“……”

That look alone made Jiang Ye very annoyed!

What kind of joke was this? He had been a model student since childhood, not once slacking off even during the last class before the National Day holiday!

Moreover, this was related to his true body—his very life—so slacking off was absolutely out of the question!

Zhou Yuling didn’t say anything directly to scold him; she just gave him a look for him to understand on his own, then continued with her little teacher Zhou’s class:

“First, after entering the Court of Disorder, everyone will find themselves in a place filled with pure black mist.”

“At that time, don’t panic, and don’t wander around. Instead, you should focus on two pieces of information—”

“One is the countdown timer at the upper right corner of your vision.”

“The other is the prompt in your mind.”

“If nothing unexpected happens, the prompt will say ‘Do you want to participate in this trial?’ accompanied by options ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’”

“Now, here’s the key point—”

“You must not select either ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’”

“Because the trial we are participating in is not this one, but the next one!”

“If you choose ‘Yes,’ you will enter the wrong trial session and lose contact with the main force.”

“If you choose ‘No,’ you will be kicked out of the Court of Disorder and never be able to enter again!”

“So, all we have to do is wait!”

“Watch the countdown timer in the upper right corner; when it reaches zero, that session officially starts.”

“Because none of us make a choice, we won’t be summoned but will remain inside the pure black mist!”

“Next, the second key point—”

“After the countdown ends, there will be roughly a 30-second blank period.”

“During this time, you can silently count 30 seconds in your mind or focus your attention on the upper right corner.”

“When a new countdown appears in the upper right corner, that means our target trial session has begun!”

“The initial countdown will show [30:00], then the next second will display [29:59], meaning it’s a 30-minute countdown.”

“My requirement is that everyone selects ‘Yes’ and participates in this trial before the countdown ticks to [29:58]!”

“Everyone heard that? This is the most critical point!” Zhou Yuling’s gaze swept the entire room, confirming everyone understood before continuing:

“Because the Court of Disorder is an open space, other players can enter besides us.”

“Not participating in the previous trial session is to avoid other players already involved.”

“Choosing to enter at the very first second of the next trial ensures that session is filled entirely with our people!”

“I’ve already calculated in advance—the upper limit of the Court of Disorder is 9,999 people…”

At this point, Zhou Yuling gave Jiang Ye another look.

Obviously, she intended to deceive those followers, hiding the fact that Jiang Ye had brought ninety thousand people alone.

Jiang Ye wasn’t stupid and immediately caught the deep meaning in her eyes.

Seeing Jiang Ye cooperating smoothly, Zhou Yuling continued:

“If nothing unexpected happens, the trial we’re going to tackle will quickly reach the maximum number of participants because all 9,999 people enter simultaneously.”

“So we probably won’t need to wait 30 minutes; the trial will start early due to reaching the limit.”

“That means the time we have to wait is just the remaining countdown of the previous trial.”

This explanation was pretty clear.

The players present basically understood and nodded in agreement.

However, some, like Jiang Ye, directly asked:

“What if when we enter, the countdown shows exactly [30:00] or [29:59], meaning the first two seconds of the trial countdown…”

“Do we enter this round or wait for the next one?”

Zhou Yuling was about to explain this herself, but Jiang Ye’s question came first, which pleased her.

At least this proved Jiang Ye was listening seriously.

So she explained following Jiang Ye’s question:

“Let me set a unified rule here—”

“If such a rare coincidence occurs, and you enter only to see the countdown at [30:00] or [29:59]…”

“Then everyone waits for 30 minutes, that is, the next trial session.”

Many, including Jiang Ye, were not very satisfied with this.

Because it meant wasting 30 minutes unnecessarily.

But soon, Zhou Yuling gave a reason:

“Since we are a total of 10,000 people, the exact entry time into the Court of Disorder will differ, with possible discrepancies of a few seconds.”

“If someone sees the countdown at [29:59] and enters this trial, but others see [29:58] or [29:57] and enter the next one…”

“Then the people I arranged would be split!”

“To avoid discrepancies and splitting into two trial sessions, I prefer everyone wait 30 minutes together.”

At first, Jiang Ye found this hard to accept.

After all, if that were the case, why not extend the time to [29:55], allowing a 5-second buffer?

But then he thought, extending 5 seconds might still cause discrepancies.

If some see [29:55] and others [29:54], splitting would still happen.

So according to Zhou Yuling, waiting 30 minutes was the safest way to ensure everyone enters the same trial.

Hence, he didn’t argue.

Others had to follow Zhou Yuling anyway, so no one objected.

Besides, the extreme case of entering right as the countdown hits [29:59] isn’t that easy to encounter.

By probability calculated by seconds, it’s only about 1 in 1,800.

In gacha games, even a 1% chance is hard to meet.

So this one-in-a-thousand chance is naturally even less likely.

However, Jiang Ye, always striving for perfection, asked about a minor detail:

“The prompt we get in the pure black mist asking ‘Do you want to participate in this trial?’—does it persist until the next trial, or will it ask again at the next trial?”

Zhou Yuling, clearly well-versed in the Court of Disorder, answered immediately:

“The prompt upon entering the pure black mist remains regardless of whether you participate in the current trial, the next trial, or don’t choose at all and wait until the trial after next…”

“But rest assured, although the prompt says ‘this trial,’ what really determines which trial you enter is the countdown time when you make your choice.”

Jiang Ye nodded slightly after hearing this: “Okay, as long as this is confirmed.”

