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Chapter 38: Hold me
It was now 7:55 in the morning.
The cracking deadline for this game was 72 hours, and there were 64 hours left, which meant they had spent nearly eight hours so far.
It could be inferred that they initiated the process around midnight.
An Wujiu lowered his eyes and glanced at the white watch on his wrist.
The date on it still read 3:21:40 a.m., without any change.
What does this stopped time represent?
The higher they go in the cracking process, the thicker the fog in this containment center becomes, raising suspicions.
On the Rainbow Babies corridor, the rolling tin cans instantly stopped, and Shen Ti put down what he was holding and walked toward them on the double-angel corridor. Just as he passed the junction, which was the gate to the circus, the rainbow weed killer behind him had already started spraying.
The fine mist fell, and the bright colors of the corridor became blurred, like an oil painting soaked in water.
Yang Erci put down Zhong Yirou, but Zhong Yirou still had little strength, so she helped Zhong Yirou sit on the ground, and she sat down too, allowing Zhong Yirou to lean on her.
Josh leaned close to the circus gate and found a laser grid that matched the square mark on the back of his hand, but when he aligned his hand, a prompt sound appeared.
【Hello, D03, the invitation has been received; please use the key to open the door.】
“Just using this won’t open it.” Josh took his hand down and said, “I’m afraid we need to go to the Rainbow Babies corridor to find the Rainbow Key.”
An Wujiu stared at the weedkiller fog that pervaded the entire corridor, the pungent gas entering his nostrils.
“What were the words printed on the rainbow cans just now?” An Wujiu turned around and looked at Shen Ti.
Shen Ti seemed tired, leaning lazily against the wall, eyes looking upward as if recalling, “Let me think. Those cans appeared a total of three times…”
“So quickly, three times already.” An Wujiu’s gaze followed him. “The spraying frequency is getting faster.”
“Yeah.” Wu You nodded, “Faster each time.”
“Each time, only the orange-striped cans and purple-striped cans had words printed on them, and the words would change.” Shen Ti spoke to everyone while leaning against the wall, but his eyes were only on An Wujiu. “After I came, I waited for a safe period for a while, then orange-striped cans appeared with ‘red’ printed on them, and purple-striped cans had ‘orange’ printed on them.”
“When the cans turned into aircraft for spraying and completed the spraying, turning into a safe period again, the cans reappeared, and this time, the orange-striped cans still had ‘red’ printed on them, but the word on the purple-striped cans changed to ‘yellow.'”
At first listen, it seemed like there was not much of a pattern.
Shen Ti continued, “In the next round, the orange-striped cans and purple-striped cans that appeared both had ‘purple’ printed on them.” After saying that, he shrugged, “Then you guys arrived, and now it’s still spraying.”
After listening, An Wujiu fell into contemplation.
Zhong Yirou, sitting on the ground, coughed twice and looked up at Shen Ti, “You’re not lying, right?”
“Is my credibility so low in your hearts?” Shen Ti’s tone carried a hint of amusement.
“That’s right,” Wu You, who was also present, not only did not speak up for Shen Ti but sneered, “You’re the guy who cheated money from a dying person.”
This description exaggerated the situation all at once.
Nan Shan looked at Shen Ti’s face, “Mr. Shen Ti doesn’t seem like such a cunning person.”
“Good judgment.” Shen Ti cast a sympathetic look at Nan Shan and explained, “It was Yang Ming who actively approached me for a deal, and I just suggested a few changes to his agreement.”
After that, he looked at An Wujiu and said, “I won’t deceive you.”
Yang Erci, however, was somewhat skeptical, “Your memory is a bit too good.”
“Is it?” Shen Ti forced a smile, “Well, what can I say, I’m just talented.”
“He probably isn’t lying, or Wu You would have exposed him long ago.” An Wujiu took the initiative to stand by Shen Ti’s side. Although he knew Shen Ti was extremely cunning, he had asked Shen Ti to help him keep an eye on things. Bringing Wu You along was to avoid monopolizing information, leading to a lack of trust. Besides, there was simply no need to play an information game; this was not a competition among players.
Of course, it couldn’t be denied that An Wujiu also had a bit of intuition.
He just felt that Shen Ti wouldn’t lie to him.
“What he said is true.” Wu You shrugged. “I didn’t remember everything, but it should be something like that.”
During the conversation, the weedkiller spray in the Rainbow Babies corridor ended once again.
“New cans might appear in a moment.”
An Wujiu walked over in that direction.
Indeed, this time, the interval was even shorter. According to the countdown reminder in their field of vision, it was almost only half a minute before the rainbow cans appeared again, numerous and rolling in their direction.
An Wujiu picked up an orange one, but this time, there were no printed words on it.
Just a question mark.
He turned around, and Shen Ti had a purple-striped one in his hand. The two of them tacitly showed it to each other.
Sure enough, the purple-striped cans also only had a question mark.
“Why are they all question marks?” Josh, sitting on the ground, picked up many of them. As long as they were orange-striped or purple-striped, they were all question marks. The other colored cans were the same as before, with nothing on them.
