117: Chapter 117 The Strange Tales Designer

Chen Mo had a clear train of thought in his mind.

Find this person, and kill him!

Combining this with the scenes seen during the previous spirit summoning ritual, it was possible that the other party was using the ghosts within the dungeon to carry out the act of hunting down teammates.

Therefore, that female player named Jiyin tonight...

...what she meant by seeing the river of fate was...

...that I will definitely use the sheepskin scroll to enter the dungeon where my parents died and find the clues to their deaths.

And at the same time, my use of the sheepskin scroll would bring benefits to Jiyin.

"Your expression looks a bit off. Did you remember something?"

"N-nothing." Chen Mo shook his head.

He opened the files related to No. 18 Hospital.

They had also been tampered with, clearly inconsistent with the Dean's memories.

Among them was a USB flash drive.

Chen Mo inserted the USB drive into the computer and double-clicked to open it.

Inside was a surveillance video.

The Dean had a cigarette in his mouth, wandering aimlessly to the entrance of the mental hospital.

He half-squatted on the ground, looking at the cemetery opposite.

His eyes were dull, his skin sallow, and he looked just like a mannequin.

At this moment, a person appeared out of thin air from an alley on the side of the mental hospital.

It crawled out of the shadows like a black silhouette.

The police might think this was a matter of lighting and angles, but Chen Mo knew... this was the ability of a Thriller Game player.

A humanoid black shadow stood leaning against the railing of the mental hospital.

At this moment, Chen Mo could clearly see that the other party was a man with a slicked-back hairstyle.

However, when the other party raised his palm and pressed it against his own face...

...Chen Mo and Lu Chengfeng's eyes both widened sharply!

The man's face was like a living insect, twitching and deforming incessantly.

The mouth split open, and the eyeballs moved to the chin.

The inside of his mouth expanded, devouring his own head and turning it into a ball of flesh.

He used his own mouth to eat his entire head!

Then, cracks appeared on the surface of the flesh ball, along with fissures and small holes.

They transformed into eyes and a nose.

Very quickly, it turned into another face, the face of a serious, rigid middle-aged man.

"This is definitely fake! Did someone tamper with this surveillance footage to deliberately dress up as a monster to scare people?!"

"This is a blatant challenge to the police!"

Lu Chengfeng rewound the footage of the transformation, pointed at the screen, and questioned it loudly.

Chen Mo frowned, his expression serious.

He replied, "Maybe."

However, Chen Mo was certain in his heart.

This footage had absolutely not been tampered with; this should be the effect of a skill card or an item.

But for ordinary people, they simply couldn't accept such a brand-new worldview.

"What do you mean 'maybe'? This is definitely an effect created using computer technology!"

"There are accomplices of the criminal suspect in the police station. If such people are planted in every police station, then what the hell are we police doing?"

"Where is justice? I must ferret out the mole!" Lu Chengfeng was exceptionally agitated.

"It's normal. Who says there are no bad people in the police station, and who can say that everyone outside the police station is a good person?"

The video continued to play.

Chen Mo saw the man having a brief conversation with the Dean.

The Dean, who originally seemed ready to commit suicide at any moment, dropped the cigarette from his mouth after hearing what the other party said.

After the man left, he stood there in thought.

Until a young man wearing a Patient jumped out from the iron railing of the mental hospital, jumping up and down like a monkey.

And after he gnawed on the Dean's leather shoes with his mouth.

Only then did the Dean move and re-enter the mental hospital.

The subsequent surveillance footage was more or less the same as what was recorded in the Dean's diary.

He followed what the man had said, purchased the materials to start the ritual, and then set the fire.

Under the originally silent night, a fireball fueled by the city was ignited in the center, waking everyone up in the middle of the night.

One surveillance shot was aimed directly at No. 18 Hospital.

Apart from the fire brigade that arrived upon hearing the news, there were also quite a few onlookers around.

"For this kind of ritualistic murder method, which combines artistry and the psychological pleasure of manipulating others, the criminal suspect will definitely return to the scene to repeatedly admire his artwork!"

Chen Mo narrowed his eyes slightly, carefully observing this group of people.

Then, he indeed discovered the man who had spoken with the Dean, standing in the crowd.

The police might have conducted relevant investigations before. It was 2048 now; as long as you dared to show your face, big data could extract all your information in a second.

But this man didn't look like that at all; this was just his disguise, and this person didn't even exist on Earth.

This face was his original creation, molded by himself.

"Is this person... related to my parents' death?" Chen Mo rubbed his brow repeatedly.

Lu Chengfeng, who was to the side, observed his expression the entire time. He knew he couldn't interrupt at this moment, as that would disrupt Chen Mo's train of thought.

He didn't know what kind of person or event Chen Mo had encountered, but in any case, it wasn't something he could know at the moment.

"No! His goal was to lure the Dean into the Thriller Game."

"Then what benefit does doing this bring him?"

"The Thriller Game is missing someone to play the BOSS. Someone is needed to fill this role, and if no one does, the plot cannot proceed."

"This dungeon would then be unable to operate normally, and then... it would affect his interests."

Chen Mo gasped; he thought of the most terrifying conjecture.

"This person... he is someone from the Management Group!"

"And... this guy is in a position similar to an Urban Legend Game designer."

When Chen Mo was clearing No. 18 Hospital, even the Group Leader didn't know that the Dean's hidden plot would be triggered.

And most of the other Administrators were just slacking off.

Only one person!

At the time, he revealed that he had participated in the design of the game.

"Lao Liu!"

"Before Su Qing and I were about to push open Ward 108, Lao Liu said that the pig cage was designed by him."

"However, it's possible that others also participated in the design; I can't be completely certain."

Now, one thing could be confirmed!

That the BOSS in the Thriller Game was very likely a former player, or a person from reality, who had been turned into an NPC and thrown into the game.

Vincent and the Dean had both been tragic figures in reality.

A certain seaside town.

A man wearing a black cloak walked unsteadily along a cobblestone path.

The sky above was covered with dark clouds, and the rain washed down in torrents, taking away the warmth from his body.

The man walked up to a small wooden cart, and the awning above blocked the rain.

He took off his hood, and an eyepatch was tied over the man's right eye.

Inside the small wooden cart sat another man, who had a cigarette in his mouth.

Looking at the newcomer, he laughed: "Heh heh, Lao Liu, it seems your eyeball is really gone. Now, looking like this, you really are pathetic!"