Dongqing pinched the newspaper open, causing it to issue rustling noises. The first article that greeted him was a bolded and black title.

“…… An airplane crashed into a snow-capped mountain in the middle of its flight, the number of dead and injured passengers are unclear.” Shen Dongqing read the title out loud. 

The stewardess had not gone far and she overheard Shen Dongqing’s words as a result. She said smilingly, “Rest assured, the airplane we are flying on is absolutely safe, such a thing will not happen……”

Before she could finish speaking, the entire plane jolted abruptly.

The stewardess said calmly: “It is just a common collision with the air currents, there is nothing wrong……”

Another enormous jolt occurred, and even the passengers who had put on their safety belts were thrown forward, to say nothing of the standing stewardess because she tumbled to the ground heavily, head rolling off her neck and tumbling far away. However, she did not bleed a single drop of blood and she was akin to a Barbie doll. 

Before the other players could react in shock, they felt the airplane falling rapidly.

The last loud collision reverberated, the resulting seismic impact causing the snow to fly everywhere, far-reaching, and high.

The passengers in the plane cabin only felt a period of shaking before the scenery outside their window changed from clear blue skies and white clouds to a wide expanse of white snow.

Following that, the cold wind carrying snowflakes smashed in. 

The group of players gaped, stupefied, unable to take in the fact that such an operation was possible.

Zhou Wenyan rose to his full height: “Let’s go down and take a look.”

Fortunately, they had prepared some clothing to fend against the cold weather before they set off. Zhou Wenyan brought down the small suitcase and wore his outer coat before he wrapped a furry scarf around Shen Dongqing.

Shen Dongqing tugged at his scarf to expose his mouth and nose. 

The airplane was broken in half from the middle and they could no longer exit the cabin through normal means. When Zhou Wenyan stood at the opening of the severed half, he felt the cold wind slap his face.

Shen Dongqing ducked behind him and lowered his head to look.

There were three people sitting on the snowy ground and they were surrounding a fire pit that had a soup pot hanging on top. A soup was in the process of cooking and the steam curled upwards which happened to float over to them.

Shen Dongqing took a deep breath in, “The smell is so strange.” 

Zhou Wenyan observed from afar. The mouth of the soup pot was obscured by the steam, making its contents indistinct apart from a pitch-black thing that was churning inside.

“Go down.”

Once his voice landed, Zhou Wenyan directly pulled him into his arms and jumped down from their elevated position, thus landing on the snowy ground.

Soft snowflakes floated up as a result and a particle of it landed on the tip of Shen Dongqing’s nose. 

He stuck his tongue out in an attempt to lick it off but there was still some distance so he could not touch that sparking and crystal-clear snowflake.

Zhou Wenyan grabbed a handful of snow and held it in front of him.

Leaning closer, Shen Dongqing licked at it, only to be met with disappointment. “It’s not sweet.” After realising that he could not eat it, he lost all interest in the snow and he followed Zhou Wenyan to head towards the firepit.

Seeing that people were approaching them, the three people greeted them with extreme enthusiasm: “You guys are awake.” 

Zhou Wenyan did not speak.

Instead, it was Shen Dongqing who spoke doubtfully: “We didn’t sleep at all.”

They seemed to be deaf to his words as the blond-haired beauty said: “You don’t need to be afraid, the other attendants have already gone out to find a place with a signal.”

The bespectacled man patted the seat next to him: “Sit here and warm yourselves up.” 

Zhou Wenyan brought Shen Dongqing to sit down.

The trio introduced themselves.

The blond-haired beauty was Lisa, aquiline nose was Leo, and the bespectacled man was Borg. They were a group of backpackers who liked camping outside but they did not expect that the airplane would crash into the snow-capped mountain halfway into the flight and the things that they prepared happened to be of use.

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The three NPCs appeared to be friendly and kind.

All the players arrived at such a conclusion as they surrounded the firepit and sat down. After they finished their self-introductions, they quietly waited for the game’s announcement.

【 All of you have experienced an aviation accident and you are awaiting rescue on the snow-capped mountain. If you mutually help each other, you will definitely be able to endure through the next fifteen days 】

【 But the aviation accident is not as merciful as it seems, for someone amongst you have already met with their death. It might be a player and it might be a NPC too, the deceased is in your midst, please find “them” 】 

【 Be careful, the deceased is in the dark spying 】

【 Please conduct an identification during every dinnertime 】

【 Identifying the ‘deceased’ is equivalent to an immediate clearance, if the wrong choice is made, the game cannot guarantee that the deceased will not act drastically 】

After the player listened to the system’s broadcast, they gazed at each other in blank dismay. 

