Rubik’s Cube

Chapter 64

Zoe in front of him took out her dagger and got ready to carve a number onto the ground.

But there was already a mark on the ground.

The three people who entered couldn’t see Ji Yushi, nor could they see the mark that was already carved onto the ground.

Ji Yushi stood behind Zoe and could clearly see her carve the number 11 over the already existing mark on the ground with her dagger.

Following that, Zoe stood up. Just like before, she took down the red ball floating in the air and pressed the switch.

They began to check the colour of the rooms surrounding this room.

After Morita Yu checked two, he went to the ladder on the left and shouted, “Red!”

Ji Yushi stood in place and watched ‘himself’ walk through him as he approached the ladder on the right.

He was like a ghost that shouldn’t exist and couldn’t be perceived. He turned and watched ‘himself’ climb up the ladder, “Red….Wait.”

They had discovered the head in the room on the right.

They then chose to go to the room on the left.

The actions and dialogue of the three of them had replayed once again. Morita Yu had once again died in the room on the left.

Ji Yushi watched the chaos that followed; Zoe’s disbelief and his own face turning pale. He watched ‘himself’ take his medication and then saw them test out the rooms with gum.

They were trapped in the room.

Ji Yushi was like an outsider as he watched everything replay. He then saw ‘himself’ walk over to the corner, sit down and start playing on his black and white console. Zoe on the other hand paced around the room before stopping and sitting down in daze with her eyes vacant.

What was going on?

After having so many bizarre and unbelievable experiences, Ji Yushi was able to remain calm while facing a situation like this.

The room he was in seemed to start from the moment they entered and end at the moment Zoe left, and everything was replayed. If that was the case, what happened to the rooms with the red balls on the right and left side?

Ji Yushi took down the ball in the room — After removing it, there was still another one floating in the air. It was the one from several hours ago. He tried to touch it, but his hand just went through it like how ‘himself’ went through him.

This meant that they didn’t exist at the same time.

Carrying the ball, Ji Yushi climbed up the ladder on the left.

He opened the hole leading to the room on the left and saw that Morita Yu’s body was still lying there. Morita Yu’s head was also still there in the room on the right. The yellow ball in the room above however had changed into a room with a green ball.

Ji Yushi checked all six rooms.

From the order of top, bottom, left, right, front and back, it had changed yellow, green, red, red, blue and blue to blue, blue, red, red, green and blue. That is to say, except for the two rooms on the right and left, all the other rooms had changed to blue or green.

This change had occurred because Zoe left the room. Every time someone went from one room to another, the original room would move.

And so, the rooms around the one Ji Yushi was in had undergone some changes.

Ji Yushi noticed that, of the six rooms around him, except for the red rooms on the right and left, all the other four rooms had changed.

He stopped in place and his mind worked quickly as he tried to put the pieces of the puzzle together.

Ji Yushi noticed that if he put the unchanged rooms; left room, the room he was in and the right room, into a line, the current situation was like the entire line he was on had advanced a step to the left or right.

Sure enough, in Rubik’s Cube, just as he had said to Morita Yu and Zoe before, each time they moved, it wasn’t just a single room moving, but rooms that are connected to the room either vertically or horizontally moving together.

But what was the law behind this movement?

Ji Yushi for now wasn’t sure.

But this change in the rooms had given Ji Yushi a clue.

The so-called ‘joining’. Could it be referring to joining these rooms together by making use of the way it moved? If he understood how these rooms moved, it shouldn’t be too difficult putting together rooms of the same colour.

But there was a time difference between rooms of the same colour. If one entered a room of the same colour but with a time difference, the same thing as what happened to Morita Yu could happen to them. If that was the case…..Did they have to put the rooms of the same colour together in a certain order?

A new problem had come up.

He had enough patience. He needed to continue thinking.

Ji Yushi stayed in the room alone. Apart from the sound of Zoe from several hours ago fiddling with her dagger, there were no other sounds in the room.

His ‘other self’ was still sitting against the wall, playing Tetris.

Perhaps it was because the time in the room was fixed within a certain period of time, Ji Yushi didn’t feel tired or hungry. In this room, it was as if his bodily functions and state was fixed.

Nearly five hours later, Zoe opened the door to the room with the green ball below and left.

When she opened the door, Ji Yushi watched another door open at the same time and then saw a second group of them come in.

He subconsciously looked towards the corner of the room. His ‘self’ from the first group was gone.

His new ‘self’ jumped off the ladder.

The new Zoe began to carve the number ‘11’ onto the floor.

The new Morita Yu was decapitated in the room on the left.

