Chapter Fifty-Two: The Speech on Logical Thinking

Du Ruo bowed politely to the audience, then walked to the lectern, adjusted the microphone, and began to speak with a voice as smooth and professional as a news anchor, her tone pleasing to the ear.

Fang Nian was stunned, his eyes wide as saucers, unable to believe what he was seeing. He nudged the plump man beside him.

“Hey, buddy, I must be seeing things. Are you sure she’s the same fierce woman from earlier?”

The plump man was just as shocked. He rubbed his dry old eyes and joked, “It’s her, alright. But listen, this girl’s voice is something else. If she made sounds like that in the heat of the moment, that’d be something…”

Du Ruo’s presence quickly energized the room, the atmosphere reaching an unprecedented high.

“Thank you all for taking the time to attend the forum my father established, the Duan Feng Hunting Forum. Without further ado, the topic I wish to share with you today is—the application of logical thinking.”

Hearing this, Fang Nian was taken aback. The application of logical thinking was exactly the subject that had occupied his thoughts lately, especially after recently receiving the true teachings of the system. Now, hearing that this girl was going to talk about it, he was naturally intrigued.

“Logical thinking refers to the way or form in which the content of thought is connected and organized…”

Her thorough explanation of the basics of logical thinking revealed Du Ruo’s remarkable talent as a speaker. In about half an hour, she had clearly outlined the entire framework of logical reasoning. In terms of communication skills, Fang Nian felt she surpassed everyone who had come before her.

However, in Fang Nian’s eyes, her content wasn’t particularly valuable. For novice hunters, it was the perfect material, but for veterans, it was merely foundational and held little worth.

“Well, I believe everyone now has a new understanding of logical thinking. Next, let’s analyze how to apply this thinking in our daily hunting activities using a few examples.”

With that, Du Ruo tapped a few keys on her laptop, and a three-dimensional projection appeared—a spherical object, which upon closer inspection, was a regular dodecahedron, each face a regular pentagon.

“This is a cipher lock my father once invented. To unlock it, you must, without repeating any paths, find a route along its edges that passes through all 20 vertices and returns to the starting point.”

“All right, the timer starts now. Please use the logical methods I just described and see if you can solve it within three minutes…”

But before Du Ruo could finish her sentence, a lazy voice sounded from behind.

“Start with one of the dodecahedron’s pentagonal faces, walk through five points, then traverse the ten central points, and finally the remaining five points, which just so happen to form another pentagon.”

The hall fell into a silence as deep as midnight in a graveyard. The speaker was none other than Fang Nian. Astonishingly, he had given the answer before Du Ruo had even finished stating the problem.

In truth, the moment Du Ruo posed the challenge, Fang Nian’s mind began to whirl. With the power of his logical thinking, the answer came to him almost instantly.

He also recalled a memory from his days on Earth. It was a geometry class in his third year of high school, when the teacher brought out a dodecahedron and posed the same problem. The whole class of over forty students had studied it for an entire period.

Later, Fang Nian had researched its origins. The problem came from an Irish baronet named William Hamilton—a genius, the very model child parents always spoke of.

He could read at three, mastered eight languages in childhood, read Euclid’s Elements at twelve, corrected mistakes made by great mathematicians at sixteen, and became a university professor at twenty-two. The world-famous quaternion was his invention.

As for the dodecahedron, Hamilton had invented a game called “The World Tour” with it—a stroke of astonishing imagination.

The silence was soon broken by a rustling, as many began to verify Fang Nian’s answer in their notebooks.

“Wow, it really works! No mistakes at all. You can pass through all 20 vertices and return to the starting point. Amazing!”

“Yeah, who is that guy? Looks like he’s sitting at the back. Doesn’t seem like someone from one of the big families.”

“Wait, I know him. Isn’t he the son-in-law from the Xia family, the one who swept through both the Jin and Xu hunting grounds?”

“Oh, now I remember. But does he really know his stuff? How did he solve it so quickly? Du Ruo hadn’t even finished stating the problem before he had the answer.”

“Who cares if it’s true or not? We can definitely learn from this cipher lock. A solution like this isn’t something just anyone could come up with. This forum has really been worth it—we’ve gained a lot.”

…

The discussion below was lively, but on stage, Du Ruo’s face had turned ugly. She recognized the person who solved her problem as the troublemaker from earlier. It was obvious he was getting back at her—solving the problem like that was a slap in the face.

“Wang An, let’s see if you’re this lucky next time.”

When the crowd had digested the World Tour game, Du Ruo gave a slight smile, removed the first question, and replaced it with a three-dimensional scene, as vivid as a hologram.

“From this cipher lock, you can see that logical deduction follows certain patterns. Through careful analysis, logic can unravel codes or mechanical devices.”

“Now, let’s test everyone’s reasoning abilities. The scene before you is a 1:1 reconstruction of a crime scene from an E-rank hunting ground. Based on the clues present, use your logical thinking to analyze and uncover the truth of what happened.”

Soon, the three-dimensional projection began to move.

In the scene, a bright moon hung in the sky, occasionally crossed by insects and birds. Judging by the atmosphere, it was a summer night—clear, with the moonlight unhindered.

By the riverbank, beneath the moon, sat a man and a woman, leaning close together—clearly a couple. The man, full of affection, waved his arms from time to time to shoo away mosquitoes for the woman, while she rested her head on his shoulder, enjoying a moment of peace.

But soon, the harmony was shattered. The man suddenly pushed the woman away and began shouting at her. The woman stood crying, yelling back at the man, as if venting her grievances.

The argument escalated, the woman’s emotions spiraling out of control. She grabbed stones from the ground and hurled them at the man.

Then, to everyone’s shock, the man, unable to take it any longer, picked up a large rock and struck the woman on the head.

Blood spattered, and the woman fell to the ground before the stunned crowd.