Lisa did not notice the grave atmosphere surrounding the players as she chuckled and said: “The soup is done. Come and drink some soup to warm your bodies.”

Braided Pigtails was in a miserable state after her freezing ordeal and she took it immediately, holding it in her hands, allowing it to warm her up.

However, she did not drink it instantly. Instead, she stared at the soup that was emitting steam hesitantly.

Lisa urged her: “You should drink it, if you don’t drink it now, it’ll go cold.” 

It was apparent that they had just got off the plane but Braided Pigtails felt cold and hungry, her entire body weakened to the extent where it was unbearable. Hence, even though she was cognizant that the soup in her hands was emitting an odd smell, she could not help but swallow her saliva.

In the end, Braided Pigtail did not manage to resist the temptation as she brought the soup bowl to her mouth.

However, before she could touch the bowl’s brim, an icy-cold thing knocked into the back of her hand, causing her grip to destabilise and the bowl fell to the ground.

Fortunately, they were on a snowy ground and the bowl did not break. The soup, however, had spilled all over the ground and it had become a layer of thin ice very quickly. 

“You!” Braided Pigtails looked over.

Zhou Wenyan was holding a packed snowball in his hand, tossing it up and down intermittently.

Quite evidently, he was the one who smashed something into her hand.

Originally, he had no intention of stopping these people from seeking their deaths. However, for reasons unknown to him, he had intervened out of subconscious reflex. 

It was as if he had a faint premonition that something terrible would happen if the soup was consumed.

Lisa stooped over to pick up the soup bowl, encouraging. “It’s fine, I can ladle you another bowl.”

After going through those twists and turns, Braided Pigtails lost the will to drink the soup. “Forget it, I’m not drinking it anymore.”

No one drank the soup that Lisa made. 

Lisa kept the bowl, an almost imperceptible gloominess flashing across her face.

As Leo and Lisa brushed shoulders, the pair exchanged a look: “Let’s find a place that fends off the wind to settle down first while waiting for the rescue team to arrive.”

The Businessman nodded, agreeing with their suggestion: “Then we’ll go and search to see if there’s anything edible.”

The players returned to the plane cabin first. 

Braided Pigtails rubbed her abdomen, only feeling the terrible pain in her stomach. “Why do I hunger so quickly?”

The other players had the same feeling.

The person who gave the largest reaction was the doctor. He pressed on his undamaged and intact neck and he would sporadically suck in cold breaths.

Tolerating the hunger, they searched the entire plane cabin once but they did not find any food.. Thus, they could only bring their suitcases and return to the snowy ground. 

Businessman said: “If there is a deceased in our midst, the ones with the most suspicions are the NPCs. We didn’t see them on the plane at all, and yet they inexplicably appear on the snowy ground.”

Internet Celebrity nodded: “I think the same.”

The Doctor could not even think through the troubling pain and he could only agree.

Braided Pigtails nodded casually. 

In their hearts, they were thinking, either way, they had fifteen days’ worth of time and it was of no consequence if they wasted three days on the NPCs.

The Businessman was probably a small leader in reality as he occupied the guiding position and started to instruct: “We’ll vote for Lisa tonight.”

As he was saying that, Borg walked over in the distance and waved at them: “We found a place to avoid the wind.”

Pursing his lips, the Businessman remarked, “They’re already here.” 

Soon after, he turned towards the rest of the players and said: “Be careful, it’s best that we don’t instigate any conflicts with the NPCs first.”

While Shen Dongqing was pulling his suitcase and lingering at the back with Zhou Wenyan, he stared at the back figures of the people in front pensively before he abruptly commented: “Why do I find this very familiar?”

Zhou Wenyan took the suitcase in his hand: “What?” 

Shen Dongqing could not explain it, and after stewing about it for a long time, he could only give a single conjecture: “It seems like I’ve seen this in a dream before.”

The group of people followed Borg to the camping ground and Lisa happened to be setting up the tents.

Despite only travelling a short distance, all the players were panting hard from the walk.

