On the roof.
Cheng Tingyu thought with ease, not all stories have an ending.
However, the story she was currently part of would soon come to an end.
She looked up at the sky. Although the sunlight in the copy wasn't exactly brilliant, it was still clear that the sun was moving westward.
A person, from the moment they are cursed until they are completely petrified, requires a certain amount of time.
The exact duration is hard to guess, but a rough estimate can be made—the person who left the note departed the village with his sister on the third day. The fact that they were able to pack their luggage leisurely suggests that they were not hindered by any external forces.
However, the cursed and emotionally unstable villagers, if they saw a normal person, would cling to them like a drowning man to a straw, even knowing it would be of no help, they would not easily let go.
Since there were no obstacles, it meant that the villagers had basically turned to stone by then, completely losing their ability to move.
Moreover, this was not the only suspicious point.
The participants did not find any stone sculptures in the other rooms, except in the sixth room, where they found one.
Why didn't that villager leave the room like the others and go to the square to wail?
Cheng Tingyu lay gently on the rooftop, gazing at the sun in the sky.
Now, neither of her eyes found the sunlight too glaring.
Cheng Tingyu put himself in the villagers' shoes, carefully pondering the logic behind their actions.
After discovering the abnormality in their bodies, they would panic and lose their composure, which is why the first room bore traces of their outburst.
Of course, once the symptoms are identified, those who regain a bit of rationality will certainly seek solutions.
The villagers gathered in the square and began to pray.
Prayer was naturally of no use, yet those villagers could no longer attempt any other means to save themselves—they remained there for a long time, in the form of stone statues.
Cheng Tingyu raised his hand.
From the circumstances of the three story characters, the curse would first appear on the limbs.
The villagers gathered in the square hadn't necessarily turned entirely to stone, but their stiff joints and ankles greatly limited their mobility. Even if they realized that trying was futile, they couldn't adjust their strategy.
Cheng Tingyu remembered the feel of the stone statue's cheek in the sixth room.
The statue's cheeks had only a thin layer.
——Was it that the peasant woman was naturally thin, or had the fat on her cheeks diminished due to hunger?
A secret thought flashed through Cheng Tingyu's mind: if the occupant of the sixth room was forced to stay in the house, the plot of the story would actually make sense.
The tenant might have thought that, while other villagers still retained their mobility, not being cursed was the most dangerous thing. Those showing signs of petrification would want to find a solution to the problem from within themselves.
But the method known to the owner of House No. 7 could not solve the problems of others at all.
Those who remain silent can live, but those who have spoken must obtain the antidote to survive.
Cheng Tingyu recalled the contents of the letter.
Language can be refined into a secret potion, and the way to cast a curse is to speak.
So the act of speaking can be equated to taking a secret potion.
The words that the characters in the story utter are like bottles of secret potions they consume, most of which only increase the degree to which the speaker is petrified. Only one word can serve as the antidote.
As long as the word is spoken, the curse on the afflicted will vanish.
Lying on the rooftop, Cheng Tingyu smiled faintly, her lips moving silently. If Wei Xuguang were beside her, he might have been able to discern the words she was saying—
"It truly is a heartwarming story."
The village was deathly silent.
There was no sound of wind, no sound of voices. Xiao Jia walked heavily on the road, feeling incredibly strained.
Her arm was drenched in blood.
Petrification first appeared on her skin, then gradually penetrated her flesh and blood. She was indeed a ruthless person; to escape the predicament, she used a dinner knife to cut off the parts that had turned to stone.
Her mobility thus slightly recovered.
Little Jia had never been able to find any trace of the other two characters in the story. It was as if from the moment they parted ways, the scene had only ever contained him alone.
The abandoned house, the climbing ivy, the overgrown weeds, everything came to a standstill.
The wind carried a chilling coldness, and Xiao Jia felt she should shiver but couldn't manage it—in terms of data, her petrification had already reached 30%.
The fear in Xiao Jia's heart grew stronger and stronger,
Xiao Yi is a flesh-type ability user. That new young man seems utterly unfathomable. If these two can make it through in the end, she herself would become the only discard in the third scenario.
Thinking of this, Xiao Jia no longer worried about the danger of being exposed and ran to the square at the fastest speed.
Under normal circumstances, Xiao Jia shouldn't have been so anxious, but the extent to which she had been consumed by the curse had already caused her to lose her usual composure.
Since those villagers gathered here, they must have thought that there was something in the square that could help them escape.
Dragging his heavy body to the square, the sky had already darkened.
The movement was quite strenuous; Xiao Jia felt as if she were not moving her own feet, but two large stone blocks.
Those stone carvings formed a circle, their faces full of despair.
Xiao Jia leaned against a statue and quietly squatted down. She was very curious about what she could see if she imitated the perspective of the stone sculptures.
"..."
She guessed wrong.
The surroundings were no different from before.
In that case, why did those villagers form a circle in the square after being cursed?
"…Maybe it's because there was originally someone who could save the villagers standing at the center, and after everyone else turned to stone, they left the square?"
A familiar voice thundered behind Xiao Jia like a sudden clap of thunder. She wanted to turn around, but her neck only emitted a creaking sound.
"Slow down, the petrification should be quite advanced by now. Aren't you worried about shattering if you move too violently?"
The newcomer walked up to Xiao Jia and stood precisely at the center of the circle.
