Social Darwinism

It was already midnight when Qi Si returned to the residential complex where he lived.

The dilapidated complex was a festering scar on the city, rotting from the inside out.

The earliest residents had moved away one after another, leaving behind a mix of the impoverished and the elderly like refuse. Once the poor became even poorer, they were replaced by new poor, and when the elderly died, new elderly moved in to wait for their own ends.

Ever since the nations of the world were downgraded to counties and brought under the rule of the Federation, poverty had spread globally like a plague; save for a few key regions, most places had truly achieved an equality of destitution.

Water and electricity were cut off every ten days or a fortnight, the streets were long uncleaned of phlegm and bird droppings, and foul water overflowed from the gaps in trash cans. There was no need to worry about population mobility, as ninety-nine percent of places were equally wretched.

Qi Si had no concept of external labels like wealth or poverty; an ugly entrepreneur could not escape the fate of being sent to a pig farm, while a good-looking pauper might find a place in a collector's room.

Yet, he still loathed this impoverished city, simply because he hated the rainy days here.

The industrial zones that drained the city's resources piled up like clouds, and even the falling rain was saturated with heavy metal dust and particles of unknown composition.

After the rain stopped, it left behind puddles floating with pollutants that reflected suspicious glints under the streetlights, occasionally bubbling up like pustules, reminiscent of the poisons brewed by witches in fairy tales.

No matter where one stood or from what angle one looked, aided by the streetlights, it was difficult to find a single patch of ground to step on; even a sparrow hopping on one leg would likely sigh in disappointment at the sight.

By the time Qi Si reached the entrance of his building, his pant legs were soaked through.

He pushed the door open, walked straight into the elevator, and pressed "11."

Following a creak that seemed to carry a metaphor for disaster, the elevator reached the eleventh floor smoothly; then, with another unbearable groan, it trembled and descended toward the first floor.

Qi Si stood outside Room 1101, inputting the password into the electronic lock.

This was the apartment his parents had bought. After they died in a car accident when he was sixteen, he had used some rather complex and not-so-legal means to become the sole owner of the property.

He had lived here for six years, though it was hard to say if it was out of nostalgia or habit.

The couplets on the door had faded until the characters were illegible, tattered like the scabs peeling off a wounded man.

Behind the door, the two-bedroom apartment was exceptionally tidy; the snow-white walls and gleaming floors made one suspect that not a single speck of dust could be found here.

The master bedroom had been closed for years, so the space actually in use was limited to the second bedroom, the kitchen, and the bathroom, making the cleaning task not particularly heavy.

Qi Si threw the suitcase containing the corpse into the bathroom and rinsed his hands at the sink under the faucet turned to full blast.

Even now, there were things he still hadn't figured out, such as why "Liu Ajiu" would choose to rob his studio, only to be subdued by him so easily...

Well, never mind, it wasn't important.

Qi Si scrubbed every gap between his fingers with soap, rubbing his hands until they were bright red, before he finally stopped.

He walked into the kitchen, grabbed a pack of instant noodles to boil, and slurped them down slowly, hastily finishing a dinner that was long overdue.

At 1:30 AM, Qi Si took a shower, pulled a shirt from the uniform row of white ones in his closet, and put it on, feeling drowsy before he knew it.

Although the instances of the Eerie Game did not occupy real-world time, on a conscious level, he had been under genuine mental strain for these past few days.

The final curtain call, in particular, had required him to handle everything alone, performing with all his heart, not to mention witnessing a high-rise building collapse at close range.

The lead actor, satisfied and returning home, let out a leisurely yawn, pulled out his phone, and searched for the words "Eerie Game Forum."

Humans are a species that likes to huddle together for warmth, very adept at dividing themselves into groups through various labels, whether to exclude others or to find their own kind.

Most players accidentally dragged into the "Eerie Game" felt helpless and desperate, inevitably aggregating those who were equally "unlucky" to balance their psychology and share their tragic experiences.

Chang Xu had previously mentioned that information related to the "Sariel Guild" could be found on the "forum," implying that "players who have entered the game for the second time" could easily access it.

Considering the average information-gathering ability of current humans, Qi Si was inclined to believe that this forum existed on the public internet and could be found through a standard search.

Facts proved his guess was correct.

As the page loaded, aside from a few unrelated novels and comics, Qi Si quickly found a webpage with a black background and silver text.

#Selling a prop that might be related to the Main God, DM if interested, Federal currency transaction, bring cash offline#

#High school girl here, have my own team-up prop, looking for a big shot to carry me#

#Let's dig into the unknown facts about the new vice-president of the Listen Wind Guild, Yu Jinsheng#

#First NE clear of Screaming Amusement Park, 80,000-word analysis guide, includes full walkthrough of the instance#

#Reserved for Fu Jue fan thread, farming experience, leveling up, hehehe#

No different from other forums, this special forum was also filled with information of varying quality on its homepage.

