CR: Chapter 549

Chapter 549 – Card Labyrinth (Middle)

Shao Qingge was very excited when he saw Old Mo. The person with the strongest sense of direction in the team was the interior designer Mo Xuemin. Xiao Lou might have a very strong ability to crack the mechanisms and passwords but the way out was guided by Old Mo. Moreover, they now encountered a 3D labyrinth. Shao Qingge was immediately confident about clearing the instance with Old Mo present.

Gui Yuanzhang and Mo Xuemin weren’t really familiar with each other but Gui Yuanzhang had heard Tang Ci’s evaluation of this person. In the rotating labyrinth World Weekly where the elimination rate was 80%, he alone survived while his teammates were wiped out. This showed his ability to cope with labyrinths.

As a result, Mo Xuemin faced two pairs of eyes that were very ‘caring’ toward him.

Old Mo was stunned for a moment before standing up. “Chief Shao, Senior Gui, are you also in the labyrinth?”

Shao Qingge knew that this person was real as soon as he saw the white cloth because this white cloth wasn’t ordinary white cloth. It was a card given to Old Mo by Liu Qiao. He could write things on it at any time with his fingers and he could erase the marks on it to restore it as before. Old Mo often used this white cloth to draw maps whenever they were in a labyrinth.

For the sake of safety, he still confirmed it. “Old Mo, is your daughter celebrating her birthday tomorrow?”

Old Mo smiled. “Her birthday is Children’s Day. It has already passed.”

The password was correct and both Shao Qingge and Gui Yuanzhang were at ease. Gui Yuanzhang walked over and asked, “You are writing and drawing on your white cloth. Have you come up with any rules?”

Old Mo smiled bitterly. “No, I just started doing it. I appeared in a passage and there were four cards on the wall. I drew the 8 of Diamonds and walked down some steps. Then I came to this place.”

Shao Qingge and Gui Yuanzhang glanced at each other and couldn’t help wondering something.

Shao Qingge frowned and asked, “You came down some steps. You didn’t fall?”

Old Mo looked dazed. “Yes, the passage opened and there was only a section of stairs that was less than five meters.” He looked at their faces and couldn’t help being confused. “Why? Did the two of you fall?”

Gui Yuanzhang answered in a low voice, “That’s right. The two of us fell from the sky after drawing the 8 of Diamonds card.”

Shao Qingge added, “I fell down twice with Old Gui. The first time, I drew the 7 of Diamonds and the second time I drew the 8 of Diamonds. By the way, this labyrinth is very strange. We had to go up some stairs when drawing the 3 of Diamonds and the 2 of Diamonds.”

Old Mo drew an 8 of Diamonds, which was the same one as Shao Qingge had chosen. It was repeated so the card didn’t count toward their collection.

Shao Qingge put the playing cards together and counted them. After removing the duplicates, they currently had five Diamonds cards: the K of Diamonds, 7 of Diamonds, 3 of Diamonds, 2 of Diamonds and 8 of Diamonds.

The three of them gathered in the 8 of Diamonds passage.

Old Mo lowered his head and thought about it. Then he analyzed it. “We can determine some clues. First, each card represents a passage and drawing the corresponding card will allow us to reach the corresponding passage. For example, we all drew 8 of Diamonds so we came here.”

“Secondly, the four cards that appear in each corridor have no obvious pattern of repeats. The fact that we can get 8 of Diamonds in different corridors proves this.”

“Third, the internal passages of this labyrinth are very complicated. I can walk down stairs to 8 of Diamonds but you fell vertically to this passage. There is no doubt that this is a 3D labyrinth and there are many hidden paths.”

Shao Qingge nodded in agreement. “Let’s seize the time to collect more playing cards so that Old Mo can draw a more accurate map.”

Gui Yuanzhang said, “Let’s go. Continue to grab the Diamonds cards.”

This time, there were still four cards on the wall. They were 4 of Diamonds, 5 of Diamonds, 9 of Diamonds and 10 of Diamonds.

