The remaining seven had no idea why Lin Sanjiu asked about the condition of the seeds from the previous batch. Exchanging glances, all of them were confused, but Lin Sanjiu wasn't going to explain her actions.
She raised her head, waiting patiently for Harry's answer. After a few seconds, Harry sighed as his voice echoed in the chamber, "... That seed died because he'd absorbed contaminated water droplets, and he couldn't germinate. He died due to exhaustion."
"Was this rule absorb 40 pure water droplets to germinate applied to their batch as well?"
"No, it wasn't," Harry answered, "As I mentioned earlier, the rules and conditions take different forms in different batches. The previous batch had to extract pure water droplets from the soil… You don't have to know the specifics. In short, that seed didn't make it."
Lin Sanjiu nodded, and she stopped. She swept a sidelong glance while casting a beam at the crowd standing at her back. She asked, again, to Harry, "So where is the corpse of that seed now?"
"Why is she so interested in the corpse?" Number 44's mumbles drifted from the back of the group, "What does it have to do with us?"
Lin Sanjiu ignored him. Everybody kept silence while waiting for Harry's reply.
When Harry's voice once again drifted into the chamber, the answer he gave blew the group away, "... it's still in the chamber."
"Alright," Lin Sanjiu said, a knowing smile tugged at the corner of her lips, "Thanks for your answer, Harry."
Before Lin Sanjiu's voice died away, somebody from the crowd could no longer contain himself, "Hey Number 49, what is this all about? Did you find out something?"
Lin Sanjiu sat with her leg crossed beside her "circle of water droplets." In the absence of energy supply and to conserve her energy, Lin Sanjiu would not stand if she wasn't given priority to sit, "Since everybody is here, I suggest we start absorbing the water droplets."
"For a moment, I thought you have any better idea," Number 47's eyebrows were knitted together. He dusted his long trench coat and said, "In the end, we still have to try our luck?"
"If I'm on the right track, new water droplets will spawn after we've finished absorbing the current water droplets that we have found," Lin Sanjiu nodded while explained to Number 47. Then, she turned to Number 46 and asked, "You think so, right?"
"Ah, yeah. You're right," stammered Number 46. He seemed to be taken aback by Lin Sanjiu's sudden question. As he combed his glossy hair, he gave a quick nod at Lin Sanjiu, "In my opinion, this might be the only way."
"But some of these are contaminated," somebody refuted, "What if we absorbed too many contaminated water droplets? We will die of exhaustion."
"Do you have any better idea?" Lin Sanjiu looked toward the source of the objecting voice. The moment she saw that the person was Number 43, her tone turned milder, "We have already stayed here for two days and we have only eight days left, yet we have made neither tail nor head of how to differentiate the pure water from the contaminated ones. Our time is drawing short; if we don't make a guess now, we will all die here, rot and decompose into the soil."
"We still have so much time left, perhaps there will be other ways," Number 45 mumbled, "Is it necessary to take the risk so early?"
"There's no difference at all," Lin Sanjiu countered, "Our vitality won't change over the time."
"But—"
"Everybody, listen to me," Sensing that the air was so thick with different arguments, and nobody was going to back down, Number 42 stood forward. When everybody became quiet, he mouthed his own opinion in breathing, soothing tones, "You all are right, but since neither of you can convince the other party to approve your own point of view, I suggest we settle this through democracy. How about we do a secret ballot?"
That wasn't a half bad suggestion. After all, this was the only measure to ensure fairness when there were too many people involved.
Very soon, after a short discussion among themselves, everybody accepted Number 42's suggestion. After settling down on how to do the secret ballot, everybody cast their vote on the small piece of paper Number 42 had distributed to them. After that, they threw their votes into a small box contributed by somebody else.
Lin Sanjiu secretly let out a sigh as she was the last one to vote.
She didn't have to wait for the teller to count the vote as she had already known the result.
"Okay, let's see. Six votes agreed to absorb the water droplets and only two cast the other way," After Number 42 announced the result, he passed the votes around for everybody. Then, he said sternly, "As we have previously discussed and agreed upon, we shall start absorbing the water droplets now."
