49 Apocalypse Rules

At the academy, inside a four-person dormitory.

A student holding his phone said, "The academy sent out a notice. Not all classes are canceled during this Rule Stage; we still have to attend some of them."

"Huh?" another guy who was playing a video game said, annoyed. "I thought everything was canceled."

"Canceling everything is pretty unlikely. Classes that don’t require much talking don’t need to be suspended."

"That’s true."

If classes were suspended every time a new rule was announced, students would probably spend half the school year cooped up in their dorms. They’d get far too little study time.

"You guys sure are chatty," the guy lying on his bed reading a novel said, looking up. "Aren’t you afraid you’ll accidentally lie and fail the rule?"

"Well, we can’t just say nothing at all."

"Just think it over for a few seconds before you speak. Once you’re sure it’s fine, then say it."

"Still, this rule is pretty interesting. You can use it to ask questions." The guy with the phone chuckled and turned to the one reading the novel. "Wang Xiang, answer me. Do you have a secret crush on any girl at the academy?"

"...I refuse to answer."

"So that’s a yes, then. With this rule in effect, refusing to answer is the same as admitting it!"

After he said that, the guy turned to the one playing the video game. "Wu He, let me ask you, have you ever done anything bad in your entire life?"

The guy, Wu He, rolled his eyes at him. "You’re nuts."

"Just ignore him."

"Hey, come on, let’s have some fun. Why don’t you guys ask me something? No matter the question, I swear I won’t stay silent!"

"Fine, I’ll ask you then." Wang Xiang, who was reading the novel, looked up and asked, "Zhu Jun, have you ever stolen anything?"

At that, the guy named Zhu Jun looked a bit embarrassed. He hesitated for a moment before nodding. "I have. When I was a kid, I stole money from home to buy snacks."

"Okay, my turn to ask—"

"Hey, that’s not fair. You ask me one, I ask you one." Zhu Jun cut in, his eyes shifting as he asked, "Wang Xiang, is your Psychic Power limit over 160?"

The moment the question was asked, Wang Xiang’s expression soured. The other two in the dorm also stopped what they were doing and looked over in unison.

The specific value of one’s Psychic Power limit was a secret for every Ascender.

The reason for this was that the effectiveness of certain special abilities and items depended heavily on the comparison between the user’s and the target’s Psychic Power limits.

In other words, if people didn’t know your Psychic Power limit, they wouldn’t dare use such an ability or item on you rashly.

If your Psychic Power limit happened to be much higher than theirs, you would be able to sense the failed attempt. At that point, a conflict between the two of you would be inevitable.

That was why, even among roommates at the academy, one would never reveal their specific Psychic Power limit unless they were exceptionally close.

For Zhu Jun to use the rule to ask about something like this seemed to be going too far in the eyes of the other three roommates.

Zhu Jun himself, however, was oblivious. He added, "We agreed—no staying silent. Either admit it or deny it."

Wang Xiang replied with a cold expression, "It isn’t."

"Haha." Zhu Jun smirked triumphantly. "Looks like my level’s a bit higher than yours, then."

"Zhu Jun, that’s taking it too far," another roommate said. "I can’t believe you’d ask that kind of question."

"What’s wrong with it? The rule allows it."

"It’s my turn now, isn’t it?" Wang Xiang said.

"Still want to play? Fine, bring it on! Let’s see who backs down first!" Zhu Jun retorted, refusing to be outdone.

The other two roommates exchanged a glance, already sensing the explosive tension brewing between the two.

Wang Xiang asked, "You’ve said before that your parents were very strict with you. Later, after the Fire Thief appeared, they both died during the first of the Apocalypse Rules. My question is, were you happy about your parents’ deaths?"

Hearing this question, Zhu Jun flew into a rage. "What did you say?!"

"What, trying to hide it by getting angry?" Wang Xiang said. "Or are you just too scared to answer this question? Because you know that after you give your answer, we’ll all look at you differently."

"..."

Zhu Jun clenched his fists, silent.

The other two roommates were also a bit stunned; they hadn’t expected Wang Xiang to come up with such a vicious question.

The atmosphere in the room was almost frozen. For a full half minute, no one spoke.

Zhu Jun’s silence all but confirmed it: deep down, he was indeed happy about his parents’ deaths.

But how could he possibly admit that? If he did, how would his roommates look at him from then on? Even if he explained that his parents had been relentlessly critical of him his whole life and that he came from an awful family, "wishing for one’s parents to die" was undoubtedly something most people would find difficult to accept.

But if he denied it, he knew he would be violating the rule.

But at this point, his prolonged silence had already told the others his true feelings.

"I think that’s enough, you two. We’re all in the same dorm, is this really necessary?" a roommate said, breaking the silence to smooth things over.

Hearing this, Wang Xiang said, "Fine, forget it. Just pretend I never asked."

Zhu Jun’s face was ashen. Spoken words are like spilled water; they can’t be taken back.

Besides, his silence had already given the other three roommates their answer.

"Wang Xiang, this isn’t over!"

Zhu Jun spat out the words fiercely and stormed out of the dorm, slamming the door behind him.

Even though Wang Xiang was the "winner," his expression wasn’t good either. A faint flicker of regret flashed in his eyes.

If he could do it over, he wouldn’t have impulsively asked such a question just to let off steam. Creating this irreparable rift between roommates was not a good thing.

The other two roommates were even more speechless, not having expected an idle chat to escalate like this. Should they blame the rule issued by the Fire Thief, or should they blame Wang Xiang and Zhu Jun themselves?

They looked at each other and could both see the thought in the other’s mind: ’During this Rule Stage, we’d better not ask people any pointless questions!’

