Chapter 880: I Can't Stand This Endless Battle!
"He... Could it be... He's not a man?" Bohemia glanced at the pocket dimension owner repeatedly. "He actually has such a hidden condition..."
"No!"
Lin Sanjiu and the pocket dimension owner simultaneously blurted out these two words.
"It's not what you're thinking."
She rubbed her temples, and as she put her hand down again, the gentle and serene demeanor she had just exhibited suddenly disappeared. She transformed back into the familiar Lin Sanjiu that Bohemia knew well: always steadfast like a rock, seemingly never shaken by anything external. Though she had experienced moments of nervousness and anxiety, her eyes remained fearless.
Lin Sanjiu slipped one hand into her pocket and strode confidently towards the pocket dimension owner. She seemed to have no fear of him anymore as she halted in front of him, squinting her eyes and carefully observing him for a moment. Then she turned to Bohemia with a smile and said, "I must say, this guy has gone a bit overboard, hasn't he?"
"What?" Bohemia was a bit confused.
"I mean, just look at his appearance..." Lin Sanjiu tilted her head and stared straight at the pocket dimension owner. "There are so many distinctive features that can be described, right? Being as fat as a ball is already a highly noticeable characteristic, not to mention the fact that he's completely bald with no hair on his face. Wearing a black suit and a tall top hat... Each trait is so pronounced, as if they are all desperately calling for attention. It's quite a coincidence that so many peculiar features are concentrated in one person."
"Are you suggesting that..." Bohemia pondered for a moment, "...he intentionally dressed up like this?"
"Exactly."
"Why?"
Lin Sanjiu slightly bent down, locking eyes with the pocket dimension owner at close proximity, their breaths almost audible. She silently observed him for two seconds, then suddenly took out something and played with it in her palm before answering, "Because he wants our attention to be drawn away by these strong personal traits."
Before Bohemia could ask further questions, Lin Sanjiu reached out and patted the pocket dimension owner's shoulder. Even this area, where accumulating fat would be difficult, was trembling under her touch. "You were also distracted by his unique appearance, weren't you? Well, so was I. It took me quite a while to think about why he and the ball wouldn't form a three-in-a-row combination, but I finally came up with the only explanation."
"What is it?" Bohemia's eyes sparkled, and her cheeks turned slightly red. Anyone who realized they narrowly escaped death would undoubtedly be filled with excitement.
"The reason is simple: he's not round at all."
As Lin Sanjiu patted the pocket dimension owner a few times, his face became extremely unpleasant, but he remained motionless.
"Not only is he not round, but he's also not a man, and he isn't even wearing a suit, let alone the matter of having or not having hair. He's something trapped inside this pocket dimension, unable to be classified as a living being."
She turned around and smiled at Bohemia. "To figure out what can form a three-in-a-row combination with him, we must first see through this point: this chubby guy in a black suit is just a disguise of the pocket dimension owner. He appeared in this altered form as soon as we entered the pocket dimension to create a preconceived impression that this is his true appearance."
"The reason I dare to make this judgment is that there is a very obvious fact that we all overlooked." Lin Sanjiu took a breath and slowly continued, "This fact proves that he is not a biological human, so this appearance is entirely irrelevant."
"What fact?"
"Among the pocket dimension owner, you, and me, we are all humanoid creatures, yet none of us have been eliminated in a three-in-a-row combination."
Bohemia was suddenly taken aback.
If something resembling the external traits of the pocket dimension owner appeared in the balls, such as a hairless pig or a well-dressed lady, as his opponents, they would immediately choose to open those balls. Once they selected something that contradicted the pocket dimension owner's essence, they would waste a turn, and the possibility of being eliminated themselves would greatly increase.
Bohemia bit her lip and pondered, "Makes... makes sense. So how can we form a three-in-a-row combination with him?"
"Let me ask you, what conditions are satisfied for a lion without a mane to form a three-in-a-row combination with us?"
"Um... they are both living creatures, both females, right?"
"Then why can't a bicycle, which includes iron as one of its components, form a three-in-a-row combination with us, who also have iron as an element?"
"Is it because having just one trait is not enough?" Bohemia pondered for a while, unable to grasp the idea and growing more impatient. "I can't figure it out, I don't know!"
"The answer is ridiculously simple." Lin Sanjiu smiled. "It's because the fact that it 'contains iron' is not visible from our external perspective."
Bohemia froze, lost in thought for a moment, and finally realized, "Ah, the fact that it contains oxygen is also not visible from the outside! So, it must be something that is visible that works, right? No wonder... no wonder this guy went to such great lengths with his appearance. It was all to mislead us!"
"More accurately, it has to be conditions observable from the outside. It is precisely because these conditions must be met that things like bacteria, which are invisible to the naked eye, are given great emphasis. Even souls, which are difficult to determine, are labeled and explained. All of this proves that the conditions must be visible to our own eyes in order to be considered as elimination criteria."
