“I also hope that’s the case, but it’s impossible,” Chen Junnan’s expression gradually became solemn. “The ‘even-numbered’ rooms that none of us have set foot in are ‘Ten’ and ‘Fourteen,’ but the remaining two ‘treasures’ are not necessarily in these two rooms.”

“What?”

Chen Junnan reached out his hand to gesture at his own neck: “That damn fat rabbit has a bamboo piece hanging around his neck. That’s very likely the ‘flute’…”

“It’s Han Xiangzi’s ‘flute’…” Everyone also realized this problem, and their expressions all changed.

“This game is much more difficult than we imagined,” Chen Junnan said through gritted teeth. “No wonder… in all this time, there must have been people who chose to ‘block doors,’ but Earth-Rabbit looked completely unconcerned, as if he had a countermeasure prepared long ago… It’s because he knew we would let him out sooner or later.”

“He knew from the start that we would come to this step…” Cui Fourteen said with a worried expression. “We must snatch that bamboo piece to have any possibility of escape…”

Chen Junnan nodded: “This rabbit has been pretending all along…”

“There’s no need to worry too much,” Cui Fourteen consoled. “With Seventh Brother and Tenth Brother here, even if we all need to snatch that bamboo piece together, it’s not that difficult.”

“Hopefully that’s the case…” Chen Junnan nodded. “But your humble master considers himself to have very rich gaming experience… yet I’ve never snatched anything from the hands of an ‘Earth-level’ before…”

Everyone naturally knew this would be something with inevitable casualties, but in order to let more people survive, that flute had to be snatched.

“We need to hurry back now to notify Little Song and Little Zombie,” Chen Junnan turned back and said. “Those two might think we’ve already passed through the finish line and could let the rabbit out at any time… After all, from their perspective, the game has already entered its final stage. The two of them will probably have to ‘display their divine powers’ themselves—whether they live or die will depend on their own gamble.”

“Understood,” Cui Fourteen also nodded in agreement. “If they let the rabbit out themselves, even if a direct conflict occurs, it would be impossible to snatch that ‘flute.’ The best outcome for those two would be to ensure they don’t get killed.”

“Exactly… we still need new tactics…” Although Chen Junnan said this, he felt he didn’t have any leads. The few remaining brain cells he had were mostly used up just now.

Even if six people swarmed together in a small room, could they really take the flute from the rabbit’s bosom?

Moreover, Song Qi’s ability was “Explosive Combustion”—thinking carefully, it should be more suitable for one-on-one combat situations.

“I have an idea,” Cui Fourteen said.

“Oh?” Chen Junnan raised his eyebrows. “What idea?”

“We choose a ‘correct route’ and lock all the doors along the way except for the correct route,” Cui Fourteen squatted down and used her fingernail to carve a rough sketch on the dirty, sticky ground. “For example, if we’re in Room ‘Sixteen’ and want to go through the north door to Room ‘Twelve,’ we can have one person lock the door leading to the northern Room ‘Fifteen.’ This way, when we come back, we can only return by the original route.”

After hearing this, Chen Junnan squatted down, looked at the sketch on the ground in silence for a while, then nodded: “It seems like it could actually work… This way, only we few people will know the correct route. As long as we escape fast enough, that rabbit bastard will be delayed by the doors we locked in advance…”

“Exactly,” Cui Fourteen agreed. “So we should choose a path that isn’t normally easy to select…”

She reached out her hand and drew a zigzag line from the bottom right corner of the sketch to the top left corner.

“We advance in a winding path, from Room ‘Sixteen’ through ‘Twelve,’ ‘Eleven,’ ‘Seven,’ and then arrive at ‘Six.'” Cui Fourteen used her fingernail to emphasize Room “Six.” “We only need four turns to reach here, and after arriving here, we won’t need to advance anymore.”

The bearded Ma Twelve paused after hearing this: “Fourteenth Sister, why?”

After hearing this, Cui Fourteen reached out to brush the hair from her forehead: “Because Room ‘Six’ is connected to both Seventh Brother’s and Tenth Brother’s rooms. We only need to stand in this room, open the door to tell them the situation, and then arrange the next snatching and escape plan.”

Everyone confirmed the tactics once again, each carried the “treasures” on themselves, and set off along the pre-designed route.

“Please begin the ‘Participants” turn,” the mechanical voice still came from the broadcast. Just as Cui Fourteen was about to step forward to open the door leading to Room “Twelve,” Chen Junnan suddenly grabbed her.

“Leader, what’s wrong?”

Chen Junnan stroked his chin and revealed a mischievous smile: “Hiss… I suddenly remembered a problem…”

“What problem?” The three people beside him all looked at him curiously.

“I think I have a way to tell Song Qi and Little Jiang Shi about our predicament here… Do you think this game has a ‘time limit’ when taking action?”

“Time limit…” Cui Fourteen carefully recalled the game they had just experienced and quickly noticed something was off. “It seems like there isn’t… but that’s not right, is it? Can this game allow unlimited time delays?”

“I think it’s intentional,” Chen Junnan said with a smile. “If ‘time’ was set, it wouldn’t be a good thing for that rabbit bastard.”

“Why?”

Cui Fourteen felt that although the handsome man before her couldn’t be called a genius, he did have very unconventional thinking.

This was naturally a good thing for cracking games, after all, all the “Zodiacs” would rack their brains to kill people, and it was very difficult to crack their thinking with conventional approaches.

“Why delay time…? Isn’t that simple? Because this rabbit bastard wants to kill people.”

Chen Junnan replied, “Once each turn has a time limit, it’s very likely that he won’t be able to kill all the people in the room within the specified time and can only watch helplessly as they escape in the next turn.”

After thinking about it, several people discovered this was indeed the case. After all, there were more and more “Echo” users now. Although Earth-Rabbit had the ability to protect himself, he couldn’t necessarily kill participants with one hundred percent certainty.

“It’s just a pity I don’t have an ‘Echo’…” Cui Fourteen said, pursing her lips. “Otherwise, my ‘Shuttle’ would be invincible in this game…”

“Hey,” Chen Junnan waved his hand. “Your humble master was afraid you would think this way, so I never mentioned it before. You people with powerful ‘Echoes’ always fall into this kind of self-blame situation… You must know, no one should be forced to take on a critically important role in any game, and no one is born to be a leader. So even if this game is lost, no one will blame you.”

“Mm…” Cui Fourteen seemed to be comforted and could only stare into Chen Junnan’s eyes and nod.

Ma Twelve scratched his beard on the side, then asked Chen Junnan: “Leader, why are you suddenly asking about ‘time limits’?”

“I have an idea,” Chen Junnan said. “Let’s try to open the door as late as possible… This way our turn won’t end for a long time.”

“And then…?”

“Then Little Song and Little Zombie will know that something might have happened to us, so they won’t let that rabbit bastard out early.”