RenDong brought back a lot of homework. It's unknown if it was because of his extraordinary talent or because he listened carefully in class, but he could do those weird primary school questions effortlessly.
In the evening, the Monk picked up a math homework book that hadn't started yet, and was dumbfounded: "What kind of questions are these? Mom bought five pieces of cake and distributed them to four children. How should it be divided?" He scratched his bald head, truly he was a Monk who couldn't figure out what to deduce, "Is this a math problem?! Don't lie to me because I didn't study much!"
Lian Qiao was delighted when he heard it: "I don't know how to divide five cakes among four people, but I know how to divide five people among four fakes. As long as…"
RenDong, who was working hard, suddenly raised his head when he heard the words and interrupted: "Don't chop the children to death."
Lian Qiao: "???" How did you know what I'm going to say!
The Monk and Little Apple on the side didn't react at first, they looked at each other and, after belatedly understanding, they couldn't help laughing. Little Apple asked RenDong: "Then what should you do with this question?"
"It's very simple." RenDong turned his eyes back to the Chinese exercise book in his hand, as if he didn't want to waste too much time, and said lightly, "Five cakes, four children, if you eat with your mother, you just happen to have one piece each."
"Huh?!" Lian Qiao was dissatisfied, "Then how can this be called a math problem? This is clearly an ideological and moral problem!"
Little Apple: "That's right. Why can't each cake be cut into four and each child gets five quarters of the cake?"
RenDong said: "Because this is a topic for the first grade of elementary school. There are no credits for the first grade."
The Monk suddenly slapped his forehead: "Then can you also throw five cakes into the juicer to make a pulp and then divide them into four cups, so that nothing will be wasted!"
Audience: "…" After imagining that scene, I couldn't help but feel a little disgusted.
In the end, of course, RenDong did not adopt such weird answers as "hacking the children", "five quarters of a cake per person", and "squeezing cake juice". He focused on writing down the words "share with Mom" in the blank space, stroke by stroke, earnestly.
Because his body was still very young, it was difficult to hold the pen, so the written characters were inevitably crooked, with a bit of childish innocence.
Lian Qiao tilted his head to see him write this line and his heart was inexplicably filled with warmth.
"Okay get lost, don't bother him." Lian Qiao began to wave away the guests.
"You really just throw people away when you're done using them." Little Apple threw down the handicraft she just made with a look of disgust, "You scumbag."
RenDong also has a lot of manual work. Little Apple was skillful and was contracted to do most of it. The Monk couldn't do it at all. A big man took a pair of small scissors and cut himself into a sweaty sissy. He was so anxious that he even stuck out his fingers but he still couldn't cut a complete window grille.
Therefore, as soon as Lian Qiao chased away the guests, the Monk happily took Little Apple away as if he had been pardoned.
Due to economic and security considerations, they lived together in the next room. Although it is said that men and women shouldn't be too close to each other, the Monk is an upright monk after all and he can also chant scriptures. Little Apple not only didn't mind at all but even felt very safe.
After the two left, Lian Qiao took over the unfinished work. In fact, he is not very good at this kind of thing but, when he thinks that this is the homework that Little RenDong will hand in in class tomorrow, he becomes very patient and meticulous.
Working slowly and meticulously, the window grilles he cut out were so exquisite and beautiful that they could be sold for money.
He carefully held the window grilles in front of RenDong, blinking his deer-like dewy eyes, waiting for praise with joy.
When RenDong saw it, he also showed surprise in his eyes and said with a smile: "It's so beautiful, the teacher will praise me in class tomorrow."
"Hehehe." The silly son of the landlord's family became happy again when he heard it.
The next day, Lian Qiao woke up early, prepared breakfast for RenDong, and sent him to school.
Even though the school is just across the road, Lian Qiao still has a sense of ceremony, as if he is really a father of a child and even carefully checks RenDong's small school bag before going out to see if he has all his homework books.
RenDong laughed at him for being too involved in the show. Lian QIao rubbed RenDong's little head with a smile but he thought sweetly and slightly sourly in his heart: The love you didn't have a chance to get when you were young, now I will double it to you.
It's not enough to be nice to you.
After sending off Little RenDong, Lian Qiao came back to join the Monk and the others.
Yesterday, everyone explored the entire block individually and, because they were helping RenDong with homework at night, they didn't have time to share clues. Sitting down, they discussed it now but still found no clue.
"Hey, maybe he has to be raised until he is 28 to unlock the next clue." Little Apple was worried, "But why do I feel that nothing good will happen on that day in 2020?"
"What is the key player for?" the Monk scratched his head. He hadn't experienced the orphanage period with everyone, so he was still curious about RenDong, the key player.
Lian Qiao said: "In the past dungeons, I met three…"
He wanted to say that he had met three key players but, after a second thought, he decided to hide that he was the key player in the Matryoshka instance. Then he changed his mouth and said: "…Oh no, strictly speaking, there are only two times."
Little Apple keenly asked: "What do you mean? What do you mean 'strictly speaking'?"
"Because RenDong and I went through an instance separately once." He explained half-truthfully without changing his face, "We got a pair of eyeball props and, if equipped on two people, we can share vision. At that time he and I happened to enter two instances at the same time. As a result, we saw the situation of the other instance while in ours."
"Is there such a thing?" Little Apple, as a senior gamer, became energized when she heard the word "props" and asked with glowing eyes, "And then?"
"He met a key player on his side but I didn't find mine. So strictly speaking, I only met a key player twice."
"That's it?" Little Apple frowned and asked suspiciously, "There's no need to emphasize this, it's really strange for you to say that."
