Tricked 079: Creak

This set of rules was wrong.

Jiang Yan frowned.

If the energy field didn’t contain inevitable death conditions, then the very existence of these rules pointed to a problem.

The rules were posted up high; seeing them necessarily meant you would have to look up. Yet you couldn’t follow any rule before first finding it—only after learning the rule’s content could you search for contradictions and loopholes, in order to achieve your goal while remaining within the bounds of the rules.

No one can foresee the unknown.

No one could have guessed that the prerequisite for finding the rule would itself forbid looking up.

A person, unaware of the rules, enters the sheepfold, searching for the code’s location. After looking around and finding nothing, it would be perfectly natural to look up… This is entirely logical and reasonable behavior.

In other words, Yi Liang’s death condition was forced upon him.

Such malice was extreme.

If you knew in advance “do not look up,” everyone would use tools, or even lie on the floor and roll their eyes upward to find the code. But Yi Liang didn’t know; no one did.

Simply put, the Sheepfold Code created a scenario where someone must inevitably die.

Only after someone perished could the rest learn its contents.

But that was impossible.

If the energy field really was as He Qingyuan had said, there must always be a way to survive—a condition which had simply been missed.

But what, exactly, had they missed?

Jiang Yan dropped her gaze.

Lan Lin was clenching the code in her hand; only the first two rules were visible. These rules differed a little from those she’d seen before—none of the items under the sheepfold’s code were numbered.

They were simply lines of text.

It was strange, but there was no requirement that each rule be numbered, so Jiang Yan didn’t dwell on it.

She wanted to see the remaining rules, but Lan Lin’s fingers stayed tight, refusing to let go.

Something was wrong with Lan Lin.

Yi Liang’s death would, of course, affect their morale, but all three—Lan Lin, Zhang Du, and Mint Candy—looked off.

Beyond the sorrow or anger, there was another, less describable, emotion.

Jiang Yan asked, “What is it?”

“Why won’t you let go?”

She paused, then added, “Is there a problem with the rest of the code?”

Lan Lin pressed her lips together.

By all appearances, she was a strong person. Whether by her dress or her way of speaking, she possessed every quality a team leader needed.

Yet she was absent-minded for a long time before slowly loosening her hold.

The full Sheepfold Code was revealed to the group.

Sheepfold Rule Three:

“At night, be mindful of your surroundings, especially anything that might fall from the ceiling.”

Sheepfold Rule Four:

“If anything falls from the ceiling, clap as loudly as possible, sing a joyful song, then pick ‘it’ up, and throw it head-down out the window until you hear a ‘creak.’”

Reading the complete sheepfold code, the livestream chat fell silent.

【……】

【Damn…】

【…Is it what I think it is? Can someone explain??】

【It’s exactly what you think.】

【Yi Liang’s body counts as something that fell from the ceiling, so, to survive the sheepfold, they applauded Yi Liang’s corpse, sang, and then threw him out headfirst.】

【Because he went out head-down, his neck made a ‘creak’ when it hit the ground.】

【So that red line around his neck…】

【Judging from the wound, Yi Liang was already dead when he fell. At most, he had a few breaths left.】

After reading the rules, Jiang Yan narrowed her eyes, silent for a long moment.

It was Lan Lin who spoke first.

She said slowly, “I once tried to comfort a friend.”

“During a mission, one of his teammates was murdered by the entity—pummeled to death with a little hammer. Back then, I told him he had to move on, that even madness and loss of reason weren’t the spirit’s true desire.”

“But now that it’s happened to me,” Lan Lin said, “I find I’m just as much a hypocrite.”

“No matter how good this spirit might have been in life, I…”

Jiang Yan had no words.

Indeed, she had nothing she wanted to say. Rather than comforting the inconsolable, it was better to think about why a must-die rule had appeared here.

She studied the sheepfold code for a long time.

Suddenly, Shen Xiaoxiao let out a gasp as if recalling something: “Ah—!”

Lan Lin and the others turned to her.

Shen Xiaoxiao hurriedly shoved the Chick and Lamb Feeding Code into Lan Lin’s hands: “Leave that alone for now, we’re running out of time! You all need to finish feeding the wheat bran!”

Shen Huanhuan snapped out of her daze, rushed over, and taught them what to do.

There were five minutes left. To finish feeding, Yu Renwan and the twins hurried up to help, and in the last dozen seconds, they managed to empty the wheat bran bag just in time.

Everyone was out of breath, except Jiang Yan, who stood quietly by the door, still reading the sheepfold code.

