Chapter 304: Pig-Butchering Scam (1)

My name is Han Bing.

A Four-Star Player. This is my fourteenth time executing a hunting mission.

I have seen many geniuses. They all have their own distinct characteristics: some are wise, some are calm, some are imaginative, some are optimistic and uplifting, some value camaraderie above all else, and some have burning hot blood.

They always feel that through their own efforts or united friendship, they can shatter the Cradle Project.

But without exception, their Dao Hearts were shattered, and they died in extreme despair.

Every time I see their expressions right before death, I want to add one sentence:

Once, I also thought I was the protagonist.

Seeing so many geniuses fall and successfully completing the mission, I should be happy. However, I can't bring myself to be happy. Because I know that one day, we will encounter someone... a protagonist surpassing those we've met before, who will kill us in some unknown Instance.

Not progressing means death. This is an inevitable outcome.

We are merely a Hunter Team belonging to the First Floor Master of the Liar-Slayer Alliance. Therefore, our hunting targets are typically Three-Star Players.

…

I am a relatively superstitious person.

My name has the word [Bing] (Ice) in it, so I consider Secret Rooms involving ice to be extremely taboo, simply because this type of Secret Room usually requires breaking the ice to decrypt it.

Moreover, in Tarot reading, an ice and snow field can symbolize predicament and isolation.

Therefore, when I appeared in the Ice Room...

My metaphysical thoughts told me: This place clashes with my name, and I might die.

Just like Pang Tong, the Fledgling Phoenix, dying at the Fallen Phoenix Slope.

Consequently...

I chose to suppress my Mental State, suppressing these dregs of feudal superstition.

Hehe, metaphysics. If it's useful to me, I believe it; if it's useless, I suppress it.

However...

The twenty people in this Instance are the result of various games and maneuvers. For instance, hypothetically, if there were no Five-Star Youth, our Hunter Team would have used our Combo Skill in the very first Secret Room to take down Chen Ran and Qiu Yinong.

But the appearance of the Five-Star Youth made us afraid to lightly use our Combo Skill. Perhaps this was exactly what some high-level figure wanted to see; otherwise, why would they have Lin Xuan track a Five-Star Player?

We originally intended to play it safe, but Lin Xuan didn't play by the book, directly tossing various spatial skills in our faces.

His intentions, I understand.

If the Five-Star Youth wanted to kill Chen Ran's trio, he still needed to execute Lie-Judgment. But for our team to kill them, we only needed to use our Combo Skill.

Therefore, Lin Xuan had to break up our team first, leaving us short of one person, unable to contend against the Five-Star Youth, forcing us to join forces with his trio to deal with the Five-Star Youth.

The ideal outcome: Our team gets broken up, and we eliminate the Five-Star Player. This way, the pressure on his three Newbies would be sharply reduced.

He played his abacus very well.

To be honest, in this Instance, whether it's the three Newbies, the Five-Star Youth, or Big Gold Tooth, they are all frighteningly strong.

You can tell from the details: these few people all like to remain silent, seemingly having an endless stream of problems to think about.

In the beginning, I could still keep up with their train of thought, knowing the meaning behind their words and actions.

But gradually, I found that I could no longer keep up with their train of thought.

This feeling was just like when I was alive and slightly dozed off during math class; I completely couldn't understand anything the Teacher taught afterward.

I digress.

Upon arriving in the Ice Room, I just quietly watched them engage in all sorts of extreme back-and-forth, pondering what deep meanings lay hidden within. Anyway, I am just an invisible nobody.

But, as they reasoned, Lin Xuan's trump card surfaced.

Unknown skills, unknown decryption, unknown players, Deceiver's Tongue. Such a simple Secret Room unexpectedly integrated so many elements.

And it revolved entirely around Unknown Information Deception.

Right now, the situation we face is that we can only use a skill to force out the answer from the two players who turned into ice sculptures.

But we all know there's a pit here, a massive pit, the kind that will bury a person alive.

Furthermore, there is one question I still haven't figured out: What was the point of Lin Xuan using his spatial skills several times earlier?

Before, Lin Xuan used his spatial skills in the Secret Room of the triple homicide, putting us through spatial teleportation. Judging by the results, he completely failed to execute Lie-Judgment on the players, nor could he execute Lie-Judgment on First Realm of Lingtai players.

So, what was the significance of him using those skills in the beginning?

I feel...

He was probably constructing our Personal Common Sense. Simply put, those few uses of his spatial skill made us believe that his other skills were also related to spatial teleportation and didn't have any substantial Lie-Judgment function.

Following this train of thought.

Lin Xuan's trump card definitely isn't a spatial teleportation-type skill.

However, this level of construction is unable to influence our Personal Common Sense. Therefore, we should deduce in reverse: his trump card is still a spatial teleportation skill.

Crap.

I fell for it. This is the firewall he set up, making it impossible for us to determine what type of spatial skill his trump card is.

My mind is a mess.

I don't even know what Lin Xuan's trump card is, let alone how to break this situation.

I can only return to the Ice Room itself.

Breaking the situation in the Ice Room is actually very simple.

Either use a skill to force out the answer, or use a skill to make another player fire the first shot as a lab rat.

In short, a skill must be used.

Known Condition One:

We must use a skill.

Known Condition Two:

Our Hunter Team has all five members present, so our Combo Skill can exert its maximum effect.

Just now, Lin Xuan said that he was merely created by the real Lin Xuan's skill.

He can die.

Known Condition Three:

The real Lin Xuan is not in the Ice Room.

