CH 34

Chapter 34

Ou Ying’s expression turned extremely ugly. None of the choices the woman in red presented were good. Whether it was the dead turning into ghosts or having a more vicious ghost in the villa, neither were solvable. Even if the dice roll presents a number corresponding to the first choice, the woman in red could just add another set of frightening choices afterwards. 

The woman in red won’t let them go so easily.

Lin Yi had already guessed that the woman in red would turn the word game back to ‘ghosts’ and so this elicited no reaction from him.

Cheng Yang next to him, massaged his swollen philtrum. He closed his eyes in pain and said, “Brother philtrum, stop hurting already. Just let me pass out, I’m begging you.”

Cheng Yang, whose aching philtrum would not allow him to faint, sat pitifully beside Lin Yi. 

‘clang’

‘clang’

The die was still spinning on the table. The woman’s gloomy expression improved a little after seeing the number that came up. Her eyes were fixed on the die and she said in a sharp voice, “Oh, we have an answer.”

For the first Anke game, everyone had no idea what it would be like and the only thing scary about it had been the voice of the woman in red.

After last night, the participants in the 2-6 Rule World had a better idea. At this time, the announcement of the die’s result was a like a curse.

“It looks like the dead have turned into ghosts.” The woman in red as she rolled the die once again. “What will they do when they come back? Will they say goodbye? Will they linger? Or will they kill you in retaliation?”

Cheng Yang clasped his hands together immediately, begging his grandfather, his grandmother, the goddess of mercy, the Buddha, “Bless us, bless us, bless us. Dice lady, bless us. Just say goodbye, just say goodbye. For every grievance someone is responsible, for every debt there is a debtor. Don’t implicate us in all this!”

The ‘clang’-ing stopped and the woman in red stared at the die for a long time. 

Someone in the dark breathed a sigh of relief.

Whenever the woman threw a number she wanted, her tone would be excited and she will immediately announce the chosen answer. And if the points on the die were not what she expected, her expression would become gloomy.

At this time, the expression of the woman in red gradually became gloomy. Although the participants in the 2-6 Rule World could not see the die, let alone the points on the die, the expression of the woman in red was already explanation enough. She wasn’t happy thus, they could be happy.

Cheng Yang burst into tears of joy once again. “Looks like Lady Duck is smiling down upon me!” 

Lin Yi corrected Cheng Yang and said, “It’s Luck, not Duck. Lady Luck would cry hearing that.”

Cheng Yang said, “To-may-to, to-mah-to…”

He had barely finished speaking when, ‘clang clang’ ‘clang clang’.

Cheng Yang bit his tongue: “Damn…” 

The expression on Ou Ying’s face became even uglier.

The woman in red pretended to be careless and flicked the die to the ground. The die spun and the original points changed.

When the woman in red bent over to pick it up, she couldn’t help laughing.

A bad premonition spread among the crown in the dark. Piling it on top of the already long-standing panic, it was like a pair of invisible hands were pushing them to the edge of a cliff with a bottomless abyss right below. 

The red-clothed woman’s giggling laughter made Cheng Yang’s hairs stand on end. He swallowed back down the curses on the tip of his tongue and it took him a long time to choke out a sentence, “Lin Yi Xiong, she-she can… even f*cking do that?”

Lin Yi was silent for a while, “Lady Luck got angry.”

Cheng Yang: “…”

Lin Yi stared at the woman in red. Looking from his angle, the place where the die fell was a blind spot and he couldn’t see the specific number of points thrown by the die. 

The only thing he saw was the woman’s lips moving, as if she were reading a number. She then picked up the die and placed it on the table in front of her.

Following the movements of the woman in red, Lin Yi’s eyes fell on the table in front of her.

The raised part of the table blocked Lin Yi’s view of the die and Lin Yi didn’t know what the die looked like. Yesterday, when the woman in red held out the die for everyone to see, she merely dazzled it past them. The only thing Lin Yi could tell about it was that it wasn’t a regular six-sided die, rather, it had been cut into more regular-sized faces. Lin Yi didn’t know how many faces there were exactly, only that the die was a regular polyhedron.

“Oh, the dead will be coming back tonight as ghosts. The woman in red said excitedly, “seeking revenge.” 

Those big invisible hands instantly pushed them into the abyss.

The woman in red put away the die. “I would love to find out how they’ll kill you but that’s for tomorrow’s game and today’s game time is over. Time flies when you’re having fun. Now everyone is free to do as they wish, I will be preparing lunch for everyone.”

Same as yesterday, after the woman in red left the living room, the table disappeared.

But this time Lin Yi’s eyes stayed locked on the table and he found that the table had retracted into the floor like a lifting platform. 

Ou Ying turned to obtain Lin Yi’s consent. “Lin Yi, can I tell everyone the Rules of Death?”

