[Am I remembering correctly? This bottle is the one that Master Meiren threw away at the beginning, right? ]
[So this is how we got back? In this environment without any obstacles, even if we really went off the track accidentally, we shouldn't have gone straight back to the starting point, right? ]
[So how do we explain this bottle? Of the 379 players, only Shi Yu was thrown onto the snowfield. It couldn't have been left there by other players, right? ? ]
[I suddenly have an idea, but this is just the beginning, so I won’t talk about it yet. ]
[Either time loop or space fold, or it could be a dual effect.]
[What the hell? ? ]
[Does this mean that no matter how far you go, you will always return to where you started? No matter how long you walk, you will always go in circles? ]
[If that's the case, then we can only wait to be frozen to death? ? ]
[Let’s not talk about whether it’s right or not. It’s too early to talk about this right now. It won’t help us get out of here right now.]
Shi Yu picked up the bottle of ice, changed direction and walked a few steps, then put it down again, stood up and continued walking.
It was not until the 2,792nd step that the plastic bottle appeared under his feet for the second time.
The game has been going on for more than an hour.
Shi Yu stopped, his whole body was so cold that he almost lost consciousness. He squatted down slowly and curled himself into a ball.
[Is this finally giving up? ]
[If it were me, I would have given up long ago. This icy and snowy place is basically a dead end. It's a miracle that I can hold on until now without falling down.]
[The camera is too far away to see clearly, what is he writing on the ground? ]
[This looks like drawing? ]
[Draw a circle? ]
【Two slashes?】
[Fuck, gears! It’s a gear! ! ]
[What the hell? What kind of gear is this? ]
[No! Have you forgotten what this game is called? The gears rotate, and the name implies a loop! Because no matter which way you go, you can return to the starting point. He just used himself as a tool to measure the size of the loop space! ! ]
Shi Yu couldn't see the live broadcast barrage that had already exploded. He tapped the center of the circle with his fingertips, and a string extended out.
A few centimeters away, pull out the second string.
The two chords are parallel to each other, with a vertical line segment in the middle and a number written next to it.
The game had just begun, and the only information he knew was the gears. He put down the bottle of mineral water just in case, and returning to the original place in the end became one of the evidences of his guess.
This space will fold, or close.
Just like a gear, there is no starting point or end point, no boundary line, only a center.
He observed the distance between the two places where the water bottles were placed, intentionally controlled the direction and pace of his walking, and remembered how many steps he took and how long it took him each time.
Using the gear analogy, we can think of this space as a closed circle. The distances traveled from leaving the origin twice and returning to the origin are parallel straight lines. Knowing the number of steps taken to return to the origin twice is equivalent to knowing the length of the two parallel chords in the circle, plus the vertical length between the two chords, which is the distance between the two water bottles.
One string is two thousand seven hundred and ninety-two steps long.
One string is two thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight steps long.
Place the mineral water bottles twice, twenty steps apart.
He has already reached the boundary of this space, and the ending is clear at a glance, returning to the starting point.
So if there really is a way out here, excluding the boundaries, the most likely possibility is the center of the circle.
But if his luck is really bad and the exit is not there, but somewhere randomly in the snow, he will not be able to find it in his current condition, at least not before he dies.
Then we can only blame it on God's will.
Shi Yu's fingertips fell on the snow, moving up from the circular pattern, dragging out a diameter parallel to the two chords, and a vertical line passing through the center of the circle, outlining a new right triangle.
The height of the triangle is the direction, and the length of the base from the center of the circle is the number of steps he needs to move forward.
Unknown length, unknown radius.
Shi Yu wrote and drew, halved the length of the chord, wrote out a system of two-variable quadratic equations, and left a line of answers.
He stopped for a while, clenched his numb fingers, and stood up.
This time the progress was slower than the previous two times.
Snow was falling heavily before his eyes, and the extreme cold was corroding his consciousness from every limb to every bone. His legs were trembling slightly.
The whistling sound of the wind in my ears gradually faded away, gradually disappearing into endless silence, and my vision began to blur.
