High Energy QR Code

Even though there was no wifi in this strange space, the QR code scanner could still be used.

Xing Ye secretly memorized his QR code’s design before using his phone to scan it. A text interface popped out, showing the same personal information as the black and white rubix cube said earlier.

In the real world, a QR code could be used to share information, links, advertising, forwarding, and pay money. The word limit was capped at four to five hundred for sharing information. The QR code he had just scanned to see his basic player profile and the one in the dream earlier both seemed more like a link.

Right now, Xing Ye could only speculate. To get to the bottom of this and see if his little brother’s death really was related to this world, he had to participate in the game and slowly investigate.

From beginning to end, he had never believed Xing Shuo died a natural death. His intuition told him that here, he could discover the truth.

Since it was like that, he had to actively participate in the game. Xing Ye moved his eyes away from his phone and asked the black and white rubix cube. “You mentioned camps earlier. Does that mean the game will be a PVP?”

”That’s right. All the game worlds are battle worlds. Because of the newbie protection rule, the first world is a novice world and the number of players will be restricted to 4 people.”

After saying that, the black and white rubix cube didn’t give Xing Ye a chance to ask anymore questions. Rows of text appeared on its surface:

Game Mission: Change the preset ending.

Player Role: Executor.

Number of Players: 3 Following Fate Camp players, 1 Opposing Fate Camp player.

Victory Condition: Players are divided between manipulators and executor roles. Manipulators must create an ending for the plot while executors are the plot’s leading character. If the plot’s final ending is one of the pre-set endings set by a manipulator, the manipulators win. Otherwise, the executor wins.

Note: The number of players from each camp is randomly selected by the system. If you object, just blame your own luck!

Xing Ye had just barely finished reading when his body was suddenly whisked away from the black and white space by a powerful force. A blank space of approximately 0.1-0.3 seconds appeared in his consciousness and by the time he came to, he found himself in a village he had never seen before.

The scenery here was beautiful, with lush trees and clean air. However, the buildings were simple and crude, with few inhabitants. The farming tools in the courtyard Xing Ye was in appeared very old. From the technology level, he seemed to be somewhere in the late medieval era.

He opened the door to the house and saw there were no traces of other people. His current identity should’ve been living alone.

Xing Ye walked into the poorly ventilated but cleanly swept room and looked around. The first thing he noticed about his identity was that they were very poor.

The whole room only had a wooden basin and wooden bucket, a hay bed, and half a loaf of hard, dry, black bread beside it.

After confirming his surroundings were safe for the time being, Xing Ye started to inspect himself. His phone was nowhere to be seen, replaced by a half black, half white metallic bracelet. His current identity didn’t seem rich enough to be able to afford a bracelet like this, so this accessory was definitely a problem.

Xing Ye carefully inspected it and found a transparent push button. After pushing it, a panel appeared in the air.

Only two icons were lit up on the panel. Xing Ye pressed the first icon, the plot background button.

A voice suddenly sounded in his mind: “A long, long time ago, there was a beautiful queen. She was the most beautiful lady in all the lands, so beautiful that everyone she looked at couldn’t help but lower their heads, not daring to look straight at her stunning mien.

But alas, the heavens were petty. They refused to allow such a beautiful person to exist. One day during a hunt, the queen was caught unprepared by a bear attack, losing her right eye. After the attack, to her despair, she discovered that half her face had been disfigured into an horrifically ugly sight.

From this point on, the queen would start shrieking hysterically every time she saw a mirror, harming herself almost as if she had gone mad. Because she couldn’t accept her ugliness, she had all the mirrors in the palace, and even the entire country, destroyed.

Whether it be the nobles or the commoners, they were all forbidden to possess a mirror. If anybody was found to be hiding a  mirror, they would be sentenced to death.

Claire, as a commoner, had never seen a mirror before and never saw her own face. From the village elders’ tales, she learned that something as magical as mirrors had once existed. Since then, she’s always wanted to have a mirror of her own.”

