The following morning, everyone ate a simple breakfast and prepared to re-enter the labyrinth.

This time they had made more preparations — not only bringing bladed weapons and other arms, but wearing gloves as well. Vulnerable areas of the body were wrapped tightly in bandages to prevent any accidental contact with the slime.

When the door opened, the fishing vessel was waiting outside, just as before, unchanged —

The mother cave on one side, seven child caves on the other.

As planned, their target this time was child cave 2. But if they were wrong, entering Cave 2 would summon three mermaid monsters.

Three mermaid monsters — Ashalina believed they had no chance of winning against that many.

The good news was that they had checked the hold below and found that the two fish monsters from before were both dead, with some of the fish left uneaten. If they could use this to their advantage, three mermaid monsters might still be manageable.

Ashalina and A’long worked together to haul the mermaid carcasses back into the water, then set a trap near the hold hatch.

Pan Xiaoxin settled into the wheelhouse and steered the boat into Cave 2.

Bai Youwei held the rabbit — fully recharged from the previous night — and watched the surroundings with wary alertness.

Re-entering the cave —

Water rippled gently. The fishing vessel rocked in a slow rhythm. All around was cold and damp, danger liable to materialize at any moment.

In the darkness, every tiny ripple on the water set hearts racing. Rocks jutting from the surface looked like rows of contorted skulls.

Tension spread through the air without making a sound.

But this state of affairs did not last long.

Because roughly seven or eight minutes later, their vessel emerged from the cave.

No fish monsters.

The tension drained away in an instant. Everyone was stunned. They had actually made it through without running into a single fish monster.

“So it really is only caves 2, 4, and 6 that are safe?” Ashalina could barely believe it. She had only tossed out the idea about odd and even numbers the night before in passing, without any careful reasoning behind it — she truly hadn’t expected Cave 2 to actually be clear.

Bai Youwei was equally surprised.

Now they knew: caves 1 and 3 had fish monsters; caves 2 and 4 were safe. Was Ashalina’s intuition actually right — all odd-numbered caves had fish monsters, while all even-numbered ones were safe?

“Let’s try Cave 6 next!” Ashalina said, barely containing herself. “If the even-numbers-are-safe theory holds, Cave 6 should be clear too!”

“…Wait.” Bai Youwei said uncertainly. “Before we go into Cave 6, I want to try something else.”

“Something else?” Ashalina blinked. “…What do you want to try?”

“I want to reverse back,” Bai Youwei said, “and try Cave 1 again.”

“Cave 1?” Ashalina’s brow knitted. “But Cave 1 has fish monsters.”

“I know Cave 1 has fish monsters,” Bai Youwei said. “But doesn’t something feel off to you? If caves 2, 4, and 6 are always safe no matter what, that means a player’s chance of choosing correctly each time is three out of seven — roughly 43%, close to half. Isn’t that probability a bit too generous for a labyrinth?”

Ashalina was briefly at a loss for words.

Close to a 50% success rate — that really was a little too forgiving. With that kind of odds, a lucky player could practically stumble through to the end on blind guesses within three tries.

A labyrinth shouldn’t be that straightforward.

“So then… what’s the purpose of reversing back and trying Cave 1?” she asked.

Bai Youwei couldn’t really articulate it — it was more of an intuition.

“I want to see,” she said, her meaning somewhat opaque, “what the actual probability of right and wrong looks like when we’re choosing a cave opening for the first time.”

— The hold still had half a load of fish. Even if they encountered fish monsters again, they could use that to lure the creatures inside and keep everyone safe.

Ashalina agreed to Bai Youwei’s decision.

The fishing vessel began to reverse.

Back once more to the entrance.

This time, as Bai Youwei had said, they chose Cave 1.

The result — still no fish monsters.

Everyone was baffled. Why did Cave 1 have no fish monsters this time? Could it be that because they had killed that fish monster with their own hands, no new one would ever appear in that cave again?

Bai Youwei felt a faint hypothesis beginning to take shape in her mind. She said: “Reverse back. Let’s try Cave 5 next.”