Chapter 1608: The Solution to Zero-Sum Game is Not to Play
Wu Yiliu's voice fell for half a minute, and the camping cabin was still filled only with the sound of a TV drama, echoing faintly in the dead silence of the living room. The flickering light from the screen washed over the dark night outside like waves.
"Alright," he said, turning his gaze away from the two on the couch and opening his palm to reveal a small, green, curved object that resembled a pea shoot. "Then I'll begin."
Abby closed her eyes tightly again, her hands clutching the edges of the chair.
"Wait!" Cuining suddenly cried out from the couch. "Hold on, we can talk."
"You talk so much, surely because you don't want to transform either, right?" Pence said, pausing slightly as if still hesitant about the concept of "transformation." Neither of the players occupying the bodies of the two on the couch had ever heard Wu Yiliu's story. They were probably hearing about infection transformation for the first time.
"Is Christo back?" Wu Yiliu asked, looking around the room.
The two on the couch were intertwined, leaning back on each other, looking quite ridiculous when quiet. But when they spoke, the scene seemed eerie.
Cuining's neck was tightly bound, her voice choked and shrill as she still looked at the ceiling. "How did you know?"
Wu Yiliu didn't know. Knowing implies certainty, and he was only guessing: first, that the timing was right, and second, that the two who hadn't heard the story seemed to accept his words entirely. Relying solely on "Abby" to explain seemed too quick.
"I apologize, but how can we be sure that "Abby" and Christo didn't whisper to us secretly during the negotiation?" he said, without explaining. "Until you prove this to me, I will not stop to talk with you."
"But we also don't know how to prove it," Cuining spoke again, apparently having a slightly higher status as a player. "The driver's pocket dimension just appeared, we're the first batch of players, and we're not familiar with—"
"I have a way," Wu Yiliu interjected.
Cuining was silent for a few seconds before asking, "What way? How do you have a way?"
The method was not complex. Wu Yiliu had already returned the [Priest Roman Collar] to Abby. Like many Special Items, it could not be used consecutively by the same person, but if Abby acted as the priest and targeted "Abby," it could bypass the limitations of usage and targets, working once more—although only once, with an effect lasting ten minutes.
However, at least for those ten minutes, "Abby" would monitor the other players' movements wholeheartedly at Abby's request. Abby had pen and paper ready, and the devoted believer "Abby" would ask her to write down the situation if anything happened. This was considering that Abby might not hear the whisper even if she tried to listen during the conversation.
"Times change," Abby said to the air, nearly laughing as she touched a piece of white on her collar. "You just brainwashed me, didn't you? Bet you didn't expect to be controlled by me now. And you'll have to come forward and be controlled."
Nobody expected it—not even Wu Yiliu himself. Just in case, he prepared another trick: he put women's shoes on Cuining and tied his own and Abby's legs to their chairs.
"What are you doing?" Cuining asked, seemingly displeased.
"I hid a needle in the knot. When we untie ourselves and get pricked, I will activate my binding item." In reality, he had no needle, but the players couldn't see such a small detail anyway.
"All four brainwashing items are on Cuining and Pence. If the situation evolves to the point where we all transform, you four will inevitably compete for those two bodies," he said, smiling. "Consider it my divide-and-conquer strategy."
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"Shouldn't we pause the TV first?" Cuining asked.
"No, I need to maintain an external pressure on you," Wu Yiliu calmly replied. "It's different from your whispered brainwashing. If you focus on my voice and our conversation, ignoring the TV drama, you won't be infected and transformed. It's fair, as we are also taking the same risk."
Another ulterior motive, he did not explicitly say, but the players probably guessed it themselves.
If the players want to brainwash them during the conversation, bypassing many obstacles, their attention will inevitably shift from the dialogue to issuing commands - the commands given to the puppets during brainwashing are simple and repetitive, and will not occupy even one-tenth of their attention. Once the players' attention wanders, they might let the content of the TV show into their minds. Of course, this does not necessarily happen 100% of the time, but even if there is only a 1% chance, Wu Yiliu has no reason not to take advantage of it.
Unfortunately, it is impossible to be flawless in every aspect at all times.
