Chapter 42: Reckless Hands Must Die!

'Evidence?'

The Gold-Rimmed Glasses Man smiled bitterly. If he had any evidence, would he still be standing here slowly deducing things?

At that moment, someone in the crowd suddenly spoke up, "Don't you guys have Watches?"

'Right!'

'The time!'

The Middle-aged Uncle and the Gold-Rimmed Glasses Man immediately looked at the Watches on their wrists: 11:30.

'The Instance matchmaking started at 8:00.'

'Instance matchmaking takes an hour at most. We should have entered the Instance before 9:00 exact.'

'But right now, it is 11:30.'

'Conclusion: We arrived in this Secret Room at least two and a half hours ago.'

'Now, we are missing at least two and a half hours of memories, which means we have amnesia.'

"It seems our memories have indeed been stripped away," the Middle-aged Uncle said with a heavy expression.

The atmosphere grew somewhat oppressive.

No one dared to analyze the clues in the Secret Room. The reason was simple: investigating now might lead them down the exact same path they took before, and the outcome would still be losing their memories.

Chen Ran pulled out his Cigarette Case and counted the number of Cigarettes inside. Qiu Yinong also reached into her pocket, silently counting her pieces of Chewing Gum.

Still feeling uneasy, the two of them searched around the entire Study Room. After finding no cigarette butts or Chewing Gum wrappers on the floor, they finally felt reassured and returned to their original positions.

"Do you want to do it?" Chen Ran asked.

Qiu Yinong looked at the calligraphy on the wall and shook her head. "Those seem to be Second-round Simplified Characters. I learned a bit about them when I was alive, but not much."

Hearing this, Chen Ran didn't hesitate. He pulled a Cigarette from his Cigarette Case. Just as he was about to light it, he suddenly noticed ten numbers written on his palm. He paused in surprise, then smiled.

'Smart as always!'

'By using my left hand to write on my right, I would definitely see the numbers on my palm when lighting a Cigarette.'

Their strange behavior naturally attracted the attention of the other Players.

"You want to try solving it?"

Seeing Chen Ran nod, the Middle-aged Uncle hurriedly tried to stop him. "How do you know you didn't already try to deduce things during our lost memories?"

"The fact that you're asking this means you've already figured out the solution. We need someone who hasn't participated in the investigation to take the lead in deciphering this Secret Room's clues. That way, we can avoid repeating the same mistakes from before we lost our memories," Chen Ran praised.

"Exactly," the Gold-Rimmed Glasses Man agreed.

Chen Ran took a deep puff of his Cigarette and said, "I have a habit. Whenever I'm analyzing something, I always light a Cigarette. I just searched the area and found absolutely no butts on the floor, which means I completely stayed out of your earlier investigation."

Everyone's eyes lit up.

Just as they were about to agree, Zhang Jinhua suddenly stepped forward and countered, "How can you be sure the scene in the Secret Room hasn't been reset?"

'She's right!'

'If the Secret Room resets every time we lose our memories, it would be impossible for him to find any cigarette butts he dropped on the floor.'

Chen Ran pointed at Zhang Jinhua's Watch. "You brought that Watch into the Instance, and I brought my Cigarettes into the Instance. Since the time on your Watch wasn't reset, why would you assume my cigarette butts would vanish along with a scene reset in the Secret Room?"

Zhang Jinhua was left speechless.

'The time on my Watch hasn't been reset.'

'Therefore, any cigarette butts this young man threw on the floor wouldn't be reset either.'

'Since there are no butts on the floor now, it means he didn't smoke earlier.'

'According to what he said, he always lights a Cigarette when deducing something. This proves he didn't participate in any reasoning during the lost time.'

Even so, Zhang Jinhua pointed stubbornly at the calligraphy on the wall. "These are the Second-round Simplified Characters the country promoted when I was young. They were abolished a long time ago. Even I can't read some of the characters up there. Are you saying you can?"

"Are you trying to say that some of the characters up there are written incorrectly?" Chen Ran asked in return.

"Correct."

Seeing Chen Ran stay silent for a long time, Zhang Jinhua sneered. "You might not have been part of the deduction, but that doesn't mean you're actually capable of figuring it out."

