Forty-nine rules of the end times

Chapter 261 The Chain of Suspicion Triggered by Humanoid Creatures
The Kingdom of Sissia, Saint Kitts.

In the magnificent palace, a young man and a young woman stood side by side, looking at an empty chair made of gold in front of them.

The two have similar face shapes, the same light blonde hair, and silver-white eyelashes, indicating that they share the same bloodline.

At this moment, both of them had very cold expressions, and the atmosphere was as cold as ice.

A moment later, the young man broke the silence.

"Yelenka, you don't really think that just because you spent two months at that academy in Beixing, you can compete with me when you come back, do you?"

"If you think it's impossible, then why send someone to threaten my teacher?" Yelena said coldly. "Isn't that redundant?"

The young man's expression turned somewhat unnatural upon hearing this, and he scoffed, "I can threaten whoever I want. What's a mere teacher compared to that?"

"..."

Yelena recalled that before she left, Guan Tong had specifically told her that he would come to Sisia in the future, which naturally meant that he would settle accounts with her brother.

“But you’re ruthless enough.” The young man glanced at his sister. “Without a word, you just killed my people.”

Yelena did not deny it.

Let him believe that she was the one who killed the person. Knowing her brother as she did, if he knew that Guan Tong had killed the person, he would probably only become enraged and do more irrational things.

She didn't want her despicable and treacherous brother to disturb Guan Tong's life anytime soon.

But she didn't admit it either.

Because Rule 13 has not yet ended, she cannot lie during the rule period, which would cause her to fail the challenge.

Fortunately, her brother wasn't that clever; seeing her remain silent, he took it as her consent.

"It was Sigourney who did it for you, wasn't it? That woman... I'll make her know who she should be loyal to sooner or later!"

Boom, boom, boom.

Just then, a heavy, rhythmic footstep came from outside the door.

Upon hearing this, the young man immediately shut his mouth, stood up straight, and stared intently ahead.

The owner of the footsteps quickly walked up to the two of them and sat down in the golden chair.

This is a middle-aged man with a buzz cut, his light gold scalp complementing the gold chair he sits on.

But what's most striking about a man is his face.

One half is very handsome, while the other half is covered with ugly burn scars.

“Yelenka, Rijeka,” the man said.

“Father,” they both replied in unison.

"Next year, my responsibilities will be handed over to one of you. This is the last chance for anyone who wants to quit."

Rijeka replied without hesitation, "Father, you know I will never back down."

“Me too, Father,” Yelena said.

"Yelenka, didn't you hear what Father said? This is your last chance to back out!" Rijeka said sternly. "If you don't back out now, I won't show you any mercy later, even if you are my sister."

“That’s what I wanted to say to you, brother,” Yelena retorted. “If you don’t back down now, I won’t show any mercy later.”

“Good, very good.” Rijeka’s eyes flashed with a cold light. “Then let’s see who the winner is.”

The two fathers listened expressionlessly, then nodded and said, "Since no one has chosen to withdraw, the competition between you officially begins today. The winner will officially sit in this chair on January 1st of next year. As for the loser..."

The father glanced at his son and daughter separately: "You should know where you're going."

“Yes, the losers will be exiled to Senantata, we understand,” Rijeka said.

Senantata is the coldest place in the country of Sisyah, where almost nothing grows and only a very small number of people live there, spending their days with the cold wind and solid ice.

The father got up and left.

After he left, Rijeka turned around and sneered, "Sister, I think you'd better prepare in advance, Senantata's days are not going to be easy!"

Yelena ignored him, gave him a brief glance, and turned to leave.

Rijeka watched her walk away, his cold smile turning into a gloomy expression.

"You dare compete with me for the position of heir? Even if you're my sister..."

He glanced at the empty golden chair, his eyes gleaming with greed. He suppressed the urge to sit on it, quickly left the palace, and got into a black car outside.

After seeing Rijeka's expression in the rearview mirror, the driver said, "Lord Rijeka, judging from your expression, your sister probably hasn't given up."

"Hmm. This overconfident little brat actually dares to compete with me!"