Shao Qingge pulled out 4 of Diamonds and a door appeared at the end of the corridor. The three of them walked through this door and saw stairs spiraling upward.

Old Gui wanted to use the brush to fly up but Old Mo stopped him. “Don’t worry. I want to count how many steps there are so I can calculate the height and distance.”

Just now, Shao Qingge and Gui Yuanzhang had been pursuing speed so they didn’t count how many steps there were from 7 of Diamonds to 3 of Diamonds. This was careless. Old Mo was quite professional when it came to ‘measuring distance’. The two of them could be relieved when handing the matter over to him.

However, the countdown number in the floating box kept decreasing and this made Shao Qingge feel a bit nervous.

Old Mo also knew that time was urgent so he accelerated his pace. As he climbed up the stairs, he silently counted in his mind. After around half a minute, they came to the end of the stairs and found a door.

They pushed open the door and a large LCD screen suddenly popped up in front of them. “Welcome to the card level with a mechanism. You can only collect the card of this level after completing the game. Please choose a player as a representative to play the card game.”

Old Gui and Old Mo replied in unison, “Chief Shao.”

Shao Qingge, “……”

Time was already tight and now they needed to play a card game?!

Shao Qingge stepped forward helplessly. 17 cards quickly appeared on the wall, representing his hand. There were 17 cards dealt at the beginning so was this game Fight the Landlord? Shao Qingge was puzzled before a familiar mechanical voice was heard in his ears again. “Fight the Landlord. You are the banker in the first round. Please select the cards on the wall as your hand to play the game. The time limit is 5 seconds. If there are no cards to play, press skip.”

Five seconds to play the cards? This was too short to think.

Just then, three more hole cards were turned over on the wall.

There were 20 cards on the wall and scattered around. They were arranged in a very messy manner, unlike the usual games where it would be arranged from largest to smallest for them. The dazzling playing cards undoubtedly increased the difficulty of playing cards but Shao Qingge had the ability to ‘never forget’ playing cards. Five seconds was enough for him to see all the cards.

The cards on the wall might be scattered everywhere but he quickly sorted them out in his mind. “Little king, 22, KK, Q, J, 10, 9, 8, 777, 555, 44, 33.”

In Fight the Landlord, there was no need to care about the suits of the card, only the ‘pairs’, ‘three cards’ and ‘straight’.

This hand wasn’t bad.

Shao Qingge decided to play steadily. The moment that ‘please play the cards’ rang in his ears, he used the agile movements after transforming into the bug king to quickly move through the passage while quickly selecting cards. In five seconds, he clicked on 33, 44 and 55 for a total of six cards!

Old Mo and Old Gui only saw his wind-like figure swaying back and forth in front of their eyes.

334455 went out and a mechanical voice was heard. “I can’t afford it.”

Shao Qingge continued to play the cards.

His speed was getting faster and faster. The bug king transformation combined with the teleportation card meant he simply became a flying shadow in the air. His slender fingers didn’t hesitate when selecting cards and five consecutive cards were selected by him.

“8, 9, 10, J, Q straight.”

“I can’t afford it!”

“7, 7, 7, 5, three cards and one.”

“9, 9, 9, 3.”

This was bigger than Shao Qingge’s hand so Shao Qingge pressed to skip.

The other party played a series of straights and Shao Qingge continued to skip.

The opponent’s big cards were finished and a pair of 4s came out. Shao Qingge quickly selected the cards, “Two kings.”

“I can’t afford it!”

Very good. No one got the other pair of 2s. Shao Qingge continued to play a pair of 2s.

“I can’t afford it!”

The series of ‘I can’t afford it’ was heard and Shao Qingge played the last little king.

[You have won the game. Reward items: 2x collectible cards.]

[In the corridor, you can select two playing cards and open two labyrinth passages.]

This undoubtedly saved a lot of time.

