Chapter 54

-Why did you so naturally use a pearl as a cushion when you were so sleepy?!

- It's so damn sweet, it's making my mouth water.

-When has Z ever acted like this?! Damn it, who is Mingzhu? I'll smash Mingzhu's head in! Put down that Z and let me handle this!

-555555 I'm different from the ones before me, I want to switch with Z.

Mingzhu was quite at ease.

-Is the pearl soft?

- Is the pearl hard? I'm asking about Z's head.

- I took a screenshot and posted it on Weibo...

Why are so many people leaving the live stream again? Are they skipping the show to save up for sweet moments?

…………

-Oh my god, I went downstairs for a run and came back. Where am I now... I don't understand?

Half an hour later, through the amazing deductions of Shan Yu and Cheng Mei, the group finally found paper and pen to record data. After dealing with the zombie boss, they went down to the first floor and cracked the five doors.

At this point, the original state of affairs has been basically restored.

This sports center houses several sports schools where young people grow up together, dedicating their youthful energy and sweat, enduring hardship while also harboring dreams.

The protagonist and a group of childhood friends are all professional runners, but they have loved to play since they were young and have explored every corner of this sports center.

However, tragedy struck suddenly. During a group outing, a speeding truck came along, and the protagonist, the boy with the side-swept bangs, pushed aside his best friend, only to find himself running over the truck's wheels.

The accident injured his spine. Whether he can stand up again is another matter, but the athlete's dream has been completely shattered.

The protagonist's childhood friends discussed with the coach and decided to let him stay in the team to do logistics. The protagonist only needed to do what he could, but he would still be with everyone.

At first, he was moved, and the protagonist felt that he had done the right thing. Watching his childhood friend speeding on the track, he felt proud.

However, as time went on, jealousy and regret, like poisonous thorns, began to swirl from his heart.

Why should I sacrifice myself to benefit others?

It was clearly the other party's misfortune, yet I bore the consequences.

Why did you do that in the first place?

Otherwise... wouldn't I be the one receiving cheers and applause on the track today?

The protagonist struggles in pain day and night, gradually becoming gloomy and paranoid.

His teammates, completely unaware of his thoughts, were filled with guilt and felt he was as kind as an angel.

Finally, before an important match, the protagonist, in his wheelchair, quietly went backstage, took out a packet of powder, and poured it into his childhood friend's water glass—

Time stopped.

Ten minutes to go, start!

As the four opened the last locked door on the first floor and rushed into the track and field stadium, the short film began to play. After it finished, a golden countdown, as large as a golden bell, hung directly above the stadium.

The track and field seemed to be paused, with the protagonist's childhood friend standing on the starting line, lifting one foot to stretch his ankle.

The coaches, team doctors, reporters, and cameramen off the field, the spectators in the stands, and the staff at the monitoring station—everything seemed to freeze in a single, realistic moment.

Beneath the passageway leading backstage, the protagonist, unable to resist his inner demons, was about to drug his childhood friend's water. This passageway was completely blocked by a semi-transparent golden barrier; touching it caused ripples to spread like water.

They need to go in and organize the main characters for a good ending.

Chengmei stepped forward and discovered that the barrier resembled a blackboard; writing on it with her finger would cause the finger to briefly remain on the barrier—it was a password door.

Having just experienced a thrilling ordeal, the group had developed a tacit understanding.

Before Shan Yu could give any orders, Cheng Mei said first, "Ten minutes is neither short nor long."

She put away her exaggerated smile and expression, and an unexpected composure arose between her and her height: "The so-called decryption only requires two parts - first, the original materials, and second, the rules and hints for decryption."

“We already have the raw data, these scores recorded in this notebook, grouped into pairs of two-digit numbers. To fill in the final answer, we need to find the rule clues on this track and field. The clues must be very obvious on the field.”

After saying that, she suddenly giggled sweetly, "Am I right? I learned it from my sister, who is a math major!"

After saying that, she winked at King Wenzheng: "Stop glaring at me, go chase after your sweetheart! Look how far he's already gone—"

"What!?" The king suddenly felt a chill run down his spine: "Don't talk nonsense!"

Chengmei exclaimed, "Do you think I'm blind? Leaning back to sleep, whispering to each other, blocking the boss when he comes, sigh, what era are we living in? Still so innocent."

The King: "…………"

Chapter 40

The king was at a loss for words. He was so angry that his hair was standing on end, but he couldn't think of any more words to refute her. Every word he said was cut off by Chengmei, leaving him speechless.

Chengmei gave him a smug look, then slipped away before getting beaten up, leaving the king standing there, bewildered and angry.

Wen Zheng walked boredly to the audience seats and sat in the first row, behind a reporter waving a microphone.

Through the reporter's arms, he could see from afar that the King and the pink-haired loli were huddled together talking, and the King looked like he had been provoked and was about to explode, which made him want to laugh.

What exactly is the relationship between the King and the Blackie? Do animals that have become spirits really exist?

A couple of days ago, on his way home from get off work, he passed by a park and saw a tree that looked a bit like a jacaranda. After hesitating for a while, he stood in front of it and said hello. Two minutes later, all he heard was the rustling of the wind and the kind greeting from an old man jogging backwards.

