Chapter 91: The Final Puzzle Piece

Lin Jiabao stared at Chen Ran for a long time, hesitating to speak, before finally sighing, "You should be the one to go to the top floor. I'll hold off the reinforcements."

It had come down to this.

Chen Ran's guidance was coming to an end. By exploiting Lin Jiabao's indecisive and evasive nature, he ensured the man would have no chance to visit the top floor and expose the meticulously crafted lie.

That's right. During their previous conversation, Chen Ran had lied, and not just once.

Simply because...

There was no Old Man on the top floor at all. The waiter's answer had actually been: Lin Jiabei, Chen Yang, and the Men in Black are on the top floor.

As long as Lin Jiabao didn't go to the top floor, he wouldn't be able to expose Chen Ran's lie. Even if he did, he couldn't execute a Judgment on him. After all...

He had left his Liar-Slayer on the first floor!

Moreover, in Lin Jiabao's inherent understanding, Chen Ran wouldn't dare to lie.

They both knew this fact perfectly well.

Therefore, from Lin Jiabao's perspective, Chen Ran wouldn't have the guts to lie even if he were given a hundred times the courage.

This was a highly dangerous move, but the payoff was extraordinarily rich.

Chen Ran had planted two seeds in Lin Jiabao's mind: the seed of his deepest hatred for the Old Man, and the seed of eventually reconciling with him.

Viewed from an omniscient perspective, these two seeds would take root and sprout in the Fourth Dream Layer, allowing Lin Jiabao to finally reach a reconciliation with the Old Man.

Consequently, the next thing Chen Ran needed to do was, under perfectly logical circumstances...

Let Lin Jiabao die!

He needed him to fall into the deepest Fourth Dream Layer, achieve reconciliation with the Old Man, complete his self-redemption, and shatter the dreamscape.

It might feel like a pointless effort, a completely unnecessary complication, but...

For players in a Secret Room Instance, a battle of wits was actually a series of continuous, close-quarters clashes.

These sudden, direct confrontations never gave players the time to plot long-term schemes. Thus, every single action a player took was driven by a specific purpose.

Chen Ran had exhausted his mental energy to orchestrate this for a definite purpose, though what that purpose was...

Only heaven, earth, and he himself knew.

...

"Since we've settled on a plan, let's discuss the specific details."

Chen Ran's expression turned serious. "The first thing to keep in mind is: do not die."

"In the movies, the ways to break out of a dream are either running out of time or dying within the dream."

"However, this is the third layer. If you die in the first two layers, like dying in the second layer, you just wake up in the first layer. But the third layer is the depths of the subconscious. Once you die here, you will drop into the Fourth Dream Layer."

"The flow of time in the Fourth Dream Layer is even slower. We could very well end up trapped down there for decades, even centuries."

"If you don't want to die of old age from pure loneliness and isolation in the fourth layer, I suggest reinforcing your own consciousness right now, even if it means clinging to an utterly baseless hope..."

"Such as?" Lin Jiabao asked.

"For instance, the consciousness I've reinforced for myself is that you will definitely come to save me and lead me out of the Fourth Dream Layer."

"As long as a person is alive, they need some kind of hope. Otherwise, if you fall into the fourth layer, how could you ever endure those endless years?"

Chen Ran lamented.

In this very moment, he deeply felt the sheer terror of a hell-difficulty Escape Room Game.

Lin Jiabao nodded in agreement. In a seemingly endless isolation, one had to have hope in order to survive, even if...

It was a baseless hope.

However, to him, if he fell into the fourth layer, Chen Ran would also come to rescue him.

"I think there's a flaw in our previous deduction regarding the timeline," Lin Jiabao said, giving Chen Ran a long, profound look.

Chen Ran gestured for him to continue.

"In my second layer, the Men in Black were about to storm the house. That means I was less than five minutes away from death in the second layer. I presume the same goes for you?"

Chen Ran nodded. "Right. My car crashed through the guardrail and was about to plunge into the river. The entire process might have taken less than five seconds."

Lin Jiabao continued, "That's what makes it strange. You were going to hit the river in under five seconds. According to what you just said, death shatters the dream. If you died in the second layer, it would yank the you in the third layer back into the second or the first layer."

"Yet, we've been in the third layer for so long, and neither of us has snapped back to the second layer. This means there's a serious problem with the time flow."

"Even though these are all shared dreamscapes, the first layer is primarily based on my dream, and the second layer is primarily based on yours."

"In the first layer, 60 minutes passed before we fell asleep. The second layer took 12 minutes."

"But this third layer... it doesn't feel like your dream, nor does it feel like mine."

"Yet, it manifested the people we most despised... the people in our hearts."

"I suspect that the third layer is the true shared dreamscape. In other words, we spent 72 minutes in our respective dreams, and in the movies, the time dilation multiplier for each dream layer is 12 times. That gives us 864 minutes."

"But there's an issue here. Both of us seem to be right on the verge of death in the second layer."

"Assuming it takes your car a while to fill with water until you drown, the entire process would take about ten minutes. That means you only have 120 minutes in this third layer!"

At this point, both of them subconsciously glanced at their Watches. Time had already passed...

An hour and a half!

Lin Jiabao's expression turned grim. "We have less than 30 minutes before the third layer of the dream shatters."

Chen Ran stood up, his clear eyes looking at Lin Jiabao as if he could see through absolutely everything.

Lin Jiabao also smiled. A shield forged entirely of solid metal materialized right in front of him.

Dreamweaver!

It was glaringly obvious. Previously, both of them had intentionally pretended they couldn't construct anything in the dreamscape, solely to set each other up at a critical moment.

Otherwise, how could Chen Ran have possibly won so many Poker Chips at the Casino?

If he actually possessed the ability to win every single gamble without ever losing, he would have achieved complete financial freedom when he was alive.

However, a person couldn't imagine something beyond their own understanding—Chen Ran, for instance.

He couldn't manifest a Pistol out of thin air. After all, to construct a Pistol, one had to know the exact materials, the internal structure, the mechanical principles, and the specific gunpowder ratio of a Bullet.

Therefore, he had no choice but to buy a Pistol instead.

...

Chen Ran lit a Cigarette, asking in a seemingly casual tone, "Since we can both construct elements in the dreamscape, we should also be able to change our appearances like they do in the movies. What does the Old Man look like?"

"What do you mean?" Lin Jiabao narrowed his eyes, immediately growing wary.

"What do you think I mean? If there are other people on the top floor, how am I supposed to figure out which one is the Old Man who adopted you?"

With that said, Chen Ran's appearance shifted, transforming into someone who looked seventy percent similar to him, though slightly older. He said, "Remember, this face belongs to Chen Yang."

Seeing this, Lin Jiabao lowered his guard. His own face shifted as well, morphing into a wrinkled yet sharp-eyed Old Man.

Chen Ran stared intently at this face, as if searing it directly into his mind.

Simultaneously, a line of text materialized out of thin air on his palm. The information written there meticulously recorded the facial features of the Old Man.

At this point.

The final piece of the puzzle had been...

Coaxed right out of him!