Absolute Death Game

Having made up his mind, Xiao Buli walked towards the deeper parts of the maze. Initially, there was only one path, winding and turning with no straight sections in sight. Fortunately, there were no forks, so Xiao Buli didn’t have to pay much attention, and he simply kept walking. It didn’t take long before he arrived at a small square measuring about ten meters on each side.

The square was very regular, completely square in shape, with three exits facing different directions around its perimeter. In the center of the square stood a large stele with a strange poem neatly inscribed in standard script.

A horizontal and a vertical line connect the north and south, the west does not shine while the east does.

Choose left at even splits, right at odd, when hearts align understanding is not far sought.

Worn iron shoes will find no place to go, though paths run everywhere, none lead home.

Vast changes lie within illusion; do not contend; doubting gods and ghosts leads only to a lifeless end.

What does this mean? Xiao Buli was momentarily confused after reading the text on the stele. It was clear that the doggerel was some kind of hint for navigating the maze, seemingly to indicate the method to escape.

But isn’t this guidance too damn lowbrow? Isn’t the point of a maze to prevent outsiders from entering? Why design such hints? Is the designer of this maze sick?

Although he didn’t understand why there would be such a cheesy setup, he had seen plenty of such designs in many games, so he wasn’t surprised. Nevertheless, Xiao Buli decided to ponder the meaning.

"A horizontal and a vertical line connect the north and south," seems to suggest that the maze has two passages, one at the north and one at the south. If the one I came through is at the south, then the exit should be in the north.

"The west does not shine while the east does," must mean that the path to the west is impassable, and the path to the east is the way out.

"Choose left at even splits, right at odd," probably means when facing two forks, choose the left one and when there are three, choose the right. "When hearts align understanding is not far sought," does this mean as long as the meaning of the poem is grasped, one could walk out of the maze?

"But what does, ’Worn iron shoes will find no place to go, though paths run everywhere, none lead home,’ mean?" Xiao Buli thought hard but couldn’t come up with an explanation.

And as for "Vast changes lie within illusion; do not contend; doubting gods and ghosts leads only to a lifeless end," this made even less sense to him. The last two sentences just didn’t seem to mean anything at all, or it seemed like they might mean something, but when they were combined with the earlier lines, they made no sense.

However, at least he felt sure about the first four lines, though they seemed too simple. After hesitating for a while, he decided to walk and see. It would be great if the maze was indeed this simple, and with some uncertainty in his heart, he set foot on the path to the east.

There were many forks along the way, and he generally followed the instructions from before, "Choose left at even, right at odd." But after not too long, he came to a junction with four different paths.

This wasn’t covered in the instructions! He felt speechless inside, recalling the earlier poem, there really was no mention of this. Wait a minute, four is the square of two, so that should count as an even number, right? Then I should choose the left side.

With this thought, he headed down the path farthest to the left.

Ten minutes later, the path suddenly opened up, and Xiao Buli was stunned by what he saw—he had returned to the same small square with the stele, facing the same three paths, with the stone monument right before his eyes.

This is utterly bizarre, he thought. Although I’ve been turning left and right, I’ve clearly been heading north all along, so how did I end up back here? And I was following the instructions on the stele, wasn’t I? Did I misunderstand something?

He read the poem from top to bottom once more, but still, he couldn’t think of any other possibility.

Maybe the poem is just a lie meant to confuse me? Perhaps I could try walking in the opposite direction as a test. n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

With this thought, he chose the path to the west, still following "right at odd, left at even." Yet, fifteen minutes later to his astonishment, he found himself back at the small square with the stone monument once more.

Xiao Buli felt bewildered; it was the first time he found himself stumped by a game. No matter how difficult the games he played before, he always managed to find a solution. He had played quite a few puzzle games, where all you needed to do was find some items, arrange them in a certain order, and easily solve the puzzles. But he had never encountered something as bizarre as this before.

What’s happening here? He opened the map to check his coordinates, but they were just question marks: ???/???.

