Rules-related weird stories: 4016

Chapter 79: "Paths"

Lin Yi nodded in deep agreement, recalling everything that had happened after the classroom lights went out.

"By the way, did the sports students tell you all this?"

"Yes."

"But... why would the sports students tell you all that? The sports students I encountered only told me not to think!"

"I'm not sure about that," Tian Bufan shrugged. "Maybe... you look dumber?"

"..."

«You have been slain!»

Lin Yi was instantly choked with frustration, but he couldn't help but ask, "But, they told you way too much, didn't they?"

"They told me a lot because I asked a lot!" Tian Bufan said speechlessly. "You have to ask! If you don't ask, what are they going to tell you?"

«Double kill!!»

"..."

"I did ask!" Lin Yi said. "But they told me that the secrets of this campus are like a magnetic field. Once I step into the field, my perception will be subverted and shattered. If I can't rebuild my perception, I'm doomed."

"There's nothing wrong with saying that," Tian Bufan nodded, looking at Lin Yi with a faint smile. "But the magnetic field theory, while interesting, doesn't apply to us."

"Ask yourself, even if you knew all this, wouldn't you still have stepped into this magnetic field? Could you have avoided stepping into it?"

"Don't be naive, Lao Lin."

"Our inspiration dictates that we have already stepped into the magnetic field from the moment we entered the campus."

Lin Yi was nailed to the bed by Tian Bufan's words.

Tian Bufan continued, "They told me something similar, but I told them that I was prepared to enter this magnetic field, so they told me."

«Trible kill!!»

"..."

"So..." Lin Yi's tone was a little dry, "You were prepared for this kind of realization from the beginning?"

"'Realization'?" Tian Bufan sneered. "Are you kidding me? Have you forgotten that I'm not here to 'live miserably for seven days'? I came here with the intention of 'exploring' from the start."

«Quadra kill!!!!»

"Hiss..." Lin Yi gasped, suddenly realizing that, facing the eerie campus, Tian Bufan, who actively overwrites his perception from the beginning, had a much easier time accepting it than someone like him, who passively had his perception overwritten!

"So... the sports students told you everything?"

"Maybe they're just happy to have a sports student of the same kind," Tian Bufan said.

"A sports student of the same kind?! I swear! Are you really planning to stay here and not leave?" Lin Yi asked, both surprised and worried.

Tian Bufan glanced at him, a smile playing on his lips. "Oh... how did you know that becoming a 'sports student' means you can't leave?"

Lin Yi was stunned.

«That's right, why would I think that?»

«Strange...»

«That's really strange...»

"Probably because... sports students don't have student IDs?" Lin Yi said.

"That's right, sports students don't have student IDs, so they can't leave the campus through conventional means."

"So... you're really not planning to leave?"

"How could I not leave? We agreed to leave together before we came, so of course, no one can stay behind."

"Then why do you want to be a sports student?"

"If I didn't say that, how could they tell me the information I want to know?"

«Panta kill!!!!!» Lin Yi's expression changed drastically, feeling like he had suddenly become incredibly stupid.

Tian Bufan took a deep breath and said earnestly, "Lao Lin, you have to admit that we can't escape the attraction of the layers. Since we can't avoid it, we can only find a 'path'."

"In a place like this, information is above everything else."

"Only by mastering enough information and deducing useful paths can we seize the initiative, right?"

"'Paths'?" Lin Yi said in a deep voice, "What 'paths' do you want to know?"

Tian Bufan tapped the table, his eyes slightly lowered, giving off a sense of strategic planning. He said unhurriedly, "Including but not limited to..."

"One, the paths between different buildings on campus."

"Two, the floating and sinking paths of a single building between different layers."

"And..."

"Three, the conversion paths between experience students, sports students, art students, and other 'identities' or units on campus."

Lin Yi's scalp suddenly tightened, feeling a tingling sensation. "I can understand the first two, but what does the third one mean? Identity conversion?"

"The sports students told me," Tian Bufan said. "Changing from experience students like us to sports students or art students is considered a path."

"Have you played games before?"

"Do you understand 'leveling up' and 'job change'?"

