Yun Ming and Bai Fei hurried to Sage Square and caught up a few minutes before the deadline for entry.
"It's really rare. Very few outsiders come to participate in the origami competition." The speaker was a paper man. He was a staff member of this competition. He was the one who registered the two of them at the entrance of Sage Square. Now he led Yun Ming and Bai Fei to the competition venue assigned to them.
"Oh? Don't you have many foreigners visiting your planet?" Yun Ming looked at the paper bracelet on his wrist. There was a number "274" on it, which meant that Yun Ming and Bai Fei were the 274th group of contestants.
"There are indeed not many outsiders coming to Origami Planet, and even fewer Earthlings." The paper man guy thought for a while: "You should be the first Earthling to participate in the origami competition."
"Maybe it's because when it comes to origami skills, no outsider can compare to your paper people, right?"
"Hahahaha, although I'm a little embarrassed, what you said is indeed the truth." The paper man's eyes almost broke with laughter after hearing Yun Ming's praise.
Yun Ming was right. He had been to a sci-fi virtual universe before. The aliens on that planet looked like octopuses and had no hands. It was impossible to do origami with tentacles.
"Are there only 274 groups of players participating in this competition?" Bai Fei also had a bracelet with the group number on her wrist: "It feels like for a national competition, the number of applicants is not that many."
Yun Ming and Bai Fei registered in the last few minutes. After they successfully registered, the entry of players was closed. The group numbers are arranged in order of registration time, and they are the last group of players in this competition.
"Hahaha, the number of participants is not calculated like this." The paper man explained: "The maximum number of players in each group is 20. Although the group is not full, there are basically more than ten people in each group."
"The number of team members is relatively small in single digits. There are only two people... maybe it's just the two of you."
"It seems that there is no hope for us to win a prize or anything," Bai Fei whispered: "Let's wait for the king to appear and act accordingly."
"Let's look at the works of other groups first." Yun Ming asked, "Why are there so many people in one group in this origami competition?"
"Because the workload is heavy," the paper man pointed to a statue not far away: "The competition stipulates that players can enter the venue four hours in advance to prepare, plus the official competition time is six hours, a total of ten Some groups still couldn’t complete the work within hours of production time.”
"Look at the team that made the king's statue. They are the favorites to win the championship. They have already made the prototype in more than three hours."
"Hey! Is that an entry for the competition? I thought it was the original statue in the square!"
On their way here, Yun Ming and Bai Fei could see the square from the bus, and they understood why it was called Sage Square.
At the front of the square, there are several huge half-length human heads about six meters high. They are what the docent lady calls the outstanding origami masters in the history of the paper people.
"Did the game planner who designed this virtual universe study art?" Yun Ming guessed as he stood under several statues.
"Huh? Why?" Bai Fei was confused.
"Look, these are, from left to right," Yun Ming pointed at the statues one by one to reveal: "Agoliba, Seneca, Venus, Apollo, and the last one is Giulino. Mitiqi, we usually call him Xiaowei."
Bai Fei reacted: "A plaster statue."
"Yes, when I first saw that the current king of the Paper Man Kingdom is David, I should have thought of what the previous king was like."
"You know a lot about art. They look familiar to me, but I can't tell them their names."
"I majored in fine arts in college."
"I see."
Back in time, following the direction of the paper man's finger, Yun Ming and Bai Fei saw a majestic paper statue.
A strong and powerful horse has its hooves in the air, its hind hooves landing on the square base; a strong general on the horse is naked to the waist, holding a rein in his left hand and a gun in his right hand, with the tip of the gun pointed directly upward at a 45-degree angle, looking majestic .
The face of the statue is that of Zhi Aotian, which is the face of David.
"Is it just a prototype to achieve this level..." Yun Ming was shocked.
The paper man nodded solemnly: "We, the paper man family, strive for excellence in origami works. It is difficult for you outsiders to understand."
"agree."
"Agreed plus one."
