He scrolled up through the chat history and saw a message from Wang Lingling.

It was mostly coordination-type stuff, along with some Personal Instance walkthroughs.

Clearly, she had already cleared her Personal Instance, and had directly posted the related guide in the group chat.

Calling it a guide might be generous—it was actually quite simple.

She just shared how to locate one’s Personal Instance from their room,

and what kinds of situations might come up after entering—

【Don’t worry, everyone. The Personal Instance is honestly really easy.】

【I was only Level 5 when I cleared it. Xiaoman was even Level 0 when she finished.】

【And during the instance, Xiaoman didn’t fight a single monster.】

【I did get into a few fights, but the opponents were just ordinary people. At Level 5, it was super easy.】

【Basically, you can think of Xiaoman’s experience like a board game. Mine was more like a murder mystery.】

【So yeah, they’re more like puzzle games—less about personal strength.】

【If you’ve played murder mystery games before, the Personal Instance will be a breeze.】

【Just pay attention to the details, work with your teammates, have a little patience, and use your brain a bit—you’ll clear it.】

Wang Lingling kept things vague, but gave a rough direction—

board games, murder mystery, mental games.

And under those messages, some classmates started asking:

【Teammates? Isn’t it a Personal Instance? Where do teammates come from?】

【If it’s really that easy, I’m gonna give it a try too! But hey, Sister Ling, what was the final reward for clearing it?】

【Probably a Survival Stone and some other rewards, right?】

Of those questions, Wang Lingling only answered the first:

【The teammates are probably NPCs. They look just like us, totally realistic. You might even see people you know, but they’re all fake.】

After that, a bunch of other questions came in.

But Wang Lingling didn’t reply again.

She just told everyone to clear their instances as soon as possible—before anything unexpected could happen.

Earlier, Jiang Ye had tagged Wang Lingling in the chat because of the Lu Shen situation.

At the time, Yang Xiaoman said Wang Lingling had entered her Personal Instance and couldn’t reply.

But now…

Wang Lingling had already cleared her instance, yet still hadn’t responded to Jiang Ye’s previous tag.

Jiang Ye raised an eyebrow and tagged her again in the group chat:

【Sister Ling, got a moment now? @Wang Lingling】

【I want to know more about the Personal Instance, and about Lu Shen’s situation. Mind if we talk privately? @Wang Lingling】

The chat, which had just been active a second ago,

suddenly went eerily quiet after his message popped up.

For a good while, not a single message came through.

Heh—

Jiang Ye sneered to himself and continued:

【What’s going on? Why’d everyone go silent just because I posted something?】

【It’s like there’s some kind of wall between me and the rest of you.】

【What? Are you all planning to isolate me now?】

Given his current strength, Jiang Ye had no reservations about speaking up.

He couldn’t care less what his classmates thought of him.

This time, after he laid it out plainly, someone finally replied after a moment.

Yang Xiaoman: 【Maybe Sister Ling is resting and didn’t see your message.】

【It’s already late. Everyone’s had a long day—we should all be getting some rest.】

Yeah right.

That wouldn’t fool a ghost.

Actually, not even a ghost would fall for that.

But Jiang Ye didn’t mind, and replied to Yang Xiaoman directly:

【Perfect. You’re not resting, are you? Then why don’t you tell me which room Wang Lingling is in right now?】

【Or, you could explain the Personal Instance stuff in detail in her place?】

However, Yang Xiaoman stopped responding again.

Jiang Ye gave a soft snort and walked straight out of his apartment room.

He was heading down the hallway on the 20th floor, toward the Red Light Elevator.

Suddenly, a voice came from an untraceable direction:

“Jiang Ye…”

“If you’re looking for someone to talk privately with… why not talk to me?”

Jiang Ye raised an eyebrow and scanned the area.

He didn’t see anyone, and couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from.

Seeing his reaction, the voice spoke again:

“I’m Zhang Jintian.”

Jiang Ye immediately recognized it. It was Zhang Jintian.

And Zhang Jintian had once been known as the “strongest” on their apartment’s Level Ranking.

Plenty of classmates had even speculated that the Mysterious Bald Guy Jiang Ye disguised himself as was actually Zhang Jintian.