Lian Qiao originally thought that this matter could be resolved but he didn't expect Little Apple to be so sensitive. He was secretly surprised but on the surface he showed a look of displeasure: "Why? I'm not allowed to be strict?"
"Oh." Little Apple pouted, obviously not satisfied with the answer.
The Monk scratched his head, looked at Lian Qiao and then at Little Apple. To be honest, he didn't quite understand what the two were discussing. He was just a weak, helpless and mentally handicapped rookie player, so he tried to turn the topic back to a level he could understand: "…So what is the key player? What is it for? Can you explain it more simply?"
"The key player has two functions. One is to provide clues and the other is to affect the difficulty of the dungeon." Lian Qiao said, "For example, I experienced a dungeon called 'Esophagus' and the final boss in it was a man named Lamia. A Greek female monster. If you want to clear the level, you must return her child, but she has the habit of eating children, so… well, it is a bit complicated to say. In short, you must know the legend of Lamia, otherwise you will not pass for sure."
Little Apple was confused: "Wait, aren't we talking about key players? Why didn't I understand what you meant?"
Monk: "!" I am finally not the only retarded one!
Lian Qiao smiled and said, "Then let me ask you, do you know that the root of the name 'Lamia' in Greek is 'Esophagus'?"
Little Apple was stunned.
Lian Qiao said: "Right now I'm telling you that the monster is called Lamia but, at that time in the dungeon, the monster didn't have a name on its head and it wouldn't tell you what it was called. What we saw was just a white basilisk. There are so many varieties of basilisks in myths and legends, who knows which one it is? And there is no internet in the dungeon, so there is no way to take pictures and do picture identification. Even if you download an offline encyclopedia on your phone, if you don't know it beforehand, who would have thought that it is Lamia?"
Little Apple finally came to her senses: "So that time, it was the key player who recognized Lamia?"
Lian Qiao: "Oh, not that time, it was me that time. After all, I am knowledgeable."
Little Apple: "…" Can't help showing a murderous expression.
Lian Qiao couldn't help laughing when she saw her sore face: "But later we found out that there was actually a little fat guy in the team who knew about it. He is a writer and he just published a book recently. The content was about Lamia. The same is true for another key player that RenDong met and he already knew the true meaning of the dungeon's name without checking the information, thus grasping the most critical clue to clear the level."
Little Apple: "What about the third reason?" Her tone gradually became serious, "The one about increasing the difficulty of the instance…?"
Lian Qiao sighed: "The third key player I met was a big boss, whose strength is against the sky, so powerful that it was unscientific. That dungeon is his last level. According to him, the difficulty of the dungeon has increased due to his existence. In fact, that dungeon can no longer be called difficult, it is simply impossible to pass the level. There were a total of 91 players in that dungeon, can you believe it? But if you follow the normal process of the dungeon, the only one who can finally pass the level was that big boss alone."
The amount of information is a bit large, Little Apple pondered for a moment and asked: "Then how did you and Xu RenDong pass the level?"
"…" Lian Qiao sighed again, "I don't know."
Little Apple: "Huh???"
Lian Qiao: "We cooperated with that boss. It was RenDong who went to talk to him about it. I don't know the specific content. When I came back to my senses, I was led by the boss to clear the level."
Little Apple: "Could it be that some kind of PY was carried out secretly…"
Before she finished speaking, she suddenly realized that the word "PY transaction" was a bit offensive to RenDong, so she quickly cut off the conversation, stuck out her tongue and apologized: "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that, I was just speaking carelessly… (Note )"
Lian Qiao was indeed a little unhappy but Little Apple apologized and he didn't pursue it.
The Monk listened to the two people chatting back and forth for a long time and felt that the question marks on his forehead had grown a lot.
"Amitabha, I'm afraid this poor monk is mentally handicapped." the Monk sighed, "And he is the only mentally handicapped one in the current team, how desolate."
"It's okay, I understand, I'll explain it to you later." Little Apple smiled brightly and then said to Lian Qiao, "Thank you for telling me this." The conversation changed and she said with a sad face , "Hey, it would be great if Brother RenDong was willing to tell me his reasoning process like you. But why doesn't he want to tell me?"
"Of course he has his reasons."
"Even you don't know?"
"En."
Little Apple was surprised and said: "Then don't you think there is a problem? You are in a relationship, what else can he hide from you? Besides, this is your last instance and the difficulty is so high. He is not afraid to hide things from you. Shouldn't you ask more questions?"
"I don't want to ask because it means that I trust him." Lian Qiao said frankly, "Even if he kills me, I'd be happy."
Little Apple: "…" It really makes people blind to be gay.
The three of them sat together and discussed for a while the whereabouts of the elevator and the button. However they were still clueless.
"There are too few clues." Little Apple said, "The collection rate is not enough to solve the mystery."
It was true. In the past instance, the customs clearance conditions were basically hidden in the instance name. As long as the information mastered by the key players was obtained, the customs clearance would have easy clues.
This instance was called "1992-2020". Xu RenDong is the only one born in 1992 among all players and he has grown up from a newborn baby little by little. The instance name this time seems to only remind one thing, that is – Xu RenDong is a key player.
But what's the point of knowing this? What is the key information that the key players have this time?
"There are too few clues…" Lian Qiao muttered to himself, repeating what Little Apple said.
He unconsciously raised his hand and pressed on his chest. Through his clothes, he felt a long, thin and hard object.
Little Apple's eyes moved, noticing his subtle movements and asked, "What's that hanging around your neck?"
Lian Qiao's body trembled almost imperceptibly. He quickly came back to his senses, squinted his eyes, and said in a displeased manner: "My birthday present from my family's RenDong. Why, are you jealous?"
Little Apple: "…"
Damn it, why do I have to talk so much?