Perhaps he could draw the map. He asked someone for a piece of paper, and then he chose the middle path, walking while sketching a rough outline of the route. However, he quickly realized it was futile because, after twenty minutes, he found himself back at the small plaza, even though the drawn route on the map was clearly advancing forward with constant turns.

He didn’t set off again, instead he began to think hard, pondering over and over until another possibility occurred to him. Could it be visual deception? These maze corridors looked perfectly straight, but perhaps they were slightly off, and the corners that appeared to be right-angled were also deviated.

This kind of discrepancy wouldn’t matter after a turn or two, but after many turns, it would become significant, and one’s sense of direction could be distorted. Was he actually heading south when he thought he was going north?

If that was the case, then there was truly no solution, as there was no way to measure the angles of the passageways in this maze.

He looked around at the several corridors, even starting to doubt which was south and which was north.

’Searching in vain for what’s hard to find, paths leading everywhere but I am trapped.’ This saying really came true.

’Elusive changes need no contention, doubting ghosts and gods leads to death without life.’ What did that even mean? How could one not suspect ghosts and gods in such bizarre events?

Xiao Buli’s mind kept spinning, but no matter how much he thought, he couldn’t find a reasonable explanation. He opened his Attributes panel again.

Those seventeen points of Luck Value, which were once his greatest source of confidence, now seemed rather ridiculous—he felt annoyed by that comment of "The protagonist’s halo is nothing special after all." Which protagonist has ever been as unlucky as me?

But Xiao Buli wasn’t someone who gave up easily. He calmed himself down and tried again. This time, he did not follow the instructions on the stele; instead, he took the right path at every intersection, be it at a trio or duo of choices. According to his logic, this route might lead him into a dead end, but definitely not back to the starting point.

Yet, once again, after only more than ten minutes, he found himself back at the small plaza where the stele stood.

It really was like seeing a ghost! The thought suddenly rose in Xiao Buli’s mind. Other than supernatural forces, he could not think of any other explanation. If it were before, he might not have thought so, but after the incident with Lu Jiang, he did not dare to make rash judgments about such matters.

After two more attempts with the same result, he realized more and more that this maze didn’t seem like an ordinary maze; it was not something that could be explained with visual deception.

By noon, there was still no outcome. Every time, he would end up back where he started, but as he took different routes, he gradually discovered that the maze seemed to be constantly changing. Walking the same path, the first intersection initially had three ways, but the second time he retraced this route, the first intersection had turned into two ways.

Eventually, he even thought of retreating, taking the southern path to leave the maze, only to be surprised to find that he still ended up at the starting point—the small plaza with the stele.

Xiao Buli thought to himself that this must be a system BUG! Should he try finding a GM? However, Xiao Buli wasn’t even sure if this game had GMs, let alone their specific contact method, considering the game didn’t even have private messaging.

Forget it, let’s go eat first, and then see.

Xiao Buli knew he was already confused and thinking more about it would not yield any results. It was better to step away for a while. Fortunately, there were no monsters in the maze, so logging off was not an issue.

Today’s lunch included his favorite sweet and sour ribs and beef noodles. However, as he ate his beloved meals, he found them tasteless.

"Hey, what’s up? Ran into a tough problem?" Xiao Buli looked up and saw it was Wu Tao.

"Tao, right? I have a question for you, do you know how to contact a GM?"

"GM?" Wu Tao seemed to find the question amusingly odd, "I don’t even know if this game has GMs."

Hearing this response, Xiao Buli couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed.

"What’s the matter? You’re looking for a GM to help with a problem? That’s not like you. Didn’t you used to solve any issue you encountered in games yourself?"

Xiao Buli thought to himself that was true, but in face of this game, his past experience seemed utterly useless, leaving him feeling at a loss.

After a glance at Wu Tao, Xiao Buli thought that, having played games for so long, maybe Wu Tao knew something. With this in mind, he shared his encounter with the maze.

After listening, Wu Tao was visibly shocked, "You’re so lucky. Even though I don’t know what the deal is with this maze, judging by the nature of this game, whatever is hidden inside must be extraordinary for it to be so difficult."

PS: Apologies for the late update, two more chapters tomorrow.