Doomsday Wonderland Vol. 13: Sleepwalking in Dreamland [Complete]

1608: The Solution to Zero-Sum Game is Not to Play

Wu Yiliu's voice fell for half a minute, and the camping cabin was still filled only with the sound of a TV drama, echoing faintly in the dead silence of the living room. The flickering light from the screen washed over the dark night outside like waves.

"Alright," he said, turning his gaze away from the two on the couch and opening his palm to reveal a small, green, curved object that resembled a pea shoot. "Then I'll begin."

Abby closed her eyes tightly again, her hands clutching the edges of the chair.

"Wait!" Cuining suddenly cried out from the couch. "Hold on, we can talk."

"You talk so much, surely because you don't want to transform either, right?" Pence said, pausing slightly as if still hesitant about the concept of "transformation." Neither of the players occupying the bodies of the two on the couch had ever heard Wu Yiliu's story. They were probably hearing about infection transformation for the first time.

"Is Christo back?" Wu Yiliu asked, looking around the room.

The two on the couch were intertwined, leaning back on each other, looking quite ridiculous when quiet. But when they spoke, the scene seemed eerie.

Cuining's neck was tightly bound, her voice choked and shrill as she still looked at the ceiling. "How did you know?"

Wu Yiliu didn't know. Knowing implies certainty, and he was only guessing: first, that the timing was right, and second, that the two who hadn't heard the story seemed to accept his words entirely. Relying solely on "Abby" to explain seemed too quick.

"I apologize, but how can we be sure that "Abby" and Christo didn't whisper to us secretly during the negotiation?" he said, without explaining. "Until you prove this to me, I will not stop to talk with you."

"But we also don't know how to prove it," Cuining spoke again, apparently having a slightly higher status as a player. "The driver's pocket dimension just appeared, we're the first batch of players, and we're not familiar with—"

"I have a way," Wu Yiliu interjected.

Cuining was silent for a few seconds before asking, "What way? How do you have a way?"

The method was not complex. Wu Yiliu had already returned the [Priest's Roman Collar] to Abby. Like many Special Items, it could not be used consecutively by the same person, but if Abby acted as the priest and targeted "Abby," it could bypass the limitations of usage and targets, working once more—although only once, with an effect lasting ten minutes.

However, at least for those ten minutes, "Abby" would monitor the other players' movements wholeheartedly at Abby's request. Abby had pen and paper ready, and the devoted believer "Abby" would ask her to write down the situation if anything happened. This was considering that Abby might not hear the whisper even if she tried to listen during the conversation.

"Times change," Abby said to the air, nearly laughing as she touched a piece of white on her collar. "You just brainwashed me, didn't you? Bet you didn't expect to be controlled by me now. And you'll have to come forward and be controlled."

Nobody expected it—not even Wu Yiliu himself. Just in case, he prepared another trick: he put women's shoes on Cuining and tied his own and Abby's legs to their chairs.

"What are you doing?" Cuining asked, seemingly displeased.

"I hid a needle in the knot. When we untie ourselves and get pricked, I will activate my binding item." In reality, he had no needle, but the players couldn't see such a small detail anyway.

"All four brainwashing items are on Cuining and Pence. If the situation evolves to the point where we all transform, you four will inevitably compete for those two bodies," he said, smiling. "Consider it my divide-and-conquer strategy."