Chapter 80: Not Looking Very Smart

[A large number of guests are queuing to book this hotel. Please arrange for their check-in before 18:00. Number of people in queue: 1]

The number of people in the queue soared at a visible rate, reaching five hundred in the blink of an eye!

Moreover, the skyrocketing speed showed absolutely no sign of stopping. After staring at the screen for two and a half minutes, the two saw the queue number reach...

10,000 people!

It was still rising, a terrifying sight to behold. Qiu Yinong reached into her pocket, pulled out a piece of chewing gum, tore open the wrapper, and placed it in her mouth, chewing slowly.

"What do we do? The number of people in the queue seems endless. If we use the same method as before, it won't work at all," the middle-aged uncle said gravely.

People were just like that. When they encountered someone who was good at thinking, they would generally give up thinking themselves and wait for a ready-made answer.

Before long, Qiu Yinong paused her chewing and placed both hands on the keyboard.

"Wait!" the middle-aged uncle hurriedly called out when he saw she was about to issue a notice. "Aren't you going to wait for the queue to stop growing before sending that?"

[Notice: Starting from Room 1000, the previous notice will no longer be followed. It is changed to:

Starting from Room 1000, guests in odd-numbered rooms must immediately move into the room with their current room number multiplied by two.

After the move, the guests whose rooms have been occupied must immediately move into the room with their original room number multiplied by two.]

Seeing her send out the notice without hesitation, the middle-aged uncle was just about to say something when he made a surprising discovery...

Room 1001, empty!

Room 1003, empty!

Room 1005, empty!

Room 1007, empty!

Room 1009, empty!

Starting from Room 1000, every odd-numbered room magically became vacant.

'What the hell?'

'Let me sort this out.'

'Starting from Room 1000... this is easy to understand, because the room swaps caused by booking Room 8 last time are still ongoing.'

'1000 minus 8 equals 992.'

'992 minutes is over 16 hours. It is currently 5:00 PM, and there are 15 hours until 8:00 AM tomorrow...'

'Simply put, extorting one minute from each of these 1000 rooms is enough to allow these 10,001 guests to stay until they check out at 8:00 AM tomorrow.'

He looked at the computer screen, focusing on the first requirement in Qiu Yinong's notice:

[Starting from Room 1000, guests in odd-numbered rooms must immediately move into the room with their current room number multiplied by two.]

'This also seems easy to understand. Under this requirement, every odd-numbered room after 1000 has been vacated.'

'After all, an odd number multiplied by two equals an even number.'

'Assuming the rooms in this hotel are infinite, then an infinite number of odd-numbered rooms have been emptied, leaving them for the countless people queuing to book a stay.'

'But there is a problem here. When the odd numbers become even, they will occupy the even-numbered rooms. So where do the people originally in those even-numbered rooms stay?'

Thus, he looked at the second requirement in Qiu Yinong's notice.

[After the move, the guests whose rooms have been occupied must immediately move into the room with their original room number multiplied by two.]

'The guests whose rooms have been occupied refers to the guests in the even-numbered rooms.'

'If they go and occupy the rooms with their number multiplied by two, then what should the guests in those rooms do?'

'I see!'

'The guests in the times-two rooms will then occupy the times-two-times-two rooms.'

'The guests in the times-two-times-two rooms will then occupy the times-two-times-two-times-two rooms.'

'And so on and so forth.'

'Not only did she empty out the odd-numbered rooms, but she also ensured the guests in the even-numbered rooms had a place to stay.'

'She turned everyone's room-moving time into the accommodation time for the newly checked-in guests.'

'What a ruthless profiteer!'

However, he clearly saw that Qiu Yinong, who had just provided the perfect solution, did not show the slightest bit of relief on her face. Instead, she looked exceptionally grave.

"If my guess is correct, the next time around, countless pop-up windows will appear on the computer, and each window will show an infinite number of guests queuing to book the hotel," she said.

"Don't scare me like that," the middle-aged uncle replied, thoroughly startled. The number of people queuing this time was infinite. Even if the hotel had an infinite number of rooms, they were all caught up in the room-changing scheme. That couldn't be altered. If countless pop-up windows appeared again, with countless people queuing in each one...

It would be absolutely impossible to accommodate them all!

However, the secret room didn't seem to intend to give them any time to react. The next moment, as if infected by a virus, countless pop-up windows flooded the computer screen, and every single one...

Displayed the exact same message:

[A large number of guests are queuing to book this hotel. Please arrange for their check-in before 18:00. Number of people in queue: 1]

The queue numbers were surging like crazy.

Every pop-up window was like this, making both of their eyelids twitch at the sight.

Qiu Yinong rubbed her temples and looked at the middle-aged uncle with clear disgust. "You, it seems, are absolutely useless."

The middle-aged uncle offered a fawning smile. "You're just so amazing, I haven't had any room to show off my skills."

"Is that so?" Qiu Yinong pointed at the lobby elevator and the stairs around the corner. "The third task is very difficult to achieve. We might have to go upstairs to check the real situation. Why don't you go see if the elevator works? Or if the stairwell door is locked? No wonder you worked for ten years when you were alive, only to end up getting fired..."

These seemingly unintentional words sparked a faint surge of anger in the middle-aged uncle, but it only lasted for a split second before he buried it. Maintaining his plastered-on smile, he said, "I'll go right now. It's not too late to check."

With that, he walked toward the elevator. The moment he turned around, a vicious glint flashed through his eyes, though he quickly calmed himself.

The more he thought about it, the more something felt off.

The more he thought about it, the more something felt off.

Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks, abruptly whipped his head around, and charged toward the front desk like a madman.

Qiu Yinong had vanished!!!

"What the..."

'Fuck!!!'

'How could I make such a low-level and idiotic mistake?!'

The middle-aged uncle rushed over in a few massive strides, quickly arriving in front of the electronic lock.

He took a spray bottle out of his bag and carefully spritzed it over the electronic lock's number pad.

Under normal circumstances, human fingers secreted sweat. If a finger pressed the screen, applying the spray would cause the water droplets on the untouched areas to slide off, while a significant amount of moisture would cling to the spots that had been touched.

However...

The screen seemed to have been wiped clean by Qiu Yinong, and the water droplets slid off the entire surface without catching anywhere!

Smash!

The middle-aged uncle viciously hurled the spray bottle onto the floor, shattering it to pieces.

...

Meanwhile.

In the third secret room, Qiu Yinong stepped out of the game's secret room. The crowd subconsciously checked the time, and this time...

She had only spent seven minutes and eleven seconds!

Chen Ran gave her a thumbs-up and asked curiously, "The middle-aged uncle... you left him behind in the game's secret room?"

Although he didn't know much about her, he knew that Qiu Yinong was incredibly treacherous—the kind who would scam people to death without a shred of remorse. Chen Ran wasn't surprised in the slightest that she had ended up in Hell.

"Yeah," Qiu Yinong nodded. "That guy didn't look very smart."