Chapter 66: Did I Kill Myself?

The first dark figure paused slightly, his voice tinged with uncertainty. "Chen Ran, are you saying that this door can be opened?"

"Of course." Chen Ran nodded, pointing at the book on the table. "Someone left a message for us, telling us to kill the two people who were going to be teleported in. Since the person who left the message isn't in this Secret Room and didn't blow open the bookshelves to leave, it means they left through the main door of the Study. Don't you agree..."

"Geng Hao!"

Geng Hao nodded, then shook his head. "My mind is a mess right now. Let me sort this out."

"We came in."

"We saw the hint on the desk: telling us to kill the two people who would be teleported in shortly."

"We waited for five minutes, and two people were finally teleported in."

"Those two people were you and me. More accurately, the second you and the second me. And we killed them."

As he spoke, he observed Chen Ran's expression. Seeing his continued nonchalance, Geng Hao immediately grew anxious.

"The ones who left the message in the Secret Room are highly likely to be you and me as well."

"In other words, at this very moment, there are at least three of you and three of me."

"Now, we have killed one you and one me, leaving two versions of us."

At this point, Geng Hao reached out, his trembling finger pointing toward the door of the Study. He spoke in horror, "That means, behind that door, there is highly likely another you and me..."

"Planning to ambush us!!"

"Don't panic," Chen Ran reassured him, seeing his paranoid state.

"I'm not panicking! Three versions of us arrived in this Secret Room one after another. The two we killed were the third batch, we are the second batch, which means the ones who left the message were the first batch."

"Tell me, out of these three batches, which one is the real us?"

Geng Hao was drenched in sweat. Just as he had said, he was incredibly confused and thoroughly terrified.

'If the first batch of Chen Ran and Geng Hao are the real Chen Ran and Geng Hao.'

'Then what am I?'

'Am I a fake?'

'Do I only exist in this Secret Room? Once the real Chen Ran and Geng Hao clear the stage, will the me and Chen Ran in this Secret Room be erased like NPCs when the game ends?'

Despite his lengthy rant, Chen Ran only replied with a single word: "Retreat."

The two hid in the shadows.

...

Chen Ran and Geng Hao woke up, slowly opening their eyes to observe their surroundings.

This was the First Secret Room of the Instance. However, inside the Study, there was no Hourglass or Glass Beads, no Second-round Simplified Characters, and the three bookshelves had not been blown up.

"Are we back?" Geng Hao asked uncertainly.

Just as Chen Ran was about to speak, the hairs on his body stood on end, and a wave of panic washed over him.

Bang!

Bang!

Two shots rang out. The first pierced cleanly through Geng Hao's head. The second shot was slightly off-target but still blew through Chen Ran's skull. Right before he died, he turned his head and looked at the two people who had fired.

"Did I kill myself...?" The shot Chen Ran collapsed headfirst, dying instantly.

From the darkness...

Geng Hao and Chen Ran stepped out. The former looked horrified, while the latter was deep in thought.

Neither spoke. Just like before, they first hid the bodies, then cleaned up the traces at the scene.

Only after finishing did they resume their conversation.

Geng Hao spoke solemnly, "This is already the fourth version of us..."

Chen Ran took a deep drag of his cigarette. "First, we need to confirm the mechanics of this Secret Room."

"Every five minutes, a version of you and a version of me will be simultaneously teleported here."

"Someone left a message on the desk, telling us to kill our newly teleported selves."

"Right now, there are only four bodies in the Study, and we killed them all. This proves that the 'us' who left the message is only separated from the current 'us' by a time difference of five minutes."

Geng Hao nodded.

'In this Secret Room, another version of us is teleported in every five minutes.'

'If they see the message, they will kill the versions of themselves from five minutes later.'

'But, there are only four bodies in the Secret Room right now, and we killed them all.'

'Which means we are the first batch to see the message, so the time gap between us and the ones who left it is only five minutes.'

Chen Ran pondered for a moment before continuing, "Secondly, we need to clarify one thing..."

"What is it?" Geng Hao asked.

"The prerequisite for the Liar-Slayer to fire at will is that both parties have lost their right to Judgment. Furthermore, a gunfight can only occur between individuals who have lost that right."

"We never questioned each other's qualifications, yet we can fire at will. Not only that, but we can also casually shoot and kill the other versions of ourselves. Don't you find that strange?"

Geng Hao mulled this over for a long time before finally grasping the meaning behind Chen Ran's words. "You mean, the Chen Ran and Geng Hao who left the message already lied and questioned each other's qualifications, causing both of them to lose their rights..."

"And any version of us spawned after them naturally possesses no right to Judgment!"

"Exactly!"

Chen Ran plopped down onto the floor, taking several fierce drags from his cigarette. "I've been suffocating! What the hell kind of Secret Room is this? I suspect this is deliberately making things difficult for me, Fat Tiger!"

For a 21st-century youth, being in a Hell where lying was forbidden was pure torture.

Naturally, upon learning that the Chen Ran from five minutes ago had lied—thereby causing the version of himself five minutes later to lose the right to Judgment as well—Chen Ran began speaking much more freely.

"Why are you looking at me? Is the answer written on my face? You are already a mature Veteran Player; you need to figure things out yourself."

Geng Hao: "..."

'How did this guy turn into a completely different person the moment the ban on lying was lifted?'

"In other words, this Secret Room is actually about us fighting ourselves?"

"Exactly!" Chen Ran nodded. "They left a message and intentionally lied. It's obvious they want the versions of us spawned later to slaughter each other. But why would they do this?"

"Forget about why for now. We first need to figure out whether we are the real Chen Ran and Geng Hao!"

"We aren't."

Those two words choked Geng Hao, rendering him speechless for a long time. But thinking about it carefully:

'It's like the Chicken-and-Egg Paradox. From the perspective of genetics and mutation, the egg definitely came first.'

'The real Chen Ran and Geng Hao had to exist first. Only by using them as templates could the subsequent versions of Chen Ran and Geng Hao be hatched.'

'Which means, the first duo to arrive in this Secret Room are... the real Chen Ran and Geng Hao.'

"Since we're fakes..."

"Stop right there!" Chen Ran, knowing what he was about to say, asked in return, "Do you still remember that before we came here, we sat on chairs first?"

Geng Hao nodded.

"Look here. When the game started, we went through that door and saw two chairs. We sat on the chairs and were teleported here."

"Did you notice that the process of sitting on the chairs could have been completely omitted?"

'Entering the door didn't directly teleport us here; instead, there was an intermediate process of sitting on chairs.'

'Totally unnecessary!'

'Unless...'

'Sitting on the chairs is some sort of necessary ritual!'

'In the second Secret Room, our memories were subjected to an Exchange while sitting on the chairs...'

"Are you implying that we are currently in a virtual world?"

"That should be the case." Chen Ran surveyed their surroundings, his gaze landing on the bookshelf where four corpses were hidden behind. "If this isn't a virtual world, do you really think a mere BOSS of a One-Star Instance could manage to duplicate us every five minutes?"

"Since this is a virtual world, it means the consciousnesses of the real Chen Ran and Geng Hao have also entered this virtual world."

"Kill them, replace them, and we can seize their bodies!"