"Brother Number 42," Lin Sanjiu said right after Number 42 finished his speech, "According to the number, you should go first."
Stunned, the square face of Number 42 reddened, but it soon returned to normal. He touched his forehead and said, "Alright, I'll be the first one."
Soon after, he bowed down and grabbed a water droplet from the ground. He paused for a moment before saying, "Jeez! I'm getting a little bit nervous now."
Sandwiching the water droplet in between his palms, Number 42 muttered the word "absorb." Then, the water droplet instantly disappeared from his palm.
The atmosphere suddenly became tense. Seven pairs of eyes uniformly glued at Number 42's calm and somewhat stoic face as if they could discover the winning lottery numbers from his face. After a few seconds that felt like an eternity, they realized that Number 42's complexion didn't change at all, still rosy as always.
The latter sighed with relief, "I'm fine… I'm fine. That was a pure water droplet."
No sooner had Lin Sanjiu sighed a little than she guffawed uproariously, "Way to go, Brother Number 42. Since you're so lucky, can you do us a favor and go on with the next one?"
The soil chamber suddenly fell silent. Lin Sanjiu could sense the gazes that felt like lasers shooting at her face even though she didn't need to turn her head.
Like a statue, Number 42 didn't make any approach and stared quietly at Lin Sanjiu. After a short while, he breathed, "... Number 49, you can't renege upon your word. It's not fair."
"Oh, is it? I think that's pretty fair," Lin Sanjiu said as if she didn't perceive the subtle changes in the atmosphere. Wearing the similar smile, she continued, "Starting from you, you'll be the first one to absorb all your 26 drops of water droplets, then it'll be Number 43's turn to absorb his, followed by Number 44 and so on… That's how we're going to do, so what's wrong with the sequence?"
Number 42 didn't say anything, retaining his flat and stern expression. Nobody could see what he was thinking or tell how he was going to counter Lin Sanjiu next.
The remaining folks looked at each other. They were lost at the sudden change in atmosphere between Number 42 and Number 49. After pondering for a while, Number 48 said, "Number 49, I don't mind with people absorbing one water droplet at a time."
"Of course you don't mind," Lin Sanjiu sneered. She didn't spare a glance at Number 48 and glued her gaze at Number 42, "If you guys don't mind, allow me to explain to you guys first the reason that's pulling Number 42 back from absorbing all his water droplets."
A small commotion spread across the crowd, but it did little to suppress Lin Sanjiu's voice. Her sonorous voice reverberated loud and clear in everybody's ears. Everybody turned to silence, "He's reluctant to absorb all his water droplets because he wants us to be his white mouse to test the water droplets. Now, that we're doing it the other way round, of course, he's not happy with it."
"What the fuck are you talking about?" Number 42 growled. As if he had heard some kind of joke, he looked at Lin Sanjiu with an unbelievable stare, "Are you stupid? To test for the purity of the water droplets, we first must fully absorb the water droplet into our body. That's to say, the moment I know the water droplet is not contaminated, somebody has already absorbed it. Hence doing a test won't work here! It's pure nonsense!"
"Yeah, you may be right; that is exactly what I thought until I saw your reaction just a moment ago," Lin Sanjiu grinned gleefully, "From that, I'm confident that you already know testing the purity of water droplets is the only way to get through this round."
If a moment ago the atmosphere in the chamber was considered as merely an uproar, then it was now had escalated to as chaos as a boiled porridge. Amid the noise, the countenance of Number 42 was getting colder. His jaw had tightened as a sardonic smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
"If absorbing a water droplet is equivalent to a test to determine the purity of the water droplet as you said, enlighten me, then. How are you going to differentiate the water droplets since I have absorbed a droplet already?"
Without having to know the content of their whispers, Lin Sanjiu could tell from their glances that most of them must thought she was crazy.
Oh, she was. She had schizophrenia.
This sudden thought had Lin Sanjiu in between laughter and tear. Then, she slowly rose to her feet.
