Chapter 82
Lin Yi had to ask for directions multiple times before he reached Cen Qian’s house.
Fortunately, Lin Yi had gained a few lock picking skills. After opening the door of Cen Qian’s house, he took out the money from the cabinet.
No wonder Cen Qian was sure that he knew this was Cen Qian’s home. It turned out that he had entered the apartment ten years ago.
Lin Yi took the money and went back to the hospital to pay the fees. Before Cen Qian came out of the operating room, he found himself instantly back lying on the bed.
Outside the door, Qin Zhou was knocking on the door. “Lin Yi.”
“Senior, I’m coming!” Lin Yi carefully moved the cat that was next to him, got up and opened the door for Qin Zhou.
Qin Zhou said, “It’s 8:30.”
Lin Yi was at a loss. “Ah, what’s wrong?”
Qin Zhou said, “Time to go to work.”
Lin Yi: “…”
He had just gone back in time and he’d almost forgot that right now, he was an employee of the Singularity News Agency.
Ren Li was already waiting for them outside. Lin Yi went to the bathroom to wash his face to wake himself up.
When he came out of the bathroom, Cen Qian was just coming out of his room. The two of them came face to face. Sitting in his wheelchair, Cen Qian asked Lin Yi, “Shouldn’t you eat first before you leave?”
Lin Yi looked at Cen Qian’s leg. A small quilt covered Cen Qian’s leg. Judging from the raised and sunken outline of the quilt, Cen Qian’s leg had been amputated.
After seeing Lin Yi’s gaze, Cen Qian said, “I’m used to it. It doesn’t matter. If you hadn’t saved me, I’d be dead now.”
Lin Yi didn’t know what to say. He scratched his head and said, “I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing.”
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.
Cen Qian asked him again, “Are you leaving without breakfast?”
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The three of them had the highest probability of being picked by the 4-4 Monster. If he acts too strange, it would affect the judgment of the other people who aren’t possessed.
In the end, Lin Yi decided to wait and see.
They found the other participants in front of the news agency building.
Lin Yi counted the number of people. There used to be seven. Now, there was only six.
Qin Zhou and Ren Li quickly noticed this as well. They quickly walked over and Qin Zhou asked, “Where’s the other one?”
The one who answered Qin Zhou’s question was a gentle-looking girl named Feng Wan. The reason why she was put into the Rule World was because she’d taken her finals while ill. She wasn’t able to perform normally and this made her fall behind in the rankings.
“He…” Feng Wan paused and changed her wording. “Something happened to him.”
Qin Zhou: “What’s going on?”
The incident happened to a boy named Zhou Qi. Yesterday, the seven of them decided to go to the police station to try their luck, to see if they could get the police to allow them to interview the murderer, Shunxi.
Unsurprisingly, they were firmly rejected. They had no choice but to return to the news agency, where they planned to spend their first night in the 4-4 Rule World.
Zhou Qi had heard that NPCs would kill at night and it seemed that the three members of the student union didn’t intend to work with them at all.
He didn’t want to die and the only way to survive seemed to be through that interview the editor-in-chief was demanding.
Would they die if they failed to complete the interview?
While the other participants were sleeping, tired and lying on their workstations, Zhou Qi searched for information about the murderer. Through the scattered information he’d found on the internet, he wrote a news article.
“When we woke up, we saw that Zhou Qi had been stabbed more than ten times. He was lying dead on his work station.” Feng Wan relayed what she saw to Qin Zhou, “We didn’t dare wait in the news agency office so we ran out quickly.”
If you want to find the Rules of Death, you can start from the dead bodies.
After Qin Zhou asked where Zhou Qi’s body was, the three of them immediately walked into the building.
At this point in time, some people had already come to work. They didn’t know what the extra NPCs would do with Zhou Qi’s body so they ran to get there first.
When the three of them reached the floor where Zhou Qi had died, they ran into the building’s security guards, who were dealing with Zhou Qi’s body.
This encounter revealed a trace of weirdness; this trace of weirdness that completely separated this place from the real world.
The two security guards were putting Zhou Qi into a body bag, their expressions completely numb as if they often dealt with such things and no longer made a fuss about them.
Qin Zhou stopped them but the security guards didn’t grow angry. They said as though it were the most natural thing in the world, “Then we’ll leave this to you. Don’t forget to throw it in the trash can downstairs.”
NPCs treated dead participants as garbage.
And the NPCs had been set by the 4-4 Monster. Based on the NPCs’ attitude, it could be seen that the 4-4 Monster disdained the participants.
Lin Yi glanced at the corpse. Just like in every previous Rule World, the dead participant showed him a ferocious smile.
This time was no exception.
