On the blueprint, there was only one coordinate and a single sentence.
Catherine indeed could not understand, because she really did not know how absurd the upcoming events would be.
But she asked very seriously:
"When you say you’re about to disappear, do you mean... you’re leaving Wind City?"
John nodded, then shook his head:
"At the very least, you won’t see me in Wind City anymore."
Tears welled up in Catherine’s eyes:
"Will you stay, for me?"
This was the final scene of cg14, with John’s eyes showing struggle and hesitation.
In Catherine’s eyes, there was only sadness and reluctance.
...
cg15, the last cg.
Scorpio revealed a secret to John, while he was still struggling:
"Poor John, in your process of vacillating and struggling, let me show you something."
"This is the negative impact brought by Tengyi."
Scorpio handed John a sheet, as if it was a form from the future.
It listed numerous instances of children losing themselves in Tengyi’s games and starting to steal their parents’ credit cards.
At the same time, "Doomsday," the first game John made with real effort, also started to show numerous monetization points.
In the later stages of the game, the gap between paying and non-paying players became astonishingly wide.
Moreover, there were features such as enhancements and amplifications, endless money pits. To boost spending, exclusive skins that were labeled as "limited-time" were introduced.
If missed once, they would never appear again.
Thus, to obtain these exclusive skins, players eagerly spent money. But what’s most diabolical was that during anniversaries and such events, these "limited" skins would make a return.
So-called "limited," depended entirely on the planners’ whims.
The more John read, the more furious he became.
"The person responsible for all of this is your teacher. He really gathered all the worst practices from game planning and applied them all."
"There were also various group activities with rewarding prizes in the game, like two groups collectively fighting zombies, but with player-versus-player elements. This was to allow paying players to kill others with reason."
"But for those little rewards, non-paying players had no choice but to participate, becoming toys for the paying players, interesting, right?"
"John, what are you still struggling with?"
At the end of cg15, John sat alone on the bench in the villa’s courtyard, hugging his knees and staring at the river.
The time was six hours ago.
This was the end of the cg.
...
...
Reality, cg16.
After Wen Xishu saw all this, he felt very conflicted inside.
Scorpio said:
"Brother, I really love games. You should have realized this from the moment you got my knife."
"Although I don’t know where you got this knife... but Brother, it must have helped you a lot."
"I am not a bad person, you know."
Wen Xishu asked an unrelated question:
"Why do you call me brother? But you call John, ’poor John.’"
Scorpio said with a smile:
"Your looks resemble my brother a bit."
"Which brother? Which zodiac sign?" Wen Xishu’s courage increased.
Scorpio maintained his smile:
"Brother, are you going to follow him? Then I can kill you right now. The world is so big, there must be someone who resembles him more than you."
Wen Xishu fell silent.
Scorpio got down from the bench, looking at the river:
"Money has caused games to develop abnormally. John’s thoughts, as a matter of fact, are not wrong either. What do you think, Brother?"
Wen Xishu said:
"So... will all these people in this city turn into zombies?"
Scorpio shook his hand dismissively:
"There are no people, Brother. You are the only people here; the rest are just NPCs."
Wen Xishu suddenly realized he couldn’t discuss life-related topics with these beings who consider themselves gods.
At crucial times, he himself could also abandon everything, let alone a being like Scorpio with some divine attributes.
Wen Xishu said:
"If I agree with you... can I leave alive?"
Wen Xishu actually did not agree with John.
John fundamentally misunderstood something, and Wen Xishu didn’t believe that the greatest danger in this mission was encountering Scorpio.
If it were any other Bunker player without Scorpio’s cheating knife, what attitude would Scorpio have taken?
Would he also have made the Bunker player agree with him?
Moreover, his own resemblance to Scorpio’s brother, was it merely polite talk or truly so?
In any case, Wen Xishu was now in a very interesting situation; what was considered the greatest crisis by all players was not a crisis for Wen Xishu.
Scorpio’s attitude was not necessarily friendly. This god-like being, though capricious, did not show much hostility either.
But Wen Xishu would not leave anything to chance; if agreeing with Scorpio was all it took, he could force himself to recognize John’s "purity."
And just now, he already found the Easter egg in John’s game.
He also understood why Blind could survive.
Now returning to the game, Wen Xishu just needed to go to the coordinates marked in the Easter egg to find the clue for clearing the game.
Logically, this trip to the Desire Tower could be wrapped up just by agreeing with Scorpio.
He could even gain Scorpio’s favor.
But the easy thing was not the right thing. The words from Albert had somehow been imprinted in Wen Xishu’s mind.
If everything in the Desire Tower were so easily accomplished, it would indeed be fine.