Chapter 1 The Trolley Dilemma
"Wish you a happy dance!"
A brisk female voice sounded, followed by a magnetic and deep male voice.
"The mask on the mask may just release one's own nature."
As soon as the voice fell, Wei Miao's eyes were blinded by darkness.
When her vision was restored, Wei Miao found that she had moved from the azure initial login interface to a tram compartment.
In the empty compartment, she was the only passenger. The tram was running steadily, and outside the window was a monotonous tree scene. Looking at the twilight, it was evening.
Wei Miao adjusted the gray rabbit headgear. Although it was a headgear, it looked realistic, and the blood-red eyes were moving, taking in the surrounding environment.
An electronic screen was suspended from the ceiling above, and at this moment, a hazy blue light suddenly lit up and began to play images.
On the screen, a man wearing a full-face silver-white gentleman mask and a black tuxedo stood on the stage. Three spotlights hit him, but there was nothing around him, only deep darkness.
He reached out and took off his top hat, greeting the audience in front of the screen. After putting the top hat back on, he held the cane in both hands, emphasized, and opened with an enthusiastic tone: "Welcome everyone to "Masquerade" for the first time! The ball has begun, and the mask interprets the disguise!"
Accompanying the words are rich body movements, fully mobilizing the passion of the audience.
"We are about to play the first ball game, which is also your novice guide. You can think of me as the host of the ball." He raised a finger, "Let's make a choice, a very simple choice."
"There are five players on the tram. Now, the tram is about to pass a fork in the road, and there are three roads ahead."
He raised the cane with his right hand and pointed it in the dark. A square screen appeared, which played the track image in front of the tram when it was running.
"There are ten children sleeping on the left track."
The square screen switched the lens and focused on a track occupied by ten sleeping children.
They were sleeping sweetly, about seven or eight years old, lying in the middle of the track, innocent and ignorant, completely unaware of what fate they would face.
"The straight road leads to a cliff. In other words, if the road is not changed, the tram will rush into the abyss without hesitation."
Wei Miao saw the cliff at the end of the track. The track between this side and the opposite cliff was cut off for some reason, so that the tram could only slide into the darkness below when passing by. The broken part was bent downward and deformed, and it did not look like natural damage.
"There are seven awake children sitting on the right track."
The screen followed the words and gave the camera. Seven children in cute clothes sat quietly in the middle of the track, facing the screen, staring straight at the camera, as if they could see the audience outside the screen.
They were awake to accept the trial soon.
"You have the right to choose the route of the tram. No matter what choices you make, the five players will be considered to have passed the level, but the tram will go to its end according to the majority's choice."
The smile on the solidified silver-white mask now looks a bit mocking: "However, those who make the majority choice will receive extra rewards."
"There are two buttons on the handrail on your left, representing left and right respectively. Not pressing any button means you choose to go straight. You have three minutes to make a choice. If there is a 1:2:2 tie, one will be randomly selected from the tie options and everything will be left to God."
The ups and downs of the tone seemed a bit excited: "In the end, I kindly remind you that in the game, absolute real senses are our commitment, and the experience of death is no exception."
"Then everyone, press the button of life and death!"
The echo of the last sentence was still echoing in the car, but the electronic screen had switched to the countdown interface.
The scarlet 3:00 countdown ticked away, giving people an extreme sense of depression.
Wei Miao leaned back on the cushion of the chair, his blood-red eyes were dull, and he fell into thought.
It was unexpected that the novice guide started with a soul-searching question. The complexity of this question has exceeded the scope of what logic can predict.
If the three options are just to question human nature, then the extra rewards give players a more utilitarian thinking direction, shifting the focus from "human nature" to "what most people will choose", with a psychological game element.
However, humans are too complicated species, especially when it comes to the soul, it is difficult to say that you must have hit the other party's mind.
For Wei Miao, if the direction of the tram is determined by herself, then this question is very simple.
You can choose the left and right roads, the only thing you don't choose is the straight road.
It's not because she is selfish, but because her perspective is more detached.
She makes choices from the perspective of a "player". As the main body of the game, the player will feel pain, anger, and joy... To a certain extent, it is a collection of data and spirit.
But what do these children have? In essence, they are a series of cold data, which only simulates the appearance of people. Can they be called "people"?
"People first", Wei Miao's heart tends to be left and right.
However, the problem is given to the players. Virtual reality gives people an unparalleled sense of scene immersion. When facing this problem, players cannot jump out of the constraints of the given scene and think about the problem from the perspective of the players. Instead, they regard it as a simulation of the real scene, which is also the original intention of the copy.
So, what will the players who "live and die together" with her choose?
The gray rabbit scratched her long ears, which showed that she was in a dilemma.