Braided Pigtails collapsed to the ground, butt first, and her complexion was pallid: “I’m so hungry, is there anything to eat?” 

The other players shook their heads.

Whenever they were entering copies, they mostly bought items that were  good for defensive use, why would they buy something to eat?

Lisa grinned as she said: “I’ll cook some soup for you guys once I’m done setting up these tents, you’ll be fine once you drink it.”

Generally speaking, players were all exceedingly vigilant and they touched the NPC’s items infrequently. 

However, the circumstances were special now; their stomachs burned from the hunger and they did not bring any food, so they had no better alternative apart from the NPCs’ food.

Businessman gritted his teeth: “I’m not drinking it, the game is unlikely to starve us to death like this.”

Once those words were laid down, Braided Pigtails could only forcibly squash down her hunger.

When the Businessman saw Lisa, who appeared overly eager to cook her soup, he seemed to grasp onto something but because of the emptiness in his stomach, he could not analyse anything properly. 

“Forget it, let’s go out and find something to eat before we speak again.”

Shen Dongqing was famished too.

Owing to the fact that he had a suitcase of snacks, he did not join the other players in their search for food and sat down with Zhou Wenyan instead. 

However, when he opened the suitcase, the half suitcase worth of snacks was unexpectedly empty; the small portion that remained were all snacks that were Shen Dongqing’s second favourites.

“What is going on?” Shen Dongqing was dumbfounded.

He only ate one packet of snacks on the plane, why did they all disappear now?

“Did I eat them in my dreams?” 

That isn’t really possible ah.

Shen Dongqing counted with his fingers. After taking everything into account, they had stayed on the plane for two hours at most, it was not plausible for him to sleepwalk and eat all his snacks.

Zhou Wenyan felt like something was amiss too.

As Shen Dongqing blanked out while staring at the mostly empty suitcase, particles of snowflakes drifted in from outside and it seemed to remind him of something as he said: “I saw a snowflake in my clothes.” 

Zhou Wenyan glanced at him.

Shen Dongqing tacked on the location: “On the airplane.”

Grabbing some popcorn, Shen Dongqing stuffed it into his mouth, causing his cheeks to puff up and it took him a while to swallow everything.

However, even though he ate a substantial number of snacks, the hunger in his stomach did not recede in the least. 

Zhou Wenyan was feeling hungry as well.

He was considered a person who had higher tolerance capabilities but his stomach was feeling terribly hot and it was uncontrollable, signifying that this was definitely not a hunger that accumulated in only a day.

Snowflake, an empty suitcase, undue hunger, a familiar scene……

All these broken bits of clues strung together and gave him an impossible conclusion. 

They might have experienced everything once before.

After playing so many games, Zhou Wenyan had long familiarised himself with the various routines the game had, and he only had to ruminate about it briefly before he snapped back to his reverie. “It’s a type of cycle.”

Shen Dongqing’s first reaction was: “So we’ve been starved for several days?” He clenched his fist, “This is too terrible!”

The thing he disliked the most was going on an empty stomach. 

If ghosts and monsters wanted to assault him, he could use his fists to punch and legs to kick, but this was evidently a test for their decrypting abilities. He stared at Zhou Wenyan with pitiful eyes: “Let’s leave here earlier.”

Zhou Wenyan caressed his head comfortingly, “Let me think……”

Starting a cycle necessitated a trigger point, and they had to meet certain conditions to trigger it.

In this copy, the most likely condition was that inability to find the “deceased”, but according to the thoughts of the other players, they had a total of fifteen days and there were only nine people when the players and NPC were added together. Which meant to say that, even if they went blind, they could still encounter the “deceased”. 

It sounded very simple but it was not possible for the game to give them such an easy multiple-choice question.

“It’s a trap,” Zhou Wenyan deduced, “We don’t have fifteen days.”

The game was most fond of playing word games.

The time it left the players could never be so abundant, it was definitely less than fifteen days, and it was even probable that this mutt of a game would only give them three to five days to figure it out. 

It seemed like they had to find the “deceased” quickly.

The pivotal points were definitely on the three NPCs who had suddenly appeared.

They appeared to be exceptionally normal, but where this game was concerned, everything that was normal was abnormal instead.

Zhou Wenyan’s gaze landed on that soup pot. 

Soup……

Lisa said that they would be fine once they drank the soup, could the pivotal point be the soup?

