Jiang Mingran followed a girl wearing a white dress. The girl had a soft curtain of black hair draped over her shoulders, and her clear, pretty almond-shaped eyes looked around the room timidly.
“Wait.” Shao Lan said, “I didn’t let you in.”
The sudden chill in his voice startled everyone in the room, and the girl was taken aback even more.
“That’s right, I mean you.” Shao Lan looked at the girl, his tone calm yet icy, “When I just said ‘come in,’ it was meant for him, not including you. Room 802 is my room; please go outside first before getting my permission.”
The girl had already been looking timid, and upon hearing these unpolite words, her pretty almond-shaped eyes instantly turned a bit red.
Even Jiang Mingran felt awkward: “Aiya, no, brother, you…”
Awkward as it was, Jiang Mingran still said to the girl, “Why don’t you go wait in the hallway for a moment?”
The girl nodded obediently and turned to leave.
Shao Lan got up and walked to the doorway, watching until the girl walked all the way to the stairwell at the end of the hallway before closing the door and turning back. “Speak.”
“This girl’s name is Lin Zhizhi. She’s a newcomer just like us, and moved into room 901 today. She’s all alone, very scared, and hopes to join us.”
Hearing this, Uncle Bing nodded. As a fellow weak person, he deeply understood that feeling. After all, if he hadn’t teamed up with Shao Lan, he would probably be dead by now.
Shao Lan acutely caught the key phrase in Jiang Mingran’s words: “Alone? What about the people who participated in the [Review Instance] with her?”
“They’re all dead.” Jiang Mingran sighed. “She was the only survivor in her [Review Instance].”
Shao Lan paused and said, “Let her go back.”
“Huh?” Jiang Mingran scratched his head.
He had come to find Shao Lan full of confidence after hearing Lin Zhizhi’s request, never expecting that Shao Lan would refuse.
After all, in Jiang Mingran’s impression, Shao Lan was a good person who would sympathize with the weak. Uncle Bing was timid and had limited mobility, making him quite weak, yet Shao Lan still helped him out within his capacity.
Lin Zhizhi was also pitiable. A timid girl thrown into a terrifying dungeon, lacking both physical strength and luck, with all her companions dead, and not even a single partner when entering this bizarre building.
Jiang Mingran looked at Shao Lan, and seeing that Shao Lan had no intention of explaining, he had no choice but to get up, leave, and head to the stairwell.
“I’m sorry.” Jiang Mingran scratched his head apologetically, “Brother Lan didn’t agree.”
Lin Zhizhi lowered her head in disappointment and asked, “Do you have to listen to him?”
“Yes.” Jiang Mingran nodded, “Brother Lan is our backbone. If it weren’t for him, I would already be dead in the Review Instance.”
Lin Zhizhi nodded and asked, “Then can I have a chat with him?”
“Huh?”
“He was so fierce just now, I didn’t even get a chance to have a proper conversation with him.” Lin Zhizhi said, “Could it be that he was hurt by girls before, which is why he’s extra guarded against me?”
“I want to talk to him, at least introduce myself, so he’ll understand I’m not a bad woman.”
Thinking about it, Jiang Mingran felt that made sense: “Then I’ll ask him—but if he disagrees, don’t blame me.”
After Lin Zhizhi nodded, Jiang Mingran ran back to 802 to relay the message:
“Brother Lan, Lin Zhizhi says she wants to talk to you.”
He was a bit nervous, feeling like he might get rejected by Shao Lan again.
However, once again exceeding Jiang Mingran’s expectations, this time Shao Lan agreed quite readily: “Sure.”
Shao Lan came to the stairwell, where Lin Zhizhi was waiting for him.
Her figure is slender, her long, shawl-like hair soft and obedient, making her look completely harmless and innocent.
“Brother Shao Lan, don’t blame Brother Xiao Jiang. I begged him, and that’s the only reason he agreed to ask you again,” Lin Zhizhi said timidly.
