Rubik’s Cube

Chapter 67

What to do? The red room that was originally their the only way that would ensure their safety was gone.

This situation was very frustrating.

“What—to—do—?”

Duan Wen opened his mouth and mouthed those words. Those three words were easily understood by the others without needing the transmission of sound.

Everyone knew very well inside that their only two options left were the blue rooms on the left and right sides.

The grey rooms were definitely not an option because grey was on the opposite side of blue.

And as for the rooms with the blue balls, it was the same colour as the room they were in now —- Not every same-coloured room had a time difference. They had managed to enter same coloured rooms safely purely based on luck before.

With the current situation, the chance of entering a blue room with a time difference was fifty-fifty.

Their delayed movements made them irritable.

In this room where speed had slowed down, every attempt to move or talk was slow and awkward.

There was no need for pointless talk.

Duan Wen slowly untied the necklace around his neck. It was something issued internally during Tianqiong’s ten-year anniversary. Duan Wen had used a bit of effort to find this one. Right now, he wanted to use it to test the blue room and see if it would be cut into two pieces as a result of the time difference like how it happened to Morita Yu.

Duan Wen threw the necklace at the tallest Song Qinglan who stood in the centre holding the blue ball.

The necklace flew through the air, the ten-year anniversary commemorative symbol shone brightly under the bright lights.

Song Qinglan caught the necklace. With a ‘beep—’ a round hole on the right wall opened. Song Qinglan climbed up the ladder and threw it with great strength into the blue room on the right.

The trajectory of the necklace through the air was extremely slow.

Everyone looked over. They only saw it fall at a speed that was difficult to see as soon as it passed through the hole.

The crisp sound they were expecting to hear when it hits the ground wasn’t heard.

Song Qinglan frowned.

As soon as the necklace entered the blue room on the right, it had disintegrated into shiny powder before disappearing into the air.

If anyone rashly entered the room, the consequence was unimaginable.

He got off the ladder and shook his head at the others, “No——-”

Everyone opened their mouths slightly. Micro expressions that were typically difficult to detect normally had been slowed down by time so everyone could see each other’s true reaction at this very moment. Including Ji Yushi, none of them didn’t feel fear facing such a situation.

There was still a room with a blue ball on the left.

They had to use something to test it out. Duan Wen shook his head to indicate that he had nothing on him that could be thrown.

Unlike other countries, guns and knives were controlled in their country. Even Tianqiong’s Guardians were not given weapons until they reached their mission destination. After they got out of their capsules, they had entered Rubik’s Cube directly without bringing any of the weapons they had brought along with them so none of them had things that could be thrown away.

Throw the communicator? Or their shoe or clothes?

Ji Yushu took out his box of medicine from his picket.

There was also a game console but it was impossible for him to throw that. He could try it with the medicine.

Everyone watched him throw his box of medicine to Song Qinglan.

The medicine box spun slowly in the air before it was received by Song Qinglan.

The moment it reached Song Qinglan’s hands, he noticed that the weight of it didn’t feel right. In the bookstore in PU-31, he had held the medicine box when it was still full.

Song Qinglan climbed up the ladder on the left wall and opened the box of medicine with his back towards the others.

He glanced at it and then turned back.

Like Duan Wen and Lin Xinlan, he saw Ji Yushi standing below looking up at him. His eyes were calm and as usual he seemed to be the calmest and most sensible one.

In the medicine box, three neatly arranged pills were missing. Sure enough, just as Song Qinglan had expected, those twenty or so hours spent alone in the red room wasn’t as simple as how Ji Yushi had made it out to be.

Song Qinglan took out a pill.

He threw it into the room with the blue ball.

The pill was very small. His eyes locked onto it tightly. He watched it fall to the ground — It bounced off the ground a few times but it was still intact.

Song Qinglan returned to his senses and gestured to everyone that it was okay.

The people here however didn’t breathe a sigh of relief. Medicine pills were not living while people were living beings. Would the time difference affect them differently as a result of this? They couldn’t be certain.

The blue ball bounced back to its original position. It floated in the air, waiting for everyone to make their decision.

In that case, who should they send into the room first?

Lin Xinlan took out a dice from his pocket: “This——–”

Song Qinglan narrowed his eyes.

This person, why didn’t he throw something as useless as a dice if he had it on him?

