Chapter 4656

"From the perspective of level design, it is impossible for these six people to be united," Loki said, using his coat to help dry Thor's hair. "Whether it's deduction or an escape room, the most important core idea of all design is fairness."

"Although deduction can use narrative tricks, it must never lie about important facts described from a god's-eye view; otherwise, it is unfair deduction. You also cannot hide things from the reader and suddenly insert characters or props that weren't mentioned beforehand but play an important role afterward; that is also typical unfair deduction."

"Escape rooms are the same. The level designer can viciously use psychological and physical tactics to create difficulties for the escapees, but they cannot create a situation of certain death, nor can they create a puzzle that is completely unsolvable. In fact, the intensity of the level's hints should be proportional to the level's difficulty."

"Take the level we just passed, for example; it was both electrifying the cage and electrifying the water, which was already difficult enough, so it only required shaking three directions to pass. If they had designed thirty directions, that would be a certain-death situation, which is unfair."

"Similarly, because one must consider countermeasures within a very short time, otherwise one might be drowned by water, the entire mechanism must be concise enough, without any distracting clues, and every step of deduction should bring one closer to the answer. Otherwise, if they were drawing on the walls and placing other mechanisms to interfere with one's vision, there would be no way for someone to deduce the correct answer during the time the water is rising, which also counts as a type of unfairness."

"The previous levels were the same. Whenever a level was relatively difficult, it basically had a unique solution with hints; and for simpler levels, the hints would be reduced accordingly. This is the fairness principle of escape room design."

"Look at this level," Batman's deep voice sounded. "The organizers themselves, or rather, they sent people to participate in the process. Furthermore, they regulate the entire game flow and control the mechanism above our heads, which can determine the majority of the game's progress. If they were united and no one played dirty, it would be too unfair."

"Is it like playing soccer where the players, the goalkeeper, and the referee are all on the other side?" Superman thought of an analogy.

"If you want to compare it that way, it's more like the turf, the soccer ball, and the goal frame are all controlled by them. They want turf wherever they want turf; they can make the ball as heavy as they want; they can make the goal frame face whichever direction they want. In that case, the players can't play at all."

Superman nodded, looking as if he half-understood. Batman had no choice but to give another example. He looked up at the mechanism and said: "For instance, they now set a rule: if we don't commit suicide, they will directly control the mechanism above to pour magma down. Do we have any way to resist?"

Superman shook his head: "One person committing suicide is one person dying; if they pour magma, both people have to die. Then we have no choice."

"Exactly. Even if they make the rules more elaborate, like playing food chain competition or 'big eats small,' the essence remains unchanged. They are merely using the game to force us into infighting or self-harm. The rules are set by them, the mechanisms are controlled by them, and the outcome is decided by them. So what are we playing?"

"Has it changed from exploitation to persecution?" Anatoly looked at the mechanism above and said thoughtfully.

"And what is the difference?" Lucifer asked with some curiosity. In the past, he hadn't been interested in the ideas Anatoly often talked about, but his omniscient and omnipotent abilities meant he was destined never to understand them. Now that he had lost his superpowers and become a mortal, even a burden in some sense, he was more interested. This is the case of 'being in a position to plan for it'—when one is the weak party, one naturally becomes more interested in theories that protect the weak.

"I usually view exploitation as collective unconsciousness. That is to say, exploitation is not a phenomenon born from the malice of a single individual, but comes from class distinction. This concept is relatively abstract. Before reaching an ideal state, class will not be eliminated. Therefore, it requires greater power to push for a continuous, comprehensive struggle, rather than just killing one or two people and thinking the job is done."

"But persecution is different. Persecution comes from the malice of a few people or a certain group. They are not doing these things to extract surplus value, but are randomly releasing the evil parts of human instinct, pouring their own negative emotions onto others. The most important difference between this and exploitation, besides being concrete versus abstract, is also whether it is necessarily top-down."

"I don't understand," Lucifer said, "especially the last part. What is top-down?"

"From a class perspective, exploitation is definitely top-down. It must be the upper class exploiting the lower class, and it is absolutely impossible for it to be the other way around. But persecution is different. A certain group in the lower class can also persecute an individual in the upper class. It could even be individual against individual."

"And the reason for emphasizing this point is that many times people will beautify the persecution of the upper class by the lower class as resistance and revolution. But in reality, it is nothing more than certain people venting their selfish desires. Pushing people of the upper class to the opposite side, or even killing them—the consequences of doing so could be catastrophic."

"I don't understand. Since the upper class must exploit the lower class, what is wrong with killing them?"

