The first end of the Sage Square is a row of statues of emperors of all dynasties, and the opposite end is a high platform. With the height of the high platform, people on the platform can have a clear view of all the contestants in the square.
Zhi Aotian, the current king of the Paperman Kingdom and the leader of the Paperman Clan, is sitting on this high platform, chatting with his ministers.
The special body structure means that paper people do not need to eat or drink, and there is no fruit plate or snacks on the table. However, they are not interesting in chatting, so all the dignitaries present brought their pets to chat and play with each other.
"Lord Paper Spot's falcon is so splendid." Someone was praising a paper eagle: "It must have taken a lot of effort for you to fold such fine feathers, right?"
"What the hell, a bird is only so big, how long can it take?" Zhi Ban smiled and said back: "It's Master Zhi Pan's leopard, so nimble."
"In terms of size, Master Zhi Hui's war elephant is second to none."
"Is Lord Tabata's giraffe bad? Hahahaha..."
There were various birds and animals standing on the high platform, which were all made by these senior officials themselves. As I said before, the Paper Man Country is a utopian autonomous country with no state agencies. Therefore, officials are appointed based on their origami skills. The better the technology, the bigger the official.
The National Youth Origami Competition is held every five years, and many of these people are the top few in the previous and previous competitions. Why is there nothing further up? Because in terms of the paper man’s lifespan, participating in two competitions is as high as the sky.
It is the normal mentality of this group of people to disapprove of anyone. Regardless of how enthusiastic they are about complimenting each other, in fact they are all competing against each other. Those who can stand out from the national competition are all origami masters. The level of their skills is a bit like being the best in literature and the second in martial arts. It is difficult to judge.
Zhi Aotian sat at the top and did not participate in the discussions among the officials. He found it very interesting just watching the elders of the Papermen clan fighting openly and secretly.
After listening to the elders arguing for a while, Zhi Aotian stood up from the paper throne, walked to the high platform, and looked down at the thousands of talented people from the clan in the Sage Square. The elders calmed down at the right moment and gathered around Zhi Aotian.
"My dear friends," Zhi Aotian's voice was old and old, which was very inconsistent with his David face: "You might as well take a guess as to what I am thinking."
There were seven or eight elders surrounding Zhi Aotian. After hearing this, they all lowered their heads and thought.
"Your Majesty, are you feeling emotional when you see that this origami competition has an unprecedented scale and has attracted talents from all over the world?" Zhiban's words attracted several other people to nod in agreement.
"No." This answer was rejected by Zhi Aotian.
"Then..." Paper Hata considered it carefully: "Your Majesty, you don't have much time left. Seeing this situation, do you feel that someone who will be the pillar of Paper Man Country will die without regret?"
Saying this in ancient times would have resulted in everyone being executed; but on Origami Planet, the paper people would not be so taboo about death.
The lifespan of a paper figure is determined by the paper that makes up their body.
I believe that readers must have books and papers at home from elementary school or even kindergarten, and many of them are still in good condition; but on Origami Star, paper preservation is difficult.
The Origami Planet is the same as the Earth, with similar atmospheric composition and the same exposure to wind, rain, and sun. This environment is really disastrous for paper. You leave a book outside for a few days and nights, and if it rains or something in the middle, the book will be completely destroyed.
This is the situation faced by the paper humans. Even if they are not exposed to rain, wind and sun are inevitable, and it is unrealistic to stay indoors for a lifetime, so the average lifespan of a paper man is less than ten years.
Zhi Aotian was already thirteen years old. This age ranked him among the oldest among the Paper Humans. The longevity record of the Paper Humans was only fifteen years old. Therefore, Zhi Aotian died very soon.
This matter has become the elephant in the room. At this time, Zhi Aotian looked very calm when he was defeated by Zhi Hata Road:
"Hmm...half right."
"Half?" the ministers asked in their hearts: "How many more years do you think you can live?"
"It is true that I don't have much time left," Zhi Aotian said in a very slow tone: "But this statement about the pillar of the country of Zhiren...hehe...don't mention it."
"Ah?" There was an uproar from left and right. They themselves took the path of participating in the origami competition, including Zhi Aotian, who was the champion of the competition ten years ago.
Zhi Aotian shook his head and sighed: "There are four hours before the official start of the competition for pre-match preparations. During this time, the production of entries is also allowed. Many teams have already produced semi-finished products. You all can see Look."
Taking advantage of the favorable location, everyone on the high platform looked at the contestants' works on the square one by one.
In addition to the exaggerated king's riding and shooting statue, there are also miniature battleships and airplanes; there are also many animal flow contestants, with lifelike paper tigers and paper lions.
"Do you see the problem?" Zhi Aotian asked the ministers.
No one answered him, everyone stared at him intently. It's not that the works in the audience are very attractive to them, it's that they really don't see the problem. We don't know and we don't dare to ask.
"Eh," Zhi Aotian held his forehead and sighed: "Of all the works, none of them can be classified as epoch-making."
