Chapter 556: Echoing Others

“Just echoing others?”

Su Man blinked, just when she thought she understood, she found herself confused by Lu Yuwen’s words.

“Exactly.” Lu Yuwen looked at a humanoid doll not far away and spoke gravely, “The essence of echoing others is that the minority conforms to the majority. In order to adapt to the environment and integrate into society, each of us has, to a greater or lesser extent, echoed others, giving up our own thoughts and blindly following others, eventually walking on a path that seems right. The maze magnifies this effect, turning people into dolls who can’t think or act on their own.”

Su Man looked ahead as she listened to his words.

She could almost imagine the panic that would ensue when the maze suddenly appeared.

—People scrambling to find an exit, quickly spotting these arrows, banding together, following the arrows towards the exit… increasing in numbers to a crowd… Others would see this scene, invariably join the flow, thinking that the people leading the way knew where the exit was, filled with hope, yet, the result…

Death occurred without any warning.

Su Man closed her eyes, unable to bear thinking about it further.

However, Lu Yuwen beside her spoke again, “However, there’s something strange.”

She opened her eyes and looked at him, “What’s strange?”

Lu Yuwen said, “Even if people followed these arrows, it’s impossible that all of them were not conscious enough to see through this trap. Let’s say there were ten thousand people here. With this scale, wasn’t there a single person able to see the trap? Not even a one in ten thousand chance? That seems unlikely…”

Su Man thought for a moment and said, “The people who realized it was a trap must have left. Isn’t it normal for them not to be in the maze?”

Lu Yuwen still shook his head, “Something’s not right…”

“What’s not right?” Su Man didn’t understand.

Lu Yuwen patiently explained, “Imagine the maze as a 10×10 sliding puzzle. If someone found the exit by solving the puzzle and then passed it to you, what do you think the state of the puzzle would be?”

Su Man was taken aback, then her eyes slowly widened as she seemed to understand.

“…Completed?”

“Correct.” Lu Yuwen furrowed his brow and continued, “If someone had left following my method, the puzzle should now be solved. But, as you’ve seen, during our journey thus far, we’ve only come across a maximum of three grid squares in a row, with almost all the other tiles in the wrong positions.”

Stunned by this revelation, Su Man realized there was something off.

“Could it be… that none of these people in the maze made it out alive? But even if they couldn’t solve the entire puzzle, they should have solved at least part of it, right?”

The current state of the maze showed no sign of someone having tried to solve it!

Glancing around, Lu Yuwen frowned and said, “Either the exit doesn’t require solving the map, or they encountered insurmountable difficulties while attempting to do so.”

He then added, perhaps not wanting to worry Su Man, “No matter what the situation, we will continue in our way. We will find out the truth sooner or later.”

“Alright.” Su Man nodded.

The two continued to walk for some distance until the edge, where they unexpectedly discovered another large pit.

“Pit” was not exactly accurate.

The previous pit was smooth at the bottom, an empty space on the maze’s map.

The scene before them was more like a sunken terrain, the buildings completely submerged, the ground level at the bottom of the pit was about a story lower than where Su Man was standing.

Su Man quickly understood and said, “The city’s surface is a curved plane. When a lowland plot is joined with a highland plot, there will be a height difference. But this plot is really low, we should detour.”

After saying this, she turned to look at Lu Yuwen, but was taken aback.

For some reason, Lu Yuwen’s complexion had greatly deteriorated!