Chapter 107: She Baited Him, He Baited Her

Time slipped away quietly in the silence between them, neither having any intention of speaking first.

Lin Jiabei approached the bookshelf and pulled out the same book Chen Ran had been leafing through earlier.

The more she read, the more something felt off. "The contents of this book feel like a cobbled-together mess," she muttered.

Chen Ran nodded. "The empire, long divided, must unite; long united, must divide. That comes from the first chapter of Romance of the Three Kingdoms."

Lin Jiabei frowned in deep thought. The second paragraph on the first page she had turned to read:

[The empire, long united, must divide; long divided, must unite.]

The book stated [long united, must divide] first, whereas Chen Ran had said [long divided, must unite] first.

After a brief silence, she continued. "The first paragraph: Before the universe was divided, heaven and earth were in chaos; vast and boundless, unseen by any man. This sounds very familiar. I feel like I have seen it somewhere before."

"The poem goes: Before chaos was divided, heaven and earth were in chaos; vast and boundless, unseen by anyone. It is..."

Not only had Chen Ran added the phrase [The poem goes], but he had also changed [universe] to [chaos], and [unseen by any man] to [unseen by anyone].

Not only that, but he specifically emphasized that it was the original Journey to the West he had read before he died.

This time, it was Chen Ran's turn to ask. "I remember the third paragraph in this Secret Room's Journey to the West is: The red-capped Kunkun announce the dawn, the royal tailors just presented the emerald cloud robes. I think you should know which book that is from, right?"

Lin Jiabei looked at the third paragraph, deliberating for a moment before she spoke. "The red-capped roosters announce the dawn, the royal tailors just presented the emerald cloud robes. That comes from the first chapter of Water Margin."

Similarly, she had also altered the content.

She changed [Kunkun] to [roosters].

Chen Ran continued his questioning. "This is the opening chapter, because having experienced a dream-like illusion, the true events were hidden away. Where is that from?"

"Dream of the Red Chamber," she answered.

Chen Ran's fingers twitched as he fought the urge to draw his gun, frowning in slight thought.

'That book left out the phrase [The author himself says]. Logically speaking, Lin Jiabei told a lie, but...'

'Nowadays, not many people read the original Dream of the Red Chamber, so it does not count as a Common Sense Lie.'

'She is baiting me!'

'In fact, out of the four paragraphs in the book, only the excerpt from Romance of the Three Kingdoms actually counts as common sense.'

Seeing that Chen Ran didn't draw his Liar-Slayer to execute a Judgment on her as she might have expected, Lin Jiabei was just about to put the book back on the shelf when she heard him speak.

"Let me see that copy of Journey to the West in your hands," Chen Ran said, reaching out.

Upon hearing the words [Journey to the West], Lin Jiabei's fingers also twitched.

She glanced at the title Journey to the West on the cover, finally suppressing the urge to draw her gun.

'He is baiting me!'

She handed the book to Chen Ran, who casually tossed it onto the floor.

"I do not think there is any need for us to keep testing and setting traps for each other like this. There is not much time left; shouldn't we focus on solving the puzzle first?" Lin Jiabei suggested, pointing at the countdown timer.

She did not wait for Chen Ran to answer.

She continued, "Earlier, I pushed open the [Life] door, and I also pushed open the doors connecting the First Secret Room and the Second Chamber. If those count as two chances..."

"You pushed open the door leading from the First Secret Room to the Second Chamber twice, so you also used up two chances, which means..."

Chen Ran interrupted her, "Even if we pushed the doors twice, does that affect the puzzle?"

Lin Jiabei did not reply. Instead, she pointed at the text on the wall between the [Life] door and the [Death] door:

[Choose wrong and die, choose right and live. Five cahcnes per person, the odrer does not nceessarily affect the final result.]

"Tell me, does it have an effect?"

Chen Ran remained silent for a long time.

"Oh, then tell me, what does the text on that hidden door say?"