"The activity range of experience students is equivalent to the 'newbie village', staying on the 'surface layer' of the campus. After seven days, they will force you to drop out."

"And after changing to other 'identities', the corresponding activity range and 'layers' are expanded, allowing you to use certain professional characteristics to move in the 'inner layers' of the campus."

"Our situation is very dangerous because the 'sense of boundaries' is very vague for us in the newbie village. So, once we cross the line, all we can do is cross the boundary in time to return to the newbie village, or... master a new identity and gain the ability to act in the 'inner layers'."

"Or rather... 'rights'."

"Of course, I don't know how to operate this kind of path conversion specifically, and, judging from the situation of the sports students, it seems very difficult to convert back."

"Moreover, if you become an art student, the situation will be far worse than imagined."

"In short, for safety reasons, I don't plan to risk myself until I figure out the 'path'. I will only conduct some probes and attempts within the scope that I can control."

A row of "..." slowly appeared on Lin Yi's forehead. Tian Bufan's words used the "game theory" he had proposed earlier to express himself, so Lin Yi could understand and fully comprehend them.

But what made him feel confused was—«Damn! Xu Shunkang and the others only told me not to overthink! But they told Tian Gongzi everything!»

Lin Yi felt like his whole person was going numb.

Why is there such a huge gap between people?!

"Wait! So you can think about problems late at night?" Lin Yi asked unwillingly.

He had only "simply" thought about a tiny bit of a problem, and it almost caused a big problem.

"I just simply thought about some things standing on the shoulders of others," Tian Bufan glanced at Lin Yi with a flat expression.

«'Simply thinking'? Please! That's all I wanted to say!» Lin Yi complained frantically.

But in the end, he could only swallow his anger in silence.

"Okay..."

"Let's talk about the path thing after you figure it out. Let's talk about the art students, I mean... the fight between the sports students and them last night."

"Okay," Tian Bufan nodded slightly. "I just told you that after entering the classroom, I briefly observed the situation of the students and then chatted with the sports students to obtain some information."

"The sports students told me that the fog was too thick last night, and we (experience students) couldn't return to the dormitory, so we could only study in the classroom until the next day."

"They also told me that in abnormal weather, the lights in the classroom often go out."

Lin Yi nodded slightly, listening silently. However, he soon discovered that the methods the PE students told Tian Bufan about turning off the classroom lights were different from what the class teacher and even Xu Shunkang had told Lin Yi!

First, Tian Bufan's class teacher also came to the classroom around 21:00 to call the roll, and then left the classroom after 21:30 and locked the door.

Secondly, the PE students in Tian Bufan's class... did not leave the classroom.

After the classroom was locked, Tian Bufan's PE student classmates very forcefully told them: if the classroom lights started flickering later, either immediately crawl under the desks or hide next to the PE students.

Obviously, Tian Bufan chose to stand next to the PE students.

That's how he witnessed a battle between the PE students and the art students.

"To be precise, there were two groups fighting. The PE students and the normal art students were on the same side, and the other side was the abnormal art students and people who didn't belong to the school."

Lin Yi asked in confusion, "The normal art students and the abnormal art students... aren't they on the same side?"

Tian Bufan said, "Normal things are one camp, and abnormal things are another camp. Can you understand it now?"

The latest novels are available on Liu-9-Shu-Ba!

"I understand... I'm just surprised that art students are divided into two categories."

"What's so surprising about that? People also have good and evil, right and wrong. It's just that the good and evil of art students are more extreme on campus."

Lin Yi thought of the killing mechanism of the 'not right' classmates and asked suspiciously, "You stared at those things that weren't classmates. Weren't you attacked by them?"

Tian Bufan said, "Thirty-three PE students plus fifteen normal art students, dealing with thirty abnormal art students and things that aren't human, whether it's the number of people or the combat power, it's overwhelming. They simply didn't have time to care about me."

Lin Yi was shocked. A picture even appeared in his mind.

Last night, it was pouring rain outside the window, thunder rumbled in the sky, and a flash of lightning illuminated the darkened classroom.