Of course, for Qi Si at his current stage, he had no use for ninety percent of the information.

Pinned at the top was a post aimed at educating newcomers. Qi Si spent half an hour reading it from start to finish, roughly grasping a few facts:

First, the Eerie Game first appeared on January 1, 1999, thirty-six years ago; as of today, at least four million people had been drawn into the game.

Players had differing opinions on the formation and solution of the game, and even the theoretical camp had yet to reach a unified conclusion. But one thing was certain: "The Rules cannot be defied."

As for what exactly the rules were, the replies in the thread were arguing heatedly; some said they were rule-based horror, some said they were natural laws, and others said they were the operating principles of all things.

Second, players not chosen by the game could not know of its existence, and those who knew of its existence were inevitably chosen by the game.

For those innocent passersby, even if one kept talking about the Eerie Game in their ears, they would automatically filter the information—either they wouldn't hear it, or they would assume what they heard was just a plot from a novel; even if they saw the Eerie Game forum, they would consciously skip over it as if it weren't there.

No wonder Qi Si's previous investigation had stalled at a critical point, unable to move forward.

However, according to the information here, Qi Si shouldn't have been able to discover even a trace of a clue—yet for some reason, the reality was far from that.

Third, players have formed various major guilds based on different ideologies. Although most guilds bully newcomers and squeeze them for points and items, newcomers without a guild often die even faster.

Some of the more famous guilds include Nine Provinces, Listen Wind, and Sariel, along with a guild called "The Scales," which shares its name with an illegal cult in reality—though whether that is a coincidence remains unknown.

[We are all human, our fates intertwined, our emotions connected, sharing the same stance and pursuits. In our struggle against the Eerie Game, only by pulling together and looking out for one another can we achieve final victory!]

This is the manifesto of the Nine Provinces Guild.

When Qi Si first entered the forum, he was slapped in the face by this syrupy rhetoric, only to encounter a flood of people spamming the same quote in threads introducing the guilds.

Combined with his experience in Rose Manor, he nearly laughed out loud.

Fourth, players who have cleared three instances or fewer are considered newcomers. Only after clearing the third instance can one be promoted to an official player, unlocking full features including the Game Space, Player Plaza, and the Mall.

Newcomer instances come from the novice pool, while official player instances come from the official pool. In terms of average difficulty, the official pool is higher than the novice pool; however, when it comes to individual instances, this is not absolute.

The novice pool has death traps, and the official pool has freebies.

It is generally acknowledged that the third instance is a threshold; many players die inexplicably before becoming official players, and their deaths often lack any logic. Situations where "the strong die and the weak live" occur frequently.

Fifth, it is said that a Final Instance exists. Its trigger conditions and content are unknown, but if a single player clears it, any wish can be granted—including rewriting the rules of the Eerie Game, resurrecting and releasing everyone, or even shutting down the game forever.

Currently, the player with the highest acclaim for potentially clearing the Final Instance is someone named "Fu Jue." He ranks first on the overall strength leaderboard and is the vice-president of the Nine Provinces Guild. Referred to in replies as "Chief" or "God Fu," he has countless supporters and is trending toward being placed on the pedestal of a savior.

"The Final Instance? What a hole-ridden pie in the sky... Would the entity that formulated the game rules really leave behind a rule that works against itself? Interesting."

Qi Si smiled with biting sarcasm, feeling that this Eerie Game, from its mechanics to its players, was a complete mess.

—It was as if several different production teams and planners had taken over one after another, each with their own ideas, resulting in a hodgepodge that resembled nothing at all.

He reined in his scattered thoughts and searched for the word "Sariel" on the forum.

Many results appeared, and the level of discussion was quite high. Most held a condemnatory and accusatory attitude toward the Sariel Guild, as if it were an infallible target, the black sheep in a flock of white.

Qi Si learned that Sariel is one of the earliest guilds established in the Eerie Game. It has a president codenamed "Puppeteer," whose true identity is unknown and who is as elusive as a dragon.

The entire guild claims to practice social Darwinism, advocating for the maximum killing of weak players to counter the Eerie Game's bizarre "survival of the fittest" law; at the same time, they funnel resources to elite players to trigger and clear the Final Instance.

What concerned Qi Si most was that the official Sariel account had declared that if anyone killed a member of their guild and they found out, they would pursue the matter to the end.