"Let me remind you, even if you are confident, you must not be careless. Your sister's willingness to travel a long way to study at Beixing Academy shows that she is determined to win and will not give up easily."

Rijeka's face darkened as he looked up at the driver.

This man with a small mustache was his driver, his advisor, and his most trusted confidant.

"Gelkin, what's your idea?"

“The simplest, and most direct, method is to prevent your sister from competing with you,” Gellkin said.

Rijeka's heart skipped a beat: "You mean... kill her?"

Gelkin smiled and shook his head: "Lord Rijeka, that's your sister, after all. And your father wouldn't be happy if you killed her, would he?"

Rijeka understood: "That means it's enough to be seriously injured to the point of being unable to compete."

Gell-King smiled and acquiesced.

“But… that damned woman Sigourney is on her side providing protection, this will be troublesome.” Rijeka frowned. “You know how powerful that woman is, she’s practically one of the most powerful Ascendants in all of Sisia.”

"Don't worry about that," Gelkin said. "With a little planning, we can find a suitable opportunity to separate the two of them."

"Hmm... then let's do it this way. Gelkin, you take care of the arrangements, but I need to know all the details!"

"As you wish, Lord Rijeka."

……

"The rules are about to expire, shouldn't we find someone to establish a contract?"

As October drew to a close and the thirteenth rule came to an end, the people who had been silent for many days began to become slightly more active in order to fulfill the "True Word Contract".

This hidden information, which was officially released at the beginning of the rules, is something people won't forget—the allure of "double rewards" is still very strong.

Moreover, once the hidden information was made public, people quickly found the optimal solution. That was to establish the contract at the very end of the rules, or even on the last day, hour, or minute, to minimize the possibility of failure.

With only a few days left until the rules expire, even if the contract is to be created on the last day, you still need to find someone to create it with in the next few days. Otherwise, it will be awkward if you can't find anyone when you're ready to create it on the last day, or if the people you want to find have already made plans with others.

So in these last few days, people started looking for people through various channels and making arrangements regarding the establishment of contracts.

The best candidates are, of course, family and friends. Unfortunately, many people are now alone, as none of their family and friends have made it through the first dozen or so rules.

This is not an isolated case, but a widespread phenomenon.

Many families only have one child. After the end-of-the-world rules arrive, most of the middle-aged and elderly parents will have passed away under the first rule, leaving behind a young and strong child who is all alone in this world, which is very pitiful.

Moreover, making friends in a post-apocalyptic world is not easy. First, everyone is wary, and second, the friends you make today might disappear tomorrow under the next rule. After a few such experiences, even the most optimistic person will become withdrawn.

Therefore, many people can only leave messages for each other online, arrange a time and place to meet, and establish a contract of truth.

The college Guan Tong attends is in a more convenient position regarding this matter.

Students in the same dormitory attend classes and have fun together every day, so they are very familiar with each other and are naturally the most suitable partners to form contracts with one another.

Of course, there are also some with whom the relationship is not good.

At the last meeting of the Academic Affairs Office, Guan Tong heard a teacher mention that many students had applied to change dormitories during the period of this rule, and the conflicts caused by the rule had become irreconcilable.

As for Guan Tong herself, she had already decided not to form contracts with others, so she didn't care much about this matter.

However, what he didn't expect was that a public opinion storm about the True Word Pact would spread rapidly, originating from his own Ascended Home forum.

……

On October 29, a post was published in the chat section.

The title is "I've been scammed! Is it allowed to deliberately cause someone to fail in a challenge?!"

The post quickly gained popularity and received a surge in replies within minutes of being published.

The reason is related to the content of the main text.

The post reads as follows: "I made a pact with someone online to establish a truth pact. After meeting offline and completing the ceremony to establish the pact, that person suddenly told me that he had lied and broken the rules before. He also said to me in person, the exact words being, 'I am a cow.'"

This person is a human, not a cow. His words imply a lie after the contract was established, meaning my double reward is gone! I don't even know if I'll be implicated and fail the rule challenge.

After saying that, the person was very smug and arrogant, saying that he hadn't broken any laws and wasn't afraid of anyone—I want to ask, isn't there anyone in charge of this kind of person? Do the official departments allow this kind of person to run rampant?!

