Forces of Temptation

Chen Sufeng was dumbfounded.

The four of them were in the five miles long fog, and they were relatively silent, which was in line with the state of mind of everyone at this time.

When Chen Sufeng came to his senses, he immediately asked in disbelief: "How could this be possible?"

Li Yinhang bit his fingers anxiously, his heart full of tangles.

In fact, she didn't have a very clear idea, but she just felt that something was wrong in general, and everything was wrong.

But she was asked to describe her mosaic-like train of thought in words, even in such an urgent situation...

woo-

Suddenly, the whistle of the train went upwards, breaking through the air, like a sharp vertical sword, cutting through the thick fog.

She trembled violently, unable to hold the blueprint in her hand, and it fell to the ground.

This is the whistle sounded by the "crew" in the car.

It reminded them friendly and coldly that there were still 50 minutes before boarding the car.

Nan Zhou leaned over to pick up the limp drawing paper, and replied flatly, "It can be done."

"I've been thinking that in the last copy, the Gaowei people first asked us to sign a contract and then separated us. There must be a reason."

"For example, if you separate us and attack each of us, you can always kill one or two people."

"But, is it that simple?"

"Yuan Mingqing..." At this point, Nan Zhou looked at the only Gaowei man among them, "Do you think the Gaowei people will be satisfied with killing only one or two of us?"

Yuan Mingqing took a deep breath, inhaling a lung of cold water drops.

He is now convinced that the inexhaustible and intertwined connections hidden behind this dungeon really need to calm down and unravel from the beginning bit by bit, so that it is possible to clear the clouds and see the sun.

After letting his mind settle down, he solemnly shook his head.

impossible.

With the pride of the high-dimensional people, the best result for them is that the entire army of the "Cubic Ark" five-member team is wiped out, leaving no one behind.

But because of the audience's supervision and suspicion, even if they sincerely wanted to send "Cubic Ark" to die, they had to leave some clues to break the situation so that they would not be completely dead.

The devil hides in grisly details for them to unearth.

But it also appears grandly in the middle of the big picture, making it difficult to detect.

For example...

Yuan Mingqing asked Nan Zhou: "Since when did you start to suspect?"

Nanzhou's dungeon is very difficult, and if he is not careful, he will never be able to leave that game world.

The Gaowei people didn't release half a point in the difficulty of Nanzhou's dungeon.

Yuan Mingqing was very curious, how did he...

"I only started to suspect it after I heard about your copy." Nan Zhou said, "As I said, your copy is too simple."

Yuan Mingqing: "..."

Nan Zhou analyzed: "You also said that it is the game you are best at, you just have a certain possibility of dying in the dungeon, but unlike me, Yin Hang, and Chen Sufeng, it is a game of narrow escape. Therefore, I think that your copy itself is one of the clues to breaking the situation, telling us that things cannot be that simple."

The seemingly mocking words at the time had a different shocking effect when they were heard now.

As Nan Zhou said, the chicken-eating dungeons experienced by Yuan, Ming and Qing were indeed the simplest of them in a horizontal comparison.

It is so simple that it does not meet the main guiding ideology of the high-dimensional people who want them all to die.

But how could Yuan Mingqing, who was in it, think the copy was simple?

He only thinks he is lucky, and thinks that Gaowei people still have a little affection for him.

Until now, Yuan, Ming and Qing's last blind expectations for Gao Wei have finally been completely shattered, and nothing remains.

They also don't want the traitor alive.

Even if you don't die in the dungeon, you have to die elsewhere.

Nanzhou said: "My copies gave me the most and most valuable hints."

Chen Sufeng tried to join the discussion: "Is the dungeon time particularly short?"

"This is the first point. Remember it first, save it for later."

As he said that, Nanzhou took out five pencils of the same length from the warehouse: "We have four people who have cleared the level, do you still remember your own game mission instructions?"

It is a matter of life and death, and of course they will not forget it.

Li Yinhang opened his notebook and counted them one by one: "In Teacher Nan's game, every game achievement is related to ants, and the game calls the main characters in the three box worlds 'ants'...; the games of Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties The theme is killing each other, 'ants' race for blood; in my game, the setting is that 'little ants' must find their way out of the farm; Xiao Chen's game uses 'ants and gods' as a metaphor for 'humans and evil gods' relation……"

She closed her notebook and made a concluding statement: "The common theme is 'ants'."