“Young man, you're under too much pressure, go to the hospital to get checked out… I also heard that there's a free mental health class in Rongcheng…”

Wen Zheng pretended to be calm and said he was rehearsing, then went home stiffly.

He had countless ways to directly verify his conjecture, such as putting Big Black in a cage and then logging on to see if it could coexist with the King, or putting away the holographic glasses next to his pillow and placing them where Big Black couldn't reach them.

But if the king really stops going online, he won't be able to verify it with the other party in person. And if Dahei finds out about his suspicions, he might just run away from home and never come back.

The giant black cat's claws were incredibly powerful, and my small house couldn't possibly contain it. From then on, we were separated by the ends of the earth and never crossed paths again.

We may never see either the King or the Blackie again.

With this in mind, Wen Zheng stopped testing him and pretended nothing had happened as he interacted with him. But once that suspicion took root in his mind, the king's various actions became quite interesting.

Lacking common sense, likes to press and take pictures randomly, interested in moving objects, and likes to crawl into cabinets and boxes. Also, is hostile towards humans.

pretty close.

Judging from its behavior, it already recognized me in the game. As for how I feel about it, at least I don't dislike it, right?

Wen Zheng thought for a while, watched the countdown enter three minutes, slowly stood up, walked around the frozen crowd, and gathered towards the center.

Chengmei, carrying a greatsword, had returned ahead of schedule. She tore open the notebook containing the numbers and spread the pages out on the lawn, then knelt down to read them.

"Did you notice anything?" Wen Zheng asked, bending down.

“Hmm.” Chengmei’s attention was focused on the strings of numbers. She uncapped a marker and rewrote the numbers line by line: “The scoreboard has two digits before and after the colon. I found a clue that they are equal, which means that the numbers after the colon are the same as the numbers before the colon, and are counted as two digits.”

As she spoke, thicker black ink than a ballpoint pen filled the white paper, with commas separating every two digits.

29, 13, 24, 09, 07, 14...

Wen Zheng looked at it, his expression turning serious.

He had already reviewed the copy of the document beforehand and knew that the final answer had nothing to do with the string of numbers left by his parents. Seeing that arrangement of numbers still sent a chill down his spine.

Chengmei is not like an ordinary player. At first glance, she seems impetuous, but in reality, she is experienced and has a calmness that is very different from her appearance.

Seeing her copying numbers, Wen Zheng couldn't help but ask, "What kind of password would you normally use in this format?"

"Hmm?" Chengmei glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and said, "There can be many kinds of rules: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, equations, graphic symbols... I didn't finish looking just now. There should be other clues in the direction Shanyu went."

“No, I mean,” Wen Zheng thought for a moment, “a sequence of two-digit numbers, what kind of traditional cipher would that be?”

Chengmei wrote down the last number, jumped up and asked him with a smile, "What's wrong, Z-da? Is there something bothering you? I'm not a puzzle designer, but traditional ciphers are rarely used now, you know? Theoretically, all letter-plaintext substitution ciphers can be replaced with numbers, like the scroll cipher, the dictionary cipher... Ah, the storm is coming."

Her attention was quickly diverted when Shan Yu ran over, his face beaming with joy: "I've found the pattern! It's addition! Just add the numbers together! It symbolizes higher, faster, stronger!"

"Really? I guessed so. Come and see how I've organized it. The colon and decimal point are divided into two equal groups to symbolize fairness..."

As the countdown reached one minute, a loud announcement suddenly resounded throughout the venue.

"Please welcome the athletes to the field—"

Suddenly, time seemed to flow, and all the people who had been paused in the arena came to life, creating a vivid scene of a track and field competition.

An assistant referee spotted them, blew his whistle, and shouted, "Hey! What are you doing standing there?! Clear the field!"

"Oh no!" Chengmei jumped up: "Hurry up and add it, there's no time! Don't underestimate me just because I'm bad at math."

The king, who had been somewhere, was suddenly chased by an NPC who ran along the track and shouted to the crowd, "Someone's chasing me!"

In less than ten seconds, more and more people looked at them and surrounded them.

Although these NPCs are not as dangerous as mindless zombies, there are just too many of them. Being surrounded by strange gazes and words makes one feel uneasy.

"Who are these people...?" "How did they get in?" "Did the patrol go to call for backup?" "Hey, you over there, hurry up!" "Has security arrived? The match is about to start..."

The king charged into the encirclement, and Chengmei and Wenzheng slowly stood up.

The area around the golden barrier became their last sanctuary. Shan Yu, carrying the hopes of the three, knelt down before the paper covered with Cheng Mei's large characters.

Wen Zheng said coldly, "Hurry up and calculate. When these people arrive, we'll help you hold them off."

The king stretched his wrists, and Chengmei slowly drew the greatsword from behind her back, holding it horizontally in front of her.

"Keep going, we believe in you!"

Bullet comments:

What a touching scene... however...

-But the answer is destined to be wrong, isn't it?

-25 two-digit addition problems.

-…………I get it, holy crap, I'm going crazy.

- The result is 1041. I copied it down simultaneously with the little girl while she was copying the numbers, by pressing the calculator.

- In reality? A lot of the numbers have been changed.

The units digit 6 becomes 9 plus 3, and the tens digit 6 becomes 9 plus 30, so the real answer is...

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