The Rules of Shadow

Chapter III

Three seconds passed in a flash, my heart was in my throat, but just as I was about to despair, a flash of silver light suddenly passed in front of my eyes.

A middle-aged man sitting beside me, wearing the lenses of a rear-view mirror, actually grabbed the knife in front of me and slashed my arm, the blade of which was much sharper than expected, causing a large puddle of blood, and the pain was quite pronounced, almost causing me to scream. But with great difficulty I controlled my voice and rushed up to the man to thank him.

When the teacher saw this, he kept the same cold expression on his face, buried his head, and continued to read the class notes. The man with the glasses immediately shouted softly, "What are you waiting for, give it to me quickly.

I was busy handing over the knife, my heart pounding: this time I was a hair's breadth away from death.

Seeing that the knife was slowly being passed, the man gently tapped his forefinger on the table and said to me in a low voice, "It seems that I have played the right way, I don't necessarily have to scrape out the knife myself, as long as it is the punished person who is bleeding.

I couldn't help but be a little impressed by his calmness and unconsciously took over the conversation, "Thanks for the help, my name is Jack."

"I'm Brian." He nodded gently and continued, "Can you tell me which floor you went to in each of your first two classes?"

"The first and second floor." I replied, "And you?"

"I went to the fourth floor first, then to the second, and finally to the third." He took a deep breath, looked at the words on the board, and said, "I have an idea I'd like to find someone to experiment with, and I was wondering if you'd be interested in giving it a try.

Faced with someone who was so calm and had saved my life, I thought it would be hard to refuse his offer.

"There's a requirement in the rules that you can't have two classes on the same floor, remember?" He spoke quietly, "According to my reasoning, it is likely that the rules for each classroom are the same all the time, and in order to prevent us from going through the same set of rules all the time, that is why it is required that we change floors."

I thought for a moment and thought that this made sense.

The corner of his mouth lifted into a smile, "How about we exchange information and tell each other what the rules are for the classrooms on the fourth and first floors, so that it's a safe bet to subtract a level of risk?"

"No problem. The rule for the classroom on the first floor closest to the stairs is that everyone must be seated five minutes in advance, violators will be eliminated."

"Oh, I can't believe there's such a rule." He stared at it for a moment, then frowned, "While it's very simple to do, as far as I can tell, the vast majority of people are in a state of hesitant wait-and-see during the first class."

"Yes," I nodded, "the elimination rate in that classroom of ours in the first class was quite high, and out of a classroom of close to 30 people, only half a dozen ended up walking out alive."

"Thanks for the intel, it would have been a real defense if no one had been told about a classroom like that ahead of time." He pushed up the lenses of his glasses, "My first class was on the fourth floor, the third classroom on the left after going up the stairs, and the rule was that you had to keep your eyes on the teacher the entire time, and were forbidden to look anywhere else." He then asked with some concern, "This is a great test of one's concentration, after all, a class lasts a full 40 minutes." It looked as if he was still thinking about me picking up the knife and sending out my mind.

I took a deep breath and said, "Don't worry, my second class is the same holding a state for 40 minutes, I think I can get through it."

"That's good, hopefully we'll meet again after four classes."

"Hopefully."

The class looked menacing, but it barely passed peacefully amidst everyone's cold silence and silent genera and remedies for each other. A full twelve people made it out of the classroom alive, and although everyone was covered in stab wounds of one kind or another, they finally got to see the sunlight outside the hallway.

Relieved, Brian and I each stepped onto the steps to the fourth floor, stepping out of the stairway and into the third classroom on the left.

I sat down in the corner and rubbed my eyes before I leaned over the window and kept staring at the white clouds in the distance, trying to relieve my vision fatigue, since I was going to be staring at the teacher for 40 minutes for the next challenge.

Then four or five people came into the classroom, and the radio announced the result of the previous class: at the end of the third class, there were still 130 students left in the school.

Compared to the previous two rounds, where the death rate was well over half, the third round's numbers seemed less alarming.