Shades of Wolves

Chapter 16: The Pythagorean Trilogy

When I checked the cameras, I saw two people regularly going up to the rooftop. They were drinking beer and talking about codes.

There are many people who doubt about 100 questions, but they are like industrial chickens, working hard to solve each question without daring to go beyond the limit.

I also really look forward to tomorrow to seeing how those two will figure us out.

At first, me and the creators wanted the players to adapt better. Give them a chance to breathe in the opening round then level up slowly gradually. But a special directive from the top asked us to create a challenge for this first round.

I used to wonder why that was the case. But surely, among these people, there is one who is a great concern of the game's founder. Is it a "silver spoon" or a "rat" of Interpol? Who is he really among those lurking and hiding in the dark? What an exciting season!

Axelsen

Day 5, 6:30, 30 minutes before the first eliminating round.

Hoa went to board of the matrix of seats. Watching the lines of movement, her black eyes captured even the slightest changes in them.

She muttered under her breath. A pair of hands was put on her shoulders. It was Nabeya. She was behind her. Her mouth moved closer towards Hoa’s ears to whisper a couple of secret words.

"We all bet on this."

Sammul walked pass her. He also looked up at the matrix board.

“How many numbers remain unchanged?”

"There are 10 numbers left" Hoa was confused. Yesterday it was 10 numbers, it should have been reduced today. How did they still remain the same?

"Which ones?"

“It’s 02, 10, 22, 33, 55, 68, 77, 88, 93, and 99.”

"Then we have to rely on you this time." Hoa passed by Sammul. She deliberately touched his shoulder lightly as encouragement. Sammul also curled his lips in a smile. For the first time, he carried the lives of four people on his shoulders.

When she entered, she saw Peccinini sitting next to her. Obviously, he's not sitting where he was supposed to.

"You're on Ander's side too, what a surprise!" Hoa snorted contemptuously.

“I sided with him, because he gave me a lot of blood to compose. Didn't you hear the shrill screams last night?" Peccinini laughed heartily.

"Don't lie. He told you to come over here to control me, didn't he?" Hoa leaned back, using her eyes to block the hypocrisy dancing all around this psycho musician.

"Hey you, little brat. You have to find out the answers for me too!"

Ander on the other side had his sight towards her and gave the girl his order. Hoa was in a pincer situation at the moment. Felix would definitely leave some difficult questions for her on purpose. If she didn't follow Ander’s order, he could come over and kill her at any moment. Bruno's group last night was full of injuries, they must have been suppressed by Ander's group before taking any further action. All they had was talking, for sure.

The judge came in. He put his coffee on the table and started talking.

“We are getting to the last 20 verses. However, I want to say one more thing, and you will definitely love it. The person who finishes first in this round will receive a huge advantage in the next challenge. After the 100 questions are over, we will give you another 5 minutes to submit, which is a special reward for the excellent elites here. Remember, only 30 people will enter the next round!”

After finishing the words above, the judge also had his announcement stated loud and clear: "Start!"

“Question 81: Given the following data, what is the most accurate trajectory of the spacecraft when it leaves the ground at coordinates X. A, B, C, D?”

Hoa’s heart could not remain calm. It constantly oscillated. She turned to look at Sammul. He was highly concentrated. Sweat had trickled down from his forehead to his eyelids. He was using his superior sense of smell to analyze and identify the smell of ink on the paper.

Why had Nabeya went upside down from her normal self the previous day? Everything happened for a reason. She had heard the conversation between them and knew that the supervisors would act differently from the normal players.

Hoa remembers the night before. While she had been arguing with Bruno's group of people, her eyes had drifted over to one of their answer sheets. He filled in ink on the answer that she and Felix had just solved. A thought flashed through Hoa's mind at Nabeya's turn-around action.

…………………

Hoa went upstairs and found the girl sitting with Sammul with a beer bottle in her hand. Hoa confirmed her speculation even more with the scene before her.

“You act like that, the purpose is to force me to solve all the answers so they can fill in the answer sheet, right?” Hoa asked.

Nabeya also did not hesitate to explain.

“That's right. The supervisors not only won't change their seats, but will respond in their own way. Surely, they won't fill in all the answers like normal players."

Nabeya took a sip of the wine. Its golden color moving against her plump lips.

“So, if you give all the answers to those guys, they will immediately fill them in? With that way, we can identify those who work as the WIC supervisor because they won't fill it out or the way it's filled out is very special?"

"Right" Nabeya nodded in agreement.

