"So you went around a second time?"

On the walkie‑talkie channel, Xing Hechou sounded puzzled. "And nothing happened?"

"No, it wasn’t a second lap."

His teammate Wang Buliuxing thought for a moment, then his eyes lit up. "Strictly speaking, if you look from above, they’ve gone through a total of seven rooms and traced a tiny figure‑8 symbol.

And during that detour, the conditions they encountered also changed—when they entered the starting room for the first time, the candle automatically lit from an extinguished state, and the back door automatically opened,

but when they entered the starting room the second time, the door on the right,

or the door at the rear from the original perspective, was also open.

However, the candle was automatically extinguished,

which means that after they left the starting room again, the candle in that room went out for some reason."

"The candle went out?"

Xing Hechou frowned and asked, "The changes in the Stone Cave also started with the candle in the room going out.

Does that represent something?"

"We don’t know yet."

Li Ang said with interest over the channel, "But if I’m not wrong, we’ll be figuring out the pattern very soon..."

With that, he tossed the walkie‑talkie to Hoenhem, pushed open the rear door of the starting room himself, made his ninth move, and stepped into room (0, -1).

The furnishings in the room hadn’t changed, but the candle was initially extinguished,

and after the door opened, the candle slowly lit by itself, and the door on the right could be pushed open.

The loop is broken?

Li Ang strode into the room. The order in which the rooms had opened before had drawn a figure‑8 symbol; now a new room had been opened.

He pushed open the right‑hand door,

made his tenth move, and entered room (-1, -1). The candle went from lit to dim, and the door on the left opened.

The eleventh move, he entered room (-1, -2). The candle went from lit to dim, and the door on the left opened.

The twelfth move, he entered room (0, -2). The candle went from lit to dim, and the door on the left opened.

The thirteenth move, he entered room (0, -1). The candle went from lit to dim, and the door on the left opened.

Fourteen, (-1, -1). The candle went from dim to bright, and the door on the right opened.

Fifteen, (-1, 0). The candle went from dim to bright, and the door on the right opened.

Sixteen, (0, -1). The candle went from dim to bright, and the door on the right opened.

Seventeen, (-1, -1). The candle went from bright to dim, and the door on the left opened.

....

Li Ang moved at a very high speed.

At first he still tested all four doors in each room, but later it was as if he already knew exactly where he needed to go,

striding into the room and turning left or right without hesitation.

Along the way, the candles in the rooms either went from bright to dim or dim to bright; the scenes he saw never changed from beginning to end,

while for the other players in the team the atmosphere felt oppressive and silent.

Step.

As he walked, Li Ang suddenly stopped. The people behind him hurriedly halted as well to avoid bumping into him.

"If we keep walking like this, it’s pointless."

Li Ang raised his arm and twirled the whiskers of the Dragon Head Mask. "I already know the path ahead,

(-1, -2), (-2, -2), (-3, -2), (-3, -1)...

If I’m not mistaken, according to the rules provided by the Stone Cave, we’ll be trapped here for a very long time."

"...Do you need backup?"

On the channel, Nebula took a deep breath and asked, "Or should we call Michael?"

"Backup? No. Right now, only our team is moving. If you start moving as well, the outcome will probably be the same."

Li Ang said calmly, "Here’s what we’ll do. To verify it, each of you pick any direction from your own starting room, push open that door,

then keep going through the only door you can pass, and move eight times."

"Any direction?"

Nebula paused at that. Inside the Cave Puzzle Lock, directions couldn’t be sensed; east, west, south, and north were scrambled differently for each team. Picking a direction or walking at random wasn’t any different.

So, all teams except Li Ang’s fifth team picked a direction and made eight moves,

and like Li Ang, they used coordinate axes to record their routes,

and reported them over the channel.

The result of eight moves was always passing through seven rooms and drawing a figure‑8 at the origin.

"Looks like it’s the same for everyone."

Li Ang said lightly, "No matter what direction you choose at the beginning—front, back, left, or right—the end result is the same.

The purpose of the Cave Puzzle Lock really is to use the rules to keep us trapped here for a long time."

He paused, then explained over the channel, "Did you notice the pattern in everyone’s route?