Little Jia opened her mouth, but couldn't say anything. She was speechless for a moment, then finally asked a question completely unrelated to the current situation: "Where did Little Yi go?"
Cheng Tingyu: "He has already left the village."
Her vision was excellent, and she had chosen a superior vantage point. From the very beginning, Xiao Yi's actions could not escape her notice.
Xiao Jia: "You're not going to stop him?"
Cheng Tingyu: "In situations where I don't need others to cooperate, I actually don't interfere much with the actions of other participants."
Xiao Jia couldn't quite understand what the other person was saying.
In their view, people are always useful, whether in the wilderness or within a dungeon, humans are an extremely valuable resource.
Especially in this instance, as long as there is a shortage of participants, the remaining participants can refresh in the first scene.
Xiao Jia did not hide her expression. The young man seemed to see through her thoughts and smiled, "Because no matter where Xiao Yi goes, it will no longer affect the other participants' progress."
Xiao Jia noticed the choice of words from the other party—"will no longer."
That is to say, it used to be possible, but now the situation has changed.
The young man did not leave her puzzled for long and patiently explained, "This is the third scene now.
"After entering the nameless village, the entire structure of the story was already complete. New characters were continuously added before because there were still parts of the plot that hadn't been unlocked."
At this moment, Xiao Jia's heart suddenly became clear as snow. She understood the entire mechanism of the scenario, but she wished she hadn't figured it out.
The young man: "What we need to do is simply have three people stay in the cabin, three people enter the forest, and three people get lost and accidentally wander into the nameless village. As for the title of the book, it can be changed. You should have gotten the answer to this from the newcomers."
The adjective in front of "storybook" can change from warm to boring, indicating that the main plot of the book can be influenced by the characters' own consciousness.
"Since it's not necessary to take the warm and cozy route, it means that breaking the curse isn't the only way to reach the ending. Turning into stone, or fleeing the village in terror and getting forever lost in the forest, can also be the conclusion."
The young man smiled, "I am still here, just wanting to finish writing the story myself."
The setting sun added a touch of crimson to the sky.
After entering the instance, Xiao Jia had never looked at the sunset so intently as he did today.
The sun was about to set, and the story was nearing its end. More than 50% of her body had already turned to stone, and her limbs had almost completely lost their ability to move. She could truly feel the numbness from the curse seeping into her internal organs.
Why is that young man still able to move freely?
The idea of having one person die first and then refreshing the remaining participants back to the initial scene was shattered by the previous inference. To survive, they must find the antidote.
...The question is, what exactly is the antidote?
Xiao Jia struggled to lift his head.
She did not realize that her current posture was remarkably similar to the stone sculptures beside her.
The young man in front of him had incredibly deep black eyes, and just meeting his gaze sent chills down Xiaojia's spine
"You should be able to guess it, after all, the person who wrote the letter made a very similar mistake to the one you made back then."
Xiao Jia struggled to turn his thoughts.
Error? What mistake did they make?
She had not realized the true nature of the game before; she merely relied on continuously killing new characters to regain her self-awareness.
The young man's voice came from above, and although he did not move, the words that fell into Xiao Jia's ears seemed to grow more distant:
"You have summarized the phenomena you observed and taken your subjectively conscious summary as the essence of the game."
Xiao Jia and Xiao Yi believed that the purpose of the story was to let the three characters live happily ever after. So once they entered the phase of "a family living warmly and happily together," they would completely solidify into characters without self-awareness. To maintain their sanity, they had to target newcomers, repeatedly disrupting the state of happiness.
However, the reality was not so; the reason they became stuck was that they did not continue to advance the plot. Through their assessment of the game, Xiao Jia and Xiao Yi successfully trapped themselves at the beginning of the game.
"The information left by the letter writer falls into two categories: the knowledge seen in Miss Fan's books and the patterns deduced by oneself."
"The credibility of the knowledge is higher, while the three conclusions in the letter carry the personal speculations of the involved party."
"It's not that children can't be poisoned; it's that the younger sister, who is a child, wasn't poisoned. The reason she wasn't poisoned isn't because of her pure heart, but because she had already taken the antidote."
Cheng Tingyu looked at the stone sculpture in front of him, his demeanor gentle: "You have shared the information about the copy with me, so as a reward, I will also tell you the clues I have found."
"..."
To her words, Xiao Jia could no longer respond.
The twilight glow resembled the embers on a charcoal fire, ready to extinguish at any moment.
In the deathly silent, nameless village, a gentle voice rang out: "The word that serves as the antidote is 'sister'."
The question participants need to consider is, what words is the younger sister most likely to shout out unconsciously, that other villagers would be less likely to say?
Miss Shan quickly figured out the answer to the question when she met her sister who had come to ask for advice.
My sister is mute; she wasn't poisoned from the start.
My younger sister is the one who took the antidote and successfully freed herself from the curse.
Cheng Tingyu: "Actually, the storybook also gave a hint that the three people living in the little wooden house should be siblings."
"The newcomers added to the copy have always been women, not because the gender composition of the participants must be two women and one man, but to ensure that there are two women among the roles. This way, there will be at least one 'sister' present, and the person calling for the sister can lift the curse. The other two can also be reminded and break free from the petrified state."
At this point, Cheng Tingyu couldn't help but chuckle softly, "The earlier the questions, the closer they are to the initial plot conception. This really is 'A Warm Storybook.'"
[Congratulations to the player for clearing the dungeon...]