Chapter 982: A Plethora of Scheming
Human curiosity is truly a powerful force, especially when it concerns one"s life and death.
Since entering the pocket dimension, for the first time, everyone sat obediently on the boat, waiting for Lin Sanjiu to continue explaining. Philibert seemed to still be recovering from the ordeal of escaping death, gasping for breaths that spread across half of the lake"s surface.
"Mislead? Ah, I understand," the round-faced man shook his head. "Indeed, the pocket dimension never explicitly stated that we couldn"t go ash.o.r.e or anything like that..."
"I"m not referring to that," Lin Sanjiu interrupted him. Under the distant gazes of everyone, she took a deep breath and leaned back on her seat. Having ingested an unknown amount of lake water, she now felt heavy and in desperate need of rest, taking advantage of speaking to catch her breath.
"I guess the way the brain operates is different at the moment just before one"s death... I thought I couldn"t make it, desperately wanting to grab onto any life-saving straw. It was at that moment that I suddenly realized." Now, as she recalled that moment when she thought she would be forever trapped in the green lake teeming with corpses, it made her shudder with a lingering fear.
"What... What?"
"Think carefully, what did the loudspeaker actually say? Did it really mention that "the water level would rise to 1.8 meters after thirty minutes"?"
"Did it not?" Natasha asked skeptically.
"No," Lin Sanjiu emphatically uttered two words. "Now that I recall, everything is crystal clear. If you haven"t forgotten, you"ll realize that when the pocket dimension introduced the rules, the exact words were, "Once the water starts pouring in, it will rise uniformly over time, reaching 1.8 meters after thirty minutes.""
She emphasized the words "after thirty minutes," and as soon as she finished speaking, someone indeed let out a low gasp.
"But... Isn"t it possible that this sentence also includes the "thirty minutes" itself?" The round-faced man hesitantly raised his voice.
Lin Sanjiu glanced at him. If it weren"t for his gesture, she would have already had a hole in her temple courtesy of Philibert. Unable to understand why he had saved her, she temporarily suppressed that thought and replied, "Strictly speaking, it shouldn"t include the "thirty minutes" itself, but I don"t deny that some people might have that impression. However, in my opinion, the pocket dimension deliberately misled and hinted at us... Have you ever wondered why we subconsciously a.s.sociated the thirty minutes with the water level reaching 1.8 meters?"
"But you just said it yourself," Natasha immediately answered, "the pocket dimension mentioned thirty minutes—"
"That"s true, but what does that thirty minutes refer to?"
Everyone seemed momentarily stunned, not understanding her point.
Furrowing her brow, Lin Sanjiu organized her thoughts and said, "Think about the order in which it introduced the rules. The pocket dimension initially mentioned that the water level in the lake would rise, but it didn"t specify how long it would take. Instead, it continued to introduce the next rule about boat rentals. It was when we asked the pocket dimension why we needed to rent the boat for two consecutive thirty-minute periods that it replied because after thirty minutes, the water level would rise to 1.8 meters."
Finally, someone exclaimed, "Oh!" in sudden realization.
"So you see, the thirty minutes mentioned by the pocket dimension actually only refers to one thing—the boat rental duration. It has no real connection to the time it takes for the water to pour in," Lin Sanjiu said, s.h.i.+fting her gaze to Zao Peng. She then realized that the disciplined woman, who resembled a cla.s.s monitor, had distanced herself from the group at some point. "Didn"t Zao Peng mention it? She said there were two thirty-minute intervals in the pocket dimension, one for boat rental and the other for the water level. There could be a trap here... Even if it wasn"t intentional, she inadvertently reinforced the suggestion. None of us objected at the time because we smoothly accepted the suggestion, thinking that it would indeed take thirty minutes for the water to rise."
As she mentioned the person"s name, everyone"s attention suddenly focused on Zao Peng. Philibert let out a low hum and asked, "Where are you going?"
Zao Peng stopped and looked up at her companions, remaining silent.
"Furthermore, the pocket dimension denied this and said there were no traps, right?" Lin Sanjiu spoke slowly as she carefully recalled. "The loudspeaker said that it would be too troublesome to start the countdown from the time we boarded, so it would be based on the water pouring in. However, even though it was based on the water pouring in, what it calculated was the boat rental duration! We have been calculating it that way all along, haven"t we?"
