Please don't question multi-week players

Chapter 257. Diagnosed with Mental Illness
This was a very simple questionnaire with several questions. Jiang Jianxin carefully read through the instructions and then looked at the first question:

[Question 1: Which of the following characters do you prefer?]

[A. Xiaoming in the residential building]

[B. Xiao Mei in the bar]

[C. Xiao Ke in the hospital]

[D. Xiao Hao in the office building]

After reading the options, she felt the question was really absurd, so she randomly chose option A.

[Question 2: Xiaoming wanted to take a walk, so he left his apartment building. While walking, he suddenly stopped. Why do you think he stopped?]

[A. He saw something strange.]

[B. He stepped on something strange.]

[C. He was being targeted by something strange.]

[D. He was pulled by something strange.]

Jiang Jianxin fell silent upon seeing the second question.

Xiaoming didn't know why she stopped; she only knew that she really needed to stop and think things through.

[The answer is true, so how do I choose the correct answer?]

Jiang Jianxin quickly called for backup in his mind.

I don't know.

Intuition, unusually, gave a negative answer.

The Fool's Dilemma is inherently flawed; from the very first question, all the answer choices were wrong.

Unable to find the answer through intuition, Jiang Jianxin saw no difference between the four options, so she randomly chose the one that looked most normal, A, and then looked at the next question.

To her surprise, the next multiple-choice question began to writhe strangely before her eyes. The black printed text twisted and deformed like a living thing, and the original question gradually dissolved and reassembled right before her eyes, eventually transforming into a completely new question.

[Short answer: Xiaoming died; he collapsed on the road—so what do you think he suffered?]

Jiang Jianxin gasped, completely dumbfounded. Her brain raced, and she went back to the previous question, crossed out option A, and changed it to C.

The questions below maintained the multiple-choice format, and Jiang Jianxin breathed a sigh of relief, continuing to read:

[Question 3: Xiaoming also felt that something was wrong with his surroundings, but there was no one on the road. He felt scared, so he wanted to go to __]

[A. The hospital's emergency room, which was bustling with activity]

[B. A convenience store by the roadside, but it was dark inside.]

[C. The office building behind him, brightly lit.]

[D. A bar across the street, where shadowy figures were moving about]

Jiang Jianxin hesitated as he looked at the options.

Xiaoming is currently being watched by something strange. He feels very scared, so he wants to find a place where there are people. Options A and D both have people, but they both look very eerie.

Jiang Jianxin was afraid that Xiaoming would mess up again, after all, it was his own membership questionnaire, and if he messed up too many times, his score would definitely be very bad.

After thinking for a long time, she chose a hospital that seemed more righteous.

Almost the next second after the selection was completed, the questions began to shift and change, and a new question was formed:

[Question 4: Xiaoming died. He collapsed in the hospital and was dismembered into pieces—who is the murderer?]

Jiang Jianxin felt a pang of unease, and she muttered to herself:
"Seriously... this question is so bizarre?"

She hurriedly returned to the previous question, and after some thought, chose the more conservative option C. Although there were no figures in this option, it mentioned lights, so it seemed like there were people there.

However, the question was changed again, and the result was still unsatisfactory.

[Question 4: Xiaoming is dead. He collapsed in an office building and was chopped in two. Who is the murderer?]

Jiang Jianxin scratched his head and went back to the previous question to change the answer. This time, he changed it to B, which had no one in sight.

The questions did not involve creeping transformations; question 5 worked correctly.
[Question 5: Xiaoming arrived at a convenience store. He stood in the dark shop and heard the wind chimes at the door ringing. Do you think something followed him?]

[A. Yes]

[B. No] Jiang Jianxin didn't understand. She was thinking, "Isn't this a stupid question?"

—The wind chimes at the door are ringing, so someone must have followed us, right?

So she chose A without hesitation.

The exam paper turned right at that point, and Jiang Jianxin casually flipped to the next page, only to find the screen suddenly go black, revealing a strange smile on the screen:

[Xiao Ming killed you. The question is now closed.]

"?"

Jiang Jianxin opened his eyes wide and said in disbelief:
"No... what's going on?"

The screen briefly went dark and then lit up again. The exam paper automatically flipped to the first page, with the words "Score submitted. Answers cannot be modified at this time. Please wait patiently for the final grading results" at the top.

Jiang Jianxin swiped the screen and found that although the answer could no longer be modified, he could still view the questions and his own options normally.

She went through the question again from beginning to end in disbelief, only to discover that something was wrong.

The story begins with Xiaoming saying something is bothering him after he leaves the house, and the rest of the story revolves around Xiaoming and the strange thing.

She thought she should protect Xiaoming, so she kept resetting the options to keep Xiaoming alive.

However, deducing from the last line of text that appeared on the black screen—Xiao Ming was able to kill him…so he was actually that strange thing?

Is the real mission to kill Xiaoming?
This angle greatly shocked her, and Jiang Jianxin recalled the options she had chosen that would lead to Xiaoming's death.

Aside from choosing the wrong answer the first time, they all had one thing in common: they would make the next question a short answer question, and all the short answer questions asked who the murderer was.

So, the murderer has to answer for themselves, and then they can end the questionnaire and get a happy ending?

Jiang Jianxin's failed attempt at answering the question sparked a strong curiosity about the correct answer. It was at this moment that new information appeared at the beginning of the test:

[Your final score is: 28 points (out of 100, passing score is 60)]

[The correct answers to the current exam have been updated and are available for your viewing.]

Jiang Jianxin glanced at the score and felt as if an arrow had pierced her heart. She gritted her teeth and looked at the correct answer with resentment.

There were no boxes selected for the first question.

For the second question, I selected options A, B, and D. The brief answer was a line of small print: "Feel free to use your own methods of killing."

For the third question, I checked the three options A, C, and D. The easy questions are listed in order:
[A-4 Short Answer: The murderer is Xiao Ke from the hospital and you]

[C-4 Short Answer: The murderers are Xiao Hao from the office building and you.]

[D-4 Short Answer: The murderer is Xiaomei from the bar and you]

Jiang Jianxin felt that these names were familiar. She went back to look at the first question and found that these names corresponded exactly to the options in the first question.

Below the correct answer, there is a line of small print: "Note that the name here is just a code name, and the actual species is not necessarily human."

[Oh, I thought it was a question from the Fool's Day test. Typical me, there are no answers.]

Intuition suddenly spoke in my mind.

Why should there be no answer to the first question?

Jiang Jianxin asked.

[You didn't read the question carefully. The first question asks for "people," but these four options only read out names—they don't necessarily refer to any actual people.]

Intuition speaks for itself.

The truth, like a howling wind, chilled Jiang Jianxin to the bone and shocked him.

Her pupils contracted slightly, and somewhat dejectedly, she took a screenshot of the completed exam paper and sent it to Xie Yan.

The other person remained online and replied quickly, the content of which surprised Jiang Jianxin.

[Xie Yan]: Huh, Jian Zun only got 28 points on such a simple question?

[Xie Yan]: I didn't realize that Sword Master's mental state... seemed a bit off?

I'll explain why Xie Yan said that in the next chapter. Time for bed.

No filler chapters, but remember the strange logic behind this questionnaire; the world of fools is incredibly eccentric!