Chapter 311: Cat and Mouse Game

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The real Lin Xuan escaped from the third bedroom of the First Secret Room of the Instance, arrived in the second Secret Room of the Instance, and retracted his skill.

Because the first Secret Room and the second scene were identical in this Instance, and the first Secret Room had already been cleared, everyone naturally appeared in the second Secret Room. This led to everything that had just happened, as well as the existence of the Deceiver's Tongue.

…

The Fitness Blogger swung the Climbing Hook, hooking it onto the door frame of the third bedroom, and pulled the rope taut, securing it to the iron cage.

Because there was a height difference, the crowd only needed to clip their carabiners onto the rope and hold onto the carabiners with both hands to slide to the opposite side.

Since Future Lies had been established in advance.

Not long after.

The crowd safely left the third bedroom one after another, with no one causing trouble.

The Fitness Blogger closed the doors to the three bedrooms in sequence, then arrived at the door of the second bedroom somewhat nervously.

He gently pushed the door open.

It appeared!

A sheet of white light could be seen at the doorway, making it completely impossible to see what was inside.

The Youth chuckled. "Establish a Future Lie, let's not have anyone missing."

They had no choice in this matter. If anyone refused to establish a Future Lie, the rest of the people wouldn't enter to decrypt, and everyone would just be stuck stalling here.

Soon, the crowd successively stated their respective Future Lies and walked into the bedroom one by one.

This... was not a Secret Room.

In the middle of the room was a clock, but it was laid flat. It was a circular clock with a diameter of about one meter, and its three hands were of equal length, just under half a meter.

At the same time, there were no numbers marked on the clock, making it impossible to determine the specific time it represented. After all, one could get different times by looking at it from different positions.

However, the room wasn't the common square shape, but circular. Twelve doors were evenly distributed along the surrounding walls, and each door was open, revealing a burst of white light inside, not knowing where they led to.

Aside from this, there were no other clues in the room, and even the door they had come through had vanished.

Chen Ran lit a Cigarette. He realized that the distribution of these twelve doors could be treated as the missing numbers on the clock.

For example, if they could determine which door represented the number [1], then they could determine what numbers the other doors represented.

Then, based on where the three hands pointed, they could determine the specific time.

It was just that, what was the use...

Of this time?

He felt it was very likely related to the decryption of the third bedroom after being reset.

'There are a few points to note here. First, there are twelve doors in this room. If any of these doors lead to the Apartment Block exit, then this room is not a Secret Room.'

'Second, the issue of the three hands of the clock rotating. If they rotate backwards and forwards, then it's not a clock, which requires Avoidance of Lying.'

'Third, if, like in the Novice Instance, all three hands point to a position similar to six o'clock, then it's not a clock either.'

Only these three points might involve counter-intuitive Common Sense traps. For anything else, even if the deduction was wrong, it wouldn't constitute a lie.

The 18 people waited for a while and found that the three hands would not rotate on their own, so they understood that this was making them choose for themselves which door to enter.

Logically speaking, at this time, they should separate to decrypt, with each person or each team going into one of the doors, but...

There were too many people!

This was the second Secret Room of the Instance, so it was also time to carry out a massive reduction in personnel.

The Youth lit a Cigarette. "As the saying goes, generals against generals, soldiers against soldiers. Me, Chen Ran, Lin Xuan, Gao Lan, Short and Fat, Big Gold Tooth—we six will enter one door together, and the rest of the players will enter another door together. What do you guys think?"

Chen Ran nodded.

For him, although the two Hunter Teams had been broken up, their skills might still have a certain degree of synergy. Being able to decrypt separately was naturally best.

Moreover, based on the previous few Instances, he discovered that Qiu Yinong was an expert at noob-stomping.

As for Short and Fat, he was naturally also happy to decrypt separately. The reason was simple: his skill was of the Id memory type. In other words, in a Combo Skill, his role was to make himself unaffected by the Combo Skill. Putting it another way, without him, the power of Ye Qian's trio's Combo Skill wouldn't decrease; it would merely lack some tactical application.