"I'm not asking you to look for similarities, but to find differences." Nan Zhou hit the nail on the head, "My copy is the only one that mentions 'train' in detail besides the title."

The four of them, each dungeon name is called [Ant Train].

Only Nanzhou, under the premise that everyone had forgotten the content of the contract, got the key information of "going to catch the train" in advance.

At that time, he understood the "train" as a world of boxes lined up in a row.

It's like walking from one closed compartment to another.

His understanding was not wrong.

But such an understanding should not be limited to a single copy.

"The first clue, my dungeon time is the shortest."

Nan Zhou raised a pencil and picked up a second one.

"The second clue is that only my dungeon gets to the point in advance, and I know what the 'ant train' might represent. But you probably didn't know why the dungeon was called [Ant Train] until you got back to the station and saw the train, right? "

Li Yinhang and Chen Sufeng were silent together.

……indeed so.

Their game itself has nothing to do with "train".

Li Yinhang also expressed doubts about this point, but in the end she forced a wave of understanding, thinking that there were five "ants" participating in the game, and the five of them in the "Cubic Ark" might be a "train" together?

Later, when he returned to the station and saw the real "train", Li Yinhang no longer doubted it, so how could he seriously think about it?

While Li Yinhang and the others were slowly digesting the information and trying to analyze how the clue 2 was connected with the present, Nan Zhou placed the second pencil side by side with the first one, with the top and bottom ends completely even. Then, with the back of his left hand facing up, he used the The slender middle finger and index finger firmly clamp the lower ends of the two pencils, ensuring that the two pens seem to "stand" on his fingers.

Immediately, he took the third pen with his right hand.

He said: "The third clue is that I will meet another me in a parallel time and space."

Nan Zhou did not explain in detail the meaning behind this clue.

But hearing what he said, Li Yinhang's back felt a chill out of thin air, and his originally chaotic thoughts seemed to have finally found a clear exit.

"The fourth clue." After Nan Zhou clamped the third clue in the same way, he raised the fourth pen, "I had a dream."

Nan Zhou in the dream was a poor ant.

He struggled to break through the hard soil, struggling to survive, thinking that he had found a way out, but in the end, he was focused by the beam of light cast by the sun-like convex lens, and burned to death.

"The fifth clue is also the most important hint." Nan Zhou finally arranged the five pencils side by side, allowing them to stand together between his fingers, "I encountered... a time difference."

Nanzhou had clear doubts when he was in the instance:

When "Nan Zhou" opened the first box and entered the world of [Nan Zhou], he did not feel the obvious time difference.

But when he entered the world of {Jiang Fang} for the first time, he lost consciousness for a few minutes due to inexplicable dizziness, and fell off the roof, so that he was trapped in {Jiang Fang} in the third world. bed.

"At that time, I thought it was a crisis that occurred in the box world as time progressed. ——Every time I travel through the box, the time for me to regain consciousness will become longer and longer. During this process, I will encounter many Danger."

"But as it turns out, that didn't happen afterward."

{Jiang Fang} snatched his box and did a time-traveling experiment.

At that time, Nan Zhou had no consciousness and was immersed in the shattered chaos. An hour passed like this until {Jiang Fang} came back and liberated him from the chaos.

But to Nanzhou, this hour is just a blink of an eye.

Nan Zhou analyzed the most terrifying fact with a calm voice:

"So, I think, is it possible to artificially create a time gap between the 'Copy World' and the 'Train World'?"

He looked down at the five pens lined up in his hand.

"Each of us thought we were teleported back to the station as soon as we finished the game. Because we checked the time with each other, there was no problem."

Nan Zhou brushed the top of the first pen with his fingertips: "Go back to the first clue. My game completion time is a full 12 hours. Although it is completed by stepping on the spot, it is also the shortest."

His fingertips moved to the second pen.

"This Yuan Mingqing did his best." Nan Zhou said, "He spent 13 hours."

Nan Zhou pressed down the second pen slightly.

