Although the people around are in a coma right now, who knows if they will jump up in unison in the next second in order to watch them having sex with interest.
RenDong's skin is thin after all and Lian Qiao can't help it. That kiss was just a taste, but the exciting fantasy in his heart made RenDong's earlobes feel hot.
"Okay, restrain yourself. Wait until we get out…" He blushed and pushed Lian Qiao away.
When Lian Qiao heard the word "get out", his heart was suddenly touched and he smiled softly: "Okay. Let's talk about it after we get out."
RenDong turned the topic back to the key. The two found an empty gear and stood there, beginning to organize their thoughts.
"What is the mechanism of this key? Will all key players have a key after clearing the level?" Lian Qiao stroked the three words "Xu RenDong" engraved on the brass key and recalled, "Well, no. We have encountered other key players before. Of the three key players, only Shi JianChuan has a key. The other two, one is the little fat man in Esophagus, and the other is Zhang XiaoXiao in your Butterfly instance. But neither of them have the key. "
RenDong was surprised and said: "How do you know? Have you investigated them?"
"En. I went to exchange clues with them."
RenDong recalled the characters of these two people. Zhang XiaoXiao is a newcomer, so she is not good at hiding clues. As for the scheming little fat man, it's hard to say.
Lian Qiao seemed to have guessed what he was thinking and said with a smile: "The little fat man probably didn't lie. After all, he was in a hurry to attend the press conference the day I went. He was afraid that I would be a stalker and he didn't have time to waste time with me. So he just explained everything honestly."
"What else did he tell you?"
"Well, there was nothing useful. It's just those little tricks he played in the instance such as wooing teammates, hiding props, and so on."
Even the shady things like possession of props have been explained. It's likely that Lian Qiao was doing a little more than just "stalking" when he forced the little fat man to tell him everything.
RenDong didn't bother to ask what trick Lian Qiao used and said in a deep voice: "If they didn't lie, it means that the key is not a reward for key players after clearing the instance."
"Yes." Lian Qiao said, "Actually, about the key, I asked Shi JianChuan at the beginning… Uh, it was in the Nine Linked Rings instance."
RenDong looked at him, not knowing why he stopped halfway through his speech. Lian Qiao looked at his black and white clear eyes, felt a little guilty, and stuck out his tongue and said: "Didn't you get hit by the ring debuff that time and you lost your mind and were dragged away by the white snake of Shi JianChuan? The white snake triggered it again in one breath. All the debuffs, arrows and heavy rain, it looked like it was going to be the end of the world. I was so anxious and didn't know what to do, so I thought about using the key…"
When Lian Qiao said this, his voice became softer and softer. He squinted and watched RenDong's reaction quietly. Seeing him like this, RenDong laughed a little and said, "What's the matter? Keep talking."
Lian Qiao: "Aren't you angry?"
"Why should I be angry?"
"Because… I actually knew about the key a long time ago, but I kept it from you…"
RenDong smiled: "It's okay to hide it. If I had known that using the key would have side effects, wouldn't I be worried about you every day? Besides, didn't I also hide something from you?"
"That's right." Lian Qiao suddenly realized, "You have such an awesome plug-in like a death reset, why didn't you tell me earlier? Are there skill restrictions that prevent you from telling me?"
"En."
"No wonder…" Lian Qiao sighed, "No wonder you always seem to be hesitant to speak. I was also stupid. I thought you had your reasons to hide something and didn't think deeply…"
RenDong smiled and said: "But it doesn't matter now. You are really good at guessing the reset after death. If it were me, I wouldn't be able to guess if you gave me ten thousand chances if the other party didn't tell me directly."
Seeing him smiling, Lian Qiao felt a pain in his heart. He couldn't help but raise his hand to touch RenDong's cheek and sighed softly: "You are almost driven crazy, how could I not see that something is wrong with you?"
RenDong smiled: "It's all over. My endless cycle has been broken by you, and I have been saved by you, haven't I?"
Lian Qiao took a deep breath and withdrew his thoughts.
"Let's continue talking about the key." He picked up the brass key of RenDong and asked, "When I got the key, I really didn't know anything at first. I remembered it bit by bit afterwards. Now you have it, can you recall anything about this key?"
RenDong shook his head: "No. Nothing."
"What will it cost you if you use this key?"
RenDong tilted her head and thought for a moment: "We have already been shattered once, can we be shattered again?"
"Hmm…" Lian Qiao held his chin and fell into deep thought. After a while, he suddenly remembered something and raised his head in surprise, "Wait a minute, what did you say? 'We' have already been shattered?"
"That's right." RenDong looked at his shocked face and quickly reacted, "Oh, you may not have seen it. After you shattered, I was also shattered."
"Ha?!"
Lian Qiao opened his eyes wide and grabbed his arms subconsciously, as if he was so nervous just listening to his statement. RenDong imitated his tone at that time and said with a light smile: "It's okay and it doesn't hurt."
Lian Qiao: "…" At first, he still felt distressed but after thinking about it carefully, it seems that it really didn't hurt.
No, just watching yourself shatter is already terrifying!
Didn't he pretend to be calm at the beginning because he was afraid that RenDong would be sad! What's more, time is running out, he must crack the debug, so there is no time to be afraid!
Just thinking about it now makes him feel goosebumps all over his body! Watching his own body being broken into thousands of pieces, he was completely shattered, okay?