...

「About two hours after the thirteenth rule was announced.」

The Strategy Research Room updated the Apocalypse Rules White Paper.

People were already accustomed to this strategy guide being updated after each new rule was announced, so they immediately downloaded or viewed it online.

The official advice for this rule was pretty much what ordinary people had already figured out: talk as little as possible, or not at all, and don’t write or publish anything.

Another important recommendation was not to use the rule to ask people about private matters during the Rule Stage. If someone asked you such a question, you were under no obligation to answer. It was best to remain silent, or alternatively, to express refusal with a statement like, "I don’t want to say."

Furthermore, the post made by the administrator of Ascender’s Home on the forums had spread like wildfire online. Now, many people were waiting for the authorities to obtain the information and make it public.

Therefore, the entry for the current rule in the White Paper also mentioned at the end that hidden information related to this rule would be updated and published as soon as the authorities became aware of it.

At this time, in the comments section below the official White Paper update, many voices of complaint could already be heard.

"Sigh, if only they’d published this earlier. Then I would’ve had a reason to refuse my partner’s tricky questions, and I could’ve just said the officials recommended it."

"Really? You sure your partner would accept you using the official recommendation as a shield?"

"A lesson learned the hard way... Do not use this rule to ask any questions... My girlfriend and I already broke up because of it... Damn it!"

"The poster above, you broke up that fast? The rule was only announced a few hours ago?"

"Two idiots in our dorm also had a falling out over asking questions. It looks like there’s no making up, so one of them will probably apply to switch rooms."

"Do people who use this rule to ask about private matters have a screw loose? What’s the difference between this and ’If you love me, give me your phone’s passcode’?"

"So cringe. A classic case of playing petty games and having it blow up in your face."

"The government could use this rule to interrogate criminals, though. That way they wouldn’t wrongly accuse good people."

"They probably don’t need to. I remember an insider from the government revealed online a while ago that the relevant departments have had lie-detector items for a long time."

"Poster above, did you forget the law of superior and inferior Psychic Power? Those kinds of items are very ineffective against criminals with higher Psychic Power than the tester!"

"The poster above is the stupid one. Are you telling me that with all the elites in the government departments, they can’t find one person whose Psychic Power is higher than a criminal’s?"

In the shelter, Guan Tong used his computer to read the comments under the official announcement. He thought to himself, ’In just a few more months, it will have been two full years since the world entered the era of the Apocalypse Rules, yet there are still so many people who never learn, who treat the rules with such carelessness.’

’Is it because they’ve grown complacent on a psychological level, just because failure doesn’t mean death?’

However, the consequence of failing this rule was to be forever unable to speak the truth, which in his eyes was a terrifying fate.

Being unable to speak the truth meant you could never again reveal your true feelings, virtually cutting off all possibility of normal communication with others and turning yourself into an isolated island.

Putting away his phone, Guan Tong thought about how in a few more hours, he would have to send part of the hidden rule’s content to the buyer.

He definitely wouldn’t send the complete text. That would make him an accomplice to the Fire Thief, promoting mutual harm among people who trust each other and severely damaging interpersonal trust.

His plan was to send only a portion of it.

Specifically, he would only send the first and third parts of the hidden rule: if both parties to the contract tell each other no lies, they will receive double the reward after the rule ends; if both parties lie to each other, both will suffer the penalty for failing the rule after it ends.

He would omit the second part: "If one party lies and the other does not, the lying party can receive triple the reward."

If he could, he would want to modify the second part, changing it to "If one party lies, that party alone fails." But with the rule in place, he couldn’t modify it—because doing so would violate the rule, as text, too, could not lie on a subjective level.

So he could only omit it.

This way, anyone with this information, as long as they weren’t a lunatic or an idiot, would absolutely not lie when there was no visible benefit in doing so.

Perhaps a situation could still arise where one person lies and the other tells the truth. But since the reward is only given after the Rule Stage ends, at least the information wouldn’t spread before then.

As for whether he should find someone to establish a contract himself...

Guan Tong felt it posed a certain risk for him.

Because if he were betrayed, he wouldn’t just lose the reward; he would also suffer the penalty for failing the rule.

He had, after all, passed the previous twelve rules without a single failure. His goal was to pass all forty-nine of them.

Was it worth taking such a risk for a double reward?

Guan Tong decided it wasn’t.

His own Psychic Power limit was already growing quickly on its own; there was no need to take the risk.

Besides, if he were to look for someone to form a contract with, he didn’t have many candidates. There was Shi Jingyi, with whom he had a life-and-death bond and who knew his identity. There was also Xu Xiaotian, with whom he’d always been on good terms.

The former was reliable, but it was inconvenient to meet her right now.

As for the latter... To be honest, it wasn’t that Guan Tong didn’t trust Xu Xiaotian. But as the Yunhua kidnapping incident had shown, the kid was a bit of a simpleton.

Even if Guan Tong trusted that Xu Xiaotian wouldn’t betray him intentionally, he still wouldn’t dare form a contract with him. What if the kid had a muddle-headed moment at a critical time during the Rule Stage and accidentally told a small lie? It would all be over.

It was like the difference between a single-player game and a multiplayer team game. In a single-player game, victory and defeat depended on your own skill. If you lost, you only had your own lack of skill to blame.

In a multiplayer team game, however, you could be highly skilled but still lose because a teammate dragged you down through incompetence or carelessness. The frustration of such a moment was simply indescribable.

Therefore, after careful consideration, Guan Tong decided not to form a Truth Contract with anyone during this Rule Stage. He couldn’t stake his own success or failure on whether someone else would make a mistake.