[I'm sorry to inform you that players who arrive at the 9th floor tower must accept the invitation to the aerial performance from Mr. Roman]

The system issues quests to the seven players at the top of the tower:

【Performance: Tightrope Walking】

[Performance content: Follow the tightrope, walk from the tower to the end of the tent auditorium]

[Note: Do not use any items in the system inventory, remember!] As a brilliant performer, as a high-profile new blood flowing in the acrobatic tower, do not use external forces during the performance, otherwise the audience will be disappointed and the reputation of the circus will be seriously affected.

[Performance time: 20 minutes]

At this moment, all the players' faces were bloody.

"That is to say... We have to walk across this 100-meter-long tightrope with our strength without the help of any props and without any safety protection measures..."

"How is this possible! We're not really acrobats! The protesting player clicked open his inventory in disbelief, but he quickly let out a low growl of despair—

"Hell! All items have been banned! Isn't this going to kill us?! ”

"Look, are there seven or eight people standing under the tower? Could it be that they chose the first layer correctly? One of the boys, who was trembling because of his fear of heights, pointed to the figure under the tower and said with a sad face.

"Be confident, get rid of it."

"How so... How..."

"Who the said the ninth layer so definitely before! Get the hell out of here... It's you, right?! ”

"What? I just said my opinion, whether to believe or not to believe is your own business, they are all adults, do you want me to be responsible for you?! ”

[The countdown to the show begins, please take your seats]

The sound of the system's urging interrupted the argument.

In just twenty minutes, they had to find a way to walk through the 150-meter-long tightrope without the help of props.

"What to do? Which big guy started the way? ”

"Stop talking nonsense, hurry up and draw lots to decide the order in which we fall to our deaths."

"I can be the first tightrope walker, and you can draw lots for the rest." One of the players with the balance skill was the first to walk on the tightrope, and even with the blessing of the skill, she still broke out in a cold sweat when she walked on the tightrope that swayed before the storm.

But the remaining six players are not having a good time, they have no relevant skills, and their inventory is locked, and they are no different from ordinary people at the moment, and they simply don't have the courage to step on the thin steel wire hanging from the edge of the tower.

Standing on a high place, they could even hear the wind whistling past the roof of the tent, and everyone's inner security was blown away.

[Remaining time of the show: 15 minutes.] The second performer is invited to appear as soon as possible.

As a result, the player who drew the number "one" had to stand on the wobbling tightrope and surrender his life to an impossible miracle at the urging of everyone.

Under the tower.

After the first player successfully crossed the tightrope, Mr. Roman even flattened his mouth in some disappointment: "Dear visitors, do you think this kind of show is wonderful?" No! It's so boring! It's the same boring! We look forward to a more sensory and exciting performance in the future! ”

The moment his words fell, he saw a black dot the size of a sesame seed falling from the shaking rope, and with a loud "bang", the player who was forced to the tightrope by everyone finally fell into a blood mist under the tower.

The players under the tower couldn't even see each other's complete corpses, and when the bloody mist cleared, only scattered pieces of flesh and tissue fluid were scattered on the ground, and the thick red covered the dry blood stains on the stone steps.

Although it was an expected scene, when the fall of the tower really happened in front of him, Qin Rang was still so frightened that he couldn't make a sound.

He noticed that Mr. Roman, the acrobat, had finally changed his previously tense face and reappeared with a pleasant smile: "Oh! This is the wonderful performance that belongs to the road circus acrobatic troupe, red! Moist bright red! Like a flower covered with dew in the morning mist! ”

Mr. Roman danced and raised his cane, licked his lips contentedly, and shouted praises of death beneath the tower.

Qin Rang finally confirmed Qi Yan's previous speculation: the cast and crew of this circus are "feeding" on the death of tourists.

On the top of the tower, the third player who was about to perform the "performance" trembled and crawled on the ground, he was already afraid of heights, and at this moment the fear shouted to occupy all his senses, and he couldn't think normally, until the player behind him reminded him: "The system only said that the props in the inventory are not allowed to be used, but it does not prohibit the use of dungeon props, do you want to try it?" ”

"W-What do you mean?" The inch-headed boys who were about to perform widened their eyes and looked at each other helplessly.

