Translator’s message: I’m sorry for missing the release yesterday. All I can say is that periods suck. It’s not enough that it gives me period cramps, it also has to mess with my immune system and allergic reactions. =(
Chapter 147
The water was very cold. Lin Yi wasn’t afraid of the cold but that didn’t stop him from feeling the biting sting. There was no need to mention how the other people must be faring.
Their conditions were only made worse because they had just been beaten.
Lin Yi counted the time. They had been locked in the water room for two hours already, but the bald men seem to have no intention of letting them out.
Soaked in dirty water like this, something was bound to happen to someone.
And that included Qin Zhou.
Lin Yi didn’t dare let Qin Zhou support him like this. He stretched out his hand to touch the wall of the pool to see if he could get up. In any case, those eight bald thugs weren’t in the water room. If they could get up out of the water, they could take a breather. If the eight thugs come back, worst comes to worst, they’ll just jump back into the pool again.
The pool must have never been cleaned. The walls of the pool were sticky and slippery and it was difficult to grab a hold to get ashore.
But this was the only way to get up from the pool. Lin Yi patted Qin Zhou’s hand in the water, signaling Qin Zhou to let go of him. He was going to scrape away these disgusting things from the wall. Only once he gains traction, can he get ashore.
But Qin Zhou didn’t let go. Lin Yi leaned close to his ear and said, “Senior, we have to go up.”
Staying soaked like this wasn’t an option. These conditions would kill people.
And still, Qin Zhou held him tightly.
Lin Yi was surprised. He then reached out and felt Qin Zhou’s forehead with the back of his hand.
His heart sank. No wonder Qin Zhou seemed warm. Qin Zhou was running a fever!
Qin Zhou’s condition had already become like this…
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Lin Yi looked at Qin Zhou worriedly. He then raised his eyes to look at the others.
Ktfs kfgf jii lccbmfca nlmalwr jcv atfs jii tjv ab tfiq fjmt batfg ja atlr alwf. Ktf qbbi kjr klvf yea atfgf kjr jirb 27 bo atfw. Ktfs bcis cffvfv ab rdeffhf abufatfg ab mgfjaf kjgwat. Ccv atlr kjs, lo jcsbcf rilqr yfcfjat atf kjafg, atfs mbeiv jirb tfiq qeii atfw bea.
In the darkness, Lin Yi saw someone who couldn’t hold on; he fell into the water once again. But the people next to him made no move to fish him out even after a long time. And so, Lin Yi quickly reached out and pulled him out.
The people next to him then came to their senses and followed Lin Yi in pulling up the person who slipped into the water.
Due to the biting cold, the wounds on their bodies and the long soak, Qin Zhou’s thinking had obviously slowed, while the movements of the others had stagnated.
Lin Yi turned around and continued to scrape gunk off the pool wall.
There was a Monster among the 27 people, but right now, it didn’t matter if he stood out. He didn’t want to see anything happen to Qin Zhou, nor did he want to see the other people die. He had to clean this quickly, get ashore and start dragging people out.
He was desperately cleaning, cleaning, cleaning when he heard another ‘plop’.
Thinking that someone else had fallen into the water, Lin Yi turned around to catch them. But as soon as he stretched out his hand, his ears started buzzing once again. Suddenly the persistent tinnitus reappeared. Again, all over sounds disappeared and all he could see was endless dirty water.
…
The ringing in his ears and the dirty water disappeared.
Lin Yi instantly took off his blindfold. This time he was the fastest. They were all back in the room. He saw that the others hadn’t had time to take off their blindfolds yet. So everyone’s positions hadn’t yet changed and they were all still in a line.
Lin Yi pursed his lips.
Not only had they returned to the room, they seemed to have returned to the moment they entered the Monster world.
Qin Zhou removed his blindfold and this attracted Lin Yi’s attention. Lin Yi looked at Qin Zhou. The wounds on Qin Zhou’s body had disappeared again.
Lin Yi did not step back this time. The last time he found himself back in this room, he had been vigilant and guarded against the other twenty-six on the possibility that they weren’t humans. However, everyone’s common experience later dispelled Lin Yi’s suspicions.
Including Lin Yi himself, this time, a total of twenty-six people had returned. The person who disappeared this time was also a boy.
