Zuo Lin'an froze for a moment when he saw those three words.
What did that mean?
Was there really no way to save himself?
【Feng Xingyun: Young Master, what do you think his three rules would be?】
Zuo Lin'an thought for a moment and began to type...
He felt they should be rules that would make it easier for his enemies to be judged as guilty.
However, he stopped halfway through typing.
No... that wasn't right!
【Feng Xingyun: If it were you, what kind of rules would you set for yourself? Three rules in total.】
Zuo Lin'an finally realized.
He was too close to the situation to see clearly!
He really was too close to see the forest for the trees!
Before, he had compared Zhang Tinglei's talent to a specter's rule, but he had forgotten that the man's situation was different from a specter. He was a player, and also the leader of the rebel army in the northern border of the Great Xuan Dynasty!
The three rules not only had to keep him safe in the specter dungeon, but they also had to benefit the rebel army and himself in the real world!
Furthermore, lighting someone on fire required him to actively consume one-fifth of his own life; he couldn't just use his talent to kill people at random.
In other words, no matter how many people “committed a crime,” he could choose to only eliminate his intended targets!
Therefore, if he wanted to use his talent on a target, he had to ensure they would definitely trigger one of his three specified rules, thereby judging them guilty.
After all, to him, enemies included his own people—such as traitors and spies—as well as people from the imperial court, the martial world, various bandits and outlaws, and even specters!
Specters weren't just in the dungeons; they were now everywhere in their real world as well!
So, how could he guarantee that his intended target would “commit a crime” immediately?
The answer was simple.
Widen the trigger conditions for the crime as much as possible!
In other words, the simpler the three rules were to trigger, the better!
For example...
Speaking is a crime!
Breathing is a crime!
Being alive is a crime!
Or even being seen by him is a crime!
Or conversely, seeing him is a crime!
Regardless of whether they were enemies, make them commit a crime first.
Seeing that Zuo Lin'an hadn't replied for a long time, Feng Xingyun smiled with understanding.
【Feng Xingyun: It seems you've figured it out.】
Zuo Lin'an sighed.
Did this mean that as long as his specter body appeared near Zhang Tinglei and was detected by him, he would be repelled instantly?!
【Feng Xingyun: Young Master, if you want a solution, put yourself in Zhang Tinglei's shoes and think about it carefully.】
Zuo Lin'an expressed that he had learned a valuable lesson.
【Zuo Lin'an: Thank you.】
【Feng Xingyun: My pleasure. I hope it helps you.】
Zuo Lin'an cleared his mind, casting aside all his previous thoughts, whether useful or useless.
“If I were Zhang Tinglei, what would I do?”
“I am Zhang Tinglei...”
“I know that food and water are limited in the dungeon, so the time players can hold out is limited. Therefore, I must hurry to find the specter and repel it.”
“But if the specter keeps hiding and doesn't show itself, the risk I bear will keep increasing over time, and eventually, I might even die of thirst or hunger.”
“Therefore, I would do everything in my power and find the specter at all costs.”
“But my talent doesn't have the ability to locate specters.”
“For this, I would probably gather all the players together and force them, whether they like it or not, to reveal their talents and the effects of their specter items, and then locate the specter.”
“This way, the specter can be successfully repelled the first time.”
“But the main quest requires repelling the specter twice. I have to wait at least three days for the specter to respawn before I can repel it again.”
“I also know that after the specter is repelled, it turns into a mass of blood mist. I just need to find where the blood mist is during its recovery period and wait there.”
At this point, Zuo Lin'an paused.
He said this, but as a specter, he wouldn't just wait to die, so in reality, it couldn't be that simple.
Indeed, after a specter is repelled, it turns into blood mist and returns to its place of birth.
And Zuo Lin'an's specter body was born in Sin Hunter City, but since he couldn't go there, the blood mist would return to Zuo Lin'an's living body to await its respawn.
During this period, Zhang Tinglei would definitely not be able to find the blood mist.
Under this premise, Zuo Lin'an continued his deduction.
“But if I search the entire dungeon with all my might and still can't find the blood mist, not finding it means I can't determine where the specter will appear after it respawns.”
“Without finding the specter, I can't repel it a second time, which means... I can't complete the main quest and clear the dungeon.”
“Time is precious for players, but the specter only needs to hide and stall for time, and I will slowly die on my own.”
“Perhaps I could use other players to search for the specter again, but with at least a three-day wait, how many of those players would actually survive?”
“After all, the specter in the dungeon won't stay hidden forever; it will also come out to seek opportunities to kill players. The longer it drags on, the fewer players there will be.”
“In the end, maybe only I will be left.”
Speaking up to this point, Zuo Lin'an sighed helplessly.
Wasn't this back to square one?
Ultimately, he still had to stall for time?
It was precisely because he felt he couldn't stall for so long that he wanted to think of another way.
So how could he break this deadlock?
“Hmm?”
Just then, Zuo Lin'an suddenly noticed that Zhang Tinglei had actually found the corpse he had discarded somewhere earlier—the person who had been beaten to death by that Second-Rate martial artist “Big Brother” from the Martial Alliance.
Zhang Tinglei slowly raised his head, looking at the unsolvable specter that had successfully taken its revenge, floating right above the corpse.
Zuo Lin'an instantly grew a bit nervous.
What did he want to do?
He saw Zhang Tinglei slowly squatting down to carefully examine the corpse lying on the ground.
“Hmm...”
Then, he reached out and brushed aside the hair covering the face.
“So it's this person.”
He remembered clearly how many players had entered this dungeon, what they looked like, and how much strength they possessed.
He just hadn't expected that this person would actually be beaten to death by a player.
After all, even the unsolvable specter had manifested.
“With the scream just now, I thought the dungeon's specter had come out to kill. I didn't expect it to be an unsolvable specter taking revenge. Just which idiot was it...”
His gaze swept over the bloody, mangled wound on the corpse's head, as well as the indentation on the chest that was clearly caused by an extremely vicious palm strike, and he shook his head slightly.
Zuo Lin'an noticed that Zhang Tinglei seemed to be hesitating at this moment.
He didn't know what the man was hesitating about, but then he heard him mutter another sentence.
“Forget it, let's give it a try. It's not like I have anything to lose anyway.”
Zuo Lin'an watched as Zhang Tinglei reached out and grabbed the corpse's wrist, a strong sense of unease welling up in his heart.
What... on earth was he trying to do?
But in the very next second, Zhang Tinglei suddenly whipped his head around.
A pair of eyes locked onto Zuo Lin'an's gaze directly across the distance!
“I found you!”
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