[Lu Family Courtyard] Clearance Conditions

Ren Yi suddenly realized something and quickly raised his hand to open the participant panel.

Two lines of text floated coldly on the screen:

[You will survive in this Instance for three days]

[Explore the remaining rules and conditions for yourself]

All along, almost every participant, Ren Yi included, had instinctively assumed that "survive for three days" was the condition for clearing the Instance.

But now that he looked more closely, the first sentence never once mentioned "clearance requirements."

As for the second sentence, looking at it now, didn't it seem as though part of it was missing?

Would the Alliance really maintain absolute fairness with a Pasture World that had long since been anchored?

He recalled the participant panel flickering constantly when he first entered the Instance. The interference from the world's rules had probably begun then.

Most likely, the key part of the second sentence had only been forcibly erased because this Pasture World itself was in a weakened state.

Just as the auxiliary rule had failed to specify [do not feel the "same" pain together with others], this sentence was probably [explore the remaining "Instance" rules and "clearance" conditions for yourself].

But judging from what Lu Zihan had just said, there was indeed a way to survive in the Instance, and he, a monster disguised as a participant, had already fulfilled its conditions without realizing it.

Why me? Ren Yi asked himself.

No matter how weakened, suppressed, disrupted or enslaved they were, the world's rules were still the world's rules.

The "way to survive" they had set for participants could not possibly have appeared without warning. There had to be clues somewhere that could be found.

Something Aunt Lu Qing had once said suddenly flashed through his mind: "In my Instance, 'identity' is crucial."

Identity...

Ren Yi's pupils contracted sharply as he suddenly recalled one of the rules given at the very start of the Instance.

[6. Servants may not leave the Lu Family. Your range of activity is limited to the Lu Family Residence and your designated workplace.]

That was the rule everyone had taken for a simple restriction on where they could go.

But what if he considered it alongside "identity"? Did it mean that "servants" could not leave the Lu Family?

Perhaps the deeper implication was that the identity of "servant" was itself bound to the "Lu Family." As long as someone still held that identity, they could never leave this Instance world.

So how could he rid himself of the identity of "servant"?

Ren Yi thought of another rule.

[7. Servants must be diligent and do their utmost to complete their work. Servants who fail to complete their work must be punished.]

From the beginning, he had suspected that "diligent" might be a trap deliberately hidden in the rule.

Failing to complete their work brought punishment, so conversely, servants who completed their work ought to receive a corresponding reward.

That raised the question: what counted as "completing their work"?

He and the other participants had clearly been completing their assigned tasks every day. They had cleaned their assigned areas, tidied the study, tended the melon field... Yet they had never seen any so-called "reward."

Unless... the standard for "completion" did not mean finishing "one day's" work, but fulfilling all the work obligations that came with the identity of "servant."

[You will survive in this Instance for three days]

There was now a new way to interpret that sentence: perhaps it was not setting a time limit for clearing the Instance, but defining the contract term for the short-term employment of "servants."

What the Lu Family wanted in the first place were temporary servants employed for three days.

But it had only just reached noon on his second day. How had he already "completed his work"?

Because the distribution of work was not fixed, and a servant's workload was not so full that there was no spare time!

When he tended the melon field, he had finished just as the sun was rising. As for tidying the study, once a day was enough, with no other chores afterward.

Work in the Herb Garden had an even stricter time limit: it could only be done in the morning, leaving the entire afternoon free.

But on reflection, it was probably much the same as the melon field and the study. As long as someone was "diligent" enough and could withstand the monsters' interference, they could complete far more than a day's share of work in a short time.

The hints had been everywhere all along.

From the first morning until now, Ren Yi had been handling both jobs at once: "melon field farmhand" and "study attendant."

It was now noon on the second day, but when he added it up carefully, the tasks he had actually completed and the accumulated shares of work time had long since quietly reached the total for "three days"!

That was why, according to the Instance rules, Lu Qing had to come in person to give him this "contract completion" reward.

Having worked out the whole sequence of events, Ren Yi slowly smiled.

Interesting.

He suddenly realized why the Alliance forced them to participate in powerful monsters' Instances and actually kill a participant in one before they could obtain "entry qualifications."

It was really a "teaching demonstration," letting them personally experience the construction of an Instance's rule traps and gain experience for building their own Instances and playing the boss in the future.

No wonder the Alliance restricted which Instances were "qualified." It seemed only Instances with ingenious structures suited to teaching were selected.

Wait, no... Then why didn't my brother qualify?

Ren Yi's thoughts suddenly wandered. Curiosity scratched at his heart like a little claw.

I have to ask my brother what his Instance is like when I get back. If he won't tell me, I'll ask Doctor Lin...

Having sorted everything out, Ren Yi pushed aside his distracting thoughts and followed closely behind Lu Zihan up to the second floor.

When they stepped onto the last stair, their hands could finally separate.

A heavy solid-wood dining table stood in the middle of the second floor. Master Fu and A-Mu, the two old servants, were also there, standing on either side of the table and watching them expressionlessly.

For the first time since the Instance began, Ren Yi saw Aunt Lu Qing.

She wore a dark green brocade qipao with pearl knot buttons at the collar. An animal that looked like a fox, but had black-and-white stripes, lay quietly in her arms.

The animal's fur gleamed like a silver glaze in the dim light, and its ruby-like eyes were half closed.

The one flaw was that half the animal's tail was bald, completely spoiling its overall beauty and adding an indescribably comical and bizarre touch.

The moment Ren Yi saw the animal, especially its tail, his expression froze.

He thought he knew who this was.

Ren Yi felt a little guilty.