[Ding!]

[Discovered a hidden prison room. Force entry?]

[Yes/No?]

It really was a hidden prison room!

But that electric shock sensation coming from the wrist was truly unbearable.

Zap after zap, the current seemed to surge straight into the heart!

Jiang Ye subconsciously pulled his hand back.

The "Yes/No" options floating before his eyes instantly vanished.

He pressed his hand against the wall again, and the options reappeared.

The words "Force entry" were particularly eye-catching.

This hidden prison room might not be something you could just force your way into.

Various thoughts flashed through Jiang Ye's mind. Simultaneously, he ran to the group chat to gather some intel—

[Has anyone here discovered a "hidden prison room"?]

As soon as he posed the question, many messages immediately asked him what a "hidden prison room" was and how he had discovered it.

Jiang Ye didn't hide anything, directly sharing that he had triggered the "Force entry?" prompt for a hidden prison room.

After all, this hidden prison room was actually quite easy to find.

Just by analogizing prison rooms to apartment rooms, it was easy to guess—

In this prison environment, besides the open, empty rooms, there must be other tightly closed hidden rooms!

He guessed he probably wasn't the first to discover a hidden prison room.

Sure enough, after actively sharing his known information, someone quickly gave feedback:

[What the hell?? You call that a *small* current?! I almost got electrocuted to death!]

[Could it be that the current reaction is different for different hidden rooms? I also found a hidden room, but the current felt negligible to me, like a tickle!]

Clearly, after Jiang Ye shared the info, people quickly tried feeling around for hidden rooms.

And the electric shock they felt was different from what Jiang Ye experienced!

Seeing these players seemingly attribute the difference in shock sensation to different hidden rooms, Jiang Ye quickly added another point in the group:

[Could it be because different players have different "Authority Levels," so the triggered shock sensation is different?]

Soon, someone chimed in: [That's also possible! Brother who felt the strong current just now, what's your Authority Level?]

[And the guy who felt the weak current, what's your Authority Level?]

[Once you share that info, we can determine if the current strength is due to the hidden room or the player's Authority Level!]

Jiang Ye also followed up: [Also, I think whether we can force entry into this hidden room is very likely related to our "Authority Level"!]

As he said this, the two players who mentioned different shock sensations didn't respond further.

However, it seemed another player responded to Jiang Ye's speculation:

[Hidden rooms should indeed be related to Authority Level!]

[When I discovered a hidden room earlier, I directly chose "Yes" for "Force entry." I didn't get in at all. Instead, I received an electric shock punishment!]

[This electric shock punishment lasts for 10 minutes. I'm still lying on the ground right now, enduring it!]

[And because of the violation, I got hit with an Additional Punishment! My original execution countdown of over 500 minutes was directly deducted by over a hundred, down to 408 minutes!]

"…"

Deducted over a hundred minutes…

Jiang Ye glanced at his own total execution countdown, which wasn't even a hundred minutes, and suddenly felt a pang of distress.

What the hell?

He previously saw someone in the group crying poor, saying their execution countdown was only half an hour!

He thought his forty-something minutes were pretty decent.

But there were other players with countdowns of over five hundred minutes?!

Really…

Comparing yourself to others is infuriating!

The person who likely felt the same as Jiang Ye was the guy who earlier claimed his countdown was only half an hour.

He immediately started wailing in the group:

[Wait, what? Bro?! A countdown of over five hundred minutes?! Are the rest of you also sitting on hundreds of minutes?? Am I the only unlucky bastard with a half-hour countdown??]

This message naturally sparked a wave of "crying poor."

Messages popped up one after another, saying their countdowns were also only a few dozen minutes, facing the threat of death any minute…

However, Jiang Ye didn't believe a single one of these "crying poor" statements!

He strongly suspected that the unlucky guy was right—

Other players' countdowns were probably in the hundreds, maybe even thousands!

Because they had more "capital," they had more room for trial and error!

For example, with the matter of forcing entry into a hidden room…

Players with hundreds of minutes naturally wouldn't fear a deduction of over a hundred.

