'Meddlesome players must die!'
'How should we kill him, her, or it?'
Chen Ran glanced at the contents on the Xuan Paper, then looked at the bookshelf in front of him, and finally rested his gaze on the Hourglass on the desk.
Organizing his words, he said, "Don't you guys find it strange? There are twenty numbered Glass Beads in the Hourglass, visibly twenty sheets of Xuan Paper, and exactly twenty Players among us."
The Middle-aged Uncle pondered for a moment. "Are you saying it's one person, one paper, and one number?"
Chen Ran ignored him.
He continued speaking at his own pace. "On the desk, the eight characters on the first sheet of Xuan Paper read: 'The land has four aspects, qi comes from eight directions.' This originates from the Eastern Jin Dynasty scholar Guo Pu's Book of Burials, a Feng Shui text focusing on Dragon Vein Seeking and Acupoint Spotting."
The crowd noticed that his phrasing lacked evasive words like 'should,' 'probably,' 'possibly,' or 'perhaps,' which were typically used to avoid telling a lie.
'He is telling the truth!'
Chen Ran walked up to the bookshelf, located the book numbered 19783, and continued, "Second-round Simplified Characters were officially promoted in our country in March 1978."
Having said that, he swiftly pulled the book numbered 19783 from the shelf. This action terrified the present Players, chilling them to the bone out of fear they would suffer amnesia once more.
Clang-clang-clang!
The Hourglass rotated one hundred and eighty degrees, flipping the bottom to the top. The twenty Glass Beads that were originally at the bottom were now all gathered in the upper bulb.
Strangely, the neck of the Hourglass was visibly wider than the Glass Beads, yet the beads in the upper bulb...
...simply would not drop.
Seeing this, the Players knew the game had officially begun. After confirming they hadn't lost their memories, the crowd rushed toward the bookshelves, scanning the titles at lightning speed.
They were searching for the Book of Burials!
As the saying goes, whatever can go wrong will go wrong. Unsurprisingly, the Teenager was the first to find the Book of Burials and yanked it out.
Clink!
Glass Bead number ten dropped from the upper bulb, instantly turning into an unnumbered, ordinary glass sphere.
"Who am I?"
"Where am I?"
The Teenager looked at his surroundings and the strange gazes of the people around him, his voice filled with confusion.
Chen Ran stepped in front of him, pointing at the book in his hands, and asked, "What characters are written on this?"
"I don't know." The Teenager seemed to have lost all his memories, unable to recognize even the most basic characters.
"You lied."
"You lied."
"You lied."
"You lied."
Almost instantly, Chen Ran, Qiu Yinong, the Middle-aged Uncle, the Tall Captain, the Gold-Rimmed Glasses Man, and Zhang Jinhua all leveled their guns at the Teenager and uttered the Judgment Command.
Moreover, the eyes of every single person blazed with the furious desire to kill him immediately.
Bang, bang, bang, bang...
Several gunshots rang out. The Teenager took two bullets to the head and four to the chest.
He collapsed to the ground, dead beyond any doubt.
The Middle-aged Uncle glared at the corpse with sheer malice. "We finally weeded this bastard out!"
None of these people were fools. They could naturally deduce that their amnesia was caused by someone triggering a trap within the Secret Room. Furthermore, they had also noticed that Chen Ran was actually capable of solving the puzzles.
Logically, he should have instructed his teammate to find the Book of Burials in advance. Working together, the exact moment Chen Ran pulled out book 19783, his teammate would pull out the Book of Burials, leaving the others without even a chance to snatch it.
Yet, he hadn't done that.
This indicated that it was a trap. Thus, while they had appeared to frantically search for the book, they were merely putting on an act to single out the meddlesome Player.
Who was the meddlesome Player?
Naturally, it was the stupidest among the twenty Players present. In a perilous Secret Room like this, only a fool would let their hands wander carelessly.
In other words.
