Pops Novel
Chapter 878: The First Trap of Candy Crush
In the pocket dimension filled with brilliant white light, the pocket dimension owner, dressed in a black suit and with a round figure, stood with his hands clasped together, smiling behind the three large balls. Among the three floating balls, only the central one appeared semi-transparent, revealing its contents—a bacteria magnified countless times. contemporary romance
"The conditions for a triple match, that's one of the key points to clear Candy Crush. What exactly are the conditions for a triple match? It's the first hidden rule we need to figure out," Lin Sanjiu said without turning around, her gaze fixed on the bacteria inside the ball. "This bacteria is really huge."
"So what if the bacteria is big?" Bohemia paced back and forth anxiously, coincidentally hearing the pocket dimension owner ask, "So, which ball are you going to open?"
"For the first round, I'll choose the ball on your left," Lin Sanjiu said almost without hesitation.
"You are much clearer and more agile in your thinking than when you were being tested," the pocket dimension owner chuckled softly, struggling to twist his body as he watched the first ball on his left crack open. "Were you hiding your true abilities earlier, or is there a way to temporarily boost your thinking ability?"
A rolling apple tumbled out of the ball. Unlike the bacteria, it remained its normal size, with a red skin speckled with yellow spots.
"It's strange. You're so concerned about other people's business, yet you don't seem to burn any calories," Bohemia said with a hint of malice. Despite her frantic thinking, she still had no clue. Her pent-up anger turned into insults towards the overweight pocket dimension owner. "This apple is round, just like you. Shouldn't it be eliminated based on its shape?"
Lin Sanjiu pondered the apple for a moment, then summoned a few cards from her hand. She crouched down and materialized the cards on the ground—one roll of toilet paper after another. When the quantity of toilet paper reached three, a burst of white light illuminated the ground, and all three rolls of toilet paper disappeared together.
"...Just as I thought," Lin Sanjiu murmured, looking down at the spot where the toilet paper had vanished, exhaling softly.
"What is it?" Bohemia leaned in, "What have you figured out?"
"You said something earlier that I remembered very clearly. If shape is one of the elimination conditions, then both the pocket dimension owner and the ball should have been eliminated together," she straightened up and frowned at the apple on the opposite side. "I considered the possibility that only the things revealed in the ball are considered part of the game... but this assumption is obviously incorrect."
"I achieved a triple match with the toilet paper I brought in, but the pocket dimension owner and the ball weren't eliminated. It can only mean that shape is not one of the elimination conditions," Lin Sanjiu explained. As she spoke, the opened balls on both sides retreated and disappeared, replaced by a new ball. In the first round, neither side hit a vital spot. "Or rather, 'his' shape isn't."
"I don't understand," Bohemia said honestly.
"The lioness and we can achieve a triple match, but not the bicycle or the air... The male construction worker and the pocket dimension owner can achieve a triple match, but not the apple or the bacteria..." Lin Sanjiu muttered while turning around. As her gaze fell on the new ball that had floated over, both of them were momentarily stunned.
Inside the new ball stood an ancient warrior dressed in fur clothing, holding a stone axe.
...Although they had different genders, they were both humans.
Now, on Lin Sanjiu's side, the contents of the ball were the warrior, an empty chair (visible to the pocket dimension owner), and a commercial freezer.
Staring at the warrior, Bohemia couldn't help but turn pale. Just as she was about to open her mouth to speak, Lin Sanjiu quietly stopped her with a word.
"Don't show your emotions," she enveloped her voice with her consciousness, "The pocket dimension owner has been observing us all along."
Upon hearing this, Bohemia quickly rubbed her face with both hands. After the jingling of her jewelry subsided, when she lowered her hands, her complexion had returned to normal.
"After seeing the contents of the new ball, please choose your disguises," as the game progressed to the second round, the pocket dimension owner seemed to increasingly see them as trapped turtles. "The contents of the black ball have been refreshed."
Both of them looked down at the black ball. The disguise options were:
1. Mother
2. Penicillin
3. Underground passage
Following the options were three balls:
1. The light red ball on the left
2. The white ball in the middle
3. The sky-blue ball on the right
As they looked at the options floating up, Bohemia suddenly couldn't help but utter a low "Huh?"
"Do you also feel something unnatural?" Lin Sanjiu didn't turn around. As if she hadn't heard anything, she moved her lips a few times and sent her voice to the pocket dimension owner's piercing gaze. "They are all listed options for us to choose, so why are they arranged differently horizontally and vertically?"