But for someone like Jiang Ye, whose capital hadn't even broken a hundred, if he got another hundred-plus deduction, he'd be dead on the spot!

Thinking this, Jiang Ye immediately withdrew his hand. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

His original thought was…

Capital too low. Better not force this hidden room.

So he pulled his hand back, intending to leave.

But then it suddenly occurred to him—

Would simply "leaving" without making a choice, and choosing "No," yield two different results?

If he chose "No"…

Would he be unable to force entry into this hidden room later?

Or would it trigger some other effect?

Jiang Ye stared at the white wall for a moment, memorized its location, and then continued forward, still feeling the wall.

He hadn't gone far before he triggered the same prompt again.

Same prompt, same electric shock sensation.

He felt a few more hidden rooms. All had the same shock sensation.

This basically confirmed it—

The shock sensation was indeed not caused by different rooms.

It was influenced by the player's "Authority Level."

Coincidentally, around this time, a player in the group suggested that everyone disclose their Authority Levels. This would allow for collective brainstorming and give everyone a rough concept of Authority Levels.

The player making this proposal made a reasonable point—

[After all, we're all anonymous in this group chat! Even if we state our Authority Level, it can't be linked to a specific person.]

[And currently, it seems we players can't even meet each other. Our interests don't conflict for now.]

[If each person just reveals one piece of Authority Level info, what we get in return is a large amount of Authority Level data!]

[For us, this is absolutely more beneficial than harmful!]

[To motivate everyone, I'll start the ball rolling by revealing mine first—]

[My Authority Level was initially 「Evil Adult」. After the empty prison room incident, it changed to 「Guilty Girl」.]

Seeing this, Jiang Ye couldn't help but ponder.

In the group chat, people quickly responded, revealing their "Authority Levels."

Whether those players were being deceitful or telling the truth was unknown.

Most of the followers who revealed their levels stated "Evil Adult."

Only a few said they were "Indifferent Bystander," "Malicious Uncle," "Guilty Beggar," etc.

Overall, it wasn't hard to see—

All Authority Levels probably consisted of two parts.

One representing identity, the other representing crime.

The most common identity was "Adult."

Others included Girl, Youth, Uncle, Beggar, Bystander…

The crimes were represented by adjectives: Evil, Malicious, Guilty, Indifferent…

If these adjectives were to be ranked by severity of crime, Jiang Ye tentatively thought—

Indifferent was the lowest level.

Guilty was the highest level.

Evil and Malicious might be harder to distinguish.

He felt Malicious might be more severe than Evil?

But thinking from another angle, that might also make sense.

Finally, considering his own Authority Level changed from "Evil" to "Guilty"…

He thought the probability of skipping a level was lower, so he speculated "Evil" was closer to "Guilty."

So the ranking would be—

Indifferent <Malicious <Evil <Guilty.

Looking at it this way, his current "Guilty Youth" seemed already deeply sinful…

He just didn't know how to rank the identity nouns that followed.

He instinctively thought it might be by age.

After all, the word "Adult" first made him think of age.

Because the opposite of "Adult" is child.

But later, he learned there were also "Bystander" and "Beggar"…

Maybe besides age, there were other criteria?

Or perhaps these identity nouns didn't need ranking at all?

Instead, different identities corresponded to different hidden rooms?

For example, some hidden rooms might allow "Adults" but not "Children"?

Or some hidden rooms might forbid "Beggars"?

Contemplating this, Jiang Ye had already felt over a dozen hidden rooms.

Simultaneously, he discovered a problem—

The corridor he was exploring seemed to have no end!

And both sides were empty white walls, with only the occasional identical empty prison room.

In this clean, minimalist style…

It was actually very hard to distinguish direction!

Meaning, if he closed his eyes and spun around a few times, he probably wouldn't be able to tell which wall was "left" and which was "right"!

He had been exploring the wall where his own 414 prison room was located.

But now, a strange phenomenon occurred—

The direction he walked when feeling for hidden rooms was originally opposite to the Eyeballs' patrol direction.

