Chapter 60: Pass the Parcel (3)
Just as Jiang He took Zheng Yingying and left Zone G, Jin Cheng and Tang Cuo had already played two more rounds in the instance, successfully acquiring the first slip of paper.
The slip had one character written on it: Door.
The burly man turned around again. “Do you have anything you want to say to me?”
With only one character, it was naturally impossible to form a complete sentence, so the game continued.
The drumbeats sounded, and the ten players continued passing the hydrangea according to Tang Cuo’s commands, while Jin Cheng was responsible for damage control. The speed at which the NPCs passed the flower remained mostly constant, and one round quickly ended.
This time, there was no slip of paper inside the red hydrangea, and the player holding the flower chose to answer a question according to Jin Cheng’s command. Jin Cheng possessed a wealth of knowledge; unless it was a nonsensical question like in Decisive Battle in the Devil City, he could answer almost anything.
In a Zone F instance, the questions asked wouldn’t exceed a certain difficulty level, and he also had the walkthrough to help him cheat.
The next round began quickly. After four rounds, Tang Cuo distinctly noticed that the rhythm of the drumbeats was becoming increasingly erratic. It would suddenly speed up or slow down, and the timing of the rim-strikes became more and more inconvenient. Once, the last two rim-strikes even occurred consecutively, making it completely impossible for Tang Cuo to control where the red hydrangea landed.
Fortunately, Jin Cheng’s reactions were fast enough. Amidst the rapid drumming, he consecutively eliminated three NPCs. After a flurry of extreme maneuvers, he barely managed to land the hydrangea into a player’s hands.
By now, they had acquired the second slip of paper: Forgot.
Forgot? Forgot what? Forgot to close the door?
The words on the two slips seemed connected, but it still wasn’t enough to risk it.
Seven rounds had passed in the game, and they were still missing two slips of paper.
Although it was becoming increasingly difficult to control where the hydrangea landed, Tang Cuo still hadn’t given up; this was their double insurance. Looking across the whole area, Jin Cheng had already eliminated six NPC players. These people vanished the moment they fell out of their chairs. Although the surrounding NPCs seemed indifferent to this, Tang Cuo worried that eliminating too many might trigger a penalty or slow down their progress, outweighing the benefits.
Number Six, who had performed well in the first round, immediately rejoiced. “‘Forgot to close the door!’ How smooth! It rolls right off the tongue!”
The feeling of being carried by a big boss is absolutely fantastic!
Number Seven next to him, however, fired off a rapid barrage of questions: “But there are four slips of paper. What does the other one say? Could it be a particle like ‘Ah’, or a pronoun like ‘You’? Or maybe a word like ‘Again’? ‘Forgot to close the door ah’, ‘Forgot to close the door again’, ‘You forgot to close the door’? Exactly how is this door being closed?”
Number Six instantly felt his head throb. Earlier he had faced a math problem, and now he was being tested on grammar? Couldn’t he just honestly let the big boss carry him?
He shot a resentful glare at Number Seven. “I’m socially withdrawn now. Don’t talk to me.”
Number Seven, who might have been the class rep for language arts when alive, continued: “Also, this might be an inverted sentence. For example, instead of ‘Forgot to close the door’, it could be ‘The door was forgotten to be closed’?”
The rest of the players maintained collective poker faces.
Jin Cheng looked at Tang Cuo.
Tang Cuo remained expressionless. “Don’t look at me, I’m illiterate.”
The other players: “???”
Boss, what did you just say, Boss? Can you say that again? Why does your tone sound so self-righteous when calling yourself illiterate?
Just then, the bald burly man turned around again and asked, “Do you have anything you want to say to me?”
Since answering incorrectly carried a penalty, they passed on this round again.
Over the next six consecutive rounds, the fourth slip of paper never appeared, and the total number of players in the game dwindled from fifty-six to forty-one.
The fifteen empty chairs sitting there were exceptionally conspicuous.
Jin Cheng suddenly had a bad premonition. Given his and Tang Cuo’s luck, what if the slip of paper didn’t drop until the forty-ninth round? If that happened, what difference was there between them and the players who stubbornly survived through all forty-nine rounds?
What the hell were they racking their brains trying to guess here for?
“I have a question. What kind of door is the door?” Tang Cuo suddenly interrupted his train of thought.
At this point, the game continued due to irresistible force. The burly man struck his drumsticks vigorously, and the NPCs remained fully immersed in the game, leaving only the players constantly distracted.
