“So that’s how it is?” Saturday furrowed her brow. Just as she was about to say something, she noticed the pomegranate in Qi Xia’s hand. “Tsk, then why did you bring fruit out from the ‘Mouse House’?”

“I…” Qi Xia furrowed his brow and looked in the direction of the “Cat House,” feeling that some things weren’t suitable to discuss right now. “Saturday, you go into room two. Luo Shiyi, you go into room four.”

“Huh? Then what about our fruits?” Luo Shiyi asked.

As soon as the words left her mouth, Turtle’s door also opened. He walked over holding a tangerine.

“You all…” Turtle looked at the three people with some confusion. “What are you doing here?”

“We…” Both Saturday and Luo Shiyi gave bitter laughs. “We really don’t know what we’re doing. In short, we’re just following Qi Xia and listening to his arrangements…”

“Hmph…” Turtle gave a cold snort. “Fine then, everyone listen to him. From now on, he’ll be Qi Eight.”

Qi Xia was almost amused by Turtle but could only sigh: “I have no interest in your number eight position. Besides, I already said before that I was deliberately provoking you. You can’t keep being so petty about it.”

“I know, I’m just still annoyed,” Turtle curled his lip. “Here’s the tangerine. I’m going back to rest.”

“Don’t give it to me,” Qi Xia shook his head. “You take your own tangerine, along with their dragon fruit and pomegranate—a total of three fruits—back to the ‘Mouse House.'”

“We can do that?” Turtle was stunned. After thinking carefully about the rules, they did indeed say this—as long as one person triggered “transport,” they could directly move away all the “fruits” that everyone had found.

Luo Shiyi and Saturday handed their fruits to Turtle, then looked in the direction of the “Mouse House,” where Qiu Shiliu was looking out with a puzzled expression.

“Do—do I not need to do anything this round?” Qiu Shiliu asked.

“No need,” Qi Xia shook his head. “This round doesn’t need a ‘commander.’ We only need three ‘searching’ mice.”

Saturday thought for a while and asked: “Tsk, now all three of us are in rooms… According to your speculation, what’s the probability that we’ll be caught next round?”

Qi Xia stroked his chin and said: “Probably zero.”

“Zero?” Luo Shiyi was stunned. “Whose probability of being caught is zero?”

“If I’m not mistaken, the probability of all three of us being caught is zero,” Qi Xia answered.

Seeing that everyone still didn’t understand, Qi Xia just shook his head and had everyone proceed according to their respective plans.

As soon as he walked into the third room, Qi Xia lifted the corner of his mouth.

“As expected, it’s ‘papaya.'”

In the very center of the table sat four bright yellow papayas. This room was like a paradise untouched by the world—no one had entered it from the beginning.

“Everything matches my speculation,” Qi Xia walked to the wall and pressed the “search” button.

No red light lit up in the room.

“The ‘Cat’ didn’t place a mousetrap…” Qi Xia thought for a moment. “Then you can only ‘patrol.’ Now, except for rooms one and five, there are ‘mice’ everywhere…”

Thinking of this, Qi Xia reached out and took all the papayas from the plate, then placed a pomegranate on it.

When the pomegranate was placed on the plate, Qi Xia clearly felt the plate sink down, as if the weight of the pomegranate had just activated some mechanism.

The plate sank to its lowest point, instantly flipped over, and when it turned back, the fruit on top had already disappeared.

“So it really is ‘mutual restraint,'” Qi Xia said. “But what exactly happens with ‘mutual restraint’?”

The first room, with its dark green door, represented Wood. Since Wood generates Fire, “dragon fruit” appeared in the room.

The second room, with its dark yellow door, represented Metal. Since Metal generates Water, “honey peaches” appeared in the room.

The third room, with its dark blue door, represented Water. Since Water generates Wood, “papaya” appeared in the room.

The fourth room, with its dark red door, represented Fire. Since Fire generates Earth, “pomegranates” appeared in the room.

The fifth room, with its dark brown door, represented Earth. Since Earth generates Metal, “kumquats” appeared in the room.

“You’re truly a clever person, Earth-Mouse,” Qi Xia nodded with satisfaction. “If you only treat this game as an ordinary ‘cat and mouse game,’ the many ‘mice’ will gradually discover insufficient food in the later stages, then choose to give up saving others and let themselves survive. In that case, you could take several participants’ lives without shedding blood. Although you lose five ‘Dao’ and fresh fruit each game, you can steadily kill participants, and even…”

Qi Xia knew that if the “mice” had bad luck, there was a high probability they would be completely wiped out.

After all, when only two or three “mice” remained, the “Cat” could “patrol” every round, searching two rooms at once, greatly increasing the probability of catching “mice.”

“And you also concealed one most important thing you didn’t mention…” Qi Xia said with furrowed brow. “The ‘Cat’ can do more than one thing per round… As long as you have ‘satiety,’ you can keep acting.”

The biggest problem lay with the single pomegranate remaining in the “Cat House.”

If the “Cat” had the same actions as the “mice,” he clearly should have brought back three pomegranates. Where were the other two?

The answer was that in the same round, he had set a “mousetrap” once and performed one “search.” These two actions consumed two points of his satiety, so to be safe, he had to eat two fruits to ensure his actions for the next round. After all, when the “Cat” was explaining the rules, he said “I will choose my action each round.” He never mentioned that he could only take one action.

“In other words, your ‘satiety’ upper limit is at least three points. Only then can you confidently act twice…” After thinking, Qi Xia nodded again. “Such an excellent game, yet you claim you won’t immediately kill the ‘mice’… It seems I misunderstood you, Earth-Mouse. Were you holding back? If I were you… there’s no way anyone could leave this game alive.”

Creak!

A muffled sound came from the room. After the altar table by the wall shook, it actually began to move.

A few seconds later, a pitch-black secret passage behind the altar table came into Qi Xia’s view.

“I see…” Qi Xia nodded. “When the fruit restrains the room, the room loses its ability to ‘lock,’ and can’t trap the ‘mouse’ inside. In other words… if the ‘mouse’ is clever enough, they can dig a hole and escape.”

But where exactly did this secret passage lead?

Qi Xia picked up all the papayas from the table, then bent down and entered the secret passage.

For him now, there was no need to consider the situation of “only being able to transport three fruits,” because what he chose this round wasn’t “transport” at all.