"And... it's really strange," Bohemia murmured, her eyes sparkling brightly. "The options with fewer words and shorter phrases are listed vertically, while the options with more words and longer phrases are arranged horizontally in a row. Isn't that the opposite of the usual practice?"
"That's right. The usual practice is to make it convenient for people to read the text, but the objective of the black ball is to make it inconvenient for you to read the text... I think this is the first trap in Candy Crush," Lin Sanjiu smiled encouragingly at her. Bohemia's face immediately turned red, and she seemed somewhat annoyed. "The pocket dimension owner can probably guess which ball we put the disguise in based on the movement of our eyeballs."
When faced with such a large ball, the movement of the eyeballs might not be obvious when looking from top to bottom. But once it changed from "up and down" to "left and right," it became much more noticeable.
"What should we do then?" Bohemia asked through gritted teeth.
"It's simple, you choose. I'll keep an eye on the other option."
"Huh? But..." Bohemia was about to say two words when she suddenly understood. Lin Sanjiu had been the one in control of the situation, and the pocket dimension owner had been focusing on her. When Bohemia stared at one fake option, she could quickly put the "underground passage" disguise into the ball they had decided on – the one containing the warrior – while the pocket dimension owner's attention was diverted.
Their plan went smoothly.
Lin Sanjiu kept her gaze on the option in the third ball, the "commercial freezer," and as expected, the pocket dimension owner was also peering at that ball.
When the unmistakable "commercial freezer" was revealed from the ball without any concealment, Bohemia seemed to find it hard to breathe. She quickly took a shallow breath and her hand, gripping Lin Sanjiu's sleeve, was covered in cold sweat. If the pocket dimension owner continued with the tactics from the first round, peeking into one ball but opening another, then the "warrior" would be opened.
Once the warrior was opened, they would have no chance of survival.
However, to their surprise, this time the pocket dimension owner chose to open the "commercial freezer" ball again. When he discovered that there was no disguise inside, he was clearly taken aback. His layers of fat trembled on his face, and the surprise quickly vanished into his flesh.
"Now he knows that we know," Lin Sanjiu chuckled softly. "It's time to mislead him a little."
Without waiting for Bohemia to react, she addressed the pocket dimension owner across from them.
"Even if it's to eliminate posthumans, your dishonest tricks are quite unbecoming," Lin Sanjiu said calmly. "The obvious manipulation of the vertical and horizontal arrangement, I figured it out from the testing phase."
The pocket dimension owner pursed his thin lips and after a while, he uttered a faint "Oh?"
"No matter how many traps you set for us in the testing phase, it's useless," Lin Sanjiu raised her chin slightly, her clear voice cutting through the pocket dimension like the wind. "Because you simply don't have the ability to eliminate me."
"Is that so?"
The pocket dimension owner slowly uttered those two words. Even the humiliation about Bohemia's obesity didn't anger him as much. Even from this distance, it was evident how his flesh on his cheeks was trembling with rage. "Then let's continue and try it out," he said with a forced smile. "It's your turn to peek at me."
"What should we do? Which one should we peek at?" Bohemia immediately whispered.
"We'll peek at his new ball," Lin Sanjiu made the decision in an instant.
Without asking why she chose the new ball, Bohemia became instantly delighted as if a little person had gained ambition. "We'll choose the first ball on your left side! Yes, the one that was just added."
The pocket dimension owner didn't even bother to lift his eyelids. He simply turned halfway and watched as the color slowly faded from that ball. However, what was inside the ball was even more difficult to decipher than bacteria. The thing appeared as a semi-transparent form, vaguely resembling a person, but floating and sinking in the air like a ghost.
If it weren't for the word "soul" floating beneath the thing, even Lin Sanjiu might have had trouble figuring out what it was. She glanced at the soul and almost without hesitation said, "I choose to open this ball."
"Why?" Bohemia turned into a questioning machine. "Why do you keep making the same choices as him?"
"We didn't observe the movement of his eyeballs earlier, and even if we did, it would be futile. He came up with a solution himself, and he must have a countermeasure," Lin Sanjiu started explaining from the beginning. "So we don't know which ball he put the disguise in. The previous time we peeked and opened different balls, and now with these two balls combined, we're trying to figure out where he hid his disguise."
Bohemia nodded in a half-understood and confused manner. Just then, the "soul" walked out of that ball and stood next to the pocket dimension owner and the apple.
