svetikya The Pattern of the Four Dungeons in Chapter 61
The Pattern of the Four Dungeons in Chapter 61
The information market was even noisier than Xie Chengzhou remembered.
It wasn't the kind of noise from a large crowd, but the kind where everyone was speaking in hushed tones, yet all of them were speaking at the same time—low-frequency, dense, like a collective restraint. Nobody wanted to be heard by the person next to them, but everyone was talking, and together they created this unique noise density. Xie Chengzhou stood at the entrance and glanced inside, feeling as if he had stepped into a space where everyone's voice had been turned down three notches.
The light was also different from outside. The light in Yuan City was uniformly diffused, with no visible source. The light in the information market was dimmer, not dark, but a deliberately dim, yellowish hue, making it difficult to see people's faces or what they were holding. Xie Chengzhou noticed this detail and mentally noted it down: This brightness wasn't accidental; it was part of the operating logic of this place.
The smell was a mixture of sweat and a metallic scent. It wasn't strong, but it was quite noticeable in Yuan City. It was the smell of people gathered together, not like the smell of a construction site in reality. It was a metallic smell that he couldn't quite put his finger on, like the heat emanating from some kind of continuously running machine, but he couldn't see any machine.
Old Zhao came in and left immediately.
He wasn't wandering aimlessly; he was walking in a clear direction with steady steps and a familiar rhythm—a method he'd used more than once. He stopped in front of the third row of stalls, squatted down, and spoke a few words to a player sitting on the ground. Xie Chengzhou couldn't see the player's face clearly, but he saw Old Zhao reach into his pocket, take something out, and hand it over.
Engineer Li stood by the entrance without moving.
He was looking around, the kind of look one has when entering a place for the first time—not looking for a target, but building spatial awareness, figuring out the logic of the place, how the stalls are arranged, how people move, what the rules are. Xie Chengzhou had seen this look on construction sites before; it was the first glance an experienced engineer would give when entering a new site. No rush, look first, figure out the structure before making a move.
Xie Chengzhou stood still, leaning against the pillar next to the entrance.
He wasn't in a hurry to do anything.
He opened the memo and turned to the last page of Chapter 60—"Cross-copy rule hypothesis v1: There are traces left by the 'last user' in each copy scenario. Confirmation: 60%."—Then he took out his pen, but didn't write immediately; he just held it and looked at the line.
He was waiting for a data point.
In the third row of the information market, a player at one of the stalls was loudly bidding, not in a low voice, but deliberately raising his voice, as if he was about to give up: "#003 Construction Site Dungeon Hidden Rules, Full Version, Thirty Source Coins, Confirmed Valid, Tested and Cleared."
Xie Chengzhou shifted his gaze over there.
The player was a young man in his twenties, holding a piece of paper with dense writing on it. He was showing it to the person next to him and said, "Look, the first rule is that fast movement is prohibited in the load-bearing area. This is the explicit rule, but the real implicit rule is—" He lowered his voice, and Xie Chengzhou did not hear the second half of the sentence.
He didn't go over.
He just stood there, watching the player flip the paper over and continue explaining to the person next to him.
He had been in that instance. He knew the hidden rules of the #003 construction site instance, not because he had bought it, but because he had been there. He had stepped on the ground of that construction site, touched the steel bars there, and he had seen Wang Bo, Zhang An, and Lin Xiao in that instance. He had seen how they died and what decisions Xie Chengzhou had made.
He only caught one sentence of what the player said from several meters away, but that one sentence was enough—"Rapid movement is prohibited in load-bearing areas, that's the explicit rule, but the real implicit rule is..."
He went over that sentence in his mind.
That player noticed the phenomenon, but he was wrong.
It's not that I said it wrong, but that I explained it too superficially. "Rapid movement is prohibited in load-bearing areas" isn't an implicit rule, but an extension of the explicit rule—a superficial behavioral constraint. The real implicit rule is the logic behind this constraint—why can't rapid movement be allowed in load-bearing areas? Because the threat entity in that instance is sensitive to vibration frequencies, and the vibration frequency generated by rapid movement happens to be within its perception threshold. This isn't a "prohibition," it's a "trigger"—it's a physical mechanism, not a rule.
If you don't understand building structures, you won't think about vibration frequencies; you'll only remember "don't move quickly." Then, in some unexpected scenario, you might trigger a threat you thought you had avoided because you don't understand the underlying mechanisms.
He put the pen down on the memo pad without writing anything, just leaving it there to feel the weight of this discovery.
That player wasn't a construction engineer, so he noticed the phenomenon but not the underlying cause.
He took this observation a step further.
#001 Wasteland: The core hidden rule of that instance is related to the operating rhythm of the machines—the factory supervisor's perception mode is bound to the vibration frequency of the machines. You must understand how the machines operate in order to find a safe window to move. Someone who doesn't understand factory machines can discover that "you can't move when the machine is running," but he can't discover that "the superposition of vibration frequencies of different machines will create a blind spot in perception."
#002 Pipeline: The core implicit rule of that instance is related to the water flow logic of the pipeline—threat entities move in the direction of water flow, and you must understand the pressure gradient of the pipeline to predict its path. Someone who doesn't understand the pipeline system can discover that "threat entities move in the pipeline," but he cannot discover that "it moves slower in the pipeline with higher pressure than in the pipeline with lower pressure."
#003 Construction Site: The player from earlier is an example. He discovered that "the load-bearing area cannot move quickly," but he did not discover the "vibration frequency triggering mechanism."