Tian Bufan stood calmly in a corner, calmly, indifferently, and composedly watching everything that happened in the classroom.

He was like a cold robot, calculating everything through indifferent observation.

And everything seemed to be under his control.

Just imagining that scene would make Lin Yi feel a suffocating and terrifying rationality from Tian Bufan.

A kind of almost pure and restrained rationality.

However, Tian Bufan didn't describe the details of that battle to Lin Yi in too much detail.

Until Lin Yi said, "Last night, something entered our classroom. What about you? Did your classroom have it?"

"Yes, it did."

Lin Yi was shocked and quickly asked, "Did you see clearly what it was?"

"I saw it, but not clearly enough."

"So... what was it?"

Tian Bufan was silent for two seconds, and then slowly uttered two words: "...Sculpture."

"Sculp... ture?! Is it the kind of sculpture I understand... or the kind of angel sculpture mentioned in the gymnasium rules?"

"It shouldn't be an angel sculpture. It's just a human-shaped sculpture," Tian Bufan added, "A full-body sculpture."

Lin Yi was shocked in place. Another picture appeared in his mind—

In the dim moonlight, in the dense fog, a sculpture walked over the cobblestone ground. Its feet rubbed against the cobblestone ground, making a "shasha" sound.

It climbed the steps, using a perverted method to polish its plaster-like fingers, turning them into the shape of a key, and then slowly inserted it into the keyhole...

It twisted its fingers, and the lock tongue made a "kaka..." sound.

Then, it slowly opened the door.

"Creak—"

It saw Tian Bufan.

Tian Bufan also saw it.

"Hiss..."

Lin Yi suddenly shivered, and the "hallucination" in front of him disappeared instantly.

"So the plaster-like substance left in the keyhole was originally from the sculpture!"

"Those things... can transform back and forth between plaster-like substances and ketchup?"

"The class teacher was trying to stop them from entering the classroom last night?"

"It wasn't until the security guard appeared that they were completely driven away?"

From Tian Bufan's words, Lin Yi obtained a crucial piece of the puzzle, and this piece directly pieced together part of the truth last night!

"What are you thinking about?" Tian Bufan asked.

Lin Yi told Tian Bufan about the things he had encountered.

"Blood can turn into ketchup, and ketchup can turn into plaster in the sun?" Tian Bufan showed an interested expression, but Lin Yi got another piece of information from his eyes—he already knew this.

"Young Master Tian got so much information in just one day? How did he do it?"

Sometimes, he also felt incredible.

Tian Bufan said, "Do you remember the transformation path I mentioned to you?"

Lin Yi nodded.

"I mentioned the two concepts of 'identity' and 'unit'."

"From a holistic point of view, all things with independent activity can be called 'units'. People like us who have 'identity' that can be proven belong to one type of unit, and things like sculptures that don't have 'identity' also belong to one type of unit."

"PE students are, art students are, and class teachers and teachers are also a type of unit."

"Between units, there are relationships of 'hostility' or 'assistance', or 'independence'."

"And obviously, the sculpture, as a member of the abnormal unit, will pose a great threat to us."

"PE students and class teachers will provide some help to the experiencers, and even protect our safety to a certain extent."

"Do you remember what the student rules said?"

"[All the sculptures on campus are busts, and they are all kept in the art building]." Although the words 'art building' have been smeared out, you can still see them clearly if you look closely.

"The person who made the rules obviously wanted us to know this and maintain a certain vigilance towards the 'art building', so they used the method of smearing it out but not completely smearing it clean."

The student rules are printed uniformly. If they really didn't want people to know, they could have deleted it completely instead of using the method of smearing it out specifically to express it.

"Combining the statement that art students have normal and abnormal types, I came to a conclusion—the sculptures on campus are a biological unit that can move freely under certain circumstances, and they are stored in the art building."

"However, when the layers of the campus fluctuate, they will leave the art building that is not marked on the map and invade other buildings."

"And normal art students, PE students, etc., have the ability to resist them to a certain extent."

"The above is my deduction. I think the accuracy rate is as high as ninety-nine percent."

Thank you to book friend "Chuan Ya Ming" for the reward!!