"You…" Lian Qiao wanted to say something to correct RenDong's morbid mentality of "It's okay, I'm used to being abused, it's okay", but the more he thought about it, the more heartache he felt.
RenDong always relies on death to reset the instance, so how many times has he experienced death? And judging from the current situation, after being reset, everyone has no memory and only RenDong bore everything alone, swallowing the pain and moving forward alone.
What happened to him when I didn't know?
…No, it should be said, how many things have I forgotten?
Lian Qiao's eyes became hot and he couldn't help stretching out his hand again, taking RenDong into his arms.
RenDong: "?"
Lian Qiao: "When we go out, can you tell me everything about the past?"
"…" RenDong fell silent.
Their chests were pressed together. Lian Qiao's heartbeat was a little fast, his body temperature was a little high and his breathing rate was a little rapid. It was as if he was suffering from violent ups and downs of emotions inside.
RenDong listened to his heartbeat. The feeling of sourness and swelling seemed to come through his clothes and it was so hot that he wanted to cry.
RenDong unconsciously raised his head slightly. He closed his eyes to hide the heat inside them. He smiled and said, "Okay."
When Lian Qiao calmed down a little, RenDong pushed him away and said with a smile: "Okay, don't interrupt. Find the exit as soon as possible to be serious."
Lian Qiao curled his lips in dissatisfaction: "How can this be called an interruption, this is called showing the truth! We have just experienced life and death! We haven't hugged enough!"
RenDong was helpless: "How long have we been hugging like this? Besides, we haven't been released by the instance yet, so we can't let our guard down."
"When you say that, I thought of a problem." Lian Qiao looked around. He saw that the gears around him were still turning on their own and no one woke up. He touched his nose and said, "What the hell is this place?"
"It should still be in the instance." RenDong said, "It's not reality anyway."
"Well, let's call this the gear room for now." Lian Qiao stomped on the gear under his feet and muttered, "There seems to be no mechanism on this gear. Is it just a decoration? It looks pretty good."
RenDong thought for a while: "Do you think it will be like this? The gears must be activated according to a certain pattern and order, so that the people on the gears will wake up?"
"Hmm…" Lian Qiao touched his chin and shook his head, "I don't think so. This place doesn't feel like an internal space to me, but rather a space parallel to the instance. Rather than how to wake them up, I care more about what kind of existence this gear room is. Why was there no such gear room when we cleared the previous levels?"
RenDong tried to guess: "Maybe because this is our last instance?"
"In that case, there should have been a gear room after the end of the Nine Linked RIngs. But we entered the elevator directly at that time. The key player Shi JianChuan also entered the elevator and we left together…" Lian Qiao frowned and looked around, " Speaking of which, where's the elevator? Where's the button? We didn't find anything this time, does it count as clearing the instance?"
RenDong mused: "The elevator would have appeared on the day I turned 28. As long as I follow my original life path and enter the financial office, the elevator will appear at ten o'clock on the evening of 2020. As for the button, when the elevator appeared last time, I committed suicide. When I was dying, I saw the button rising from my body. So the condition for the button to appear was indeed that I would die in 2020."
Since the "bug" was resolved, he can successfully tell what happened in his past reincarnations. The mysterious force that limited him from telling the truth seemed to have disappeared.
Lian Qiao added: "But as soon as you die, the entire instance will be reset. This is the so-called infinite loop and it is also where the bug lies. Because in this case, the instance will be a dead end for everyone. This is against the rules."
"En"
"So the second clue after unlocking my key was to prompt me to find the bug. The conflict between your rebirth ability and the instance clearance conditions is a bug. In order to resolve the conflict, the instance directly forcibly stopped the cycle, so the world of the dungeon collapsed. You and I were also shattered… Huh?" When Lian Qiao said this, he suddenly stopped in confusion.
RenDong: "What?"
Lian Qiao touched his nose: "So why did you shatter?"
RenDong: "The whole world collapsed, what's wrong with me falling to pieces along with it?"
Lian Qiao: "Then… why was I shattered?"
RenDong was stunned: "Wasn't it the price of using the key?"
As soon as these words came out, RenDong realized something was wrong.
Lian Qiao's way of shattering is exactly the same as him and the whole world. It was a manifestation of the collapse of the instance. The collapse of the instance directly caused them to leave the instance and arrive at the gear room.
If all this was caused by the use of the key, then this couldn't be called a price or punishment at all – it was simply opening an escape door and sending them out.
Thinking about it the other way around, if the price of the key is something else, and the shattered body of Lian Qiao is the harbinger of the collapse of the copy, then it makes more sense.
RenDong speculated: "Perhaps…the whole world started to collapse because you noticed a bug?"
Lian Qiao nodded: "I also think this is more reasonable. Then the problem comes."
Yes, here comes the problem.
—What is the real price of using the key?
While the two were deep in thought, a voice sounded from above their heads.
"Lian Qiao…"
The voice was unbearably hoarse, whimpering like sand in the desert, as if suppressing some strong emotion.
The voice was familiar because it was the same voice that would speak the riddle that they would hear in the elevator after every successful escape.
The two of them were shocked. They abruptly raised their heads and looked up into the sky.
However, there is nothing in the sky above except for countless gears that rotate independently.
The voice seemed to come from the endless darkness.
But why would "it"… say 'Lian Qiao'?