From Prisoner to Si Chen

"Huh?" Clark frowned, a little confused, not knowing what the strange man in strange clothes in front of him meant.

Moreover, because this guy slaughtered villagers and sucked the blood of young girls, his behavior was so cruel and horrific that Clark did not trust him.

Fortunately, all this experience was just a game, so Clark asked with curiosity:

"Why do you say that?"

"Boy, you are so stupid, it is God's blessing that you can grow up so big."

The Taoist priest swung his iron sword.

There was a crash, and blood splashed everywhere.

He slowly sheathed his sword, with a mocking look on his face, and said:

"There are no living people in this 'Wang Family Village' at all. The whole village is full of tiger minions, and the leader of the village is a tiger demon who has been practicing for a hundred years!"

"Why did the so-called village chiropractor take you in? It was just to treat you as living blood food and offer it to the village as a tooth sacrifice."

"?!"

Hearing this, Clark was startled.

At this time, the subtitles appeared again:

"The mysterious Taoist priest explained to you the truth about 'Wangjia Village'. Do you choose to believe his words? There are three choices below, all of which will affect subsequent development:

One, believe.

Two, don’t believe it.

Third, be skeptical. "

Clark looked at the subtitle options and couldn't help but frown, as if the third option was too vague and a bit confusing.

So, after thinking for a while, he chose the first option again.

"That's it. Thank you sir for reminding me, otherwise I wouldn't have known anything about it and would have died in confusion."

Clark saluted the Taoist priest.

The Taoist priest smiled, but the blood stains on his face made the smile look rather ferocious:

"Oh, I see you are all alone. If I leave you alone, I'm afraid I won't be able to get out of this 'Wangjia Village', and I will be killed by the minions here..."

He said, nodded, and raised his hand to stroke his long beard.

"Let's do this. You kowtow a few times and I will accept you as a registered disciple... When I clean up this 'Wangjia Village', you can follow me back to the 'White Ere Monastery' to practice. How about that?"

"The Taoist priest wants to accept you as his disciple. There are three choices below, all of which will affect subsequent development:

One, he happily agreed and kowtowed to become his master.

Second, refuse politely and leave immediately.

Third, pretend to be crazy and act stupid to see what happens. "

Seeing this, Clark fell into deep thought.

In fact, he resented having this bloody and violent weirdo as his teacher, so he chose the second one.

"Sorry sir, I just want to go home now."

Clark said apologetically.

Hearing this, the Taoist priest chuckled and shook his head:

"In that case, I won't force it."

Clark silently bowed again, then held the wooden stick and backed away slowly. The Taoist priest still stood there, looking at him with a half-smile.

After being tens of meters away, Clark turned around and planned to go somewhere else.

But the next second.

Qiang——

A cold light flashed, and Clark's head flew up, falling to the ground with a fistful of blood.

Gillan saw it clearly.

The Taoist priest suddenly drew his sword, dodged across a distance of tens of meters, and killed Clark.

The other person stood in front of Clark's body, holding an iron sword in one hand, with an indifferent look on his face, and a look down on him with a hint of displeasure.

"No one has ever dared to refuse Pindao."

Wow——

Above Clark's body, subtitles appeared:

"You are dead."

Immediately, the vision in the game world was distorted, and Clark's body in reality was shaken and he suddenly came to his senses.

The black and white lights and shadows on his body flickered, apparently offsetting the punishment of death.

Clark dropped the controller and quickly touched his neck, with a lingering fear on his face. The feeling of being beheaded just now was so real that it almost made him think that he was really dead.

He looked up again.

On the TV screen, a line of white subtitles "You are dead" was displayed on the black screen.

"Is this a real game?"

Clark sounded emotional.

"It's amazing..."

He thought for a moment, then pressed the red button on the game console again, choosing to do it all over again.

Gillan still watched the whole process.

This time, Clark did not change his choice in the early stage of the game process and continued to advance as before. However, when it came to whether to choose to become a disciple, he decisively gave in and bowed down.

As expected, the Taoist priest did not kill him again.

