Mr. Melancholy Wants To Live A Peaceful Life

CHAPTER 51

The Xuyang District's largest escape room game was dark and strictly confidential. Only five people were allowed in at a time. Taking photographs with your phone was forbidden. Employees hid in the shadows to scare people. There were prompters before going into the escape room, forbidding people to injure the employees. Then, emphasized, it said that the employees were only there to scare you, they wouldn't hurt you, please don't kick or punch.

You Zhengping had said that he wanted to protect Yu Hua, so he paid more money to buy five people's tickets when in reality only he and Yu Hua went in. Seeing the two of them go in, Huan Zixu followed closely after with Feng Kui and said to the employee at the entrance, "We're employees."

As he spoke, Huan Zixu got out a piece of white paper and gave it to the employee. The employee let the two of them pass as though they were old acquaintances. "False exchange," by the illegal exchange of items of value (commonly called bribery), used the exchange of a certain item to change the "impression" of a certain target individual or certain interested group sharing some characteristic. 

"False exchange" was irreversible, no returns and no exchanges. For a single person, the exchange item was only symbolic; it could be gum, which had a slight price, or it could be the white paper, which had an extremely low value. For a group exchange item, however, the demands for quantity were much higher.

While picking up the movie tickets, You Zhengping had suspected their identities and had been about to get Cen Xiao to report it to the organization. While Huan Zixu wasn't aware of You Zhengping's identity as a Protector, Feng Kui had looked like he wanted to eat the ticket machine at the time, and You Zhengping had been closest to them. For security, Huan Zixu had casually given him the bottle of gum, changing You Zhengping's "impression" of them into ordinary passersby, so You Zhengping had forgotten to report the event.

The "impression" wasn't limited to only themselves. In the Chinese restaurant, Huan Zixu had changed the "impressions" of the guests in the private room and the cashier; these were the reserving a private room "impression" and the having already collected payment "impression."

The "false exchange" ability didn't seem to have any power to hurt, but its genuine use was rather frightening.

For example, You Zhengping and Yu Hua were a deeply attached couple. If Huan Zixu was especially heartless and changed You Zhengping's "impression" towards Yu Hua, then it was very likely You Zhengping would forget that Yu Hua was his husband and regard him as something like a roommate or ordinary friend.

If Huan Zixu gave a certain Protector a box of small but numerous fruit candies and ordered that person to back to the Protection Organization and give each person a candy, "false exchange" would spread from that person throughout the group, and the idea Huan Zixu wanted to give the Protection Organization would be transmitted to each person's brain. Using only a cheap box of fruit candies, he could give each person who took a candy the "impression" that "the black-cloaked man is an enemy, a murderer."

Changing "enemy" to "teammate," "lover" to "foe," "nobody" to "close kin," confounding white and black, confusing true and false—that was the power of "false exchange." There were quite a few levelers who chose the "false exchange" ability, but the majority of them died before reaching fifty levels. The reason was that this ability was too frightening. Even their teammates wouldn't dare to let such a person stay beside them, scared that they would have their thoughts changed.

Who would trust such a scheming person who could silently change their own people? Low level "false exchange" didn't have any great power. Initially it was only the ability to barter, such as exchanging a small rock for a piece of bread; people with strong enough willpower could resist the "bribe." But as the level increased, the brainwashing ability deepened, and the "false exchange" user became too powerful.