Chapter 6: The Little Girl Who Sells Matches

"Ah, my book!"

The little girl ran to Tang Mo with speed beyond human reach and scooped up the book, "The Vanishing Secrets of the Mayan Civilization," into her arms. With the giant match in her left hand and the book in her right, she made sure it was her lost book, then ran to the bookshelf and sat down, leaned against it and began to read.

"Mom's going to test me on something in this book tomorrow, and I need to hurry up and read it."

The sound of a little girl flipping through books swished through the large, spacious library.

The cleric's face turned unbearably white in the moment, his lips purple as he stared dead at Mosaic and the book she was holding. It seemed as if he had been fished out of the water, and in just a few minutes, the Divine Magus' hair was wet with sweat. He looked over at Tang Mo and smiled bitterly, "So that's the book. When did you know about it?"

Tang Mo looks down at Eyestick's right hand, on the back of which the white pattern of angel feathers fades to black, becoming black demonic feathers.

Tang Mo's voice was calm: "From the moment I met you."

The cleric's eyes widened incredulously, "How can that be!"

The little girl was still sitting on the floor reading and didn't seem to hear them. With the game thus over, Tang Mo and Shenmue walk over to the reading area of the library and pull out chairs and sit down.

Tang Mo looks up at the mosaic in the distance, I'm afraid she's the only one in the entire library who is still in the mood to read patiently. The godly man is no longer as timid and scared as he was before, he sits in front of Tang Mo and starts to talk about the truth of the matter: "I'm the one who dragged you into this game."

This is not what Tang Mo expected.

The cleric says, "The sneaking into the library was an accident. I snuck in before you entered the library. You know, a lot of hobos like us come to the library to squander our time, and by the end of the night before closing time your security had to find us all and kick us out. But the security guards have made mistakes, and your library is too close to that tower, so I chose this place to watch that tower after it made the 'Earth on line' sound. Then on the third day, I was reading a book when I accidentally heard what it said to me."

The cleric lifted his head and looked at Tang Mo with a serious and fervent gaze, as if he were not looking at Tang Mo, but seeing some great being.

"It said to me that the game was about to begin." The cleric stared into the air in fascination and repeated, "I've been chosen by it!"

Tang Mo didn't talk to him.

The cleric was just a crazy religious person, not a psychopath, that much all the library staff knew. So it didn't take long for the Godstalker to calm down, except for a slight sickly flush on his face. He said, "The game it picked out for me was a 1V1 two-player adversarial game, and I couldn't finish it alone. I was considering leaving the library to find someone to start the game with when you came in. I know you fairly well, and I thought for a moment about purposely making a noise to lure you over. In hindsight, that was the worst decision I've ever made."

Tang Mo asked him, "What's the penalty for losing the game? What is elimination?"

The cleric shook its head, "I don't know, it didn't say. I hear the same voice you hear, it never says anything superfluous, it tells me that while I choose the object of the game, the content of the game is up to you. That's fair. I also didn't realize until this game officially started that it was a book search game. Perhaps the game came about because you are a librarian, fitting your identity." At this point, the Godmodder paused and looked at Tang Mo with serious eyes : "How exactly did you find out about me?"

It's really quite simple, Tang Mo : "You're not a madman, and you're not a fool. Your reasons for sneaking into the library were flimsy enough, and every manifestation of yours since our meeting has seemed overwhelmingly fearful and terrified. God ...... Mr. Chen, I also know a fanatical religious person, if three days ago that person said to me 'the Black Tower is God', then I believe that three days later when he was chosen by the Black Tower to open the game, his performance would not be panic and fear, but rather willingness. "

The cleric's taut back fell heavily on the back of his chair, "So that's it ......"

Tang Mo : "It's just a suspicion, and I can't say for sure if you're a Yeoman and really that much of a wimp."

"Then why did you know it was me?"

"Because the game has to be fair."

The magician looked at Tang Mo in disbelief.

