Chapter 148: Silhouette in the Rain 10
But the rules never appeared.
Zhuang Ningyu held Yi Ke’s hand and silently circled around Wei Liying to avoid being discovered by her too early. This amusement park was a bit larger than the actual Little Pegasus, but there weren’t many amusement facilities. White mist was everywhere, serving as a dividing wall, preventing visitors from seeing clearly what was in the fog.
Currently, apart from Wei Liying, no other monsters have appeared.
“Although no specific rules have appeared, we can still guess the general solution to this game. When Wei Liying finds Wei Xiaofang, this rule zone should disappear,” Yi Ke said. “And we’ll return to Fuxing Garden.”
Zhuang Ningyu nodded and made an “mm” sound. According to the actual situation of the Little Pegasus rule zone and Wei Liying’s long-cherished wish, it should be like this. The logic was reasonable, but it wasn’t reasonable for Liam. The other party went to such great lengths, even arranging for a killer to stop Yi Ke—surely it wasn’t just to make him go through Little Pegasus again.
“If it’s just this rule zone, whether you help me or not, it’s unlikely to trap me,” Zhuang Ningyu looked at Yi Ke. “So I’m still more inclined to believe this is just a ‘passage,’ and the rule zone at the other end of the passage is Liam’s real purpose.”
“Then why did he arrange for Wei Liying to appear?” Yi Ke reached out to remove a dead leaf from his shoulder. “Just like the rule zone at Bluebird Pavilion, hide all the protagonists, let the passage be unobstructed, and send you directly over. Wouldn’t that be more in line with his interests?”
“Is there a possibility that Liam did only want to use Wei Liying to create a passage and didn’t need her to appear, but Wei Liying wasn’t as controllable as that eight-year-old boy at Bluebird Pavilion?” After thinking for a while, Zhuang Ningyu said, “According to the report given by the research team, the stronger the mental conviction of the rule zone protagonist, the faster the rule zone forms. Fuxing Garden is located in the city center, an area with extremely dense surveillance. Once a rule zone appears, it will quickly be captured and uploaded by the department’s equipment. So the preparation time left for Liam is actually very limited. He must complete his ‘work’ and test it repeatedly in an extremely short time. At this time, Wei Liying, with her strong obsessio,n is his best choice—she comes with an acceleration buff for rule zones.”
As for why Liam had to choose Fuxing Garden in a surveillance-dense area to increase the difficulty for himself, that was also easy to understand. Because only Fuxing Garden could simultaneously satisfy three major conditions: Zhuang Ningyu would definitely go there, few people around, and the possibility of being alone. Other places, such as the unit headquarters building, the investigation team, Guanxing Building, the suburban courtyard, and the Yi family’s old villa, didn’t have the relatively perfect replication conditions that Fuxing Garden did.
“Facts prove Liam’s choice wasn’t wrong either. If you hadn’t been alert, I would indeed have entered the rule zone alone as he wished,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “Choosing Wei Liying wasn’t the optimal solution, but it was Liam’s only choice. He couldn’t make Wei Liying with her deep obsession completely not appear, so he should have settled for second best, changing it to make Wei Liying unable to find her daughter, just like Zhang Yunxia, who searched for her mother back then. He’d exploit the bug well, keeping the entire rule zone at a delicate balance point that was both unsolvable and solvable.”
“What about the passage?” Yi Ke asked. “We just searched around and didn’t find an exit anywhere.”
“The basic logic of the original Little Pegasus rule zone: when the exam ends, the door opens,” Zhuang Ningyu clearly remembered the time the children left the examination hall last time—5:17 PM. And now, he looked at the time on his wristwatch. There were still twelve minutes until the exam ended.
“Thump, thump!” Not far away, footsteps sounded again.
Yi Ke pulled Zhuang Ningyu up, and they ran together onto a tall, thin building by the roadside. This should be the amusement park’s control room. From the glass room on the top floor, they could clearly see the full view of the entire amusement park.
Dust rustled down from the ceiling. Zhuang Ningyu sneezed. They hadn’t brought masks when they came in, so Yi Ke simply pulled open his jacket and wrapped the person into his arms. The windbreaker could effectively block out dust mites in the air. Zhuang Ningyu reached into his hard inner pocket and pulled out a naked full-moon photo.
—On what Little Yi secretly did during the move.
Before his wife could ask, Yi Ke righteously protested first: “If I hadn’t taken it, it would have been sandwiched in your unwanted waste books and given to Uncle Huang!”
Zhuang Ningyu didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, putting the photo back in his inner pocket. Looking down again, Wei Liying had already walked away again, and the white mist in the amusement park seemed lighter than before.
The investigation team sent new information. Among Wei Xiaofang’s belongings, there was indeed such a knockoff Paddington bear. At the time, the school teacher had told a fairy tale in class about “a little bear placed at the bedside will protect the little master in dreams,” so many children in the class bought little bears.