On top of that…

During the apartment fusion, when Xing Man went on a killing spree—

Zhang Jintian was the first to notice and revealed in the group chat that Xing Man was clinging to a “big leg” who looked exactly like Jiang Ye.

Jiang Ye had paid attention to Zhang Jintian back then.

Because the guy could see Xing Man and the Blackened Replica of Jiang Ye walking together without being noticed—

That implied extremely strong stealth capabilities.

Like now—he was clearly using some kind of stealth technique again.

Jiang Ye’s strength was already enough to walk all over Apartment 1010, so he wasn’t afraid of anyone.

He stopped walking and calmly asked:

“Zhang Jintian? And what exactly do you want to talk about?”

Zhang Jintian sounded like he let out a breath, then replied gravely after a pause:

“You should already know what I want to talk about.”

“After all, you’ve probably noticed the odd behavior in the group chat and the Level Ranking.”

Jiang Ye nodded.

He had noticed something was off from the chat, the Member List, and the Level Ranking.

So he spoke his suspicion directly:

“If I’m not mistaken—”

“Either Wang Lingling, or the entire Mutual Aid Group, has killed nearly all the non-group members?”

After he finished, there was a moment of silence before Zhang Jintian spoke again:

“After Lu Shen and Lu Fang left the apartment, Wang Lingling gathered all the Mutual Aid Group members.”

“She likely held a secret meeting, and after that, none of the group members spoke in the chat again.”

“That was around the time you asked about Lu Shen—none of the group replied. Clearly, they were following Wang Lingling’s orders.”

“Later, Yang Wenchao’s name went gray too.”

“I happen to know Yang Wenchao died inside the Red Light Elevator.”

“But Wang Lingling told the Mutual Aid Group members that she killed him.”

“Once that news got out, no one dared to defy her anymore.”

“After that, the non-group members started dying off, one by one.”

“Wang Lingling probably got her hands on a Survival Jade Token. Most of those dead non-Mutual Aid Group members ended up becoming her Survival Points.”

“So now you’re seeing the group chat suddenly get ‘lively’ again, and even Wang Lingling proactively sharing info about the Personal Instance… That’s because the whole chat group has already turned into the Mutual Aid Group’s internal chat.”

“As far as the Mutual Aid Group is concerned, anyone outside the group is basically extinct.”

What Zhang Jintian revealed pretty much lined up with Jiang Ye’s suspicions.

The only thing he hadn’t expected was that Wang Lingling had used Yang Wenchao’s death to establish dominance.

In truth, it was inevitable that Apartment 1010 would end up like this.

The benefits of killing were just too good!

Especially once Wang Lingling got 20th floor privileges and obtained the Survival Jade Token from the apartment merchant.

The value of Survival Points skyrocketed.

And once you kill someone once…

The second, third, or even countless times after that come naturally.

If Yang Wenchao had still been around, Wang Lingling might’ve held back.

But unfortunately, Yang Wenchao “died.”

Wang Lingling probably thought, “Heaven itself is helping me.”

The other members of the Mutual Aid Group likely figured out what was happening too.

That’s why the seemingly harmonious group chat gave off a stiff and eerie vibe.

Even when Wang Lingling urged everyone to clear their Personal Instance quickly,

you could see from the group chat—most classmates were hesitant.

They weren’t rushing to complete their instances.

They were probably afraid that after clearing them, Wang Lingling would start eyeing their Survival Stones.

Survival of the fittest. Might makes right…

It’s practically a law of nature.

Has nothing to do with Wang Lingling herself—any strong player in her position would likely have done the same.

Including Jiang Ye himself.

But now, he was already far beyond the ordinary.

He and Wang Lingling weren’t even on the same level anymore.

And now, Jiang Ye fully understood Zhang Jintian’s motive for reaching out.

After all, Zhang Jintian had never been a member of the Mutual Aid Group.

So he was also at risk of being eliminated by Wang Lingling.

Jiang Ye raised an eyebrow and said bluntly, “So, you’re hoping I’ll kill Wang Lingling and dismantle the Mutual Aid Group?”

“No.”

Zhang Jintian denied it outright.

After a brief silence, he spoke:

“I don’t know how strong you are right now. I just want to take this opportunity to do you a favor.”