The dead will be coming back tonight. It might not be limited to only the four who’d died last night; whether it meant all those who died in the 2-6 Rule World  or all those who had died in the villa, they could not be certain.

Pa kjr fjrs ab rff pera tbk vjcufgber abcluta kjr ublcu ab yf.

Although Ou Ying hated for anyone to die, after all, it was Lin Yi who had discovered the Rules of Death and when gifting Buddha with borrowed flowers, she needed to ask Lin Yi for his permission. 

Olc Tl ujnf cb gfrqbcrf jcv Ye Tlcu ofii rlifca. Ycmf bcf Eeif bo Gfjat ojlir ab xlii jcsbcf, j rfmbcv bcf klii jqqfjg. Rba fnfgsbcf kjr kliilcu ab rtjgf atf Eeifr bo atf Gfjat atfs’nf obecv.

Seeing Lin Yi give no answer, Ou Ying said, “It’s guanxi. I know your considerations. You can rest assured that I won’t disclose anything until I get your permission…”

Lin Yi suddenly said something totally incongruous with the flow of their conversation. “The die is a regular polyhedron.”

Ou Ying paused. “What?” 

Cheng Yang’s body trembled at Lin Yi’s sudden statement. “Lin Yi Xiong, don’t…don’t scare me like that.”

Lin Yi thought back. “One, two, three…”

Ou Ying: “Lin Yi?”

Cheng Yang was alarmed. “Lin Yi Xiong?” 

“A regular polyhedron.” Lin Yi thought about it and said, “with a pentagon face.”

There are only five shapes of a regular polyhedron — a regular tetrahedron, a regular hexahedron, a regular octahedron, a regular dodecahedron and an icosahedron.

A general die is a regular hexahedron; that is, with six regular faces, a common cube.

Lin Yi recalled the die in the woman’s hand. When the woman in red showed the die to everyone, Lin Yi had seen one face which had one…two…three…four…five regular sides. 

A regular pentagon.

“The die has 12 sides.” Lin Yi said, “12 possible points.”

A regular polyhedron with a regular pentagon as a face can only be a regular dodecahedron. If there is one point on each face, then there were twelve numbers on the woman’s die.

Lin Yi: “Xue Jie, just now, she just…” 

Halfway through the conversation, Lin Yi noticed Ou Ying and Cheng Yang’s expressions and only then realized this thinking had gotten away from him.

Scratching his forehead, he explained, “I was thinking about things just now and I got lost in thought. When that happens, I can be a little bit out of it. What was I doing just now? Sorry.”

Cheng Yang said, “You scared me to death. I thought you were…”

Feeling that saying so would bring bad luck, Cheng Yang hurriedly shut up. Saying “Pah Pah Pah” a few times, he dismissed the words “possessed by a ghost” from his mind. 

“Guanxi.” Ou Ying said, “What does it matter if the die has 12 sides and 12 points?”

Lin Yi had deliberately turned down his volume when he was talking to himself, so it was only now that Chen Jinnan and the others looked in their direction.

Lin Yi noticed that Qin Zhou was also looking over.

In addition to these people’s attention, in the darkness, the dead He Mei and Zeng Jing also slowly raised his head to look at Lin Yi. While a headless Gao Xu scurried around. 

The three ghosts he saw yesterday were also among them. Slowly, Lin Yi begun to feel the coldness on his back.

Lin Yi took a deep breath and walked over to the TV wall. The electric switch he had flipped up yesterday had been turned down. He I reached down to turn on the switch.

After the sizzling sound of electricity, the dim lights of the villa turned on.

Lin Yi could see the blank faces of Chen Jinnan and the other three of that group. He also saw Qin Zhou, who feeling that he was about to tell a clue, he turned and left. 

Lin Yi glanced at Qin Zhou’s back, then withdrew his gaze. Same as yesterday, those extra beings disappeared when the lights turned on.

Meeting everyone’s eyes, although Lin Yi was a little embarrassed to be watched by so many people, he still said bravely, “She read out a number when she picked up die.”

“Seven,” Su Tianle said. Su Tianle had been sitting relatively close to the woman in red and his ears were sensitive. “I think it was a seven?”

Li Dang said, “Now that you say it, I think heard it too. I thought it was an auditory hallucination.” 

“Xue Di, what’s wrong?” Zhou Gan asked.

“What I heard was also ‘seven’.” Because Chen Jinnan and the others joined the discussion, he needed to explain the situation more clearly. He said, “Apart from asking questions that can directly be answered with a number, she will basically give three choices each time. The order of the choices goes from and the order of the three choices in each round is ‘good, bad, and evil’.”

The three choices given the first time were: missing an appointment (good), getting lost (bad), and strange things (evil).

The second set was: sickness (good), death (bad), and something extra (bad). 

