Everyone was stunned the moment they heard Zhao Mu speak.
They turned toward him in surprise, unsure whether he had discovered a loophole in the game or simply lost his mind.
Zhao Mu, however, looked completely confident.
"A fall into the pit brings wisdom afterward," he said calmly. "I didn't suffer punishment for nothing."
The others listened carefully.
"The key to winning this game," Zhao Mu continued, "is not who answers correctly. It's who gets closest to the correct answer."
The trainees blinked in confusion.
"If that's true," Zhuo Yun asked helplessly, "then how are we supposed to win if we don't answer correctly?"
Zhao Mu smiled mysteriously.
"We only need to be more accurate than the other teams."
The group exchanged puzzled looks. They still did not fully understand.
Seeing their expressions, Zhao Mu sighed and explained more clearly.
"Stop trying to transmit every part of the answer. That's the biggest mistake. From now on, focus on only one key point."
He crouched down and drew a few examples in the dirt.
"For instance, if the idiom is Mending the fold after the sheep are lost, then we ignore everything else and focus only on the word sheep."
He pointed at them one by one.
"If the idiom is Ten birds in the forest are not worth one in the hand, then maybe we only pass along bird."
Everyone's eyes slowly widened.
The less information they tried to send, the fewer mistakes they would make.
Reducing the amount of information would increase their accuracy.
Someone slapped his thigh.
"Damn! That actually makes sense!"
Another trainee laughed.
"That means we don't need to be perfect—we just need to be better than them!"
Zhao Mu nodded.
"Exactly."
He then quickly moved on to the next step.
"Now we standardize everything."
He raised one finger.
"One finger means I'm sending one key point."
Then he raised two fingers.
"Two fingers means two simple points."
He continued explaining.
"If the clue is easy and clear, I'll give one point only. If there are two obvious points that are simple enough, I'll give both."
He demonstrated with another example.
"If the answer is Chicken talking to a duck, then I can act out both chicken and duck. As long as the final guess contains those two ideas, we'll be close enough."
The trainees finally understood.
This was not about brilliance.
It was about efficiency.
It was about controlling mistakes.
And suddenly, their hopeless team had a real strategy.
Everyone immediately memorized Zhao Mu's rules and hurried into position for the fourth round.
The three teams stood some distance apart, so the other groups could not hear what Zhao Mu had just explained.
Because Zhao Mu's team had lost all three previous rounds, the other trainees were grinning smugly, already waiting to watch them fail again.
As the round began, everyone except the captains turned their backs.
Instructor Zhang Biao revealed the next prompt.
This time, the idiom was:
A monkey wearing a hat.
Zhao Mu glanced at it once.
Then he turned around without hesitation and tapped the next person's shoulder.
The second trainee spun around.
Zhao Mu immediately raised one finger.
One clue only.
Then he crouched, scratched under his arms, puffed his cheeks, and mimicked a monkey.
That was all.
The key point was obvious:
Monkey.
The second trainee instantly understood.
Without adding any extra movement, he copied Zhao Mu's monkey act exactly and passed it to the next person.
The third trainee did the same.
Then the fourth.
Then the fifth.
No creativity.
No guessing.
No improvisation.
Just perfect copying.
Because the动作 was simple, everyone remembered it clearly. Because everyone copied exactly, the information remained stable.
As a result, Zhao Mu's team moved through the line at astonishing speed.
Meanwhile, the other two teams were panicking.
They were trying to act out every part of the idiom—monkey, hat, wearing, expression, posture—and the more details they added, the more confused the signals became.
Their lines slowed dramatically.
The difference was so obvious that even the instructors noticed.
Zhang Biao crossed his arms and laughed.
"That brat Zhao Mu is definitely scheming again."
Beside him, Instructor Xie Yingxue narrowed her eyes.
"A team leader must know how to adapt," she said. "Let's see what trick he's using."
The pressure on the field began to shift.
The other teams silently counted time in their heads to estimate the thirty-second limit.
But when they saw Zhao Mu's team moving at double their speed, anxiety immediately spread.
They started rushing.
When people rushed, they made mistakes.
Movements became sloppy.
Signals became distorted.
By the time Zhao Mu's team reached the final person, they had already submitted their answer.
They were first.
Zhang Biao took the answer slip, glanced at it, then looked at Zhao Mu with a deep, unreadable expression.
Then he announced the three answers.
Team One, led by Mo Guanguan, answered:
"Pointed mouth and monkey cheeks."
Not exact—but clearly related to monkey.
Team Two, led by Shao Han, answered:
"Overlord lifts the cauldron."
The field exploded in laughter.
It was obvious that somewhere along the line, the "hat" motion had been misunderstood as "lifting something overhead."
