This is a bizarre rule, isn't it? It's supposed to grant me many children and good fortune

Chapter 564 Another cycle?!

Just then, the wooden plank of the lower bunk creaked, and Vassim rolled over, then sat up abruptly, his head nearly hitting the upper bunk.

He was panting heavily, his hands bracing against the edge of the bed. Cold sweat clung to his skin as he braced his forehead, and a lingering sense of shock and bewilderment remained in his deep brown eyes.

Wasim rubbed the back of his neck: "I had a nightmare... but I can't remember anything."

Lin Feng immediately leaned over the edge of the upper bunk, his voice low but urgent:

"Wahim, look at your left arm."

Wasim paused for a moment, then looked down and rolled up his sleeve.

The next second, his face turned pale instantly.

"One... turned red!" He raised his arm and pointed to the skull on the far left. "I checked last night before I went to bed; all five were gray."

Nikolai sat up from the upper bunk opposite him, putting on his glasses and rolling up his sleeves, then gasped in shock:

"Me too, I became famous."

After he finished speaking, he leaned down to look at the lower bunk. "Derek?"

Derek lay on the bed without moving.

He tried to prop himself up, but as soon as he exerted force, a tearing pain shot through his back. He groaned and slumped back into the pillow.

He buried his face and took several deep breaths before he could barely regain the strength to move.

He then turned his face to the side, gritted his teeth, and raised his left arm.

"Shit, I have one that turned red too."

For a moment, no one spoke.

Wasim was the first to break the silence:

"Have you guys... ever had the feeling that you dreamed about something particularly scary last night?"

"But I can't remember exactly what it was."

Nikolai pushed up his glasses, his eyes squinting behind the lenses:

"Exactly the same. I only remember that feeling of fear is still there, but the images are like they've been ripped out of my brain."

Derek buried his face in the pillow and mumbled:

"Me too. When I woke up, my heart was pounding like it was going to jump out of my chest... but all I felt was fear."

Lin Feng leaned against the bed frame, staring at the peeling ceiling above him, something flashing through his mind.

He suddenly spoke, his voice not loud, but it made all three people look at him at the same time:

"I remembered the first ghost story instance I experienced."

Wasim was taken aback: "What?"

"The first copy, 'Eternal Throat Flight'." Lin Feng's fingers unconsciously tapped the edge of the bed.

"The second half of that dungeon had a loop mechanism. We would die on the plane, then reset back to the starting point, and repeatedly experience the same time period until we found a way to break the deadlock."

"Moreover, each time the system is reset, our memories are also erased."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the glaring blood-red skull on his arm:

"Is it possible... we died once last night, triggering a total wipe, and then were reset back to this morning?"

"This blood-red skull is the mark left by the death last night."

The dormitory was silent for two seconds.

Wasim's face gradually tightened:

"Very likely! Five skulls, five lives, means we can only cycle a maximum of five times."

"I already used it once last night!"

"In other words," Lin Feng's tone grew increasingly serious, "we need to find out exactly what happened last night before we run out of our remaining four lives, and end this cycle."

Nikolai's brow furrowed into a knot:

"But right now... we have absolutely no clue. We can't even remember how we died last night!"

Derek, gritting his teeth against the pain in his back, turned to the side and suddenly uttered in a muffled voice:

"I do... remember something."

All three people looked at him at the same time.

"After the lights were turned off, I had barely closed my eyes when I heard some music," Derek said, frowning as he tried to recall. "It sounded like a piano piece."

Nikolai sat bolt upright: "Yes! Now that you mention it, I remember! I heard it too, that piece of music..."

He tilted his head and thought for a moment, then his eyes suddenly lit up.

"It's Eric Satie's 'Nude Dance No. 1'."

"The melody is very soothing, but when it plays late at night after the lights are out, it actually gives people a creepy feeling."

Wasim gently pinched his chin: "Is it possible that that piece of music is the key to triggering the loop?"

Lin Feng's gaze fell upon the grayish-white morning light outside the window:

"Or rather, it's a sign that a 'cyclical key event' has been triggered."

"That music played, which means something was activated at that time, and then we died last night."

After Lin Feng finished speaking, he slowly closed his eyes, slowed his breathing, and became like a still stone statue, sinking into introspection.

He initiated an infinite deduction.

The space of deduction unfolded deep within his consciousness, an endless gray-white wilderness, where time seemed like a rapidly rolling roll of film before his eyes.

The first night.

After lights out, the dormitory was quiet as usual. The four of them fell asleep, their breathing was steady, there was no music, and nothing seemed amiss.

Time continues to move forward.

The scene flashes across the second daytime—the canteen, work, ratings, twilight…

Then the lights went out, and darkness descended.

Lin Feng felt a tightening sensation in his temples.

The deduction spanned too long, going back two days from this morning. Details flooded his mind like a tide, and every frame, every conversation, and every scent required a great deal of mental energy to process.

Sweat beaded on his forehead and rolled down the curve of his cheekbone.

He knew he was nearing his limit; the grayish-white space in the simulation space began to blur and vibrate, its edges twisting and rippled like water.

But he gritted his teeth and didn't let go—just a little bit more, just a tiny bit more.

The second night.

Five minutes after lights out.

A soothing piano melody drifted in from an unknown direction.

The gentle melody brushed against my eardrums like a feather. In the space of deduction, "Lin Feng" stood still, his eyes suddenly glazed over, his pupils lost focus, and he stood there like a puppet whose soul had been taken away.

Then--

The deduction came to an abrupt halt as Lin Feng's consciousness was forcefully kicked out of the space by a brute force.

The simulation was forcibly interrupted.

The key events in the loop were completely covered up by something, preventing him from seeing them at all.

He suddenly opened his eyes, gasping for breath, and his body swayed violently, almost falling off the bed.

"Brother Lin Feng!" Vassim jumped up from the lower bunk, reaching out to support Lin Feng's drooping arm. "Are you alright?"

Lin Feng waved his hand, his throat so dry it felt like he had sandpaper in his mouth, and he couldn't utter a complete sentence for a moment.

He paused for a few seconds, then reached into his personal storage space, pulled out a piece of chocolate, tore open the wrapper, and popped it into his mouth.

The sweet taste melted on the tip of my tongue, and the rapid rise in blood sugar gradually refocused my blurred vision.

He swallowed the chocolate and took a deep breath: "Just now... I was in a daze."

Lin Feng leaned back against the bed frame, wiped the sweat from his face, and said:

"This cycle should be triggered every two nights, and the sign is the piano music that plays after the lights are turned off."

"The dungeon gives us ten days—two days per cycle. At most, we'll only go through five cycles, which corresponds to the five skull patterns on our arms."