Qin Zhou and Ren Li’s attention was caught by what Zhou Qi had in his hand and neither noticed Lin Yi’s situation.
Zhou Qi was holding something and Qin Zhou pulled it out of his hand.
It was the article he’d written about the serial killer, Shunxi. It seemed that Zhou Qi had rushed to get it out last night.
Qin Zhou looked over the blood-stained article a couple of times. He then threw it onto the conference table, focusing now on the wounds on the corpse.
Ren Li looked around at the meeting room where the participants had slept last night.
The conference room was the one where the meeting had been held yesterday. There were traces of the participants’ presence around the room.
Lin Yi also immediately checked the door lock. There was no sign of the door having been picked, which ruled out the possibility that someone snuck in and committed the murder while the other participants were asleep.
Actually, there hadn’t been any need to look at the door lock to rule out that possibility.
The seven participants were all staying in the same room. It would have been difficult for someone to kill Zhou Qi without the other participants finding out.
The conference room couldn’t have been where Zhou Qi died.
The corpse had seventeen stab wounds and the incisions were wide and deep. Given such wounds, one stab would have already been sufficiently fatal. Qin Zhou said, “He couldn’t have had the strength to return to his work station and lie on his stomach after being stabbed. He also showed no signs of struggle. It was like he’d just quietly died at his work station.”
The place where he was killed couldn’t have been the meeting room and definitely not at his work station…
This had become a paradox.
While Qin Zhou and Ren Li were pondering the matter, Lin Yi whispered, “Senior, Ren Li Ge, I know what’s going on.”
Qin Zhou and Ren Li looked at him. Lin Yi cleared his throat and said, “He died in a time rewind.”
Ren Li asked, “A time rewind?”
“Yes.” Lin Yi recounted what had happened to him last night. “The Rule of Death must be hidden in the time rewind and it had been Zhou Qi and I who were approached by the Rules of Death last night. I was luckier and didn’t violate any Rules of Death while in the time rewind.”
Lin Yi glanced at Zhou Qi’s corpse, “Senior, Ren Li Ge, I think that before we look for the Rules of Death, we must first find what triggers the time rewinds.”
Qin Zhou asked, “Why do you say that?”
“He and I both went back in time last night, but I didn’t see Zhou Qi in my time rewind. He’s dead while I’m still alive. I think Zhou Qi and I experienced two different time rewinds.” Lin Yi took two pens from the conference table and placed them in front of Qin Zhou and Ren Li. He used these two pens as an example. “The time rewind I experienced was to a certain day in the past, March 7th ten years ago. The trigger must have been the cat in Cen Qian’s house. Only I slept with the cat last night. Senior and Ren Li Ge didn’t. The time rewind I experienced is also related to the cat.”
When he said this, Lin Yi touched the red pen on his left.
“Zhou Qi went back in time to another day in the past.” After speaking, Lin Yi touched the black pen on his right hand. “Just like these two pens, they are both pens, but their ink colors are different. In terms of time rewind, Zhou Qi and I both experienced time rewinds but the contents are different. Zhou Qi violated the rules of death in his time rewind. So if we want to figure out the Rule of Death, we must know that Zhou Qi did to trigger this time rewind. Once we find the trigger, we should also be able to go back to the past that Zhou Qi experienced and then we’ll find the Rules of Death.”
Why would the cat be the trigger? Cen Qian already recognized Lin Yi as the person who saved him as soon as they met, before the cat was even seen
I think it’s because of the cat that they met, if it weren’t for the cat Cen Qian, he wouldn’t have crossed the road, and Lin Yi wouldn’t have saved him.
Yes, but that doesn’t make sense to me as the trigger, since he recognized Lin Yi BEFORE Lin Yi ever saw the cat. That implies to me that the time loop event was either preordained from the start regardless of whether Lin Yi slept with the cat or not, or there was another trigger
The rule is probably “don’t create a time paradox”. If Lin Yi had failed to save Cen Qian in his time rewind then he’d have broken the rule and be killed. Or at least that makes the most sense to me.
+1
I completely agree. You are so smart~ ^•^
👍🏻 i agree with your analysis
I agree with that, and I think that if he saved him too early and his leg wasn’t run over it also would have broken the rules by causing a parodox– thus why someone bumped into him and prevented him from moving too early
Oh yes he couldn’t save him earlier either I didn’t think of that-
Little genius 👏
it’s probably doing actions that would change the future? if lin yi didn’t save cen qian last night he would probably have violated the rule of death maybe
Thank you for the update ❤️💯
Is deviating from what is supposed to happen in the time rewind a rule of death? Lin Yi completed what was supposed to happen (ie saving the boy) so he is alive but the other guy is not?