TDU Chapter 304
Chapter 304 Wanna Sit Down?
Before Chen Junnan could finish swearing, the text on the screen vanished.
“Ah f*ck…” he shouted, frantically slapping the screen. “Hey! Wait a sec! Teach, I didn’t finish reading the question!”
Standing at the heart of the arena, Terrestrial Snake heard Chen Junnan’s grumbling through the walls and laughed softly to himself.
Chen Junnan let out a long, heavy sigh and began stroking his chin in thought.
This kind of damned question wasn’t something an average person would know. Even if he could answer it, how was he supposed to pass it on?
“Dammit, to hell with it,” Chen Junnan muttered. Then suddenly, he broke into a grin. “Doesn’t matter anyway. All I’ve gotta do is feed them the question in a way that makes everyone pick the same answer as me.”
Without hesitation, he pressed {True}, then picked up the phone and dialed the next room.
“Hello…?” came the reply, same man as before.
"Hello, how’re you doing?" Chen Junnan asked with a laugh.
“I—I’m doing okay...” the man replied.
A brief silence followed.
Then, as if realizing something was amiss, he spoke again. “Wait... what’s the question?”
“I already asked,” Chen Junnan said. “It’s {how’re you doing?}”
“Huh?!” The man was clearly caught off guard. “What kind of question is that?!”
“It’s a binary-choice question, no?” Chen Junnan rubbed his nose sheepishly. “{How’re you doing?}, that’s the question. Hanging up now.”
After cutting the call short, Chen Junnan eased back in his chair and shut his eyes. Something about this game didn’t sit right.
If there was no differentiation between right and wrong, what’s the point of providing an answer?
And if someone like him was able to craft questions, what’s the point in posing them at all?
A few minutes passed before everyone had finished answering. The screen lit up once more.
Several more minutes passed, and soon everyone had completed their responses. The screen blinked, displaying a familiar message:
{The verdict for this round—True.}
{Clank—clank—}
The booming sound of chains rattled overhead once more. Chen Junnan looked up, detecting a massive presence shifting above.
“What in the world is that?” Chen Junnan muttered, hoisting himself onto the chair to knock on the ceiling above. Surprisingly, it was far thinner than expected, only a single sheet of weak wooden boards.
The fragile ceiling stood in sharp contrast to the thick, soundproof walls enclosing the room.
“Hmm…” Chen Junnan descended from the chair slowly, his eyes narrowing as deep thought took hold.
Only a short time later, he gave up.
“This is so tricky…” Chen Junnan muttered, shaking his head. “Thinking’s a real headache. Let’s f*cking get on with the next round.”
After sitting in the chair for several seconds, the screen displayed that the next round had already begun, but Chen Junnan hadn't received a question.
Who had the question this time?
Yun Yao took the first round, and he the second. From this pattern, it seemed the participants were rotating clockwise to assume the role of "first person." If his guess held, the man to his left was the current recipient of the question.
That meant he would be the last one to receive the question.
With the question relayed over the phone, even a simple phrase like {Have you eaten?} could easily change after multiple passes.
The phone finally rang after roughly eight minutes. Though Chen Junnan was braced for it, the sudden loud tone still took him by surprise.
{Brring-brring——!!}
"Aiya!" Chen Junnan flinched, snatching up the phone quickly. "Chen Junnan present, please speak your words."
Taking a brief pause, Yun Yao replied, “Chen Junnan, I’m unsure if this question is accurate... but this is what I heard...”
"Go ahead."
"The question is {Wanna sit down}?"
"Huh?" Chen Junnan froze for a moment. "Sit down?"
"Yes..." Yun Yao hesitated briefly before continuing, "I suspect there was a participant at the front with a strong accent, which caused the question to be altered..."
"Hahh—" Chen Junnan let out a slow breath. When it came to accents... {Wanna sit down} could be made from endless variations, making it quite hard to deduce. Additionally... it might not be an {accent} matter, but someone deliberately modifying the question as he had done earlier.
"What did you choose?" Chen Junnan asked.
"Huh? Are we allowed to say our answers?" Yun Yao froze momentarily.
"Why not?" Chen Junnan questioned back. "There’s nothing about it in the game rules."
“Well…” Yun Yao paused, realizing he was making a valid point. Since no rule forbade it, she replied, “I choose {False}.”
"Oh?"
"Since the question appears altered, it likely bears no relation to {chairs}. Whoever caused the change seemed to favor {True}, but as I cannot discern their motive, I opted for {False} to be safe."
"I think you made the right choice," Chen Junnan nodded. "So, I'll choose {False} too. You’ve got my vote."
After hanging up the phone, Chen Junnan sat in his chair, deep in thought.
‘Sit down...?’
Although only two questions have been posed so far, they at least possessed some logical structure; however, this {Wanna sit down?} lacks both a subject and any clear reference.
Exactly who is supposed to sit down?
Is it really a matter of {sitting down}?
Chen Junnan understood he was the final respondent this round. Once he submitted his answer, the round would conclude, so he had to proceed with great caution.
Although the last two rounds concluded so hastily, Chen Junnan couldn’t shake off an ominous premonition about this round.
"Dammit, Ole Qi... help me out here." Chen Junnan pressed his forehead, attempting to reason through the situation with Qi Xia’s approach. He imitated Qi Xia, stroking his chin while quietly reciting to himself: according to the rules, first this, then that, and finally...
After ten seconds, he gave up trying once more.
"To hell with all this confusion, I can’t come up with anything... screw it." Chen Junnan shook his head and decisively pressed {False}.
Regardless of who was meant to sit, they should remain standing for the time being.
Seconds slipped away before the screen flickered, displaying the message:
{The verdict for this round—True.}
"Well well..." Chen Junnan chuckled. “Seems like no one’s quite ready to give up their chair yet—”
As he spoke, a sudden {boom} roared through the air. The whole room trembled violently, and Chen Junnan, chair and all, was tossed to the floor. The sensation felt like a brief but intense earthquake.
"What on earth?"
He pushed himself upright and looked around, instinctively feeling that some kind of change had just happened.
The next moment, a violent impact slammed against the wall to his left, and the sharp scent of dust filled the air.
"Wait a minute..." Chen Junnan murmured, dazed as he looked up. This time, there was no clinking of chains, only that thunderous boom.
"Could it be..." A frown crept onto Chen Junnan’s face as his heartbeat abruptly quickened.
"To hell with {Wanna sit down}..." he cursed as he stood up, then knocked on the wall to his left. "Who’s playing mind games already? Making a move so soon?"
It was obvious now that the chains were part of a mechanism; something enormous had been hanging above them, and that previous question had caused it to come crashing down.
The true question wasn’t {Wanna sit down?}, but rather {Want it to fall down?}.
TL Note: FYI, Chen Junnan’s motto in the previous chapter is still tentative. While its meaning of ‘We’ll see when we get there’ stands true, I’m still unsure of the wording.
6/14/2025 Update: Okay, i think his motto will be set as ‘We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it’.