Tang Cuo felt that the key to the sentence “Forgot to close the door” lay not in who forgot to close it, but rather what kind of door it was. Most instances in Yong Ye City followed a certain logic. According to the walkthrough, although the sentence that appeared changed every time, it always met one standard: the statement was incredibly important, which was why the burly man would hastily halt the game.
For example, a phrase previously recorded in the walkthrough was: “Something happened in the boiler room.”
Therefore, what kind of door being left unclosed would cause someone to panic? Even if the subject of the sentence “Forgot to close the door”—the person who forgot—was missing, that person must definitely be pointing to a specific door.
For instance, ‘so-and-so who guards the warehouse.’ The key lay in the warehouse.
Jin Cheng quickly understood his meaning. But with a quick change of thought, he didn’t directly ask about the door. Instead, he pointed at the drumming burly man and asked all the NPCs, “Who is he?”
The NPCs looked at him strangely and answered talking over each other, “That’s Da Jin from the boiler room.”
He asked again, “What doors does the boiler room have?”
The NPCs looked at each other in confusion. What doors could it have? Just doors. The players, however, caught a thread of thought; perhaps something was wrong with the door to the boiler room, which was why bald Da Jin had stopped the game to rush over.
Number Seven spoke up again, “The boiler room also has valves.” (T/N: In Chinese, “valve” is called “Famen”, incorporating the character for “door” (men). )
Right at this moment, the third rim-strike sounded. Tang Cuo split his attention, tracking the red hydrangea’s position while continuing to issue commands. “Number Five, slow.”
“Number Six, slow.”
“Number Seven, slow.”
As Tang Cuo spoke, he looked at Jin Cheng and asked, “Can you try it?”
Jin Cheng rolled his wrists, his peripheral vision sweeping over the red hydrangea drawing closer and closer to him. “I can.”
Thump! Thump! As the fourth rim-strike occurred again, Tang Cuo ordered everyone to speed up, and the red hydrangea landed squarely in Jin Cheng’s hands. Jin Cheng searched through it—no slip of paper.
The bald burly man turned around and asked, “Will you choose a talent performance, or answer a question?”
Jin Cheng: “Answer a question.”
The bald burly man began reciting poetry again: “Person A drives a flock of sheep to chase the lush grass, Person B drags one sheep behind him. Playfully B asks A, ‘Do you have a hundred sheep?’ A replies, ‘What you say is not wrong, this flock I have gathered. Add half a flock and then a small half a flock, plus the one you have, and the number is just right.’ Who can unravel this profound mystery? I ask you, how many sheep does Person A have?”
As his voice faded, the players all felt a massive headache coming on. Number Six even clutched his head in agony, beginning to question his life choices—because this time, he didn’t even understand what the question was asking!
At least he had understood the last math poem!
Everyone cast hopeful glances at Jin Cheng. Tang Cuo looked at him too, because this question had not appeared in the walkthrough.
Jin Cheng didn’t rush to answer. He looked at Tang Cuo teasingly and asked, “Do you think I can answer it?”
Tang Cuo: “Didn’t you take the college entrance exam?”
Jin Cheng: “You didn’t?”
Tang Cuo: “I failed, thank you.”
Tang Cuo only had a middle school diploma, but Jin Cheng hadn’t meant to intentionally poke at his scars. He genuinely didn’t remember, nor had he ever paid special attention to other people’s educational backgrounds.
Jin Cheng rubbed his nose. “It’s fine. Look at them, they all look like they took the college entrance exam, and they still can’t answer it.”
The rest of the players: “???”
Personal attack, reported.
Tang Cuo could actually answer it, but this time he stood in solidarity with the other players, firmly resisting the oppression of the academic elite.
Feeling the chill of isolation, Jin Cheng spread his hands, looking both innocent and helpless. But he finally turned slightly serious, looked at the burly man, and answered, “Person A has thirty-six sheep.”
The burly man: “Answer correct.”
The players decided to stop thinking and just let this question pass. Whoever wanted to solve it could solve it; they absolutely wouldn’t do math even if it killed them. Wait, no, they were already dead.
Then we won’t do math even if we’re dead.
At this point, the burly man asked again, “Do you have anything you want to say to me?”
That one sentence caused all the players to instantly discard the math problem from moments ago, growing collectively nervous. Since Jin Cheng said he could try, whether they cleared the instance might just depend on this round.
Jin Cheng didn’t disappoint. He was simple and direct.
“I want to say to you: You forgot to close the door.”
This was the most fluent sentence among all their speculations.
