Trapped in the Same Day for a Thousand Years

Chapter 574: Ha! I Won!! Yeah!

by cnwebnovels

“Did he prepare all this in advance? Was everything he did when he first met me carefully planned? Did he deliberately leave that strand of hair on his shoulder?” Xia Jinyu stared at Wu Chen, her thoughts churning harder and harder. Gradually, a hint of a smile appeared on her face.

She drew a slightly heavier breath through her nose, then looked back at the phone.

Her eyes were full of anticipation!

It was hard for her not to get excited.

She loved this kind of challenge! She began to take Wu Chen seriously. Judging by what she had seen so far, there was no doubt that this young Mr. Wu knew something about psychology.

Psychology was an enormous field, of course.

And what Wu Chen was showing her happened to be the part Xia Jinyu liked most! Being able to judge what was going on inside someone and know what they were thinking was an incredibly satisfying skill. Of course, knowing too much and making judgments that were too accurate could become tiresome over time.

She might come to feel that human nature was ugly, and that everything was increasingly boring.

But for that very reason, the appearance of someone who was difficult to read—and who could read her in return—was a challenge that felt like a ray of sunlight suddenly entering the stagnant life Xia Jinyu had been living.

That light seemed to brighten Xia Jinyu herself.

Her gaze as she looked at the phone held not only anticipation but a trace of nervousness. She was afraid her hopes would be disappointed. If the notes contained nothing more than things like “Xia Jinyu 01” and “Xia Jinyu 02,” they might look impressive, but there wouldn’t be much to them.

She could do the same thing with other people, provided she did some background research in advance.

As for the phone unlocking when she entered a random passcode… she still couldn’t figure that out, so she decided to set it aside for now. It was simply too unbelievable and looked too much like cheating.

Xia Jinyu desperately hoped that Mr. Wu would prove to be an opponent who could match her.

Though that was probably wishful thinking.

There was no reason to expect a twenty-two-year-old young man to surpass her in the field where she excelled. Even if he was a genius, wasn’t she one too? When Xia Jinyu was twenty-two, she had already appeared on the world stage as a young scholar, published more than ten papers in top journals, and become a rising star among psychologists worldwide.

Now Xia Jinyu was thirty-three.

There was no reason she should lose to a man eleven years younger than herself.

All she could hope for was that Mr. Wu would at least be “interesting enough to play with.” He shouldn’t lose too quickly, at any rate.

Li Ruobing leaned forward a little, watching them.

She couldn’t see what was on Wu Chen’s phone, so she had no idea what Xia Jinyu’s reactions meant. But she could clearly sense that Xia Jinyu had developed some interest in Wu Chen. The changes in her eyes and expression made that obvious.

It was driving Li Ruobing crazy with curiosity.

What on earth was in Wu Chen’s Notes app?!

Both excited and nervous, Xia Jinyu tapped “Xia Jinyu 03.”

Although she had prepared herself thoroughly, the contents of note 03 still startled her. Wu Chen had truly surprised her! He hadn’t disappointed her at all.

Calling it a shock rather than a surprise wouldn’t have been wrong, either.

There were only six Chinese characters on this page—or, more precisely, three words:

Rock!

Scissors!

This was another set of clues whose real meaning no one else would understand. Not even Li Ruobing could make sense of them, because she hadn’t entered the auditorium yet when Wu Chen and Xia Jinyu had played rock-paper-scissors.

“Did he know in advance what I’d throw? But if he knew, why did he lose? Did he deliberately lose to me?!” A thought suddenly struck Xia Jinyu.

She had never seen through Wu Chen. Not even once—not from the very beginning!

Everything had been within Wu Chen’s predictions. In other words, everything Xia Jinyu had seen and everything she thought she knew was what Wu Chen had wanted her to see and believe.

Which meant… it might all have been fake!

“How long have you been investigating me?” Xia Jinyu abruptly looked up at Wu Chen. Along with her excitement and shock, there was now a trace of wariness in her eyes.

Based on her understanding of psychology and logic, to predict the results of her three consecutive throws, Wu Chen would have to know her rock-paper-scissors habits extremely well. The most important part of those habits was her first throw. In other words, Wu Chen must have known that she habitually threw rock first.

Psychologically speaking, men were more likely to throw rock on the first round.

Xia Jinyu deliberately did the opposite and had made it a habit.