Lin Jiabei fell silent.

Time quietly slipped away once more in the ensuing silence. Clearly, at this moment, Chen Ran realized exactly what kind of existence this Secret Room was, and Lin Jiabei realized that Chen Ran had figured it out.

"Put away your Skill. Don't hold up my time in the Escape Room Game!" Chen Ran's expression shifted, his voice turning icy cold.

"What are you talking about?" Even after being exposed, Lin Jiabao remained unhurried and composed.

Chen Ran took a deep drag of his cigarette and casually perched on the edge of the desk. "First of all," he stated flatly, "before entering an Escape Room Game, everyone has to sit in a chair. But when we came in here, those two chairs were missing. Furthermore, you had already used your Skill before we even entered."

"Therefore, when I came in and saw that the chairs were gone, along with the environmental changes in the Secret Room, I realized that this entire Secret Room was created by a Skill!"

"To be honest, I was quite disappointed at the time. To think that the Skill of a grand Two-Star NPC could be so full of holes."

"But slowly, I began to realize that something wasn't right. It was extremely difficult to completely disprove that this was an Escape Room Game."

"That is because the true killing blow of your Skill does not lie in whether the victim can deduce that this is not an Escape Room Game. It lies in whether they commit a Common Sense Lie when trying to express it."

As he spoke, Chen Ran pointed to the text on the wall between the two doors.

"Just that part alone is enough to trap and kill countless players."

"For example?" Lin Jiabei asked.

"For example, at the very beginning, a player might say that it is a wall. But once the player enters the Second Chamber and comes back out, they can no longer call it a wall—they have to call it a door. If they insist it is a wall, that is a Common Sense Lie."

"Secondly, the word order of the text on the hidden door is also problematic."

[Choose wrong and die, choose right and live. Five cahcnes per person, the odrer does not nceessarily affect the final result.]

"The door says [five cahcnes], rather than... [five chances]. In terms of normal linguistic logic, the order of the letters is flawed."

"Not to mention [the odrer does not nceessarily affect the final result]."

"Words are processed by their overall shape and meaning. Even if the internal order is scrambled, it doesn't affect our ability to read them. Therefore, the moment someone naturally reads out the correct order..."

"That becomes a Common Sense Lie!"

Chen Ran then pointed at the cat's ID Card in her hand, the countdown timer, and the copy of Journey to the West discarded on the floor.

Among these, Chen Ran could not openly vocalize the term [the cat's ID Card].

Merely mentioning the words [ID Card] in this context would constitute a Common Sense Lie.

First of all, cats do not have ID Cards.

Secondly, the number on the cat's ID Card was:

[xxxxx1321192X]

In a normal ID Card sequence, the position of that '13' corresponds to the birth month.

However, a 13th month simply does not exist in this world; there are only 12 months at most.

Therefore, it was not an ID Card.

Calling it an [ID Card] was a lie—a Common Sense Lie, at that. Since it could not be called an ID Card, to avoid telling a lie, Chen Ran's words simply never touched upon the issue of what the [cat's ID Card] should actually be called.

As for the countdown timer, that was the easiest to spot. When they had first entered, they had checked their watches before surveying the Secret Room's environment. Only then did they see the timer displaying:

1 hour, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds.

This proved that when they had first entered, the countdown time was absolutely longer than two hours.

Because of this, Chen Ran had previously used the phrase [around two hours].

The most insidious trap of all, however, was the Journey to the West book he had tossed onto the floor!

"You are very smart. Even after losing my memories in the Second Chamber, I still recalled the contents of Journey to the West. Because of this, you deduced that I must be so well-versed in the book that its contents have become my own ingrained common sense. Thus, you fabricated a book—a cobbled-together, error-ridden mess—and named it Journey to the West, all in an attempt to make me deny its validity."

"Sorry to disappoint, but these little tricks of yours cannot fool me at all!"