Instead, he took Clark into the depths of Wangjia Village and carried out massacres from house to house...

As the Taoist priest said, these villagers are not living people. After their death, their bodies will soon turn into translucent shadows and disappear with ferocious faces.

But Clark soon discovered that the golden finger "Pilan" he possessed could imprint the corpses of those minions and turn them into mysterious points.

This discovery made him overjoyed.

"Playing games can accumulate points to improve your strength!"

Clark murmured, even more energetic.

Immediately afterwards, he followed the Taoist "Master" to pick up leaks and accumulated a lot of points.

But when the night came to an end, the two of them encountered a stooped old man with a white beard at the entrance of the village. Through the Taoist priest's conversation with him, we can know that this man is the village leader of "Wangjia Village", named Wang Chuan.

The whole village was massacred, which made the old man Wang Chuan very angry.

He immediately roared and transformed into a striking and fierce tiger with black spots and yellow skin, about two meters tall and four to five meters long. Fight with the Taoist priest.

But after dozens of moves, the Taoist priest was suppressed by the demon tiger, and even the long sword in his hand was bitten off.

Another loud bang was heard.

The Taoist priest was whipped by the demon tiger, his chest collapsed, he vomited blood, and he flew backwards.

As soon as he landed, he turned over like a kite, covered his chest and ran away without looking back, not forgetting to give a loud "reminder":

"Good disciple, this tiger demon is so powerful. Run for your life and forget about being a master!"

Originally, the demon tiger was about to chase the Taoist priest, but after hearing his shout, he immediately turned around and rushed towards Clark.

Before the bewildered Clark could escape, his upper body was bitten off by the demon tiger, and he died on the spot.

"You are dead."

Familiar subtitles emerge.

Clark's consciousness returned to his body again.

The black and white light and shadow flickering on his body offset the death penalty, but there was an expression of gritted teeth on his face.

"Damn 'Taoist'!"

Clark did not believe in evil, so he pressed the red button again and started a new round of the game...

Time passes.

The film makes several transitions.

Every few days, Clark will spend points on a "Secret History Journey" and come to this room in the modern world to play real games.

He calls this place "Secret History A."

It took Clark about a month to finally get through the game "Wangjia Village #1".

During the game, he accumulated a lot of mysterious points to improve his strength. Finally, when he met a Taoist priest, he directly killed him.

This unlocked the "Hidden Platinum Achievement·First Kill".

This achievement has a physical badge that pops out from the side of the game console with some incomprehensible force after Clark clears the level.

Since then, Clark has also cleared another game "Eros Cube".

In this game, you need to avoid giant stone blocks falling from high altitude, and at the same time, you have to jump on the stacking stone blocks to climb to the highest point and get the trophy.

Clark relied on the strength of a third-level spiritual mystic to clear the level in one go and once again received the "Hidden Achievement Badge. Is he really a genius?"

After receiving the two badges, he chose to leave this deserted room and go to the outside world.

In the next six months, Clark continued to collect game cartridges and play games in this secret history.

For him, this was an excellent opportunity to accumulate points and improve his strength, so he worked very hard...and the world was full of all kinds of novel things, which opened the eyes of Clark and Gillan who followed his perspective.

Gillan witnessed Clark hunting vampires in "The Castle", and also saw him evading the dragon with other players in "Candle Dragon", and the sequel to "Wangjia Village #1" "Doll Villa" #2》Wait...

Until one day.

Clark collected ten hidden achievement badges...

That day, holding ten badges with strange textures in his hands, he stood there and fell asleep without any warning.

Gillan's perspective also followed Clark's dream.

Clark entered the land of gods in this secret history. In the "Temple" area, in an endless desert, under the dark red starry sky, he saw the "Sleep Lord" of February Sichen sitting on a high chair and throne.

It was a young man wearing a red dress and a low hat, who looked exactly like Gillan.

But the temperament is completely different.

"Sleep Master" appears to be very gentle and elegant.

"Clark Ashton Smith..."

"Med Master" sat on the throne, looked down at the young man, and spoke softly.

He smiled slightly and said again:

"We meet again."