Although Lin Yi didn’t know his name, Lin Yi had a vague recollection that he was the person he was trying to fish out from the bottom of the pool before his ears started ringing.
When Qin Zhou took off his blindfold, Lin Yi told him what he had discovered. “Senior, it restarted.”
Qin Zhou had taken off his blindfold quite quickly as well. He too looked around the room. “Yeah.”
That they had restarted was pretty obvious. Some of the sharper ones among the other participants also discovered that they were back to the starting point.
Returning to the room again was like a shadow of death for all these people who had just been beaten and soaked in icy water.
Lin Yi looked at them, then looked away.
He looked at Qin Zhou and asked nervously, “Senior, is this a time loop?”
Lin Yi and Qin Zhou had been to the 4-4 Rule World. The 4-4 Rule World had been related to time, so Lin Yi quickly thought of the time loop.
However, there were differences between this place and the 4-4 Rule World.
Time in the 4-4 Rule World was a rewind, from the present to the past, thus triggering a time closed loop in which ‘the present affects the past, the past affects the future, and the future affects the present’.
Here, it was more like a Möbius strip.
A Möbius strip is a piece of paper twisted 180° and then glued together at the end, forming an endless loop. The scary thing about it is that no matter where you start from in the Möbius strip, you will return to the starting point. No matter which direction you face, no matter how far you go, you will return to the original point.
But it also wasn’t exactly a Möbius strip due to having an additional triggering mechanism.
Death.
If someone dies, all of them returns to the starting point to start over.
Qin Zhou gave an “en”. “It doesn’t matter whether this is a time loop or not.”
Lin Yi understood what Qin Zhou meant.
The time loop was not important, what was important was the significance of this time loop set up by this Monster outside the school.
They had been too passive and two people had died before they were able to do anything. So they had to understand the significance of the Monster’s time loop, so that they could know what to do and perhaps grab the initiative.
Lin Yi whispered, “The Monster is among us…”
This was one way of thinking how to find the significance of the time loop set by the Monster.
Lin Yi recalled in his mind: The Monster had been beaten along with them and was with them when they were soaked in water. The Monster had set up the time loop and also the mechanism to initiate the time loop when a person dies…
Qin Zhou said, “In some games, the game will end when the avatar controlled by the player dies.”
Lin Yi looked at Qin Zhou and listened as Qin Zhou said, “The end of the game doesn’t mean the game crashes. Players can continue to play the game.”
Lin Yi had a realization and took over for Qin Zhou, “After experiencing death in the first round, players will avoid that operation when playing the second round…”
Lin Yi realized a lot of things at once.
This was an escape room and the goal was actually very clear. They had to escape, escape from this Xiushen Academy.
The current situation was that if they failed to escape, someone would die and that someone’s death would trigger the time loop. Triggering a time loop meant returning to the starting point.
Lin Yi paused.
Looking at it this way, the significance of the time loop feature was very simple – the Monster was giving them a chance to restart.
It sounded unimaginable but when Lin Yi came to this conclusion, he was almost certain that it was correct.
Before entering the escape room, a staff member that given them a background introduction and at the end, he said…
“And you have been sent to Xiushen Academy this day…”
He said had ‘you’ rather than ‘all of you’. He meant ‘you’ as in one, as in singular. In other words, the twenty or so of them were playing the same role. So the Monster hiding among them must necessarily be playing the same role all of them were as well.
So rather than saying that the Monster was giving them a chance to start over, it was better to say that the Monster is giving itself a chance to start over.
To make up for its regret at being unable to escape from the clutches of the devil during its lifetime.
it sounds like they will be on the “same side” as the monster this time around… though it will be that easy
please take care of yourself dear translator, don’t hesitate to take a few days off if you really feel unwell 🙏🙏 love your translation
As someone who has over 40 allergies I understand your pain. Just before I hit 32 I had an allergic reaction to fruit juice and now if it’s a fruit or vegetable I’m basically allergic to it. It can be so depressing and isolating. Thank you so much for your hard work!
Thank you for the chapter!
I’m so sorry about your allergies. I am sending you psychic hugs right now, can you feel it lol? Take all the time off you need, your health is the most important!
Get well soon and take care.. Thanks for the chapter..
I know I am late but I hope you feel better. Period sucks. Period. (Pun intended)