All three were overjoyed as they looked at the wall.

The cards that were lit up just now disappeared and four collectible cards with a soft glow appeared. They were 6 of Diamonds, 6 of Hearts, 6 of Spades and 6 of Clubs.

They could select two cards so the three of them chose 6 of Diamonds and 6 of Hearts.

A door with two passages appeared at the end of the corridor. One was painted with the pattern of 6 of Diamonds and the other had 6 of Hearts. The three of them didn’t hesitate to continue taking the Diamonds path. They took a few steps before a door appeared in front of them.

Shao Qingge became stunned the moment he entered through the door.

He saw four cards on the wall: K of Diamonds, K of Hearts, K of Spades and K of Clubs.

Shao Qingge narrowed his eyes. “I’ve been here before.”

Old Mo and Gui Yuanzhang looked back at him at the same time.

Shao Qingge might have a poor sense of direction but his memory wasn’t bad, not to mention the obvious features of the ‘four Ks’.

Shao Qingge told them, “I appeared in this room in the beginning and took K of Diamonds. Now there is still a K of Diamonds on the wall. Is it possible that the wall copied another one after I took it?”

Old Mo’s eyes lit up when he heard these words. “I understand!”

He took out the white cloth and quickly drew on it. “The playing cards that can be collected from the card wall are like a ‘mechanism key’ in the labyrinth. Every time we take a card key, the corresponding door will be opened. After we leave, the mechanism will be restored and the door closed.”

Old Gui thought about it. “In other words, we open the door with the card key but this door will close after we pass through and the card will reappear on the wall. So in the 3D labyrinth, we can’t turn around and go back but we can get the corresponding key to walk to the place we want to reach?”

Old Mo nodded vigorously. “Yes, the doors will automatically close after we pass through but they can be reopened. I think it is necessary for us to follow the path just now and go through it again to verify if our analysis is correct or not.”

He picked up the white cloth and quickly wrote ‘6→→K’ on it with his fingers. Then he asked Shao Qingge, “Chief Shao, did you choose K before? Keep choosing it and try it.”

Shao Qingge stepped forward, took the K of Diamonds card and the door at the end opened.

Everyone entered the door and took a few steps forward. There were the four cards of 7 of Diamonds, 8 of Diamonds, 9 of Diamonds and 10 of Diamonds. Shao Qingge also had an impression of these four cards. At that time, he chose the 7 as the lowest number and fell. It was a crisis of falling to his death so he activated the Bug King card.

Shao Qingge selected 7 of Diamonds according to his memory.

The door at the end of the corridor opened and the three people walked through. Their feet stepped on air and their bodies started to fall rapidly. The sudden weightlessness made Old Mo scream but Gui Yuanzhang was very quick. He took out the brush and formed a whirlwind under his feet while holding Old Mo.

Old Mo sighed with relief. “The sudden free fall scared me.”

Shao Qingge smiled. “This is already our third time.”

A few moments later, the three of them landed steadily.

Shao Qingge saw the familiar four cards on the wall and snapped his fingers. “Old Mo guessed right. These playing cards are indeed keys. They can open the corresponding doors and be opened repeatedly.”

This news relieved all three.

Old Mo opened his mouth. “There are a large number of card keys in the labyrinth and they appear repeatedly. It is just that the keys of the same suit and number can only open the corresponding room. There are 54 playing cards and there should be 54 small rooms in this labyrinth.”

After all, the keys could be repeated but the rooms could not.

Gui Yuanzhang quickly calculated it. “There are 54 rooms and each room has four cards. The total number of playing cards in the labyrinth is 215. We need to collect 54 cards that aren’t repeated to make a deck and time is quite tight. If we wander aimlessly, we will probably get lost and won’t be able to find all the cards.”

If they missed one or two at the end, wouldn’t they have to walk through the labyrinth again from the beginning? There simply wasn’t enough time.

In such a 3D labyrinth, they couldn’t wander around like headless flies.

