The Reset Mechanism
Everything that happened in the barbecue restaurant, along with the wisps of curse mixed in the air, traveled back to Yu Xing's mind.
Without even looking, his subconscious already had the impression that the middle-aged woman was killed by the cashier's clone, and that a conflict had occurred between several people at the restroom entrance.
Just then, Yu Xing reached the door of the cold storage room.
Adhering to the idea of respecting the fate of others, and not being a particularly philanthropist to begin with, he ignored the conflicts among the other predictors and instead, with a hint of curiosity, reached for the door of the cryogenic chamber.
After switching identities with his clone, he had been exploring the barbecue restaurant. Although he had leisurely explored some of the shops during the previous seventeen resets, this was the first time he had felt so free.
Because he was wearing an apron from a barbecue restaurant, employees dressed the same way would pass by wherever he went. Yu Xing blended in without standing out, and no one cared where he came from.
Besides the supervisor.
The Sheep-faced leader seemed to have realized he had left his post without permission and was chasing after him.
Several times, Yu Xing easily dodged it.
Perhaps his behavior of walking the foreman like a dog went too far. Now, the foreman was no longer just looking at him with suspicion, but holding a kitchen knife he had taken from the kitchen, his face contorted with rage as he wanted to kill him.
Having just escaped another chase by the foreman three minutes ago, Yu Xing finally arrived at the place he was most curious about so far—the cold storage room.
The cold storage room is located deep inside the kitchen of the barbecue restaurant. To get there, you must first pass directly through the chef's area and then go through several turns in a long corridor.
For employees, finding the cold storage room shouldn't be difficult, as long as they know its location.
For the strategists, getting here under the Sheep-faced leader's knife is an impossible task, turning into a slashing horror movie in no time.
This means that what is stored here must be something that allows the deducer to understand important information about the copy.
For example...
Yu Xing reached out and pushed, and the heavy door of the cold storage room opened a crack.
Cold mist seeped out from the crack in the door, splashing onto his face. Behind the door was pitch black darkness, and a strange, meaty smell wafted through the air.
Yu Xing didn't send out any branches to investigate, and leisurely walked in.
Click.
He stepped on a thin layer of ice, making a crisp sound, and a dim white light on the roof flickered and turned on automatically.
Segments of pale limbs suddenly appeared in Yu Xing's eyes.
He silently raised his head slightly, sketching the mountain of corpses before him in his mind, and stood firmly in place, no longer moving. He could now accurately distinguish each and every one of the bodies.
Ah, here's what...
Reset all the copies so many times?
After so many resets, even if he had no intention of exploring the dungeon, he already knew the conditions for resetting.
Resetting only applies to clones.
If any copy of any of the predictors dies—and not at the hands of the corresponding predictor—the entire copy will be reset.
In other words, if the Little Heavenly Master's clone dies at his hands, then all the clones will die together and be refreshed in a new round, and the strategist's memory will also be erased.
However, if the clone dies at the hands of the original, the reset mechanism will not be triggered. If Yu Xing kills Yu Shiqi, then nothing will happen.
This mechanism is very cunning, because as far as he knows, the clones will not know that they are not the original when they are first refreshed.
They possess most of their own memories and believe themselves to be the deducers, thus exploring the barbecue restaurant, only to die due to various dangers.
The clone's self-destruction will cause the real deducer to have their memories refreshed as well. However, during this refresh, the real deducer will gradually experience cognitive dissonance. Eventually, the deducer will go mad the moment the memories are refreshed, and countless experiences in the barbecue restaurant instance will crush their minds.
In other words, the deducer must not only guard against the killings from the awakened clones, but also protect their own clones from dying at the hands of others or other dangers.
The simplest way is to kill one's own clone—but unfortunately, because the clone is a ghost, although not strong, it can still bring a life-or-death crisis to the diviner in a one-on-one situation.
Because of this flawed mechanism, teams without Yu Xing's intervention have already reset seventeen times. If this continues, he'll be driven crazy by it.
Who would want to walk into the same barbecue restaurant so many times, and even sit at the same table with some idiots?
Yu Xing shook her head, trying not to think about it, and focused on the present.
He had wondered where those clones that were refreshed and affected went, and now he had the answer.
It turns out that after the clones had their faces or heads cut off, they were transported to the cold storage room and became the reserve ingredients for this barbecue restaurant.
Yu Xing also saw several of his own corpses among them.
One of them was somewhat special; its face hadn't been cut off, and judging from its posture, it seemed to have been surrounded by many other corpses, sinking into the mountain of corpses with a sense of glee in its death.
After looking around the cold storage room, Yu Xing did not leave after learning what was inside. Instead, she stepped deeper into the room.
He felt something was off about the room the moment he saw it.
The corpses weren't neatly categorized like normal "food reserves." Instead, they were piled up high, excessively high—even if you wanted to take down the corpses on top for food, it would take a lot of effort.
Or rather, piling up those corpses that high wasn't something that could be done casually.
So why?
Yu Xing's gaze fell behind the pile of corpses.
That's obviously to block the view of anyone entering.
By using an exaggerated mountain of corpses to attract the intruder's attention and arouse their fear or curiosity, the true secret of the cold storage room can be concealed.
His footsteps echoed in the empty room, slow and unhurried. Just as he slowly circled the mountain of corpses, some of the bodies moved.
At first, there were only faint sounds; several corpses twitched their limbs.
Then the rubbing sound grew louder, and a bloodied, mangled face, its features destroyed, slowly lifted up as Yu Xing passed by.
Yu Xing caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of his eye, and in the next instant, countless hands broke free of the mountain of corpses and reached out to grab him!
Girl's hands, man's hands, young hands, old hands—these arms squeezed between corpses, the bluish-white flesh emitting a strange odor.
They scrambled toward Yu Xing with all their might, like wriggling earthworms.
Yu Xing certainly wouldn't be touched by these things.
He nimbly dodged them, and the corpses, visibly enraged at failing to catch him, became even more furious.
One of the corpses sat up.
The headless corpse propped up its body, exuding a chilling eeriness, while the headed corpse turned its neck, turning its blood-red fleshy face toward Yu Xing.
They began to riot.
In a daze, Yu Xing seemed to know what the special copy of himself that he had just seen had gone through before it died.
The clone must have discovered this secret as well, and ultimately died at the hands of the other corpses.
The mountain of corpses showed signs of collapsing, and for convenience, Yu Xing finally released a small amount of his own curse power.
Suddenly, the world fell silent.
The corpses that had just been surging towards him now cowered like quails, obediently lying down on the spot to continue dying.
Yu Xing successfully circled around to the back of the mountain of corpses.
Sure enough, there was something rather out of place there.
A freezer about half the size of a person.