The other four players returned empty-handed. 

Having found nothing edible, their complexions were green, especially Braided Pigtails whose cheeks have sunken in and she seemed like she had been starved for several days.

At the side, Lisa was cooking another pot of soup.

She used the soup ladle to stir the soup, causing it seethe and a rich scent wafted towards them at an unhurried pace. The smell was not pleasant to the nose; rather, it was extremely strange as the foul smell of fish was intermingled within it.

However, that did not stop the group of people who were absolutely starving. 

Lisa asked: “Do you want to drink the soup?”

Braided Pigtails could not wait to answer in the positive: “Yes!”

Lisa seemed afraid that they would regret it as she ladled out a bowl of soup and served it to her with due haste. “For you, you’ll be fine once you drink the soup, you won’t be hungry anymore.”

Braided Pigtails truly could not bear it anymore. She blew at the soup a few times before she sent it to her mouth directly. 

The soup smelled off but maybe because she was famished, it was particularly tasty when it touched her tongue. She did not know what meat it was stewed out of either because it was brimming with oils and fats, and it was very filling.

The Businessman hesitated for a while before he asked: “What is the soup made out of?”

Lisa answered: “Meat.”

Businessman asked again: “What kind of meat?” 

Lisa deflected the question: “You’ll know once you drink it.”

The Business wavered briefly before he finally caved, unable to fight against his churning stomach, and he asked for a bowl as well.

With one, there would be a second. In the end, four people collectively drank the soup.

Only Shen Dongqing and Zhou Wenyan did not drink it. 

Truth to be told, Shen Dongqing was hungry to the point where he could no longer tolerate it, and the snacks that he brought were incapable of staving off hunger which made his entire body feel unwell.

Lisa twisted her head to look at them and repeated the same line: “Do you want to drink the soup?”

Shen Dongqing was just short of finding it insufferable.

Generally speaking, he would never let himself go hungry. However, it was not the problem of whether he would drink the soup after his head went woozy from hunger, but the question of whether these people should be running once he reached that state. 

In all honesty, he hated the feeling of losing control.

Perceiving the emotions of the person seated by his side, Zhou Wenyan stretched his hand out to grab Shen Dongqing’s hand. When Shen Dongqinglooked over, Zhou Wenyan leaned closer and pecked him lightly on the lips.

He did not deepen it; it was akin to a dragonfly touching water.

The irritability plaguing Shen Dongqing decreased inexplicably and he reverted back to his usual simple-thinking appearance. “I want more.” 

Zhou Wenyan gave him another peck.

Shen Dongqing recovered completely and he hugged Zhou Wenyan’s arm, giggling with some embarrassment.

The four players, having drunk the soup, probably held onto the mentality that a dead pig feared no scalding water as they drank another two bowls of soup at dinnertime.

Once the skies darkened, the NPCs entered the tent, leaving the group of players outside. 

【 Identification time has started 】

【 Please identify who you think is the deceased 】

The Businessman touched his smooth and shining lips, saying: “Vote for Lisa.”

He was completely devoid of the intention to soften his mouth simply because he ate someone else’s food. 

Internet Celebrity, Braided Pigtails and Doctor agreed with his choice.

The next in turn were Zhou Wenyan and Shen Dongqing.

Zhou Wenyan clicked his tongue. “It’s too slow like this.”

Upon hearing that, the Businessman was somewhat unhappy. He said: “Didn’t we already agree to it? As long as we vote for one each day, we will eventually land our mark.” 

Zhou Wenyan was quite doubtful. “Unfortunately, the game is not as stupid as you.”

Business: “What do you mean?”

Zhou Wenyan was too lazy to reply.

On his end, Shen Dongqing stood up and walked towards the camping ground. After a short while, a series of slapping noises travelled out. What followed was Shen Dongqing carrying the three NPCs who had been tied up firmly like they were glutinous rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves out of the encampment. 

While he was at it, he seized up one of them: “Who is the deceased?”

Lisa said in panic: “What are you even saying?”

Wearing a friendly smile, Shen Dongqing stated, “If you don’t speak, I’ll turn you into the next deceased.”

The other players were stunned. 

Other people behaved themselves and made their guesses to solve the multiple-choice question, but you were even better; you directly took a knife to threaten the options to make them give you the correct answer.

Could it be played like this?