“What about the ‘Cat’s’ other two actions?” Qi Xia raised his head and asked again. “What do ‘Set Up Checkpoint’ and ‘Patrol’ mean?”

“‘Set Up Checkpoint’ means I’ll set up a ‘mousetrap’ in a room,” Earth-Mouse said with a smile. “Since mice in the real world have a hard time distinguishing mousetraps, we need to simulate this phenomenon as well.”

“Tsk, how do we simulate it?” Zhou Liu asked.

“A room with a ‘mousetrap’ won’t look any different from other rooms. But if you press the ‘Search’ button in the room and a red light turns on, it means I’ve set up a ‘mousetrap’ in that room. This will cause your ‘Search’ to fail—you won’t be able to take the food or escape from the room. There are only two ways to escape a ‘mousetrap’: one is for teammates to come rescue you by reopening the door from outside, and two is for me to take you back to the ‘Cat House.'”

“In other words…” Qi Xia confirmed, “even if you’re caught by a ‘mousetrap,’ you won’t be eliminated immediately, but you still need to be taken back by you?”

“Exactly.” Earth-Mouse nodded. “That’s called ‘Set Up Checkpoint.’ As for the third action, ‘Patrol,’ I’ll designate two rooms and simultaneously open the doors of both rooms. This counts as me ‘patrolling’ within these two rooms and attempting to capture the ‘Mice’ in them. But note that… although I’ve opened the doors of these two rooms, unlike ‘Search,’ it doesn’t mean the mice in these two rooms will definitely be caught by me. You can use any means possible to run back to the ‘Mouse House’ the instant the doors open.”

Qi Xia nodded. “So ‘Patrol’ expands the ‘attack range’ but reduces the success rate of catching ‘Mice.'”

“Having a smart leader really does make my explanations go much faster.” Earth-Mouse nodded. “Just like you, each round I’ll also choose from these three actions for what I want to do.”

Seeing that everyone seemed to understand, Earth-Mouse led them out of the room and arrived at the door of the ‘Mouse House.’

“Because I said I wouldn’t enter the ‘Mouse House,’ please open the door yourselves.”

After hearing this, Qi Xia stepped forward without another word and pushed the door open with his hand.

Inside the room were five chairs, and on the wall were five palm-sized holes with the numbers ‘one, two, three, four, five’ written below each hole respectively.

“Leaders, this is your safe house. All the food you steal can only be consumed in the ‘Mouse House.’ And by consume, I mean throwing these fruits into your corresponding holes.”

Everyone looked at their collars and indeed found numbers written in inconspicuous places.

It seemed that as long as they threw fruit into the hole corresponding to their own number, their ‘Satiety Value’ would increase.

“Tsk, stingy…” Zhou Liu said while pursing his lips. “I thought with so many fruits we’d at least get to eat one…”

“Oh!” Earth-Mouse suddenly remembered something and said to everyone, “Leaders, this is my oversight—I forgot to tell you earlier. As long as you survive, not only can you split the thirty ‘Dao,’ but you can also obtain all the ‘fruits’ you threw in.”

“Huh?!” Zhou Liu froze for a moment. “A-all the fruits?”

“Yes, yes.” Earth-Mouse nodded. “It’s precisely because of this feature that my game has many ‘repeat customers.’ They come to me not just to obtain ‘Dao,’ but more importantly to get fresh fruits.”

“‘Repeat customers’…?” Qi Xia found this phrasing quite interesting.

What kind of repeat customers were these?

Five people, each submitting five ‘Dao,’ finally splitting thirty—Earth-Mouse would lose five each time he ran the game.

If everyone survived, the game would have no meaning, yet Earth-Mouse specifically brought out ‘fruits’ to entertain everyone.

In a situation where they couldn’t find food for ten days straight, a single fresh, sweet fruit would be enough to make people risk their lives.

If the ‘Zodiacs’ really didn’t value ‘Dao,’ then would they value ‘food’?

The answer was definitely yes. No one in this world would do business at a loss. If he let five people leave here safe and sound, the ‘Zodiacs’ would not only lose ‘Dao’ but even lose ‘fruits.’

A Zodiac who could come up with this method to attract ‘customers’ was definitely not a philanthropist.

He would absolutely make everyone perish in the game.

“By the way, one more thing…” Earth-Mouse said. “Your own hole will only have a ‘satiety’ effect if you throw food in yourself. In other words, you cannot feed other ‘Mice.'”

“Understood.” After Qi Xia nodded, he asked again, “After we obtain the ‘fruits,’ can we store them in this room?”

“Of course.” Earth-Mouse nodded. “Leaders, you’re being too formal. This is the ‘Mouse House’—to put it bluntly, it’s a ‘mouse hole.’ Of course you can store food here. You can use it whenever you need it.”

Everyone now roughly understood the rules.

Although it was called a ‘cat and mouse game,’ it sounded like there were very few ‘chase’ and ‘physical strength’ elements. It tested the strategies of the ‘Cat’ and ‘Mice’ more. To survive in this game, the things to consider weren’t as simple as just ‘filling your stomach.’

“Since you leaders understand the rules, this game will begin in ten minutes.”

Earth-Mouse finally looked at everyone with a cold expression. Just as he was about to leave, he was stopped by Qi Xia.

“Wait a moment.”

“What?”

“You seem to have forgotten to mention something,” Qi Xia said.

Earth-Mouse thought for a while and said, “There shouldn’t be anything else.”

“Is that so…?” Qi Xia slowly narrowed his eyes.

“Leader, I’ve said everything ‘that should be said.’ The remaining questions—even if you ask me, I won’t tell you,” Earth-Mouse said. “With these rules, you have enough to survive in this game.”

After hearing this, Qi Xia nodded, then asked again, “I have a personal question I want to ask you.”

“A personal question…?” Earth-Mouse frowned. “Right now?”

“That’s right.” Qi Xia nodded. “This question will affect my game strategy going forward.”

“I may not answer, but you can try asking, leader.” Earth-Mouse said with furrowed brows.

Qi Xia walked forward a step, getting close to Earth-Mouse’s hair-covered face, and asked softly, “If you discovered you could never become ‘Heaven,’ would you choose to resist those above you?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Earth-Mouse’s eyes trembled violently, and he hurriedly stepped back two paces.

He could never have imagined that a participant would ask a question that shook the ‘Zodiac’ position.

What did this matter have to do with participants?

“You… you…” Earth-Mouse blinked, slowly calming his emotions, then spoke with a strange expression, “I don’t know what that sentence just meant, but my leader is my heaven. I would absolutely never do anything detrimental to my leader.”