Losing Money to Be a Chapter 447 - A Little Game

Chapter 447 A Little Ga

March 11th, Friday...

Despite having two dark eye circles, Qiao Liang persisted through Ga Designer’s storyline. He had only one expression: indignance!

An entire week had passed since Be Quiet was officially released. Yet, until now, not a single copy of the ga had been sold.

It was not because the ga was rubbish, and no one wanted to play it. In fact, many people had no idea what the ga even looked like.

Nobody had managed to solve the riddle and obtain the so-called ‘invitation letter’!

Many people had already given up, cursing and swearing as they did so. Obviously, the developing team’s willful behavior had severe reverse-psychological effects on gars, turning many of them away.

Those with bad tempers dissed the developing team for being ‘insane’. After that, they stopped updating themselves about the ga altogether. Those with more patience continued to check on forums every day after giving up. They wanted to see how far the bosses had gone with solving the riddle. Their intention was to copy the answers once it was solved.

A minority of gars were truly hardcore. They, like Qiao Liang, were still trying to find the answer to the next step in the riddle, not being able to rest or sleep until they did so.

During this period, they’ve all exhausted different thods.

They had filled all sorts of content into the two input fields. However, the webpage still showed no response.

Thus, everyone guessed that the next ssage was hidden in another ga.

As Tengda Gas’ classic piece of work, countless people had completed Repent and be Saved many tis. However, nobody managed to find a single clue.

A few bosses even found out that Tengda was constructing a haunted house nad ‘Thriller Hostel’ and went down to the construction site to search for clues.

In the end, the person-in-charge—whose surna was Chen-chased them out in frustration. He also told them that the project was not even done, and it could not have been a part of the riddle.

After playing all the other gas and ensuring that he could not find anything from them, Qiao Liang turned to The Lonely Desert Road and Ga Designer once again.

All of a sudden, Qiao Liang realized sothing. Given what he knew about Boss Pei, it seed that it was possible for him to hide even more clues in those two gas!

Who said that each ga could only contain one clue?

Wouldn’t players be missing things right under their noses if they stopped playing a ga just because they found one clue inside?

What’s more, both of Boss Pei’s codes were to be solved in similar manners. Thus, whether ti was tight or Boss Pei was trying to make gars’ lives easier, the riddle was probably not as difficult as they thought.

That ant that Boss Pei probably asked his programr to only edit two gas in the interest of ti. What’s more, only the simplest parts had been edited!

With that, Qiao Liang entered The Lonely Desert Road once again.

This ti, he did not find any new clues. However, he noticed one thing: instead of taking three hours to collect all the alphabets, much less ti was needed now!

Qiao Liang’s head began to hurt imdiately.

Isn’t this unfair to the f*cking forerunner?! I suffered and drove for three hours, and yet other people can now find all the alphabets in just one hour?

His heart hurt so bad that he could not help but hug himself. However, on further thought, he realized sothing more important.

Less ti was needed to collect all the clues now. That ant that once he found the clue, Boss Pei had asked his programr to edit the ga again. Why?

The clue had already been found. Others would not have to enter The Lonely Desert Road to drive again. Why did Boss Pei ask the programrs to edit the ga?

“Could it be...

“Is Boss Pei hinting that one has to find the clues on his own for it to count?”

A realization dawned on Qiao Liang, and he quickly opened Ga Designer.

He had once reached the ending where he lost all his hard-earned money. However, the ga had only been released a while ago, April last year.

Strictly speaking, Qiao Liang had reached the ending before, but he had not found the clue on his own!

Qiao Liang was already very familiar with every choice and ending in Ga Designer. He ran through it quickly, without having to think. In ten minutes, he reached the first choice for the ending where he would lose all his hard-earned money.

After that, he found the string of clues made up of the numbers ‘o’, ‘1’, and ‘2’. The code had already been cracked it was the double pinyin for ‘Search ‘Thriller Hostel”.

“What’s next?”

Nothing surprising happened.

Qiao Liang steered his character in the ga until he reached the last stage of the ‘losing everything’ ending. He started searching for sothing without knowing what it was that he was looking for.

All of a sudden, he noticed a report on the wall.

In the original ending, the report criticized the failed ga designer. Its title had been ‘You can only truly master knowledge if you personally put it to practice’. The report had been there from the beginning, criticizing the failed designer (or the player) for having high hopes but low capabilities. He could give a lot of guidance while playing others’ gas and yet failed when he had tried to design his own.

The title was still the sa now, but Qiao Liang had sharply noticed that the font in the title was different from the fonts of all the other titles. Obviously, it had been changed!

However, most players would stop playing the ga once they obtained the earlier clue. Even if they got to this stage by chance, they would not have been searching for another clue. Naturally, they would not have noticed this title.

Qiao Liang quickly exited the ga and entered the title into the input fields on TPDb’s website.

Indeed, there was no response.

After pondering for a mont, Qiao Liang typed his Tengda account userna and password into the input fields and then hit ‘enter’.

