Yue Shi remembered the words Xia Xuanfeng had spoken very clearly.
“As long as you aren't noticed by the Audience, you won't get a script.”
When he said this, Xia Xuanfeng was sitting on the sofa in the living room, his gaze fixed outside the window. His voice was very soft. “Everyone stays low-key, avoiding anything out of the ordinary. They don't wear flashy clothes, don't voice personal opinions, and don't do anything attention-grabbing in public. Because no one knows who the Audience is watching at any given moment.”
Yue Shi had taken those words to heart at the time.
If you aren't noticed by the Audience, you won't get a script. Thinking about it from the opposite perspective: can the Audience only notice those who are 'conspicuous'?
Did this mean their field of vision had blind spots, their attention was limited, and they could only observe a small number of people?
Thinking of this, Yue Shi opened his eyes in the darkness. There was no light or sound around him; he was alone in the silence.
Yet, his vision saw many different images.
His clone was moving through the game arena at a leisurely pace, like a lazy snow leopard. The bullet screen drifted above him, so dense it almost obscured the rust-stained ceiling.
‘The Audience's attention has indeed been drawn away by the clone.’ Yue Shi raised his hand and lightly tapped the air with his fingertip. An image unfolded in the darkness, like a giant canvas stretching out in mid-air.
It was a complete view of the arena. Ten players were playing Red Light, Green Light. Yue Shi's clone was toward the middle-rear of the pack, walking with a relaxed gait.
The bullet screen scrolled from right to left. Some were commenting on the contestants' performances, some were bickering with each other, and others were placing bets. It was no different from the chat in a typical livestream room.
Yue Shi stared at those comments for a long time. Then, he did something: he made the clone stop abruptly.
He didn't stop on a red light; he stopped while it was green.
In the arena, the green light was glowing, and every other contestant was sprinting forward. Only the clone paused.
He simply stood there, looking up at the bullet screen drifting overhead.
The chat exploded instantly.
【What is he doing?】
【Why did he stop?】
【It's green, big brother! Green! Go!】
【Is he scared stiff?】
【No way, he looks pretty calm. He’s clearly breaking character and reading the chat!】
【Nooo, handsome guy, go! I don't want to see you die here.】
【Exactly, exactly. At least film some clips before you die.】
Yue Shi's lips thinned. These comments were truly... hard to describe.
He commanded the clone to continue. The clone lowered his head and took one step, then two, then three, resuming his leisurely, devilish pace.
The bullet screen continued to drift, but the content had changed.
【Scared me for a second. I thought he was just letting everything go to hell.】
【Even if he does, it's not like he can win anyway.】
【Not necessarily. He's slow, but he hasn't committed a single foul.】
【What’s the point of not fouling? There’s less than two minutes left, and he’s so far from the finish line.】
【How pitiful. He's going to die a miserable death when he's eliminated.】
Yue Shi observed the bullet screen closely, his gaze moving between the lines of text.
He was looking for traces. Where did these comments come from? Why did they appear in mid-air? Who was projecting the text there?
The Audience sent the comments, but the text itself—those glowing characters—needed a medium.
A projector? Some kind of supernatural power? Or was it the base rules of this world running automatically via AI?
The clone stopped again. This time it wasn't intentional; the red light had flickered on, and everyone stopped, the clone included.
Yue Shi took this opportunity to make the clone intentionally commit a foul.
In the game, the clone tilted his head back, focusing his gaze on a specific area of the ceiling.
Looking up while the red light was on was a clear violation.
At that moment, rows of comments drifted by.
【Aaaaaah! Why did he look up!】
【I’ve never seen someone seek death so actively.】
【It’s over now. He’s definitely getting eliminated. I suggest we seamlessly transition him into a torture-kill script. I want to buy his head for my collection.】
【I want one too! I’m pre-ordering his hands and eyes!】
The clone stared at the direction where the comments disappeared, observing continuously.
Yue Shi's true body noticed a detail: when he controlled the clone to commit the foul, the movement speed of some comments slowed down at that exact moment.
It wasn't all of them. Only the first few comments that appeared after the foul seemed to be shocked by the clone's actions; they stuttered in the air for a fraction of a second before continuing their leftward scroll.
The ∞ symbols in Yue Shi's eyes glowed. He had finally found a trace of the Audience.
The way the bullet screen was presented—the size and color of the fonts, the scroll speed, the positioning—all of it might be directly related to the state of the person sending the comment.
The slowdown in some comments when the clone looked up wasn't a coincidence; it was likely the shock of the sender.
The Audience members were startled by the clone's suicidal behavior. Their fingers had paused on their keyboards, or their mouse had slipped, causing a deviation in the scroll speed of those specific lines.
It was a very subtle deviation, so minor that an ordinary person would never notice it.
But Yue Shi was no ordinary person.
He closed his eyes, replaying the images in his mind.
What was the reaction time of the chat when the clone first stopped?
From the moment he stopped to the appearance of the first row of comments, it was approximately 0.3 seconds.
That was too fast. It didn't look like a human reaction speed. Was it AI?
However, the appearance speed of the subsequent comments was much more normal—over a second, two seconds, or even longer.
What did this mean?
The first row of comments might be pre-set or AI-generated, while the ones that followed were sent by real people.
And after those real people sent their comments, who was reviewing them? Who was handling the layout? Who was adjusting the presentation?
The stutter in the scroll speed when the clone fouled... if an Audience member really was shocked by the clone's actions and their hand shook, causing a delay in the delivery of that line...
Could this prove that there were people controlling things behind the bullet screen? That the Audience wasn't some ethereal concept, but a collection of specific, emotional beings?
Yue Shi had suspected that the bullet screen, the scripts, and the Audience were actually some kind of AI-like entities written into the world's rules, triggered passively when certain conditions were met.
Some comments were simply too pseudo-human, sounding like nothing a real person would say, which was why Yue Shi had that theory.
Now, it seemed more likely that the Audience consisted of living people.
Yue Shi's true body opened his eyes. The surroundings remained dark. He waved his hand lightly, and the images in the darkness vanished.
The clone was about to receive his punishment for the foul in the arena. The bullet screen was still scrolling, noisy and bustling, as if eagerly anticipating the bloody scene to come.
But unfortunately, even if it was just a clone, Yue Shi would not allow himself to be slaughtered.
Rate on N.U.