“For Wei Xiaofang, the little bear represented safety and protection. More importantly, bears are very strong, possessing absolute power,” Zhuang Ningyu said. “After Wei Xiaofang’s death, Wei Liying always blamed herself. She transferred part of her painful emotions into hatred of her own weak body. She once told a psychologist that if she could be a bit stronger, perhaps she could have rushed into the rule zone.”
Although this wasn’t possible—entry and exit from rule zones never distinguished based on whether one was strong or not—people who get stuck in a mental rut find it very difficult to get out. Zhuang Ningyu continued, “It may also be because of this reason that she gave up her original appearance and chose to become the stronger little bear that her daughter also deeply loved, to provide her with more protection.”
Yi Ke nodded with complex feelings. “Mm.”
Time passed minute by minute.
5:10… 5:12… 5:15… 5:16…
The countdown on the wristwatch kept changing numbers, from 00 to 59, then returning to 00 again.
“Ding dong! Attention all examinees, the examination time is up. The exam is over. Please have all good children quickly leave the examination hall.” At 5:17, the familiar broadcast indeed sounded. And with the broadcast music playing, a small path originally swallowed by white mist also revealed itself. From a high vantage point, they could very clearly see it led to another patch of white mist beyond the amusement park.
The passage appeared.
“Leave now?” Yi Ke asked. “Or wait for Team Leader He and the others?”
Although the more people the better when executing this kind of mission, Zhuang Ningyu said, “Liam isn’t a fool. What we can think of, he can think of too. He probably won’t leave He Mo much time to open the door.”
Sure enough, after only one minute, at 5:18, the originally gentle broadcast had already turned into a sharp looping warning. A huge countdown board suspended by chains also appeared in mid-air!
“Ding dong ding dong ding dong! The exam is over! The examination hall door will be permanently closed! Please do not linger, examinees! Do not linger! Do not linger! Leave quickly! Leave immediately!”
The sound was piercing. The red countdown board also kept changing numbers, much faster than normal time flow. Although the countdown seemed to still have a full hour, actually, Zhuang Ningyu estimated in his heart, the real time was only about half an hour. After half an hour, examinees who hadn’t left would be squeezed and thrown out by the rapidly distorting space, just like last time.
Yi Ke fired a shot at the countdown board. It had no effect at all. The bullet seemed to pass through a void. This was also the same as the original version—examinees’ attacks were completely ineffective against the countdown board.
The originally dispersed white mist gathered thickly again. Zhuang Ningyu reminded, “The concentration of mental pollution has intensified.”
As his words fell, the environmental monitoring bracelet indeed began to alarm violently. Red numbers kept flipping up based on 888. Urgent “thump thump thump” footsteps came from the stairwell, but it wasn’t Wei Liying—it was monster proctors. They wore uniform black uniforms, each holding a huge red pen, responsible for marking O and X on examinees’ bodies, representing good children and bad children respectively.
Liam borrowed this original setting, but didn’t have them “grade papers” anymore. Instead, they became expellers. The corridor was filled with warning whistle sounds, and the whistles would also intensify the concentration of mental pollution! When the value broke through “uncontrollable,” Yi Ke felt obvious discomfort. Zhuang Ningyu didn’t choose to engage in meaningless frontal conflict with these monster proctors. One second before the door was broken, he pulled Yi Ke out the window, rappelled to the ground, and hid in a small grove.
“How are you?” he asked urgently.
Yi Ke waved his hand. “I’m fine, don’t worry.”
They currently had two choices. First, quickly pass through the passage and leave Little Pegasus Amusement Park, heading to Liam’s next set destination. Second, have Zhuang Ningyu first temporarily control the environmental pollution, then wait another half hour to see if He Mo could open the door from outside.
Zhuang Ningyu leaned toward the latter. Just as he was about to remove his protective bracelet, Yi Ke stopped him. He forcefully suppressed the discomfort caused by mental pollution in his body and said in a low voice, “There might be a third option.”
“What?” Zhuang Ningyu looked in his direction.
At the end of his line of sight, Wei Liying was roaring out of control amid the sharp, piercing broadcast sounds and whistle sounds filling the entire amusement park! She didn’t understand—her daughter had clearly just gone to participate in a school-organized spring outing. How did she inexplicably become a “bad child”? That already worn-out “Little Pegasus Amusement Park Rule Zone Detailed Report (For Related Family Members)” appeared again in Wei Liying’s mind. Exam, exam, what exam? There should never have been this exam at all!
Yi Ke patted Zhuang Ningyu’s arm, said “wait for me,” then without waiting for the other to ask in detail, turned and strode out of the grove! His speed was very fast. In almost the blink of an eye, he ran back to that tall control room, then “bang” pushed open the window, his entire upper body leaning out, and shouted: “Wei Liying!”