Lin Sanjiu's gaze that seemingly could peer into the deepest part of a soul swept across the crowd. When the clamor grew smaller, only then did she speak, "I know where the remaining pure water droplets are."
"What? Please don't make such an awful joke—"
Somebody screamed.
"You all have been deceived," Lin Sanjiu turned a deaf ear to the criticism and continued, "Let me explain it from the beginning. Harry told us that the number of pure water droplets down here is enough for eight of us to sprout, which is true; and these pure water droplets have been right in front of us since the very beginning."
"Are you saying all of these are pure water droplets?" Number 45 looked on the ground with one of her eyebrows raised. "But that still doesn't match with the number he gave."
"No, I'm not talking about that one."
Smiling, Lin Sanjiu turned around and pointed to something a little way off from them, "I'm talking about that one. All pure water droplets should be over there."
Everyone trailed her finger and their eyes met with the two doors that shut tightly on the other side of the chamber. Then, all of them were frozen, unable to process the situation.
"Why would all of us, including me, take the first door from the left without prior consultation when everybody arrived?" Lin Sanjiu's question followed.
"Because there's a notice on the door. The notice said it's for us, Number 42 till Number 49," Number 43 answered, his brows frowning deeply, "The other two doors should be for other batches—"
"Yeah, you're right. Because of the notice, so we all came through the first door," Lin Sanjiu swept her glance from the first person of the crowd until the last before shooting her question, "But, did the notice really come from Harry?"
When she heard somebody drew his breath, Lin Sanjiu gave out a satisfied smile. She picked up her pace and walked toward the door furthest to the left.
"This is the chamber Harry specifically prepared for the seeds, so as a farmer, ask yourself, would you come down here to post a notice for your seeds? Yeah, you guys might say we are in a pocket dimension and this is all merely a part of the default settings of the pocket dimension…" Lin Sanjiu grabbed the notice from the door and showed it to the crowd, "... Can anybody see the difference in this notice in my hand?"
"What is it?"
"Do you guys still remember the notice board standing outside the pocket dimension?" Lin Sanjiu suddenly switch the thread of discourse and asked a question that has nothing to do with their current issue, "Anyone of you remembers what was written on the board?"
"The front said Harry's Farm," Number 44 replied, "On the back is a garrulous passage of alien scriptures which I didn't bother to read."
"Exactly, but let me add on something," Lin Sanjiu unfolded the notice on her palm, "Regardless of the name of the farm or the text, they were all written in several languages. Though I'm literate enough to read the Chinese and the English and recognize the Japanese, and the French, there are a few languages I have never seen nor read before."
"Okay now look at this notice again. Don't you find it odd?" The notice is only written in one type of script and Arabic numerals," Lin Sanjiu turned to look at Number 42, who remained frozen in his original position, "... The person who wrote this notice does not know other language nor he could write in another script, so he naturally uses his native language. Only the person that arrived first could have done it?
"Harry sounded surprised when we all gathered in a chamber. And the examples he gave when describing the water droplets were weird. He said that the water droplets could be taken with us wherever we go, like a pen or a paper, but here is the strange part: the water droplets look more like a rubber ball than a pencil or a paper," As Number 42 opened his mouth, Lin Sanjiu interjected, "The reason Harry didn't bring that person to light is that as the NPC, he couldn't intervene. All he could do is hide the hint in between his words. The experiment I conducted proves it."
Somebody screamed as if he had seen the light, "You— Yesterday night—"
"That's right," Lin Sanjiu nodded, "I blocked the only passage to the water droplets, and Harry didn't say anything."
"Of course, I have much more evidence to prove my words aside from this experiment," Lin Sanjiu leaned against the wall, staring at Number 42, "The first one is the writing on my record of water droplets should be similar to this notice. Also, if I recall correctly, our paper and pencil belonged to him. For the second point—"
Bathing under the intense gaze, Lin Sanjiu waved her hand over to the two doors not far away, "All of the water droplets are hidden in the chambers behind the two doors."