As someone who had completed 89 Recorder missions, Ji Yushi was a perfect bystander. He watched the second group of them like a bystander watching history replay and he could remember everything they did as well as every word they said.

Ji Yushi wasn’t able to reach a conclusion despite all that pondering.

He didn’t know how long he had been here. After the second group was gone, he saw a third group and then a fourth group.

The numerous repetitions. The seemingly endless wait. It wasn’t because of Ji Yushi’s cowardice.

He just really wanted to win.

The so-called ‘Tianqiong of all eras’ had said that after they completed all the missions it had prepared, they not only would be able to return to their own time and space, but they would also be given a reward so as long as it didn’t affect their timeline.

Of course, when they return to their own time and space afterwards, Ji Yushi would also be rewarded for his accomplishments as a Recorder. Ji Yushi however wasn’t certain whether everything that happened in the hijacking would be recognised by the Tianqiong in his current era. If everything that had happened couldn’t be recognised, he would need to complete the A-level task again and then wait for evaluation —– With all the procedures, it would be a long and tedious process and there would also be a lot of conditions that needed to be met.

As such, Ji Yushi not only wanted to return, but he also wanted this reward.

The Zoe in front of him left the room.

At the same time, a new group of them arrived.

Ji Yushi calmly watched them repeat the death and panic as he performed his calculations on the holographic projection from his communicator.

When he was very young, Ji Yushi had experienced a wait much longer than this.

He had a lot of patience. Just like that time when he wrote Fibonacci sequences from the ceiling to the floor for two days straight, he drew diagrams, wrote formulas, and listed out several possibilities.

This new group of them tested the rooms with gum.

His ‘other self’ asked, “Zoe, Morita said that the ball in the room where Chuck entered and died in was yellow?”

Zoe said, “Yes. Did you think of something?”

Hearing this exchange, Ji Yushi’s act of writing on his holographic projection stopped. He looked at the drawing of a Rubik’s Cube drawn by him on his left.

The room where Chuck died in was yellow.

Before Zoe left, there was a room with a yellow ball above, but it had now become blue.

Ji Yushi clearly remembered that they had also encountered rooms with yellow balls surrounding the rooms they walked through. As they moved, it seemed to be decreasing and at present, there were no yellow rooms around him.

The Rubik’s Cube drawn on the holographic projection had six faces. If the colours of each face are different, he had seen a total of five different colours now. The colours were: red, green, blue, purple and yellow. The last colour was unknown.

He retraced their steps: purple was only seen once, yellow was becoming fewer, red was always around, and there were more of green and blue. Right now, all of his surrounding rooms had become blue or green.

These changes, coupled with how they had advanced and the law behind the rooms moving, allowed him to reach an important point: He was approaching a point where blue, red and green existed at the same time, as if approaching the place where three sides of the Rubik’s Cube met, and he was getting further and further away from the yellow rooms.

Ji Yushi marked these colours on the Rubik’s Cube.

He was surprised to discover that —- The yellow side of the Rubik’s Cube and the unknown-coloured side, one of the two faces must not be adjacent to the red side.

Entering the yellow room would lead to death.

Did that mean that because the yellow and red faces are not adjacent to each other, one cannot cross through between the two rooms hence the consequence of death?

Zoe had chosen to go through the green room. Was she still alive?

Ji Yushi stood up. He retrieved the ball again.

He currently only had two choices; blue or green.

Even if he continued to wait around, those two colours would not change. He could only make his choice now.

Both the blue and green were adjacent to red.

Ji Yushi opened the door to the blue room

He climbed up the ladder step by step and entered the hole.

He glanced back into the room and saw that his ‘other self’ had returned to the corner of the room and was playing on his game console while Zoe paced around the room.

They would repeat endlessly in this room where time was fixed.

Ji Yushi went into the room. The red ball in his hand seemed to be attracted by a strange force. It immediately bounced back to its original position and the door closed behind Ji Yushi. He had arrived safely in the room with the blue coloured ball.

Just as he was about to remove the blue ball to check the colours of the surrounding rooms, Ji Yushi heard a ‘beep—-’ behind him.

Someone jumped off the ladder.

Before Ji Yushi had the chance to see who had arrived, he found himself pushed back a few steps and his entire body collided against the wall.

A familiar scent reached him. For a moment, he was in disbelief.

A deep voice was fierce, “Ji Yushi!”

He looked up.

As if a long time had passed, the Song Qinglan in front of him had some stubble on his chin and looked a little unkept.

Song Qinglan looked down at him. The emotions in his dark eyes were unclear. Seemingly out of frustration, he asked, “Where have you been?”