Su Man felt awkward about it.

Lu Yuwen also felt a little awkward. He wasn’t used to confiding in people, and rarely said such things — and now that the words were out, they sounded, for some reason, uncomfortably like sweet talk.

If he kept going, would he start to seem frivolous?

Lu Yuwen shifted his gaze away, staring down at the can in his hand, and said quietly, “In any case… as long as we work together, we’ll definitely find our way out.”

“Right! Exactly!” Su Man was full of energy. She stood up and said, “I’m not giving up! Let me go look around and see if there’s anything else we can use — we’ll start again tomorrow!”

Su Man turned and left, full of spirit.

Lu Yuwen watched her go. The resolve that had briefly surfaced in him evaporated, and a heaviness settled over him again…

He couldn’t say it after all.

When she was full of hope like this — telling her they were trapped, that they could never get out — those words simply wouldn’t come.

Lu Yuwen pressed his hands into his hair in frustration.

What to do?

Even if he concealed it, he couldn’t hide it for long! Once all 100 grid sections were mapped, and there was no next step to take, Su Man would start to suspect something sooner or later.

Unless he could find a solution to the dead-zone problem before that happened.

The thought made him go very still.

He looked at the can of eight-treasure congee in his hands, and gradually let his thoughts settle…

If he were given a little more time here — just maybe… just maybe, he could manage it.

Lu Yuwen picked up the maps again…

…

Two more days passed. At last, they completed the mapping of all 100 grid sections.

Because the final dozen or so sections were already connected to each other — clearly arranged by someone previously — it had saved them a great deal of time.

With all the sections mapped, Lu Yuwen used only 22 minutes to assemble all 100 scattered tiles into the complete picture.

Su Man was utterly astonished. “That’s incredible… I wish I were that clever.”

Lu Yuwen smiled. “That was actually slow for me — some of the maps weren’t drawn precisely enough. I’m not a professional, after all.”

“So from here, we just need to look at this map and go move the actual sections?” Su Man’s eyes shone with anticipation and a hint of admiration.

Her weakness for brilliant minds — oh no, she meant brilliant people — was absolute.

Lu Yuwen smiled. “Next, I need to do it one more time.”

Su Man stopped. “Again — again?”

“Yes.” Lu Yuwen returned all the map sheets on the ground back to their original positions. “Just now I was testing it. Now we need to find the optimal solution — in other words, the way to assemble the grid sections in the fewest possible steps.”

Su Man nodded vigorously. “Right — because we’re moving real sections in the real world. Every section we move means walking 1.5 kilometers. If we can find the optimal solution, we can save a lot of time.”

She stood up and said to Lu Yuwen, “You work on finding the optimal solution in peace. I won’t disturb you — I’ll take a walk outside.”

Su Man regarded Lu Yuwen as she might regard a scholar — someone brilliant like him should be able to “close his ears to the world and devote his heart entirely to his work.”

And since she couldn’t contribute ideas or clever thinking, she took it upon herself to handle all the physical tasks.

Finding food, scouting the terrain, clearing obstacles — without Lu Yuwen asking, she managed all of it on her own, thoroughly.

But she hadn’t expected that when Lu Yuwen said he needed to find the optimal solution, he would spend two full days on it without finding it…

Su Man hesitated.

She badly wanted to ask — but every time she saw Lu Yuwen with his brow furrowed deeply over those chaotic maps, she would swallow the question back down, afraid that pressing him would only make him anxious and disrupt his work even more.

She didn’t know whether Lu Yuwen could see the urgency in her eyes, but after one more day had passed, he gathered up all the maps and said to Su Man, “Let’s start assembling.”

—