Shen Ti raised his wrist and threw the purple can up.
Up, down, caught.
Seeing the question mark, Wu You basically understood, “They want us to guess the two words for this round.”
Up again, down again—
Not caught.
The falling can disappeared in front of Shen Ti.
All the other cans vanished in an instant.
Only one remained, seemingly controlled by something invisible, rolling slowly toward the Rainbow Corridor in the opposite direction.
So An Wujiu followed that can, with others behind him. Only Shen Ti chose to step forward and walk side by side with him.
The reversing can finally stop in front of a door.
This door had never appeared before, suddenly appearing on the wall between two room doors. Unlike the cute, colorful room doors before, this door was black.
A small screen was embedded in the door, playing very old black-and-white footage. In the video, a man in military uniform was introducing the operation content. It was ancient, with a lot of noise in the audio, and you could vaguely hear words like “low-altitude slow flight” and “clearing obstacles.”
Behind him were those huge, striped, and character-marked tin cans, neatly piled into an endless high wall. Many people in military uniforms transported them one by one onto the plane. Those behind them kept urging those in front to “move faster!” and “don’t mess up the order.”
Through the glass, you could also see the smiling faces of the pilot in the cockpit.
It seemed that even the pilots executing the mission didn’t know what was in the cans, let alone what would happen to their future selves or what the people on this land would suffer.
The video abruptly ended, and there wasn’t much footage of the spraying. After everything concluded, new text appeared on the screen.
There were some instructions.
【Operation Codename: Rainbow Ranch
Unit # machine sprays [Orange], Unit # machine sprays [Purple].
Unit C machine sprays [Green], Unit C machine sprays [Orange].
Unit L machine sprays [Red], Unit H machine sprays [Orange].
Unit O machine sprays [Red], Unit I machine sprays [Yellow].
Unit N machine sprays [Purple], Unit L machine sprays [Purple].
Unit E machine sprays [?], Unit D machine sprays [?]】
The last two red question marks were flashing vividly on the screen.
After reading all the content above, Yang Erci whispered, “He’s telling the truth.”
Staring at the screen, An Wujiu calmly stated the facts, “The first time it appeared, the orange can had orange printed on it, and the purple can had purple. Before the second spraying, the label on the orange-striped can changed to ‘red,’ and the purple-striped can changed to ‘orange.’ The subsequent situations are as Shen Ti described, with no deviations.”
The displayed battle plan showed that the order of those colors perfectly matched the printed words on the cans in the corridor. It indicated that Shen Ti’s words were accurate in every detail.
The first color in each row corresponds to the label on the orange-striped can each time, and the second corresponds to the label on the purple-striped can, just in Chinese instead of English.
“So now we have to fill in the blanks, right?” Josh carefully observed the listed colors, “It seems… at first glance, there’s no clear pattern. Sometimes it’s orange, sometimes it turns red, and sometimes the color doesn’t change.”
Seeing the colors, Wu You couldn’t help but propose a possibility, “A pattern in color mixing?”
Josh thought for a moment, “You mean, each row mixes to produce the same color? But the orange and purple mixed definitely won’t be the same as two purples.”
Suddenly, they heard a thud. An Wujiu turned around, and Nan Shan, who was standing behind them, unexpectedly collapsed, eyes tightly shut, devoid of any response.
“Nan Shan?”
“He actually fainted.” Wu You immediately recalled, reaching into his pocket to find the syringe and medication that Nan Shan had given him. After preparing the injection, he crouched down to administer it.
But just as he crouched down, the ground beneath Nan Shan suddenly burst open!
The intact corridor they were in had a massive crack, like the cracked earth after a natural disaster.
“Pull him over quickly!” Shen Ti’s expression became serious in an instant.
Stunned, Wu You woke up, reaching out to grab Nan Shan. Suddenly, the ground beneath Nan Shan collapsed with a tremendous roar.
The collapsing ground wasn’t the first floor but scorching hot red magma, surging upwards like raging fire.
Amidst the surging flames, An Wujiu, kneeling on the ground, grabbed Nan Shan’s arm, preventing him from falling into the abyss of molten lava. Shen Ti, caught off guard, didn’t anticipate it, but he also grabbed the arm that once slipped through his grasp.
The flames burned up the sleeves of the two people.
“Wu You, use these clothes to put out the fire!” Yang Erci supported the half-conscious Zhong Yirou and handed the white coat draped over her to Wu You.
Josh also kneeled down, and the three of them together exerted force to gradually pull up the unconscious Nan Shan.
Wu You extinguished the fire on their arms and then decisively plunged the needle of the syringe into Nan Shan’s arm. The situation was too urgent, and he momentarily forgot to ask how exactly he should do this and where on the arm to inject.
The effect of the medication wasn’t instant, but the floor around them was gradually collapsing, and the safe area was getting smaller.
Wu You had no choice but to help Nan Shan up, letting him lean against his back with both hands on his shoulders to maintain his posture.