By the same logic, Gao Lan was also like this. His skill was [Spirit Confinement and General Dispatch]. Within the Combo Skill with his teammates, he was the brains of the operation. Without him, based on his teammates' intelligence, they wouldn't necessarily all be screwed to death in the Secret Room.

The Fitness Blogger, however, clearly knew that he was being abandoned.

'Both teams are Liar-Slayers; they need a lie. I am undoubtedly... their best choice.'

'But if I'm the only one who disagrees, God knows what will happen if I stay here. And if I follow Shu Renjun, I'll be stepping into a high-tier game.'

'I don't have a choice!'

Whether they were scheming intentionally or being swept along by fate, all the players agreed to the Youth's proposal.

Soon, the 18 people split into two groups, walked into different doors, and disappeared.

…

Apartment Block, first floor. The six, including the Youth, appeared out of thin air in front of the Elevator. On the wall between the two Elevators, there was a screen:

【Cat and Mouse Game】

【You are the mice. You can hide in any room within this building.】

【In ten minutes, the cats will appear here and proceed to hunt you.】

【Rule: Any scene in this building cannot be overwritten.】

【Rule: If a cat is repelled by a mouse's Liar-Slayer protection, it is considered catching the mouse. If the mouse does not have Liar-Slayer protection, the cat catches the mouse the moment it touches the mouse.】

【Rule: Mice can transform into any object, including people.】

【Rule: If a cat catches a mouse, the cat clears the Secret Room. If a mouse is caught, it enters a Ghost State for ten minutes and can continue hiding, but cannot hide on the first floor. If caught again, it cannot hide on the second floor, and so on. Those who are not caught by the cats within two hours are considered to have cleared the Secret Room.】

【Rule: Unlimited number of times. When only mice or cats remain in this Secret Room, the cats or mice will be forever trapped here, unable to clear the room and unable to continue the Instance.】

After the six read the game rules, Chen Ran and the other four simultaneously raised their middle fingers at the Youth.

Obviously, the rules mentioned that a cat could be repelled by a mouse's Liar-Slayer, meaning the cats were also players. Then, who the cats were went without saying.

It was exactly the twelve players who walked into the other door, meaning...

There were twelve cats!

And only six mice!

How was this supposed to be played?

The Youth awkwardly scratched his head. "Cough cough, an accident, a pure accident."

After the minor interlude ended, the six didn't immediately go hide, but rather opened the Elevator and checked the number of floors in this building.

There were a total of 18 floors.

The six felt their eyelids twitch. There were twelve cats. To hunt mice efficiently, they would definitely choose to have two people search the same floor.

One responsible for entering rooms to search.

One standing in the corridor to prevent the mice from changing locations during this period.

Therefore, each floor would have two cats coordinating to catch mice.

In other words, twelve cats could search six floors simultaneously.

For 18 floors, twelve cats could search six floors simultaneously, meaning each team only needed to search three floors to finish the sweep.

If it were just like this, the mice were bound to lose.

But the rules mentioned that after a mouse was caught, they would have ten minutes in a Ghost State and could continue hiding, but couldn't hide on the first floor. This gave the mice room to operate.

For example, hiding on a floor the cats had already searched for their second hiding spot.

But the problem was, the cats were players. Players who could survive until now were not idiots. They would definitely design an optimized search plan to ensure efficient capture of the mice.

So, what the six of them needed to do next was deduce the most efficient mouse-catching plan for the cats hidden within the rules, and then do the opposite when hiding to stall for time.

There was another problem here: would your own teammates catch you?

The answer was...

They definitely would catch you!

The rules stated that mice could transform into anything, including taking on the appearance of other people, so don't have any delusions that your teammates would let you off the hook or anything like that.

The six fell into deep thought.

If it weren't for the Youth's proposal, this Secret Room would actually be very simple to clear. But the Youth's proposal placed them in opposing factions with their respective teammates, forcibly increasing the difficulty of the Secret Room by several levels.

They knew clearly that they were going to suffer terribly next. With time being tight, they could only quickly deduce the most efficient cat-catching-mouse plan.