"I remember you also bought the food sold by the blue uniformed staff cart last night, right?"

The player behind him was quick to explain, trying to convince the player ahead of him to do an experiment, "Remember the fourth part of the Safety Code? The staff in blue uniforms are willing to take responsibility for the safety of visitors, so there must be something special about the food they serve! ”

"That's right! You're right! I almost forgot about this stubble..."The inch-headed boy was so blessed that he immediately took out the green gummies he bought last night from his pocket, his hands were so shaky that he couldn't even tear the candy wrappers smoothly, and the candy slipped from his hands several times.

Finally, with the help of the player behind him, the inch-headed boy finally swallowed the jujube and ate the peeled green gummies.

"Cough, cough, cough..." The inch-headed boy who swallowed the candy seemed to have been swallowed, his hands stuck around his neck and coughed constantly, and his originally bloody face suddenly became red and purple.

"How? Is there something wrong? The player behind him looked nervously at the inch-headed boy and asked with a frown.

"It's so itchy, neck... It's so itchy..."

Under the invisible torture, the boy's pupils were multiplied, he stiffened the green tendons on his neck, and suddenly opened his mouth to pant desperately as if he couldn't breathe, he scratched the bare skin frantically with his nails, leaving shocking blood marks on the red and swollen skin, and the whole person showed a painful and distorted appearance.

But then, the boy's nerve-wracking moans gradually changed tone-

"Squeak, squeak, squeak—" the human phrase vanished, and a vague, animal-like, eerie cry emanated from his mouth.

At the same time, his nails became sharp and slender, and he tore off his fragile skin, and if you looked closely, you could see that in the faint blood marks left by his claws, new hair tissue was growing and spreading.

"Squeak squeak...!" The boy grinned and crawled on the ground, his voice and demeanor getting closer and closer to that of the animal.

The hairs that grew from the festering skin quickly spread all over his body, and when he raised his face in front of everyone again, the short brown and yellow hairs had covered the periphery of his face and neck, and his face was unusually crimson, and a pair of black bean-like eyes kept turning, and fear and helplessness flashed under his eyes—

He turned into a brownish-yellow monkey!

"Jingle bells, jingle bells!"

At this moment, the safety device of the "Scream" performance booth suddenly sounded an alarm.

The people standing under the tower didn't know what was happening at the high platform, but Mr. Roman's face instantly became gloomy, and he cursed angrily, and then the door of the tent was forcibly opened from the outside in, and several blue-uniformed staff with weapons rushed in from outside the tent, and the leading staff members held a loudspeaker and shouted to the top of the tower—

"All animals in the circus area belong to the property of the group, no one is allowed to damage the circus property without permission, please cooperate in bringing the new monkey down the tower, we do not allow untrained animals to perform difficult performances!"

"Please stop the dangerous animal show immediately, and ask for the understanding and cooperation of all cast and crew!"

As a result, under the shocked gaze of the players, the blue-uniformed staff holding weapons forcibly suspended the tightrope performance, and they personally walked up to the high platform to put the "new monkey" into the iron cage, and then carried the "new monkey" in the cage and returned to the ground from the safe passage of the insiders.

Mr. Roman angrily struck the ground with his cane: "Damn! Damn the staff! They are always looking for ways to sabotage our freshest blood and disrupt what should have been a perfect show! ”

Qin Rang and Lu Zhi, who had witnessed all this, quickly exchanged glances.

"Qi Zhen guessed right! His hypothesis was confirmed! Tourists will turn into animals... The green food sold in the tents can turn visitors into performing animals! Because what was happening in front of him fit perfectly with Qi Zheng's previous assumptions, Qin Rang was so excited that he was even a little incoherent-

"In the eyes of the blue-uniformed staff, becoming an animal itself means that the safety of tourists can be guaranteed!"

Lu Zhi twisted his eyebrows: "Safety? Do you mean the kind of safety that is kept in a cage? ”

Qin Rang choked: "At least... The player was temporarily out of danger, maybe with his life hanging by a thread... Eating green foods is the only way to save your life. ”

Lu Zhi fell silent noncommittally.

Because no one knows what the "new monkey" who is imprisoned in the animal cage will face next.