If rock won the first round, throwing scissors in the second was a basic application of psychology. Someone who had lost by throwing scissors in the first round would be more inclined to change on the second, choosing paper or rock. An inexperienced player might instinctively imitate the other person’s previous throw, but Wu Chen had been the one to propose the game, so he would be prepared. He would probably avoid that trap, making paper more likely than rock.

That was why Xia Jinyu had thrown scissors in the second round.

In truth, she hadn’t been sure of Wu Chen’s personality or habits at the time. She had simply made a “random choice.” Those first few rounds had been exploratory. Even a three-round winning streak could only mean that Wu Chen had no especially strong preference or habitual pattern in his throws.

So the situation now was this: Wu Chen must have learned her first-throw habit through investigation, anticipated her reasoning, and deliberately lost all three rounds!

“…A little more than you think,” Wu Chen replied with a smile.

He didn’t merely refuse to deny that he had investigated Xia Jinyu. He went further, letting her know that he understood her better than she had imagined.

“Mr. Wu, you’re quite interesting,” Xia Jinyu said with a small, closed-mouth smile. She rarely smiled like that, and when she did, it meant she was taking something seriously.

“I think so too,” Wu Chen said with a smile.

“Wow!” Xia Jinyu gave a slightly deliberate exclamation of admiration. What she was admiring was Wu Chen’s smile. There had seemed to be nothing unusual about it, but viewed more carefully, he seemed to have been smiling that way from the beginning. It wasn’t a “mask”—it was too natural—yet it had the effect of one.

“Rock-paper-scissors!” Xia Jinyu simply raised her left hand and waved it lightly at Wu Chen. “Let’s see just how well you know me.”

Wu Chen said nothing and raised his hand.

Rock, paper, scissors!

Xia Jinyu threw rock; Wu Chen threw paper.

Xia Jinyu threw paper; Wu Chen threw scissors.

Xia Jinyu threw scissors; Wu Chen threw rock.

Xia Jinyu threw rock; Wu Chen threw paper.

Xia Jinyu threw paper; Wu Chen threw scissors.

With each successive throw, Xia Jinyu’s expression changed. She deliberately adjusted some of her habits, choosing a counterintuitive sequence unlike the way she usually played. The more someone knew her usual patterns, the harder it would be to predict her logic that day.

But she kept losing!

After five consecutive losses, Xia Jinyu’s expression changed.

After ten, her breathing unconsciously grew heavier.

After seventeen, she could no longer keep her composure.

Xia Jinyu suddenly raised her right hand, still holding Wu Chen’s phone, and held it in front of his eyes so he couldn’t see her microexpressions or the subtle movements she made as she prepared to throw.

Round eighteen!

Xia Jinyu threw paper; Wu Chen threw scissors!

Wu Chen won again!

They kept going. This time, Wu Chen hadn’t even seen the result of round eighteen. With his eyes blocked, he couldn’t use the outcome of that round to make a logical deduction… or so Xia Jinyu thought. Of course, Wu Chen could simply assume that he had won the eighteenth round, too.

Round nineteen!

Xia Jinyu threw paper again, and Wu Chen threw scissors again!

“Last round!” Xia Jinyu suddenly called out, trying to disrupt Wu Chen’s train of thought.

Round twenty!

Xia Jinyu threw rock; Wu Chen threw scissors!

She won! Xia Jinyu had won the twentieth round!

“Ha! I won!! Yeah!” Xia Jinyu was as happy as a little girl. She excitedly stamped her feet where she sat. No one could imagine the psychological pressure she’d just endured. After losing nineteen times in a row, if Wu Chen really had been reading her mind and reasoning his way to each win, she would have been utterly defeated.

This was the psychology she prided herself on!

Of course, the contest was unfair. Wu Chen knew her, while she didn’t know him.

But Wu Chen was eleven years younger than she was, which was another kind of unfairness.

His life experience couldn’t compare with hers.

Besides, once they’d played enough rounds of rock-paper-scissors, it stopped being a matter of knowing someone and became a pure psychological contest. There was only one question at stake: how many levels deep was the other person thinking? Each could guess what the other would throw; each knew the other could guess what they would throw; each knew that the other knew that they knew…

At this game, Xia Jinyu had been thoroughly beaten.

Thank goodness, thank goodness! She had saved a little face with that last round. The tension in her nerves relaxed all at once. She had found Wu Chen’s psychological blind spot!

“Did you win?” Wu Chen asked with a smile.

“I did!” Xia Jinyu waved her small fist.

“Really?” Wu Chen sounded uncertain. His smile shifted subtly. “Then you should keep looking through the notes.”

Xia Jinyu’s smile froze.

No way?!