The invisible live broadcast barrage is still madly refreshing the screen in another space.
He didn't know how much time had passed, but the steps he had been counting down in his mind finally reached the end.
Shi Yu was stepping into the snowdrift when suddenly something hard blocked his way under his feet, like a step covered by the snow.
He stepped on it, and the scenery around him suddenly changed.
The original white snow turned into a golden splendor, and the bone-chilling cold disappeared in an instant.
Ji Congyang was huddled in a corner of the banquet hall with his companions, discussing something in a low voice, when suddenly a cry of surprise was heard from the crowd.
He was stunned, but his companion reacted faster and took him to the front closest to the sound source as soon as possible. When he saw the sudden increase in the number of people in the hall, his eyes widened and the word "idol" was already on the tip of his tongue.
Shi Yu’s eyes went dark and his body went limp and fell down.
Ji Congyang subconsciously hugged his waist, his mind was offline for several seconds, and then he looked at his companion: "Old Qiao?"
He seems to be innocent on weekdays, but in fact... he is really innocent. He gets panicked easily when something happens, and when he panics, he doesn't know what to do.
Qiao Yan blocked the gazes of the guests around him and raised her hand to grab his arm: "Hold on tight."
The next second, the three of them turned into streams of light and disappeared on the spot like a gust of wind.
※
When Shi Yu woke up again, he was in the single lounge of the medical center on the cruise ship.
Ji Congyang was eating strawberries by the bed. When he saw him wake up, he quickly threw away the strawberry stems, and when he stood up, his legs pulled onto the chair, and he made a "chi la" sound: "Idol!"
“…”
A hand reached out and pushed him back into his seat.
Shi Yu turned his gaze slightly and looked at the person who came.
Qiao Yan put down the glass. "Parts of his body were frozen, but because he was treated in a short time, no irreversible damage was caused. Besides that, he also had low blood pressure and high fever, and he has already been given an injection."
He used to have mild facial nerve paralysis. Although it has been cured, he is used to having a blank expression all year round. When he speaks in a slow and unhurried tone, he can give people a sense of inhumanity and oppression: "You suddenly appeared in the banquet hall three hours ago and fainted. It was this idiot who carried you here. Strictly speaking, you owe him a favor now."
Ji Congyang glared: "Who are you calling stupid?"
Qiao Yan didn't even bother to look at the idiot: "Can you explain? Why did you suddenly appear? Although the air temperature here is low, it is basically maintained above zero degrees Celsius. Why did you get frostbitten?"
Shi Yu opened his mouth, his voice was hoarse: "Before I came here, I was in a snowy field."
Qiao Yan tore open the straw wrapper that he had found from somewhere, inserted it into the glass, and handed it to his lips: "Drink it. Did you travel directly from the snowfield to the banquet hall of the cruise ship?"
Shi Yu swallowed two gulps of warm water, and his voice became much clearer. He didn't explain the details, but said briefly: "I appeared in the snowfield when I entered the game. Later, I found a way to leave, and ended up here."
Qiao Yan pursed her lips and was speechless for a moment.
Ji Congyang was puzzled and asked, "No wonder we haven't seen other players in such a long time here. It turns out that the system won't send all players to one place in a group game? Have you seen other people over there?"
Qiao Yan had a paralyzed face: "If there are other people over there, won't they come with him?"
"That's right." Ji Congyang still had a lot of questions in his mind, "If the exit over there can lead directly to this side, then can we also go directly to that side?"
Qiao Yan ignored him and put the cup back: "Let's go."
Ji Congyang said, "Why?"
"Something's up." Qiao Yan glanced at him and said, "You can stay if you want. I'll be back soon."
After saying that, he left the infirmary.
Ji Congyang thought for a few seconds and felt that it was more likely for something to happen to the injured person than to a companion with all his limbs intact. So he simply stayed and stopped eating the strawberries, staring at him secretly.
Suddenly, he met the other person's eyes. He dodged like a thief, but forced himself to move back: "Well, you fainted suddenly before and scared me. Do you want me to ask the doctor to check you again?"
