Abnormal group member rules
The score is 0:0.
Players from both teams fought for the ball in the hazy fog, with occasional boos from the audience.
The auditoriums on all sides were empty. There were only about a hundred spectators on the vast football field. The players on the field played in silence, without any passionate or excited shouts.
The opening song has ended, and there is silence inside and outside the stadium.
Sitting in the yellow partition, Chen Zhanqin frequently checks his phone, with visual glasses and a filter mask covering his face.
It’s only 20:08.
Just? He was stunned.
Didn’t the show just start? Why did he feel like he had been watching it for a while?
"Shh-"
Chen Zhanqin looked at the man in the front row, who was booing towards the court.
"Even a turtle can run faster than her." The man muttered dissatisfiedly.
Chen Zhanqin didn't hear anything wrong at first, but when he thought about it carefully, his scalp started to tingle.
They're not really here to watch the football game!
He thought about it, moved a few places, and patted the man on the shoulder.
The man frowned and looked back.
"Hello, are you also invited to watch the game?" Chen Zhanqin tried to remind the man implicitly.
Unexpectedly, the man said without thinking: "It's none of your business!"
"Sorry to bother you."
At this time, a boy holding a schoolbag came up to Chen Zhanqin's row with a timid look on his face and lowered his waist.
Chen Zhanqin immediately became alert.
The boy sat down in the seat next to the stairs.
Chen Zhanqin was fidgeting and quietly looked around at the spectators - some dared to whisper to each other, some looked at the football field, and some observed others like him.
One of the men met Chen Zhanqin's gaze.
The man was sitting in the back two rows, wearing light brown glasses and a short side-parted hairstyle that made him look a bit unruly.
Chen Zhanqin felt like he had seen him somewhere before, but his temperament was completely different from when he first met him.
The man turned his eyes away indifferently, looked towards the football field, and suddenly raised his hand and pointed at the football field.
Stunned Chen Zhanqin was not sure whether he was communicating with him.
"Wow--"
"ah!"
Many people suddenly screamed, and Chen Zhanqin quickly looked towards the football field.
A male player from the blue team not only lost the football, but also fell and broke his entire leg.
Beep——
The referee immediately stopped the game and replaced the players.
Chen Zhanqin broke out in a cold sweat and realized something was wrong.
Are there fewer screaming voices? What are the other people who are not screaming doing?
The man watching the game in the front row just crossed his arms, looking incredibly calm.
Chen Zhanqin swallowed nervously. At this moment, the boy in his peripheral vision stood up with his schoolbag and walked towards him.
In an instant, Chen Zhanqin's hair stood on end and an inexplicable chill surged up his spine.
Based on the detective's experience in judging danger, he thought he had to run away immediately! He stepped on the seat and climbed the stairs, subconsciously running towards the man wearing brown glasses.
I didn't expect him to come to me on the weekend, and my fingertips in my pocket peeled off the red sticker.
Unexpectedly, the boy with the schoolbag also followed to the back row.
Faced with two people rushing towards this row, Weekend changed his mind and stayed where he was leisurely.
The young policeman ran straight towards him, and the boy with the schoolbag ran towards the young policeman.
Just as the boy passed in front of Weekend, Weekend stretched out his foot and tripped the boy.
Not wanting to miss the opportunity, Chen Zhanqin took his hand out of his pocket and put a red sticker on the back of the boy's head.
"ah……"
A puff of white smoke emanated from the boy's body.
Chen Zhanqin and Weekend were shocked.
Beep——
The red team kicks off.
0:0
"Shh-"
The audience in the front row booed in dissatisfaction.
Lu Miao checked the time on his phone and found it was 20:05.
She took out a sticky note from her pocket and compared it with the current seating arrangement in the blue section.
She found that several audience members had changed seats and the number of audience members in this area did not match.
The sticky note records 22 people, but there are only 20 people currently, two less.
"Mr. Si, have you reduced your stickers?" Strangely, Lu Miao did not object to Si Lan sitting next to her.
"Two are missing."
"I didn't lose any of my stickers." She hesitated for a few seconds. "Do you remember putting up the red stickers?"
"No."
She also had no memory of Si Lan sitting next to her. Clearly, there was no one sitting next to her at the beginning.
Soon, she discovered that there was one less substitute player on the bench for the blue team at the side of the court, leaving six. Originally, each team had seven substitute players.
The number of substitutes for the Red Team has not decreased and remains seven.
"Time has been reset." Her voice was low.
Si Lan glanced sideways. "Do you think so because you lack memory?"
"Not entirely. The most important evidence comes from the field. Both teams had seven substitutes at the beginning. If it was the beginning of the game, the blue team would not be missing a substitute. Note that it is missing, not replacement."
He nodded. "The rules mention reducing the number of players, so that's how it was reduced. The question is, how many times did the time reset?"
"At least twice." She spoke without hesitation. "The changes in the stadium and the audience seats are not obvious, which proves that time passed quickly before the time was reset. It is impossible for us to use up two red stickers in a short period of time."
After saying that, she was stunned.
Why did you say "we"? Did she act together with Si Lan?
Si Lan's eyes curved into a graceful arc. "There is one more thing that proves that time flies by so quickly."
She looked over.
"You only had one page of sticky notes, so you didn't have enough time to record the changes from the first two times. Given this, it's difficult for us to change the partitions every 15 minutes."
Lu Miao observes the sticky notes with written content.
One corner of the paper is fuzzy and curled slightly.
"It seems that it was reset not just twice, but more times."
