Hans had already asked three times. The two remaining players inside were Dim and Shen Mo. If Bai Youwei could bring Shen Mo out through the door, Hans’s final question would be considerably easier.
If Bai Youwei failed to bring Shen Mo out, that was even better—both of them eliminated together, and Hans would win without even entering Zone B.
The worst case scenario was this: Bai Youwei encountered Dim instead, and the two of them were eliminated together. At that point, only Shen Mo would remain inside, and Hans would have to question Shen Mo and identify the correct answer. The AI interference alone was already a headache—but if the person inside was a total stranger you knew nothing about, it was infinitely more difficult.
Hans looked at Bai Youwei. “My team has asked three times. Now it’s your turn.”
“I haven’t decided yet~,” Bai Youwei said, sitting comfortably on her little cushion, completely unbothered. “If you’re in a hurry, go ahead.”
Morlin was furious. “You’re just going to stall forever?!”
Hans also looked deeply displeased with Bai Youwei’s attitude. “Before, you said it was unfair and refused to ask for a long time. Now we’ve already asked three times—by any measure, it should be your turn, shouldn’t it?”
“It’s still not fair,” Bai Youwei said with a light smile. “We’re both Kings. If you learn from the way I phrase my question and then use it to get both yourself and your subject through, that’s still unfair to me.”
“I’d say she’s just stalling,” Morlin muttered to Hans, his brow furrowed. “She has no intention of asking at all.”
Breil said, “Maybe she’s trying to learn from Hans’s approach first—and with only one person left on her side, there’s actually more room to maneuver. That’s understandable…”
Hans thought it over, then demonstrated magnanimity. “Let her learn if she wants. After all, we can’t be certain we’ll encounter Dim this round either. If she ends up encountering our teammate, Dim’s life will be in her hands.”
The referee had never explicitly stated that after their question, the person behind the door would necessarily be from their own team—so the possibility of encountering the opposing team’s member still existed.
Morlin listened to Hans and felt something was off. He frowned. “You’re planning to ask? Why not let her go first? Hans, this is life and death—there’s no need to be generous to her!”
Hans glanced at Bai Youwei and said evenly, “It’s not generosity—it’s cooperation. Unless you’re certain you can land a killing blow, you cooperate. Ensure enough teammates make it into Zone B.”
“But all we have to do is get her eliminated this round and there’s no Zone B to enter!” Morlin said, his voice carrying a trace of indignation.
Hans sighed and rested a hand on Morlin’s shoulder. “We’ve already sacrificed enough. We can’t afford to lose Dim too.”
Morlin clenched his jaw and lowered his head. “…Understood.”
Breil asked with concern, “Hans—have you figured out how you’re going to ask?”
“Mm. I have a rough idea.” Hans inclined his head slightly and looked toward the five closed doors. “A question that an ordinary person wouldn’t know the answer to—but that an AI would assume a person should know.”
It was a somewhat convoluted statement. Both Morlin and Breil looked at him in puzzlement.
“An ordinary person wouldn’t know the answer… but AI assumes we would?” Morlin asked. “What kind of question is that?”
Hans stepped up to the computer, paused for a moment, then typed:
【Which tooth was the first one you lost as a child?】
Both Morlin and Breil stared. “…That’s it?”
“That’s a clever question,” Bai Youwei said, smiling approvingly. “Ordinary people don’t remember which tooth they lost first as a child—unless they’re a young child currently losing baby teeth, or a doctor, or a parent keeping track of their child’s development… None of those clearly apply to whoever’s behind those doors right now. So neither of them would know the answer. But from an AI’s perspective—this is something that genuinely happened to a human being. How could a human possibly not know?”