Fourth Perspective

第十六章 Chapter 16
But Xiao Jinyu could see B rank tasks.

It was obvious that this was the backdoor 004 had opened for him, the so-called ‘private server’.

Since he could bypass the authorization to see the tasks that don’t belong to his rank, it should be natural that he could accept those tasks as well. But just in case, Xiao Jinyu still asked: “Can I take this task?”

‘Of course ah’

Sure enough, he really could take the tasks.

Then the next thing he needed to think about was whether or not he should take this task or not.

Lightly swiping on the phone screen, Xiao Jinyu carefully reread every word on the screen.

This task was very easy, he didn’t have to enter any seemingly dangerous ‘contamination areas’ and didn’t have to clean up any debris from logic storms. He only needed to call a number, answer a question, and if he answered it correctly and helped the other person figure out the answer, help them understand their logic skill, he could get a million dollars in cash.

But in some aspects, it also wasn’t that simple.

The one who understands the logic skill the most is the user themselves, if they themselves don’t understand their logic skill, other people would have an even harder time.

“This person wants to first seek help from higher level users, to get their experience of understanding their logic skill. They mentioned in the supplementary information a level five user and five level four users, it seems like they might be a level three user.”

Level three users can post tasks up to B rank, which is also consistent with the task rank.

After thinking for a long time, Xiao Jinyu asked: “If I accept this task, will the task issuer know who I am?”

‘You can accept the task anonymously, this is very common Dad.’

There seems to be no more worries then.

Anonymously pick up the task, call a number, listen to the other person’s question about their logic skill, and answer them.

Correct answers will be rewarded with a huge reward and there is no loss if he didn’t answer correctly.

This task was a really big pie, no wonder so many high level users accepted this task within ten minutes.

Not thinking anymore, Xiao Jinyu accepted the task.

***

The first snow had just passed and the ground was a silvery white. The cold wind blew in the heavy snow and with a whoosh, it fell.

Around the corner from the west gate of the Changmei Community, there was an old grocery store.

Under the rusty and dirty door plaque, the two meter wide storefront only had a half-meter wide walkway, while the rest was blocked by two large shelves on both sides. The shopkeeper smoked a Huangyan Shan cigarette, held an old domestic phone, and played cards online blankly. He just played a three-and-one when a low male voice sounded from the doorway.

“Are there any phone cards, master?”

The balding shopkeeper looked up.

Under the gloomy sky, a thin and tall young man stood at the doorway of his broken little shop. Wearing a grey beanie, white mask, and a white down jacket, his hands were in his pockets, only revealing a pair of cold eyes.

The shopkeeper smiled: “Where did ya hear I sold phone cards here, boy?”

XIao Jinyu lowered his voice: “I heard from my friend.”

The shopkeeper laughed, opened a filthy black drawer, and took a stack of phone cards out.

“Every card has thirty dollars of charge, you can only use it for one day, tomorrow it’ll probably be found that there’s no real name registration and be cancelled. One card is fifty.”

Xiao Jinyu silently took out a fifty yuan bill from his pocket.

“Even paying in cash ah. There, pick one.”

Xiao Jinyu swiftly picked one out.

Pushing down the brim of his hat Xiao Jinyu turned around and left, quickly returning to his own community.

From the start, he never intended to use his own phone to contact the task issuer.

First of all, he doesn’t know the reason why the other person posted this task. If it was just wanting to understand their logic skill, then there was no problem. But if there was a malicious intention, then it was possible to find him through his phone number.

Secondly, he was not eligible to see the task, let alone take it. Suppose someone checks the phone number and finds out the owner of the number was just some newly registered D rank user, then 004’s existence would be exposed.

This wasn’t just protecting himself, it was also protecting 004.

Right now he really needs this strange polluter that has recognised him as it’s dad.

Not wasting any more time, Xiao Jinyu used a knife to remove the metal chip from the phone card and put it into his phone. He didn’t immediately call the task issuer, but instead called a random number. Hearing the confused, “Who is it,” on the other side of the phone, Xiao Jinyu quickly said, “Sorry, wrong number,” and hung up.