“Oh?” Jiang Ye was a bit surprised. “Not a trade, but a favor?”

Zhang Jintian seemed to chuckle. “If you’ve got the strength or the intention, you’ll take care of Wang Lingling on your own.”

“And if you don’t, I doubt I have any bargaining chips to sway you.”

“So, I don’t have the leverage to talk trades. Calling it a favor is really just a way to earn a bit of goodwill.”

“I saw you asking about the Personal Instance in the group, so I thought I’d share my own experience with it.”

His experience in the Personal Instance…

That was what Jiang Ye most wanted to know right now.

And since Zhang Jintian wasn’t asking for anything in return, Jiang Ye naturally didn’t reject him. “Alright then, let’s hear it. What happened in your Personal Instance?”

Zhang Jintian paused for a moment, then carefully began:

“What Wang Lingling said in the group chat was probably accurate.”

“She and Yang Xiaoman’s instances were indeed on the easier side.”

“But mine… had a bit more difficulty. Still, the difficulty was mainly intellectual.”

“When I entered the instance, I found myself in a prison setting.”

“Fifty inmates in total, all under the supervision of guards, with fixed daily schedules and tasks.”

“At first, I was confused. There weren’t even any task prompts—I had no clue what to do.”

“But after two days of exploring the prison, I pieced together some patterns and gathered information.”

“I won’t go into the tiny details, but essentially, I identified key figures among the guards and inmates and got crucial info from them.”

“From the guards, I learned: if we inmates behaved well, we’d have a chance at release.”

“From the inmates, I learned: within the group of 50, three top dogs held power, and everyone else bowed to them.”

“I spent more time gaining favor with those three, who didn’t get along with each other.”

“Eventually, I convinced the three of them to cooperate and organize the full group of fifty to behave well and earn release.”

“After three consecutive days of good behavior, we were granted a chance to leave.”

“But it wasn’t given directly—we had to pass one final test.”

“This test, as Wang Lingling described, was a logic game.”

“The game setup went like this—”

“In an enclosed space, there were 100 boxes, numbered 1 to 100.”

“Inside each box was a card with a number from 1 to 100—completely shuffled.”

“Like, box #1 might contain card #33, box #2 might contain #99.”

“Each of us 50 inmates had a personal number from 1 to 50.”

“The task was this—”

“Each of us would enter the room one by one.”

“Each person could open 50 boxes.”

“If they found the box containing the card with their number, they passed.”

“If not, they failed.”

“Sounds simple, right? Open 50 out of 100 boxes to find your number—about a 50% success rate.”

“But the guards set one condition—”

“All 50 inmates had to pass for us to be released.”

“If even one person failed, no one got out.”

So far, Zhang Jintian hadn’t mentioned any extra rules.

Jiang Ye began to speculate:

“During the box-checking process, you couldn’t communicate with each other, right?”

Zhang Jintian: “Of course not.”

“If we could share info, two people alone could figure out the numbers in all the boxes.”

“The rule was—after checking their boxes, each person would be sent to a sealed room with no contact.”

“Only those who hadn’t gone in yet remained in a shared space and could talk freely.”

But talking beforehand doesn’t help much…

Since they couldn’t share post-box-checking info, there was no way to pass on what they learned.

Jiang Ye asked again: “Were you allowed to tamper with the boxes?”

“Of course not.”

“No marks, no sounds…”

“Basically, once someone looked in their 50 boxes, there was absolutely no way to pass that information along.”

“So you had 50 totally independent, random events—with no way to link them.”

That…

Jiang Ye couldn’t help but feel confused.

Because based on that setup, the probability of everyone passing was ½ to the 50th power.

Practically zero!

If that’s how it was, how did Zhang Jintian clear it?

Jiang Ye immediately suspected: “You must be hiding something, right?”

“Like… was there some kind of telepathy among the 50 of you?”

But Zhang Jintian still denied it: “Nope.”

“The 50 of us really did each go in and check boxes solo. No info was ever shared.”

Uh…

Jiang Ye asked directly: “Then how the h*ll did you clear it?”

Did Zhang Jintian have some fate-type ability and just manually rewrote the outcome with a Decree, turning near-zero odds into certainty?

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep