Chapter 6: The little girl who sold matches~

"Ah, my book!"

The little girl ran up to Tang Mo with a speed unmatched by humans and took the book, The Vanishing Secrets of the Mayan Civilisation, in her arms. With the giant match in her left hand and the book in her right, she made sure it was the book she had lost, then ran to the bookshelf and sat down, leaning against it, and began to read.

"Mum is 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 in the large, spacious library.

The clergyman's face became unbearably white in this moment, his lips purple as he stared deathly at Mosaic and the book in her hand. As if he had been fished out of the water, it was only a matter of minutes before the cleric's hair was damp with sweat. He looked over at Tang Mo and smiled bitterly, "So it's this book. When did you know about it?"

Tang Mo looked down at the right hand of the eye-stick, on the back of which the white pattern of angel feathers faded to black and became black demonic feathers.

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

The magi's eyes widened incredulously, "How is that possible!"

The little girl is still sitting on the floor reading a book and doesn't seem to hear them. The game ends here, and Tang Mo and the magi walk to the reading area of the library, pull out a chair and sit down.

Tang Mo looked up at Mosaic in the distance, who was probably the only person in the entire library in a patient mood to read a book. Without his previous cowardly fear, the cleric sat down in front of Tang Mo and began to tell the truth about the incident: "I dragged you into this game."

This is something that Tang Mo did not expect.

The cleric said, "The infiltration 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 time it closes for the night your security guards have to find us all and kick us out of the library. But the security guards had their lapses, and your library was too close to that tower, so I chose this place to observe the 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 magus looked up, his gaze earnest and rapt, as if he were not looking at Tang Mo, but at some great being.

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

Tang Mo did not engage in conversation with him.

The cleric was just a crazy religious man, not a psychopath, and all the library staff knew it. So it didn't take long for the cleric to calm down, except for a little sickly flush on his face. He said, "The game it picked for me was a 1V1 two-player rivalry game, and I couldn't do it alone. I was thinking about leaving the library to find someone to start the game, when you came in. You and I know each other quite well, and I thought for a moment about making a noise to lure you over on purpose. In hindsight, that was the worst decision I ever made."

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

The magus shook his head: "I don't know, it doesn't say. The voice I hear is the same as the voice you hear. It never says anything superfluous; it tells me that I choose the object of the game, but you decide what the game is. This is fair. I didn't know it was a book hunt either until this game officially started. Perhaps the game came about because you are the librarian and it fits your identity." At this point, the Godsend 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 lunatic, nor are you a fool. Your reasons for infiltrating the library are flimsy, and your every expression of fear and terror since our meeting has been overwhelming. God ...... Mr. Chen, I also know a fanatical religious man, and if that man had said to me three days ago that 'The black tower is God', then I believe that three days later when he was chosen by The black tower to open the game, he will not behave with panic and fear, but with willingness."

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

Tang Mo: "It's just a suspicion, and I can't be sure if you're a Yeoman and really just that wimpy."

"Then why do you know it's me?"

"Because the game has to be fair."

The magus 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. I often play a game that 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 luck can be stronger than skill, like stud. But the one thing that makes these games equal is that they are absolutely fair to both sides of the game. After the game has opened, luck is also a form of strength, and it is a difference in strength between the two sides, no matter who is lucky and who is unlucky. The game itself is fair."

The magi heard him, "What does this have to do with our game?"

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

"What?"

"There are only three rules to the game. The first one, violence is forbidden. This one also has a deep meaning, so let's leave it at that for now. Secondly, angels can get one message during the day; thirdly, demons can burn down a bookshelf at night. It looks like the angels are trying to find a book out of hundreds of thousands of books, making the game difficult; the demons have a three-in-twenty chance of winning the game."

The magi suddenly understood: "Are you saying that this game is unfair to the angels?"

"No." Tang Mo laughed and shook his head, "It's not fair to the devil."

The magi were 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 only one thing, and that was to burn the book. No one gave him any hints or told him where the book was. That's what the game becomes then - the angel is playing a puzzle game and the demon is purely gambling. The angel can rely on skill and luck to complete the game; all the devil can rely on is luck."

The magi argued, "But the probability of an angel finding the right book is far lower than that of a demon."

"As I said, when the game starts, luck becomes a strength. The demon's luck is zero without burning the right book, no different from an angel. Then there's the 'no violence' rule of the game, which then completely kills the way the demon can force his way to the clues, then the demon has to get the game clues from somewhere else."

The godfather didn't say anything, his face was green and white, after a long time he heaved a sigh of relief and laughed helplessly, "It's me who plays less games. Tang Mo, is that bridge you always play fun, maybe I should go play more in the future."

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

The magus smiled and nodded.

Tang Mo's eyes narrowed: "If he had been the one playing the game with me, perhaps the end of the game would have been completely rewritten."

"Who is he?"

Tang Mo laughed: "It was a friend of mine who I often played bridge with. He's very good, and if it was him, he would have been able to think of all these things I was thinking about too, and then trick me with the perfect reason. At least he doesn't make several of the blunders you make."