Under the action of force, the second pencil crossed the gap where the middle finger and index finger overlapped, and protruded slightly from the pulp of his finger.

The next one was Li Yinhang, and the dungeon took 13 hours and 40 minutes.

So the length of the third pencil is longer than the length of the second pen.

The fourth pencil represents Chen Sufeng.

The copy took 14 hours and 45 minutes.

Therefore, only a small section of his pencil remained above the back of his hand.

Under Nan Zhou's operation, the four pencils gradually became like reversed WiFi signals, with irregular lengths.

Perhaps it was the movement of the first four pens, which rubbed against the fifth pen that was held by Nan Zhou's fingertips and was the most unstable. Before he could adjust it, the fifth pencil slipped from the gap to the ground and rolled forward. After a while, he didn't stop until he touched the toe of Li Yinhang's shoe.

The fifth pencil represents Jiang Fang who has not yet returned.

Such a fall, the meaning behind it is too ominous.

Nanzhou was silent for a moment, then lowered his eyes and said softly: "...What we know is that Gaowei people do not have the ability to predict the future, let alone show us the future. But in the car, I clearly saw the future ...the future after we hitch a ride."

"This future includes the order in which we come back, as well as the choices we make based on our personalities."

"Even if high-dimensional people are good at simulation, it is impossible to simulate such a real scene."

"So, I think, what he's showing us is not the future, but the past."

Chen Sufeng's thoughts were clear at first, but when Nan Zhou said this, he immediately fell into confusion: "Wait...wait, don't be so fast! Take it easy...You mean, after we finish the task, we will return to the station There's a problem with the timing, isn't it?"

Nan Zhou bent down and picked up the fifth pencil, holding it in the palm of his right hand.

"...Yes." He paused, "After we finished our mission, none of us returned to the station immediately."

"We were 'buffered' in the gap between the copy and the station."

He looked at the four scattered pencils, and placed his right hand under his left.

"Just like in that box world, I entered the chaos first. Yuan Mingqing was the second to fall in. Yinhang and Chen Sufeng followed."

"Later, after the last person successfully cleared the customs, we were sent to the station in turn according to the real customs clearance time."

After saying that, Nan Zhou let go of his left index finger.

The four pencils, which originally represented different time progress bars, fell into the palm of the left hand, and once again became parallel to each other.

The timeline returned to "normal" when they were unaware.

"For us, returning from the copy to the station is just a blink of an eye."

"Even if we check afterwards, the clock at the station, and our own sensory time, are telling us that there is nothing wrong with the time."

"However, with such a clever time difference, the Gaowei people will be able to know the specific return time of each of us from the dungeon without anyone noticing."

Li Yinhang felt cold all over his body.

This is... the real first time trap.

Chen Sufeng: "...But, what do they want to know when we come back?"

"It is convenient to make the next arrangement."

Nan Zhou said: "What if the first person to come back from the dungeon is Yuan Mingqing who performed exceptionally well in the action game?"

"Or, Nanjixing missed at the beginning and was seriously injured, and Yinhang's willingness to die for him was brought forward by several hours?"

"Or, you were caught at the beginning, and ended up using the same method to sacrifice all your teammates, including yourself?"

"Once the time order of everyone's return is out of order, they must adjust the plan in time to ensure that the copy can be completed smoothly."

Chen Sufeng's voice became a little rough.

Because he thought of a certain possibility, but the remaining rationality prevented him from confirming it.

"What... copy?"

"Don't you understand?" Yuan Mingqing, who had been silent for a long time, gritted his teeth, "Gao Wei can't predict the future! Isn't there only one possibility that can explain the scenes Nan Zhou saw in the car?!"

"We've died many times already!"

“This is not our first time back at all!!”

Chen Sufeng was shocked, and took a few steps back: "How is this possible? We are dead, how can we be resurrected?!"

Yuan Ming looked at Chen Sufeng coolly: "You obviously died in your copy of the evil god, why can you still be resurrected?"

There was a buzzing in Chen Sufeng's ears, and the tinnitus sounded like running water.

And Nan Zhou raised the contract that he used to be the last one when he was painting, and stabbed him one last time: "Chen Sufeng, are you sure, this is the only contract that the five of us have ever signed?"