Chapter 118 - The always cranky rabbit Kiri~
Mr Rabbit's Truth Clock game has only been going on for twenty minutes now. In just twenty minutes, the black rabbit has closed the distance between him and Tang Mo and is on the verge of catching up with him; now the distance between them is back to square one, still 30 frames.
The truth clock is a circle, which can be divided in general terms into cells 1 to 60, which are connected at the beginning and end to form a closed loop.
Counterclockwise is forward, clockwise is backward.
In this game, if you don't go forward, you go back. Suppose that in a given round, Tang Mo advances fifteen squares and the black rabbit falls back fifteen squares, then he catches up with the black rabbit in a flash and the black rabbit falls into the black hole of truth.
And there's one more special thing about this game.
Tang Mo sits on the ground, resting cross-legged. He squints his eyes, sliding from the 59th frame where the black rabbit was originally located to the 3rd frame where it is now standing. The black rabbit has gone backwards a total of four squares.
"There were sixteen items in that round, so if it eliminates them all, that's eight pairs of items, for a total of eight points. If it gets six pairs of items wrong, it only gets two pairs, so it's backwards four frames." Tang Mo's face was calm, but in his mind he was doing the maths, "Of those sixteen items, at least three pairs were so easy that the individual truths between them were obvious, and it shouldn't have got that many wrong. So ..."
So the black rabbit is joining him in choosing to give up on eliminating items.
Rule 6: When opening Schrödinger's box, if there are items on the truth clock that have not been eliminated, go backwards two squares.
Yes, there are a maximum of 58 items and a minimum of 2 items in Mr Rabbit's Truth Clock game. Eliminate an error and go back one square; eliminate a correct and go forward one square. There are also four different penalties depending on the fallacy level of the error eliminated. Assuming that the player is so ignorant of the two items that he really cannot find the truth buried in them, he has the following options: firstly, to eliminate the two items by stating a random truth; secondly, to give up eliminating the items.
The likelihood of a random truth being correct is infinitely close to zero. It is quite possible to go backwards a notch and even trigger a first-order ontological fallacy.
Abandoning the elimination item does not trigger any fallacies, but it does go back two frames.
Out of those sixteen items he had just seen, there were three items Tang Mo had never seen before. He thought long and cautiously before finally deciding to give up on elimination. He would rather go backwards four squares and take the long view than the unknown level one penalty. But to his surprise, the black rabbit had gone backwards so many squares this time as well. It was 90% likely that the Black Rabbit had not eliminated all the items either, which was why he had gone backwards by so many squares.
"So what the hell is he happy about ..." Tang Mo muttered in a low voice.
The interval between the appearance of items in two rounds is ten minutes.
Tang Mo and Black Rabbit had both triggered the Level 3 Grey Fallacy in that round. It took them some effort to deal with the huge black vortex of suction, and they rested in silence. Tang Mo kept his head buried in thought. He recalled the sixteen items he had just seen, as well as the four he had seen in the first round.
Although these items should not appear again in the future, he wanted to get some clues about the separate truths from them.
This time, for example, Tang Mo is two squares back. This means that apart from the four items he gave up eliminating, which set him back four squares, he really only advanced two squares. The remaining twelve items can be divided into six pairs for a total of six points. Tang Mo answered four pairs of items and two pairs incorrectly, which allowed him to advance by only two squares.
By finding out where you are going wrong, it is easier to analyse what The black tower's recognition of a separate truth is all about.
Tang Mo reached out his hand and traced the clock of truth. As he pressed his hand against the blue clock, the blue glow of the truth clock flickered with the movement of his fingers. The black rabbit was standing across the room, glaring angrily at Tang Mo. After a few minutes of ignoring Tang Mo, a strange look crossed his eyes.
Where Tang Mo did not see, the black rabbit heaved a sigh of relief, a weary look on his fierce, ugly face.
The next second, Tang Mo jerked its head up and the black rabbit was taken aback, a quick flash of confusion crossing its large face. Quickly, it opened its mouth wide in anger: "You ... you stupid human! Don't think that I can't eat you just because the distance between us has shortened again. When I catch up with you, I'll take your eyes and eat them with wine!"
Tang Mo looked steadily at the black rabbit, who cursed at him repeatedly. When he was tired of cursing, Tang Mo said in a calm voice, "It's time."
The black rabbit froze, and after a moment it snapped back, "Is that why you're looking at me?"
Tang Mo did not answer as twelve ghostly blue lights lit up in the centre of the Truth Clock. Tang Mo and the black rabbit directed their eyes once more at the Truth Clock.
On the third round, twelve items appear on the truth clock. Tang Mo advances two squares and the Black Rabbit advances three squares. This time it is the Black Rabbit who is one frame ahead, with a difference of 29 frames between the two.
The black rabbit cracked his mouth open, "Heh heh heh heh, gonna get you again ..."
Tang Mo was noncommittal as he sat on the floor and quietly contemplated the six pairs of items he had just eliminated. He got four points right and two wrong.
"Which two pairs of items went wrong ..."
Tang Mo has long since discovered that provoking the black rabbit does not do much good. The rabbit is not as stupid as he seems, and when the time comes, he will still analyse the problem calmly and participate in the truth clock game. The only rules he can use at the moment are "What the black tower recognises is the truth" and "There can only be one winner on the truth clock".
