Hey, first of all, thanks for reading my lousy Machine Translation. To be honest, I’d really like it if you guys corrected the mistakes I made. But please speak nicely and politely. My heart is not strong enough to read your too-harsh comments. Have a nice day. 🙂
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Chp25. part1
Pei Han glanced at the red square. “You’ve found a pattern?”
Ning Ge nodded. “I even know where the next dangerous square will be.” She pointed to a corner of the dance floor. “The fourth black square in the last row.”
The appearance of the dangerous squares seemed random, but it wasn’t. The rule was surprisingly simple.
It had nothing to do with color, only with the square’s position and the rhythm of the dance music.
The song was a waltz in 3/4 time, with a rhythm of strong-weak-weak—dong-da-da.
The Wooden Puppet repeated the dong-da-da rhythm four times in each line of lyrics. Before each pause, it sang exactly eight lines, repeating the dong-da-da pattern thirty-two times. In total, there were ninety-six beats—a combination of strong and weak beats.
The dance floor was a 20×20 square, totaling four hundred squares.
If the Queen’s throne was considered the top, the square she touched during her blessing was the first one in the upper left corner.
If Ning Ge was right, the Queen’s blessing acted as a marker, labeling that square as “1.”
If we number the cells one by one from left to right, row by row, starting with 1, the first dangerous cell appears in the fifth row and sixteenth column, which is exactly the ninety-sixth cell.
This means that if “Dong” lights up the first cell, and “Dada” lights up the second and third cells, by the time a full musical phrase of “Dong-Dada-Dada” is completed, exactly the ninety-sixth cell will be lit.
After the clown finishes singing his second verse, the second dangerous cell is lit in the tenth row and twelfth column, which is twice 96, or the one hundred ninety-second cell.
Similarly, the third dangerous cell is three times 96, the two hundred eighty-eighth cell, just as Ning Ge predicted.
After each musical phrase ends, the dangerous cell advances by ninety-six positions.
So the next dangerous cell should be four times 96, the three hundred eighty-fourth cell, located in the corner of the row farthest from the Queen, in the fourth column.
The pattern of the cells had been found, but now a more troublesome problem arose.
Ning Ge knew exactly which cell would become dangerous next, but how could she prevent the group from leading them to that very cell?
The current lead dancers were a young woman with a worried expression and her timid male partner, drifting aimlessly across the dance floor without any discernible pattern.
The music was about to start again. Ning Ge raised her hand high.
“Her Majesty the Queen!”
Everyone in the square and on the dance floor turned to look at Ning Ge, who had suddenly spoken.
“Can my partner and I take the lead?” Ning Ge asked.
The crowd in the square buzzed like boiling water, with waves of murmurs rippling through the crowd. Those in the back, unable to see clearly, began asking those in front:
“Who wants to lead the dance?”
“It seems to be Viscountess Nona.”
“It’s the Viscountess!”
The Queen looked at Ning Ge with surprise, showing no sign of objection. She gently raised her hand. “Go ahead.”
Ning Ge immediately grabbed Pei Han’s hand and led him to the front of the line, positioning them as the first pair.
The lead dancers could guide the group wherever they pleased. Now, Pei Han would never stop on a dangerous square. With them in charge, they were guaranteed to complete the mission and keep everyone safe.
But Ning Ge had a greater ambition.
She glanced back.
Owen and Teacher Su, who were in line, exchanged a look with her. Owen looked particularly thrilled.
Ning Ge turned back. She wanted to lead them all out of the dance floor alive.
The line was too long, and she had to calculate carefully. Ning Ge mentally reviewed the next few dangerous squares.
The next square would appear in the bottom left corner, fourth from the end. The one after that would be on the right edge of the fourth row in the top right. And the one after that…
The band started playing again, and Ning Ge led the long, snake-like line in a dance.
Eight lines of lyrics gave her plenty of time to count the next few dangerous squares and guide the group away from danger.
For several rounds, no one died.
But then the music changed.
The rhythm remained the same—dong-da-da—and the eight-line verses still divided the song into sections. Yet the tempo had clearly accelerated. The Wooden Puppets’ mouths flapped rapidly, like a sped-up film.
The music sped up, each bar lasting only ten seconds. Ning Ge had to quicken her steps, her mind racing to calculate the next dangerous square.
She noticed Pei Han was silently helping her.
A fundamental rule of this dance floor was that the steps must never falter.
Amidst the accelerating rhythm, Pei Han held Ning Ge’s hand tightly, helping her maintain her balance and rhythm as they moved forward step by step in time with the music. This allowed her to focus on the other task at hand.
A thought flashed through Ning Ge’s mind: This Alpha actually makes a decent support. Then she returned her attention to the squares.
By the end of the section, the team had completed a U-turn, and Owen and Teacher Su had stopped beside Ning Ge.
Owen gave her a thumbs-up.
Noticing Ning Ge’s tension, Pei Han murmured, “Let me help you…”
Before he could finish, Teacher Su leaned in and quickly said to Ning Ge, “I’ve seen it! All the squares that turn red are in fixed columns, and there are always three squares between them…”
Before she could finish, the dance music started again.
Ning Ge led her team forward, then glanced at the chessboard and suddenly realized.