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Should I choose to take the five people in the same car to experience "death" together, or endure the so-called conscience torment and choose the left or right lane?
The left and right lanes not only have differences in the number of people, but also in the state of death - some people die in a daze in their sleep, and some people feel the breath of death coming towards them. How should I choose?
Time passed by, and Wei Miao glanced at the bright red countdown on the screen, which was motionless like a sculpture.
The left and right arrow buttons on the left handrail glowed with a strange luster. The speed of the tram was stable, and the scenery outside the window was stretched and distorted like an oil painting.
0:03.
0:02.
0:01.
0:00!
The tram passed the left and right lanes and flew straight, jumping into the cliff amid the screams and screams in the carriage.
In the darkness that even screams could not penetrate, Wei Miao first heard a deafening crash, and the tram beneath her trembled and fell apart. She herself did not know what she had come into close contact with, and she suddenly lost consciousness in the pain all over her body.
When she came to her senses, she had stretched from the first-person perspective to the God's perspective at high altitude.
A pile of ruins that could not be seen as trams were scattered at the bottom of the cliff, and the figures wearing various headgear or masks were bloody.
Then, the camera zoomed out and focused on the children sleeping in a row on the left track. They opened their scarlet eyes, grinned, and their cute faces showed a hideous smile, with a contrasting sense of evil.
Pointed horns grew on their foreheads, and miniature bat wings stretched out from their backs. They fluttered and flew towards the distant dusk with an unpleasant laugh.
The camera switched again, this time to the right track. The children who were sitting straight raised their weird smiles. Above their heads, white misty smoke appeared out of thin air, and finally merged into a black and white screen like an old documentary.
On the screen, seven children carried big hammers that were completely out of shape with them and came to the track above the cliff.
They raised the hammers and first hit the track near the other side until the track was bent and deformed, and finally broke. They returned to the track on this side of the cliff and hit it again with hammers. Finally, the broken track in the middle fell to the bottom of the cliff.
They threw the hammers off the cliff again, walked back along the track, turned to the right track, and found a place to sit down obediently.
The children on both sides looked cute and innocent, innocent and pitiful, but they were either demons or weird "bear children" in secret!
The host's laughter rang out: "Congratulations on making the final choice. Three of them chose the straight road, one chose the right road, and one chose the left road."
"As you can see, the ending is that you died. And the seemingly innocent children are actually the incarnation of the devil and the culprit."
His laughter contained obvious gloating.
Wei Miao became interested in the "mask" concept promoted by this game. Even a novice guide promoted its main theme in a unique way.
"Appearance is the most clumsy disguise. People who can't even see through the skin can't dance to the end of the party."
This is written in the official website slogan.
The host left a sentence at the end: "The game is over, I wish you all a happy party!"
The afterglow of dusk was swallowed by the horizon, and the world was entering the night. Wei Miao's vision slowly darkened, accompanied by a strange laugh from afar.
When it lit up again, Wei Miao came to a fitting room-like space, about ten square meters in size, with a retro floor-length mirror with a gilded frame in front of her.
One of the outstanding advantages of "Masquerade" is that its transitions are very smooth, and the immersive experience is full, with a bit of black technology.
This is obviously a personal space. There is a red leather cushioned chair with a gold frame in the corner, a row of hangers on the side, the ceiling is about four meters high, and a piece of leather paper is nailed to the wall next to the mirror with a thumbtack.
Wei Miao stood in front of the mirror, with the gray rabbit head cover firmly on her head, but she didn't feel stuffy or uncomfortable. She looked around and shook her head like usual, as if it was integrated with her head.
The initial black suit was well-fitted on her thin body, and the red bow tie was tied at the collar. Wei Miao has not adjusted her height. Her figure of about 160cm makes her look like a doll in a cartoon. In addition, when she created her character, she chose "neutral" in the gender item, so her head-to-shoulder ratio is a bit funny.
She took down the leather paper on the wall, on which her basic character information was written in gorgeous Gothic script.
[ID: Mr. Gray Rabbit]
[Gender: Neutral]
[Mask: Gray Rabbit (0)]
[Disguise coefficient: 0]
[Identity marker: 0]
[Ballroom level: Mask]
[Game coins: 100 (extra reward for novice guidance)]
I hope everyone likes my work! Let me talk about the tone, infinite flow, no CP, slightly dark, chaotic neutral camp. There is a male supporting role, but I don’t trade stocks. However, in the game, who knows whether a person is a man or a woman?
If possible, can you ask for a triple-link? (Recommendation vote, collection, follow-up reading)
Wu Que (let’s call myself that for the time being) would like to thank you! (-人-)
The work has been internally invested, welcome to invest!