A few more minutes passed before her gaze slowly lifted, and the confusion in her eyes cleared.

“Let me see the other codes,” she suddenly said.

Yu Renwan ran up and passed her the Chick and Lamb Feeding Code and the Cow-Raising Class Code.

Jiang Yan glanced at the two codes and tapped the sheepfold code.

“They’re not just unnumbered,” she said, “they don’t have quotation marks in the title.”

Lan Lin came over. “What do you mean?”

Jiang Yan pointed at all three codes: “All previous rules used quotation marks in the title, which gave them a sense of official authority. But the sheepfold code doesn’t.”

“There are three explanations for that.”

Before the others could speak, Jiang Yan continued: “First, maybe the spirit didn’t care; quoted or not, the rule stands.”

“Second, the rule is fake, the format is off, so it doesn’t apply.”

Mint Candy interrupted, “But it did apply!”

“That’s why I lean toward the third.”

Jiang Yan said, “The format is meant as a deliberate misdirection by the spirit.”

Returning to the topic, she shifted her gaze to those unnumbered rules: “What do you all think is the real reason for not numbering these rules, aside from carelessness or laziness?”

Lan Lin frowned, Mint Candy bit her lip, Zhang Du bowed his head.

Yi Liang’s death had completely broken their concentration. They needed time to turn their grief and anger back toward solving the puzzle.

After a moment, Shen Huanhuan looked at Jiang Yan thoughtfully. “Maybe… it’s because if you numbered them, it would give something away.”

Jiang Yan cracked her knuckles. “That’s what I think, too.”

“This code is incomplete—if it were numbered, the list would not start at ‘one.’ It might be ‘two’ or ‘six’ or ‘seven’ or ‘eight.’ In short, there is a code that comes before the sheepfold code, one that you’ve all overlooked. That is the direct reason for Yi Liang’s death.”

“As for what you missed—”

Jiang Yan tapped the Chick and Lamb Feeding Code, speaking calmly: “Since the chicks and lambs are always discussed together, I suspect the chicken coop code is the missing piece. Did you get the chicken coop code?”

Lan Lin looked at Zhang Du.

Zhang Du felt around in his pocket and produced a folded slip of paper.

“The chicken coop code was stuck on a post three meters outside the door. No need to search for it.”

Jiang Yan: “I didn’t see that paper on our way to the chicken coop.”

Zhang Du nodded, “We think they posted it after we left, so our first time didn’t count as breaking the rule.”

Jiang Yan acknowledged this and took the ‘chicken coop code.’

With a single glance, she saw the flaw.

“This is the chicken coop code?”

Zhang Du nodded. “We followed that slip to get the chicken corpses.”

Jiang Yan handed the paper back. “Look again—does it really say ‘chicken coop code’?”

Zhang Du stared blankly.

Lan Lin and Mint Candy came over. The three of them looked at the sheet—first puzzled, then as realization dawned, Lan Lin’s face turned ghostly pale.

The title on the slip read only “Chicken Coop.”

There were no quotation marks, and the specific rules were not numbered.

Jiang Yan prepared to rest, opened the door, and let the night breeze rustle through the cowshed.

“The spirit took advantage of people’s habitual thinking.”

See the words ‘chicken coop’ and you take it for the code—so everyone focuses on analyzing the lines below, but just because the energy field’s game mode relies on ‘rule horror’ doesn’t mean every trap is in the ‘rules.’

Jiang Yan placed the two blank sheets side-by-side and summarized, “Put together, these are the real code: ‘Chicken Coop and Sheepfold Code.’”

“So the real process should have been: first, find the slip titled ‘Chicken Coop,’ then use its rules to get the chicken corpse. Next, go into the sheepfold, use the chicken coop slip to locate the sheepfold code, then use the sheepfold code to get the lamb corpse.”

The chicken coop slip contained five rules.

The first: “Do not move or damage any objects in the room.”

The fifth: “Do not look around—the answer is on the floor.”

These corresponded to the sheepfold’s first rule: “Do not change the code’s placement.”

And the second: “Do not look up.”

If she recalled correctly, there was a pool in the center of the sheepfold.

So the correct method would have been to look for the code’s reflection in the pool, then stack people up so someone could use a mirror or camera phone to read and memorize the sheepfold code.

A very simple process.

But Yi Liang died.

Feeling thirsty, Jiang Yan said no more. According to the Chick and Lamb Feeding Code, they were allowed to leave, so she went out first.

Yu Renwan jogged after her.

