Chapter 605: A True Gathering of Elites

Experimental Building A.

From afar, Qiu Yinong saw Chen Ran pacing back and forth in front of the building smoking a cigarette.

Stepping forward.

Chen Ran signaled her to wait a moment.

"How did you pinpoint me?" Qiu Yinong asked Chen Ran in incomprehension.

"In my memory, yesterday the three of you were all chatting, but just now only those two were chatting happily. Therefore I guessed that you, like me, are in the loop."

Hearing this, Qiu Yinong nodded: "Then why come to the experimental building again?"

"This depends on whether the time loop we think it is is scientific or eerie?"

"If it's scientific, then it explains that someone within the academy has researched an instrument that can trap people in a time loop. The experimental building's suspicion is very large. Moreover, based on Common Sense, under normal circumstances, the first time this kind of thing is researched out is for experiments, and now we might be within the loop. Therefore there is a high probability that the instrument hasn't been researched out yet right now."

"If it's eerie?"

"This should be very simple, just walking out the school gates to try will do."

Qiu Yinong nodded. If it was eerie, it shouldn't allow people to walk out of the campus.

It was just...

She said abruptly: "Didn't you notice that there's a problem with what you say?"

Chen Ran nodded: "Yeah, very strange. I instinctively used 'possibly', 'probably', 'if'—these vocabulary for Avoidance of Lying."

"Two possibilities."

"One: My common sense has been tampered with."

"Two: We have lost our memories."

When mentioning [amnesia], the two both had a very familiar feeling, as if they frequently lost their memories before.

Looking at it from God's perspective.

For the two of them, [amnesia] was indeed a cliché and tacky plot point.

The two waited for about half an hour.

In front of Experimental Building A, one after another came...

17 people!

Their thoughts were identical to Chen Ran's, all feeling it was possibly the experimental building having a problem.

"My name is Lin Xuan."

"My name is Han Fei."

"My name is Jiang Zhe."

Seeing no one else come, the nineteen people began to mutually report their names. Some were students, some were teachers in the school.

Jiang Zhe lit a cigarette and said: "Chen Ran, right? You just said we might have had our common sense tampered with, or lost our memories."

Chen Ran nodded.

"I feel both are possible. After all, in the entire school, it shouldn't just be us nineteen people trapped in the loop, unless there's something special about us people."

Chen Ran took a drag of his cigarette: "I checked the dorm, there shouldn't be any cameras. I feel we can rule out pranks, or certain variety shows and the like."

Qiu Yinong suddenly asked: "In your memories, did you go out of the campus yesterday or not?"

"I went out." Lin Xuan raised his hand.

Chu Yinian said: "I didn't go out. That is to say, among us, there are those who went out of the campus, and also those who didn't go out of the campus. Therefore whether we went out of the campus or not can be ruled out."

At this time, Qi Yanqing, with a toothpick in his mouth, frowned and asked: "I didn't come near the experimental building yesterday, therefore this can also be ruled out. I feel, is there a possibility that we are actually not students of this school?"

Chen Ran pondered: "In my memory, during the summer vacation, I participated in Teacher He of the mechanics major's bus lithium battery project. I remember Qiu Yinong was also there."

Qiu Yinong nodded, expressing that she had this aspect of memory. She also remembered that this project was precisely a job Chen Ran specially found for the students in the class to earn extra money.

Everyone was also recalling; their own memories in this school seemed to have no problems.

Han Fei sighed: "It couldn't be that we occupied other people's identities, right?"

Hearing this, everyone was startled.

"There is this possibility." Chu Yinian threw away his cigarette butt and lit another one: "Through the conversation just now, I discovered that we indeed have the habit of avoiding lies when speaking. This should precisely be our common point. But normally speaking, generally only people with introverted personalities would, during the process of speaking, from time to time say these vocabulary words like 'possibly', 'should', 'probably', 'perhaps'."

"But, I feel, there shouldn't be any introverted people among us, right?"

Right, a few people who just met were chatting so passionately, where did introversion come from?

"Therefore, we are with high probability not students of this school, but invaded these bodies, and received their memories."

"Two possibilities," Jiang Zhe said.

"One: This is a virtual world, we are playing a game."

"Two: An eerie world, we are participating in a certain eerie Instance, just like the protagonists inside novels."

If it was before today, if he said this no one would believe it. But now they were all trapped in a time loop, so they had no choice but to consider the occurrence of this kind of situation.

"Have you noticed?" Jiang Bieli (one of the original Seven-Star Players), who hadn't spoken much all along, seeing everyone's gazes were attracted over, only then continued: "We seem to all be very smart, discovering a problem we deduced it was possibly the experimental building having a problem."

"Therefore, I lean more towards us being players of a certain eerie world, currently participating in an eerie Instance."

"Moreover, this eerie Instance, or eerie world, should have a special mechanic, namely: prohibiting lying."

"The existence of this mechanic led to our Personal Common Sense undergoing a change, namely when speaking we will instinctively avoid lies."

Hearing this, the remaining eighteen people all quietly took two steps back, pulling open a distance from each other, simply because if there was this kind of mechanic, it explained that the underlying logic of this eerie world was to trick lies out of each other.

Chen Ran said: "According to my experience of reading novels for many years, if we are players in this kind of Instance, then the number of people should be a round integer, and not..."

Everyone understood his meaning. Simply put, if this was an Instance, then the players participating in the Instance would either be a multiple of [5], or a multiple of [10].

At worst, it should also be...

A multiple of [2]!

But, they right here only had nineteen people, with high probability still missing one person.

Wei Wuxie (original Seven-Star Player) thought for a bit, frowning and saying:

"Three possibilities."

"One: If this is an Instance, there should be a player who has already cleared it."

"Two: If this is an Instance, there should be a player who hid themselves."

"Three: One died from infighting."

One had to say, looking at it from God's perspective, this group of people's tier level was too high, deducing to this degree so quickly.

Just as Wei Wuxie's voice fell, everyone directly ignored the third possibility. After all, dying from infighting wasn't conducive to this current kind of unity, so they looked at Experimental Building A in unison.

Right at this time, Lin Xuan abruptly asked: "I have a question, how are you guys certain this is the first day of the loop?"

Everyone was startled again.

Right, since amnesia exists, then why couldn't the loop cause amnesia?

Simply put.

Time was indeed looping, but at the same time everyone's memories were also possibly looping.

Assume:

The first day's loop, they searched the experimental building, and didn't lift the loop.

The second day looped again, but they lost the memories of the first day's loop.