This ti, the webpage changed!

Qiao Liang realized that he had guessed correctly! They only had to type two simple things into the input field: their userna and password. There was nothing extraordinary!

However, they had to personally find the first clue in The Lonely Desert Road and the second clue in the ‘losing everything’ ending of Ga Designer before typing their userna and password into the input fields!

What’s more, they could only do this after Be Quiet was released.

Pei Qian had especially hidden a subtle hint in the final stage of the ‘losing everything’ ending. He had changed the font of the words ‘You can only truly master knowledge if you personally put it to practice’ to hint to gars that they had to find the two clues on their own to solve the riddle.

Many people could not guess it because they had misunderstood the rules of the ga. They didn’t think they had to look for the clues themselves since everyone else had already found them. Thus, no one had fulfilled both criteria.

The webpage didn’t react after they entered their Tengda account userna and password.

That ford a vicious cycle. Everyone began to think that their usernas and passwords could not have been the answers to the input fields. As ti went by, people stopped trying!

Qiao Liang could not help but feel proud.

It was a good thing that he had played The Lonely Desert Road again and realized the change. That was how he had guessed Boss Pei’s intentions!

Otherwise, he would not have reached the ‘losing everything’ ending of Ga Designer again, much less tried entering his Tengda account userna and password in TPDb’s website once more.

Boss Pei had indeed managed to stump so many gars by only editing the two simplest gas and TPDb’s website.

Still... his close friend, Teacher Qiao, had cracked the code!

Qiao Liang beca arrogant.

At that mont, the input fields on the black web page disappeared. Instead, a pale invitation letter appeared. There were lines of words written in blood that seed to be dripping from the paper.

“Congratulations. You are the first lucky one to obtain this invitation letter.

“You’ve already proven your intelligence and perseverance. You are now good enough to beco food for the hostel.

“If you, the smart and delicious human, are prepared to sacrifice yourself to Thriller Hostel now, just do as I say:

“First, find a random cara.

“Second, use your account and password to enter the ga. Enter this series of codes where the bloody handprint is.

“We’ve prepared a very interesting ga for you...”

There was a code made up of a string of random English alphabets and numbers at the bottom of the letter.

Qiao Liang already had a cara, but he did not use it often. At once, he dusted it off and clipped it onto his computer’s monitor, making sure that it was pointing at him.

Then, he opened Be Quiet and clicked on the bloody handprint.

There had been no response when he had clicked it before, but an input field appeared now. Qiao Liang quickly typed the code.

He had not thought about sharing the news with other gars yet because he wanted to beco Be Quiet’s first player.

His screen went black as if he had just entered a small program. There was a mirror on the screen, which reflected Qiao Liang’s own face.

The ga had programd the cara image to look as if it were a reflection in the mirror. That made Qiao Liang feel like the screen was a window, through which he was looking in the mirror.

However, the mirror looked dusty and blurry. It was frightening.

On one hand, it was because Qiao Liang’s cara was blurred to begin with. On the other hand, the ga’s programr had also increased the blurriness of the cara’s image.

There was a line of words written in blood beside the mirror: ‘Stare at the blood print on the mirror’.

There was a dotted fra on the mirror, outlining the silhouette of a face. The ga seed to be directing Qiao Liang to adjust his cara so that his face fitted within the outline.

Qiao Liang had placed his cara on top of his monitor before. He adjusted it downwards and brought himself closer to the monitor, and then the dotted fra on the mirror disappeared.

At that mont, a blood print on the mirror began to spread. Qiao Liang stared at it as it spread continuously, covering most of the mirror before it finally stopped.

After that, the blood print disappeared. The line of words written in blood changed. “Keep facing yourself in the mirror. No matter what happens, do not look away.”“Does it an to ‘keep staring’ at myself?” Qiao Liang stared at his own face in the mirror and realized a subtle glow appeared around the place at which he was staring. The glow followed wherever his eyes looked.

“Eye-tracking?” This was surprising and unexpected to Qiao Liang.

Eye-tracking was not considered high-end technology. In fact, it had been in the market two years ago. The cara could detect the muscles around the eyes and the pupils, to roughly estimate the spot on the screen that the eyes were focused on. Many applications on the internet were also making use of eye-tracking.

Of course, the technology was not as ideal as one would hope. First, the user had to be front-facing the cara. Second, the system had to collect a bunch of data points. Obviously, that was what the ga had been doing while Qiao Liang’s eyes followed the blood print around the mirror.

The entire process was quite complicated, but Boss Pei’s simple packaging made everything feel more strange and imrsive.

Third, eye tracking had poor precision. It could only roughly detect the general direction in which one’s eyes were looking. There was no way to make it more precise. Still, using it to conduct this test seed sufficient.

Qiao Liang focused on his own face in the mirror. A few seconds later, he realized sothing was wrong.

The corner of a black shirt suddenly appeared in the bottom-right corner of the mirror. There was also a dark red blood print on top!