“Players?” Feng Bujue repeated the other party's question, a smile appearing on his face. “What players? We don’t play online games or anything.”

“Um…” Hearing Jue-ge's response, Xiao Tan couldn't help but glance at him, thinking, “As expected of Jue-ge… calmly telling a potentially non-network game world NPC, in a world connected by online games, someone who is super-dimensionally aware of the essence of their existence, that he doesn’t play online games…” He really didn't pay much attention to sentence breaks when thinking in his heart. “In a sense… this should be the legendary 'triple version of lying through your teeth'…”

“You know what I'm talking about.” Hirata glared at Jue-ge and said, “You think… denying it will work?”

“Heh…” Feng Bujue replied with a smile, “Then… suppose… and please note, this is just a hypothetical… suppose we are indeed the so-called 'players' you speak of, what do you intend to do?”

“Consciousness_attack.” In less than a second, Hirata replied coldly.

Upon hearing this, Wang Tanzhi's expression immediately changed.

“Sorry, I’m only in fourth grade, I don’t understand the word before 'attack'.” Feng Bujue reacted quickly, immediately stepping forward and standing in front of Xiao Tan, speaking rapidly.

“Is that so…” Hirata sneered, “But… it seems your companion understood it.”

“Tch…” Feng Bujue thought unhappily, “This guy's ability to read people isn't bad at all…”

At the same time, Xiao Tan thought with great remorse, “Damn it… I forgot my elementary school student setting, I’ve dragged Jue-ge down again…”

Two seconds later, Feng Bujue replied to Hirata with a perfectly normal expression, “Oh? Is that so… Maybe it’s because… his English grades are pretty good.” As he spoke, he even turned to look at Xiao Tan, “Hayatarō, what does that word mean?”

“Consciousness.” Xiao Tan replied concisely.

“Hehe…” Feng Bujue laughed after hearing this, and looked back at Hirata, “So, you want to use some kind of mental attack on us?”

“Yes.” Hirata replied.

“Can I ask… why?” Feng Bujue said, “Just because we are the so-called 'players'?” He felt immense pressure inside, but his tone and demeanor remained relaxed as ever. When he said the word “players,” he didn't forget to raise his hands and make the “air quotes” gesture.

“Isn’t that reason enough?” Hirata retorted, “Do ‘we’ need to explain ‘our’ hatred for ‘you’?”

“You might as well explain it.” Feng Bujue was trying to prolong the conversation to gather more information.

“Put yourself in our shoes, Neko Saburō… or rather… I don’t even know your real name, Mr. Player.” Hirata said, “If one day, you discovered that you were just a character imagined by someone else, how would you feel?” He paused, then continued, “When you realize… your origins, appearance, personality, experiences, etcetera, etcetera… are all made up by someone else; that everything you say and do is just a fantasy drawn by another person with a pen or keyboard; and that all the joys, angers, sorrows, and happiness you experience… all those feelings that you thought were real are just instilled in you by someone else…”

“Haa…” At this point, Hirata let out a long sigh, “At that time, what would you have left? From your spirit to the physical level, is there even a tiny bit of anything that truly belongs to ‘you’?” He shook his head and said with a bitter smile, “Heh… I can tell you, once you figure all this out… all that will be left in your heart is an endless, unfillable void and sorrow… Only ‘hatred’ can give you some comfort.”

“Ha! Hahahahahaha…” Feng Bujue suddenly burst out laughing upon hearing this.

His laughter was so strange and crazed that, frankly, as I type this line, I don’t even know what he’s going to do next…

“I thought you were going to say something else…” Jue-ge said, shrugging his shoulders after laughing for a while, “Don’t you think… that what you just said is a paradox in itself?”

“What are you saying?” Hirata asked in a deep voice, a hint of doubt on his face.

“Let me put it this way…” Feng Bujue said slowly and clearly, “Suppose… as you said, your way of thinking and everything you say and do are all arranged by someone else, then… at this moment, your doubts, thoughts, dissatisfaction, and hatred about your own existence… are undoubtedly also arranged by that creator. In other words… it’s not you who are questioning, it’s not you who are thinking, you have no dissatisfaction or hatred… these are all just things given to you by some creator with a pen or keyboard. These rather repressed emotions and behaviors of yours… are essentially no different from complaining.

“At most, there's a difference in purpose…

“Some behaviors are meant to provoke thought, some behaviors are meant to make people laugh, but in the end… these aren't your own 'purposes' either. According to your logic, you never had any 'purpose' to begin with. Because everything about you ‘from the spiritual to the physical level’ is instilled by someone else.”

“This…” Hirata was already wavering at this point…

“Conversely…” Feng Bujue continued to narrate, “We can make another assumption, for example… when that ‘creator’ turns their attention elsewhere, you will become an individual who can think independently and has self-awareness. In that case, you would have to admit that a part of your ‘existence’ does belong to you… Perhaps your fate is controlled by a higher-dimensional being than you, but you are not one hundred percent helpless.

“Your relationship… is like that of the creator and mortal in religion. You can complain that life treats you like a bitch, but you can't say that your whole life is lived like an actor.”

“No… that's not right…” Hirata's eyes were filled with surprise and uncertainty, and he muttered words of denial, but he was unable to further refute Feng Bujue's theory.

“Although I don’t know what you guys are talking about… it feels pretty awesome…” At the same time, Xiao Tan leaned close to Jue-ge and whispered.

“To be honest… I thought about what he just said a long time ago.” Feng Bujue also turned his head and whispered to Xiao Tan, “I’ve already stopped dwelling on it.”

“So you used to dwell on it…” Xiao Tan muttered, “Wait… before that, do normal people even think about that kind of question?”

“Ah–”

Just as they were talking, Hirata-kun, not far away, clutched his head in his hands and knelt on the ground, screaming loudly…

In the blink of an eye, his outline began to fade; the color was disappearing from his body at a speed visible to the naked eye, looking as if… he was being erased with correction fluid…

“Calm down, Hirata-kun.” At this moment, another voice suddenly rang out, “Don't fall into the other party's logical trap.”

Upon hearing this, Hirata shuddered, and the fading stopped…

In the next second, Feng and Wang turned their heads in response to the sound, looking in the direction from which it came.

When they clearly saw the appearance of the speaker, both of them were shocked.

“Penguin Assistant…” Feng Bujue frowned as he looked at the person who had arrived, “You're not dead…”

Penguin Assistant's face was ashen: “Of course I'm not dead.” As he spoke, he walked over slowly, “Did you really think… that Xiong Ji could kill me?”

“Oh…” Jue-ge seemed to understand something instantly, raising his eyebrows and muttering, “No wonder…”

Xiao Tan beside him was also thinking quickly, and he murmured softly, “So that's how it is, I knew it… there's no way Xiong Ji could have committed such a beheading murder…”

“My ‘death’ was just an illusion.” Penguin Assistant walked up to the two of them and continued, “And the purpose of creating this illusion was to test the period of time that ‘you two’ controlled ‘these two bodies’.”

“It seems… you’ve already come to a conclusion…” Feng Bujue's expression was icy cold, and his tone became filled with hostility.

“Although I can’t say it’s one hundred percent accurate, but…” Perhaps due to his species, Penguin Assistant rarely seemed to smile. Even though he was speaking in a rather smug tone, his face remained impassive. “…it’s pretty close.”