Tang Mo touched the angel feather pattern on the back of his hand, "I like to play games too. A game I often play can be considered one of the fairest card games in the world. A game where skill can be stronger than luck, like bridge, which I often play, and where luck can be stronger than skill, like stud. But these games have one thing in common, and that is that they are absolutely fair to both players. After the game has started, luck is also a kind of strength, and both sides, no matter who is lucky and who is unlucky, are still a difference in strength. The game itself is fair."

The cleric caught his words, "What does this have to do with our game?"

Tang Mo looks up at him, "Don't you think this game is very unfair?"

"What?"

"There are only three rules of the game. The first one prohibits violence. This one also has a deeper meaning, for now. Second, angels can get a message during the day; third, demons can burn a bookshelf at night. It looks like the angel is trying to find a book out of hundreds of thousands of books, making the game difficult; the demon, however, has a three-in-twenty-three chance of winning the game."

The cleric suddenly realized, "Are you saying this game is unfair to the angels?"

"No." Tang Mo laughs and shakes her head, "It's the demons that are being treated unfairly."

The cleric was dumbfounded.

"For the angel, this game holds the solution to the problem. All he had to do was follow the clues and find the book. But for the devil, he did one thing, and that was to burn the book. No one gave him any clues or told him where the book was. Then the game becomes like this - the angel is playing a puzzle game, and the demon is purely gambling|gambling. The angels can rely on skill and luck to complete the game; all the demons can lean on is luck."

The clergyman argued, "But angels are far less likely to find the right book than demons."

"As I said, when the game starts, luck becomes a form of strength. A demon's luck is 0 without burning the right book, no different than an angel's. Then there's the 'no violence' rule of the game, which then completely kills the way demons force their way to clues, then demons have to get their game clues from somewhere else."

The Magus didn't say anything, his face suddenly turned green and white, and after a long time he heaved a sigh of relief and laughed helplessly, "It's because I've played fewer games. Tang Mo, is that bridge you always play fun, maybe I should go play more in the future."

Tang Mo said, "If there's a chance, I'll take you along."

The cleric smiled and nodded.

Tang Mo's eyes gradually narrowed, "If the person I'm playing the game with is him, perhaps the ending of this game will be completely rewritten."

"Who is he?"

Tang Mo laughed, "It's a friend I often play bridge with. He's very good, and if it was him, surely he could have thought of all the things I pondered too, and then tricked me with the perfect excuse. At least he doesn't make several of the blunders you make."

The cleric did not feel ashamed, but instead was humble enough to ask for advice, "I still have mistakes? I thought I had acted very well. When I met you, I pretended to be scared for fear that you would find my loopholes. Later, I took the opportunity to try to say as little as possible, do as little as possible, and listen to all of your commands."

"But you still made mistakes. For example, after I said that there was no one else in the library but us, and that the demon didn't know where he was, you said 'he's hiding'. If it was a normal reaction, there were two of us on the angel team, and subconsciously we would have assumed that there were two of us on the demon team as well, we would have used 'they' instead of 'he'."

The corner of the cleric's mouth twitched, "I'm suddenly interested in this bridge."

"But I was expecting to expose you the first night, but I didn't realize the bookshelf was actually burning. I thought you had company. That's not realistic though. It's not fair to the angels to have two demons and only one angel." Unless the Black Tower thinks the two of you combined are on the same level as me.

Tang Mo coughed twice and didn't say the words that followed, "The second day I've been wondering just who helped you set this fire. There are two answers in total, the first is that you will catch fire as soon as your mind moves, you don't need others to help you control it. The second is that someone helped you set the fire. The only people who appear in this library are you, me, and the little girl. The only one who can help you set the fire is her, besides the Black Tower."

The cleric said, "But even I don't know that she helped me set the fire."

"It's quite understandable, too. Have you forgotten, little girls hate books. You want to burn down a bookshelf, she'll gladly help you. That reasoning makes sense. By the way I looked at her hair when she came over just now, and unfortunately the ends are a bit burnt. Maybe she accidentally touched it when she was setting the fire earlier."

The cleric's entire body slumped in his chair, "I lost convincingly."