#004 Dam: The core hidden rule of that instance is related to the seepage mechanism—the movement path of the threat entity is consistent with the seepage direction of the dam body. You must understand how water seeps into concrete to predict where it will appear. Someone who doesn't understand hydraulic engineering can discover that "the threat entity comes out of the crack," but he cannot discover that "it will preferentially appear at the location with the greatest seepage pressure."
He put these four points side by side in his mind and looked at them for a while.
Four copies, four different scenarios, four different threat entities, and four different rule systems. But the trigger threshold for the core implicit rule all points to the same thing: **professional knowledge of this space**.
It's not a universal survival instinct, nor is it ordinary observation ability; it's a judgment system that only professional users of that space possess and that can be formed after working in that field for many years.
He placed his pen on the memo and wrote:
"Cross-copy rule hypothesis v2"
"Rule #1 (v1 already recorded): Each instance scenario contains traces left by the 'last user'. Confirmation: 60%."
"Rule #2 (New): The core hidden rule of each instance, the trigger threshold is the professional knowledge of that space. Non-professionals can discover the phenomenon, but cannot discover the essence."
He paused for a moment, placing the two rules side by side in his mind.
Rule #1 states that this space has actually been used by someone and left traces.
Rule #2 states that the rules and logic of this space are deeply intertwined with the knowledge system of the professional users of that space.
Two patterns point in the same direction—the instance scenarios are not randomly generated; their internal logic precisely corresponds to a certain real-world professional knowledge system. This doesn't resemble a general survival game; it's more like a testing system tailored to a specific group of people, with each scenario custom-designed for a particular professional background.
He wrote half of the "confirmation" line, then stopped and thought about it again.
60% of it was written by him yesterday, when he only had rule #1. Now there's rule #2, so both rules hold true simultaneously and support each other—the "last user" who left the trace, and the "professional knowledge" needed to trigger the hidden rules, likely come from the same type of person: the professional users of that space. Factory workers, plumbers, building engineers, water conservancy engineers.
The two rules hold true simultaneously and support each other, so the certainty is more than 60%.
He crossed out "60%" and wrote "75%".
Then he put the pen there.
75%.
He stared at the number for a while.
In engineering, what does a 75% confirmation rate mean? It means that the conclusion can be used as a preliminary judgment basis, and the next action plan can be formulated accordingly, but it cannot be written into the formal report yet. More data points are needed to support or refute it.
But this is not an engineering report.
This was a discovery he didn't know how to categorize—four copies, four scenarios, four sets of rules, all pointing to the same internal logic. This didn't seem like a coincidence.
He suppressed the thought that it "didn't seem like a coincidence" in his mind.
If it wasn't a coincidence, then what was it?
It's design.
He went through the word in his mind without writing it down, just letting it pass through his mind, feeling its weight, and then pressing it down a layer. He currently has no data to support the conclusion of "design," he only has two rules, a 75% degree of certainty, and a feeling that "it doesn't seem like a coincidence."
"It doesn't seem like a coincidence" isn't based on data, it's a feeling.
He didn't trust his feelings on the construction site—feelings couldn't be written into reports, feelings couldn't guide construction, feelings were nothing on site.
But he just wrote in his memo that it was "triggered by judgments about people," and he just admitted in Chapter 59 that "not being able to explain" is also a valid basis for judgment.
He stopped his pen on the blank line below "75%", but didn't write anything; he just left it there.
He knew what to write in that blank line.
He simply doesn't have enough data yet.
---
"this."
Old Zhao's voice came from the side. Xie Chengzhou looked up and saw that Old Zhao had returned, holding a folded piece of paper in his hand. He handed it to him and said, "Take a look."
Xie Chengzhou took it, unfolded it, and glanced at it.
This is a rule message from the #004 dam replica, which reads: "Dam surface threat entity movement pattern: along the vertical direction of the dam surface, from low to high, the movement speed is approximately 0.3 meters per second, and it stops when it encounters a light source."
He read the message once, but didn't say anything.
"How much did you buy it for?"
"Twenty," Old Zhao said. "I think this price is reasonable. I didn't know this before."
Xie Chengzhou folded the paper back and handed it back to him. "The figure of 0.3 meters per second is correct," he said, "but the statement 'stops upon encountering a light source' is wrong. It doesn't stop upon encountering a light source, it only stops upon encountering a heat source. If there's no heat in the light source, it won't stop."
Old Zhao took the paper and glanced at him. "How did you know?"
"A thermos," Xie Chengzhou said. "Hot water, not a flashlight. You used hot water to drive it away, not to use up the light."
Old Zhao clenched the paper, said nothing, and then put it in his pocket. He didn't ask, "What are these twenty Yuan coins worth?" He simply put the paper away, then turned around and took another look at the information stall.
Xie Chengzhou flipped the memo back to that blank line.
He wrote a new line below that blank line:
"To be verified: The accuracy of information circulating in the copy rule information market is questionable. Professional background affects information quality—rules discovered by non-professionals may only be descriptions of phenomena rather than the essence of the mechanism."
Then he stopped writing and closed the memo.
Engineer Li walked over from the side, stopped, glanced at the memo in Xie Chengzhou's hand, and didn't ask any questions. He just stood there, in a "I'm ready, you go ahead" posture.
Xie Chengzhou put the memo into his pocket.
"I'm leaving," he said.
The three of them emerged from the information market, their footsteps echoing across the cobblestone streets of Yuan City. Xie Chengzhou took a few steps, reached into his pocket, checked the memo app to make sure it was there, and then released his hand.
That blank line in his mind was still there.
Below "75%", nothing was written.
He knew what should be written in that blank line.
But he doesn't have enough data yet.