After those words, Zhou Liu, Luo Shiyi, and Qiu Shiliu also cast strange looks at Qi Xia.

If it were anyone else, Qi Xia’s words would have been enough for these few to speak up in rebuttal. But Wang Ba was an exception—no one in ‘Cat’ could be bullied by outsiders, yet no one wanted to speak up for Wang Ba.

“Am I sowing discord…?” Qi Xia nodded. “Fine, let’s follow your line of thinking. I have a few questions to ask you.”

“What questions?”

“First, each time we send out a teammate, even if they can bring back ‘food,’ it’s at most three pieces. How can we guarantee the ‘Satiety Value’ for all five of us?”

“I…” Wang Ba’s eyes rolled. “This is just my early-stage plan. In the later stages, we’ll send out two people each time!”

“Two people?”

“Yes, if both people succeed, we can get six fruits per round. Even if we fail, we still have three.” Wang Ba emphasized, “I don’t believe our luck will be so bad that both ‘Mice’ get caught by the cat.”

“But according to what we just saw, each room only has four fruits,” Qi Xia said, squinting his eyes. “The first time a ‘Mouse’ can take away three fruits, but from the second visit to this room onward, they can at most take away one. At that point, even without considering the failure probability, if both people can bring back fruits, that’s at most two. But we still have five people—who do you plan to let ‘starve to death’?”

“Moreover…” Qi Xia’s tone shifted. “We have no way to confirm that the remaining rooms all have four fruits.”

After hearing this, Wang Ba reached up to scratch his head. Upon careful consideration, he realized this was indeed a problem.

“I—I came up with this plan on the spot! Of course it’s not that complete, which is why we’re discussing it!” After Wang Ba finished speaking, he looked at the others, seemingly hoping someone would speak up for him. “I’m just trying to keep my teammates alive. Is this direction wrong?”

“This is precisely the second problem I want to mention,” Qi Xia said. “If we send out a single ‘Mouse’ alone, and he doesn’t return, where do you plan to rescue him?”

“The ‘Cat House’!” Wang Ba said. “Is there a problem?”

“No problem. But what if he was trapped by a ‘mousetrap’?”

“This…”

Wang Ba suddenly realized that a ‘Mouse’ trapped by a ‘mousetrap’ would be locked in the room until teammates came to rescue him or the ‘Cat’ took him away.

“Looking at the current situation, when the ‘Cat’ is active, we’ll be locked in various rooms. How can you determine whether our teammate was taken away by the ‘Cat’ or trapped in the room he went to search?” Qi Xia held up five fingers. “There’s a fifty percent probability of being wrong. Are you going to guess? Once you guess wrong, we’ll create a chain reaction. In the time that follows, we might lose more teammates, and we’ll have to choose to ‘rescue’ again. Each time, the probability of successful ‘rescue’ is also fifty percent. Do you dare gamble?”

Hearing Qi Xia throw out such a large pile of analysis in such a short time, Wang Ba’s expression gradually darkened.

“Fine… even if… even if you thought of more…” Wang Ba said through gritted teeth. “Even if you’re stronger than me… then why don’t you tell us what we should do?”

“Since you have no solution, you can only follow my command,” Qi Xia said. “In the first round, we’ll directly send out four people to ‘search,’ targeting any four random rooms.”

“Four people…?” Zhou Liu felt somewhat confused. “Tsk, one person or five people—I can understand either meaning… but what’s the significance of ‘four people’?”

“We ‘Mice’ need a ‘Commander’…” Qi Xia said. “This game has a typical blind spot. Due to the ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma,’ after each ‘Mouse’ enters a room, they lose contact with the others, so they can’t confirm what’s happening in the other mice’s rooms. This will make it very difficult for us to make decisions starting from the second round.”

“What, tsk…?” Zhou Liu froze for a moment. “Prisoner’s Dilemma?”

“Yes. If a ‘Mouse’ doesn’t return the next day, we can’t determine where to ‘rescue’ them. Earth-Mouse thought of this long ago, which is why he hopes we’ll ‘rescue each other.’ He knows that whether we succeed or fail in rescuing, it’s not good for us either way,” Qi Xia said. “Fortunately, you’re a mature team. If we were all strangers with a situation where ‘some want to rescue and some don’t,’ it would be even more complicated.”

After hearing this, Luo Shiyi was silent for a while before asking, “So what do you mean by this ‘Commander’…?”

“We need one ‘Mouse’ who doesn’t take any action to oversee the entire situation,” Qi Xia said. “This ‘Mouse’ will serve as the eyes for all of us, as well as everyone’s control center, responsible for watching the ‘Cat’s’ every move.”

“Huh?” Several people were stunned at the same time. This statement made them feel something was off, but they couldn’t say exactly what.

“Wait, wait a moment…” Wang Ba was the first to speak. “That’s not right… How is he supposed to watch the ‘Cat’s’ activities? According to what you’re saying… to know all of the ‘Cat’s’ actions, you’d have to stand in the outside corridor and watch which room he enters. But among the three options for us ‘Mice,’ there’s no option to stand in the corridor.”

As if he hadn’t heard anything, Qi Xia moved his gaze away from Wang Ba’s face and then asked the others, “Does anyone have a question that uses their brain?”

“You…” Wang Ba looked angrily at Qi Xia. “Answer me!”

“Um…” Qiu Shiliu also felt it wasn’t very reliable. “Assuming we really can stand in the corridor and watch the ‘Cat’… but how can this ‘Mouse’ serve as a ‘Commander’?”

“That’s easy,” Qi Xia answered. “If it were another team, naturally they could exchange intelligence after returning to the ‘Mouse House’ the next night. But we have a more convenient method…”

After speaking, Qi Xia turned to look at Zhou Liu. “As long as we have Zhou Liu, we should be able to get the ‘Cat’s’ whereabouts immediately.”

“Tsk, using ‘Voice Transmission’…?” Zhou Liu frowned. “I’ve never used ‘Voice Transmission’ in a game before… I wonder if this will be a problem…”

“A problem…? I want to know what the specific limitations of your ‘Voice Transmission’ are,” Qi Xia said. “Can you communicate with all four of us from any corner?”

“Tsk, saying it that way… you’re not wrong.” Zhou Liu nodded. “So I’ll be that ‘Commander’?”

“No.” Qi Xia shook his head. “Anyone can do it, as long as you can communicate with the ‘Commander.’ Theoretically, you can spread the message to all of us.”

Zhou Liu nodded with a half-understanding after hearing this.

“Each night, we’ll select one person to stand in the corridor as the ‘Commander,’ and the remaining four will all set out to search for food,” Qi Xia continued. “The ‘Commander’s’ task is to determine which room the cat entered and who from that room was taken away. Then the remaining ‘Mice’ will rescue them in the second round.”