Global Collapse

Chapter 879 Oops
The three groups seem to have turned their luck around, landing on coin squares for two consecutive squares.

007 relayed the action directions of other groups in real time during the group chat.

“Now the pieces of Group 3 are only one square away from the starting room of Group 4. It’s a trap square.” Liu Ruyan looked at the message 007 sent in the group chat. “Group 3 entered the trap square two rounds ago. In the next round, it will still be one square. In the next round, the pieces of Group 3 cannot move up. Otherwise, they will be stuck in the trap square. The player should order the pieces to go around to the left.”

Gu Mian looked at the shared death square that the second group had just entered: "We've seen quite a few repeated squares so far, so I think there's more than one shared death square on the board. Maybe one of the unlucky groups will enter a shared death square in the next move."

“The three groups have finished their operations, and only the fourth group hasn’t started yet.” Liu Ruyan thought about the current location of the fourth group. “The fourth group is right next to us, separated only by a wall.”

As she spoke, she looked at the wall on her left. Beyond this wall was the room where the four sets of chess pieces were located.

"He will most likely move into our room," Liu Ruyan guessed. "Now, the four sets of pieces are stuck with the Truth Ghost, and each round they need to guess the number of moves they will make in the next round. If he turns into our room and moves to the first square, the number of moves for the next three rounds will be one, which is equivalent to avoiding the gambling for the next three rounds."

Gu Mian nodded: "It is indeed the best choice for the four groups of chess pieces to come to our room, but the premise is that their players roll a one this time. If they roll a two..."

If you roll a two, you won't stop at the first square when you walk towards them; instead, you'll directly cross the room and enter the next unknown room.

Gu Mian set the room where their group was located to the top left corner, and then discovered something interesting.

The square where he and Liu Ruyan are located, the square where the four groups of pieces to their right are located, and the square where the three groups of pieces on the far right are located are now in the same horizontal row.

The square where he and Liu Ruyan were located was right next to the squares where the four groups of pieces were located to the right, and there was an empty square between the squares where the four groups of pieces were located and the squares where the three groups of pieces were located to the far right.

This means that regardless of whether the four groups of players roll a 1 or a 2, they can move their pieces into the rooms where other groups of players have pieces.

If you roll a 1, you can move directly to the left into your current square.

If you roll a two, you can move two steps to the right to enter the coin square where the three sets of pieces are located.

You won't lose money no matter which way you move. Moving left will allow you to enter a small square, giving your pieces at least three more rounds of life. Moving right will allow you to enter a coin square with three groups of pieces, bringing the honest ghost with you.

The player in Group 3 most likely decided from the beginning to send his pieces directly to kill the player in Group 4. Since he had this idea from the start, he must have told his pieces about his plan before they left. Therefore, the pieces in Group 3 knew that they were tasked with killing the player in Group 4.

However, the four groups of players did not know the plans of the third group at the beginning, nor did the pieces of the fourth group.

Once the pieces are on the field, the player and the pieces cannot communicate with each other, so the four groups of pieces are unaware of the third group's scheme. Therefore, even if they move to the right into the room where the third group of pieces is now, they are unlikely to attack the other group.

However, the three groups of chess pieces with guilty consciences are different. After realizing that the visitor is the fourth group of chess pieces, he is very likely to launch an attack. If the fourth group of chess pieces dies in the room where the third group of chess pieces is located, the honesty ghost that fell from his body will then entangle the third group of chess pieces.

However, there is still a major premise.

No one knows how many moves the four sets of pieces guessed in the previous round.

Once a piece is placed on the board, it does not communicate with the player who plays it, and the player does not know what number the piece guessed in the previous round. If the player guessed a two in the previous round but the player rolled a one, the piece will die in their current room after moving one step in that direction.

The Honest Ghost will then fall into this room.

If you roll a 1, it's absolutely impossible for Group 4 to roll down, because the room directly below Group 4 is the shared death grid that Group 3 just entered.

The player in the fourth group will only move forward if he or she wants to commit suicide with the pieces.

“Now the four groups are surrounded,” Liu Ruyan analyzed the current situation. “We are on the left, the treacherous three groups are on the right, and below us is the Shared Death Grid, which is doomed together. There’s also the Honest Ghost who could kill you at any moment. Someone even more unlucky than you has appeared.”

Gu Mian responded with a perfunctory "hehe".

At that moment, a figure suddenly appeared next to the left wall.

Gu Mian and Liu Ruyan looked in the direction the figure appeared at the same time and saw a middle-aged man of medium height with a square face.

Behind the middle-aged man was a tall, ghostly figure, the shadow of a giant, half white and half black.

Gu Mian immediately understood that these were the pieces from the four groups, and the players from the four groups had already made their choices.

The middle-aged man entered the room and didn't have time to pay attention to them. Instead, he looked at the other three walls and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that there were no doors on those three walls.

He seemed to sense something was wrong with his ankles, and looked down in confusion, only to see that his feet were already bound with shackles.

Then a description of the room appeared before him, and the man looked at it with a look of great joy.

There was no communication between the chess pieces and the player. He didn't know this was a small square before entering the room, which is why he has such a surprised expression now.

At this moment, the ghostly figure behind the man spoke in a hoarse and unpleasant voice: "Honest man, you have told me the truth. These one hundred game coins are your reward."

"So, honest man, please tell me how many steps you will advance in the next round?" The ghostly figure didn't give the man a moment to catch his breath and immediately began asking about the number of steps in the next round.

“One step! I’ll take one step next round!” the man hurriedly told the honest ghost.

The half-white, half-black ghostly figure behind him nodded: "I've got it. I hope it's an honest answer."