"No, you misunderstand." Chen Ran grinned, flashing two rows of teeth. "I was just wondering if you were telling a Common Sense Lie."

"The Second-round Simplified Characters up there were obviously typed on a machine. However, since the government abolished them in 1986, some of those characters can't be typed using modern input methods, such as..."

Chen Ran pointed to a sequence of three symbols: a question mark, a cross, and the symbol for woman. "These three symbols, structurally speaking, should combine to form the Second-round Simplified Character for the word 'Wife'."

Zhang Jinhua froze in place. "So, the reason I couldn't recognize it is because there was an error when typing these Second-round Simplified Characters?"

Chen Ran nodded.

Seeing Chen Ran and Zhang Jinhua continuously discussing these trivial details, the Middle-aged Uncle couldn't help but interrupt, "What do these words mean?"

Chen Ran ignored him.

He continued speaking to himself, "Second-round Simplified Characters began being promoted in textbooks in 1978 and were officially abolished in 1986."

Hearing this, someone immediately rushed toward the bookshelf with the corresponding numbers, but...

Chen Ran had held something back; he hadn't mentioned the specific months. The Players walked back awkwardly.

"Don't rush, take it slow." Chen Ran glanced at the Teenager who had run the fastest. He had a strong suspicion that their previous amnesia had been caused by this guy's reckless hands triggering a trap.

'The most terrifying thing to encounter in an Instance is a Player with restless hands. One moment of carelessness and they'll get everyone killed inside.'

"Promotion and abolishment. That means the two books corresponding to the Second-round Simplified Characters represent the start and the end. The book on its promotion is the beginning, and the one on its abolishment is the end," the Tall Captain suddenly realized.

The Middle-aged Uncle furrowed his brows. "What is the beginning, and what is the end?"

"There aren't many clues in the Instance. First is the calligraphy on the wall. Second is the Hourglass. And third is... that stack of Xuan Paper on the desk."

"Since the words on the wall correspond to two books on the bookshelf, then the words on the Xuan Paper should also correspond to books on the shelf."

Hearing Chen Ran say this, the Middle-aged Uncle spoke with some uncertainty, "The Hourglass represents time. Does that mean once we start, we must find the corresponding books on the Xuan Paper within the time limit?"

That was likely the case, but Chen Ran didn't say it out loud. Instead, he looked down at his right hand.

'I have ten numbers on my palm.'

'11, 15, 3, 6, 10.'

'17, 7, 9, 19, 5.'

'None of these ten numbers exceed 20.'

'They can only be the numbers of the Glass Beads.'

'Moreover.'

'I wrote on my right hand using my left. Based on my usual habits, I would have written from right to left.'

'The furthest to the right is: Number 10.'

'Which means...'

'Number 10 was the very first number I recorded on my palm, but there is a word for 'Number' written right after the 10.'

'However, the other nine digits don't have that word written after them. This means I wrote these numbers in separate batches.'

'The digit 6 is much larger and messier than the others. I can tell that when I wrote the 6...'

'I was severely rushed for time!'

'This perfectly proves that these ten numbers were written at entirely different times.'

'In other words... we have lost our memories in this Secret Room ten times!'

'Right before every memory wipe, I recorded a number on my palm!'

'Conclusion: Someone triggered a trap, causing us all to lose our memories. With every wipe, one of the Glass Beads in the Hourglass changed.'

'But there is a flaw here: During the first nine instances of amnesia, I most likely saw the numbers on my palm. Since I can figure this out now, the me from those previous nine memory wipes should have been able to figure it out too.'

'So why didn't I stop the Player with the restless hands from triggering the trap over and over?'

'There is only one answer...'

'There was absolutely no time!'

'That means during the first nine cycles, my deduction speed simply couldn't catch up to the speed of that Player's reckless hands.'

'There is only one explanation for this: During the first nine cycles, we kept losing more and more of our memories, until the tenth time—which is now—when we lost absolutely all memories of this Secret Room.'

'Only under these circumstances would I have the time to deduce all this before that reckless Player had the time to trigger the trap!'

'And there's something even more terrifying!'

'If we lose our memories again, will we lose our memories of The 18th Level entirely, or will we be completely wiped out?'