Chapter 307: Chen Ran: I Haven't Gotten on the Car Yet!

"Everyone's being silent, huh? You guys don't have much time left." Lin Xuan smiled.

The crowd's expressions changed slightly. They all knew that a major skill battle was coming next.

Short and Fat suddenly thought of something. "I remember Chen Ran saying in the third bedroom that his skill can break other skills."

As soon as these words came out, everyone was shocked.

'Short and Fat knows my skill effects, which means he has the memories of the third bedroom.'

'From a logical perspective...'

'Short and Fat is a real player.'

At this moment, Gao Lan's eyes lit up. "Among us present, there are two Combo Skills, the Five-Star Youth's skill, and two Superego skills. If we brawl with skills, we'll probably accidentally injure each other. Since Chen Ran's skill can break other players' skills, we can totally let Chen Ran use his skill to avoid casualties."

Chen Ran crossed his arms, swept his gaze over the crowd, and said with a half-smile, "Who provides the lie?"

Single-marking Lin Xuan!

Gao Lan organized his wording. "Chen Ran, you have to understand one thing. Our Three-Star Hunter Team was dragged into this Instance by you, and the Four-Star Hunter Team came tracking you. If there's really going to be a major skill battle, the one who suffers..."

"Will definitely be you!"

Qiu Yinong sneered. "What you mean by this is that you want Chen Ran to provide a lie for himself while you guys prepare to get carried to an easy win?"

'The Youth wants to control me. If I provide a lie myself, Qiu Yinong won't kill me, so the only person present who can kill me is...'

'Lin Xuan!'

'Therefore, the Youth single-marking Lin Xuan is logically very reasonable.'

'Gao Lan probably hates me, so his words are sharp and confrontational; logically, that's reasonable as well.'

'Qiu Yinong chiming in to help is also reasonable.'

Short and Fat stood up, staring dead into Chen Ran's eyes, and spoke up. "We can establish a Future Lie to not Judge you. If you don't provide a lie, do you think you can survive when everyone uses their skills later?"

Chen Ran remained silent, rummaging through his backpack for something, as time gradually passed.

If they didn't make a choice quickly, everyone wouldn't have much time left. The ending would definitely be freezing to death in the Ice Room.

"Chen Ran!"

Right at this moment, the Youth suddenly roared.

Chen Ran subconsciously looked up at the Youth's position, and the emotions in the Youth's eyes released.

But...

The next moment, the crowd saw Chen Ran wearing a pair of Sunglasses.

The crowd: "..."

The Youth's Distance-Free Technique failed to pull Chen Ran into the World of the Heart, leaving him a bit bewildered.

'Wait, is this right?'

Chen Ran zipped up his backpack, slowly extended his index and middle fingers, and flashed the crowd...

A peace sign.

Seeing this, Qiu Yinong sighed in relief. At the same time, she wondered why Chen Ran had reverted back to that occasionally goofy state he had before Heart Cultivation.

Thus, she asked uncertainly, "Do you still remember the template you prepared for me?"

During the review of the previous Instance, Chen Ran promised to write a template for Qiu Yinong's Wheel of Time, and had already given it to her before entering this Instance.

Qiu Yinong asking this was to test whether this Chen Ran was the real Chen Ran.

The corners of Chen Ran's mouth lifted. He slowly raised his right hand and gave a gentle wave, as if swatting away a fly.

Qiu Yinong was taken aback.

'Is he telling me to... scram?'

Chen Ran ignored the crowd and stared straight at Lin Xuan, whose expression was erratic. "Theoretically, I cannot confirm whether you all are real or fake, but I can confirm whether I am real or fake."

"Oh? Tell me about it."

"Lin Xuan set up so many traps in this Ice Room, definitively for the purpose of executing Lie-Judgment. That is to say, the person being targeted must be a real player."

"You all targeted me just now; don't tell me I'm a fake player."

"I am the real Chen Ran!"

Everyone noticed that Chen Ran didn't practice Avoidance of Lying when saying those three sentences.

Actually, one could understand with a bit of thought: if he were a fake player, Avoidance of Lying would be meaningless. Therefore, when stating he was a real player, he fundamentally didn't need to practice Avoidance of Lying.

"How much longer are you going to play this trick? You don't actually think I haven't even seen 'The Truman Show', do you?"

The Truman Show: Everyone around Truman was an actor.

As soon as his voice fell, Han Bing's brain was in a crashed state. He said in disbelief, "Are you saying we are all fakes, and only you are the real player? No, Lin Xuan should also be real. After all, if he coaxed your lie out, someone has to Judge you."

His words were like a magnitude-10 earthquake, causing a chill to well up from the bottoms of the hearts of the players who didn't have time to suppress their Mental States. The chill then traveled throughout their bodies and rushed straight to the crowns of their heads, making their scalps tingle.

On the contrary, Short and Fat, Gao Lan, Qiu Yinong, and the Youth had no reaction.

Chen Ran took out his Cigarette Case, lit one, took a deep puff, and said faintly, "I remember seeing a type of scam when I was alive. It's a group chat with 200 members, where 199 of them are scammers. This kind of scam usually builds feelings through chatting. Once the feelings are in place, they pull the victim into the group chat and brainwash them through it. In Hell, this should be called constructing the victim's Personal Common Sense, ultimately achieving the goal of swindling the victim's money."

Simply put, Lin Xuan used his spatial skill several times earlier to construct the players' Personal Common Sense: that is, the players teleported over through space were all real players, just from different spatial layers.

The next step was to reinforce that Personal Common Sense.

How to reinforce it?

Very simple. For example, twenty-nine players appeared in this Secret Room, allowing players to deduce that at least nine were fakes.

Here comes the key point.

As long as you prove that you are real, the victim will firmly believe you are real.