But following this, he thought of another detail and asked outright:

“According to what you said—”

“There’s a 30-second blank period between two countdowns…”

“During this blank period, does the prompt in our mind still exist?”

Zhou Yuling was quite pleased with his detailed questioning.

Like teachers who appreciate students who ask questions.

It showed that this student was thinking seriously.

So she answered frankly:

“The prompt will remain during the 30-second blank period.”

“I know you might want to ask what happens if someone chooses to enter the trial during that blank period.”

“I can tell you clearly—I’ve arranged for players to conduct this extreme test.”

“A total of five players, all strong.”

“But when they entered during the blank period, none appeared in the previous or next trial sessions, and none have returned since.”

“You can understand this as being permanently trapped in some special space…”

“Or simply put, they are dead.”

When this news came out, the attentive listeners all showed cautious expressions.

If Zhou Yuling’s words were true, this was essentially telling them—choosing to enter during the blank period was basically a death sentence.

Naturally, after hearing this, no one would try such a suicidal move again.

Of course, Jiang Ye was an exception.

First, he wasn’t sure if Zhou Yuling’s statement was true.

They were supposed to have 99,999 people enter the trial, but Zhou Yuling deliberately said 9,999.

So she was a skilled liar.

She could lie anytime as long as it didn’t affect her own interests.

So it was quite possible she fabricated this story to prevent other players from entering during the blank period.

Second, even if Zhou Yuling was truthful, Jiang Ye cared a lot about her claim of “five players trapped in a special space.”

Because from the perspective of all his clones…

His true body seemed like it was trapped in some special space!

What if the space where his body was trapped wasn’t the trial with the maximum number of participants, but the special space entered during the blank period?

So Jiang Ye almost instantly decided—

The ninety thousand clones would follow Zhou Yuling into the limit trial as planned.

At the same time, he would arrange some clones to enter the trial during the blank period.

This way, both possibilities were covered.

Of course, entering during the blank period was very risky, so he had to carefully consider how many clones to send…

Seeing no objections about entering the same trial, Zhou Yuling continued:

“After everyone selects ‘Yes’ and enters the trial, generally, you will receive a chair-like item, and a unique number will be displayed on the backrest.”

“At that time, every player will publish their number in our ten-thousand-person group and change their group name card to their number, making it easier for me to manage everyone uniformly.”

There was no problem with this, and players nodded.

Only Jiang Ye felt a bit puzzled.

Because Zhou Yuling told everyone the limit was 9,999 people.

But she told Jiang Ye the limit was 99,999.

If the number she told Jiang Ye was the real limit…

Then after entering the trial, if players saw five-digit numbers, the 9,999 limit would be disproved, right?

So was the 99,999 number she told Jiang Ye actually a lie?

Or was she planning to turn the ninety thousand clones Jiang Ye brought into some sort of “NPCs” to avoid any troublemakers among her 9,999 followers?

Of course, Jiang Ye couldn’t ask this directly and had to keep listening to Zhou Yuling’s arrangement.

“Besides the numbered chairs, some players may not get seats but instead receive other types of items.”

“Other items include but are not limited to—handcuffs, pistols, daggers, poison, documents, gavels, and all kinds of strange items…”

“In any case, no matter what you get, be sure to report your item information to me.”

“At that time, I will make a global plan based on the trial’s announced game information and the data you provide.”

This was obviously not a problem.

After all, they were all brought by Zhou Yuling to help her clear the Court of Disorder, so naturally they had to follow her arrangements.

Next, Zhou Yuling emphasized the discipline again and prepared to lead everyone into the Court of Disorder.

But at this moment, Peng Gu, who had been quiet, suddenly asked:

“According to Sister Zhou, the trial limit is 9,999 people…”

“But there are 10,001 people in our White Tower now…”

“Doesn’t that mean two people can’t enter the trial?”

This question was indeed valid.

Originally, the 9,999 followers included Xu Gou and Yu Mo, whose spots were taken by Zhang Minghan and another Defender.

Later, Zhou Yuling and Jiang Ye joined, making the total 10,001, two more than the limit.

Zhou Yuling smiled and said: “That’s a simple problem—”

“Because this Jiang Ye here isn’t going to enter the Court of Disorder with me.”

This was obviously a lie.

The real reason was this useless clone Jiang Ye was counted among the ninety thousand clones.

And Zhou Yuling chose to hide the ninety thousand clones from the people present.

That’s why she lied, saying Jiang Ye wouldn’t enter the Court of Disorder…

Jiang Ye understood why she lied and naturally wasn’t stupid enough to ruin her plan.

Then Zhou Yuling continued explaining:

“So, excluding Jiang Ye, we are essentially ten thousand people fighting for the final 9,999 spots.”

“So inevitably, there will be one ‘lucky one’ who fails to enter because the trial spots are full.”

“As for me, I’m naturally suspicious.”

“Plus, after the earlier riot you caused, our trust is obviously not strong enough.”

“So I have reason to suspect some opportunistic players might deliberately not enter the Court of Disorder to try to become the one ‘lucky one’ who missed out…”

“If many players hold onto that hope and don’t enter, my plan will be in trouble.”

“Therefore, to eliminate your lucky-hope mentality and ensure everyone enters the trial with a competitive mindset, I have no choice but to be sorry for the one who ultimately fails to enter…”

“That’s also why Jiang Ye is here.”

“At that time, Jiang Ye will help me kill that unlucky one who couldn’t enter.”

“I wonder if you all can accept this approach?”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep