Chapter 1881

The atmosphere in the wooden house was frozen.

First of all, the positions of the four people were Schiller facing the room door, which meant Schiller was at the 12 o'clock position. His left hand, the 3 o'clock position, was Joker. Opposite him, the 6 o'clock position, was Shadowcat Kitty. And his right hand, the 9 o'clock position, was Carol.

If you look at the game rules, starting from the 12 o'clock position clockwise, Schiller was the first, Joker was the second, Kitty was the third, and Carol was the fourth.

Just after the rules were introduced, a small pile of matches appeared abruptly in front of the four people. After Carol picked up the matches, she found that there were exactly ten.

This was a very simple math problem. Assuming that in order to win, everyone throws three matches per round, then after one round, everyone has seven matches left. After the second round, everyone has four matches left. After the third round, everyone has only one match left.

From this point on, Schiller threw the matches in, and he had already won. Then Joker, who threw second, would also avoid the fate of being eliminated. Finally, it was Kitty, and Carol, who was in the fourth position, would inevitably be eliminated.

So it seems that this is a completely unfair game. The first person to throw will never be eliminated, and the last person will inevitably be eliminated.

If the last person doesn't want to be eliminated, then he must hope that someone in front doesn't throw three matches in the first three rounds, so that it won't be a must-die situation until the end.

The limit for throwing matches is three. If the other three have less than three matches left in the last round, Carol will still inevitably be eliminated.

Because their throwing position is before Carol, as long as they have three or fewer matches left, they can throw all the matches in before Carol, so Carol will still be eliminated.

That is to say, if Carol wants not to be eliminated, she must make the three people in front of her have four or more matches left in the last round. That is to say, she must find a way to make the other three skip at least once in the first three rounds, or throw one less match in each round, so that they can have at least four matches left.

Carol was very angry, and she also roared out her thoughts: "What kind of shit game rule is this? Is it all luck?! Whoever stands in the last position is inevitably eliminated, then what is the necessity of playing this game? Just eliminate the last person who enters the room, right?!"

Joker picked his ears, seemingly very impatient, but Schiller politely nodded to Carol and said: "Madam, I think you should think about why it is matches."

Carol was stunned. She instinctively looked down at the fire basin containing charcoal, and her eyes fell on the thin matches in her hand. Suddenly she screamed.

"Yes! Matches are open flames that can ignite charcoal. You heard what he said, everything in this house is made of wood. If you make the fire too big, we will all be burned to death!!!"

And at this time, Kitty said in a small voice: "But as long as no one skips, the fire basin won't rise, and it won't burn the ceiling."

Carol was stunned again, but this time she reacted, shouting with a hideous face: "Anyway, if I play normally, I will lose. Then I will skip all the first few rounds, so that the fire basin will rise and no one will live!"

Kitty looked at Captain Marvel with some shock. She said: "Captain, what's wrong with you? How can you..."

"Because this is inherently unfair to me!" Carol raised her voice: "Otherwise, shall we swap positions?"

Kitty didn't speak anymore. Anyone could see that being in the fourth position was naturally disadvantageous. The others only needed to play according to the game rules to win. Only the fourth position, if the game continued according to the normal rules, would inevitably lose.

Kitty looked at the fire basin on the table again. It was a hemispherical brass fire basin. There was a very narrow edge on the top of the fire basin, and there were four holes on the edge. Four iron chains hung down from the ceiling, passing through the holes and tying the fire basin.

The bottom of the fire basin was a flat surface, so it was very stable when placed on the table. When the fire basin was placed on the table, the chains were in a loose state and were not completely taut.

Kitty looked up at the ceiling again. Without measuring tools, estimating the distance might have errors, but fortunately, she had her own height as a reference.

Kitty was a white woman, but she belonged to the petite type. Her height was only 168cm, which was not very conspicuous among white women.

She didn't look up at the ceiling completely because the movement was too big and too conspicuous. She glanced at the Captain Marvel beside her. Carol was much taller than her, roughly estimated to be 180cm, and the doctor opposite her was even taller. Kitty guessed he might be 187-190cm.

And because Schiller stood directly opposite her, Kitty could clearly see the distance between his head and the ceiling. Using the head-to-body ratio estimation method, the height of the ceiling should be around 260cm.

Next, calculate the height of the table. It was more like a bar counter. In the case of Kitty standing straight, the tabletop was just at her chest, which was about 1.2 meters high.

Skipping once makes the fire basin rise by 30 centimeters, and Carol had at most three skipping opportunities, which meant the fire basin could rise by at most 90 centimeters. Then 120 centimeters plus 90 centimeters was only 210 centimeters, which was still half a meter away from the height of the ceiling.