Then Zhang Biao revealed Team Three's answer.
"Kill the chicken to warn the monkey."
For a moment, everyone froze.
Then Zhao Mu smiled in satisfaction.
Their strategy had worked perfectly.
They did not get the exact idiom.
But they preserved the word monkey.
That alone made their answer closer than Team Two's nonsense.
And in this game, last place received punishment.
Not second place.
Not third place.
Only last.
Shao Han's face turned black.
Without waiting for orders, he dropped to the ground and began doing push-ups.
Since his physical condition could not compare to Zhao Mu's, he carried no additional weight.
Still, one hundred push-ups in public humiliation was no small matter.
Zhao Mu turned to his teammates.
"Keep doing exactly this."
His voice was calm and steady.
"As long as we don't collapse, one of the other teams will eventually make mistakes."
He pointed toward Shao Han.
"If we're not last place, we survive."
He smiled faintly.
"And the more rounds we play, the higher our chances of becoming first."
Everyone nodded excitedly.
They finally had hope.
Because Zhao Mu had seen through the essence of the game.
There was no difference between first place and second place.
Only last place mattered.
That meant the safest strategy was superior to the smartest strategy.
Three more rounds passed quickly.
And just as Zhao Mu predicted, his team was never last.
Shao Han's punishments climbed to four hundred push-ups.
Mo Guanguan's team made one mistake and was punished once.
Zhao Mu's team?
Zero.
While the game continued, Zhao Mu quietly observed Mo Guanguan's group.
Unlike Shao Han's chaotic line, Mo Guanguan's team displayed remarkable stability.
Soon, Zhao Mu spotted the secret.
Every member copied the captain's actions exactly.
No one added personal interpretation.
No one tried to "improve" the signal.
They merely transmitted it faithfully.
That meant the entire chain relied on only two people:
The first person who sent the clue.
And the last person who interpreted it.
Zhao Mu's eyes lit up.
He immediately understood.
That was the optimal structure.
He quickly adjusted his own team.
From then on, the fifty-one people in the middle had only one job:
Copy Zhao Mu exactly.
At the end of the line stood Zhu Meng, responsible for interpretation.
Suddenly, a team of fifty-three people had effectively become a two-man system.
Zhao Mu transmitted.
Zhu Meng decoded.
Everyone else was a relay.
The result was immediate.
Their success rate rose even higher.
Three more rounds passed.
Zhao Mu still had not done a single push-up.
Meanwhile, Shao Han's accumulated punishment reached a horrifying total.
One thousand six hundred push-ups.
When the number was announced, even the spectators went silent.
Shao Han's face turned pale.
Even Zhao Mu gave him a sympathetic glance.
Then Zhao Mu said calmly to his teammates:
"Good. We can rest for a while."
Everyone nearly laughed out loud.
At Shao Han's pace, completing sixteen hundred push-ups would take over an hour.
Instructor Zhang Biao looked up at the blazing morning sun.
It was already past ten o'clock, and the heat was intensifying.
He snorted.
"The day is still young."
Then he pointed at Shao Han.
"Stop standing there. Start."
Before this moment, Shao Han had already done fifteen hundred push-ups in broken intervals.
Now he had to complete the final sixteen hundred in one session.
His jaw tightened.
He removed his cap.
Then he dropped to the ground and began.
One.
Two.
Three.
The entire training ground fell silent.
Dozens of trainees watched him alone.
The atmosphere became heavy and oppressive.
At first, his pace was decent.
The first hundred.
Then two hundred.
Then three hundred.
By five hundred, sweat poured from his face like rain.
His breathing became ragged.
His arms shook each time he pushed upward.
Whenever he slowed down, Zhang Biao walked over, stepped across him, and barked coldly.
"Faster!"
"What are you dragging for?"
"You expect everyone to wait for you?"
Shao Han clenched his teeth so hard that blood nearly seeped from his gums.
He forced himself onward.
At eight hundred, his arms trembled uncontrollably.
Every rise looked like torture.
Every drop looked final.
Anyone could see he was nearing his limit.
Many trainees secretly believed the instructors were only scaring him.
Surely no one would actually make a person complete all sixteen hundred.
Surely they would stop once he collapsed.
But Zhao Mu knew better.
He watched silently with narrowed eyes.
He had already understood the nature of this place.
Discipline meant discipline.
Punishment meant punishment.
No one was bluffing.
Even if Shao Han had to crawl.
Even if it took until sunset.
Even if it lasted until midnight.
He would finish every last push-up today.
And everyone present would remember one lesson clearly.
Details determined success or failure.
Advance Chapters avilable on patreon (Obito_uchiha)