Chapter 193: Five Virtues Cycle (1)

'Face-up Cards playstyle?'

'Five people split into two teams...'

Long Hui organized the team-splitting plan.

'Me, Chen Ran, and the BOSS. If the three of us form a team and go to another patient room.'

'Whether I kill Chen Ran, or Chen Ran kills me, the BOSS can use his Skill to control my or Chen Ran's corpse.'

'Unknown Lie and Deceiver's Tongue, intertwining the two to trick Diwu Zeyi into a lie.'

'And the other team, which is Qiu Yinong and Diwu Zeyi, going to a different patient room.'

'This team will depend on Qiu Yinong's abilities. If she can screw Diwu Zeyi to death, naturally there's nothing left to say. However, it's 99% certain she won't be able to.'

'The key is that she needs to cooperate with Chen Ran's plan. How to cooperate?'

'Chen Ran must first make the BOSS tell a Future Lie that he cannot Judge Qiu Yinong. This way, Qiu Yinong can tell an Unknown Lie in the patient room she went to with Diwu Zeyi.'

'Simply put...'

'Two teams, going to two patient rooms, constructing two Unknown Lies.'

'We'll see who can trick whom!'

'Chen Ran's entry point is excellent. He knows that emotional deception and Common Sense Deception are basically ineffective against Three-Star players like me and Diwu Zeyi. He can only use Unknown Information Deception.'

'After all, Unknown Information Deception is the mainstream method of deception for Three-Star and higher players.'

'Although all three of us know Chen Ran's plan, we can't lay it out in the open.'

'If we want to implement it, we have to see if the BOSS can deduce his plan.'

'This is what's annoying about high-tier games. A Bronze player mixes in, their thinking can't keep up, and they fucking love to stir up trouble.'

'However, I'm very curious: where does Chen Ran get the confidence to screw over Three-Star players?'

'Emmmmmm.'

'It seems... it's not strictly necessary to screw a Three-Star player to death.'

'I die, Chen Ran dies, or neither of us dies; making Diwu Zeyi guess which of these three outcomes it is.'

'It involves the BOSS's Skill, and this Skill can happen to deduce one of those three outcomes.'

'In other words, Diwu Zeyi most likely wouldn't dare to admit that I'm dead, that Chen Ran is dead, or that neither of us are dead.'

'After all, with Usurpation in play, as long as he says something that doesn't match the facts, it will definitely constitute an Unknown Lie.'

'Conclusion: between me and Diwu Zeyi, whoever is in the three-person team holds the advantage, and whoever is in the two-person team is passive.'

'I have to leave myself a way out.'

Inside the patient room.

Everyone was deep in thought. The Bald Doctor successively drew 100ml of blood from the other three.

Charlie had a cumulative total of 400ml drawn.

According to national standards, a healthy, normal adult should not exceed 400ml per blood donation.

At the same time, the blood volume in a human body is roughly 7% of their body weight.

Taking Chen Ran as an example.

Chen Ran was on the thin and frail side, weighing around 120 catties [60 kg].

Assuming this weight was the weight of a normal and healthy person...

Using this as a standard, a single blood donation should not exceed 400ml.

On the hospital bed, Charlie looked to be about seven or eight years old, most likely weighing fifty or sixty catties. Let's say sixty catties; then the blood volume in his body was half of Chen Ran's.

Therefore...

Charlie's blood donation should not exceed 200ml.

Donating blood = drawing blood.

Right now, Charlie had 400ml of blood drawn. Something was definitely going to go wrong.

The five hurriedly broke out of their contemplation and frowned as they looked at the little foreign child, Charlie, on the bed.

They saw that on the bed, Charlie was listless and his lips were pale. He looked exactly like he was about to pass out from exhaustion.

What surprised the five even more was that they also felt a wave of exhaustion.

Their eyelids grew heavier and heavier. Realizing things were bad, the several of them reflected, making sure they hadn't missed any flaws in this patient room, before beginning to deduce the situations they might face next.

'It seems the patient room was just an appetizer, letting us understand the upcoming theme.'

'Also, in the first Secret Room, it ended with Five Elements suppression.'

'Liver is Wood, Heart is Fire, Spleen is Earth, Lungs are Metal, Kidneys are Water.'

'Keywords: Blood, Spleen, Earth.'

'This should be a Composite Dungeon, which means the upcoming puzzle-solving will very likely involve the quack doctor standing before us.'

'Extrapolating from this, with five patient rooms, wouldn't there be five quack doctors?'

'Five criminals?'

'Simply put, the First People's Hospital is a massive criminal nest.'

With this thought, the five lost consciousness. What they didn't know was that as they fainted, the needles in the backs of their hands...

Were slowly drawing blood!

When the five opened their eyes again, they found themselves in a Secret Room the size of a football field.

In the four corners and the center of the Secret Room, there were five special flat surfaces, each about 5 square meters in size.

Due to the long distances between them, after recording the time, everyone jogged over, taking two and a half minutes to view all five surfaces.

There was a single word on each surface.

East: Yu.

North: Xia.

South: Yin.

West: Zhou.

Center: Qin.

Without overthinking it, Chen Ran and the other three immediately ran towards the Eastern surface.

Seeing this, [Lin Xiuyuan], though not understanding the meaning, also followed them running East.

Standing on the Eastern surface, the five finally began to survey the rest of the Secret Room's environment.

They found that other than these five surfaces, there were no other clues worth referencing.

"Strange. Logically speaking, there should be a sixth platform," Chen Ran frowned.

After speaking, he looked at [Lin Xiuyuan], his eyes seeming to say: You are the Hospital Director, you should understand the trick here.

"Don't look at me like that. I remember that after the medical dispute ended, the Director hired a Daoist priest to perform a ritual. This was probably set up by the Daoist priest; the Director himself doesn't understand the principles behind it either."

"Speaking of which, the Director was also unlucky. The subway worker's family sold their car and house just to scrape together the surgery fee. But after the heart transplant, there would be follow-up treatment costs. With their financial situation, they couldn't afford it at all. The Director gave the heart to the wealthy man's child, and even fought for a high compensation payout for them."

"Who would have thought he'd do something like that? Sure enough, just like in the movies, there is only one disease in this world, and that's poverty."

Seeing the four roll their eyes, [Lin Xiuyuan] knew they weren't easy to fool, so he changed the subject: "So why are we standing on this?"

"Spleen is Earth. According to Zou Yan's 'Five Virtues Cycle' theory: Yu is Earth, Xia is Wood, Yin is Metal, Zhou is Fire."

"What about Qin?" Lin Xiuyuan asked.

"Qin should be Water virtue, but because the Qin Dynasty existed for too short a time, the Han Dynasty was also considered Water virtue."

"Reasoning this way, there should be six surfaces, but right now there are only five."

Long Hui looked at the speaking Chen Ran, secretly thinking that this guy was holding half of it back.

In the "Five Virtues Cycle" theory, there were also color distinctions. For example, Qin and Han were Water virtue and therefore favored black; the dragon robes of the Qin and Han emperors were all black. What was interesting was...

Zou Yan was a Yin-Yang philosopher during the Warring States period, yet he was able to predict that the Qin and Han dynasties would be Water virtue and favor black.

Some people would definitely feel that Zou Yan possessed the ability to foresee the future, but...

Is there a possibility that the emperors of Qin and Han, in order to maintain the legitimacy of their dynastic rule, deliberately went along with the contents of the "Five Virtues Cycle" theory?

In other words, in this Secret Room, besides the Five Elements, there were also five colors, as well as 'going with the flow'—three types of puzzle-solving clues.