*

Qi Jiu, who entered the "Fool" space of the tower, missed the ups and downs of the "Scream" performance.

The moment he was teleported into the hidden space of the tower, Qi Yan was enveloped in an impermeable sense of suffocation, and the air was filled with a viscous liquid, and as a human being, he couldn't breathe smoothly in such an environment.

However, Qi Yan is no stranger to this feeling of lack of oxygen, and he has already experienced it in the dream about that guy last night.

【Welcome to Mr. Roman's Secret Box】

[Mr. Roman is a friendly and hospitable person, and he welcomes smart children to open his Pandora's box]

Qi Jiu's heart was slightly raised.

Sure enough, the curse circulating in Mr. Roman's acrobatic troupe has something to do with that guy's character, right?

Chapter 130: Highway Circus (24)

The dullness pressed against the chest gradually lessened, the suffocation ebbed, and the senses returned.

Qi Yan opened his eyelids, bound by the sticky feeling, and a dimly lit, mossy room entered his field of vision.

Nicknamed "Mr. Roman's Pandora's Box", the room was small, with no windows on all four walls, except for a dim glimmer of light streaming through the skylight.

This beam of light just hit the "uninvited guest" Qi Jiu, at this moment Qi Jiu is like an actor who was suddenly pushed to the center of the stage, he was caught off guard and stood in the spotlight without any performance preparations, the dazzling beam made him unable to see the situation under the stage, but he could clearly feel that there were countless pairs of eyes watching his every move in the dark.

A gaze from a non-existent auditorium.

Qi Zhen quickly put himself into a groove, and he found that this room was more humid than any space in the circus.

The moment he arrived at the room, the walls around him began to flow down from the zenith like a southern sky, and a small puddle soon accumulated at the base of the wall.

Could it be that because of his "intrusion", time in this room forgotten in the depths of the tower began to flow again, and the dusty room gradually liquefied and dissolved.

So does the player have to find the truth about "Mr. Roman's Secret Box" before the room dissolves completely?

It's an interesting scene design.

Qi Ji did not intend to live up to the painstaking efforts of the "fool" space designer, and began to explore seriously and meticulously.

He approached the moss-covered wall, and through the flowing water stains, Qi Ji found that under the moss, there was a whole wall covered with various newspaper clips and character posters, and the newspapers were so densely pasted that they almost blended into the moss and the wall around them.

It's just that the room is too damp, and the handwriting on these old newspaper posters is a little illegible, and Qi Zhen has to look closely at it to confirm that the newspaper is all about circus acrobatics.

The newspapers recorded the moment of honor of the acrobatic troupe's high-altitude performance, and Qi found that the portraits of the characters on these newspaper posters had been torn off by the owner of the room, and Mr. Roman had pasted his own face on other people's photos.

Even the names of the winners mentioned in the report were crossed out with a pen, and the name of "Mr. Roman" was changed to "Mr. Roman" in the blank space on the side.

All the information in the newspapers and posters, without exception, was changed by Mr. Roman to his own name and photograph.

So that's the case, it seems that Mr. Roman went through the same mental journey as Miss Lola before becoming a high-altitude performer in the acrobatic troupe-

He was desperate, even paranoid, to achieve achievements in acrobatics, but because of certain objective conditions, he knew that he could not achieve his wish, and his abilities and conditions were not worthy of his dreams, so he could only hide in the darkest corners and do his daydreams in a way that could not be known to outsiders.

But because of a wonderful opportunity, a miracle suddenly befell him in his mediocre life.

Almost overnight, he became the greatest aerial performer in the circus, standing at the top of the crowd and becoming the brightest star under the flash.

But he has to pay for it, like Lola's dancing shoes that won't stop.

According to Lola's diary, Mr. Roman must have experienced more desperate pain than a daydream, starting to smoke anxiously and revealing his true thoughts about the ground and security.

Is it the price he paid that he couldn't get back to the ground?

Mr. Roman mentioned before the start of the game "The Tower": "In the deepest part of this tower, there is the biggest secret in my heart, a secret that I have never made public, but which I have put into practice. ”

Don't...... Was his lame feet his rebellion against the curse of not being able to return to the surface?