What is an epoch-making work? In fact, it is invention and creation. The items that the contestants folded were good, but nothing new.
"Uh... Why is Your Majesty so sad because of this? There are very few epoch-making works, and there are no real figures in this competition."
"Yeah yeah."
"Then let me ask you, how long has it been since the last time a landmark work appeared in the National Youth Origami Competition?"
"Well... that was ten years ago. In that competition, His Majesty's masterpiece spaceship won the first prize."
"Yeah, it's been ten years," Zhi Aotian clenched his fist and knocked hard on the guardrail of the high platform: "No new work has been released in ten years. This is a unique situation since the Papermen entered modern times a hundred years ago."
The ministers looked at each other: "Your Majesty means..."
"The bottleneck, the technological progress of the paper humans has reached the bottleneck."
"What?" The elders were frightened by Zhi Aotian's words.
"It's just imitation, not innovation. The road ahead for the paper people will be difficult."
Zhiban cupped his hands and said: "Your Majesty, don't disturb me. Although it is an indisputable fact that the art of origami has stagnated over the years, it has neither progressed nor weakened. After several generations of hard work, we will definitely be able to accumulate more and more and recreate the glory of a hundred years ago."
A hundred years ago, an origami genius from the paper people emerged and folded a paper engine, which changed the history of the paper people's extensive use of animal power and brought the paper people into modern times. The new origami genre he pioneered spread across the country, and cars, airplanes, etc. are all products of this genre.
After that, within a hundred years of Paperman Kingdom, new works emerged one after another; but by Zhi Aotian's generation, the potential of the genre was completely exhausted, and Zhi Aotian's spaceship can be regarded as the afterglow of this genre.
That genius is one of the five statues in the Square of the Saints. With Zhi Aotian's level, he will have his place in the square after his death.
"Falling in the inheritance, passing on in the decline..." Zhi Aotian sighed: "I hope so."
"The time is almost up, let me announce the start of the game."
“I hope someone can surprise me in this competition.”
…………
"The game lasts six hours, right?"
"Yeah, what's the matter? Feeling a little rushed?" Yun Ming lowered his head and worked without any distractions.
"Don't you think it's strange?" Bai Fei was also concentrating on folding paper, and the two of them just communicated without looking up from each other.
"What's wrong?"
""Conquer the World" has an anti-addiction protection mechanism. You can play for up to twelve hours a day. If the time limit is exceeded, you will be automatically offline."
"That's right."
"We spent more than an hour in the history museum and on the road. Including the six hours of the game and the awarding process, we spent nearly eight hours in the game before contacting the King of Paperman Kingdom."
"so what?"
"Then we only have four hours to do the task, but we don't even know what the clay figure we need to solve looks like."
"Do you think time is too tight?"
"Yeah."
Yun Ming interspersed a handful of crispy horns together to form a hook-like object, and then responded: "Weather, you are very smart, you have also discovered this."
The two of them were making origami while chatting. They both found it tiring to call each other's nickname because it was so long, so they agreed to just call it the abbreviated version. Yun Ming calls Bai Fei "Weather", and Bai Fei calls Yun Ming "Yun Ming".
"Can you please stop praising yourself in such a crooked way?" Bai Fei narrowed her eyes: "Look, you can use that word too."
"It's different. It's your first time playing adventure mode. It's really good to be able to detect the tricks of time."
"Hmm...that sounds more sincere."
Yun Ming smiled indifferently: "Actually, there is enough time."
"The reason you think there's not enough time is because you misunderstood the mission."
"Misunderstanding?" Bai Fei didn't understand: "The mission given by the system in this game is to [end the Origami World War and restore peace]. It's not difficult to understand."
"Yes, the mission is as long as we end the war; we didn't say we were going to defeat the clay men, right?"
Bai Fei said "Oh": "Yes, I understand what you mean. We can achieve our goal by directly admonishing the king and persuading him to stop the war."
"wrong."
"oh?"
Yun Ming put a few hook-shaped objects together to try, and found them to be quite reliable: "I thought about your idea at first, but later found out that it wouldn't work. Because we have nothing to do with the opponents of the paper man country, the clay men. You know, I have nothing to say when I go to remonstrate with you, let alone convince the king."
"If you want to follow the path of admonishment, you have to understand the clay figures; if you want to understand the clay figures, you have to wait until the game is over, but time is tight. These two points have become a closed endless loop that seems to have no solution. "
“Let’s also check that there is no introduction to the clay figures in the history museum. Our limited understanding of the clay figures comes from the mouth of the docent.”
"So I guess the system doesn't want us to get information about the Clay Man at all."
Bai Fei raised her head: "Then don't we know nothing except the existence of clay figures?"
"This is the cunning point of the system." Yun Ming clicked his tongue: "Let one side of the war remain unknown throughout the entire process, while the other side learns deeply about it, writes about it, and finally allows us to restore peace."
"The true meaning of the mission has been revealed..."
"The way to end the war is..."
"[Solving the paper humans]"
