Chapter 181: Mind Battle (1)

"Hey, Chen Ran, why did your novel go off-topic again? Didn't you write an outline?"

From the other end of the phone, his editor's slightly angry questioning came through.

"I'll give you permission, go and change it right now!"

The editor hung up the phone. Chen Ran, who had just woken up and was sitting on his bed, looked completely bewildered.

"This story tells us that you absolutely should not turn your dream into a career," he muttered as he got up very reluctantly.

He turned on his computer, brewed a pot of tea, went to the bathroom to wash up, sat down in front of the computer, lit a cigarette, took a sip of tea, ordered some takeout, and scrolled through short videos for two and a half hours.

'Speaking of which...'

'What was I supposed to do today?'

'Revise the chapter!'

'Between knowing and doing...'

'It feels like there's a heavenly chasm between them. What is this chasm? Emotion?'

'Why am I even thinking about this? Let's just revise the chapter I uploaded last night first.'

Opening his writing software, Chen Ran carefully read the chapter he had uploaded the previous night.

He realized there was indeed a suspicion of going off-topic. The protagonist of the novel was the Crown Prince at the end of a dynasty. Logically speaking, the old emperor should have kicked the bucket next, with the protagonist ascending to the throne...

However, in the latest chapter, what Chen Ran had written was: the protagonist was exiled to Youzhou by the emperor.

"Let's change it, let's change it. Hopefully, not too many readers have read up to this chapter yet."

However, when he opened the backend, it felt like the sky was falling. The number of comments on the latest chapter had already exceeded two hundred...

"How am I supposed to change this? If I change even a little bit, I'll be cursed to death."

"Besides, the previous few hundred chapters were all building up to the protagonist ascending the throne in the future, how he would clean up the administration, suppress land annexation, strictly enforce military discipline, engage in maritime trade, and so on."

"What the fuck, it suddenly turned into him losing his qualification to compete for the throne, and the kind that can't even be rounded out. What should I do?"

Chen Ran took a deep breath, wondering if he should post a chapter note: 'Last night I was possessed by an unknown force, and the other party controlled my body to write such an outrageous plot...'

'Even I wouldn't believe that!'

'Dammit, it seems I was too busy trying to complete my daily update task last night, so I just wrote whatever came to mind. Accidentally, I wrote the plot into a dead end. Sure enough, when a hobby turns into a career, it breeds feelings of boredom. Slacking off early only leads to panic later; waking up in the middle of the night to mend your pants!'

"What else can be done? I can only forcefully round the plot back first."

"Let's see if I can find a suitable reason for being exiled to Youzhou."

"At the end of the dynasty, the old emperor relied on political struggle to seize power, so his succession was illegitimate."

"In other words, the old emperor disrupted the correct order of succession. So what he needs to do is re-establish the correct order—namely, establishing the legitimate and eldest son as heir. This plot was adapted from Zhu Di making Zhu Gaochi his Crown Prince."

"Zhu Di had the cautionary tale of the Li Tang royal family before him. His own succession was illegitimate. If he didn't want the Zhu Ming royal family to follow in the footsteps of the Li Tang royal family, he could only establish Zhu Gaochi. There was no other possibility. The so-called 'Virtuous Descendant' was actually just brought out by Zhu Di to draw enemy fire."

"Therefore, in the novel, the old emperor, who also obtained the throne illegitimately, can only pass the throne to the protagonist. Only in this way can he ensure that there won't be any more problems with the entire royal family's succession system."

"But in the latest chapter, a problem arose with the underlying logic of this succession order. If I'm not careful, the plot will collapse."

"Then I'll just..."

"Refer to Liu Xiu's deeds and 'rebuild the great Han.' Hmm, that's a good idea."

"At the end of the dynasty, the conflicts of the entire country have reached a point where they can no longer be mitigated."

"So, the old emperor used the strategy of survival through desperation."

"He banished the most prestigious Crown Prince to Youzhou to bide his time."

"When the rebels conquer the capital, the world will inevitably fall into chaos. Warlords will fight for hegemony, and all the maladies of the entire country will be swept away. The aristocratic families, landlords, and local tyrants will be forced into a major reshuffle. The conflicts of the old era will be worn away in battle after battle. The common people caught in the chaos of war will long for peace. At that time, the protagonist, who had been lying low and developing in Youzhou, will raise his arms in a call to action..."

