Third run.
Pi Tao was mature and steady. At the start, he chose a fork in the path, and every time he reached another fork, he stopped to identify it carefully.
He occasionally took a wrong turn, but immediately started over from the beginning without hesitation.
Even when starting over, Pi Tao's time was far ahead of the other mice of his kind. In the end, his time was—
"5 minutes and 2 seconds!" Lou Jinghui stared at the stopwatch, practically shouting. "A new record! Two and a half minutes faster than last time, and a full minute faster than Pi Tao's personal record from earlier today!"
Song He was ecstatic. He glanced at the mice in the other groups. They were still all idiots, but that did nothing to dampen his mood. He personally grabbed several pellet-shaped bits of feed and put them into the safe box at the bottom of the maze.
The long run had left Pi Tao ravenous. He snatched the feed and began crunching away, his cheeks bulging round as they bobbed up and down while he swallowed.
"Come on, let's run another group!" Song He said.
All the mice were taken out and reset at the maze entrance.
Several mice squeaked and protested, expressing their dissatisfaction. It felt like a game where, after struggling through every challenge, you were suddenly teleported back to the starting point to do it all over again. No one could possibly keep a good attitude!
Pi Tao remained mature and steady. He expertly identified the forks, scampering onward without pause. After turning back to the starting point twice, he charged into the safe box.
"Pi Tao's new record!" Lou Jinghui said. "4 minutes and 5 seconds!"
"Good!" Song He said, his face alight with delight. A one-minute improvement was