Rubik’s Cube
Chapter 66
No wonder Lin Xinlan asked Song Qinglan ‘How did I offend you’. Turns out, he was from a year ago. He had no knowledge of what happened a year later.
A question very quickly surfaced in Ji Yushi’s mind — Since they had met here, the Lin Xinlan from a year later must remember what happened in this ‘Rubik’s Cube’. Lin Xinlan who was temporarily hijacked and then returned to his own time and space, apart from writing about his experience in the mission report, he probably didn’t mention anything about it to anyone.
To Lin Xinlan, the encounter with the seventh squad here was the future and also the past.
After returning, he knew that the seventh squad would be hijacked a year later, but the concept of time and space was too complicated. Even a small change could cause a change in time trajectory, thereby affecting the integrity of this time and space.
And so, what Lin Xinlan did after returning was very good.
How to interact with people from different points in time was a compulsory course for them.
Song Qinglan also knew this so he couldn’t face Lin Xinlan with the attitude from the future and could only let him tag along with them.
After saying those words, Ji Yushi calmly added, “But you have to bear with it. Although us gays may be a little messy, we are very disciplined when confessing to a straight man.”
Song Qinglan subconsciously muttered, “No, I wasn’t fucking talking about that.”
Ji Yushi asked, “Then?”
Song Qinglan, “…….”
At this moment, Duan Wen had already fixed up his attitude and helped clean up the situation after his own captain, “Cap Lin, I’ll help you up!”
Lin Xinlan, “Thanks Old Duan.”
Lin Xinlan was the last to reach the new room.
“Beep—–”
The hole behind him closed.
“What were you doing? Badmouthing me?”
Lin Xinlan tapped his knee in attempt to make the blood in that area circulate faster. He said this half-jokingly before asking, “Ah, if I follow along until the problem is solved, would the system count it as a success for me?”
Lin Xinlan was pretty good looking, and he gave of a rather refreshing vibe.
In fact, he wasn’t the annoying type. No one would’ve thought that such a person would later become such a clingy spirit. What gave him the confidence that Song Qinglan would be bent?
Song Qinglan stood up. His slightly unkept face looked particularly straight at this moment, “From blue to green. Safe.”
He looked at Lin Xinglan indifferently. Faced with the mission, he didn’t mind making the other party feel left out.
The adjacent colour theory had been confirmed. Song Qinglan spoke, “Old Duan, open the door.”
Duan Wen took down the green ball floating in the air and pressed a switch.
The door on the right opened. Song Qinglan relied on his long legs and managed to reach the top of the ladder in just a few steps. After uttering the word ‘blue’, he jumped back off.
Duan Wen, “And this one?”
On the other end, Lin Xinlan wasn’t idling around. As soon as the door in front opened, he climbed the ladder, “Red.”
With four people cooperating, the check was done very quickly.
After the colours of balls in the six surrounding rooms were checked, Ji Yushi had already marked the ground and turned on the holographic projection.
Song Qinglan, “How about it? Any thoughts?”
Ji Yushi said, “A little.”
“Before we came, in the room with the blue ball just now, in the order of front, back, left, right, top and bottom, the colours of the surrounding rooms were yellow, red, green, red, yellow and green.” Ji Yushi said. “We have now entered the green room to the left of the blue room from earlier, correct?”
Everyone nodded.
Ji Yushi drew an arrow to mark the direction and then turned to point at the wall in front of him, “We came from this room. As soon as we entered, the original blue room moved and had turned into a yellow room.”
“The movement of a single room would drive together with it the movement of an entire or column of rooms.” Song Qinglan said, “So this yellow room may be the one we saw from the blue room just now.”
Ji Yushi’s drew cubes of different colours on his holographic projection.
He coloured those cubes in to make the yellow cube connect with the green cube and added, “Yes, but there were two yellow rooms seen from the blue room just now; one above and the other in front.”
Replacing the blue room they were in earlier, was it the yellow room above or the yellow room in front? Determining that would help determine the trajectory of the original blue room.