Below the main text of the post are numerous expressions of support and complaints.

"There are people like this? They deserve to die!"

"I feel so sorry for the original poster, they actually ran into such a scumbag..."

"Ugh! I met someone like that too! He only told me he'd been lying all along after we'd established a contract!!!"

"Seriously, doesn't the authorities do anything about this kind of behavior?"

"I checked the legal database, and there are currently no relevant legal provisions, so it doesn't constitute a crime..."

"How can causing someone else to fail in a challenge and be punished by the rules not be considered a crime? If it's a survival-type rule, what's the difference between doing this and intentional homicide!"

"I strongly support the original poster and everyone with similar experiences in reporting this to the police!"

"Let's all speak out and push this post to the top so that the authorities can see our stance!"

The outrage of countless people quickly propelled the post to the top of the entire website in terms of popularity.

After seeing it on the computer in the shelter that night, Guan Tong also felt that people who did such things were truly hateful.

While others might not be aware of the second hidden rule, he was very clear about it.

If two people enter into a truth pact, and one of them lies while the other remains silent, then after the rule expires, the lying party will receive triple the reward, while the other party will be penalized for failure.

If the other person also lies, neither of them receives a reward and both are punished with failure.

The problem is that the person who doesn't want to lie has no choice at all—when the other party to the contract lies, regardless of whether they tell or not, they will inevitably be punished for failure after the rules expire.

This domineering rule is like the fire-bringer telling you in the cruelest way how terrible the price of trusting the wrong person can be.

This is also why Guan Tong chooses not to form contracts with anyone.

The experiences of the original poster and others in the thread are subtly different.

That means the person who chooses to lie has already lied before the contract is even established.

The reason they choose to deceive people is because they have already broken the rules, so they have a "what's the worst that can happen, I'll just scam as many people as I can" mentality and want to drag others down with them.

In this way, because they had already lied, even if the other party to the contract did not lie, they would not receive triple rewards after the rules ended, but would instead be punished for failure.

There are no winners, only losers.

Guan Tong originally thought that as long as he kept the second rule hidden and not made public, he could prevent people from harming each other for high profits.

But now it seems he underestimated just how low the limits of some humanoid beings are.

All he could do at that moment was to highlight the post and pin it to the top of the entire forum, hoping to let as many people as possible know about this behavior and prevent them from suffering the same harm.

He also did this for another purpose: to increase the impact of the matter and amplify the dissemination of information.

Like the users in the comments section of the post who called on the authorities to punish the scammers, he also believes that the relevant government departments should take action.

If we let this go unchecked on the grounds that "there are no relevant legal provisions," it will only embolden these people and further shatter the already dwindling trust among them.

This may be what the fire-stealers wanted to see, but it is certainly not what humanity as a whole wanted to see.

With the help of Guan Tong, the website administrator, the information in the post spread rapidly to every corner of the internet, and that very night it became a hot topic of discussion online and offline.

Even many Ascended beings who had planned to establish a True Word Pact with someone on the last day were so frightened by this that they canceled their plans—who knows if the person they made the pact with would actually do something similar?

Except for a few partners who absolutely trust each other, most of the agreements made with ordinary friends and strangers were put on hold.

Once a chain of suspicion begins to form, it is virtually impossible to break without strong external intervention.

This external force can only be provided by the government.

The fact that Beixing officials have always been quick to respond to public opinion is once again demonstrated.

The following morning, the 30th, several official accounts simultaneously released statements, declaring they would severely crack down on those who intentionally cause others to fail in their rule challenges. They stated that once evidence is submitted and confirmed, these individuals will be arrested and punished according to the severity of the consequences!

Although the statement was released quickly, its effect was not particularly significant.

Unless a recording is prepared in advance and the other party speaks openly about their evil deeds, it's very difficult to secure evidence that can be submitted.

Thus, what was originally the "contract establishment day" that people set for the last day of the rules has transformed into the "suspicion establishment day".

On this day, many Ascended Ones made the same choice as Guan Tong. To ensure they wouldn't break the rules, they were willing to forgo double rewards and give up forming contracts with others...

(End of this chapter)