Su Man looked at Lu Yuwen, her eyes full of confusion.

All these days… Lu Yuwen had been deceiving her?

But why?

Lu Yuwen had the knife pressed against his throat. He breathed unsteadily as he answered: “All these days… I wasn’t stalling for time. I was… waiting for you to come out.”

“Waiting for me?” Zhang Ke narrowed his eyes, tightening the knife against his skin. “I’m warning you — don’t try to trick me.”

“I’m not.” Lu Yuwen replied in a hoarse voice.

The blood streaks on his neck had blurred together, and his face bore the yellowish bruising of a beating. Though disheveled, his voice remained steady throughout.

“Zhang Ke — if you’ve been following us all this time, you should have been able to see that our progress was slow because every time we moved, we spent huge amounts of time clearing the empty slot. When it comes down to it, our team is simply too small. If you joined us… our efficiency could improve by at least twice over!”

Zhang Ke studied him with a suspicious look. “That reason isn’t exactly convincing…”

Lu Yuwen said: “Suppose this place is a 3×3 puzzle, with the squares numbered from 1 to 8, and the 9th square is the empty slot. Think about it — if my starting position is square 8 and I want to move square 8 to position 5, I have to walk to square 6, move 6 downward, then go diagonally up to position 5, move 5 to the right, then return to 8 and move upward — only then does square 8 arrive at position 5.

Square 8 and square 5 are adjacent, yet my travel distance isn’t simply moving one square. It’s a minimum of three square-lengths of movement.

But if the three of us are each standing at position 5 and position 6 — what happens then? You move square 6, then Su Man and I move square 5, and while we’re moving, you walk from position 6 to position 8 and make your move — at that point, square 8 reaches position 5!

Do you understand now? Throughout the whole process, each of us has actually only moved one square’s worth of distance!”

Zhang Ke furrowed his brow, appearing to think it over.

Lu Yuwen continued: “If you join us, completing the entire puzzle would take us six days at most. But if you keep hiding in the shadows, trying to reap the rewards without any effort, then you’ll be waiting here for at least a month before you can leave. Zhang Ke — think it over carefully. Do you want to cooperate with us or not?”

Zhang Ke kept his brow furrowed and didn’t answer for a moment. The firelight cast dancing shadows over his dark face. His expression suggested he was somewhat moved by what Lu Yuwen had said.

At that moment, a cluster of fire suddenly came flying toward them!

Su Man had kicked a burning piece of firewood — sparks scattered in all directions! Zhang Ke scrambled backward in alarm!

Su Man seized the opportunity and yanked Lu Yuwen free, pulling him to her side!

“You two?!…” Zhang Ke, suddenly without a hostage, turned furious. “You’re playing me?!!”

Su Man placed herself in front of Lu Yuwen and said coldly: “Even if we’re going to cooperate, I won’t let Lu Yuwen stay at your side. Who knows what underhanded methods you might use!”

Lu Yuwen said: “Nobody’s playing you, Zhang Ke. If I had any other choice, I wouldn’t want to cooperate with you either — but under these circumstances, we need to work as one.”

Zhang Ke spat in contempt, his gaze cold. “Cooperation is fine, but I want to be in a group with Lu Yuwen. Let the woman go stand by on the adjacent square to the empty slot.”

“Absolutely not!” Su Man flatly refused.

Zhang Ke glared at the two of them. “Do you think I’m stupid? You want me to stand alone on the adjacent square — which means there’s always a one-and-a-half-kilometer gap between us! When all the squares are finally assembled, what’s to stop you two from running off without me?!”

“You can tie a rope around me.” Lu Yuwen said.

Su Man’s chest clenched at that. She turned to Lu Yuwen. “How can you—”

Lu Yuwen squeezed her hand, giving her a look that said, be patient, then turned to Zhang Ke: “Mister Donguo’s rope — that should be in your possession right now, shouldn’t it? As long as you’re alive, the rope can never be untied. So you can rest assured we won’t leave the labyrinth one step ahead of you.”