The phone card could be used normally without arousing suspicion and was no different from a normal phone card.

Doing all that he could to prepare, Xiao Jinyu checked the task information once again.

He tapped on the dial button.

After a short beep, the call was quickly connected, and Xiao Jinyu wasn’t even able to open his mouth before an intense gasping sound was heard from the other side. Like an air blower with a hole in it, the man pulled his throat, before Xiao Jinyu was able to speak, he started off by asking: “Hu-ha, hu-ha, what, what level are you?”

Taken aback, Xiao Jinyu couldn’t help but be stunned, but his voice was steady and quickly calmed down.

Lowering his voice, Xiao Jinyu said: “Level four.”

“Level four?”

“Yes, level four.”

This was the identity Xiao Jinyu had prepared beforehand.

The task issuer was a level three user himself and the task required users to be at B100 rank or above. After such a long time, a lot of level three users must have called the issuer’s number, but since they couldn’t give an answer, he only mentioned the one level five user and five level four users. 

Since he was going to fake an identity, why not fake one that the other party would respect a bit, but won’t feel overly powerful.

“Hu, can I know your user ranking?”

Eyebrows lowered slightly, Xiao Jinyu laughed softly: “You anonymously posted the task and I anonymously picked it up. If you don’t want to talk about your problem, just hang up.”

The call was silent for a few seconds.

Finally, the task issuer panted before briefly saying, “Apologies, hu-ha… it’s just that my situation is very urgent, my logic skill encountered a very scary problem, needing a high level user to help understand.”

“What’s the problem?”

“My logic skill… can’t be used.”

Xiao Jinyu’s heart stopped for a second.

Can’t be used?

Xiao Jinyu: “What do you mean you can’t use it?” Pausing, he added: “By the way, are you running right now?”

That’s right, after listening for five minutes, Xiao Jinyu was a hundred percent confident that the task issuer was running right now.

A person who was impatient enough to spend a million dollars to get an answer was running while someone was completing the task, this was a very strange thing.

Quickly, the person on the other side of the phone gave him an answer, he bitterly said: “Yea, hu-ha… I’m running, I’m running to the parking garage to find my Lamborghini sports car.”

Xiao Jinyu: “......”

“You’re in such a hurry that even going the short way to the parking garage, you have to run?”

“Hu-ha… After listening to what I’ve experienced today, you’ll know why I’m in such a hurry.

“To understand my predicament, I need to tell you about my logic skill. My logic skill is very special, how should I describe it hm… You can think of it like this: my logic skill is similar to ‘as long as I pick a white flower today, I can pick up a hundred dollars tomorrow’. This is my logic skill.”

Xiao Jinyu slightly paused.

This logic skill?

Strange, but it was slightly familiar.

The man on the other side of the phone finally stopped gaping, breathed in heavily twice, and with a click, opened the car door.

The background suddenly quieted, and after two short beeping sounds, Xiao Jinyu heard the rumbling noise of an engine, then, the task issuer said while driving: “My logic skill has no attack power and even in daily life there is really no use, so I don’t use it a lot. This is easy to understand right? If you had such a logic skill, you probably won’t use it.”

Xiao Jinyu: “......”

“So only when I’m bored would I use it. Such as today.

“After I woke up today, I suddenly wanted to check the weather for tomorrow… cough, I mean I wanted to pick up a hundred dollars tomorrow. So I decided to pick a white flower today. A white flower is very common in Haidu City, you can find one on the streets. Even if that doesn’t work, flower shops will have them.”

Xiao Jinyu nodded.

Indeed, it’s only a white flower, they’re everywhere, the cause of this logic skill is not hard to do.

But he knows this ‘white flower’ is just the comparison the task issuer had used, his logic skill was definitely not this.

“So I decided to go pick a flower. But…

“I can’t find any.

“This level four user, do you understand, in this huge Haidu City, based on my net worth, I can’t even find a single white flower.