“But to determine who fills them all in and who is different, we have to rely on him.”

Both Hoa and Nabeya looked at Sammul. He was not worried at all, calmly gurgling the liquid down his throat.

………………

Hoa’s hands began to get colder. The pen in her hand was a little shaky. Even though she had pointed out the ten suspicious numbers as well as where they were sitting, this room was still full of smell. The human body, the smell of blood, the disinfectant, the smell of food… It was like a giant library that Sammul had to enter and arrange the books before reading every single one of them.

They could not go to those people’s seats. It was clearly because if the supervisor found out what they were trying to do, it was very likely that they would withdraw, hide even more and not reveal themselves as well as the hint for the answer of question number 100. Hoa could do nothing but pray. She hoped that Sammul's nose and brain could refine exactly what appeared on the paper. Deep down, Hoa knew that it was not as easy as said. She had a thought that even a police dog might not be able to smell it.

“Don't tremble. It will be okay. Your blood is in turmoil. Your heart is about to suffocate!” Peccinini took Hoa's hand. To her surprise, it calmed her down a little bit.

"Thank you! I'm fine!"

“Question 82: From which country did the first black person win the Nobel Prize for Literature? A, B, C, D?”

One by one, 10 questions were asked. Not easy. Hoa and Felix had done answering those question with their full capacity. But Sammul still remained silent over there. His hands were clenched together until they were red.

“I saw the blood vessels in his head were pounding, popping, and popping over and over and over again. He's using his brain energy at a very high capacity. What are you and him planning to do?" Peccinini asked with a smile on his lips.

Hoa looked at Peccinini in surprise. Apparently, he also had a special ability. He must have been able to hear well, even with very small sounds. The sound of the heart beating. The sound of blood hitting the walls of the veins… Could it be any chance that his ears could do such things?

"You know?"

“You and him are plotting something. Both have never filled in anything. That girl and Mahoney haven’t either. They are sitting quietly waiting. Is it related to the 100th answer?” Peccinini's question was like a great pressure on Hoa's heart. He had noticed an anomaly around them.

“…”

"If you don't tell me, I'll tell Ander this. Then you'll know how it is going to end for the four of you." Peccinini laughed while threatening Hoa. He looked joking, but she sensed death in his words.

Hoa began to consider each and every scenario that could happened. Now, she could not bring herself to offend Peccinini. That was a dead move. He was watching her. At this moment, the only option seemed like cooperation with each other. Hoa bit the bottom of her lips before speaking up.

“We discovered that question 100 can be related to an area of a figure. And there are supervisors that are undercover in here. Sammul is defining who they are. There must be hints on their bodies somehow.” Hoa spoke in a hurry, as if she wanted to beg Peccinini not to spill this out.

“Okay, but you have to give me the answer after all”

Hoa furrowed her brows. She was wordlessly cursing this bastard who took advantage of the situation in her heart.

“Question 95: Given the following facts, please tell which battle this is in human history. A, B, C, D?”

It was only a few more questions left until the end. However, Sammul still had not found the watchers. Or maybe he had found one or two of them and were still trying to filter out the rest. Hoa suddenly remembered something. Peccinini was very good at hearing. He had an ability to even hear human’s heartbeats. For ordinary people, in this situation, their pulse would surely be chaotic. Only the insiders who knew that they would lose nothing could stay calm in this nick of time.

Hoa looked over at Peccinini, only to see him smiling. He knew exactly what she wanted. He did not even let Hoa have time to open her mouth. He took a pen wrote on her answer sheet 5 numbers.

“02, 33, 68, 93, 99. You owe me"

Hoa clenched her jaw. Should she believe him or not? If it was another deaf Mozart again, she would really be one of Peccinini's song soon. Contrary to Hoa's hesitation and endless anxiety, Peccinini was very leisurely. He whistled a piece of music. It's Symphony No. 5 with the minor note.

The hall began to become more chaotic. Everyone wanted the answers. They moved towards Felix. Of course, Ander’s group would prevent. A bloody battle finally began in order to rob the answers. They used knives, tables and chairs to attack each other. The chaos reached its c****x. The judge still smiled and sipped his coffee regardless of who died, despite the splash of blood on the floor.

Hoa took the opportunity to run to Sammul.

"Who's been identified?"

Sammul's forehead was covered with sweat.

“02, 68, 93. The rest of them smell too strong. It overwhelms the ink scent."

3 out of 5 from Peccinini’s number were correct. It meant Peccinini’s words might be true. Hoa immediately wrote on Sammul's paper the two remaining numbers. He could feel it. Also not wanting to ask more questions, he began to focus on the remaining two positions already led by Hoa.