In just a few seconds, this place had transformed from a fun-filled paradise into a hellfire. Except for the floor they currently stood on and the area near the entrance of the circus door, the rest of the floor had collapsed, leaving behind an incomprehensible abyss of scorching heat.
The continuous alarm sounded inside the building, and after the alarm, it turned into a familiar voice.
An Wujiu frowned; it was his own voice.
[You’re running late.]
[Three minutes left, as you said before. Anyone who backs out will lose all their pigeon feathers.]
[Hurry up, I’m already inside the circus.]
“It’s A02!” Josh became a bit frantic; his face was illuminated by the fiery glow of the magma in the abyss, turning it red. “Do we not have time? Will we fall and burn to death if we exceed the time limit?!”
“Don’t panic.” An Wujiu remained as calm as ever, which was terrifying in this situation. “Everyone, stand close and hold onto each other’s arms. Josh, grab the door handle, so we all have some support.”
Yang Erci added, “Watch your step. If there’s any collapse, immediately step back.”
After giving the instructions, An Wujiu took a deep breath, constantly thinking about the color issue with the weedkiller earlier.
They placed the semi-conscious Zhong Yirou and the temporarily unconscious Nan Shan in the innermost positions. An Wujiu stood near the edge, unable to see the display screen at the moment, but he had already memorized the color order inside.
“Could it still be a shift?” he muttered to himself. “Moving the colors according to the order of the rainbow, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet…”
“No,” Shen Ti interrupted him. “At least not entirely this pattern. I just tried it; according to the rainbow color order, after moving orange twice, it turns into green, and after moving purple twice, it becomes orange. It seems to have a pattern, no doubt.”
“But when it comes to the third row, green needs to move four times to become red, while orange either doesn’t move or moves seven times. From here on, it’s not the pattern of moving two times for each color anymore.”
He was right.
An Wujiu pushed down further; in the third row, red needed to become the red of the fourth row, either by not moving or moving seven times. However, the adjacent orange only moved once and became yellow.
Looking vertically, not only was there no pattern in each row, but within the rows, it was also not the same number of movements.
Something’s wrong.
An Wujiu wanted to glance at the display screen again, but his left foot suddenly stepped on empty space, losing balance in an instant.
He heard Josh’s voice say, “Wujiu!”
Just as An Wujiu was in the moment of losing control and falling backward, a hand wrapped around his waist, pulling him tightly into an embrace.
He found himself crashing into Shen Ti’s arms. In that critical moment, with flames and his own disoriented face reflecting in Shen Ti’s emerald-like pupils, he was tightly held in Shen Ti’s embrace.
“Grab onto me and step on my foot.” In that moment of life and death, Shen Ti’s voice whispered in An Wujiu’s ear. An Wujiu even felt the movement of Shen Ti’s jaw against his forehead as he spoke.
“Hurry up.”
An Wujiu followed the instructions. His heart was beating rapidly, producing an intense sensation akin to pain.
[Time is running out.]
A02’s voice echoed once again.
[Aren’t you going to find the key? One key for one lock; don’t mess it up. I’ll wait for you in the circus for the last two minutes.]
Key, lock.
The key to the password…
An Wujiu suddenly remembered something. He struggled to look at the display screen, shifting his gaze from the colors to the beginning of each row.
Shen Ti immediately sensed a new idea forming in An Wujiu’s mind, not because he could read minds, but due to An Wujiu’s hands suddenly tightening on the fabric of Shen Ti’s back and the muscles around his lower back, a subconscious reaction.
“The numbers… the aircraft numbers are the keys to the color code! The irregular number of movements is because one key matches one lock!”
Excitement caused An Wujiu to instinctively turn his head, wanting to tell Shen Ti, but this movement accidentally brushed his lips against Shen Ti’s neck.
A tingling sensation lingered on his lips.
Shen Ti almost immediately understood An Wujiu’s meaning through his fragmented words. “So, the # on the first plane actually represents the initial color, and the next line becomes the C-plane. ‘C’ represents the number in alphabetical order, which is 3?”
“No, it’s 2. I tested it. Each letter is converted to a number and then subtracted 1. C is the third letter in the alphabet, but the color change from orange to green, according to the rainbow order, is the result of moving two times. The letter ‘L’ should correspond to 12, but based on the movement, it’s only moved 11 times, the same for the others, all subtracted by 1.”
“I see. So, green doesn’t move four times to become red, but 11 times.”
“Exactly.”
The outermost circle of the floor they stood on collapsed again, and space was getting smaller!
With no time to verify one by one, An Wujiu directly looked at the colors from the second to last round and the airplane numbers from the last round.
Purple, E; purple, D.
“Purple moves four times; the other purple moves 3 times…”
An Wujiu shouted toward Wu You, who was closer to the display screen.
“Wu You! Fill in the green and yellow!”
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Staring at the Unit Machines spelling out “Clone Child” and being proud of myself because it’s the only thing I’ve understood 😭 I would be so dead in these situations haha