Cheng Jinyang opened his eyes.
He saw Ye Ru sitting on a chair behind him in the small room.
But her face no longer wore the kind of bright, sunny, carefree smile of a cheerful woman.
Instead, it was a kind of sinister, pathological, spine-chilling evil grin.
"Cheng Jinyang, I want to play a game with you."
She spoke in a low voice, with a teasing tone.
"A game?" Cheng Jinyang turned around, his heart sinking to the bottom.
Sure enough, Ye Ru was the demon, the owner of this memory.
"What do you think of the saying 'Those who are not of our kin are sure to have different hearts'?" Ye Ru propped her chin with one hand, raising a finger with her right hand. "Oh, wait, do you know about this?"
"The original demons, they originated from humans."
As soon as she finished speaking, a huge screen suddenly unfolded in the air in front of them.
The screen showed a scene being monitored from above, capturing the situation of Xing Yuanzhi and the other three girls: they were cautiously scanning their surroundings, protecting Yang Wangshu behind them.
Yang Wangshu had her hands clasped together, electromagnetic waves continuously scanning the entire temple.
"You have good companions," Ye Ru smirked. "Of course, so do I."
"If reality could have been like the previous dream, letting you and me meet earlier, perhaps we could have built a closer relationship. But unfortunately, now I am a demon, and you seem to be the kind of person who judges good and evil based on race..."
She sighed sadly, then propped her chin with one hand and snapped her fingers:
"Then, if one of your cherished companions also turned into a demon at some point, what would you..."
"... do?"
Before she finished speaking, Cheng Jinyang saw on the screen that Chu Qingqing suddenly grabbed her own throat.
Before the girls could react, high-temperature steam started to gush out of her pores, and her body contorted in a strange posture, her throat making a hoarse, almost deranged sound.
"Demonization!" Wang Wanrou said in a low voice, her eyes difficult to read.
"How is that possible?! Didn't you all avoid drinking the talisman water?"
Xing Yuanzhi hurriedly protected the two as they retreated. Only then did she suddenly realize that the two strongest fighters in their group were now gone.
Cheng Jinyang had suddenly disappeared, and Chu Qingqing had inexplicably mutated. Now, only she was left to protect the non-combatants Wang Wanrou and Yang Wanshu. Was this an impossible hell-level task?
Seeing Chu Qingqing's lifeless eyes turn towards them and the figures looming from the distant corridor, Xing Yuanzhi gritted her teeth and reached for the gun at her waist.
Behind the screen, Cheng Jinyang stared at the image with a blank expression as he heard Ye Ru chuckle again:
"The rules of the game are simple."
"Your companion, Miss Qingqing, has started to demonize for some reason."
"Now I tell you, after the demonization, she will retain her sanity and not become a mindless monster."
"However, I am a demon~"
"The demon says your companion, who has become a demon, is harmless. Will you choose to believe me or not?"
"Does it make a difference whether I believe you?" Cheng Jinyang asked.
"Yes, it does~"
Ye Ru playfully clapped her hands again, and a button appeared on the screen, with a 90-second countdown in the center.
"As long as you press it before the countdown ends, the other three girls will be teleported to a safe place."
"And the demons rushing in from outside will tear Miss Qingqing to pieces."
"Of course, you can also choose not to press it. If Miss Qingqing retains her consciousness after demonization, she will fight alongside the other three girls, and everyone can survive."
"But if I was lying earlier, and Miss Qingqing loses consciousness, she will brutally kill them."
"Of course, this is just a dream. No matter which option you choose, it will not cause them any real harm."
"So choose according to your true feelings. After you choose, I will send you away, and they will never know what you chose."
"What does this mean to you?" Cheng Jinyang asked solemnly.
"To be honest, it doesn't mean much." Ye Ru leisurely crossed one slender, fair leg over the other. "If you hadn't shown no discrimination and hostility towards me when we first met, we wouldn't be able to have this peaceful conversation now."
Cheng Jinyang remained silent.
After a brief contemplation, he realized that this was likely a variant of the "Prisoner's Dilemma" problem:
If what Ye Ru said was true, then:
Pressing the button: Miss Qingqing would die.
Not pressing the button: Depending on Ah Zhi's quicksand field and Miss Qingqing's metal manipulation, there's a high probability that everyone would survive.
However, if what Ye Ru said was false, then:
Pressing the button: Miss Qingqing would die.
Not pressing the button: Ah Zhi and the others would be killed by the berserk demonized Miss Qingqing, leading to everyone's death.
In other words, pressing the button meant sacrificing Miss Qingqing to ensure Ah Zhi and the others' survival; not pressing the button meant betting on whether Ye Ru's words were true, and whether the demonized Miss Qingqing could still maintain her sanity.
The former option could not achieve the best outcome but would not result in the worst either; the latter was a psychological game with Ye Ru.
Without knowing Ye Ru at all, it came down to whether he trusted the demonized Miss Qingqing.
To eliminate risk, the best choice would be the former, as the dream's end wouldn't actually harm Chu Qingqing.
But... what if this were reality?
He silently watched the screen, seeing Xing Yuanzhi protect Wang Wanrou and Yang Wanshu as they retreated to the corner, while Chu Qingqing convulsed on the ground. Her skin began to become smooth and alluring, her bones and curves started to mutate and optimize, gradually transforming into a true demon.
Until the last moment of the countdown, Cheng Jinyang never pressed the button.
With a snap, the screen went black just as the countdown hit zero.
"Why didn't you press the button?" Ye Ru stood up from her chair. "Did you choose to believe me, or were you simply unable to decide, or was it the result of rational calculation?"
"None of those," Cheng Jinyang replied.
"What do you mean?" Ye Ru narrowed her eyes, staring at him.
"Didn't you say that no matter what choices I made in the dream, it wouldn't truly affect reality, and that I should follow my heart?" Cheng Jinyang smiled faintly. "This is the choice my heart made."
Ye Ru was silent for a moment.
The next second, a towering rage suddenly erupted.
By the time Cheng Jinyang came to his senses, he was already thrown to the ground.
Ye Ru straddled him. Despite the suggestive position, he couldn't entertain any romantic thoughts because her hand was tightly gripping his throat, her sharp nails almost piercing his skin.
"In that case, why did you exclude Xiao Qi?!"
She growled through gritted teeth, her eyes blazing like erupting volcanoes: "Su Lili, she's so, so sincere towards you... Yet you're willing to save these women but refuse to give her even a shred of your ridiculous compassion!"
"The reason is simple." Struggling for breath, Cheng Jinyang replied with difficulty, "How can I trust someone I've never met?"
"But she isn't…" Ye Ru started to retort, but suddenly choked on her words.
She understood what Cheng Jinyang meant: in a dream world, higher-level demons could manipulate everything their target saw and heard at will.
This was similar to why online romances were often unreliable because what someone presented in a virtual environment might not be the same as in reality.
Because of this, it was understandable that he preferred to believe what he saw in real life.
But Xiao Qi… Lili is a demon after all!
How could she infiltrate the largest technological city of the human empire—Jiankang City—without alerting anyone?
I think you're just making things difficult for us great demons!