The candle in the room keeps lighting and going out; out of the four doors in the room, only one can be opened; when someone in a room stays put and doesn’t move, the others cannot proceed to the next room.

These three rules are essentially the same thing,

all designed to make us circle around in a fixed area."

"Circle around?"

Xing Hechou asked, "That’s not right. The first eight moves just drew a figure‑8 at the same spot.

If the Cave Puzzle Lock wants us to circle, it could just hard‑limit us to looping through those seven rooms,

there’s no need to open up this new room at (-1, -1),

or those later paths like (-1, -2), (-2, -2), (-3, -2), (-3, -1)."

"Old Xing, have you ever kept hamsters?"

Li Ang chuckled and said casually, "A pet hamster only needs a very small space to survive,

but if the space is too cramped, the hamster will feel oppressed and quickly die—even running on the wheel all day won’t help.

Animals in zoos also develop stress disorders because their living space is too small, they’re exposed to too few stimuli, and they lack social interaction,

and they go mad and self‑harm, like refusing food or repeatedly slamming into the cage.

If you want the creatures in the cage not to feel painful despair, you naturally have to expand the cage space and make them mistakenly think they can get out.

Of course, you actually can get out of the Cave Puzzle Lock, but to truly break the loop—or rather, to start another loop that leads out—I think that will happen on step 10,055."

"Step 10,055?"

Xing Hechou’s heart skipped a beat, and he said in a low voice, "That precise?"

The change in his tone came not only from how large that number was, but also from Li Ang’s calm, matter‑of‑fact voice—and from the fact that he knew,

whenever Li Ang went back to that flippant attitude, it meant this guy had already figured out the answer.

The others on the channel also brightened when they heard Li Ang say 10,055. They seemed thoughtful, as if they’d realized something.

"That’s right, it’s not 9999, not 10086, not 114514, but 10055."

Li Ang laughed. "(0,1), (-1,1), (-1,0), (0,0), (0,-1), (1,-1), (1,0), (0,0)...

With each move, we can see the state of the candle in the room, which changes because of our act of pushing the door open,

either going from dark to bright, or from bright to dark.

When the candle in the room is burning at the beginning, then after we push the door open and walk in, the candle will go out, and the door on the left will open.

When the candle in the room is extinguished at the beginning, then after we push the door open and walk in, the candle will automatically light up, and the door on the right will open.

In other words, if the candle is burning at the beginning, then turn left,

if the candle is extinguished at the beginning, then turn right.

All the way, it looks as if we are moving according to our own will, but in fact we are completely constrained by the rules of the Cave Puzzle Lock,

at first we think we are walking in symmetrical or repeated shapes,

but the further we go, the more chaotic and patternless the path becomes—because we will walk back into rooms we have already passed through.

After that nameless gust of chill wind blew through, all the candles in all the rooms were out. Our passing caused the candles in some rooms to light up, and when we passed through again, the candles would go out once more.

Which makes the rule of opening doors based on the candle state in the room

present itself as chaotic randomness.

However, this chaotic randomness is essentially pseudo‑randomness with rigidly fixed rules. No matter where our five teams

happen to be,

no matter which direction we choose,

if we don’t interfere with one another, then at about step 10055, the chaotic pseudo‑randomness will stop and a cycle of 104 steps will begin,

moving in a fixed direction.

Like... a bunch of ants."

Nebula’s eyes lit up in the comms channel, and he blurted out instinctively, "Langton’s Ant!"

"Exactly."

Li Ang snapped his fingers with a smile. "The Cave Puzzle Lock constructed by the Sibi King is precisely a cage that binds Langton’s Ants."

"Langton what?"

Xing Hechou froze for a moment, his brain racing as he searched for relevant information.

"Ant."

Li Ang explained casually, "No need to look it up in the database; it has nothing to do with the Ant King or the Transcendent elements of the Killing Game.

Langton’s Ant is a concept proposed by Christof Langton in the mid‑1980s. It’s a classic example of a cellular automaton and belongs to two‑dimensional Turing machines.

The rules are very simple: divide a plane into square cells of equal size, fill every cell with either black or white,

and place an ant in one of the square cells.