Everyone negotiated slowly and succinctly. By throwing a dice, the person with the smallest number would enter the room first.

Lin Xinlan threw first. He threw a four.

It wasn’t too large or too small. It was relatively safe.

Lin Xinlan smiled.

Immediately after him was Duan Wen. Duan Wen threw a 5, a very safe number. He however didn’t act very pleased and just threw the dice to Song Qinglan.

Song Qinglan casually tossed it. The dice fell into his palm. It was a 2.

Lin Xinlan stored away his smile. Duan Wen frowned. This may probably be the smallest number.

The last person was Ji Yushi.

The speed of the dice falling was very slow. The numbers constantly changed, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1….Because of the height, the dice not only flipped once, it continued to change. The moment it fell back into Ji Yushi’s hand, Song Qinglan next to him had already stretched out his hand to cover it.

Ji Yushi was surprised.

Song Qinglan hooked his lips. He took the dice.

“3—–” Song Qinglan mouthed, “I’m—-the—-small—est—-”

“Cap—–Song—–” Duan Wen called out to him. He probably thought that Song Qinglan was more valuable as a captain and wanted to volunteer himself.

Song Qinglan motioned for Duan Wen to take the ball and open the door.

He didn’t seem to accept any complaints. Duan Wen had no choice but to oblige.

Song Qinglan climbed up the ladder and moved towards the round entrance.

Ji Yushi watched him without blinking. With the scene of Morita Yu’s death replaying in his mind, his palm and forehead was sweaty.

The moment Song Qinglan’s upper body leaned into the room, he subconsciously closed his eyes.

“Come—–here—–”

A familiar voice sounded. Originating from the other room, it slowly reached their ears.

Ji Yushi opened his eyes. He saw Song Qinglan appearing at the hole completely unharmed. His movements had returned to normal.

That room was safe!

As if they had won the first prize in a lottery, everyone came back to life in an instant. One by one, they climbed the ladder and left the damned room.

*

The moment they stepped into the new room and landed on the ground, everyone’s first thought was: Too fast!!

Having experienced time that was slow to the point that it was infuriating, as soon as they returned to a place where speed was normal, they were a little caught off guard. The old man Duan Wen was so uncoordinated, he almost faceplanted onto the ground!

The sound and speed had all returned to normal.

Duan Wen cursed, “Fuck, fuck fuck! We’re finally out!!”

Lin Xinlan supported himself against the wall as soon as he landed, “Wait a minute, I need time to adapt. This place isn’t accelerated, is it?!”

Duan Wen, “Advisor Ji, how are you?”

As if popping out of a vacuum, everyone collapsed onto the ground and caught their breaths.

Ji Yushi said, “I’m fine.”

Song Qinglan seemed to have adapted to the change without much trouble. He had already circled around the room once and had even picked up Ji Yushi’s pill from the ground. He however just looked at it before throwing it away again. There were no marks in this room. It looks like no one else had been here before. There were no abnormalities.

“The appearance of that group of idiots reminded me of a problem.” Song Qinglan said. “It was something that we probably thought of before but had overlooked.”

Having reached this point, Song Qinglan threw the dice in his hand to Lin Xinlan.

The dice fell smoothly into Lin Xinlan’s hands without much trouble. It was clear that the other party was a little dissatisfied with Lin Xinlan not taking his dice out earlier.

Lin Xinlan tightened his grip around the dice. A smile holding unknown meaning lingering fleetingly at his lips.

Duan Wen asked, “What’s the problem?”

Song Qinglan said, “Advisor Ji must’ve already thought of it.”

Ji Yushi who was suddenly pointed out raised his head. His eyes met Song Qinglan’s and his heart pounded lightly inside.

The emotions in the other party’s dark eyes were still the same as usual. It was the look a captain should have when facing their teammate.

However, only Ji Yushi knew what happened just now.

When it was his turn to throw the dice, the moment the dice fell into his palm, he had clearly seen that the side facing up was 1.

Ji Yushi was actually the one who had rolled the smallest number.

He should’ve been the first to enter this room to determine whether it was safe for the others.

Why did Song Qinglan do that?

Why lie to everyone?

Could it be that he felt that him staying behind was more meaningful than himself? If anything were to happen, he felt that Ji Yushi could lead everyone to complete the mission?

