Doomsday Wonderland

"Au... authority in words?" Ya Rong stammered. "I don't quite understand... I'd even forgotten the pocket dimension's name."

This was one part Lin Sanjiu had not yet explained to her.

"When I was swept into this pocket dimension by the river, for some reason, I said to Ya Rong, 'I've finally brought you here.'" Lin Sanjiu looked at the group and continued, "That sentence made Ya Rong deeply suspicious of me, and later, my credibility dropped significantly because of it."

Ya Rong awkwardly rubbed her nose, tacitly acknowledging the statement.

"At the time, I noticed that all of you were from Chimeric City, shared similar experiences, and were facing an unknown pocket dimension together. Yet, instead of banding together, you were constantly on guard against one another, as if afraid someone else might turn against you."

Even now, just like back then, the people in the room stood several steps apart, arms crossed defensively. The only difference was that their focus was now entirely on Lin Sanjiu.

"Now I understand why," Lin Sanjiu said. "It wasn't just me inexplicably saying something suspicious. There were at least two others, Jiang Tian and Dr. Chen, who did the same."

"I truly don't understand why I said what I did." Jiang Tian sighed, covering her face. "And my explanation later wasn't convincing enough..."

"Um..." Rodent-Face hesitated. "Tenny Voltz also said something suspicious. He claimed I misunderstood him..."

"If we're not just talking about what people have said, your behavior has been strange too," Caveman immediately chimed in.

Once someone spoke up, others followed, pointing out suspicious behavior in others. But before long, they too were labeled "odd" by someone else. It became clear that even before entering the pocket dimension, mistrust and suspicion of others had already run deep. Some only realized they had aroused suspicion after someone else pointed it out.

Lin Sanjiu raised her hand, cutting off the growing debate.

"This isn't strange; it's the pocket dimension's initial setting."

Her gaze seemed to serve as a reminder. Everyone she looked at recalled the warning to stay still and settled back into place. "Among a group of people with diminished credibility, where it's known that others are wary of you, spreading media and messages is incredibly challenging. Succeeding four consecutive times? That's almost impossible."

"So, the key is to rebuild credibility?" Jiang Tian said, catching on.

"Exactly." Lin Sanjiu nodded. "But rebuilding credibility is very difficult. Even if you go through great effort to prove that one of your statements is truthful, convincing just one person only adds 0.1 divided by 12 to your credibility... so little it's negligible. But if someone thinks you're lying, it's disastrous. One statement could deduct 0.1. This deliberate imbalance in scoring makes telling the truth a poor strategy in this pocket dimension."

"But if you don't tell the truth... how do you rebuild credibility?" Jiang Tian asked, looking perplexed. "Isn't lying even riskier? If someone verifies it later, it might cement your reputation as a liar."

"It's simple: you say things that are neither entirely true nor entirely false," Lin Sanjiu answered slowly.

A wave of confusion, doubt, and disbelief swept over the room.

"What do you mean by things that are neither true nor false?"

"Something is either true or false. How can there be an in-between?"

"And how does that rebuild credibility?"

"Build a compelling narrative around observable facts, and you can win believers." Lin Sanjiu raised her hand, pointing toward Dr. Chen's slumped corpse in the corner. The murmurs and whispers gradually faded.

She fixed her gaze on the group. "Dr. Chen's record-keeping system is a fact. His death is a fact. We know these are true without needing persuasion. But these are just two small fragments of the whole picture."

The flickering firelight cast towering shadows on the walls; no one spoke or moved, all waiting for her to continue.

"All we have are these fragmentary facts: Dr. Chen is dead, and he urged us to gather paper. On their own, these pieces don't tell us much. But when someone takes these fragments and claims to have pieced together the truth, constructing a plausible narrative... well, that's neither a media nor a message. It's safe, isn't it?

"When you believe that narrative to be the truth, you inherently grant that person a significant amount of credibility. Even if you don't agree with the narrative, you'll merely think they're mistaken rather than intentionally lying to deceive you. Isn't that right?"

Lin Sanjiu's faint smile widened slightly; she had spotted the uneasy looks spreading across certain faces in the room.

"How did Dr. Chen die? Who killed him? What was the killer's motive? Why choose that exact moment to kill him? Was his record-keeping system really for our benefit, or was it a tool for his own agenda? Do you actually know the answers? No, you don't. You only think you do because you believed someone else's narrative."

"What are you trying to say?" Wen Ya asked, his voice low and steady as he stared at her from beneath his eyelids.

"I want you to think carefully," Lin Sanjiu said, ignoring him, "Regarding Dr. Chen's death, three distinct narratives have been circulated among us, right?"

The group's reactions varied; some wrestled with comprehension, others had an expression of dawning realization, while a few remained stoic and unmoving, their gaze locked on Lin Sanjiu.

"I still don't get it..." Hina said blankly. "What do you mean by 'narratives,' exactly?"

"I'll start with the two most recent ones since they come from the same person." Lin Sanjiu smiled at her and slowly plucked a few eyebrow hairs from her brow. "First: Dr. Chen's record-keeping system was meant to hunt for mouthpieces, and someone who noticed this killed him. Second: Dr. Chen's system hindered someone's hunt for mouthpieces, and they killed him to force us to abandon the system."

Several gasps broke the air, and many heads turned to stare at Wen Ya. Wen Ya's face was a cold mask, and he said nothing.

"Exactly," Lin Sanjiu said, sighing. "These two narratives were both proposed by him. Which one is the truth doesn't matter; he doesn't know either. But as long as you believe one of them, you've accepted Wen Ya's narrative perspective. And beyond giving him credibility, you're also less likely to resist the next story he tells."

"As long as we believe him, he builds..." Ya Rong murmured, "...authority over words?"

"Exactly." Lin Sanjiu nodded. "Authority over words depends on the speaker's trustworthiness. For instance, if everyone believes someone wields significant influence in a certain field, they naturally have more authority over their peers. If you trust someone cares for you, their words carry more weight than a stranger's. Similarly, if you believe Wen Ya has uncovered the truth in this pocket dimension, he gains authority over what more of the truth might be. This is the essence of the Battle for Authority in Words."

"You little weasel! You want me to trust you just so you can make me a mouthpiece!" Hina's sudden roar startled the group out of their introspection. "Was that why you told me the killer was only after Dr. Chen, so I didn't need to be so cautious?"

"Nobody move." Lin Sanjiu's voice wasn't loud, but it immediately halted Hina.

"Your eyebrows..." Jiang Tian turned to her, unable to suppress the suspicion and disbelief on her face. Of all the people present, the only one unsurprised by Lin Sanjiu's changing appearance was Ya Rong; if anything, she looked a little smug watching the others' reactions.

"In truth, using two conflicting narratives isn't the best strategy," Lin Sanjiu continued, ignoring the outbursts, as she plucked more eyebrows. "It reduces their overall persuasiveness. But I suppose Wen Ya had no choice. He must've sensed the most pervasive and persuasive narrative in this pocket dimension. To compete with it, he had to carve out as much space for himself as possible."

"What narrative?" Rob asked, dumbfounded.

"'There's a killer among us, planning to pick us off one by one.'" Lin Sanjiu turned her gaze to a silent woman in the corner and asked softly, "Isn't that right, Guan Nan?"

1

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!