Hearing Twenty Faces' strange yet sowhat familiar accent, Ming Po's gaze turned a shade colder.
"Japanese?" Ming Po narrowed his eyes and asked.
Utopia's Mandarin was too standard... Although she had blonde hair and blue eyes, Ming Po could never be entirely certain if she was a foreigner. However, given Twenty Faces' accent, it was basically a certainty.
"I used to be," Twenty Faces replied with a pleasant smile. "Mortals have nationalities, and Deceivers of the World have nationalities, but Hosts do not. Wherever our organization's base was when we were Deceivers, that is the only place we can recruit from once we beco Hosts... The organization I used to belong to was also in Shanghai."
"..."
Ming Po rely let out a cold snort. Perhaps it was because his parents spent the entire year traveling abroad on business, or perhaps because he had interacted with many foreigners, but he had never held much of a favorable impression of them.
Twenty Faces.
Ming Po pondered over the Host's Title. It imdiately reminded him of Edogawa Ranpo's The Fiend with Twenty Faces.
That series of stories revolved around the showdown between the great detective Kogoro Akechi and the phantom thief Twenty Faces, whose archetype was likely derived from Arsène Lupin. The "Boys Detective Club" ford in those books, the formula of a detective dueling a phantom thief who could disguise himself but never killed, and elents like Kogoro Akechi and Kobayashi, the leader of the Boys Detective Club, all later beca the core references for Detective Conan.
Judging from her Title, her ability was highly likely related to disguises and changing appearances.
But if that were the case...
Ming Po thought of Lady Naless again. She was also capable of turning into another person. Her abilities seed sowhat similar to Twenty Faces'.
As for Gao Song...
Ming Po shifted his gaze to the handso young man.
His Title was Silver Crown of the Lucky Mistletoe.
The prefix "Lucky" was identical to Gao Fan's. According to Red Queen, this seed to be a rare prefix that allowed one to "intuitively obtain the answer." In situations where no Luck confrontation occurred, it could effectively help a Deceiver of the World guess the correct path and the correct answer in a ga. This kind of power was considered an essential asset across various organizations. In the Chinese Chamber of Comrce, the Deceiver organization Gao Song had joined, he was undoubtedly an important figure.
And Mistletoe... Judging from the na, it was a typical parasitic plant.
In most situations, mistletoe would not pose much harm to a healthy plant, but if the host plant lacked nutrients, the nutrients extracted by the mistletoe could be fatal. It also seed to have certain connotations in occultism... Ming Po vaguely rembered that it was related to Baldr, the Norse god of light, and seed sowhat connected to Ragnarok.
Based on these images, did it have sothing to do with betrayal or parasitism?
Still, he could not determine its specific ability.
If only Ai Shiping were here, Ming Po thought to himself.
It was rare for him to think of his close friend when encountering danger. Usually, he wished for Ai Shiping to stay as far away from danger as possible.
Ai Shiping was quite proficient in occultism; he dabbled in religions, folklore, cultures, and legends from all over the world. He even understood Tarot divination, astrology, Plum Blossom Nurology, as well as the occult anings of various incenses, essential oils, and herbs.
Aside from that, he had also picked up so barefoot doctor knowledge, along with the crafting of simple tools and the synthesis of basic chemicals—even including strange topics like bomb-making and corpse disposal.
That guy had a head full of miscellaneous knowledge and was quite smart, but his usual interests lay in useless trivia. However, whenever Ming Po needed inspiration while writing a script, he would go over to listen to him brag for a while, and sotis he would actually get inspired just from listening.
When Ming Po once asked Ai Shiping why he bothered learning such a pile of bizarre knowledge when he wasn't a screenwriter, an author, a strear, or a fortune teller...
Ai Shiping had stated with a straight face that he was preparing for a potential "transmigration" in the future.
If one day he truly transmigrated to another world, maybe sothing among this ss of knowledge would co in handy. At the ti, Ming Po could not even tell if Ai Shiping was being serious.
If he were here, he would probably be able to guess Gao Song's ability.
"Apologies for the interruption."
Watching Ming Po sink into deep thought, Twenty Faces revealed an enigmatic smile. She spoke in a polite, gentle voice, drawing out her words to interrupt, "Please prepare yourselves, everyone. Our ga is about to begin."
Following Twenty Faces' words, all three of them turned to look at her.
"This ga has a difficulty level of [Week]. If the challengers clear this ga, all survivors will obtain a [1 Week] chip; if the challenged clears this ga, he will obtain all the chips from all challengers. Both the difficulty and rewards for this ga have no upward or downward fluctuations." She spoke softly, "The ga is titled [Twenty Questions of Death]. The gaplay is similar to the classic ga '20 Questions', or perhaps 'Turtle Soup'."
As she spoke, she waved her hand.
A black card materialized in front of Ming Po and the other two.
"Players may use their imagination to engrave the na of a subject onto the card. This subject must be a specific noun that soone in the opposing faction understands or knows. If the opposing party truly does not know this noun, the engraving will fail.
"Subsequently, starting from the first player, everyone will speak in turn. Each player can choose to either 'Question' or 'Guess'. Everyone can only choose one of these actions during their turn per round.
"When any question is asked, all face-down cards on the field will undergo judgnt simultaneously. If it is a 'Yes' or 'Yes and No', then the card will briefly turn white; if it is a 'No', 'Uncertain', or 'aningless', it will not change color.
"The total number of questions that can be asked by everyone in both factions is 20. After accumulating 20 questions, no one can continue to 'Question' and may only choose to 'Guess'."
Her style was completely different from Ink's.
Twenty Faces' smile was gentle and her tone was soft, yet her words were incomparably cruel.
"The following are the specific rules of this ga:
"Rule 1: Leaving your seat, directly looking at or peeking at the contents of other people's cards, using any form of violence, and hindering or preventing players of the opposing faction from answering questions are strictly prohibited. Otherwise, a loss will be determined depending on the situation.
"Rule 2: The contents on your own card cannot be seen by anyone, including your own teammates. Otherwise, a loss will be determined depending on the situation.
"Rule 3: During the first round, the thinking ti is 10 seconds. Exceeding the ti limit will be considered as making an incorrect guess. Afterward, for every 'Question' asked, everyone's thinking ti per round will increase by 10 seconds, up to a maximum of 210 seconds.
"Rule 4: The use of Title abilities and Treasures is permitted in this ga, and communication is allowed. However, the use of Ti Chips is strictly forbidden."
Ming Po narrowed his eyes.
Was she... not even going to pretend anymore?
Twenty Faces had directly stated that a loss would be determined "depending on the situation." Did this an she was preparing to act as a biased referee?
If Gao Song cheated, the outco would be hard to say... but if they cheated, they would probably be guaranteed a loss.
Then, Twenty Faces revealed the final and most crucial part of the ga. Naly, how to win... and the price of failure.
"Finally, the victory and defeat conditions of this ga are as follows:
"When your card has its turns exhausted by the opponent and they use a 'Guess' to correctly identify it: The card flips over, and you are declared the loser;
"When you make three consecutive incorrect 'Guesses': You are directly declared the loser;
"This ga will only end when all players of one faction have been declared losers.
"A player declared as a loser will imdiately die."
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