Deceitful Game

Chapter 78 The Revised Death

—Were they being hunted down by charlatans?

Mingpo stroked her chin: "I see—"

If nothing unexpected happens, he probably knows what's going on.

This is all because of that secret treasure called the "Dionysus Shrine".

In a sense, this is also trouble that Mingpo got into.

There was nothing to hide from Ai Shiping—so Mingpo told him the whole story, as a reminder to prevent him from accidentally letting it slip outside.

"In other words," Ai Shiping keenly grasped the key point, subtly shifting from kneeling to sitting, "all the newly joined Deceivers—have actually already been targeted by those old Dengs, right?"

"That's right."

Mingbo nodded.

He pushed up his glasses, his deep blue pupils radiating a steady glow, his voice calm and reliable: "First, you need to know how a deceiver is born."

"The predecessors of the deceiver are the wrongfully killed, and all the wrongfully killed are ordinary people mistakenly killed by the deceiver." This mistaken killing does not refer to "accidentally killing you in a mistaken situation," but rather that he killed you from the wrong timeline without any causal relationship between you and the deceiver.

"For example, if I were to kill the girl across the hall under any circumstances, she would not be considered an innocent victim. Because I know her, and she knows me, there is a cause and effect between us."

"I am not familiar with the new residents who moved in on the first floor—if I manifest myself and kill them, they will not become innocent victims; but if I use the power of the Deceitful Game to go back in time and kill them on the way here before they move in—then they will become innocent victims because of me."

"If they become Deceivers through the initial game—then, since Deceivers exist independently of the timeline, any time modifications made to them will be ineffective, and the fact that I went back in time and killed them will be erased."

"But because they are indeed dead, they too could die now by some accident, and time would be altered by some force. In other words, our true cause of death is very likely different from our apparent cause of death."

Mingbo analyzed in a deep voice, "This is the truth behind 'the deceivers have deceived the world.' This is also why we are called 'deceivers.'"

"So, can I understand this to mean," Ai Shiping concluded, "that if someone becomes a deceiver, people will think they died in the present? But if they don't become a deceiver, they'll think they died sometime in the past?"

"To be precise, not now. Rather, it's the actual time they 'entered the game of deception.'"

Mingbo nodded: "Besides, if they hadn't been affected by the effects of time, they would be alive now."

While this is not a definitive, verified fact, it is roughly accurate.

Because Mingpo remembered that in the first game, Chen Bingwen had said that he was killed by a car.

He was certain that Chen Bingwen had not lied at the time.

However, Mingpo later saw in the news that Chen Bingwen was shot and killed by "unidentified persons" abroad.

In the game "The Mysterious School," before meeting up with Gao Fan, Mingpo subtly inquired about Attorney Chen's background. She discovered that, in Attorney Chen's own memory, he had never been abroad in his life!

Lin Ya, however, is a rather special case.

Because in the first game, Attorney Chen said she had committed suicide. At that time, she had been dead for a long time—but a person who commits suicide certainly cannot become a charlatan, so she must have been murdered.

But this morning, when Mingpo was checking the information, he discovered that Lin Ya had committed suicide just last month, which did not match what Attorney Chen knew: "Lin Ya committed suicide half a year ago."

The news report about Gao Fan mentioned that he was in a car accident with his girlfriend.

But Mingpo is certain that Gao Fan doesn't have a girlfriend at all.

Mingpo briefly recounted everything to Ai Shiping, then asked, "Do you remember how you died?"

Ai Shiping recalled: "I remember—it was my boss who messaged me, asking me to come to the company to hand over my work. After all, I'm going to start work next month, so he wanted me to come and take a look around the company."

"—When I was replying to a message on the street, I thought I saw you. I froze for a second, and then a speeding dump truck hit and killed me."

"So it was you, you despicable bastard, who stole my lifespan back then!"

Upon hearing these familiar words, Mingpo's eyes widened immediately.

He countered, "Didn't you receive my call before you left?"

"What call?"

Ai Shiping was somewhat surprised: "You called me? I don't remember you disappearing for a week."

—In that instant, Mingpo understood.

From that moment on, Ai Shiping had already become a wrongfully killed person.

He was still in the waiting stage at the time and did not participate in the qualifiers.

Although Mingpo later used the power of the Time Chip to go back in time and prevent Ai Shiping's death—according to the rules of the Deceitful Game, this actually canceled Ai Shiping's identity as the Deceitful One, which is equivalent to temporarily banning Ai Shiping's account because of logging in from a different location—even though Ai Shiping had just "created a character" and hadn't even completed the beginner quests yet.

But after that, someone revised Ai Shiping's operation.

It's estimated that Ai Shiping was killed much earlier, or perhaps he was prevented from recognizing Mingpo. In that case, Mingpo's alteration of Ai Shiping's cause of death would not hold water.

Although Ai Shiping died earlier, because he had already become a deceiver at another point in time, his subsequent death was merely "retrieving his banned account" rather than "recreating a character."

"—Time-based abilities are really troublesome."

Mingpo sighed: "Now I finally understand the selection mechanism of the Deception Game."

"What exactly have you figured out?" Ai Shiping asked curiously. "Tell me about it."

"————Hmm."

Mingpo thought for a moment, then shook his head: "Never mind, too much trouble. Anyway—those people chasing you are probably the same ones who ran you over with that otherworldly dump truck."

"Because they investigated you before killing you and knew your personal information, any one of their subordinates could immediately know where your anchor point might be if they observed you participating in any game."

"There's no need to even observe it."

Ai Shiping nodded, then shook his head: "I only found out about this after I encountered a deceiver from the Realm of Slaughter!"

"Before he died, he told me that he had known me for a long time. Their organization wanted to get rid of me—and that someone had already come looking for me."

"My title is Fox." My permanent effect is the ability to detect hostility in the air. I was so nervous when I went out because I smelled hostility. I thought they had broken down the door and kidnapped you—but even before that, I realized that our anchor points were connected.

"When I stepped out of my mental anchor point, I realized the hostility was drifting in from outside the window—they're probably lurking outside right now!"

—It sounds like the other party has turned against them.

"Don't be afraid," Mingpo said, "This trouble is somewhat of my doing—I'll help you sort it out."

"Great, great, Dad's awesome!"

Ai Shiping immediately beamed with joy: "Boss, hurry up and take them out, it'll help make up for my losses—I don't have any chips left to participate in the promotion game!"

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