"To mislead us, the hints were not limited to that," she casually stepped towards several other paddle boats that were gathered together, gradually distancing herself from the group of teammates. Her voice grew louder as she continued, "You should remember that the pocket dimension"s rules stated that to renew, we must speak out loud, right? When that sentence was said, just like me, all of you probably thought of the same possibility: that a person who fell into the water after thirty minutes might not be able to speak and renew, and would be drowned... Otherwise, why would we be reminded to speak out loud? But can you say that sentence was a lie? No. Because we really have to speak out loud for the pocket dimension to hear us and grant us a renewal."
"But... Why give such a suggestion?"
"To make the members who enter the pocket dimension use the rules to harm each other," Lin Sanjiu replied naturally. "Although the items of our group have been sealed for special reasons, haven"t you also tried to use this rule to harm us?"
At this moment, Lin Sanjiu didn"t forget to pull Philibert to her side and said, "We are fortunate to have survived... The possibility of being drowned increased rapidly from zero starting at 30 minutes and 1 second. With every additional second, the chance of drowning significantly increased. It"s been over 32 minutes now, right?"
"Did you also kill Lewis?" Philibert coldly smiled at the girl who resembled a cla.s.s monitor. "Do you think I have no way to deal with you just because I mortgaged all my Special Items?"
"He wasn"t killed by me, and it was just an accident," Zao Peng"s voice sounded stern as she replied, "There was an error of five or six seconds... Isn"t that normal?"
Regardless of her defense, Lin Sanjiu understood one thing: she was no longer the primary target for that group.
Just as she was thinking this, she accidentally b.u.mped into another rowboat, causing her own boat to sway slightly. Finally, she was next to the other boats, and she breathed a sigh of relief. The quickly sinking boats were almost gone, and the boats everyone was sitting on had remained stable for quite some time. From the outside, it was hard to tell which boat was st.u.r.dy.
However, if anyone among them knew how to distinguish, it was likely Zao Peng.
"I have a question for her," Lin Sanjiu raised her voice and glanced back and forth at the other boat. "I can understand if you want to harm me, but why would you harm your own group members? You killed Lewis, and I fell into the water, but why did you also target Philibert and Natasha?"
"Me?" The Eastern European girl seemed surprised.
"Have you forgotten? When your boat was sinking, it was her who suggested you jump out of the water. At that time, Lewis hadn"t approached you yet, and the other boats were even farther away..."
Whether Zao Peng intentionally harmed others or not, she had to do it now.
Natasha suddenly turned her head, and Zao Peng"s reaction remained calm. "I already knew you used to be in an acrobatic circus troupe. Even without your evolved abilities, your skills are still impressive." Zao Peng didn"t raise her voice, and Lin Sanjiu could only catch a vague idea, "It was because you were bold enough to jump out of the boat that I made the suggestion. Otherwise, it would have been a mere suggestion. But I didn"t expect that Lewis would approach you just because of your shout... He deserved to die."
"You admit it?" Natasha stood up abruptly, and a rapid series of words rolled off her tongue in her native language. It seemed that when she was particularly excited, the translator couldn"t keep up with her speed.
"Why are you all looking at me like this?" Zao Peng calmly asked. "Didn"t that woman ask me why I would harm more members of the same group? I don"t enjoy killing... The truth is, I have already figured out which boats are st.u.r.dy."
Lin Sanjiu"s heart skipped a beat, and she slowly reached for her back pocket. Just as she had an automatic rifle in her back pocket, posthuman weapons were not limited to Special Items. The others probably had weapons on them as well, and if the situation turned into a fight...
"But I only found two boats that are still intact and won"t sink after carefully searching for a while. Maybe I haven"t seen all the boats yet. For now, you can kill me and take my boat... but you need to decide who the boat belongs to after I die. Because once I"m dead, you"ll never know how to distinguish between good and bad boats."
"If you"re willing to tell me the answer," the round-faced man spoke almost immediately as the crowd fell silent, "I"m willing to help you fend off their attacks."
He was the only one Zao Peng hadn"t attempted to kill, which meant that Zao Peng intended to leave the last boat to him. He knew exactly how to make use of this point.
Lin Sanjiu tightly gripped the edge of her seat, gritting her teeth without saying a word. This woman indeed held their fate in her hands. Just beside her, the boat she had just b.u.mped into and hadn"t had time to switch to was slowly tilting, gradually sinking into the water. It was as if it was drunk, gradually being swallowed by the water. Whether it was an illusion or not, even the boat she was sitting on seemed unstable... She felt a chilling sensation seeping through the cracks.
"Don"t think I"m bluffing," Zao Peng chuckled in a low voice. "I"m going back to return the boat now. If you all stay still, I will shout the method to distinguish good boats to you just before I return the boat. Otherwise... we can all die here together."