The third time was: animals (good), schizophrenia (bad), ghosts (evil).

“Based on her reaction on the ‘how many ghosts’ question, she rejects small numbers.”

At first, the woman in red dice had rolled one ghost and then she rolled two ghosts. The woman in red had reacted very gloomily.

“With a score of 1 to 12, the smaller points, one and two, represent the ‘good’ choice.” Lin Yi said, “Though she had rolled a ‘seven’ it corresponded to the worst ‘evil’ choice……” 

Chen Jinnan’s group was confused by what they’d heard. Ou Ying was the first to react. “A score of 1 or 2 represents the ‘good choice’. A score of 7 represents the ‘evil choice’. Higher than seven, points 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 should also represent the ‘evil choice’. The remaining points 3, 4, 5, 6 should be ‘for the ‘bad choice’.”

“That is to say, only two of the twelve faces represent the ‘good choice’, four faces for the ‘bad choice’ and… six faces for the ‘evil’ choice.

Lin Yi nodded. “It’s just the best case scenario.”

The point that the woman in red got when she rolled the die the last time was ‘7’. The only thing it proved was that points higher than seven were for the ‘evil’ choice but not that 3, 4, 5, and 6 were for the ‘bad’ choice. 

Worst case scenario, 1 represented the ‘good’ choice, 2 represented the ‘bad’ choice and the rest represented the ‘evil’ choice.

With such an unfair distribution, their situation was bound to just get worse and worse.

Like how there would be more ghosts tonight.

The expression on Chen Jinnan and the others’ faces changed. Lin Yi told them the Rules of Death, “You’ll be fine so long as you don’t believe in the existence of ghosts. If you see and feel them, tell them that there are ghosts in the world.” 

“…Is that okay?” Li Dang asked.

“Yes.” Lin Yi said: “I tried it last night. Xue Jie, Cheng Yang and Ye Qiong tried too.”

Cheng Yang himself didn’t know when he’d tried it.

Lin Yi said, “Xue Jie fell asleep. Cheng Yang and Ye Qiong fainted. They couldn’t feel them or see them. If you don’t know their existence, you can’t believe in them.” 

“So I can just sleep through tonight. If I can’t sleep, I can make myself pass out.”

After listening to Lin Yi’s analysis, the four in Chen Jinnan’s group breathed a sigh of relief.

Ou Ying said, “Let’s look for clues before lunch. Even knowing the Rules of Death, we’re still not safe. The only way we can be safe is if we leave here.”

Su Tianle asked, “Ou Ying Jie, are you looking for clues to leave?” 

Ou Ying was silent for a while and in the end, decided to tell everyone about the existence of the 2-6 Monster. She said: “If we figure out the main line of the 2-6 Rule World, we can leave.”

Luo Yi was no longer with them and someone else will have to make the arrangements for finding clues.

Chen Jinnan and the other three discussed amongst them how they’ll look for clues.

After the four of them left, Ou Ying asked Lin Yi, “Lin Yi, do you have anything to say?” 

Lin Yi: “Yes.”

If explaining about the dice was simply to prove how dangerous it was, it was absolutely meaningless. Everyone knew that the 2-6 Rule World was dangerous.

“While the Rules of Death cannot increase yet…” Lin Yi said, “I’m going to steal the dice tonight.”

Ou Ying was stunned. “Steal the dice?” 

Cheng Yang: “F*ck, what are you stealing the dice for? So that Anke game can’t continue?”

Ou Ying thought of something: “You… you aren’t thinking of tampering with the dice, are you?”

“En,” Lin Yi said, “At the very least, we know that ‘1’ represents the ‘good choice’. So, we’ll make her roll ‘1’ forever.”

Cheng Yang: “Damn.” 

“Setting aside the difficulty of stealing the dice.” Ou Ying said, “Even if you are able to steal it, how are you going to fix it? The woman in red is always the one throwing the dice, not you.”

“Do you know how roly-poly toys stay standing?” Lin Yi asked.

Cheng Yang: “I’ve got no clue.”

Ou Ying: “It’s weighted.” 

“En.” Lin Yi said, “If I add weight to the dice, it will always turn up ‘1’ like a roly-poly toy.”

Ou Ying asked: “How are you going to add weight to it?”

The greater the mass, the greater the gravity and the smaller the mass, the smaller the gravity.” Lin Yi said: “And mass = density x volume so I’ll increase the density of the side opposite the number 1 on the dice.”

Cheng Yang, complete school dreg, couldn’t understand at all. 

Without waiting for Ou Ying to ask how he would increase the density, Lin Yi took the initiative to explain, “The density of mercury is 1359 grams per cubic centimeter. There’s a cheating method that involves pouring mercury into dice, making use of mercury’s characteristic high specificity. As long as the center of gravity is fixed, one side will always face up.”