Combining the three known conditions, we can arrive at the answer: You guys slaughter each other while I, Lin Xuan, watch a good show from another spatial layer.

For us, our skill hasn't been exposed yet. In using our Combo Skill for the first time in this Instance, we have to target...

The strongest Five-Star Youth!

Otherwise, once the skill is exposed, trying to use the Combo Skill to kill the Five-Star Youth again will be much more difficult. Will two tigers fight each other?

Suddenly, I sensed five bursts of killing intent.

Four of them came from my teammates, and the remaining one came from the Five-Star Youth.

We locked eyes with the Youth!

"We won't target you." After the boss said this to the Youth, he withdrew his gaze, looked at us, and asked, "Who is real?"

I looked at the other three Han Bings and didn't speak. Instead, I walked up to them and touched them one by one. I wasn't repelled.

This proved that these three Han Bings didn't have Slayer's Sanctuary.

They were fake.

But at the same time, I needed to prove that I had Slayer's Sanctuary, so I raised an eyebrow at the boss. However, after thinking about it, I wasn't sure of the boss's identity either. If he was a Phantom Image or transformed by a player, I would be screwed to death.

Therefore, I opted for random selection.

So, I swept my gaze over the crowd, planning to casually pick a player. Lin Xuan couldn't possibly know in advance who I would choose.

I pointed at a player from the Three-Star Hunter Team and said, "Come touch us."

That player was taken aback for a moment, then, seeing Gao Lan nod, stepped forward and touched us one by one. He was repelled when touching me, repelled when touching the boss. Out of the remaining six, three were repelled and three were not.

Then, the identities of the five real players could be confirmed.

However, we could only confirm that the five of us were real players. We couldn't confirm that we were the five players of the Hunter Team.

The boss looked at Qiu Yinong. "I need you to establish a Future Lie: you cannot use the Wheel of Time in this Secret Room."

Qiu Yinong retorted, "A Future Lie can be established, but the content will be: within the five minutes after you use the Distance-Free Technique, I will not use the Wheel of Time to reset time."

This proposal seemed very reasonable. It appeared Qiu Yinong was no fool either.

"No!" the boss rejected.

Qiu Yinong looked at the five of us and seemed to understand the logic behind it.

Ultimately, she nodded in agreement.

So, after she established the Future Lie, the five of us used the Distance-Free Technique on each other to confirm our respective identities.

I used the Distance-Free Technique on the boss. When I saw in the Distance-Free Technique that the boss's appearance hadn't changed, I knew he wasn't the boss transformed by another player's skill.

This was also one of the functions of the Distance-Free Technique.

The external appearance can change, but the [Joy, Anger, Sorrow, and Joy] within the Distance-Free Technique are emotions discarded by oneself; the appearance cannot change.

Moreover, the boss was protected by a Liar-Slayer.

Therefore, he was the real boss.

Soon, we used this method to screen each other's identities, confirming that we were all real players of the Hunter Team. As for whether we were players from the same spatial layer, it didn't matter.

As long as we could unleash the Combo Skill, it was fine.

As for whether Lin Xuan would rely on being able to lie recklessly and Judge us one by one?

Impossible!

With the Youth here, if he still dared to lie unscrupulously, he would be courting death.

Next, the boss looked at the Youth and used the Distance-Free Technique. The next moment, Ye Qian blocked the boss's line of sight, pulling the boss—who had just dragged the Youth into the Distance-Free Technique—out of the Distance-Free Technique.

"He is the real Youth." The boss's face was a bit pale, as if his mental state had suffered considerable damage.

I looked at the Youth in alarm and doubt. In just such a short time, the boss's mental state had been crushed to this extent!

A Five-Star Player was truly terrifying!

Since the Youth was real, with his nuclear deterrence present, Lin Xuan wouldn't dare to lie recklessly, much less Judge indiscriminately.

But there was still a problem here. Due to the spatial teleportation, the lie on the Slave had already been erased. We needed a new lie provided for us to use our skill.

This was also the fundamental reason why the boss rejected Qiu Yinong's proposal and verified the Youth's identity.

Because we had a backup plan for this kind of situation, and that was...

All five of us would state a sentence that only our own people knew to be true or false.

The four of us would naturally tell the truth, while the Slave would naturally tell an Unknown Lie.

This way, when the five of us simultaneously used our skills, the others wouldn't know exactly who among the five was lying.

And, we preemptively avoided the bugged Judgment effect of Qiu Yinong's Wheel of Time, as well as the possibility of Lin Xuan Judging indiscriminately.

I had to admit, the skills of these two Superego players, Qiu Yinong and Lin Xuan...

Were quite a bug!

The atmosphere solidified at this moment.

The five of us exchanged glances, nodded inconspicuously, and began to speak.

"This is my fourteenth time executing a hunting mission." I spoke first. Naturally, I told the truth, but the other players couldn't determine whether what I said was true or false.

"I am twenty-eight years old this year."

"My Points are at 358 Points."

"I died from a firing squad during my lifetime."

"I have six toes on my left foot."

The other four teammates also sequentially stated things that the other players couldn't distinguish as true or false.

But, only the five of us knew who was the lying Slave.

Hearing the Slave tell a lie, the next moment, all five of us simultaneously drew our guns.

Our guns pointed at the ceiling.

However, right at this moment, a bone-chilling voice rang out.

"You lied."

Lin Xuan raised his hand and fired a shot. The bullet struck the lying Slave squarely.

Right before the Slave died, his eyes went wide, as if he had figured out the crux of the matter. He roared with anger and unwillingness, "Liars! You guys..."

The Slave died!

Silence, a deathly silence filled the Ice Room.