Whoever failed to deduce that this was a trap set by the puzzle solver was the dumbest of the group, and consequentially, the meddlesome Player.
However...
'To think that after the game started, the person who triggered the trap by pulling the wrong book would...'
'Suffer complete amnesia!'
'This was what gave the solver the opportunity to ask a basic common-sense question, forcing the Teenager into committing a Common Sense Lie, resulting in his execution via Judgment.'
Seeing the crowd staring at him, Chen Ran thought for a moment and felt he should lay some groundwork. "Right now, I can only tell you that the owner of this Study Room was likely an old man, and he is already dead. Factoring in our amnesia within the Secret Room, I believe the penalty is highly likely to be senile dementia."
Zhang Jinhua looked at the characters on the wall.
'This is the information gap between us. Only he can read those Second-round Simplified Characters up there. The rest of us cannot.'
'Therefore, those Second-round Simplified Characters must hold the clues to deduce the identity of the Study Room's owner...'
"State your conditions!"
Zhang Jinhua stared fixedly at Chen Ran. If he kept the meaning of the Second-round Simplified Characters a secret, he would have them all completely under his thumb for the rest of the Secret Room without any room to resist. Moreover, they would be forced to desperately protect him from dying, because otherwise, no one would ever know what those characters meant.
The other three captains also caught on to this reality and fixed their intense gazes on Chen Ran.
"And if I refuse?" Chen Ran countered.
The Gold-Rimmed Glasses Man opened his palm, angling it solely toward Chen Ran. Written on his palm were five numbers.
Just as the others tried to see what was in his hand, the Gold-Rimmed Glasses Man withdrew it.
"These numbers were most likely left by me during our previous bout of amnesia. Since these digits are connected to the amnesia, the ones in my palm must certainly be avoided. If you don't reveal the contents of the Second-round Simplified Characters on the wall, we'll fight you to the bitter end and see who can successfully avoid these numbers!"
'Is this a One-Star Player?'
'Just as expected, only trash would resort to Downward Compatibility. True powerhouses always clear Instances that correspond to their own Star Rating.'
"It's the middle!"
"The first sheet of Xuan Paper corresponds to the middle, which means the second bookshelf, the book right in the very center."
Hearing this, a few Players tried to grab the book, but they were immediately halted by the fierce glares of their respective captains.
Zhang Jinhua scanned the crowd before finally resting her eyes on the Gold-Rimmed Glasses Man. "Aside from that young man, my knowledge reserves are likely among the highest of the Players present. There should be similar puzzles on the remaining Xuan Paper. My condition is simple: show me what is written on your palm, and I will help you solve the puzzles."
"Deal," the Gold-Rimmed Glasses Man nodded.
Such was the nature of a game of wits. They constantly sought out advantageous opportunities through conversation, leveraging those openings to obtain the benefits they desired.
On the other hand, the Middle-aged Uncle and the Tall Captain paid no heed to the characters on the Gold-Rimmed Glasses Man's palm. They most likely possessed similar records of their own.
Therefore, the group refocused their attention back onto Chen Ran, waiting for his answer.
Chen Ran shrugged. "My condition is that the first and second sheets of Xuan Paper will be solved entirely by me and my teammate."
"Deal."
"Agreed."
"I consent."
The three captains, along with the Unaffiliated Wanderer Zhang Jinhua, accepted Chen Ran's condition without a second of hesitation.
Shortly after, the Middle-aged Woman among the Unaffiliated Wanderers also voiced her agreement to his terms.
Chen Ran then looked at the members of the three captains' teams and asked, "Can your words represent them?"
"Yes," the three answered affirmatively.
Chen Ran looked at his own palm.
'There are no numbers 1 and 2 on my palm.'
'This means these two numbers are very safe.'
Certain he wasn't making a mistake, he didn't hesitate any longer. Pointing at the Second-round Simplified Characters on the wall, he declared, "Translating the characters up here in order, it reads..."
"Of, wealth, buried, me, at, wife, grave, beside, property, child."