Unfortunately, the answer was wrong. The burly man instantly went berserk, raising his drumsticks and swinging them at Jin Cheng. Jin Cheng was already prepared. He didn’t use an arrow to secure victory; instead, he dismantled his bow into twin blades and engaged the burly man in close-quarters combat.
Amidst the flashing blades, he relentlessly bombarded the burly man’s ears with different combinations of the words on the slips of paper.
Tang Cuo leaned forward slightly, watching intently.
The other players gradually realized what was happening; Jin Cheng was intentionally stalling for time, testing out all combinations before the penalty period ended. It was simple, brutal, and fast.
However, this method perhaps only worked for Jin Cheng, because the burly man’s combat prowess was too high. Tanking his damage forcefully was far too difficult for Zone F players; one misstep and they would be dead meat.
Moreover, because the player holding the red hydrangea had the option of performing a talent, this was the only opportunity they had to leave their seat.
Crack! Jin Cheng sliced half a drumstick off, sending it falling to the floor. The burly man, who had been about to retreat, went berserk again, spinning around to swing his remaining intact drumstick.
The drumstick expanded against the wind. Pulling off an extreme backward flip to dodge, Jin Cheng landed with the tip of his toe perfectly on the drumstick. In that instant, the twin blades merged back into a bow. He nocked an arrow, took aim, and smiled as he told his opponent—
“Forgot to close the valve.”
“Ding!”
“Game over. Congratulations, players, on successfully completing the mission [Pass the Parcel]!”
“Now calculating rewards.”
The system announcement chimed in right on cue, but Jin Cheng’s arrow didn’t stop. The moment the word “rewards” dropped, the arrow struck the burly man dead on. The massive impact sent him flying into the red drum with a resounding BOOM.
After doing all this, he put away his bow and arrow, turned his head, and curled his lips into a smirk at Tang Cuo.
Tang Cuo remained expressionless, inexplicably feeling that Jin Cheng resembled a male peacock showing off its tail feathers. It was a bit flashy, but perhaps because Tang Cuo himself was a somewhat dull, uninteresting person, he harbored a preference for such vibrant colors.
The other players didn’t notice the undercurrent surging between the two, completely engrossed in the sheer joy of being carried to victory.
“[Pass the Parcel].
Difficulty: Hard.
Participating Players: 12.
Surviving Players: 12.
Rating: A+.
Character Points Awarded: 25.”
“Please check the system panel for individual rewards.”
“Welcome back to Yong Ye City!”
After returning to their room on East Cross Street, Tang Cuo briefly glanced at his rewards, didn’t find any special equipment or skills, quickly allocated his points, and headed out again to continue doing missions at the Mission Hall.
Who knew that the moment he opened his door, a large red hydrangea was tossed right into his arms.
Leaning against the doorway, Jin Cheng said, “The system rewarded me with it. It’s yours.”
Tang Cuo: “…”
He wondered what breed of straight man Jin Cheng was to actually give someone a bizarre item like a giant red flower ball. Looking closely, however, the hydrangea turned out to be Advanced equipment.
[Big Red Flower]
Category: Equipment
Quality: Advanced
Description: A big red flower used by the Baole Machine Tools Factory to reward the Employee of the Year. Wearing it grants a special buff that doubles clearance reward points. (Consumable item, remaining uses: 2/3)
Tang Cuo felt repulsed on the inside, but the buff was incredibly tempting. He immediately asked Jin Cheng, “Your rewards were doubled?”
Jin Cheng smiled. “Exactly. 25 doubled makes 50 points. I’m only two points away from upgrading, so you absolutely must use the Big Red Flower buff in the next instance, otherwise, we’ll have to split up.”
I choose to split up, thank you.
Meanwhile, the news of the Twelve Movements appearing in a Zone E instance continued to spread fiercely. It was unknown who had leaked the information or if it had been done intentionally, but this time, even ordinary players had caught wind of it.
With the conclusion of the Pass the Parcel instance and the return of the ten players to Zone F, word of Jin Cheng and Tang Cuo carrying everyone to an effortless victory also spread like wildfire.
Stimulated by these two major events, more and more people gathered in the Mission Hall of the Central District, gradually reaching a peak for the year.
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Author’s Note:
The poem in the text comes from the book Suanfa Tongzong (Systematic Treatise on Arithmetic) by the Ming Dynasty mathematician Cheng Dawei, known as the “Hundred Sheep Problem.” If you are interested, you can look it up on Baidu.