Teacher Su, with her exceptional visual memory, hadn’t relied on deduction. She had simply memorized the squares that had previously glowed red.
Those squares only appeared in a few fixed columns and never ventured elsewhere.
Ning Ge cursed herself.
This was too obvious.
The rounds had been so rushed, she had been so focused on calculating the squares that she hadn’t stepped back to think it through properly.
Each row had twenty squares, and each beat advanced ninety-six squares. The dangerous squares must be confined to columns 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20.
They would never appear in other columns.
This created absolutely safe channels three squares wide between the dangerous columns.
The problem was that three squares weren’t enough for the team to turn around.
The dance steps followed the same rules as Snake: turns required two squares of width, and the team couldn’t move diagonally. A full reversal needed at least four squares of width.
Therefore, they couldn’t linger in the three-square safe channels. They had to cross the dangerous columns horizontally.
But Ning Ge had already figured out a way.
The chessboard has four hundred squares. The least common multiple of 96 and 400 is 2400, which is six times 400. This means that after every twenty-five rounds of dancing, the rhythm will have completed 2400 beats. After six full passes of the chessboard, everything resets to its initial state.
In other words, from beginning to end, only twenty-five squares on the chessboard will ever turn red.
All other squares are completely safe.
There’s also a pattern to the dangerous squares within the same column.
Each row has twenty squares. The least common multiple of 96 and 20 is 480, which corresponds to five rounds. After every five rounds of dancing, the dangerous squares in the same column return to their original positions. Removing the 400 squares of the entire chessboard, the distance between any two dangerous squares in the same column is 80, meaning the vertical interval is three squares.
So, in each dangerous column, once you’ve identified one dangerous square, you can directly determine all the others by following the three-square interval.
In short, there’s no need to calculate the location of the next dangerous square round after round.
Simply find the twenty-five dangerous squares across the five dangerous columns and ensure your team never steps on them. Then you’ll be completely safe.
While dancing, Ning Ge pulled off the pearl necklace around her neck and tore off the golden clasp.
Clutching the scattered pearls, she glanced at the squares and calculated.
After completing a full circle, she bent down and placed a pearl in a dangerous square in the adjacent row.
She hopped forward several steps and placed another pearl in a dangerous square ahead.
When she straightened up, Ning Ge noticed Teacher Su behind her had also removed the black pearl necklace from her neck and was leaning over to place a pearl in a correct square on the other side.
Teacher Su understood her intention and realized she was marking the dangerous squares.
Ning Ge relied on calculation, while Teacher Su relied on memory. The two worked together, marking the squares with pearls at an astonishing pace.
The pearls were not ideal; they rolled easily. Unfortunately, Ning Ge had no other adornments on her person besides her necklace.
Pei Han silently removed the rose diamond brooch from his lapel and handed it to Ning Ge.
His formal attire was cluttered with various garish ornaments.
Owen followed suit, removing his jewelry and giving it to Teacher Su. Gradually, each square acquired a small piece of jewelry, and all twenty-five special squares were marked in no time.
After placing the jewelry, Ning Ge couldn’t resist glancing at the Queen seated on the throne before her.
The Queen showed no displeasure.
She gazed at Ning Ge, her beautiful lips curving slightly, her expression filled with unmistakable pride and satisfaction.
Only the Queen’s male companion—a handsome man in his early twenties—cast a dark, resentful look in Ning Ge’s direction.
The music’s tempo gradually quickened.
The Wooden Puppets’ singing grew increasingly indistinct, their words becoming unintelligible, like monks rapidly chanting sutras.
Each round of music ended in less than a few seconds, and before two seconds passed, the next round began.
The dancing group raced across the floor, following the rhythm like a swift, sinuous serpent.
Trying to calculate their moves now would be impossible.
Yet the jewelry lay there, clearly visible. Anyone could see that Ning Ge would never lead her team to step on it.
The key was to dance within the three-meter-wide safe corridor, paying special attention to the jewelry’s position when turning to cross the dangerous rows.
The music’s frantic pace was like flying. Every few steps required a dizzying spin in place, followed by more running and another spin, leaving everyone disoriented.
Ning Ge gradually realized this wasn’t a brain-teasing task at all.
It was just a running drill, pushing them to the brink of exhaustion. Running and spinning simultaneously was even more terrifying than the 800-meter run.
Pei Han’s exceptional stamina allowed him to keep up with the pace and spin without issue. He tightly gripped Ning Ge’s hand, guiding her steps and keeping her moving forward.
Just as their lungs threatened to burst, the music came to a sudden, thunderous halt.
The group stopped, utterly exhausted. Ning Ge bent over, gasping for breath like she’d just finished her 800-meter fitness test.
Pei Han steadied Ning Ge by the arm, chuckling softly. “I’ve never seen you so disheveled.”
He had always known her to stand tall like a pine tree and sit with the dignity of a bell, her posture as perfect as a poster. Now, seeing her panting like a dog with its tongue hanging out, he seemed amused.
Waaah—waah—
The Wooden Puppets on the corner towers blew their horns, and the unicycling clown skidded to the front of the dance floor, clapping his hands.
“The Sacrificial Dance has concluded successfully!”
Tens of thousands of people in the square erupted in cheers. Some in the dance pit fell to their knees, sobbing uncontrollably.