"Again?" Clark was very surprised, and at the same time he was in awe of the majestic existence in front of him. He lowered his head and asked in confusion: "It seems that we have never met."

"Well, you could say that."

"Sleep Master" smiled.

"But I have met you in this world and killed him..."

"Me in this world?!"

Clark looked blank.

"Since you have come here through 'Pilan's' Secret History Journey', you must also know that there are multiple secret histories in this world. They are colorful and have completely different development trajectories."

"Sleep Master" came the gentle voice.

"And in this secret history, you competed with me for the position of February Sichen, but failed..."

"?!"

Clark froze on the spot, at a loss.

"Sleep Master" shook his head and comforted:

"Don't be afraid. I have no ill intentions towards you. On the contrary, I will help you."

"Help me?" Clark was doubtful. "According to what you said, aren't we enemies? Why are you helping me?"

The "Sleep Master" was silent.

There was silence for a long time.

"Actually, after I became a god, I discovered the fact that you and I are both pawns... It makes no sense to fight for Si Chen's position. This is a trap, because once I become a god, there will never be any A chance to make a comeback.”

"Sir, I don't understand."

Clark frowned.

"Sleep Master" smiled and said:

"It doesn't matter if you don't understand now, you will understand later."

He raised his hand to hold the brim of his hat.

"Before I met you, I had helped Clark from fourteen different secret histories, but they all failed, and you are the fifteenth."

"Um?!"

Clark was once again shocked by the other party's words.

"Sleep Master" said again:

"The game cartridge I left in the mortal world is actually prepared for you, so that you can improve your strength and grow up faster... After you return to your own secret history, I hope you can also follow my method to help me in the secret history."

He sighed.

"Only by helping each other can we break free from the fate of fighting each other and find a way out."

"In the thousands of secret histories, you and I are both lost, but as long as we succeed once, we can break this deadlock."

"What deadlock?"

Clark asked solemnly.

Gillan stood aside, listening to the conversation between the two, his face full of shock. He was extremely surprised at himself in this secret history, that is, the "Master of Sleep".

At the same time, he also understood why the "director" valued himself so much and used real film as a medium to guide himself.

It turns out that all this originated from "myself"!

'Deadlock? '

Gillan was also quite confused.

‘What kind of dead end has made the “Lord of the Sleep” plan for so long, trying to help Clark, who traveled from other secret histories, to influence himself in other secret histories through him? ’

“In this secret history, I have no hope anymore.”

“Lord of the Sleep” laughed.

“But you may still be able to do it, and you and I in other secret histories are also able to do it. Remember, you must not ascend to the Sichen in a normal way, otherwise… I’m sorry I can’t explain it too clearly, otherwise it will be discovered by ‘them’.”

Clark was confused by the other party’s words.

He didn’t understand at all.

Just as Gillan was concentrating on listening to the words of the “Lord of the Sleep”, the whole film suddenly had a strange “stuck” and skipped this section directly.

It was as if some kind of power forcibly erased the words of the “Lord of the Sleep” and did not allow them to spread.

When Gillan came to his senses again.

He found himself in a dark starry universe.

The dead universe was filled with only the twinkling stars coming from countless light years away.

Gillan looked up.

Not far in front, a chair was floating.

Sitting on it was a man wearing a space suit and an astronaut helmet. He was the "director" Clark who had ascended.

In front of him was a huge "camera", but from a certain angle, it looked more like an astronomical telescope.

Connected to a retro square-headed TV.

"Friend, you are here."

The astronaut sitting on the chair said in a muffled voice.

Although he was in the universe, his voice was transmitted directly into Gilan's mind through some kind of power.

He waved at Gilan.

"Come, I'll show you something to answer your confusion."

Gilan took a deep breath and flew towards him.

When I got closer, I heard the "director" say:

"Everything you see is just the past I recorded on film, but I know that only you, Gillan Iros, can get here."

"This is the most powerful 'camera' in my life. I named it 'Ode to Yafir', which comes from a novel I wrote when I was young."

"And it can span time and space and capture images from 13.8 billion years ago..."