Ou Ying said, “No problem there but where will you find mercury?”

Lin Yi said, “The thermometers.”

Ou Ying looked at Lin Yi in astonishment, “You…” 

Lin Yi said: “Xue Jie, inhaling mercury can result in mercury poisoning. The mercury content in each mercury thermometer varies from 0.5 to 1.0 gram depending on the specification. The amount is not large and the higher the temperature, the faster it evaporates. Its volatilization temperature is about to 357° – 358°. The temperature at night should be below 0°. Don’t worry, Xue Jie. I know all about the toxicity of mercury. I’ll be very careful, I’m not going to get myself poisoned.”

Ou Ying’s astonishment was because she was overwhelmed by Lin Yi’s cleverness. Seeing that Lin Yi misunderstood her astonishment and went on an explanation-rant, she put away her astonishment and said, “Lin Yi, what if the woman in red keeps throwing ‘1’ and then decides to change the corresponding choices? What will we do?”

“She probably can’t.” Lin Yi said, “If she could change it, she wouldn’t have thrown the dice on the ground. We couldn’t see it anyway, she could have just lied. You could have also just quietly flipped the dice, she has it with her. But we’re in a Rule World. Senior said that Monsters create the rules but also respect and benefit from them.”

After answering all the questions, Ou Ying immediately said, “I’m with you.” 

Although Cheng Yang hadn’t understood anything, he immediately volunteered, “Lin Yi Xiong, I’ll go with you too.” He’d kept harping on about how he was all brawn and no brain. He’d already proved the no-brain part, now he was going to prove his worth in the ‘brawn’ department.

Lin Yi hesitation. This wasn’t a good sign.

The 2-6 Monster had peeked into Qin Zhou’s memory. The 2-6 Monster must be targeting them. If Ou Ying and Lin Yi act together, he might be bringing them into danger.

So Lin Yi shook his head. “No need, I can do it by myself.” 

Ou Ying said, “We already know the first Rule of Death. Needless to say, Zhou Ge must have also guessed the first Rule of Death. Tomorrow, there will be a second Rule of Death. With two active Rules of Death, it will be even more difficult if you fail in tampering with the dice tonight. As it is, there are already too many ghosts that will appear tonight. Even if you manage to steal the dice, what if run into a ghost? What if you’re targeted by the 2-6 Monster? The chance of success is higher with more people, isn’t it?”

Lin Yi thought about it and felt that what Ou Ying said made sense.

He finally relented. “Okay.”

After lunch, the three of them first looked for which room the woman in red was staying in. They finally found it — the innermost room on the third floor of the villa. 

After dinner, everyone formed their own teams and chose their own rooms. Chen Jinnan and Zhou Gan took a room. Li Dang and Su Tianle took a room. And Ye Qiong was knocked out by Cheng Yang and thrown in with Chen Jinnan and Zhou Gan.

Qin Zhou wouldn’t room with anyone. So, he chose the room Luo Yi stayed in last night.

Ou Ying, Lin Yi and Cheng Yang roomed together.

Once back in their room, Lin Yi took the mercury thermometer off the hanger. Cheng Yang tore off the bed sheet and Ou Ying was tore two small slits into the  bed sheet so that it could be hung from one’s ears, turning it into a simple mask. 

Mercury was poisonous. Even if the temperature was low at night, he would still need protection.

Ou Ying asked Cheng Yang to tear off a slightly wider portion of the bed sheet. Mercury was generally not absorbed by cloth. She also wanted to make a simple glove for Lin Yi.

Lin Yi said, “I’ll go to the kitchen first. Xue Jie, you and Cheng Yang, wait for me here.”

They planned to pour the mercury from the thermometer into the die but there were no special tools in the room. The only choice was to see what they could make do with in the kitchen. 

During the day, the woman in red would go in and out of the kitchen. This was the only time Lin Yi could go look for tools in there.

Ou Ying said, “Okay, be careful.”

Lin Yi nodded. “Understood, I will be back soon.”

Saying so, Lin Yi opened the door. 

A chill came hit their faces immediately and Ou Ying instantly covered Cheng Yang’s mouth.

A headless Gao Xu was standing at their door.

Lin Yi pretended not to see anything. He left the room calmly and closed the door behind him.

Those beings in the second floor corridor looked at Lin Yi. Lin Yi swept this eyes over them and quickly walked down to the dining hall. He was about to pass through the dining hall and into the kitchen when… 

Lin Yi stopped in his tracks.

‘sh-sh-sh’

‘sh-sh-sh’

‘sh-sh-sh’ 

There was a strange sound coming from the kitchen. A sound like a chopstick rubbing against a whetstone.

The grinding sound was originally very loud but it suddenly stopped.

A shadow suddenly appeared before Lin Yi’s feet.