Chapter 5
Chapter 5
Inside the Management Office sat an old blackboard, its surface plastered with the public rules for the entire building. A rusted copper nail was hammered behind every single line, as if the words had been pinned to the wall like a corpse.
On-Duty Zhou closed the ledger and gestured for me to look for myself.
“An Administrator can only maintain the form of the rules; they cannot change the intent of those rules,” he said. “But if the System itself cannot identify the intent, that is another matter entirely.”
This was the loophole I was familiar with.
Back when I wrote Rule Horror, my favorite thing to play with was the “semantic boundary.” As long as a rule’s parsing relied on its literal meaning rather than common sense, there was always a crack to be pried open.
I stared at the fourth rule.
If a security guard requests a room inspection, please cooperate.
The monster from earlier wasn’t a security guard, so this rule didn’t actually apply. However, players would automatically associate the situation with the words “room inspection.” This was how the System used human inertia to kill.
“I need to use the blackboard,” I said.
On-Duty Zhou didn’t move. He only asked, “At what price?”
“What do you want?”
“A name.” He raised a hand and tapped the badge on his chest that read ‘On-Duty Zhou.’ “A real name.”
I blinked, stunned for a moment.
Then, I suddenly understood. Every character in the System who had been haphazardly written by an author hated being nothing more than a functional component. They existed, yet had no lives; they could speak, yet had no origin.
“Zhou Rang,” I said. “‘Rang’ as in ‘to yield.’ Because you are always yielding that final inch of space for the System.”
He repeated it, his gaze shifting subtly for the first time.
“Zhou Rang.”
The light above the blackboard flickered twice, as if some level of authority was being quietly rewritten.
I walked over and pulled the copper nails out one by one. With every nail removed, a faint low hum echoed through the building, like a massive machine slowly turning deep within the walls.
Xu Zhibai was so nervous her hands were shaking. “You’re not actually going to change them, are you?”
“I’m not changing them.” I picked up a piece of chalk and added a tiny annotation beneath the fourth rule. “I’m explaining them.”
If a security guard requests a room inspection, please cooperate.
Annotation: Limited to those carrying a stamped Resident Registry and possessing an old injury on the right leg.
The moment I finished the last character, the entire building fell silent.
A second later, the System notification rang out:
“Rule annotation detected.”
“Annotation source is legitimate. Merged into current rule set.”
Xu Zhibai stood there, dumbfounded.
I felt the blood rushing to my head. It actually worked.
Zhou Rang looked at the blackboard and said softly, “You’ve dismantled a guaranteed death trap.”
“That’s not enough.” I flipped to the next page of public rules. “I’m going to turn this into a sightseeing route.”
The most disgusting killing move in Fog Harbor Apartments occurred at 2:00 AM. At that time, every resident had to undergo a “Night Patrol.” Players would think they had to hide, but in reality, as long as they took the right path, the Night Patrol itself was the safest window of time in the entire Dungeon. Back then, in order to torture my protagonist, I had buried that line extremely deep.
Now, it was my turn to use it.
I added two more lines to the blackboard:
After the Night Patrol begins, residents may follow the illuminated corridor to the Observation Elevator.
The Observation Elevator is only open to registered residents.
The System paused for three seconds.
“Rule conflict check in progress…”
“Validation passed.”
The overhead lights in the entire hallway suddenly flickered on one by one, as if someone were laying out a golden thread for us in the darkness.
From the floor above, a sharp howl rang out-a sound that was barely human.
That thing had realized its hunting ground had been turned into a tourist path by me.