Ten Day Ultimatum

Chapter 430: Commander

Qi Xia’s remark drew strange looks from Zhou Six, Luo Eleven and Qiu Sixteen as well.

If it had been someone else, Qi Xia’s remark would’ve been enough to provoke a rebuttal, but Wang Eight was the exception. While {Cats} never let outsiders mistreat their own, no one felt inclined to defend him.

“Am I sowing discord...?” Qi Xia inclined his head. “Fine. Let’s follow your logic for a moment; I have a few questions.”

“What questions?”

“First: even if every round your teammate brings back {food}, it’s at most three fruits. How do you propose to keep the five of us’ {Satiety Value} topped up?”

“I...” Wang Eight’s mind churned as he searched for an answer. “That was just the early plan. Later on we’ll send two people each time!”

“Two?”

“Yeah. If both succeed, we’ll get six fruits per round; even if one fails, we still get three.” Wang Eight insisted. “I don’t believe our luck will be that bad and have both {mice} get caught by the {Cat} every time.”

“Yet from what ◆ Nоvеlіgһt ◆ (Only on Nоvеlіgһt) we just saw, each room holds only four fruits,” Qi Xia said, eyes narrowed. “The first {Mouse} can take three, but on the second visit to that room they can only take one. Even if we set failure odds aside and both of your two runners succeed, that’s at most two fruits from that room — and we still have five mouths to feed. Who do you intend to let starve?”

“Moreover...” Qi Xia shifted his tone, pressing the point further, “there is no definitive proof that every room contains four fruits.”

Wang Eight scratched his head; as he thought it over, the flaws of his plan became obvious.

“Thi–This was a makeshift plan! Of course it isn’t perfect; that’s why we’re discussing it!” Wang Eight protested, glancing around as if begging someone to back him up. “I’m only trying to keep our teammates alive, isn’t that the right motive?”

“That precisely leads to my second question,” Qi Xia remarked. “If you send out a lone {Mouse} and they don’t return, where do you intend to go to {Rescue} them?”

“To the {Cat House}!” Wang Eight replied. “Is there a problem with that?”

“No problem,” Qi Xia replied, “but what if they’re trapped by a {Mouse Trap}?”

Wang Eight’s face shifted as the rule flashed through his mind—a {Mouse} caught by a {Mouse Trap} is locked inside the room until a teammate frees them or the {Cat} hauls them away.

“When the {Cat} acts, we’ll be sealed in our rooms. How can you tell whether our comrade was carried off by the {Cat} or is stuck inside the room they were searching?” Qi Xia continued, holding up five fingers. “A fifty‑percent guess is no better than a coin flip. If you guess wrong, you trigger a chain reaction—we’ll likely lose another teammate, and then we’re forced to attempt a {Rescue}. Each {Rescue} itself has only about a fifty‑percent chance of success. Do you want to gamble on that?”

Hearing Qi Xia unload such a torrent of analysis in such a short time, Wang Eight’s expression gradually darkened.

“Fine...E–Even if you think better than me...” Wang Eight grit his teeth. “Even if you’re stronger... then tell me, what exactly should we do?”

“If none of you have a way, then you’ll follow my command,” Qi Xia declared. “In the first round, we’ll send four people to {Search}, targeting any four random rooms.”

“Four...?” Zhou Six frowned, a hint of confusion crossing her face. “I would understand if you selected one or five people... why {four} of all numbers?”

“We need a {Commander} among the {Mice},” Qi Xia explained. “This game has a typical blind spot: because of the {Prisoner’s Dilemma}, each {Mouse} loses contact with the others once inside a room, making it impossible to know what’s happening in other rooms. This would make decision‑making very difficult starting from the second round.”

“What... Tsk...?” Zhou Six blinked, startled. “{Prisoner’s Dilemma}?”

“Yes. If a {Mouse} doesn’t return the next day, we can’t determine where to go for a {Rescue}. Terrestrial Mouse has already accounted for this, expecting us to {Rescue} one another. Whether we succeed or fail doesn’t benefit us.” Qi Xia continued, “Fortunately, your team is well established. If we were all strangers and couldn’t agree on whether to save someone or not, it would be far more complicated.”

After a moment of silence, Luo Eleven asked, “So what is this {Commander} exactly?”

“We need one {Mouse} who doesn’t participate in any action, overseeing the entire operation,” Qi Xia explained. “This {Mouse} serves as our eyes, the central control for everyone, monitoring every move of the {Cat}.”

“Huh?” The others blinked in unison, sensing something odd about the statement but unable to pinpoint exactly what.

“W–Wait a minute...” Wang Eight was the first to speak up. “That can’t be right... how is the {Commander} supposed to track the {Cat}’s movements? The only way to know every action the {Cat} takes is to stand in the hallway and watch which room he enters. But from the {Mouse}’s three actions, there’s no option for standing in the hallway.”

Qi Xia acted as if he hadn’t heard anything, shifting his gaze quickly away from Wang Eight’s face before asking the others, “Anyone capable of asking a question that actually uses their brain?”

“You...” Wang Eight glared at Qi Xia, fuming. “Answer me already!”

“Um...” Qiu Sixteen seemed skeptical. “Suppose someone really could stand in the hallway to observe the {Cat}...how could this {Mouse} function as the {Commander}?”

“That’s easy to handle,” Qi Xia replied. “If it were another team, you’d have to return to the {Mouse House} the next night to exchange intelligence. But naturally, we have a more convenient method...” He then turned to Zhou Six. “As long as Zhou Six’s present, we should know the {Cat}’s movements immediately.”

“Tsk, using {Sound Conveyance}...?” Zhou Six furrowed her brow. “I’ve never used {Sound Conveyance} in a game before...hopefully there shouldn’t be any problems...”

“Problems...? I want to know the exact limitations of your {Sound Conveyance},” Qi Xia said. “Can you communicate with the four of us from anywhere?”

“Tsk, I suppose it... should work.” Zhou Six nodded. “So I’m supposed to be the {Commander} then?”

“No,” Qi Xia shook his head. “It can be anyone. As long as you can communicate with the {Commander}, in theory, the information can be relayed to all of us.”

Zhou Six nodded, half understanding.

“Each night, we pick one person to stand in the hallway as the {Commander}, while the other four go out to search for food,” Qi Xia continued. “The {Commander}’s job is to identify which room the {Cat} enters, who is taken from that room, and then the remaining {Mice} can attempt a rescue in the next round.”