Zhuang Ningyu’s heart rose to his throat, closely watching his every move from the forest.
Wei Liying had originally been grabbing a proctor, demanding where her daughter was. Upon hearing the voice, she looked up, her gaze directly meeting his—first confused, but after seeing the other’s face clearly, those pupils that had become a doll’s suddenly stiffened and contracted. Yi Ke knew she recognized him.
The failed suicide jump plan was awakened from memory. Wei Liying threw aside the proctor and roared as she charged over. But Yi Ke didn’t wait for her. Instead, he leaped out from the window. His long legs strode hard in the air, and with one hand he tightly grasped the chain suspending the countdown board. His whole person swayed and hung in mid-air! The high concentration of mental pollution made fine beads of sweat seep from his forehead. His brain kept transmitting severe pain. The bracelet also rang almost to the point of breaking, but his fingers still gripped tightly, his eyes also staring deadly at Wei Liying, even the corners of his lips tilting up slightly with leisurely interest.
Wei Liying indeed took this as provocation. She furiously tried to climb up, but obviously couldn’t do it. So her eyes surveyed the surroundings in a circle, finally landing her gaze on the only “weapon”—those black-clothed proctors.
Yi Ke had just discovered that the proctors wouldn’t attack Wei Liying, so he deduced that in Liam’s setting, Wei Liying should have nothing to do with the exam and possessed no authority. She was merely an NPC that couldn’t be erased, so they had no choice but to let her roam freely. But this NPC might not necessarily not attack the examiners. Wei Liying’s logic was simple—she held extreme hostility toward all people and things that tried to prevent her from meeting her daughter.
The numbers on the countdown board were still changing rapidly. At this time, a large number of proctors also discovered Yi Ke and ran over one after another, blowing warning expulsion whistles at him! The surging mental pollution made Yi Ke clench his teeth. He struggled to make the chain wrap around his wrist once to ensure he wouldn’t fall. Zhuang Ningyu watched from afar, just about to rush out to help, when Wei Liying, angry to the extreme, had already taken the first step to charge recklessly under the countdown board. With her thick bear paws, she randomly grabbed the neck of a proctor beside her, first lifting his body high, then hurling it toward mid-air like throwing a discus!
Accompanied by a dull, loud sound, the proctor’s body heavily struck the countdown board, instantly smashing it into pieces. In the original rule zone’s setting, proctors possessed extremely high authority, including but not limited to deciding exam content, stipulating exam time, making judgments about good children and bad children, etc. So only they could actually touch the countdown board, just like now.
And Yi Ke, one instant before the proctor was hurled at him, released his grip and fell to the ground, quickly retreating in the opposite direction! His running speed was very fast. Wei Liying appearing in the form of a toy bear simply couldn’t catch up to him. As for those proctors, because the countdown had stopped, they also lost the basis for judging “whether they should expel,” entering a semi-dormant state one after another, becoming wandering shells that had lost their commands.
The mental pollution concentration returned to a relatively controllable state. Zhuang Ningyu brought Yi Ke into that broken-down ticket booth, had him sit properly, then used his own mental power to forcibly purify the mental pollution in this small space, giving the other a more relaxed recovery environment.
Yi Ke’s brain hurt so much he felt like vomiting but couldn’t, yet still didn’t forget to struggle and say in a trembling voice, “Wife, I can do it myself.”
Zhuang Ningyu: “Shut up.”
Only when the bracelet’s display value became 15, reaching the “none” level, did he stop. Although this purification was completely not on the same level as that time at the Chengnan Bookstore, the process of “first accepting mental pollution to become a pollution source, then counter-polluting the environment” was never a comfortable experience after all. His head still inevitably hurt a bit sharply, and hearing Yi Ke’s wer wer in his ear made it hurt even more.
“Wife!” Yi Ke looked at him with heartache, carefully cupping that snow-white face with both hands, wanting to comfort him. But unexpectedly, both his hands were covered in black engine oil—just rubbed on from that broken chain.
“What’s wrong?” Zhuang Ningyu asked wearily.
Yi Ke’s smile was handsome and gentle. “Hmm? What do you mean what’s wrong, baby? I can’t understand what you’re saying?” Then he took the opportunity to rub hard with his thumbs twice, which didn’t help at all and only made it dirtier.
At a time like this, why are you rubbing my face? Zhuang Ningyu frowned inexplicably, his head dizzy. So he buried his head back in his embrace, planning to rest for another dozen seconds or so.
Yi Ke considerately encircled his dirty little wife with one arm, gently patting his back, pretending nothing happened. But his other hand frantically rubbed on his own pants like it had been electrocuted, then pulled out his phone to urgently search: what to do if face is stained with engine oil—
“First, avoid rubbing with hands over a large area to prevent expanding the pollution range.”
Yi Ke: “…”
But I already rubbed it!
