AnalogHorror: Rule Kaidan 4016 -
Chapter 385 - 176 "Corner" Conjecture_2
Chapter 385: Chapter 176 "Corner" Conjecture_2
"Any thoughts?" Tian Bufan suddenly asked.
"What?" Kuai Hongji stopped in his tracks.
"The paper."
"Oh." Kuai Hongji raised an eyebrow, "Trying to hide makes it more conspicuous."
"Seems like you thought the same as me."
"Heh," Kuai Hongji glanced at Tian Bufan, "what are you trying to test?"
"Nothing, I’m just looking forward to your interpretation."
"Better be just anticipation... You guys go ahead and talk, I’ll come check on you after I shower." Kuai Hongji gave a cold smile and walked toward the bathroom with his clothes.
Once Kuai Hongji entered the bathroom, Lin Yi turned to look at Tian Bufan and Wei Shan, puzzled, "What’s going on with you guys?"
"It’s nothing major, it’ll be fine after Kuai Kuai showers." Tian Bufan pointed at the desk, "Shall we talk about this Song Rentou thing first? It seems quite interesting."
Lin Yi glanced at the wall clock.
21:48.
"Okay."
The lights out in the dormitory was at midnight, there was plenty of time to have a good chat.
Lin Yi sat down and first asked, "Did any non-human classmates follow you on the way back?"
"Yes," Tian Bufan nodded, "Wasn’t it the same yesterday? It’s actually every day, but today was a bit special."
Lin Yi paused at that but quickly recovered.
Tian Bufan wasn’t wrong, nocturnal species had always been among the darkness and the fog, that rustling sound was them moving behind them...
"No, I didn’t mean that." Lin Yi almost got sidetracked, he mentioned the incident in the corridor today where a non-human classmate resembling a fake Wei Liang followed them.
Wei Liang, lying on the bed, couldn’t help but poke half his head out upon hearing this.
"..."
But he didn’t speak, his expression thoughtful, and soon silently retreated back under his pillow, it was unclear if he had actually fallen asleep.
Lin Yi, sitting with his back to Wei Liang, didn’t notice his slight movement, "When I looked through the peephole earlier, I could still see those non-human classmates in the corridor, did you encounter them when you came back?"
"Peephole?" Tian Bufan blinked slightly.
"Right over there, it’s not very obvious." Lin Yi got up, went to the door, and then fumbled a bit to find the position of the grille.
"No need to open it, I saw it," Tian Bufan intervened.
His expression hardened, and his brow furrowed, his serious demeanor startled Lin Yi.
"Is there something wrong with this peephole?" Lin Yi sensed something.
Tian Bufan sighed, "Doesn’t the position of that peephole strike you as odd? Who designs a peephole at the middle-lower part of the door, where you have to stoop down to see outside, as if it’s been installed upside-down?"
"Now that you mention it, it does seem a bit off..." Lin Yi nodded seriously, "So, did you encounter those non-human classmates?"
"We did," Tian Bufan nodded, "I don’t know why, but on the way back today, it was all them, I almost felt like they were swarming out."
The Teaching Building, the way back, and the corridors were full of them, and moreover, they didn’t come up by the elevator."
"Yes, they weren’t using the elevator," Lin Yi mused. "Even if it was by elevator, one elevator couldn’t fit that many people, and... they seemed to emerge from some corner, then continually streamed out from there."
"Hmm, the problem lies exactly there," Tian Bufan said.
"Are you saying...?!" Lin Yi’s eyes lit up.
"I suspect this issue may be related to the ’corner’; of course, this is a guess based on all the known conditions we have so far. Do you remember what the dormitory building’s rules say?"
Lin Yi then seriously recalled...
[Each floor of the dormitory building is ring-shaped (the corridor appears as a smooth arc). The first and last dorms on each floor are adjacent to each other, making them directly connected, with no possibility of right-angle turns.
If you find yourself facing a right-angle turn while searching for your dorm, please turn around and tell yourself that there is no right-angle turn, then turn around again.
Continue only after you’ve confirmed that the path in front of you has returned to normal.
Never assume that you mis-saw it, then try to find the way to your dorm by closing and reopening your eyes.]
"’No direct turns exist.’" He seemed to have grasped something crucial.
Tian Bufan said, "What truly doesn’t exist will not unnecessarily declare its absence, just like the rules tell us the Teaching Building only has four floors."
"I theorize that when the layer is unstable, these unstable corners appear in the dormitory building’s corridors, their locations probably random, or maybe leveraging our ’anchored’ sense of location to graft on to us..."
"Then, those non-human classmates emerge from these corners and attack Experience Students according to some mechanism."
"These are all my speculations. To rationalize it, I have incorporated ’randomness’ and ’dependency’ as characteristics. Just take it as it is for now, and we can verify it when the opportunity arises."
Following Tian Bufan’s train of thought, Lin Yi pondered for a moment, then said, "There might actually be something to trace. Once Maozi left the stairway, he was on the corridor of the dormitory building - that stairway certainly wasn’t one originally part of the dormitory building itself."
"Perhaps the door he opened corresponds to the ’corner’?"
"Moreover, Human Sculptures under the lighting slowly transform into non-human classmates, and there were countless sculptures in that stairwell of Maozi’s, not lacking Human Sculptures either."
Under Tian Bufan’s guidance, Lin Yi suddenly connected many pieces of memory, deducing a very reasonable idea.
Then, referencing how Human Sculptures in the campus would read out loud the statements anchoring their Identity they held in mind, those non-human classmates must also possess this ability.
Within the campus, what they read is "I am so-and-so, my student number is so-and-so, I am heading to such-and-such building," in order to track Experience Students toward that destination.
In this process, as soon as an Experience Student is distracted by this voice and turns around, they might suddenly see a Human Sculpture resembling themselves, easily causing intense mental fluctuations and triggering a layer drop crisis, activating the Human Sculpture’s "Void Target Search" mechanism.
However, once they have reached the dormitory building, as long as they haven’t completely arrived at their dorm, what they read is "I am so-and-so, my student number is so-and-so, my dorm is room number whatever."
With this anchoring method, they can also slowly make their way to the corresponding dorm.
"But..." Lin Yi stroked his chin, seemingly having stumbled upon some issues, "But looking at it this way, they can only reach the dormitory door at most, because without a Student ID card, they can’t actually enter the dorm!"
"Right," Tian Bufan’s lips curled into an intriguing smile, "so have you thought of anything?"
Lin Yi quickly rushed to his desk, grabbed the piece of paper from Song Rentou, and scrutinized it again and again from start to finish.
However, with each reading, Lin Yi’s frown deepened and his expression grew more solemn. He recalled why he felt so uneasy the first time he saw the paper; it was clear that one could construct a sequence of events from the information on the paper, but there always seemed to be an eerie, indescribable air of mystery surrounding the whole thing.
And now, he finally understood where this eerie feeling came from.
Because—
"The information written on this paper... seems not quite right!" Lin Yi felt like he had touched one corner of the truth, his face suddenly turned unsightly.
(Adding a temporary note, will delete after tomorrow’s update: Not sure if any expert can infer the truth about the incident written on Song Rentou’s paper before the next Chapter updates (welcome to join the group discussion, hehehe), clues and hints have actually been given, and the next Chapter will reveal them. I added this part after publishing the Chapter because the Chapter count is based on the update time, so this sentence will not affect the word-count payment, everyone rest assured.)
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