If the black rabbit dies, he can also pass straight through.
With this in mind, Tang Mo lifted his head and looked at the black rabbit again. I don't know what the black rabbit was thinking, but perhaps it was worried that Tang Mo was scaring it by looking up (and not) at it again with a start. For the ten-minute interval between games, he stared at Tang Mo with wide, angry eyes, as if that would make it safe from Tang Mo.
One man and one rabbit stare wide-eyed. Ten minutes were up and this time, countless lights appeared on the truth clock. Tang Mo's heart fluttered, and when he got a good look at all the items on the field, the truth clock's emotionless voice rang out -
"Time: 0:40pm, Location: truth clock, forty-eight truth-rich items appear."
"In one minute, ask the 0-point player and the 6-point player to eliminate the truth."
Tang Mo: "..."
Black Rabbit: "..."
Shit!
The long second hand slides up again and Tang Mo has no time to waste as he quickly scans the field for every item.
The rules of The black tower state that there will be anywhere from 2-58 items on the truth clock. Tang Mo had wondered "if 58 items would appear at once so that the player would not have time to sort out the relationship between the items", but he never expected to come across so many items so soon, and the time given on the truth clock was still one minute!
Tang Mo's brain was running at an unprecedented speed, and his full forehead was rippling with veins. His face was red, as if he could clearly hear the sound of nerve cells bursting in his brain. When it was over, Tang Mo's lips quivered and a hoarse voice escaped his lips as he listened to the clock of truth that said, "At 6:00 players begin eliminating items".
"The first pair, rubber bands and tyres, they are both rubber products. Apart from these two, there are no rubber products in the other forty-six items ..."
The hoarse voice seemed to grind over sandpaper as Tang Mo felt his mind reach its limits for the first time.
He was exhausted.
In the Truth Clock game, it is not the case that just because you find a separate truth between item A and item B, you can be sure that they are to be eliminated. For example, rubber bands and tyres are the only items out of the forty-eight that have the "all rubber" truth, and they can indeed be eliminated using this separate truth. But most likely, among the other forty-six items, rubber bands and ropes can also be eliminated because they are both ropes. Tyres and steering wheels can also be eliminated, since they are part of the car's composition.
Once Tang Mo has eliminated the rubber band and the tyre, they can no longer be eliminated with the rope and the steering wheel. Eventually, the rope and steering wheel cannot be eliminated and Tang Mo therefore goes backwards two frames.
Tang Mo has so much to think about in a minute. It's not just about seeing one item and comparing it to another. When Tang Mo sees a rubber band, he is not just thinking about the tyre, he has to mentally compare the rubber band with all the other forty-seven items.
"... Twenty-second pair, a pile of glass fragments and a mirror. The mirror has glass in its composition. All items except these two do not contain glass. The last four items, discarded."
The blue wall rose slowly, and Tang Mo looked up to see the black rabbit across the room. The black rabbit is in no better shape than he is.
The black rabbit's eyes were red and the whole thing was panting violently. The two men looked at each other across a clock. Then a flat, undulating voice rang out -
"The 0 point player triggers a level 2 sophomoric fallacy and the 6 point player triggers a level 3 grey fallacy. the 0 point player goes back ten squares and the 6 point player advances seven squares."
Tang Mo's eyes slowly widen. Beneath his feet, the hour hand clicks up, eventually landing on the 24th frame. Beneath the black rabbit's feet, the minute hand also moves, eventually landing on the 10th frame.
The black rabbit's face was hard to see, and he looked at Tang Mo with dismay, horror and a touch of imperceptible justification. He clenched his teeth and hit the ground hard, one at a time, as he made his way to the tenth compartment.
Tang Mo walks thoughtfully to frame 24.
Two people receive punishment.
The distance is instantly reduced to 14 frames.
The next two rounds of the game saw few items appear on the truth clock. Instead of going back ten squares as he did in the third round, the Black Rabbit moved forward more squares than Tang Mo each time, increasing the distance between them to 19 squares. On the sixth round, Tang Mo is on square 20 and the Black Rabbit is on square 1.
The cold voice of the Truth Clock rang out, "Time: 1:00 pm, Location: the Truth Clock, 4 items rich in high truths appear."
"In one minute, ask the 0-point player and the 6-point player to eliminate the truth."
The items that appear this time are all rich in difficult truths, and it will be even more difficult to find the individual truths between them. Tang Mo looked calmly at the four items and prepared to analyse the answers. At that moment, a dismayed voice rang out from across the clock, "Ah, this is the best selling delicious stowaway bun in the Kingdom of the Underlanders ..."
The black rabbit's voice came to a screeching halt as it stiffened and looked across at Tang Mo.
Tang Mo raised one eyebrow. He hadn't expected the black rabbit to reveal its message at the sight of the huge bun either.
Tang Mo looked at the black rabbit quietly, the black rabbit had a lot of expression on its face, and finally it hit the wall hard in anger: "Aaaaaaaaah, I'm going to eat you, I'm going to eat you!!!" A totally irritated and grumpy rabbit look.
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The author has something to say.
Tangtang: I think I've probably found out a little something ...
Mr. Fu: I feel like I haven't appeared in a long time ...