After modifying the outline, Chen Ran happily took a drag of his cigarette and said proudly:

"To be able to round it back like this, I'm simply a genius. Moreover, the entire plot instantly leveled up by a few tiers."

…

Chen Ran pulled back his thoughts.

'Just now, I remembered a small interlude from when I was alive. My history is also history.'

'My experience tells me that, from a conceptual standpoint, in this world...'

'There are simply no dead ends.'

'When encountering a bottleneck, think from the underlying logic, and you definitely won't go wrong.'

'Just now, Qiu Yinong hinted that this is already the 99th time reset.'

'Although I don't know if I thought from the underlying logic in the previous 98 times...'

'But this time, I can try.'

'The underlying logic of the entirety of Hell is Lie-Judgment, telling lies, and judging lies.'

'Having gone through the tutorial instance, the Shepherd, Wolf, and Sheep instance, and the Solitary Revenge instance...'

'In these three instances, I obtained a lot of information. This information contains erroneous information and correct information.'

'I organized this information previously and derived a set of standards for judging lies.'

'Objective and Subjective.'

'For Objective Lie-Judgment, as long as it's confirmed, the judgment will definitely succeed.'

'For Subjective Lie-Judgment, it's a gamble. If I win the gamble, the other party lied; if I lose the gamble, I lied.'

'But this set of judgment standards is all evaluated from my perspective.'

'For example, in Objective Lie-Judgment, you say you don't have an older brother, but in reality, you do.'

'For example, in Objective Lie-Judgment, you say you don't have an older brother, but in reality, you do.'

'Then, I can use this point to confirm that you're lying.'

'In this scenario: the one judging the lie is me, and the one being judged is you.'

'Subjective Lie-Judgment: I'm not sure if you lied or not, so I judge you. There's an element of gambling here. If I win, you lied; if I lose, I lied.'

'In this scenario: the one judging the lie is still me, and the one being judged is still you.'

'In other words, in the standards I summarized, I'm always the one judging the lies...'

'This derives a logical problem. What if I am the one being judged? How should this set of lie-judging standards be interpreted?'

'Simply put, I don't know that you have an older brother, and I say you don't.'

'Because I was too arbitrary, the words I spoke do not match the objective facts.'

'This is Objective Lying!'

'I have an older brother, but you don't know that I have an older brother. I tell you that I don't have an older brother at all. This is lying out of my subjective will, wanting to deceive you.'

'Before confirming the objective fact of whether I have an older brother or not, if you want to judge whether I'm lying or not, you can only gamble. You Judge me. If the Judgment succeeds, I die. If it fails, you die.'

'This is Subjective Lying!'

'In other words, not only does judging lies have subjective and objective aspects, but telling lies does too.'

'Then in a Lie-Judgment...'

'The one judging the lie and the one being judged are often in a relationship of hunter and prey.'

'Who is the hunter and who is the prey cannot be determined until the final moment.'

'Therefore, the people engaged in a Lie-Judgment, whether they are the active party or the passive party, must first ensure that they themselves will not become the one being judged.'

'That is, they cannot lie!'

'There are two types of lying: Subjective Lying and Objective Lying.'

'Subjective Lying: I use information that I know but you don't know to deceive you.'

'Objective Lying: You use information that you know but I don't know to deceive me.'

'So, if one wants to ensure that they don't become the one being judged during a Lie-Judgment...'

'Besides paying attention to Emotional Lying, Common Sense Lying, and Sentimental Lying...'

'There is also Unknown Lying!!!'

'In other words, during my conversation with the three Three-Star players, whenever it involved an Unknown Lie-Judgment, it touched a red line. The three immediately became alert and engaged in reverse reasoning, thereby deducing that this was a new timeline.'

'So that's how it is!'

'I've finally deduced the underlying logic behind this!'

'If I want to coax a lie out of the three Three-Star players, I have two options.'

'First: they can suppress their emotions, but they cannot suppress common sense. I can use Common Sense Deception.'

'Second: using the process to deduce the result will yield a correct answer, but using the result to deduce the process will yield countless processes. The three Three-Star players used the fact that I touched the red line of Unknown Lying in our conversation to perform reverse reasoning and obtain a process. Then I'll just create an extra process for them!'