With her hands casually tucked in her pockets, Lin Sanjiu walked back leisurely, showing no concern about leaving her back to the pocket dimension owner. All the expressions and gestures on the face of the pocket dimension owner melted away like snow, leaving only a bare and mask-like piece of flesh, along with a pair of eyeballs that closely followed Lin Sanjiu's movements.
"But he doesn't even reveal his true appearance. What external conditions can you observe?" Bohemia looked skeptically at the pocket dimension owner and then at Lin Sanjiu.
"We don't need him to reveal his true appearance. From the beginning of the game until now, we have actually observed enough information."
Lin Sanjiu stood firm beside her. "To form a three-in-a-row combination, there is one last condition: we must know clearly what the common traits are. Three rolls of toilet paper can be eliminated immediately because their common point is too obvious. The reason the pocket dimension owner hasn't been eliminated yet is that I haven't mentioned the common point between him and two other things."
"So, during the test, he did mention the common point between the lioness and us..." Bohemia swallowed nervously. "Then what is the common point?"
Lin Sanjiu smiled and took a final glance at the chubby figure in the black suit opposite her. His tall top hat and plump figure began to dissipate like smoke, as if the pocket dimension owner himself knew that the game was up and no longer bothered to maintain the disguise.
"The soul is the operating system of humans, Windows XP is the operating system of computers, and the pocket dimension owner is the operating system of this Candy Crush."
These were the last words Lin Sanjiu spoke in the Candy Crush pocket dimension.
As soon as the words fell, everything in front of them twisted and distorted, forming countless blurry lights, shadows, and colors that rapidly disappeared from their field of vision. When they suddenly realized they had returned to the dark night outside the pocket dimension, the remnants of the pocket dimension owner and the things around him still seemed to glow silver in their retinas.
Bohemia let out a sigh of relief and quickly grabbed Lin Sanjiu's arm. "We need to leave quickly!"
One pocket dimension had managed to pass through, but there were still 26 pocket dimensions lurking inside and outside this medical station. Their luck, abilities, and energy were all insufficient to survive the battle with the 26 pocket dimensions.
Moreover, there were originally no pocket dimensions where they were standing. However, the Candy Crush pocket dimension took advantage of their unpreparedness and pulled them in. It could only mean one thing: these pocket dimensions somehow developed the ability to move.
Lin Sanjiu nodded hastily and immediately followed Bohemia's footsteps. However, just as they took a few steps, a window in the medical station building behind them suddenly shattered with a loud "crash." They quickly turned around and saw a figure flying straight out of the third-floor window, landing on the ground not far from them. The impact point landed right on the neck, accompanied by a distinct "crack" sound as the neck bone snapped.
"It's that person from earlier!" Bohemia's feet froze, and she couldn't help but exclaim.
"What person?" Lin Sanjiu heard about another person for the first time. "You've seen him?"
"After you entered the medical station, this person followed you in!"
"Why didn't you say so earlier?" Lin Sanjiu was startled and quickly glanced at the person on the ground. However, the lighting was dim, and she couldn't even tell the person's gender or age beyond a vague silhouette.
"Think about it. Did I even have a chance to say it earlier?" Bohemia justified herself, her voice even louder than Lin Sanjiu's. "Are you still going to go and check? Hurry, let's run. Everyone else is dead anyway!"
Lin Sanjiu withdrew her gaze, turned around, and began walking in the direction they came from. They were moving at an astonishing speed, and theoretically, they should have been out of the perimeter of the medical station in the blink of an eye. However, they ran for quite some time, and the road seemed to become longer and longer, with no end in sight.
"Wait," Lin Sanjiu gasped for breath, speaking in a low voice. "Something's not right. Stop for a moment!"
"Let's, let's try again!" Bohemia's face turned pale, but she refused to stop, using her sprint to escape from reality. "Let's speed up a bit, hurry!"
"It's useless!"
Before she could finish her sentence, a faint voice sounded beside her. The voice followed their footsteps like a shadow, and it had been there for who knows how long, yet they hadn't noticed it. "You have to finish playing this round with me before you can leave, you know!"
Bohemia jumped in place like a startled mouse, as if her hair had exploded. They turned their heads and saw a short girl dressed in sparkling gold, smiling at them with a mouthful of large teeth.
"It's rare to have exactly the right number of people who have entered my pocket dimension. We don't need to wait for anyone else. How about playing a game of Landlord with me?" The girl's eyes slanted upward toward her temples, and her two eyeballs seemed to roll down along with gravity, almost sticking together. "You can only leave after playing Landlord."
As she spoke, the dead person with the broken neck suddenly crawled up from the ground, still keeping his head lowered. He started running quickly in the distance.