This is reinforcing Personal Common Sense.

From an omniscient perspective, Mo Li confirmed Gao Lan was real through the Distance-Free Technique, so she no longer doubted Gao Lan. Thus, as a Slave, she willingly spoke an Unknown Lie.

Therefore, she died.

By the same logic, the Slave in the Four-Star team also died from this exact situation.

Summary: Lin Xuan's strategy was to first construct everyone's Personal Common Sense, then erase the Personal Common Sense he constructed earlier, and then let the victims themselves confirm the identities of their teammates or other players to reinforce their Personal Common Sense.

The final step was definitely executing Emotional Deception on the victims.

For example: The Four-Star Slave had a lie coaxed out by Short and Fat, and Mo Li had a lie coaxed out by Gao Lan.

They confirmed their respective teammates were all real players, so they had a lie coaxed out of them.

There might be a question here.

Why did Short and Fat and Gao Lan choose to coax out a lie from the Slave in their own teams?

It's also very simple.

Sacrifice the Pawn to Save the King!

They weren't sure if they themselves were real, and seeing their teams being targeted, they quickly figured out that the ones being targeted were the Slaves in their teams.

Based on deduction, one could learn that in this Ice Room, whoever was targeted was a real player.

After all, with Lin Xuan setting up so much, it couldn't possibly be for fun; it must be to coax out someone's lie. Then, the targeted player was undoubtedly a real player.

At this time, by sacrificing the Slave, they could confirm their guesses.

Why wouldn't they sacrifice them?

However, from an omniscient perspective, the two Slaves had lies coaxed out of them in two identical situations and scenarios.

Therefore, it could be deduced that Lin Xuan had a very dirty and cautious mind. Every time he killed a person, he would reuse his skill to recreate the scenario and the people created by his skill in that scenario.

Simply put, it was like acting in a play. Acting the exact same play fourteen times in a row, having to rearrange the stage and actors every time. This time, Chen Ran's turn was the fifteenth play.

Why the fifteenth play?

As deduced earlier, Lin Xuan knew Chen Ran's skill effects, so he would definitely save Chen Ran for last to deal with.

If dealt with first, Chen Ran would just pop Eternal Kingdom, and Lin Xuan wouldn't get to play.

Excluding him and his teammates, with fifteen people remaining, wouldn't Chen Ran be the fifteenth play?

…

With a Cigarette dangling from his mouth, Chen Ran pointed at Gao Lan. "You wanted me to provide a lie myself just now?"

He then looked at the Youth. "You intended to use the Distance-Free Technique to force me to agree to the proposal just now?"

The pointing index finger switched to a middle finger.

"You guys underestimate me too much. How could I possibly fall for this kind of trick?"

If they were all fakes, once Chen Ran provided a lie himself, he would follow in the footsteps of the two Slaves and be Judged to death by Lin Xuan.

He wasn't stupid to that extent.

Then here comes the question.

According to the aforementioned deduction, the final result of Lin Xuan's layout was Emotional Deception.

Among all the players present, the only person who could execute Emotional Deception on Chen Ran was Qiu Yinong.

Why didn't he have a lie coaxed out of him?

Chen Ran looked at Qiu Yinong. "Your Lie-Judgment was also very clumsy. You asked me [Do you still remember the template you prepared for me?]."

"To this Lie-Judgment, I couldn't possibly answer [Remember]. Simply because, even if you are the real Qiu Yinong, it's also possible that you aren't the Qiu Yinong from my spatial layer. Once I answered [Remember], I might have lied."

Qiu Yinong shrugged nonchalantly. "Actually, I knew all along that upon encountering this kind of situation, the first person you would doubt is yourself, and the second is me. After all, in the last Instance, you fell for Diwu Zeyi's trick. With your IQ, you should have sensed something fishy, so my trustworthiness in your heart would plummet."

"Rather than spending effort meticulously crafting a Lie-Judgment script only to have it seen through by you, I might as well just randomly come up with one."

She was very right. Whether the Lie-Judgment script Qiu Yinong prepared was simple or meticulously designed, it was impossible for Chen Ran to fall for her Emotional Deception. After all, he had been tricked once in the last Instance and even reviewed it; how could he possibly fall for it a second time?

…

Lin Xuan's mouth hung wide open. He had been constructing this step ever since he deduced that Qiu Yinong and Chen Ran were going to hunt him down, and he even personally selected his Three-Star teammates in the Hell Maze.

He never expected...

That even this failed to coax out Chen Ran's lie?

And not just Chen Ran.

Even Qiu Yinong's Lie-Judgment failed to coax it out!

'Is the intensity... this high?'

'Fuck fuck fuck!'

He felt his Mental State become a bit unstable after taking Chen Ran's silky smooth combo of strikes.

He hastily suppressed his Mental State.

'My nonsensical rambling and haphazard use of skills earlier were all to... '

'Implant psychological suggestions in them!'

'In the Ice Room, I used the extra nine people to break this psychological suggestion, making them confirm it themselves to reinforce it: that is, my teammates must be real, they cannot be fake.'

'Once they arrived at this conclusion, they would easily have a lie coaxed out of them.'

'But the psychological suggestion on Chen Ran seemed to get stuck at the first hurdle. Just as Qiu Yinong said, he would be the first to doubt himself, and he maintained a high level of guard against his teammate.'

'What a freak!'

Lin Xuan lit a Cigarette, took a deep puff, drew his Liar-Slayer, and aimed it at Chen Ran. "Since you've deduced everything, there's no point in continuing. Let's end it here."

"Liar-Slayer: Twin Cube!"

"Retract!"

The next moment, all the people in the Secret Room vanished, leaving only Chen Ran alone.

Chen Ran: "..."

'I haven't gotten on the car yet!'

'Take me with you!'