“Question 100: Calculate the area of the square polygon you found?”

Sammul was highly concentrated. He located the scent of ink that the other five guys filled in.

“They all filled in one box, but not the same question numbers. Number 02 filled in question 45, 68 in question 11, 93 in 65, 33 in 72 and 99 in 97. All the answers they chose were D."

Sammul said in a whisper kind of tone. The intense use of brain energy made him really tired.

"D? D? D… It's Delta! That's right! They want us to calculate the area of a right triangle.”

“Only 30 seconds left!” The examiner announced.

Hoa took a couple of seconds thinking of Sammul’s words of how the supervisors only chose one answer, but for different questions. The questions were in order of 45, 11, 65, 72 and 97 respectively. These numbers, why did they give off a very familiar feeling, like…

“Let's focus on the number of the order of those questions. The only difference between these guys is definitely the hidden meaning to the answer!” Sammul reminded her. He was really tired.

Hoa closed her eyes to feel. A glimmer suddenly showed up in her head.

“The Pythagorean Trilogy. It’s the Pythagorean triple. (65,72,97) It’s that trio. Along with the data is Delta, the right polygon the exam is asking us is a right triangle with the lengths of the two sides of the right angle is 65 and 72, while the hypotenuse is 97.”

“The area is 2340!”

The whole room was really like a landslide size of battle among sides of gangsters. Some fought, some robbed, some killed. They all trampled on each other. Ander just now couldn't stop other people's desire to live. Felix was in the middle of this storm. Her head was covered in blood, trying to fill out her answer sheet with a pen.

Hoa quickly ran to her place. She took out of her pocket four sheets of paper. It belonged to Mahoney, her, Nabeya and Sammul. They had agreed that she would keep them. When the found the answer, Nabeya would distract Ander so Hoa could submit them first. But in this chaos, they really couldn’t tell one from another anymore. With only a few seconds left, she had to hurry and submit them before it was too late.

"Hey don't you forget me" Peccinini smiled and held the paper in front of Hoa. She grabbed it and wrote it down.

“I hope one day you will suffer from me” Hoa used a pen to write numbers on the answer box.

She did not expect that all this chaos of scene would be captured in Felix's eyes. Jealousy was evident in her eyes. Felix also had doubts, she also tried to understand the meaning of this round, but she had failed. Yet that chick knew the final answer. Hoa won her again? Felix could not bear it one more time.

“Ander! Ander! She knows the answer! Stop! Stop it, you fools! The answer to question 100 is the final correct answer, the other questions are just bait!"

Felix bellowed loudly. The fight suddenly stopped. Sensing danger, Hoa immediately slipped through the rows of tables to the place where the answer was submitted. But Ander quickly grabbed Mahoney. He clutched her long hair and pulled it back.

“You give me the answer. Then I will spare her. If not, I swear I'll break her neck and kill her right here right now." Ander pulled harder. Mahoney burst into tears, but this time she was more resilient.

"Just submit them! Hoa! Hurry up!"

“You will submit them, huh?” Ander laughed excitedly

“Two minutes left to submit, or all of the players will be disqualified,” The judge reminded.

“Give it to me! Quick!"

Hoa slowed down. She reached her hand towards Ander. But surprisingly, from the bottom of the socks, Mahoney pulled out a sharp knife. She held it up high and cut off the hair where Ander had grabbed it.

"From now on, it's no longer something for you to grab and threaten my friend with!"

The sharp blade cut off part of Mahoney's ear, piercing Ander's flesh.

“You dirty b***h!” Ander grabbed the knife, intending to stab it down Mahoney's spine. But a pair of nimble legs swooped forward and hit him on the wrist. The force was so strong enough for the large man to fall onto the table, clearly in pain.

“Hitting a woman is a crime.” Nabeya spoke in a cold voice. It made Ander pale. This woman seemed kind of simple, but was actually dangerous.

“Hoa, you can tell them the answer, we need to be safe first. It's up to fate to see if they’re fast enough or not."

Nabeya shouted loudly in the audience. She wanted to tell everyone that they gave the rest of them the right to live in order for them not to mess with them anymore. Either fast or die!

Nabeya helped Mahoney walk to a corner. At the same time, Hoa also submitted their papers. Then she said out loud the number 2340.

Just as she finished that simple number, a horrifying scene took place. Fighting, killing and stepping on each other’s life in order to put the bloody answer sheets where they should be.