Old Mo said solemnly, “We must find the rule of the room distribution. I already have some clues in my mind. Let’s gather all the cards of the Diamonds suit first.”

At present, they had the most Diamonds cards in their hands with a total of seven: K, 7, 3, 2, 8, 4 and 6.

Shao Qingge remembered that in the 3 of Diamonds and 8 of Diamonds rooms, the option of 4 of Diamonds appeared. If they wanted to collect all of the suit of Diamonds, it was better to go to the 4 of Diamonds rooms first.

At present, they were in the 7 of Diamonds room which happened to have the key of 3 of Diamonds.

Shao Qingge stepped forward to take 3 of Diamonds and the revolving stairs appeared in front of them. They quickly climbed the stairs and came to the room of 3 of Diamonds where they had been before. Unfortunately, the 2, 4, 6 and 8 of Diamonds were all cards they already had. Shao Qingge took the 8 of Diamonds once again and came to the place where the three of them had just met.

The wall had the 4, 5, 9 and 10 of Diamonds. There were three cards they didn’t have.

Shao Qingge took the 5 of Diamonds…

The three of them went back and forth in the labyrinth to collect the Diamonds cards. At the same time, Old Mo made marks on the white cloth.

For example, when moving vertically downward, he would draw the ‘↓’ sigh. If moving horizontally, he would draw left or right arrows according to the direction. If he encountered stairs, he would estimate the number of steps to mark the distance…

The three of them moved up and down in the labyrinth and spent nearly 10 minutes to finally gather all the Diamonds cards from A-K.

Old Mo stopped his two teammates. “Come and see.”

Shao Qingge and Gui Yuanzhang walked over to him and looked down at the white handkerchief.

＝＝＝2＝＝＝

＝＝3＝Q＝＝

＝6＝＝＝K＝

J＝＝A＝＝T

＝4＝＝＝7＝

＝＝5＝9＝＝

＝＝＝8＝＝＝

A diamond shaped pattern appeared on the white cloth.

Old Mo simulated the picture using his finger. “Chief Shao moved in parallel from 6 to K. From K to 7 is a parallel drop. From 7 to 3 is a staircase to the left. From 3 to 2 is a staircase to the right. 2 to 8 is a vertical drop. 8 to 4 is a staircase to the left…”

It could all be matched. Even the number of steps were accurate.

Shao Qingge exclaimed, “Old Mo, you are so powerful!”

Old Mo blushed as he was praised. “I have studied surveying and mapping before. The vertical distance of construction sites must be measured and I am used to it.”

Shao Qingge smiled and patted his shoulder. “Don’t be modest.”

It was cool to win by lying down. Of course, he also made contributions.

Gui Yuanzhang opened his mouth. “At present, the labyrinth has seven floors and all the Diamonds rooms are arranged three-dimensionally into a diamond according to the rules drawn by Old Mo. If we draw a vertical room key, we will fall directly and move in parallel on the same floor. If the different floors aren’t vertical then there will be upward and downward stairs?”

Old Mo nodded. “That’s right. I marked the 2, 6, 4 and 7 rooms. All four suits appeared in those rooms. In addition to Diamonds, we can also draw Hearts, Spades and Clubs. In other words, these four rooms give us access to the labyrinth areas of the other suits. It is a transmission station. We have to transmit using these four locations if we want to collect the other suits.”

Shao Qingge praised it. “Great.”

There was Old Mo so their method of walking through the labyrinth became professional.

Otherwise, the two of them would just go back and forth in the 3D labyrinth and would become dizzy and confused. The three of them had spent a lot of time taking repeated paths to collect the Diamonds cards but this was the most sensible thing to do. It would be too complicated to open up the other labyrinth areas at the same time and even Old Mo wouldn’t be able to figure out what was going on.

Now they had figured out the rules of the 3D labyrinth in the Diamonds area and the next step was much easier!

Proofreader: Paranoid Kitten & Fictional Reality