“Just today, there wasn’t a single flower!”

XIao Jinyu couldn’t help but say in shock: “That’s impossible.”

“Right, this is definitely impossible. There’s none at my house, that’s alright, I can understand. If I go outside and look for one casually but don’t find one, that’s also fine. But what if I go to the flower shop? If I go to the flower market? So much so that when I asked my friend to directly bring a pot of white flowers from their house, the second before I was about to touch it, it was smashed onto the floor by accident!

“My logic skill does not allow me to pick a flower that has fallen, because based on my previous experiences, my logic skill will judge that flower as ‘already picked’ and won’t count as me having picked it from the ground.

“In short, from when I woke up at 8AM, five hours have gone by.

“I haven’t been able to find a single white flower.”

The voice fell and the call was silent for a while.

Finally, the task issuer’s voice faintly sounded: “Right now, this level four user, what do you think… is wrong with my logic skill?”

……

Xiao Jinyu didn’t immediately give an answer.

The task issuer didn’t think it was weird either. Of the ten users that had called him today, only the level five user first gave him a hypothesis, all the other users had said “Let me think on it a bit more”, then immediately hung up and called back later with an answer.

After Xiao Jinyu said “Let me think some more, then I’ll call back,” the task issuer happily hung up. He was very impatient and immediately went to the next location to find a ‘white flower’.

In the silent room, Xiao Jinyu immediately found a pen. And sitting by the table, he drew out a line.

[Picking a flower → Picking up money]

As long as he picked a flower today, tomorrow he can pick up money. 

But he cannot pick a flower today, no matter what. 

Xiao Jinyu drew an ‘X’ underneath ‘picking a flower’ and moved his sight to the words ‘picking up money’.

“So tomorrow he absolutely cannot pick up money.”

Eh? That’s not right, he analyzed wrong.

“This logic skill is a condition, but not a requirement. Picking a flower is a condition. If he picks a flower, he can definitely pick up money tomorrow; but even if he doesn’t pick a flower, he can still pick up money tomorrow.

“Then this means, picking flowers is not necessary for picking up money.”

Xiao Jinyu lowered his head, his eyes cold as he wrote a sentence—

[Can still pick up money without picking flowers, but picking flowers will definitely lead to picking up money.]

Then the question is…

What is stopping the task issuer from picking flowers?

In the dark room, time ticked away, and the cold wind blew against the windows, making a thumping noise.

Unconsciously, it was already six o’clock at night.

Xiao Jinyu stared at the words on the paper. 

Picking flowers.

Picking up money.

This is not some hundred dollar thing.

...This is a million.

Suddenly, he picked up his phone.

“004.”

‘Eh? Is dad done? （=•ω•=）？’

Xiao Jinyu was serious as he narrowed his eyes.

The task issuer’s problem was very strange and a lot of high level users weren’t able to find an answer. At first, he had asked for his user number, probably to determine his identity before he dared to tell him his logic skill information.

Do not tell anyone your logic skill.

Unless you encounter this type of problem you cannot solve.

But without fully understanding the logic skill of the other person, Xiao Jinyu was unable to solve the problem. Minor errors in the understanding of the logic skill could lead to huge errors. 

Xiao Jinyu looked at his phone: “Can you see who the task issuer is?”

‘Ah?’

Xiao Jinyu: “You can’t?”

‘Of course I can.’

‘Does dad want to know who it is?’

Xiao Jinyu froze.

It turns out it was this easy to find the task issuer’s identity?

‘Other than the A01 to A53’s fifty three anonymous users, who are a bit strong and after choosing to be anonymous, I’m unable to forcefully unlock and unable to pry open their protection from the task window, the other users I can see their information whenever I want.’

‘Dad did I not tell you this before (⊙_⊙)?’

“...You didn’t.”

‘I forgot, muah.’

‘So does dad want to know who he is?’

‘In fact, he’s…’

“He's Meat King, right?”

The barrage on the phone stopped for a few seconds.

‘Dad is so smart, he really is Meat King!’