Chapter 140 – Trial of the Hats

“Chengling, I have something to ask you.”

Ren Suo was eating a plate of Hainanese chicken rice in the dining hall of the Heavenly Institution of Lian, but his mind was focused on something else as he stared intently at his mobile phone. Suddenly, he asked Dong Chengling, who was sitting opposite and eating an upsized plate of teriyaki chicken rice, “What would you do if it was already late at night and you still have not completed your homework, and your father would hit you if you do not finish it?”

Dong Chengling said as she chewed her food, “I have never not completed my homework.”

“What if Godzilla attacked your school and you do not have enough time to complete your homework?” Ren Suo asked.

“My dad would not hit me either,” replied Dong Chengling.

Ren Suo probed further, “What if your father happened to be particularly angry that night as he had missed his breakfast and lunch?”

“It is indeed very easy to be in a fury when you are hungry,” said Dong Chengling. She thought hard for a moment and said, “In that case, I will stay up late to complete my homework.”

“What if you are already very tired and do not feel like completing it anymore?” asked Ren Suo.

Dong Chengling replied, “It is a joy to do homework, how can you be tired from doing it?”

Ren Suo was stunned for a moment, then he nodded and said, “That makes sense!”

Ren Suo looked at the game screen of “Passing Hats” on his mobile phone. It was showing the scene of the Seeker staying up late to complete her homework. An incandescent lamp illuminated the workbook on the table.

[I was scolded by my teacher as I did not submit my homework today. My father said that he would beat me to death if I do not complete it by today, but I really cannot finish it.]

Three options appeared on the screen: [Continue to complete the homework, even if the result is death (this option is available as a result of the Unlimited Energy of the Seeker)], [Don’t complete the homework and go to sleep], and [Explain the situation to Father (5 Courage required)].

Ren Suo had been deliberating whether he should use Courage for that, but after his discussion with Dong Chengling, he decisively selected [Continue to complete the homework, even if the result is death]!

The time in the game appeared to fast-forward, and a 45-minute hourglass appeared and began to count down. Ren Suo finally relaxed and turned off his mobile phone. Then Dong Chengling asked, “What are you looking at on your mobile phone that has you so focused?”

“Oh, it was just someone asking me for emotional support,” replied Ren Suo with a shrug.

In a sense, he was right to say that.

The game “Passing Hats” seemed to be a horror game at first, but after Ren Suo started playing it, he realized that… it was actually an extremely challenging semi-automatic interactive fiction game!

Yes, it was a semi-automatic, interactive fiction game!

After the Seeker randomly picked a hat, she would enter the trial of that particular hat, and the game would depict the sea of memories.

[The Seeker has donned Cheng Xiao’s hat.]

[The Seeker is currently experiencing Cheng Xiao’s childhood.]

[The Seeker is currently experiencing Cheng Xiao’s childhood, and received 1 Warmth.]

[The Seeker is scorning the playful behaviour of Cheng Xiao, and lost 1 Warmth.]

[The Seeker relates to the experience of Cheng Xiao secretly helping his first crush in his teenage years, and received 3 Warmth.]

…

Subsequently, the events which happened in the game did not concern Ren Suo. He turned on the Bluetooth function on his mobile phone and intended to search for the Small World game console application. But little had he imagined that after turning Bluetooth on, the application “Passing Hats” automatically appeared on the home screen of his mobile phone.

Ren Suo opened the app and indeed, it displayed the messages recording down the details of the hat owner’s past that the Seeker was experiencing.

After 30 to 60 minutes, the Seeker experienced a relatively peaceful stage in the hat owner’s life, but then she encountered more challenging situations in which the hat owner experienced in another stage of his past, such as not confessing to his first love, being bullied but not retaliating at that time, and hurting his parents’ feelings when he threw a tantrum.

It was at that time when the player had to make a choice.