Tang Mo was about to say more, but looking at the look on the godly man's face, he shook his head and laughed a little without saying anything more.

There are many other things that the godly man did not notice, such as how he tested the godly man and tricked the godly man into burning the H-type bookshelf. Another example is the three hints from the little girl, which had long ago exposed the identity of the godly man.

There's a lot of nonsense in those three tips, but they're summarized in just three points.

First, the devil can be deceiving.

This is a hint to the angels: the devil hides his identity and hides from you.

Second, the angels know about the book.

The tip seemed useless because Tang Mo knew so many books, even the ones he had recently remembered, hundreds of them at least.

Third, the devil knows the book.

It's a book that Tang Mo and the Godfockers know all about.

The range is still wide.

Shenanigans have been reading in the library for a year, and there are at least a couple thousand books that both he and Tang Mo know about. The game can't be that difficult. If the game was impassable, it could have eliminated two players at the beginning without opening the game. So the answer must have been something Tang Mo and the Godstalker could have come up with.

Tang Mo's first thought was the book, "The Vanishing Secrets of the Mayan Civilization".

It was a book he had exchanged with the Godstalker before the incident at the Black Tower. If you were to ask which book they both knew and were most impressed by, it would definitely be this one.

Shenmue is definitely not stupid, and with the sudden start of the game, it's pretty good that he can think of acting all at once, and do it in a fairly realistic way.

Tang Mo suddenly began to think that if it were Victor, I'm afraid he would have stolen his initiative the moment the two of them entered the game together. Victor would never have put himself in a vulnerable position like the God Stick did. While the Magician's acting in this way seems to make Tang Mo ignore himself and do less wrong, he also loses the ability to twist Tang Mo's thoughts and mislead Tang Mo.

What would Victor do in his place ......

Meanwhile, in the distant capital, a tall, handsome man in a straight uniform strides into the conference room. He pulled out his chair and sat on a corner of the edge of the conference table, his eyes like eagles as he watched the scientist who was giving a speech and the text on the big screen.

"Three days ago, the Black Tower was in the state of a virtual shadow, which we refer to as a Type A mirage. In the past six months, we have had various experiments to detect the relevant data of the Black Tower ......"

In the conference room, the scientists discussed heatedly, and finally the chief spoke, his voice like a torrent, "So, today is already the third day. What conclusions have you reached?"

The scientists were all silenced.

Fu Wenduo, being the lowest ranked person present, averted his eyes silently and looked out the window.

In the dark night sky, there is a huge black tower, sharp as a knife, hanging over the heads of 21.72 million people in Beijing.

It's 3:42 a.m. on November 18, 2017, four hours and 18 minutes before the end of the three-day elimination period.

Library.

The clergyman sat in his chair sweating profusely, saying he wasn't nervous, but his trembling lips revealed his nervousness. Now no one knows what "elimination" really means, maybe it's just losing a game, maybe it's losing something more.

It was at this moment that the sound of clattering footsteps rang out from the depths of the bookshelves.

The little mosaic girl took the book and ran to Tang Mo with a bounce in her step. Her two ponytails swung in a beautiful arc in the air, and she puffed out her small breasts, her tone of voice unable to hide her happiness, and suddenly reached out her hand and held the giant match in front of Tang Mo.

"You've still got a couple of tricks up your sleeve for an angel. Since you helped me find the book, I'll give it to you."

Tang Mo took the large match in tears and subconsciously asked, "The little girl who sells matches?"

In a flash, the thick mosaic of the little girl's face suddenly gaps. Tang Mo's eyes widened to see that where the little girl's eyes had been, the mosaic disappeared, revealing a pair of large, lifeless, dead fish eyes. The rest of the face was still mosaic, except for the eyes!

Tang Mo held her breath, wary of this strange change.

Only the dead fish eyes glanced lifelessly at Tang Mo, and the intense contempt melted into solidity.

"Uncle, haven't you grown up yet, have you ever seen such a cute little girl selling matches?"

Tang Mo who went from brother to uncle : "......"

Dare you to mosaic away just to show a look of disdain!!!!