Si Lan's black eyes flashed with excitement, but his voice was calm: "I think we should take note of the current number of people in other divisions."
The deer seedlings began to count the number of people in the green partition next door.
Beep——
0:0
The red team kicks off.
The booing became louder, and some people even cursed.
Lu Miao stared at the “18” written on the sticky note and fell into deep thought.
She counted and found that there were 20 people in the blue zone. And the number "18" seemed to be newly written. What did it mean?
The handwriting is her own as she likes to write “1” and “8” in connected strokes.
There are four more words before "18": time reset.
“Fuck!”
The audience in the front row kept cursing.
"Can you kick it?"
Shortly after the game started, a player from the Red Team sprained his ankle and fell, fracturing his left foot and ankle at 90 degrees, which was a shocking sight.
The red team had to replace the substitute players.
"The blue team only has six substitutes?" She caught the thoughts floating in the fog.
After the red team's substitutes came on the court, the player with a broken bone actually limped into the nearest red zone audience stands.
Lu Miao's black pupils narrowed, and he raised his invisible thorns to be alert to his surroundings.
The number of abnormal group members can be replenished!
She wrote it down quickly.
Si Lan, who was sitting next to her, watched her take notes quietly.
"Do you smell a faint smell of blood?" Lu Miao suddenly asked.
"The smell of blood?" He was caught off guard.
"Floating over from other partitions." She glanced at the audience in other partitions.
They all wore vision glasses and filter masks to cover their faces, so it was impossible to tell whether they noticed or not.
"The auditorium is quite clean." Si Lan looked around. "Our perception has been deceived."
Lu Miao feels the same way. "The number of abnormal group members will increase, while the number of normal group members will continue to decrease. The time will reset, and 15 minutes will never pass. We can no longer blindly deal with abnormal group members."
Si Lan watched quietly, with a gleam of expectation in his eyes.
She tore off the written sticky note and wrote "Rules for Abnormal Group Members" on the blank page.
"You want to reverse their rules?"
"Um."
The thick fog was stirred up again, and there was a faint smell of blood.
Beep——
The black referee tossed the coin upwards.
Lu Miao realized that he had tightened his grip on the pen, and looked down at the sticky note on the new page that read:
Rules for abnormal group members.
Her left fist clenched the written-on sticky note.
"What is this?" Si Lan frowned and looked at what she wrote.
Lu Miao connected all the clues recorded. "Both teams are missing a substitute player. They will go to the audience to replenish the number of abnormal group members. There is no time, Si Lan, please help count the number of people in each division."
The address was a little more intimate than "Mr. Si", so he smiled and agreed.
The time reset must be related to reducing the number of people. She quickly wrote down the first rule of reverse deduction:
1. Killing (a) normal group member will reset the time (crossed out)
She thought for a moment and corrected it to:
1. Any event that affects the progress of the game will return to the start of the game.
2. Players leaving the game are allowed to enter the stands to watch the game.
3. When the number of normal group members is 1/2 less than the number of abnormal group members, it is considered a victory.
"There are 15 people in the purple zone, 18 people in the blue zone, 18 people in the green zone, 19 people in the yellow zone, and 12 people in the red zone." Si Lan handed Lu Miao a piece of paper with the number of people written down on it.
She shocked the audience with a sharp drop in numbers.
Si Lan noticed the first rule she reversed. "What are the conditions for them to kill people? The time didn't reset when I counted, so it shouldn't be a time limit."
"One of our rules mentions don't panic stay calm, instead, their kill condition is to kill quietly."
"Why? They are killing people indiscriminately, and the rules require us not to panic and stay calm."
She was in high spirits and spoke very quickly: "Because we need to ensure the smooth progress of the game, the noise of them killing people cannot affect the players' game. They need to kill people quickly, accurately and ruthlessly, and the normal group members sitting alone are their first choice."
His eyes were dark as he continued to point out loopholes. "But normal group members would scream when they see a murder, which would still affect the game."
"So this is one of the functions of the time reset. The first function is to make the normal group members forget which one is the abnormal group member who killed people. The second function is not to affect the progress of the game."
Her eyes were startlingly bright. "Third, it prevents us from easily noticing the decrease in numbers. Therefore, the abnormal group members will kill people within 15 minutes each time, preventing us from changing zones for more communication. Conversely, if we kill an abnormal group member, it may also trigger a time reset."
"The rules all favor abnormal group members. It's unfair."
"Not necessarily. Every time the rules of the field of strange stories do not favor the abnormal party, I believe the method to crack it is in our "Viewing Guide"."
Her determined eyes are like a lighthouse standing in the ocean, extremely charming.
Si Lan's excitement flashed in his eyes, and he spoke slowly: "Have you ever thought about why we must ensure that the game goes smoothly? The rules are designed based on this premise, but the audience has no interest in watching the game, so what is the point of this game?"
"You're right. Football matches are the main part of the entire field of ghost stories. One of its functions is to influence our cognition. However, time is constantly reset. Can its influence be reset?"
"All I know is that time keeps resetting and we can't go to another zone."
Lu Miao took out his phone from his pocket, his eyes lit up with joy. "I guess the internet is still working."
Beep——
0:0
The blue team kicks off.
The red team seemed to be familiar with the route the blue team kicked the ball, and they intercepted the ball early and took it away.
"Fuck, can you play football?"
"The ball was intercepted! What the hell!"
…
There was constant cursing from the audience, and Lu Miao was frightened.
She discovered something very important.
"Si Lan, I know why the competition must go smoothly."
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