It did not matter if Ren Suo failed to make a decision in time, as the Seeker would automatically experience the past again and accumulate more Courage and Warmth resources.

Most of the important options required Courage or Warmth resources, and there were even some options which required both, but those options were not necessarily the right choice either. Some options which consumed more resources than others could turn out to be the incorrect choice as well, while the options which did not consume any resources could instead be the right choice which allowed the owner of the hat to let go of his past regrets.

Among the choices that had to be made, the player would not leave the trial immediately if the wrong option was selected. Instead, the Seeker would continue to experience the life of the hat owner which went downhill. When that happened, available resources would be lost, but new choices would emerge. It was still possible for the right choices to be made subsequently to overcome the crisis and eventually pass the trial of the hat.

There were two challenges in the game: the availability of resources, and time.

Resources were only obtainable from the automated progression of the past events of the owner of the hat. But after 30 minutes of the automated sequence, the acquired resources still might not satisfy the requirements needed to make certain choices.

At that juncture, Ren Suo could either choose to continue the automated progression sequence, or to take a risk and select an option which required fewer resources or did not require any at all. Some of such options would turn out to be the right choices, but others could also make the Seeker fall into a more difficult position in the trial of the hat.

However, what was interesting about the trials of the hat was that as long as the player dared to survive, it might not be a dead end.

For example, in one of the trials of the hat, there was a scene which described: [I was bullied by a fat guy, and after standing up for myself by fighting him, the teacher punished us both. When I tried to explain, she simply said that “it takes two to clap”.].

At that time, Ren Suo had used up too many Courage in the previous choices and lacked resources. One of the options was [Slap the teacher and ask “does it really take two to clap”] which required 15 Courage, while another option, [I am calling for Father!] did not require any Courage. Thinking that the second option seemed to be a reliable choice, Ren Suo chose the latter.

However, when “Father” arrived, he reprimanded the Seeker further. After the Seeker went home with “Father”, he even wanted to punish and hit her in the name of education.

At that juncture, if the Seeker did not resist, 5 Courage and 5 Warmth would be lost, so Ren Suo equipped the Seeker with “Fighter Novice” and beat “Father” up badly.

After beating “Father” up, the Seeker was naturally kicked out of the house. She lingered outside on the streets for several days, not going to school or home. Instead, she became a worker at a restaurant. When she suddenly saw a recruitment notice for the military, she made a decision to join the army and stole the household register and her identity card from her house.

Surprisingly, following which, the trial of that hat was passed successfully, and it became the first hat which the Seeker turned into success.

After transforming a hat into success, the hat would glow in a green light, regardless of the type of hat it was.

As long as the trial was passed, the Courage and Warmth resources, as well as the skills acquired by the Seeker in that trial would be fully inherited and allowed to be used in the next trial.

Furthermore, if the Seeker donned a hat which had already transformed into success, the resources earned from the automated progression would be doubled.

However, regardless of how many resources the Seeker had, it would all be in vain if she did not manage to pass any trial of the hat on the first attempt.

After the Seeker entered a trial of the hat, the result was only one of two possibilities: passing the trial, or being forced to remove the hat.

If the Seeker was forced to remove the hat, it would mean that, either the Seeker encountered trouble during the trial and continuously consumed resources in a struggle to survive, or that Ren Suo chose the wrong options consecutively and all the resources were depleted, resulting in the Seeker being unable to continue the trial.

When Ren Suo entered a failed trial again after donning the hat previously, the Seeker would be given the option to skip the experiences she had went through before and go directly to the scene where the choice had to be made.

But even if Ren Suo could remember the choices he made in a particular trial, the problem was that, to make a choice, resources were required, and that meant that he had to go through the automated sequence.

Ren Suo also realized that, just like how “Unlimited Energy” led to additional available options, equipping the Seeker with different skills and props would also temporarily add a variety of interesting options to the game, which often reduced the depletion of resources, or even accelerated the completion of the trial.