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Chapter 886 Startled Asleep

【Trap Grid】

Life is full of traps, and this place is no exception. Congratulations on arriving at the Trap Chamber. A ghost has set traps in this room. If you unfortunately fall into one, your life will end here. If you leave this room without stepping into a trap, you will receive a reward.

The first half of the description of the trap square is the same as the one 007 sent to them in the group, while the second half is not in the description of the chessboard square.

There are three types of trap actions set in the room. Triggering any of these trap actions will result in death.

This condition is rather tricky. If the trap set by the ghost is something like breathing or blinking, it would be difficult for the players entering the room to avoid falling into it. However, Gu Mian thought that the ghost probably wouldn't set such a tricky condition; it would always leave a way out for those who enter the room.

Furthermore, the pieces remain in this room for a long time, only leaving after it is their group's turn to act in the next round, during which time they cannot trigger trap actions.

It's impossible for the pieces to remain completely still, because they must move when moving to the next room, which involves action.

Gu Mian thought of the trap square right below the fourth initial room. Both pieces that went in died in a very short time, so the trap action in that square was probably very easy to trigger.

The trap actions in different trap grids may be different, but these are not things that Gu Mian should consider.

He saw a voluptuous ghost standing in the middle of the room, swaying its body left and right as it walked toward them.

After taking a few steps and recognizing who it was, the trap ghost stopped abruptly. Its rear end was still provocatively sticking out, a gesture that, combined with its terrifying face and expression, made it look extremely eerie.

Liu Ruyan, who was standing next to her, hadn't moved an inch since entering the room, seemingly eager to participate in the game with the trap ghost.

"Such a lively ghost is rare." Seeing that the game was stalled, Liu Ruyan began to comment on the trap ghost.

“Because being inactive might lead to death.” Gu Mian turned to look at Liu Ruyan beside her. “You’d better not break the rules of this room either. You’ve seen them, haven’t you? If you trigger a trap, it won’t be the ghost that attacks, but the dungeon will directly eliminate you.”

“I saw it.” Liu Ruyan remained in the same position she had been in when she entered the room. “That’s why I’ve been sitting still since I entered this room.”

Liu Ruyan was very clever. She knew that Gu Mian could stop the ghost from killing her, but he might not be able to stop the dungeon from wiping her out. So after entering the room and seeing the rules, she was cautious and didn't move again.

"But what do you mean by saying that ghosts will die if they're not lively?" She couldn't turn her head, so she could only stare straight at the trap ghost in front of her and talk to Gu Mian.

At that moment, she noticed out of the corner of her eye that Gu Mian next to her had started to move.

Gu Mian rushed up to the trap ghost in three quick steps and interrogated it, "One of the trap actions you set is walking normally, right?"

Is that so? Liu Ruyan pondered, but she really hadn't expected Gu Mian to just swagger over like that.

"Didn't you notice? The rules in this room are a little different from the previous ones." Gu Mian turned to look at Liu Ruyan. "In the dangerous rooms before, the subject was always 'chess piece,' and the rule was 'if the chess piece does this or that, it will die.'"

Just like the two-space rule, it clearly states that "when two or more pieces remain in this room, only one can leave alive" rather than only one creature in the room can leave alive. This excludes ghosts from the rules.

But this room doesn't have it.

Listening to Gu Mian's words, Liu Ruyan recalled the introduction to this room, and indeed, the word "chess piece" was never mentioned throughout the entire text.

The final rule simply states, "Three trap actions are set in the room; triggering any of these three trap actions will result in elimination."

It was not mentioned that only the chess pieces would be eliminated.

This means that if a ghost triggers a trap in this room, it will be eliminated. Is that why the ghost walks with such a seductive gait?
No wonder Gu Mian said it might die if it wasn't lively.

However, the demon can actually remain completely still. Is there a trap where you have to stay still for a certain amount of time before you are eliminated?

Thinking of this, Liu Ruyan took a few steps forward, mimicking the trap ghost's movements, her actions contorted and unsightly.

"I didn't expect you to spot the irrationality in the rules as soon as you entered this room. So, there's actually a trick to these trap grids. As long as you keep in sync with the ghost's movements, you won't trigger the trap." Liu Ruyan maintained her contorted posture, speaking with some difficulty.

“Actually, I had my suspicions even before entering the trap grid. Do you remember the description of the gold coin grid?” Gu Mian asked Liu Ruyan. Because she had never entered the gold coin grid, all her information about it came from messages sent by 007 in the group chat.

Liu Ruyan only remembered that it was a good spot for sending gold coins; she didn't pay attention to anything else.