“I understand now. After we left the room just now, it could only move backwards or downwards so that we can see this yellow room.” Song Qinglan said, “Did I get it right, Advisor Ji?”
Ji Yushi nodded.
Duan Wen looked at Ji Yushi’s holographic projection and also tried to fiddle with the cubes, “Fuck, then how do we determine whether the yellow room we are seeing now is the one above or the one in front?”
“Unable to confirm.” Song Qinglan raised a brow, “So we’ll need to continue on.”
As soon as Ji Yushi was found, their wander through these rooms was no longer aimless.
Even if they had some clues before, it was far from how it was now.
What Ji Yushi didn’t know was that before they found him, the three of them were already very exhausted.
In this ‘Rubik’s Cube’, they would not feel hungry or sleepy. Except for the change in physical appearance due to time passing, they didn’t need to eat or drink. As such, this exhaustion was mental. It made them feel hopeless and overwhelmed.
With the exhaustion swept away, Duan Wen was a little excited, “Damn, we might even clear this mission soon.”
Clear the mission?
It was unknown if the outsider Lin Xinlan followed their train of thought. He just stood on the side in thought.
Duan Wen asked, “Which room now?”
Song Qinglan said, “In order to avoid the time difference, we cannot go to rooms with the opposite colour as well as rooms of the same colour. We can only choose from the remaining rooms with colours adjacent to this one….Blue and yellow are adjacent, we can just enter this yellow one here.”
What was said was done.
The four quickly entered the room behind them with the yellow ball and then proceeded to check the other rooms.
They saw that the green room they were in had changed to red. That is to say, the red room that was originally above had now replaced the green room. The trajectory of that room seemed to be downwards.
There was still not enough information.
Along the way, Ji Yushi left marks in every room and he added cubes of different colours to his holographic projection.
*
The four continued on uninterrupted.
This time, they entered a room with a blue ball.
“Beep——–” After that sound, the round entrance behind them closed.
As soon as Ji Yushi reached the ground, he noticed that something wasn’t right.
Everyone’s movements became very, very slow, but before entering this room, everyone’s movements were normal —- There was a time difference in this room. As they didn’t enter from a same-coloured room, this time difference did not harm them.
“Time—–diff—-erence———!”
Ji Yushi slowly opened his mouth. Like a slow goldfish, he spoke with difficulty but he didn’t hear any sound.
Song Qinglan in front of him was looking back.
A simple movement had been dragged on to a few seconds. Starting from the back of Song Qinglan’s head, first it was his graceful chin line, his tall and straight nose bridge, his handsome brows, and then his face.
Ji Yushi had never looked at the other party’s face for such a long time. He was forced to have the other party’s expression completely imprinted into his mind.
Song Qinglan’s lips opened and closed. He uttered a few words very slowly. His expression slowly changed — He couldn’t make any sounds either.
Duan Wen raised his hand. He slowly approached the blue ball in the centre.
From that distance, even ten seconds wouldn’t be enough for him to reach it.
Lin Xinlan’s raised leg had not yet lowered back down. Maintaining the posture of stepping over the hole, he slowly turned his head back.
Everyone had noticed the abnormality in this room.
The flow of time was slow, and there was no sound.
In this extremely quiet environment, their movements had slowed down considerably. It was so slow, even the hair floating in the air hadn’t fallen back in place.
What was strange was, the speed was clearly very slow, but their speed of thinking hadn’t slowed down as a result.
Everyone was trying to talk.
Ji Yushi saw their mouths open and close, but he couldn’t lip read and couldn’t tell what they wanted to say. He laboriously turned his gaze. It was so slow, it was as if he could feel the movement of his eyeballs in his eye sockets and slow to the point that he could almost see the eyelashes that were usually overlooked.
In this room with a blue ball, there was already a trace of someone else’s presence.
There was a big ‘24’ drawn onto the wall. It was unknown which team had been here.
Since they didn’t seem to be around, they must have already left.