Shen Xiaoxiao was still bewildered. She always needed a little more time to think things through.

Seeing her sister’s blank look, Shen Huanhuan carefully explained, “There were five rules for the chicken coop and four for the sheepfold—nine rules in all. If numbered, they’d go from ‘one’ to ‘nine.’ To conceal that fact, the spirit simply numbered neither slip.”

“And most important, those nine rules applied to both the chicken coop and sheepfold—you were supposed to obey the chicken coop rules in the sheepfold too. But Yi Liang didn’t know.”

“The sheepfold is out back behind the chicken coop, all the other paths are blocked; everyone would naturally visit the chicken coop before the sheepfold. So there was a way to survive—but no one found it. This time, the path to survival wasn’t in the specific rules, and that made it especially hard.”

Shen Huanhuan sighed.

She said goodbye to Lan Lin’s group and led Shen Xiaoxiao away from the cowshed.

Lan Lin stood at the cowshed door for a long time.

Long enough that Jiang Yan and the rest’s footsteps had faded into complete silence.

Only then did she ask Mint Candy, barely above a whisper, “Back then… Yi Liang really wasn’t breathing?”

Mint Candy froze. “Lan-jie, you saw, didn’t you? Yi Liang’s head and body…” She took a shuddering breath, pushing herself forward, “I… I used my power to put him together again.”

“It’s fine, I just feel… spaced out.”

Lan Lin thought of the scene at the sheepfold’s entrance—that moment when Yi Liang threw the code out the sheepfold door, screaming not to look up. Every time she recalled it, the ‘creak’ sounded too loud.

Far too loud.

*

Afterwards, Jiang Yan went first to the leftmost hay shed.

Uncle Wang and Granny Zhuang were still awake, sitting in the corner as if waiting for someone.

When she entered, both let out a sigh of relief.

“I guessed you’d be back tonight, so we decided to wait,” Granny Zhuang said, smiling as she leaned on her cane. “Did you take the pot to those cows?”

Jiang Yan nodded. “Mm, I owe it to you.”

Granny Zhuang waved it off, “It was all you.”

Jiang Yan smiled. “Aren’t you tired?”

“Not at all, not at all. We napped in the day,” Uncle Wang explained. “We can’t leave the shed while the sun is up. Our Cow-Raising class started before yours. When you all came at eight, we’d already finished with the cows.”

Jiang Yan got it at once.

She had come with some questions in mind.

Because both had arrived here recently, their chicks and lambs hadn’t yet matured or triggered the death condition of being eaten; besides, they seemed unaffected by the cows’ abnormal eyes.

So she asked, “How did you look after the cows? Did you sing the moment they grew an extra eye?”

The two exchanged a look, a little lost.

Granny Zhuang shook her head first: “I don’t really know about all that. The slip said to sing, so I just sang that ‘love you, love me’ song.”

Jiang Yan was surprised.

She realized she had underestimated the old lady; Granny Zhuang had also figured out that cows with eyes at all meant something was wrong.

But then Granny Zhuang added, half-amused, half-exasperated, “You know how memory slips with age. That teacher Wang only sang through it once, and never told me to memorize it. I remembered only two lines, so I just hummed them to myself the whole time I was in there, until we were done with the class.”

“But the cows were sweet—no faces but not scary, and the chores were easy, like clipping hooves or brushing their coats. I was scared the first night, but one cow even told me to rest early, said he respected elders and cared for the young, a real good Cow Immortal.”

Uncle Wang nodded. “Same for me.”

“Couldn’t remember the lyrics, so just kept mumbling… I was on edge two nights, but nothing happened. They never grew a third eye. Do they even get a third eye?”

Jiang Yan’s expression was odd.

She hadn’t expected this.

She’d assumed everyone could remember the song. The hard part was spotting abnormalities in the cows—but evidently, there was another way.

The two had simply blundered into survival.

Jiang Yan had more she wanted to ask, when Uncle Wang suddenly hunched over, clutching at his heart.

Alarmed, Granny Zhuang hobbled over with her cane, “Is it your heart?”

He hunched for several minutes, then straightened. “I’m fine—just a sudden flutter.”

“My chest aches tonight. I kept thinking of my daughter as a child… hope nothing’s wrong with her.”

Granny Zhuang spat twice and quickly knocked on wood, “Don’t jinx it, don’t jinx it! Your wife and daughter will be fine!”

Uncle Wang relaxed. “You’re right.”

“We’re good people—what’s the saying, good people live lo—”