TDU Chapter 308
Chapter 308 Breakthrough
Just listening to Chen Junnan’s sluggish tone made the young woman’s blood boil.
"Can you at least try to be nervous?" she snapped. "We could die at any moment here…"
"Is being scared going to change anything?" Chen Junnan scratched his ear lazily. "Mind telling me your name, miss?"
"I…" The woman let out a long, resigned breath. "Xu Qian."
"Heh, I had an old classmate named Xu Qian. Small world, huh?"
There was a pause on the other end before Xu Qian said, half-defeated, "It’s a common name. If you’ve got nothing important to say, can we just end the call already? What do you actually want?"
Chen Junnan gave a drawn-out sigh. "This game’s making me sleepy. Let’s do something interesting, shall we?"
"Interesting?" Xu Qian sounded utterly incredulous. "We could die at any moment, and you’re still thinking about what’s interesting?"
"Of course," Chen Junnan replied with a light laugh. "Since you’re a woman, you can call Terrestrial Snake, no?"
"That’s not right…" Xu Qian’s voice faltered. "Terrestrial Snake said that when we sense death approaching, we can—"
"Request aid," Chen Junnan cut in, finishing the sentence for her. "Yep. Go request aid."
"Why the hell would I want to do that?!" Xu Qian snapped, clearly at her limit. She'd already resisted the urge to hang up more times than she could count. "Why would I ever ask him for aid?"
"To help me get a word in with him!"
"Then why don’t you call him yourself?!"
"I’m a guy!"
They had barely exchanged a few phone calls, but it already felt like the last shred of civility was unraveling fast.
"What’s wrong with being a guy?!" Xu Qian snapped, clearly exasperated. "Since when does calling the umpire depend on gender?!"
"That old creep wouldn’t listen to me!" Chen Junnan groaned. "Come on, Qian jie, just help me out here, will you?"
"You just called him an old creep!" Xu Qian shouted. "And you heard what Terrestrial Snake said he’d only help women if they {please him}. How is that supposed to be a good thing?! Why should I call him?!"
"Don’t worry!" Chen Junnan laughed. "Once you call him over, I’ll do the talking. I’ll make sure nothing happens to you."
"But you don’t exactly sound trustworthy…" Xu Qian sighed. "You can’t even leave your room, how are you going to guarantee my safety?"
"So what do you want me to do? Swear on something?" Chen Junnan said, a little helplessly. "You’re the only one I can talk to right now."
"How about this…" Xu Qian offered after a brief pause. "After a few more rounds, if you can prove you can keep me safe, then I’ll help you. I’ll call Terrestrial Snake."
"Alright, alright." Chen Junnan nodded, a trace of regret in his voice. "I’ll let you go for now. But stay in touch, yeah?"
Xu Qian didn’t respond. The line went dead with a click, and Chen Junnan slowly set the receiver down, a reluctant sigh escaping him. He walked over and sank into the chair, letting his hands fall naturally to either side of the screen.
As his fingers brushed the buttons, a strange sensation crept up from his fingertips.
"Eh…?"
He pressed his thumbs lightly against them, strangely, they fit perfectly.
"Th–This is—"
The moment clarity began to take shape, the phone suddenly blared.
{Brring-brring——!!}
"Oh my fuc—!" Chen Junnan jolted upright. "Damn it, one of these days this young master’s gonna rip the whole line out…"
He snatched up the receiver. "This is Station Junnan at Terrestrial Snake’s office. How may I assist you today?"
"Chen Junnan, what happened?" Yun Yao asked, sounding puzzled. "Why has the line been busy all this time?"
"Busy? You can thank the spam calls for that," Chen Junnan shook his head. "Did you call to pass me this round’s question?"
"Yes." Yun Yao nodded. "This time, the question is: {Are there four seasons in a year}?"
"...Damnit, does he think we’re in preschool?" Chen Junnan cursed. "I really want to have a proper talk with this old creep. Did he get a proper education before?"
"Also… I checked with the anxious woman behind me. She said there was a taciturn man in the room before hers but wasn’t certain who he was."
"Is it {Zhong Zhen}?" Chen Junnan asked.
"Most likely not." Yun Yao denied. "You heard his voice, right? Even though he's over thirty, it still sounds relatively young."
Chen Junnan hummed in acknowledgment as he carved a new entry into the wall: {Taciturn Male}.
"Nice. That makes eight confirmed positions." He dusted off the wall and said casually, "Superstar, let’s go with {False} for this question."
"{False}...?" Yun Yao paused, clearly taken aback. "Chen Junnan, this question is {Are there four seasons in a year}? Are you sure you want to answer {False}?"
"Absolutely positive," Chen Junnan replied without hesitation.
"But... isn’t that the wrong answer?" Yun Yao hesitated. "Does it not matter if we get it wrong?"
"Truth be told, this young master already picked the wrong answer for the first question," Chen Junnan said, pausing slightly. "And for the second one, I didn’t even understand the question, so odds are, I got that wrong too."
"Huh?"
"I answered {True} for the first one, claiming I was female, but nothing happened. No punishment." His tone turned light, even amused. "There are five young women in total, but the final answer still came out as {True}. So what does that imply?"
Yun Yao fell silent for a second, then followed his reasoning. "Two possibilities. One: at least two men lied. Two: someone tampered with the question after the fact."
"Exactly," Chen Junnan continued, "Just as I suspected from the start, whether an answer is {right} or {wrong} doesn’t matter in this game. When the second question came up, I altered it outright. I made sure most participants answered the same way I did. If my answer had truly been wrong, then all of you should have been punished too."
Yun Yao was still trying to piece it together. "But then... why choose {False} for this question?"
Chen Junnan slowly tilted his head, wedging the phone between his cheek and shoulder. He stretched the phone cord as far as it would go, making his way over to the display screen. Placing his hands on the buttons flanking it, he asked casually, "Superstar, did you ever play on a {Subor*} when you were a kid?"
(TLN: Chinese version of a Famicom, one of the most iconic video game consoles in the 1980s)
"Subor...?" Yun Yao paused. "Sorry, I’ve never even heard of that."
"Ah, so we’ve hit a generation gap." Chen Junnan gave a mock sigh. "You’re from the post-2000s, right?"
"What do you mean post-2000s? I’m not that old…" Yun Yao groaned. "I was born in 2011."
"Oh, 2011?" Chen Junnan nodded knowingly. "No wonder. By then, PS4 must’ve already hit the shelves by then, right?"
"Chen Junnan... can we get to the point already?"
"Hehe!" Chen Junnan laughed, "Superstar, a brilliant thought just struck me."
He hovered his hands above the buttons; {True} on the left, {False} on the right. "What if these two buttons represent directions {left} and {right}? What if, every time we choose {True} or {False}, we’re actually determining which way that giant geometric thing moves?"
"…What?" Yun Yao frowned, pausing to think. Then her eyes widened.
That’s it!
The theory was spot on.
Yun Yao ran some quick calculations in her head and declared, "Suppose I’m {0}. Choosing {True} results in {-1} while choosing {False} yields {+1}. The dead is at {-2}, so the giant ball should be at {1} now."
Chen Junnan stood frozen for a beat, then muttered, "Superstar, mind slowing down a little? I’m having trouble following."
TL Note: Yeahhh, without a picture, it’s very hard to understand what Yun Yao’s saying, so here you go~ The numbers are temporary (and kinda wrong lol), since things change next chapter, but visually, they should still make sense.
