After Lin Zhixia finished speaking, she pulled Jiang Yubai forward as they ran.
The castles and fortresses designated as bases for Groups A and B were both located at higher elevations, while most of the criss-crossing tunnels were positioned lower.
Under Nie Tianqing’s interference, the bubble balls rolled into different tunnels. Nie Tianqing moved swiftly through the tunnels, kicking balls around without any hesitation.
Lin Zhixia surveyed the entire situation and summarized, “If we view this game as a graph theory problem, each junction in the tunnels represents a vertex in the graph. We have thirty-seven vertices in total. This map is already imprinted in my mind. Some tunnels are transparent while others aren’t, which also involves partially observable Markov decision processes…”
“Lin Zhixia!” Jiang Yubai declared righteously, “You don’t need to explain it to me! I trust you!”
Lin Zhixia pulled him into a tunnel: “Is it because you don’t understand and don’t want to listen? Then you’ll just have to follow me and always obey my commands.”
For the sake of the entire team’s victory, Jiang Yubai forgave Lin Zhixia’s provocation.
They ran toward a tunnel junction and quickly collected seven balls.
While rushing around, Lin Zhixia encountered Dong Sunqi from their group. Dong Sunqi shouted, “Come with me, there’s a shortest path here! Taking the shortest path will get us back faster!”
“No!” Lin Zhixia objected, “Always choosing the shortest path isn’t necessarily the globally optimal solution!”
Dong Sunqi was shocked: “What the hell are you talking about!”
Lin Zhixia responded, “Think about the three sides of a triangle! Sides A and B are both shorter than side C, but their sum will exceed the length of C. Such a simple principle! Why don’t you understand it when applied to graph theory?”
Dong Sunqi trembled with realization: “That seems to make sense! You talk a lot, so I’ll listen to you!”
Thus, both Dong Sunqi and Jiang Yubai became Lin Zhixia’s followers.
Within just a few minutes, they collected twelve bubble balls. However, misfortune struck unexpectedly as three people from the enemy group rushed toward them.
Ding Yan ran wildly while shouting, “Gan Shuli, Nie Tianqing! Let’s go rob Jiang Yubai! They have so many balls! They’re so good at collecting! We don’t need to collect balls ourselves, we’ll just follow them and rob them!”
Jiang Yubai remained completely calm. He stood composedly in place, looking calmly at Lin Zhixia: “You have a plan.”
Lin Zhixia’s eyes shifted, and surprisingly she said: “I don’t have a plan, let’s run! Help, help! Run quickly!”
“What?” Jiang Yubai was thrown into confusion, hurriedly following Lin Zhixia as they fled for their lives.
Lin Zhixia laughed and jumped, her ponytail coming undone. She, Jiang Yubai, and Dong Sunqi took turns sliding down the slide and bouncing into the trampoline.
Lin Zhixia, carrying four balls, ran at the front, her figure flashing quickly before disappearing into the complex maze of tunnels.
Jiang Yubai and Dong Sunqi were completely bewildered, like French troops who had lost the Maginot Line during World War II. Even though they still retained mobile forces, they didn’t know how to continue fighting.
“Take the blue tunnel! Then the red tunnel!” Lin Zhixia’s voice came from above, “Quickly put the bubble balls into our group’s central area!”
Jiang Yubai immediately asked, “Where are you going?”
Lin Zhixia said, “I’m going to find people from their Group B.”
“No!” Jiang Yubai tried to stop her, “Lin Zhixia, don’t go!”
Lin Zhixia bid him farewell: “Once I leave, I don’t know if I’ll be able to come back!”
Jiang Yubai stepped onto the entrance of the blue tunnel: “Where are you? I’ll come rescue you!”
Lin Zhixia was determined to go: “No need, I can’t be a coward! You stay home and protect the bubble balls well, protect every bubble ball! That’s our last hope for victory!”
Dong Sunqi was also distressed: “Lin Zhixia, go quickly! We will always remember you!”
“What are you saying?” Jiang Yubai began criticizing Dong Sunqi, “We’re a team, how can we abandon our teammate? Don’t you have something you want to protect?”
Dong Sunqi answered firmly: “Yes! I want to protect the bubble balls! Lin Zhixia told us to protect the bubble balls, you should hurry to our Group A’s central area!”
The two of them rushed toward Group A’s base center.
*
In the suspended tunnel, Nie Tianqing suddenly said, “I hear footsteps. Lin Zhixia is coming.”
The three members of Nie Tianqing’s group didn’t run. They stood still, discussing their strategy.
Ding Yan revealed, “Lin Zhixia’s nickname in our class is ‘freak.’ She’s very smart, you should be careful.”
“She’s only nine years old,” Nie Tianqing said, “How smart can she be no matter what?”
Ding Yan’s expression changed slightly: “She can memorize text in just three seconds!”
Nie Tianqing didn’t believe it.
Ding Yan angrily said, “It’s true! I’m a dog if I’m lying!”
Gan Shuli also said, “It’s true, she’s very smart.”
“Don’t boost others’ confidence while diminishing your morale,” Nie Tianqing, educated them like an older brother, “The opponent isn’t that scary. There are three of us; if we play rock-paper-scissors against her, can’t we beat her? Each of us has a fifty percent chance of winning!”
“That makes sense!” The person responding was Lin Zhixia.
Following Nie Tianqing’s logic, Lin Zhixia said to them, “Fifty percent cubed equals 0.125; my probability of winning is only 0.125.”
Nie Tianqing asked, “Why is it 0.125?”
Lin Zhixia tilted her head: “I must beat each one of you. The probability of winning the first time is 0.5, the second time 0.25, the third time 0.125… Isn’t that what you said? You assumed the probability of winning in each one-on-one match is 0.5…”
Nie Tianqing frowned: “But, Lin Zhixia, if you play rock-paper-scissors with us, once you lose, you can’t continue. Why are you calculating probability using powers of 0.5?”
“Think about it this way,” Lin Zhixia explained patiently, “When I play with the three of you, there are four possible outcomes. The first outcome is that I lose in the first round, with a probability of 0.5. The second outcome is that I lose in the second round, with a probability of 0.25. The third outcome is that I lose in the third round, with a probability of 0.125. The fourth outcome is that I win in the third round, also with a probability of 0.125. The sum of these probability events equals exactly 1, check it yourself! The prerequisite for me to enter the second and third rounds is that I won the previous round. However, you should know that winning the previous round is not the final state.”
Nie Tianqing had a sudden realization, clenching his right hand into a fist and hitting his left palm: “I understand now.”