But now, he saw the Eyeballs patrolling in the same direction he was walking!

Had the Eyeballs patrol looped back?

Or had he already confused the two easily mixed-up walls?

Jiang Ye remained calm internally and continued feeling his way forward.

His time was too short now. He needed to trigger more events to increase his countdown.

Of course, if he could directly trigger the 「Pardon」 effect, that would be best.

Just as he was thinking this, he heard the familiar prompt again—

[Ding!]

[Discovered a hidden prison room. Enter?]

[Yes/No?]

Huh?

This time, it wasn't "Force entry"!

It was… Enter!

Could it be that this hidden room was specifically matched to his Authority Level, "Guilty Youth"?

Of course, this was just speculation.

Whether it was true or not was hard to say.

What if he chose "Yes" and immediately got a hundred-plus minute deduction?

He didn't have a hundred minutes to spare.

In that case, he might just die on the spot!

And even if he didn't die instantly, what he would face inside the room, and how to get out, were all unknown questions.

Jiang Ye thought about it and finally let go, not making a choice.

He decided to find more empty rooms to trigger events first. He needed to raise his countdown close to two hundred before having the confidence to explore hidden rooms.

Thinking this, he simply memorized the location of this hidden room that allowed "Enter" without "Force."

Then he walked to the opposite wall and started heading back.

He had noticed an empty room on the opposite wall while walking earlier but resisted exploring it.

Now, as he walked over, Jiang Ye glanced at those patrolling mechanical Eyeballs.

If his speculation was correct, and this long prison corridor had no end…

When did these mechanical Eyeballs turn around?

Or perhaps, this batch of mechanical Eyeballs wasn't the same as the ones he saw before?

Or maybe, the seemingly endless corridor was actually a circle?

Or even a Möbius strip?

Various thoughts flashed through his mind. He really wanted to follow these mechanical Eyeballs for a loop.

Unfortunately, he didn't have the time.

If only he could still use his Clone Skills.

Then he could assign different clones to conduct different research.

Thinking this, Jiang Ye suddenly sent another message in the group:

[Are there any "comrades" with enough countdown time who'd consider tracking those patrolling mechanical Eyeballs? I think this long corridor is just too bizarre!]

This phrasing was actually a hint to his other clones.

To see if any clone with more time would take the initiative to follow the Eyeballs.

Of course, this time, no one chimed in to agree.

But it did lead some people in the group to discuss the weirdness of the prison corridor and the issue of how players might "reunite."

During this, another player speculated:

[I think player "reunions" might be triggered inside hidden prison rooms.]

[And it's likely that only players with similar Authority Levels will "reunite" in specific hidden prison rooms!]

The player behind this statement clearly had similar suspicions to Jiang Ye—

Different hidden prison rooms only accept players with specific Authority Levels.

This way, players with similar Authority Levels naturally have the possibility of reuniting in specific hidden prison rooms!

This classification by Authority Level was quite similar to how players with different permission identities were divided into four categories during the "major reshuffle."

Jiang Ye pondered this as he stepped into that empty room.

Just like the previous triggered events.

This time, too, after his watch entered the empty room, his surroundings—the originally blank, white empty room—transformed again.

He also went from a standing state to sitting.

This time, he was also in a vehicle.

But it was a crowded bus, filled with an unpleasant stench and a faint smell of blood.

The surrounding sounds were also noisy, full of cursing and grumbling.

Jiang Ye sat by the window. To his right sat a woman in her fifties, grumbling as if urging him to open the window.

Jiang Ye also found the smell inside the bus heavy, so he went to open the window.

But he found that the bus window wouldn't budge no matter how hard he pulled.

The woman couldn't take it anymore. Cursing him for being useless, she leaned over.

She slapped his hand away and tried to pry the window open herself.

It was then, through the window glass, that Jiang Ye vaguely saw…

This current "self" seemed younger than Zhou Qiming's original appearance?

If he had to say, it really did fit the image of a "youth"?