Before she could go back and look through the group chat, Gu Mian continued, "The Gold Coin Grid, as its name suggests, is a great grid that gives you game coins. You don't need to play games like betting, answering questions, or imitating ghosts. You can get rewards just by staying in this room."

After Gu Mian repeated it, Liu Ruyan basically remembered it: "Yes, that's about the description of the gold coin grid."

“You don’t need to play games with the ghost like betting, answering questions, or imitating.” Gu Mian repeated this sentence. “The game has now reached the ninth round, and players have explored more than half of the squares. During this time, there were honest squares with betting elements and question-and-answer squares with question-and-answer elements.”

“There are duplicate squares on the chessboard. We have unlocked 26 out of 60 squares, which is close to half. Theoretically, we should have unlocked all types of squares, but we have never encountered a square with the mimicry attribute. So before entering the trap square, I guessed that the trap square might be related to mimicry, since we did not know the specific content of the trap square before entering it.”

Imitation... including ghosts in the rules... Liu Ruyan analyzed Gu Mian's words, so after entering the room and reading the rules, Gu Mian combined these two pieces of information to basically determine how to successfully pass through the room.

Ghosts will die if they trigger trap actions, so you can stay safe as long as you keep imitating the ghost's actions.

At this moment, Gu Mian pressed the trap ghost for answers: "Besides walking normally, what are the other two trap actions you set?"

The trap ghost dared not refuse to answer, so it had no choice but to tell the truth: "The three actions are walking normally, turning around, and standing still for one minute..."

Upon hearing this, Liu Ruyan took a few more steps with a twisted posture.

Just as Liu Ruyan was walking unsteadily, a door appeared behind her, and Hao Laoshi walked in from behind the door.

As soon as he entered, he saw Liu Ruyan walking around in a strange posture, which startled him.

Gu Mian stopped him in time: "Don't move."

Upon hearing this, Hao Laoshi, who was about to step back, froze on the spot. He had also seen the rules in the room and was now too afraid to speak. He could only look at Gu Mian with pleading eyes.

"Just follow my lead. As long as you don't walk normally, don't turn around, and don't stay still for even a minute, you won't die." As she spoke, Liu Ruyan walked a few more steps like a ghost. Now she seemed to be quite adept at this.

"Is that so..." Upon hearing this, Hao Laoshi quickly imitated Liu Ruyan's movements and took a few steps in the room.

The ghost beside Gu Mian also took the opportunity to twist a few times; if it hadn't moved, it would have died in a minute.

"Have the four groups finished their operations?" Gu Mian looked at Hao Laoshi entering the room. Hao Laoshi had come to a room with them again. Gu Mian guessed that Guigu had used up his designated number of steps. After this, all three designated number of steps should be used up.

I was talking to Liu Ruyan about the trap grid and didn't notice the message in the 007 group chat.

Upon opening the group chat, I saw that 007 had already sent over the situation of each group in this round.

"Group Two has moved up another square this round, and now they're right next to our starting room." Liu Ruyan looked at the messages in the group chat. "We originally guessed that the treasure chest would be on this square, but there's nothing there... So why is Group Two moving straight towards our room? Could it be that the treasure chest square that the players in Group Two are seeing is in our starting room?"

"This doesn't seem like they're after the treasure chest; it looks like they were aiming for our starting room from the beginning," Gu Mian said, looking at the messages in the group chat.

"What are you talking about? Aren't the second group all dead?" Hao Laoshi asked, puzzled.

He was unaware of the situation on the chessboard.

Gu Mian gave Hao Laoshi a simple explanation, but Hao Laoshi was still a little confused. While listening to Gu Mian, he even moved his seat a bit.

“Since Group Two can already see the location of the treasure chest, then entering our starting room to kill our chess player will not benefit them at all, and will only waste their action opportunities.” Liu Ruyan frowned. “Unless Group Two sees that the location of the treasure chest is near us and wants to kill our chess player first in order to prevent us from finding the treasure chest first.”

“But the second group needs three turns to enter our room and kill our chess player after they revive. After killing our chess player, they will have six turns left, which means they must get the treasure chest within six turns.” Gu Mian quickly analyzed the current situation. “From our room, the squares we can reach within six turns are all very close to the square where the second group revived. Excluding the top row where the content is fully displayed, the farthest square is the fourth square from the left in the second row, which can be reached in just five turns. I calculated that it would also take the second group five turns to get to that square from our square when they revived. But after that, we didn’t go that way but went to the right, which means that the distance between us and the treasure chest square has increased. This gives the second group even less reason to kill our chess player, which would only waste their turn.”

There's no time to write an author's note!