The Sage Square is divided into small compartments by paper walls. These compartments are the competition venues for participating teams. The compartments have no ceilings and the paper walls are about two meters high. People coming and going cannot see the works of the contestants in the compartments. The exception is the statue of the king, which is too tall.
The paper boy led Yun Ming and Bai Fei through the paper alley, and after a few minutes they finally arrived at the production room assigned to them.
"We're here, this room is for you to use." After completing the task, the paper man waved goodbye: "I wish you good results!"
"Thank you."
This compartment is relatively small. It seems that the compartments are allocated according to the number of participating teams. There were tables and chairs made of paper in the compartment. Yun Ming and Bai Fei sat down and looked at each other.
"I don't think we have the slightest chance of winning." Bai Fei tapped her head.
"If we can fold a six-meter-high statue of Guan Gong, we still have a chance of winning."
"Okay," Bai Fei handed a stack of paper to Yun Ming: "I leave it to you, top art student."
Yun Ming took the paper and cut it with a paper knife.
"No way? Can you really bring out the second master?"
"How is it possible? I thought about it in the car. If I want to get a ranking," Yun Ming folded it in half and made a crispy corner: "It's better to use it."
"Come together, this is easy to fold, we need a lot."
Bai Fei followed Yun Ming's example and started folding the crispy corners: "So what are you going to make out of these piles of small pointed hats?"
"Well..." Yun Ming smiled and asked an irrelevant question: "Weather, what do you think the setting of this world is like?"
"Hmm...you're asking about the world view..." Bai Fei heard the implication: "I used to think this was a magical planet. Although the planner's imagination is very bold, it is essentially an imaginary world of light novels or online articles. But since you ask that, you must have discovered something else?"
Yun Ming kept busy with his work: "There are indeed some things that don't make sense, such as the imagination you just mentioned."
"What's wrong with imagination?"
"Yes, don't you think this paper man clan lacks imagination?"
Bai Fei frowned: "Lack of imagination...what do you mean?"
"Do you still remember what the commentator said?" Yun Ming reminded: "There was no life on this origami planet. One day, a god used origami to create a paper man, and the paper man was on the planet. The first living thing."
"According to the commentator, God disappeared after creating the paper people. It was the paper people who continued to fold paper and added flowers, birds, insects, and fish to the planet."
"We also saw pigeons, puppies, and other animals on the road. Don't you think these paper animals are too bird-like and dog-like?"
"These animals are very vividly folded. They are almost exactly the same as real cats and dogs." Before she finished speaking, Bai Fei reacted: "Exactly the same as real cats and dogs?"
"Besides animals, there are too many things that are the same," Yun Ming added: "Plants, clothing, transportation, buildings... It is no exaggeration to say that this is a paper version of the Earth."
"Then the question is, why can't the paper man's creativity break away from the thinking of the earth? So far, we have not seen anything other than the earth."
"Yes, this is not in line with common sense," Bai Fei stopped her handiwork: "For this planet, the creation of life is all about freedom of expression, and there is no template for reference. The appearance of paper humans as human beings can also be explained as It was a coincidence in the god's origami creation. Thousands of paper figures later used the first paper man as a template; but after the god left, the things created by the paper figures themselves were still reflections of the earth. This cannot be explained by coincidence. ”
"Hey, let's talk about it, don't stop."
"Oh, alright."
"In fact, there is another existence that is very unreasonable," Yun Ming added: "The population growth of the paper man clan relies on the continuous folding of new paper men. We can understand it as: as long as a human-shaped object is folded, the human-shaped object is completed. It will automatically gain life."
"So, what's going on with the sculpture?"
"The ones outside the Sages' Square are busts, which can be explained as not being complete paper figures, so they cannot survive; but the life-size statues in the history museum, as well as the entry we just saw, are all very complete. It’s 100 percent.”
Bai Fei pondered for a moment: "Is it a bug in this world?"
Yun Ming shook his head: "Compared to the reason of bug, I prefer to believe that this world has a hidden world view."
"And the work I am going to create next is to verify my guess."
