Chapter 1900: The Four States of the Room
Based on the different rooms Xu Huo had passed through—the tea room, bedroom, living room, and dining room—these rooms could also be divided into four states. The earliest was the original state he had first encountered, where the room's layout was very simple. Next came a state where the furnishings became more exquisite and complete. Then there was the used state, and besides the used state, there was also the tidied state.
A tidied room looked somewhat similar to the second state, but a closer look could reveal the difference between the two. In the second state, the toys in the bedroom, especially the dolls, were arranged as neatly as the furniture, as if someone with obsessive-compulsive disorder had handled them. The tidied room was different; although the dolls and models were still in their original positions, they had different angles.
The four identical rooms were almost always in the same state before each point of no return. Generally, if the first room opened was a tea room, then the next two courtyards would also have the same tea room. Except for the rooms that were swapped, there would be no changes in the arrangement.
This barely revealed a pattern. Three consecutive courtyards all had the same room, the same layout, and the same state. However, the order in which the tea room, bedroom, dining room, and living room appeared was not necessarily regular. Sometimes, the tea room was followed by a bedroom, and after the bedroom, it would change back to a tea room. Then, after passing through the tea room, you would see the living room.
Therefore, standing in the courtyard, no matter which door you chose to enter, the next three doors would correspond to the same room, until the third time, which was the point of no return, allowing entry into a different room.
Considering that each door could be a space teleportation portal, the room behind the door might change the moment the door was opened. From this perspective, the opportunity to change rooms only occurred once every three courtyards. If the state of the room was some kind of time hint, it meant that there were at least four different times within this mansion. This was enough to prove that these courtyards themselves were not connected, because the first courtyard and the second courtyard each had three doors to choose from, and the results of choosing different directions could be vastly different in distance.
Moreover, no matter which direction's door was chosen, the third courtyard would always have a single room with a different layout. This was slightly different from the situation when entering the mansion from the main gate.
Xu Huo tried choosing the right-hand door every time he went out. Sure enough, after opening the right-hand door in the third courtyard, the layout inside had changed.
For all subsequent courtyards, he chose the right-hand door to pass through, successively seeing the tea room, dining room, bedroom, tea room, and tea room. There was no discernible pattern in the distribution of the rooms, only the state of the rooms was changing. And after walking for so long, he never encountered the first original state tea room again. This indicated that there were more than nine rooms of the same type and same state, and it wasn't just a few rooms being reused through spatial channel transformations.
This place was like a maze grid with paths in all directions—up, down, left, and right—and the grid would also change based on a person's actions. The only thing that could be confirmed was that if a room change was discovered upon opening a door, the situation in the next three courtyards would be the same.
But even so, Xu Huo still hadn't found any clues.
Throughout the entire process, he not only failed to encounter those noble children from District 011 or the room that had been smashed, but he also didn't see the robots he had released again. Moreover, for such a long time, the mansion was completely silent, with no other sounds. Being inside, what he saw through the spiritual realm might not necessarily be accurate, because the room would only be fixed the moment he opened the door.
After about three hours, he finally sat down to rest in a tea room.
So far, he hadn't encountered any rooms where teacups or flowerpots had been taken, but he did see a dining room with the number "2" carved under a chair.
The frequency of rooms with numbered furniture wasn't high, except for the ones he had encountered near the entrance...
Thinking of this, Xu Huo immediately stood up and walked through several courtyards in succession, finally finding a tea room in its original state. He pulled out a dagger and carved the number "1" on the table leg.
For the time being, the different states presented by these rooms were divided into four: the state using the most primitive, unpainted wood was "1"; the state with slight decoration was "2"; the used state was "3"; and the tidied state was "4". Among them, there might be an implied sequence. The constant repetition of courtyards in these states might hint at the game rules.
Therefore, he now planned to try walking through four rooms of the same state.
Of course, the positions of different rooms were not fixed. So, after Xu Huo passed through two more rooms, the dining table in the room before him already had food laid out on it.
This didn't fit the state sequence he had devised, so he could only try to move forward and look for the next room in state "1".
He still tried walking in a straight line first, but what appeared ahead was a tea room in state "4". Once the state of a courtyard changed, the next two courtyards would have all rooms the same except for one different room. It was a confirmed fact that after passing through three courtyards, the type and state of the room would definitely change. So, Xu Huo traversed a large number of courtyards in a short time and finally found a bedroom in state "1", marking it with the number "2".
The next two rooms were the same; by continuously opening doors, he found the dining room and living room, both in state "1".
However, after he had carved all the numbers, the courtyard didn't change. No doorway passage appeared, the barrier on the courtyard wall didn't disappear, and no exit door appeared either.
Xu Huo paused for a moment and once again tried to sense the time power on the doors.
Entering different times and spaces after opening a door indicated that the four states of rooms all existed simultaneously. It was just unknown whether it was the influence of time-space power that caused multiple spaces to overlap in the same location.
The key to the problem seemed to lie in these doors, one by one. But after opening the doors so many times, he had also tried to discern a pattern on the doors. Unfortunately, he couldn't feel any difference when opening doors corresponding to different states of rooms.
The ticket couldn't get him out, but the game platform could still be opened, and he could also contact the outside world. This situation was like entering an instance without a ticket, trapped without any clue about the clearance condition.
If this was really the case, and he couldn't get out for several hours, those noble children should have called for help long ago. But the instance hadn't shown any abnormal activity so far. Was it that no one came to rescue them, or had someone come and gone?
Judging from the fact that the room from which he had taken the teacup and teapot never reappeared, the possibility of returning to the room he had marked with the number "1" was very low, unless he could discern other patterns within the instance.
(End of chapter)