After dinner, everyone didn’t immediately return to their rooms. After all, it was stuffy inside—not as open and airy as outside.

Everyone chatted leisurely while organizing their luggage. Teacher Cheng pulled some expired food from the car, his expression extremely pained as he threw it away.

Tan Xiao had a better mindset and comforted him: “It’ll soon be autumn. Those corn and grains will definitely be ripe. We can just load up a bag from a village—enough for the few of us to eat. There are fruit trees in the mountains and fish in the water. We won’t starve!”

Teacher Cheng asked, “What about when winter comes?”

He’d thought Tan Xiao would say to collect more food in autumn to get through winter, but this guy seemed to have never considered it at all. After being stunned, he directly replied: “We’ll worry about surviving until winter when we get there.”

Though it was a tragic statement, the way he said it was inexplicably funny. Everyone laughed.

Tan Xiao scratched his head and laughed along with everyone, looking foolish.

Cheng Weicai shook his head and sighed: “I was worrying needlessly. The difficult barriers before us are the maze and the games. If we can’t solve these two points, preparing more food is futile.”

Mentioning the maze, Shen Mo thought of the five-person team he’d encountered earlier.

“When I went out, a group of people had just come out of the maze. From the looks of it, the difficulty of the maze here shouldn’t be too high.”

Bai Youwei asked curiously, “Why do you say that?”

Shen Mo explained: “They were driving a jeep with five people in it. That vehicle could only seat five people at most.”

“What about five people?” Tan Xiao didn’t understand.

Bai Youwei said, “Five people went in, five people came out. They exited the maze without casualties, so it seems the difficulty isn’t too high~”

Tan Xiao had a sudden realization: “Oh…”

“There weren’t exactly zero casualties. One of their women was injured.” Shen Mo paused, then added, “They have guns.”

(Note: The character for gun can’t be written, nor can explosion, grenade, bullet—these will all cause the chapter to be blocked, even with separators.)

“Could you tell what kind of injury?” Bai Youwei asked.

Shen Mo shook his head lightly. “Too far away to see clearly. I heard them say they wasted an item because of it. I estimate there’s still some danger in the maze, but since the five of them went in without problems, we should be able to handle it too.”

“Aren’t you not allowed to bring weapons into games?” Tan Xiao asked again.

“The maze is different from games.” Cheng Weicai said, then mused aloud, “If only we could ask them what the situation inside the maze is like.”

“Are you kidding!” Tan Xiao’s eyes widened. “They have guns. What if they just give us a few holes?”

“With friend or foe unclear, of course we can’t rashly ask.” Teacher Cheng waved his hand. “I’m just casually expressing my thoughts…”

“Even if we asked, there’s no guarantee they’d tell us the truth.” Bai Youwei curved her lips, smiling sinisterly. “They might deceive us, you know.”

Teacher Cheng still maintained his belief that unity is strength: “If everyone only cares about collecting puzzle pieces for themselves, when will all the puzzle pieces be gathered? If the puzzle isn’t completed, the games can’t all be cleared. As the saying goes, when a thousand people are united, you gain the strength of a thousand; when ten thousand people have different hearts, not one person’s strength can be used.”

“Unfortunately, this is a paradox.” Bai Youwei smiled. “Of course, the more people collecting, the better. But each puzzle piece grants one immunity. This destines no one to willingly share, unless it’s a puzzle piece whose immunity has already been used.”

Shen Mo was slightly stunned. “If we could collect puzzle pieces that have already been used…”

Bai Youwei’s eyes brightened, understanding his meaning. “It would be twice the result with half the effort, right?”