"Because we must unite the vast majority of people," Anatoly looked into Lucifer's eyes. "Take the Hell War as an example. If we insisted on eliminating every demon, killing them whenever we saw them, and driving away those we couldn't kill, could we have caused such a big stir with just a few of us?"

Lucifer shrank his neck again. In the later stages, he cleared out Hell, which was actually a last resort. At that time, Hell was basically on fire everywhere, and all the races in Hell had started uprisings—some against their own demon kings, some against Satan, and some even against Heaven and God. If it hadn't been such a massive commotion, he wouldn't have used such violent means. There is a difference between going to the human world to play when one is bored, and having to flee to the human world because one's house is on fire.

"People can be transformed," Anatoly said. "Since we want to liberate and transform, it cannot be a designated type of person, but should be everyone. The upper class oppresses the lower class, which doesn't mean there isn't an 'upper-upper' class to oppress the upper class, nor does it mean the upper class won't engage in infighting. Everyone in this world has their own ways of being oppressed and exploited, including the person at the very top of everything. Does the emperor of a feudal autocratic society not need to be transformed? Recklessly killing him has no benefit. If one cannot understand this point, revolution is hard to succeed."

"You seem a bit sad again," Lucifer said.

"Yes. Because I think the seeds of the Soviet Union's collapse were perhaps sown from the moment the Tsar's family was executed. That execution, which carried the implication of persecution, was the most wrong decision they made."

Anatoly quickly adjusted his emotions. He took a deep breath and said: "Back to the game. If the previous levels still belonged to a type of exploitation—such as conducting human experiments or screening a certain type of person—it was certain people in the upper class doing whatever it took for profit. But now it looks more like a type of persecution with malice."

"It looks like they just want to watch us struggle to pass the levels for fun," Lucifer thought for a moment and asked, "Doesn't this count as doing whatever it takes for profit?"

"Of course. Sacrificing the lives and safety of others to bring oneself mental pleasure is certainly exploitation. But because it contains huge malice, it has completely turned into a type of persecution."

"Was there no malice before?"

"That's not it; it's just that now another group of living people appearing here proves how deep their malice is." Anatoly paused and continued, "Originally, our enemy was the mechanism. Throughout the entire level, all living people were victims. But now, another group of living people has appeared; they are participating in the game, but they are not victims being exploited, but the setters of the rules, the controllers of the mechanisms, and even performers showing off their personalities and characters."

"Is this very bad?" Lucifer clearly still didn't understand.

"Running over specifically to show off in front of people who are being persecuted is bound to be accompanied by great malice—why do you think I plucked a feather from you back then?"

Lucifer was speechless. Suddenly, he stood from a brand-new perspective and understood why Anatoly had such a strong reaction. Because now, he also found the people above very unpleasant.

They were here struggling to pass levels, he had almost drowned, and his wings had been pierced through, yet this group of people wore animal masks and sat there safely, acting mysterious. Who wouldn't be angry seeing that?

Analogous to Anatoly at the time—his motherland had just perished, and he himself had just died not long ago; he was already full of anger and sorrow. Then Lucifer appeared in front of him, full of holy light and supporting wings. Anatoly only plucking one feather from him was already considered showing respect to an angel.

Lucifer walked over, hugged Anatoly, and wrapped his wings around him: "I didn't mean to show off to you. I just... I just lost control too..."

"Yes, I understood that later. You were just suddenly angry and desperate because you realized you couldn't avoid the fate of being manipulated, and I also lost emotional control because of my own experiences. We both had our own difficulties back then."

Lucifer's wings wrapped even tighter.

"I think this group of people definitely isn't of one mind," Charles said very firmly. "It's even possible that the escape room wasn't built by them either. They are just clients of another large company."

"That's possible," Erik also said, leaning against the partition wall. "A certain large company is doing this kind of business, and it just so happens that some wealthy people have this hobby. One side provides the money, the other side provides the effort, and this situation was formed."

"Do you think that company would agree to let these wealthy people put themselves in danger?"

"Of course not. It would be troublesome if something happened. Not to mention compensation or anything, these people are all prominent figures; if the cause of death couldn't be explained, I don't know how many shareholders would come knocking. No company would be willing to invite such trouble."

"But they cannot stop them," Charles sneered. "Human desire is like Pandora's box; once opened, it can never be closed. The curse deepens, and madness follows like a shadow. Killing isn't enough, so they want torture-killing; torture-killing isn't enough, so they want psychological torture; psychological torture isn't enough, so they build an escape room like this and watch them die suffering all kinds of torture. But what comes after this?"

"They won't be satisfied with sitting high in the stands. They will want to enter the arena themselves, to prove how superior they are, to prove they can master everything. No one can refuse to become God—no one can refuse to become the omnipotent god who selects humanity through the flood of destruction."