"Didn't you say you were practicing social Darwinism? Why the double standard?" Qi Si squinted, mocking them. "Huddling together for warmth while still keeping your 'ideology' on your lips—is that just to satisfy the president's chuunibyou fantasies?"

Being targeted by a group of unreasonable lunatics was definitely not a good thing; it would be very troublesome.

Although Qi Si knew he wasn't exactly a reasonable, normal person either, he still felt that an old guild targeting a newcomer like him was incredibly unsportsmanlike.

Hmph, he severely condemned such hypocritical behavior.

Bored, Qi Si searched for the keyword "Rose Manor" and found a mountain of strategy guides; it seemed this instance had been researched to death.

Interestingly, however, dozens of strategy records were all [Normal End - "Bloody Bond"], with the method of clearing being to follow the rules and ensure one survives to the end.

One player wrote in a post with lingering fear:

[This was my second instance. Including me, there were only three players, yet there were a full eight rules to follow! To put it bluntly, you have to pay with human lives to test which rules are real and which are fake. The other two were on their third run; I really didn't think I'd make it out alive!]

[For the first two days, I carefully followed the rules. They broke more rules than I did and died one after another in the night. Honestly, at the time, I didn't believe in the minimum death count mechanism at all. They were both dead, and I hadn't found any clue on how to clear the instance. Was I supposed to go to the third floor?]

[On the third night, Miss Anna broke down the door and came for me with a two-meter-long scythe! Just when I thought I was a goner, a red dress suddenly flew out from under the mattress and vanished before my eyes. I realized that time had actually rewound by five minutes!]

[I thought that rather than waiting to die in the room, I might as well see if I could run out of the manor, so I immediately went downstairs. I walked out of the castle, but I didn't expect Miss Anna to be waiting in the garden, swinging her blade to hunt me down! I ran for my life, and an old woman in red appeared from nowhere, entangling Miss Anna and telling me to leave quickly...]

[The Butler came too. I thought he would help Miss Anna deal with me, but to my surprise, he led me to the gate and opened it to let me go. I cleared the instance in a daze like that. After I got out, I ran a high fever and nearly lost half my life...]

Judging from the posts on the forum, players previously matched into the Rose Manor instance all cleared it by triggering the "minimum death count" mechanism, and they were equally clueless about the conditions for triggering the time-reversal mechanism.

However, this post did answer some of Qi Si's questions:

So, the red dress he found under the mattress was not only a clue but also a one-time life-saving item.

When a player encounters a death point, the red dress is automatically consumed to perform a short time reversal.

If one clears the instance via the True End route, they would, like Qi Si and Chang Xu, use the red dress in the first room on the third floor to steadily obtain clues about Miss Anna's parents.

If one clears via the Normal End route, they would, as the original poster described, muddle through and save their life during the battle royale on the third night, escaping alive.

Reviewing this, Qi Si couldn't help but let out a scoff: "Could I actually be the first one to clear the True End? No way, right? Surely not?"

In the recommended section, a recruitment post published by the Nine Provinces Guild popped up at the right moment.

Qi Si clicked on it out of habit.

It was an old post, already thousands of replies deep. The gist was to call on all players to record their instance experiences and the methods for achieving various endings as much as possible.

[We are currently like lonely boats in a sea of people. Those not chosen by the game do not know what we are enduring, and we cannot expect them to understand.]

[Leave your records here to point the way for those who follow, or simply as proof that you were here. Let us all remember your existence together.]

[One day, we will clear the Final Instance and shut down the Eerie Game. The sealed past will see the light of day again, contributions and sacrifices will not be buried, memories will remain, souls will be immortal, and together we will look toward a future without the Eerie!]

Qi Si stared at the Nine Provinces Guild's rallying post for two seconds, successfully disgusted, and immediately went to look for the block option.

After searching for a long time without success, he could only close the chicken-soup-flavored post with a belly full of displeasure and exit the game forum.

Regardless of anything else, he had no intention of being a good person and posting his own clearance tips to share.

Heaven knew which faction was behind the forum; he might post it one moment, and his address might be leaked the next.

Reviewing information security from start to finish in his mind, Qi Si reached under his bedsheet to fumble around, pulling out a massive sheet of rubbing paper to hold before his eyes.

Printed on the rubbing paper were phrases like "Go die" and "You are not human," their clawing, dancing characters looking as if they might break through the surface at any moment to slap the young man holding the paper.

Qi Si admired it with fascination for a while, finally shaking off the false, harmonious atmosphere cultivated by the Nine Provinces Guild and returning to the malice of reality.

He let out a satisfied yawn, turned off the room's light, wrapped himself in his quilt, and fell into a deep sleep.