Chapter 46: Black Corridor

'Are you messing with me? You've got some nerve.'

Lin Ye entered the red corridor and began checking room numbers. The red light shone on each door, seemingly reminding him that every door opened was a gamble with his life.

'Good thing I have ten lives. Even a nine-lived cat can't outlast me.'

Preparing his spiritual energy shield, Lin Ye randomly pushed open a door. This time nothing attacked him, but the room's condition was far from ideal.

Dark red walls and floor were covered in crimson fuzz, with a fuzzy red corpse standing at the center.

'Go in or try another door?'

After some thought, Lin Ye quickly entered. This room didn't seem aggressive - entering and exiting might not trigger danger.

As expected, neither the fuzz nor corpse attacked him. But when reopening the door, his planned quick exit failed.

Because outside lay complete darkness.

Lin Ye knew he had to enter that darkness to reach the opposite door whose number he couldn't see. But facing the abyss, hesitation gripped him for the first time in ages.

Fear of darkness is human instinct.

Only when the corpse pressed against his back did Lin Ye step into the void. Reaching for the opposite door, he touched nothing. Given standard corridor width, he should've contacted it already.

Lin Ye scrambled backward, only to find his original room gone.

'Is this the "deeper corridor" the attendant mentioned?'

Crouching in darkness, Lin Ye groped forward. No smells, no sounds when tapping the floor - with sight and perception nullified, touch became his sole connection to reality.

After crawling five minutes without encountering anything, Lin Ye realized this approach wouldn't work.

'Actually, when the room disappeared, I should've changed tactics.'

'Many forces could create this - likely spatial or mental manipulation. Spatial issues would be hard to solve, but mental ones...'

Focusing his mind, Lin Ye conjured a glowing particle that illuminated the black corridor. Behind him stood the open doorway with the corpse, while the target door appeared right before him.

As the light faded, Lin Ye lunged for the handle, pushing through Door 99 just before darkness reclaimed him.

Tumbling inside, Lin Ye had no time to observe his surroundings before slamming the door shut with his back.

As he prepared to exit, thick red fibers erupted from his pores, being sucked into the air. When the last fiber departed, Lin Ye collapsed like an emptied specimen jar.

Now he finally had time to examine the room - not that urgency mattered anymore.

Room 99 was a black cube containing a dark rotating sphere of unknown material. The red fibers swirled around it before dissipating.

Lin Ye wasn't sure whether to feel lucky - without the parasitic fibers, he'd be the one being absorbed. Though honestly, momentary survival hardly counted as luck.

'Waiting seems wasteful.'

Despite being emptied, Lin Ye didn't die immediately - likely thanks to the red fibers.

Attempting to crawl out, he discovered a gentle gravitational pull perfectly calibrated to prevent his escape.

With the sphere still absorbing fibers, Lin Ye decided to crawl toward it rather than wait. His thoughts were sparse - even lifting a hand required tremendous effort now.

Without the sphere's pull, he couldn't have crawled at all.

Reaching directly beneath the sphere, Lin Ye rolled onto his back and began carving a collapse rune while watching the rotating mass above.

He wasn't sure this would work, but it beat waiting to die. For a constantly rotating system, minimal external force might trigger collapse.

This was Lin Ye's first combat use of collapse runes. Zed's body wasn't ideal, but after Carnival Feast, Lin Ye had gained new insights about collapse, allowing rudimentary usage.

Then Lin Ye's body collapsed.

Amidst dissolution, watching the spinning sphere imparted new understandings.

Lin Ye rose from bed and dressed, this time heading for Corridor 3.

With seven simulations left across four unexplored corridors, he planned one attempt per corridor. If no patterns emerged, he might confront the organization - what he couldn't solve might be trivial for them.

But this was dangerously risky. To the organization, he was an untrustworthy anomaly - control or elimination would be their preferred solutions over negotiation.

And negotiations require parity. No one bargains with the weak, and to the organization, Lin Ye was weak.

So this path likely ended poorly.

But he had no choice. Thousands of randomly arranged rooms where every door could mean death - without discovering the pattern, finding Room 1904 within one hour was impossible.

Prepared, Lin Ye followed the overseers aboard.

As before, their trio boarded the cruise.

"Any mathematicians here? Or anyone with math-related conditions?"

Though unlikely, Lin Ye asked before entering Corridor 3.

"Huh? I... never went to school..."

The woman eyed Lin Ye strangely - he'd been acting odd since boarding.

"I finished elementary school and can do basic arithmetic."

The boy, sensing Lin Ye had information, hurriedly offered his credentials to avoid abandonment.

"...Oh, impressive. Stay close... Wait! Don't enter! I'll go exchange the boxes - wait outside!"

Lin Ye grabbed his hair in sudden realization.

Only now did he understand - the variables weren't just room numbers or sequences. They themselves were the primary variables!

Three people entering meant three different corridor assignments. If each person represented a variable, room arrangements would become impossibly chaotic - no mathematical skill could untangle that!

This was why he'd never found the pattern.