If the ant is on a black cell, it turns right by 90 degrees, enters the next cell, and flips that cell to white, then moves one step forward;

if the ant is on a white cell, it turns left by 90 degrees, enters the next cell, and flips that cell to black, then moves one step forward;

just like us, the ant will return to its initial cell on the eighth move,

and after the eighth move, it will keep drawing chaotic shapes.

Until about ten thousand steps, when it starts drawing a 104‑step cycle, moving in a fixed direction, like building a highway that extends infinitely outward.

The example of Langton’s Ant is used to illustrate a point,

namely that extremely simple initial conditions and rule logic can evolve into an apparently chaotic, disordered random situation, and that this chaos, after reaching a certain level, will become regular again.

It will become aesthetically pleasing.

Just like how primordial Earth, from boiling hot soup, birthed the very first life."

"..."

Xing Hechou digested this in his mind and pictured the specific pattern of Langton’s Ant. "So, from chaos to order.

All right, I get it.

The ultimate purpose of the Cave Puzzle Lock is to protect the Sibi King,

it knows it can’t trap us to death, only delay us to a certain degree, so it set up a rule system that seems simple but is actually complex, to trap us in the maze.

If we play the game according to its rules, then we’ll need at least another ten thousand steps before we can move efficiently.

And even that efficient movement is fixed in some particular direction, which doesn’t necessarily lead to the Sibi King."

"Correct."

Li Ang smiled. "Considering that the Cave Puzzle Lock’s Energy has an upper limit, the entire maze won’t extend infinitely,

which means that as long as we walk more than ten thousand steps, it won’t be long before we walk out of the maze and return to the outside world,

but we’ll probably never get close to the Sibi King.

And if we want to change that fate and continue exploring the grid board, then we only have two methods.

One, use brute force to tear down the walls.

Two, find a way to rendezvous, have one team walk ahead and change the color of the cells, so that when another team arrives later, the path direction will change because the cell colors were altered in advance.

Neither method is very reliable.

Relying on brute force, we can indeed smash down a dozen, even dozens of walls or doors, but we’ll quickly exhaust our Spiritual Power and end up in a tight spot.

Trying to rendezvous is doable, but that would cost way too much time. By the time we’ve planned everything out, the daylilies will be cold—

the path of a single Langton’s Ant is easy to draw,

but once you put multiple Langton’s Ants together, their paths become extremely chaotic and disordered,

and because each team’s moving speed is different, you simply can’t draw it out at all and end up in a deadlock.

From any angle you look at it, this Cave Puzzle Lock is exquisitely ingenious. With only a few simple rules, it has practically pushed complexity and chaos to their limit within a tiny space.

From the perspective of an ancient Transcendent, the Sibi King is indeed very, very smart."

If he weren’t smart, how could he have come up with a structure like a cellular automaton, something that only appeared in modern times, several thousand years in advance?

Xing Hechou held the walkie‑talkie, listening to Li Ang’s sincere praise,

smiling wryly yet feeling calm inside, with a strange sense of reassurance, like Nobita seeing Doraemon digging out a magical gadget from his four‑dimensional pocket. "So, Brother Li, how do we get out?"

Doraemon, hurry up and tell us the method.

"Get out?"

Li Ang chuckled at that. "No, no, no. If we follow the rules of the Cave Puzzle Lock, we lose no matter what.

Either we burn too much Spiritual Power, or we waste too much time,

and in any case, it will buy the Sibi King enough time to recover.

If we want to crack the Maze Lock, we have to start from the initial positions of the five teams and find the pattern."

As he spoke, he took a large piece of metal from his backpack slot, casually used Alchemy to transform the iron block into a rectangular board like a blackboard, and on it

drew a grid of square cells, along with the initial positions of the five teams.

"Through the walk‑the‑square activity before the candles in the Maze Lock went out, we already learned the current positions of the other teams and their starting points.

If we plug those conditions in and exclude the interference caused by the teams advancing at the same time, we can draw the Langton’s Ant route map for each team.

Nothing more than upper‑left, upper‑right, lower‑left, lower‑right—four directions."