Back when he still wanted to live, Qi Si had imagined his own death countless times.
Perhaps he would fall from a cliff over a thousand meters high, lose consciousness in the prolonged sensation of weightlessness, and be smashed to pieces.
Perhaps he would sink to the bottom of a boundless deep sea, sealed within some layer of water by the pressure, rotting as he drifted.
Later, he realized that what he had longed for back then was nothing more than uncertainty.
Before someone appeared in the form of a corpse, no one could prove that they were dead, nor could anyone prove that they were still alive.
So, they were called "missing." Bystanders knew it was a euphemism for death, while those involved used it as a substitute for being alive.
At times like that, someone needed to find the corpse. Fragments would do, severed limbs would do—using taxidermy techniques to piece together a whole person, place them on a stage, and announce their death to all who passed by.
Yes, death needed to be displayed. Or rather—it needed to be observed.
After the Dialectical Game Instance ended, Qi Si had seriously considered the matter of how he might die. And after Double Happiness Town, he had truly realized that he might die in an Eerie Game Instance.
Survival was no easy thing. Tens of thousands of people were struggling to stay alive—why should he be spared?
His journey had been too easy, too frivolous, too lucky.
He was like a war machine that, once it took the stage, could never make its exit. He had to keep winning. The moment he lost a single battle, he would be reduced to dust.
Even as Qi Si calmly analyzed the desperate situation he faced, he uncontrollably sank into the revelry