Shi Yu shook her head: "You're not going with him?"
"He's a grown man, he doesn't have any missing limbs, why does he have to ask me to follow him?" Ji Congyang fiddled with the strawberries in the basket, racking his brains to find a topic, "I followed your game live broadcast before, I liked it very much..."
Shi Yu saw him stop and added the second half of the sentence: "Do you like me?"
Ji Congyang almost bit his tongue and his ears turned red.
I'm obviously a fan of an idol, why would a sentence like this become so ambiguous in this situation? !
Fortunately, Shi Yu was just following his context and asked him, "How long have you been on this ship?"
Ji Congyang reacted a little late: "We have been here since the game started, so it has been about seven or eight hours. We originally planned to wait for the ship to dock and go to land to take a look, or at least try to find other players first. Otherwise, there will be no information, which is too passive."
Shi Yu hummed lightly.
When Ji Congyang mentioned this, he thought of his companion: "I don't know what he went out to do."
Shi Yu stared at the ceiling, her long raven hair scattered randomly, her fingers hanging loosely, leaving slight wrinkles on the snow-white sheets: "Maybe he went to check the cruise routes."
Ji Congyang was stunned and subconsciously asked why.
Shi Yu: "I came here from the snowfield in a blink of an eye, without any transition. From this point of view, it is unlikely that we can leave this cruise ship and go to other places by walking. It is more likely that we need to find the exit of this space and leave directly."
As soon as the voice fell, Qiao Yan pushed open the door of the infirmary.
He did not avoid outsiders and said directly: "The cruise ship is still in the Nansha waters."
Ji Congyang's eyes widened: "Were we not already in the Nansha Sea when we first arrived? It's been half a day, why haven't we left this place yet?"
Qiao Yan looked at the injured person on the bed.
The injured person answered: "This space may be closed."
Qiao Yan frowned: "Space folding or Mobius strip?"
Shi Yu: “You can think of it as a flat world map.”
Qiao Yan’s brows furrowed even deeper.
"If the space that different players are sent to is essentially the same, then its boundary is close to a circle, and the exit is at the center of the circle. Although the cruise ship is on the sea, it is unlikely that the players will jump into the sea to find it, so as long as we find a way to find the center of this space, the cruise ship can leave directly when it reaches there."
Shi Yu said, "Although I came from the snowfield, the destination of your space exit may not be the snowfield. First of all, there are more than 300 players in this game, and I have only seen you two so far, so the rest of the people were probably sent to other places by the system. This means that there are probably far more similar closed spaces in this game than the snowfield and the cruise ship. Assuming that the number of people is evenly distributed, there are at least 240 closed spaces; secondly, when I got here, I appeared directly inside the cruise ship instead of on the sea level. It is unlikely that the cruise ship was sailing to the center of this sea area at that time, and the center of the circle coincided with the banquet hall. I tend to think that the banquet hall is just a passage exit from the snowfield, or even a unified exit from other closed spaces. I don’t know whether I can go back from this exit, but at least the other end of the center of this space should be somewhere else."
Ji Congyang opened his mouth wide as he listened.
"If the above guess is correct, excluding the option of waiting for the ship to dock, you now have two choices: the ship has a cabin, and the mechanical dial can always display the latitude and longitude of the location. It should be easy to find the center of this space and then leave. Of course, if you feel adventurous, there is also a more passive plan, which is to stay where you are and wait for others to come and meet up to exchange information."
"You will look for other players, and other players will also try to find other people. As long as you find something unusual in the surrounding environment, it is only a matter of time before you think of a way to leave. The game has no time limit and does not give any tips for passing levels. Currently, apart from accidents caused by the environment in the space itself, there are no ghost threats or strange dangers. You don't know where you will be sent after you leave, but you know that it must be safe here. If you really want to wait, you will spend ten days or half a month here without leaving the game, while it is not impossible for other people to just go through the motions here."
Qiao Yan looked down at him.
"It's just to repay his favor." Shi Yu pulled the quilt over her head, her long eyelashes casting a light grey shadow, "I'm going to sleep for a while, don't disturb me."
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