Xing Ye: “...”

Ever since he entered this world, he had been doing his best to ignore the strange weight on his chest. He even refused to look down at his own body and clothes, taking the heavy feeling on his chest just to be some sort of swelling. But, when he heard the main character of the plot really was a girl, he had no way to continue deceiving himself.

Xing Ye didn’t try confirming his body’s gender, silently pondering about the plot background for a while before tapping the second icon- mission reminder.

Just like before, a voice popped up in his mind: “Mission 1: The player must keep the character’s role settings and cannot let NPCs discover their true identity; Mission 2: Prevent the three endings the manipulators set (their plot endings have already been set and cannot be changed during the course of the plot).”

Even somebody as calm as Xing Ye, upon hearing his own mission task, felt his limbs grow weak. He sat on the hay bed and pressed his hand against his forehead, feeling like he needed a moment of peace.

When he was choosing the camps, Xing Ye didn’t think too much and just chose what he was used to choosing.

From his perspective, there was no such thing as a free lunch. Those options would usually be the priciest. You could never reap without sowing- there would definitely be a trap. There was no such thing as “luck”- he would only feel safe when he held everything in his own control.

He predicted that choosing B would make his path hard, but he didn’t expect there’d be such a huge difference.

First was the number of players. It was a 4 player PVP, so normally, it should be a 2v2. However, who would’ve thought that the system’s random selection would make him face a 1v3 against the Following Fate camp players!

He didn’t know the manipulators’ identities, goal, or victory conditions. Furthermore, he had no way of speculating what conclusions the three might’ve set. In a situation where he knew nothing, he had to avoid three pre-set endings.

That wasn’t even the hardest part. What gave Xing Ye the biggest headache was that he had to act like a medieval peasant girl who loved beauty and couldn’t let any of the NPCs discover something was off with him.

Thinking up to there, Xing Ye couldn’t help but rub a certain important and couldn’t be described area. The grey cloth declared that the important symbol of a man was still there, causing Xing Ye to both sigh with relief and grow even more tense.

It was a good thing that he didn’t really turn into a girl, and just grew an extra body part. The bad thing was that it made it much easier for others to discover his true gender- it would’ve been better if it just completely disappeared.

Thus, he was faced with a lose-lose situation.

Xing Ye leaned against the wooden wall and closed his eyes, thinking about that mystical experience when he entered the game world.

When you reached a dead end, it was better to take a step back and think everything over from the start. Perhaps then, you could discover something new.

He could ignore all the stuff about the QR codes and that black and white rubix cube for now. Those things clearly exceeded the realm of human comprehension and forcefully investigating it would only squander away his brain cells.

Xing Ye decided to simply look at it as a holographic game and started analyzing it from the title.

The name was only shown once in the dialogue box when he had first scanned the QR code to enter: Player Xing Shuo has invited you to join the Game of Challenging Fate. Do you accept?

“Challenging fate, huh?” Xing Ye said softly, “So in other words, this game’s goal is to let players fight their fate. That being said, why would they let players choose A- players blessed by fate? From the name, it should be a game that lets all the players PVE against the system to fight their fate. Instead, it’s a PVP.” 　　

Xing Ye suddenly had a flash of realization: “Apart from luck, there should also be another hidden condition for the players that were supposedly blessed by fate- they cannot go against fate’s arrangements. My mission is just to not let others doubt my true identity. In other words, as long as my identity is not discovered, I can do anything. I can even go from a village girl to the queen. Because I’m from the opposing fate camp, I don’t recognize the peasant girl status fate has given to me.

“In comparison, the following fate players have to accept everything fate gave them. It matched the medieval setting perfectly- nobles were just nobles and slaves were just slaves. Although players might have heaven defying abilities, they couldn’t change anything.”

I’m free, Xing Ye thought.

Just as he was arranging his thoughts, a knock sounded on the door. A young woman’s voice called: “Claire, are you at home? We were supposed to do laundry by the river today.”