Ji Yushi’s act of leaving marks was to confirm whether he had been to the room before. Since this room already had a mark and he wouldn’t forget what it looked like, he didn’t need to mark it again.
He turned his gaze again and saw that Duan Wen had finally reached the green ball floating in the air.
Lin Xinlan’s foot on the other hand had also finally touched the ground and Song Qinglan had turned around completely and was slowly reaching out towards Ji Yushi.
Ji Yushi just happened to be standing above the point where the entrance to the room below would open.
Song Qinglan appeared to be afraid of Duan Wen accidentally selecting the wrong button and wanted to pull him away from that spot.
Ji Yushi raised his hand and let Song Qinglan give him a hand.
It was like the four of them were in a slow-motion film. Restricted movements but no change to their thoughts. Anyone who lacked patience would be frustrated to death by this situation. It took them a dozen more times longer than usual to figure out the colours of the surrounding rooms and just the act of climbing the ladder was frustrating.
To their surprise, they finally found the final unknown colour: Grey.
Because there were no sounds and their movements were slowed down, the act of checking the surrounding rooms was considerably slower. This was also the same for opening the holographic projection and adding colours to it.
Ji Yushi had now seen colours in all six directions.
They were: Front grey, back red, left blue, right blue, top grey, bottom grey.
The red room at the back replaced the green room they had arrived in.
And this was their first time encountering the colour grey.
In other words, what they have encountered now was the same blue, the opposite gray and the adjacent red.
If there was a time difference between rooms of the same colour, it would lead to death.
Opposite colours also wasn’t an option as it would also lead to death.
The red room behind them was their only option.
Song Qinglan expression was as cold as frost. He wrote two words on the holographic projection and he also mouthed, “Go—–back—–!”
At this moment, there was a “beep—-”
Someone had opened the door to the red room behind them.
Everyone was startled. They all looked over.
An unfamiliar face appeared at the entrance of the hole. He appeared to be a Westerner and his skin was rather tanned.
The movement and speech of that person was normal. He seemed to be laughing at the scene before him, as if he was gloating at their misfortune.
His voice came from the room next door but when it reached their room, it became very, very slow. It broke the silence in the room.
He revealed his teeth and said something while looking down. He probably had a companion.
As soon as he was done, he backed away.
Ji Yushi’s pupils constricted. This person was about to leave the room with the red ball!!
Song Qinglan next to him had clearly also thought of the same thing. He was already running towards that wall but unfortunately, he was too slow.
Seeing Song Qinglan’s actions, how could Lin Xinglan and Duan Wen not understand? — If those people left the room with the red ball, that room will immediately move and be replaced by a room of another colour. With this, there was a high chance of their only way out being cut off.
Before his foot could land onto the ground, there was another ‘beep—-’ and the round entrance closed.
Everyone’s expression changed.
The delayed words of that traverser finally reached everyone’s ears.
Song Qinglan had used almost all his effort to climb up the ladder and stop the other party.
But it took several minutes before he could finally reach the round entrance Duan Wen had managed to reopen.
It was too late.
There was no one in the room.
The original red ball had also become grey.
Those people had left.
What was strange was, a burst of laughter sounded in this silent room. It was that man’s laugher from before he left.
Song Qinglan’s heart turned cold. He hadn’t even had the chance to tell the others that their escape route was gone. He felt like they had not only been played with, but they were also mocked.
He wrote on the projection, “What did he say just now?”
From the tone, it sounded like French. No one understood it.
After Song Qinglan was done writing, he raised his chin at Ji Yushi indicating for him to translate.
Lin Xinlan was curious. Ji Yushi could understand that?
Ji Yushi slowly raised his hand. He wrote the translation onto the holographic projection.
——-
“Hahahaha, a group of idiots have also entered the room we were in just now! Let’s let them play in there for a while!”
It took a lot of time to write that line. He didn’t even leave out the hahahaha.
Ji Yushi’s expression was indifferent.
Everyone cursed inside at the same time: Damn it.
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