This matter was like a secret only the two knew. Song Qinglan didn’t seem to have any intentions to mention it so Ji Yushi also didn’t say anything. It was just that if something like this was to happen again, he didn’t want it to be like this. He didn’t think that he was someone that needed to be protected.

Ji Yushi stood up. He naturally patted off the non-existent dust from his hands and said, “Yes, I’ve thought of it.”

Duan Wen was confused, “What is it?”

Lin Xinlan also looked over at them.

“In addition to the four of us, there are not only our teammates who have separated from us, but also other Guardians.” Ji Yushi explained, “We already know that every time someone leaves, the room they were in would move. If that was the case, even if we figure out the laws behind how the rooms moved, we may still encounter a situation where the room is moved by others.”

Duan Wen belatedly realised that this was indeed the case, “You’re right! Fuck, that really is a big problem!”

Lin Xinlan said, “So you’re saying that even if we want to join the rooms, there is a chance that the arranged rooms would be disrupted by others.”

The three of them fell silent for a while.

Lin Xinlan was a smart person. Even if they didn’t directly explain that the so-called ‘joining’ meant arranging the rooms in order, it was something that he would discover sooner or later.

“You don’t have to have your guard up against me.” Lin Xinlan said, “As long as I can get out, I don’t mind not completing the mission. The reward doesn’t interest me, isn’t it the same for you guys?”

Except for the seventh squad, the rest of the traversers were only temporarily hijacked to make up the numbers.

Lin Xinlan was unaware of the seventh squad’s predicaments and thought that they were in a similar situation and would hence share the same thoughts.

Song Qinglan didn’t answer this question directly and just said, “Yes, when there are multiple squads here at the same time, arranging the rooms in order is close to impossible.”

Duan Wen, “Then what should we do? Find them one by one and get them to stay where they are?”

Ji Yushi shook his head, “It won’t work. It is impossible to know how many traversers are here in total.”

“Don’t worry about this problem for the time being.” Song Qinglan said, “When you have no idea, it’s best to just keep doing what you’ve been doing. We will follow the original plan. First, figure out the law behind the movement of the rooms. At least with this, we won’t be going around like headless flies.”

Everyone regained their spirits.

Duan Wen once again grabbed the ball floating in the air. The others checked the colours of the surrounding rooms.

Song Qinglan returned after checking two rooms and saw that Ji Yushi was making a mark.

This time, Ji Yushi didn’t use Big Beards unknown language and just wrote a large ‘2’ on the wall.

Song Qinglan asked, “This is?”

Ji Yushi answered as he wrote, “I have a general idea of the pattern of movement. From leaving to moving, the changes of the rooms should correspond to: top – right, bottom – left, left – back, right – front, front – bottom, back – top. The six directions of movement corresponded to each other and still needed to be verified but based on the movement of those people just now, they should still be nearby.”

Song Qinglan now understood why Ji Yushi did that and his mood suddenly improved.

Sure enough, as soon as he was done with the ‘2’, Ji Yushi began to write a big ‘9’. The writing looked very familiar, “If they come to this room, they should be no more than five rooms away from the room just now.”

The room just now was marked ‘24’. It was left by that group of people.

If they came to this place and saw the ‘29’ that looked extremely realistic, what would their reaction be? If Ji Yushi was a little more ruthless, would he leave 25, 26 etc in the rooms they visit afterwards to mislead them?

Ji Yushi stepped back. He appeared very satisfied with his masterpiece.

Though his expression was serious. and nothing was revealed externally.

“Let’s go.” Ji Yushi was done paying them back, “Let’s go to the next room.”

They chose a new room with a red ball and got ready to use it to check out the grey rooms.

While climbing the ladder, it occurred to Ji Yushi that Song Qinglan hadn’t returned his medicine box.

He stopped and said to Song Qinglan below, “Cap Song, where’s my medicine box?”

As the captain, Song Qinglan would work behind the scenes to ensure everyone’s safety.

Upon hearing this request, he was unmoved and he even said to Ji Yushi as if he had heard a joke, “Advisor Ji, on behalf of the organisation, I have to tell you that your mental state has been overstimulated. The medicine box will be temporarily confiscated.”

Duan Wen’s voice sounded from the other room, “The organisation also deals with this?”

Song Qinglan found it amusing and bluntly answered, “Yes. The organisation also thinks that since you’re always so lifeless, you should take one.”