Chapter 914: Chapter 873: Who Is That
He didn’t bring any tools, so he couldn’t paint a door with his bare hands like he did in Paradise. He could only move when the Chess Player opened the door for him.
Liu Ruyan was really unreliable. He even suspected that if Liu Ruyan were the Chess Player, she would control the route to draw an "S" and "B" on the board.
In their harmonious discussion, everyone unanimously decided to let Miss 007 be the Chess Player.
After confirming the roles, the room they were in on the chessboard, Room No. 1, also showed the words "Preparation Complete," while Room No. 2 was still hesitating. Gu Mian observed the three humanoid symbols in Room No. 2 huddled together, seemingly in heated discussion, or possibly in a fight over who should be the Chess Player.
Gu Mian quickly pointed out four squares to 007: "This map is very similar to the map in the Match Three instance. Last time, the Evil God appeared in Room 605. This time, he might appear in the same location again. But there are no standard room numbers this time, so we can only assume that the sixth row from the bottom and the fifth room from the left is 605. However, the chessboard has four sides, so we can’t be certain which side is the ’bottom.’ By my deduction, there would be four 605 rooms on the board."
"Plan a route for me so I can quickly explore those four ’605 rooms,’" Gu Mian instructed 007.
nodded. This was easy.
If it were up to Gu Mian, he wouldn’t need to worry about the unknown dangers or traps in the squares. He would just mindlessly march toward the target.
"Are you planning to move separately or together?" 007 asked the two.
The introduction of [enemies never meet] states that the two pieces could move separately or together.
If they moved separately, the efficiency would be higher, making it easier to find the treasure chest hidden on the board and finish the instance.
However, 007 felt that Gu Mian’s main objective in this instance was not to find the treasure chest.
"Move together." Gu Mian decided for Liu Ruyan.
Liu Ruyan didn’t have a chance to express any opinion as Gu Mian made the decision.
At this moment, only one minute of preparation time was left, and Room No. 2 in the bottom left had not yet made a decision.
Gu Mian saw the three people in the room huddled closely together, moving slightly in the room.
"Are they fighting?" Even Liu Ruyan came over to watch the excitement, although she couldn’t see the specific situation in Room No. 2, she was very interested in the three small figures clustered together in the square.
Ten, nine, eight...
As they entered the final ten seconds of the countdown, the three in Room No. 2 remained inseparable.
Now Gu Mian was sure they were fighting, having forgotten the countdown.
He noted that people in the other two rooms were also gathering around to watch the commotion at Room No. 2 on the board.
Three, two, one.
As the countdown at the top of the screen dwindled to one, a line of text appeared:
[Countdown Complete. No Chess Player selected for Room No. 2. Random selection by the game... selection successful]
[All room identities confirmed. Chessboard game officially begins]
[Chess Player in Room No. 1, please roll the dice. Complete your roll and plan the route within one minute]
It began...
glanced at Gu Mian and Liu Ruyan, then reached out to tap the screen containing only the numbers one and two on the die.
The die on the screen spun theatrically for a while, then slowly came to a stop.
"One"
rolled a one, meaning Gu Mian and Liu Ruyan could only move one step forward in this round.
[Please draw the route on the board for the piece, Liu Ruyan]
"Do I need to draw it on the board?" 007 looked at the board on the screen, then turned her gaze to Gu Mian and Liu Ruyan, "If our room is the top-left corner, then it’s just four squares to the right and two squares down to reach the first 605 room."
The numbers and text on the screen were very intelligent, orienting themselves based on where one stood, making it easy to view the content on the screen. If three people stood in different directions, they would occasionally rotate.
Therefore, there was no way to determine the precise orientation based on the text. 007 could only assume their room was in the top-left corner for now.
Gu Mian nodded: "Let’s go with this route."
reached her hand to the first square and drew to the right.
Another line of text appeared on the screen.
[Please draw the route on the board for the piece referred to as Who]
Who is ’Who’?
A question mark appeared on Gu Mian’s face.
It definitely wasn’t referring to Liu Ruyan, because her route was already planned.
also knew "Who" referred to Gu Mian. She glanced at him with a slightly surprised expression.
"It seems the name ’Gu Mian’ has been marked as ’ominous’ by everyone." Liu Ruyan remarked mischievously, "Just mentioning these two words brings misfortune. It seems people have intentionally replaced them."
"Thank them, but even with the replacement, misfortune still arrived." Gu Mian replied expressionlessly.
With a minute almost over, 007 mimicked her previous action, swiping to the right.
Then Gu Mian saw a door appear on the wall in front of him. Indeed, the corresponding passage in the room only appeared once the Chess Player planned the route.
Above the door was an LED display screen, showing a message to leave the room within a minute, followed by a 60-second countdown.
"After leaving this room, normally we pieces can’t communicate with the Chess Player," Liu Ruyan said as she looked at the door that appeared on the wall, "But I don’t have group chat. I just tried it, and group chat is still working."
This instance blocked displacement and teleportation special items but didn’t block communication special items.
Gu Mian also opened the group chat to check and saw Liu Ruyan had just posted a "1"
Going a bit further back, it was Fatty’s message.
[Fatty: Doctor, you, Miss Liu Ruyan, and Miss 007 entered the instance again. Did the seed you planted mature into a Dungeon Entry Ticket that looks like a chessboard and dragged you inside?]
Fatty even thoughtfully provided the description of the chessboard special item he saw—
"It seemed to be called Horrible Chessboard. Shortly after I finished reading the description, the chessboard disappeared, so I can’t recall the exact details;
"They said it’s a special instance Dungeon Entry Ticket, with four participating parties. When four people possess the item, the holders are pulled in, but why didn’t it pull me? I too want to join the instance with the doctor..."
Further down were a bunch of Fatty’s useless words.
Gu Mian selectively ignored them: "The chessboard Liu Ruyan saw was indeed a Dungeon Entry Ticket."
"Let’s go then." Liu Ruyan was already at the door, "I’m quite looking forward to what the next room will be."
Seeing the countdown rapidly approaching the halfway point, Gu Mian also moved to the door, ready to enter the next room.
He wasn’t concerned about any consequences if the countdown ended without him leaving the room, but with 007 and Liu Ruyan inside, he’d rather not risk it and cause them to explode.
With that thought, Gu Mian reached for the doorknob and opened the door.
Empty.
Gu Mian stepped into the room before him, and Liu Ruyan followed.
Once inside, the door behind them began disappearing, and vanished completely after two seconds. The room now resembled the initial room with walls on all four sides, but without the electronic chessboard in the middle.
Liu Ruyan noticed this too: "Apparently, only the initial room where the Chess Player is has the chessboard."
Though there was no chessboard, there was an LED screen on the ceiling, displaying a ten-minute countdown.
"The rules say pieces aren’t allowed to stay in a room for more than ten minutes," Liu Ruyan said, looking at the LED screen on the ceiling, "It’s timing us."
"However..." Liu Ruyan turned to look at the empty walls, "The first room we entered is empty. I thought the chessboard would either surprise or scare us. Before opening the door, I even considered seeing a treasure chest. With your luck, it’s not impossible."
Indeed, Gu Mian had similar thoughts.
His main goal in this instance was to find the Evil God. If the first square already contained a treasure chest, then the instance would begin and end there, and he wouldn’t need to look for the Evil God anymore.
At the moment Gu Mian and Liu Ruyan stepped into the next square, 007 saw that their current square on the chessboard changed.
[Empty Square]
[Surprised? No surprises or scares, but isn’t the unexpected nature itself a kind of surprise or scare?]