Instead of being ashamed of himself, the magus was humble enough to ask for advice: "And I made a mistake? I thought I had done a good job of acting. When I met you I deliberately pretended to be scared for fear that you would discover my flaw. Later I took the opportunity to talk as little as possible, do as little as I could, and do all your bidding."

"But you still made mistakes. For example, when I said that there was no one else in the library but us and that the demon was nowhere to be found, you said 'he's hiding'. If it was a normal reaction, we have two people on the angel team and subconsciously we would also think there are two people on the demon team as well and would use 'they' instead of 'he'."

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

"But I was expecting to expose you on the first night, but I didn't expect the bookshelf to burn up. I thought you had company. But that's not realistic. It's not fair to the angels either when there are 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 one I've been wondering about during the day is who actually helped you set this fire. There were two answers in total. The first was that you would have caught fire as soon as your mind moved, and you didn't need anyone else to help you control it. Secondly, someone helped you set the fire. The only people present in this library are you, me and the little girl. The only one who can help you set the fire is her, apart from The black tower."

The magus said, "But even I didn't know she had helped me set the fire."

"That's quite understandable. Have you forgotten that little girls hate reading books. You want to burn down a bookshelf and she'll happily help you. That reason makes sense. By the way, I looked at her hair when she came over earlier and unfortunately, the ends were a bit burnt. Maybe she accidentally touched it when she set the fire earlier."

The whole man of the gods slumped back in his chair, "I lose by heart."

Tang Mo was about to say more, but when he saw the look on the godfather's face, he shook his head and laughed a little and said no more.

There were many other things that the godly man didn't notice, such as how he tested the godly man and tricked him into burning the H bookshelf. Another example is the little girl's three hints that long ago brought the Godman's identity to light.

There was a lot of nonsense in those three tips, but to sum it up there were only three points.

First, the devil can deceive.

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

Secondly, the angels know the book.

This tip may seem useless because Tang Mo knows so many books, even the ones he has recently remembered, there are at least a few hundred of them.

Third, the devil knows the book.

This is a book that Tang Mo and the Gods know all about.

The range is still very wide.

The Godsend has been reading books in the library for a year, and he and Tang Mo both know at least a few thousand books. The game can't be that difficult. If the game was unpassable, it could have eliminated two players at the beginning without opening the game. So this answer must be something Tang Mo and the Godsend could have thought of.

Tang Mo's first reaction was to the book, The Vanishing Secrets of the Mayan Civilisation.

This is one of the books that he and the Magus exchanged before the events of The black tower. If you were to ask which book they both knew and remembered the most, it would be this one.

The cleric is definitely not stupid, and with the game suddenly starting, it's good enough that he can think of acting at once and act quite realistically.

Tang Mo suddenly began to think that if it had been Viktor, I'm afraid he would have stolen his initiative the moment the two of them entered the game together. Viktor would never have put himself at a disadvantage like the Godman did. By acting in this way the Godsend appears to be making Tang Mo ignore himself and do less wrong, but he also loses the ability to twist Tang Mo's mind and mislead him.

What would Viktor do if he were ......

Meanwhile, far away in the capital, a tall, handsome man in a straight military uniform strides into the conference room. He pulled out a chair and sat on a corner at the edge of the conference table, his eyes like a hawk as he watched the scientist who was giving a speech and the words on the large screen.

"Three days ago, The black tower was in an imaginary state, which we call a Type A mirage. We have done various experiments over the past six months to test the data related to The black tower ......"

In the conference room, the scientists discussed intensely, 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, the lowest ranking person present, averted his eyes silently and looked out of the window.

In the dark night sky, a huge black tower, sharp as a sword, hangs over the heads of Beijing's 21.72 million people.

It is now 3:42am on 18 November 2017, four hours and 18 minutes before the end of the three-day elimination period.

Library.

The buddhist sat sweating in his chair, saying he wasn't nervous, but his trembling lips revealed his apprehension. No one knows what "elimination" means now, maybe it's just losing a game, maybe it's losing something more.

It was at this point that the sound of clattering footsteps sounded from deep within the bookcase.

With the book in her hand, the little Mosaic girl bounced over to Tang Mo. Her two ponytails swung in beautiful arcs in the air, her little breasts puffed out, her tone of voice barely concealing her delight as she suddenly reached out and held the giant match in front of Tang Mo.

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

Tang Mo took the large match with a tearful smile and subconsciously asked, "The little girl who sells matches?"

In a flash, the thick Mosaic on the little girl's face suddenly appeared as a gaping hole. Tang Mo's eyes widened to see that where the girl's eyes had been, the Mosaic had disappeared, revealing a pair of large, lifeless, dead fish eyes. The Mosaic was still there everywhere else, except for the eyes!

Tang Mo held his breath, wary of this strange turn of events.

Only to see those dead fish eyes glance at Tang Mo without a glance, a strong contempt turning into solidity.

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

Tang Mo who has gone from brother to uncle: "......"

Dare you Mosaic disappear just to express a look of contempt!!!

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What the author has to say.

Mosaic: You're the match girl, your whole family is a match girl!

Tang Mo: I'm the only one in my family now ^_^

Fu Wenduo who is about to enter the family range: ......