Wu Yiliu has made all the preparations, and now it's finally time to take a risk: just sitting in the chairs and talking, he and Abby are already risking their lives.
"You've said so much, isn't it just to gain leverage for yourself?" the person controlling Pence said rudely. "What do you want?"
"It's not that we're deliberately making things difficult for you," Cuining said softly. "The situation has turned out this way, and we really don't want to continue. If we can quit, we will. But the pocket dimension has started, and it's not under our control. Unless it runs its full cycle, it won't end. So, I really don't know what you're planning."
Indeed, the pocket dimension generally does not allow players to quit on their own. If all the players die, then the pocket dimension should end; but they are not very lucky, and no one has the ability to kill through sound.
"What punishment will you face if you lose?" Cuining, as a controlled puppet, asked with a touch of anxiety and fear in her voice. "I don't know. It's not specified in the introduction of the pocket dimension. The lack of an explanation is more worrying than having one."
That was understandable.
"Then satisfy my curiosity first," Wu Yiliu said after a moment of thought. "I've been wondering all along why the effect produced by the pocket dimension is called 'brainwashing'. That's quite interesting. How do you do it when you brainwash? Show me. I know there must be more to it than just repeatedly giving commands for us to raise our fingers."
Abby looked at him a little nervously, keeping time, probably wondering why Wu Yiliu was wasting precious time on technical details.
"If you know it all, why are you asking?" Pence challenged.
"I need you to explain it to me." Wu Yiliu shrugged, feeling his legs going numb from being tied up. "It won't hurt you, maybe you can even brainwash me in the process, right?"
"If it's said by the target, there's no brainwashing effect," Cuining said, then diplomatically added, "You're right, before and during giving commands, we need to repeatedly instill some information into the target... information that does not correspond to reality."
It was like when he was brainwashed by whispers, even though it was just after two in the afternoon, a night scene momentarily appeared in his view, and it felt quite natural. Wu Yiliu did not elaborate, only saying, "Oh?"
"For example," Cuining said, "if you're sitting on a red chair, I would repeatedly tell you it's white. Your eyes clearly see red, so at first, your consciousness naturally won't believe me. Then I have to keep insisting that it is indeed white, that you're seeing it wrong, that the red is the sunset light coming in, or that your eyes are bleeding, or for some reason, you don't want to admit it's white... All of this happens without you even noticing. Over time, you'll slowly come to believe me, thinking you're sitting on a white chair. The human brain is a powerful thing; once you believe it in your mind, even what you see with your eyes will turn white." She laughed lightly. "To be honest, the camping cabin as seen by you four targets in the pocket dimension has changed drastically from when you first saw it."
Wu Yiliu suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.
"We can't see the actual appearance of the cabin, but the pocket dimension provides content for brainwashing, both concrete and abstract. We don't need to actually see things to repeatedly instill distorted information in you," Cuining said with a smile. "I saw you probably put the DVD player under the TV just now, right?"
Wu Yiliu refrained from responding.
"You've forgotten, so you didn't notice anything wrong with where you placed the DVD player," Cuining said leisurely. "Under the TV, there's a fireplace. It's a real pity, there's no fire in the fireplace, otherwise, your DVD player would have melted by now."
It took a great deal of effort for Wu Yiliu not to turn and look—he knew well that he had only seen a brick wall before, and looking again probably wouldn't make any difference.
"We can't see the fireplace, so naturally, we won't make a fire," he said, forcing himself to remain calm.
Indeed, after Cuining's reminder, he vaguely recalled that when they first arrived at the cabin, there was indeed a fireplace, and he even made a fire... Yet, while he was fussing with the TV earlier, he hadn't realized at all that he was next to a fireplace.
What else was different? He didn't dare trust his eyes anymore; if what they believed to be real was used by the players to turn the tables, they would be in trouble.
"But what use is knowing this to you?" Cuining asked.
"I have an idea about how to end this pocket dimension," Wu Yiliu said slowly. "If both sides hold off and don't act, then with some patience, we can all leave the pocket dimension one by one through teleportation. Neither side will be in any danger. All you need to do is come up with a way to prove to me that all four of you agree with this plan and won't attack us anymore."