After saying this, the ghostly figure fell silent. The man finally breathed a sigh of relief and looked up at Gu Mian and Liu Ruyan inside the house. Actually, he had noticed there were two people in the house when he first entered, but at that time he was in a hurry to confirm whether he had guessed the number of steps in the previous round correctly, so he didn't pay attention to the two people in the house until now.

I don’t know, I’m scared.

"You, you?" Hao Laoshi looked at Gu Mian in surprise. "Why is it you again?"

“A familiar face,” Liu Ruyan chimed in. “You only recognize Gu Mian and not me?”

Upon seeing Liu Ruyan's face clearly, Hao Laoshi stammered even more: "You, you, you... how come there's someone like you..."

It's quite a coincidence that Gu Mian has run into Hao Laoshi five times since the beginning of the global gaming era.

Gu Mian first encountered Hao Laoshi in the Car Instructor's instance. At that time, besides herself, Chu Changge and Xiao Qiao were also in the instance. Back then, the instance's death protection mechanism hadn't been turned off yet, so dying in the instance wouldn't mean real death. When Chu Changge and Hao Laoshi were hiding from the ghost's pursuit, Chu Changge ruthlessly threw Hao Laoshi to the ghost and escaped himself. Of course, Gu Mian didn't know this at the time; it was only later, when she met Teacher Hao again, that he told her.

The second time I met Hao Laoshi was in the "University Ghost Stories" instance. Liu Ruyan was also there at the time, and that's probably when they met.

The third time we met was during a college entrance exam event, and the fourth time was during a death-themed video shoot.

This is the fifth time.

Chu Changge's ruthless behavior left an indelible impression on Hao Laoshi, so much so that every time he saw Chu Changge afterward, he would tremble and stutter in fear, his expression timid and hesitant, just like his expression now when facing Liu Ruyan.

"What's wrong?" Gu Mian looked at Hao Laoshi, who seemed so afraid of Liu Ruyan. "Did she throw you to the ghost too?"

"What do you mean, throw it to a ghost?" Liu Ruyan was unaware of the feud between Hao Laoshi and Chu Changge, and looked at Gu Mian with suspicion.

"No...no..." Hao Laoshi shook his head and walked away from Liu Ruyan, coming to Gu Mian's side.

The black and white ghostly figure moved over behind him; that was the Honest Ghost.

Gu Mian noticed that the black and white ghostly figure seemed to shrink considerably after it moved over.

Hao Laoshi glanced at Liu Ruyan fearfully a few times, then turned his eyes to Gu Mian with an expectant look: "It's you. I can't believe I met you here."

Having gone through so many dungeons with Gu Mian, Hao Laoshi already knew the correct way to use Gu Mian.

He knew that as long as he encountered this acquaintance in the dungeon, he could wait to receive the dungeon compensation.

What's with that expectant expression? Gu Mian felt a little uncomfortable under Hao Laoshi's gaze.

"It's so great to meet you in this instance. I thought I was going to die after a few more steps. You have no idea how scared I was when I moved just now, afraid that the number our chess player gave us this time would be different from the number of moves I guessed in the last round. But now I'm not scared at all... When are we leaving here?" Hao Laoshi revealed his true intentions after only a few words, as if he wished Gu Mian could dig a big hole in the chessboard right now so that the instance could kick them out.

Gu Mian glanced at the Honest Ghost behind Teacher Hao. At this moment, the Honest Ghost had changed from a huge ghostly figure to a short one, almost completely hidden behind Teacher Hao. It was completely different from its imposing presence when it first entered the room.

Gu Mian reached out and pulled out the black and white ghostly figure behind Hao Laoshi, then attached it to her own back.

Why not take advantage of free game currency?

The ghost struggled a couple of times, seemingly disliking Gu Mian's arrangement, but resistance was useless. Soon, under Gu Mian's oppressive power, it dared not move at all.

Mr. Hao immediately recognized Gu Mian's current condition and called her a good person.

The kind person asked him, "Who are the two people left in your group? There's no one named Ren Leshan, is there?"

When Teacher Hao heard this name for the first time, she shook her head in confusion: "I've never heard of this person. Do you know which group I'm in? You... you two should be two pieces in the same group, right?"

When Gu Mian's group started their first round, both pieces entered the game at the same time. Gu Mian was in the first group. At that time, the pieces of the other three groups were still in the initial room and could see the situation on the chessboard.

Hao Laoshi saw it too, so when he discovered there were two people in this square, he subconsciously thought that these two people were two pieces in a group.

“Yes.” Gu Mian nodded. “We are in the same group. I know you are in the fourth group and were the second to go on the field. The last one was killed by stepping on a trap square at the start of the game.”

"How did you know?" Hao Laoshi stared at Gu Mian with wide eyes. After he went on the field, he had no idea what was happening on the chessboard or what was going on in the other groups. He didn't expect that Gu Mian knew everything.

But thinking about it carefully, if it were Gu Mian, knowing the direction of everyone on the field wouldn't seem so surprising.

“We have special items that allow us to communicate with the players,” Gu Mian said, looking at Hao Laoshi. “That’s how we know where everyone on the field is going. Do you know that the players in Group 3 have already sent their pieces toward your starting rooms?”

"If nothing unexpected happens, your player will be finished within three rounds," Liu Ruyan added fuel to the fire.

"What?" Hao Laoshi's face showed a worried expression. "Is it that the pieces from Group Three want to enter our starting room and kill the player who starts the game? This won't do... We have to stop him..."

"Are you very familiar with the players in your group?" Gu Mian asked. "Are the players in your group capable of protecting themselves?"

"Yes, he's been to many dungeons, and he's physically very strong," Teacher Hao said anxiously. "But he doesn't have many special items on him right now. He said that if we pawns were in danger on the chessboard, he would give us all the special items, and he only kept a few that would be useful for commanding."

There's no time to say what the author had to say.