But the situation now cannot be seen like this. Carol was the last one to throw matches. There were three people in front of her. If everyone threw three matches, it was conservatively estimated that when the second person threw, the flame would be ignited.

Kitty examined the structure of the fire basin. She was not sure whether the unique shape design of the fire basin was to gather the flames, but she knew that with so much charcoal in the basin, once the flame was ignited, it wouldn't take long for the flames to jump very high.

If the height of the flame exceeded 50 centimeters, then by the end of the fourth round, the house would be ignited.

Kitty thought again, even if the house was ignited, it wouldn't burn so fast. As long as they grabbed the time to complete the fourth round of the game, it should be in time.

No, that's not right. Kitty looked left and right and found that the wooden house had windows. The air mobility here was okay, not completely closed. And the rules only said that it was not allowed to get charcoal out of the fire basin, but didn't say it was not allowed to use other means to make the flame burn more vigorously.

Carol had to use the threat of burning the house to threaten others in a losing situation, so she would inevitably use various methods to make the fire burn more vigorously and higher, such as blowing with her mouth, fanning with her clothes, etc.

In this way, the time for the fire to burn the house might be earlier than expected, and it might even be in the second round that the fire would be ignited.

But even if the remaining time was enough, it was just throwing matches. How long could it take? Kitty thought.

Even if the house was burned in the second round, the remaining people threw matches at the fastest speed, and it wouldn't take 10 seconds to finish throwing. Then Carol wouldn't still inevitably lose?

Wait, Kitty frowned and thought, and found another suspicious point. When the fire basin was pulled to the highest place, which was about 2.1 meters, it was above everyone's head. Especially since she was relatively short, the fire basin would be 40-50 centimeters above her head.

Kitty looked around. She remembered the rule saying that she was not allowed to leave the range of 1 meter from the table. But she didn't know whether this 1 meter was calculated from the edge of the table or from the cylinder supporting the table.

If it was calculated from the edge of the table, they still had some room for activities. But if it was calculated from the cylinder, each person had less than half a meter of space left, and there was basically no room for maneuver.

The rules didn't say it clearly, and no one dared to take risks. Kitty didn't dare either. If she took a step out and was eliminated, it would be too unjust. So Kitty couldn't retreat.

But if she didn't retreat, the fire basin was equivalent to being directly above her head. And this fire basin was a hemisphere with an edge. In this case, it would be very difficult to throw matches into the fire basin. It was almost equivalent to standing directly under the basket and still having to let the basketball enter the basket from above the basket in a normal way.

Kitty suddenly realized that this game was also unfavorable to her. Her height was the shortest among the four. If Carol chose to perish together, and the first few rounds were all skipped, the fire basin would be pulled higher and higher, and the possibility of her not being able to throw matches would increase.

Although the rules didn't say what the consequences would be if she threw matches but didn't throw them in, Kitty didn't dare to take this risk. What if she was eliminated if the matches landed? What if the matches were ignited but fell on the wooden floor?

Although Kitty was thinking rapidly, she spoke out to appease Carol: "Captain, don't say that. We won't abandon you. There must be a fair method."

Suddenly Joker snorted. He used that voice that floated above the vocal organs and said: "You idiots, do you think that as long as you throw the matches in, the flames will definitely be ignited?"

He supported his hands on the table, stared gloomily at the fire basin, laughed twice, raised his eyebrows, withdrew one hand, wiped his lips with the root of his palm, and then pointed to a corner of the fire basin with his finger: "See that piece of charcoal? Yes, the piece of charcoal on the right that is pressed at the bottom. That piece of charcoal is obviously about to burn out. As long as I can throw the matches onto it through the gaps of the charcoal above, it won't be so easy to ignite the fire."

Hearing this, Carol and Kitty both looked at the place Joker pointed to, and they really found a piece of charcoal whose color was slightly different from other charcoal.

The surface of this charcoal didn't have so much gray-white floating ash, the color was darker, and the two ends wouldn't turn slightly red with the flow of air. It looked like the temperature wasn't very high.

It was pressed under three overlapping cylindrical charcoal pieces, but it wasn't completely covered. It left a small opening in the middle and on the left. If you aimed a bit, you should be able to throw the matches in.

"Oh, forgot to say, before becoming a weirdo who robbed a bank, I also worked part-time as a clown in a circus. It was because my dart throwing was too accurate that I was kicked out of the circus by the boss." Joker relaxed his body, supported his elbows on the table, pouted, and said: "As long as the fire can't be ignited, it's useless to skip no matter how many times."

"You damn lunatic!" Carol cursed angrily. She was about to say something, but Joker covered his ears and shouted: "Can't hear, can't hear, can't hear. I can only hear your scream when you are eliminated, hahahahahaha!"

Carol's facial features became very hideous.