“I’m all by myself, and I’m really scared.” Lin Zhizhi’s eyes reddened. “I saw that you have an elderly grandfather with limited mobility in your team. You must be a good person to take him in, right?”
“So can you take me in too? I can do anything.”
Shao Lan looked at Lin Zhizhi for a long time. After a moment, he gave a faint smile.
“Is that it?” Although Shao Lan was smiling, his gaze was icy. “If you don’t have a new pitch, then I can only give you my old answer—no.”
Lin Zhizhi’s frail body trembled slightly, and tears welled up in her eyes: “Brother Shao Lan, you can reject me, but can you give me a reason? Tell me what I did wrong so I know how to fix it.”
Shao Lan said, “What if I don’t give you a reason?”
“Then I’ll just stay here and not leave.” Lin Zhizhi raised her chin stubbornly.
“Fine,” Shao Lan nodded. “Because you’re all by yourself.”
“What?” Lin Zhizhi was stunned.
“In your Review Instance, if two, three, or four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine people had survived and you came to team up with me, we could discuss it. The only situation I won’t consider at all is when there is just one person left.” Shao Lan said calmly, “Miss Lin, don’t you understand yet?”
The expression on Lin Zhizhi’s face changed.
She no longer looked like an abused little white rabbit; instead, her expression cooled slightly. She lowered her gaze, her thick eyelashes casting two shadows on her face.
“Brother Shao Lan,” she said softly, “you’re a bit sharper than I thought.”
Shao Lan looked at her calmly.
Jiang Mingran was too naive; this girl was no weakling at all.
She had figured out that life-saving [hidden rule] early on.
When the property management woman mentioned that the [Review Instance] had a lower difficulty, Jiang Mingran had been very unconvinced.
But in reality, it was because Shao Lan had led them down the hardest path.
The core difficulty of this dungeon boiled down to just one thing—you had to call the police, but making the call would alert Suxia.
Yet this difficulty actually had a very simple solution: make someone else call the police while hiding safely yourself.
Uncle Bing in the second loop had actually gotten very close to this solution without realizing it; it was only because he panicked too much and stepped on Suxia crawling on the floor that he was found and killed.
If it were someone calm like Shao Lan, who could manage to stay in the bedroom the whole time without making a sound to be found by Suxia, and refuse to open the door to Li Chengyuan posing as a police officer, dragging the time out until the real police arrived, they could essentially win lying down.
Though this way they wouldn’t have a chance to learn the background story of Li Chengyuan and Suxia, or obtain the precious memory [Suxia’s Pocket Watch], at that moment, no one knew what that thing was useful for, and staying alive was definitely the most important thing.
Shao Lan hadn’t chosen that method, but when he heard the property manager’s introduction, he had a hunch that maybe all dungeons had such hidden rules—as long as you didn’t pursue saving everyone and were willing to let others die, the difficulty would drop.
This suspicion was completely confirmed after meeting Lin Zhizhi.
For a girl who looked weak, timid, and ready to cry at any moment to make it out of the dungeon entirely by herself, there were only two possibilities.
Either she was a chosen lucky charm, blessed by sheer heaven-sent fortune.
Or she survived by sending everyone else to die, achieving the mantra of “sacrificing teammates to maximize supernatural power.”
Both were possible, but the latter was far more likely than the former.
That was why Shao Lan didn’t want to take the gamble.
Tears welled up even more in Lin Zhizhi’s pretty almond-shaped eyes as she looked at Shao Lan with a pitiful expression.
“Brother Shao Lan, I really had no choice. If there were any other way, I wouldn’t want to either.”
Shao Lan said calmly, “That’s all for today, Miss Lin.”
“I figured you were a smart person, which is why I answered your questions. If I find out that you don’t keep your promise…” Shao Lan said softly, “then don’t blame me for being impolite.”
After saying this, Shao Lan turned and left.
Behind him, Lin Zhizhi watched his retreating figure, her eyes growing resentful bit by bit.
“Shao Lan,” she moved her lips, repeating the name silently, “Brother Shao Lan…”