<s>[INST] Number of possible solutions to $2 \le |x-1||y+3| \le 5$, where $x$ and $y$ are negative integers 
If $$2 \le |x-1||y+3| \le 5$$ and both $x$ and $y$ are negative integers, find the number of possible combinations of $x$ and $y$ .

Below is my solution approach :-
As $x$ is a negative integer, hence $|x-1|$ in the $2 \le |x-1||y+3| \le 5$ will be come $-(x-1)$ or $(1-x)$ and the main equation will transform into $2 \le (1-x)|y+3| \le 5$.
$1st$ case when $y+3 \ge 0 \Rightarrow y \ge -3 \Rightarrow y \in \{{-3,-2,-1}\} $ as $y$ is a negative integer :
For $y=-3$ we can see that there is no valid solution for $x$ as $|y+3|$ part will become $0$, hence this case is invalid.
For $y=-2$ we get the solution set for $x$ to be $x \in \{{-4,-3,-2,-1}\} $  and total number of solutions possible in this case is $4$.
For $y=-1$ we get the solution set for $x$ to be $x \in \{{-1}\} $ and total number of solutions possible in this case is $1$.
So for this $1st$ case when $y+3 \ge 0$ we have in total 5 solutions.
$2nd$ case when $y+3 \lt 0 \Rightarrow y \lt -3$ and in this case $y$ will have infinite values and I am not able to proceed from here.

The answer for the total number of solutions provided is $10$ and you can see that I've been able to find out the $5$ solutions in my $1st$ case. Can someone please guide or help me about how to proceed in the 2nd case?

Thanks in advance !
 [/INST] If $x,y$ are integers then $|x-1|$ and $|y+3|$ are non negative integers.
So just rewrite them as $m,n$ and we have $1 \le mn \le 5$.
Those are small and simple numbers.
We can have $nm = 1,2,3,4,5$
But you said $x,y$ are both *negative integers.  So $x \le -1$ and so $x -1 \le -2$ so $|x- 1| \ge 2$.
so we can have:
$nm = 2$ and $|x-1| =2$ and $|y + 3| = 1$ so $x-1= -2$ and $x =-1$ while $|y+3| = 1$ so $y+3 = \pm 1$ so $y = 1-3=-2$ or $y = -1 -3 = -4$.
or
$nm =3$ and $|x-1| = 3$ and $|y+3| = 1$ so $x-1 =-3$ and $x = -2$ while, as above, y=-2, -4$.
or $nm = 4$ and either $|x-1|=2$ and $|y+3|=2$.  Or $|x-1| =4$ and $|y+3| =1$.
If $|x-1|=|y+3|= 2$ then $x = -1$ and $y+3 =\pm 2$ so $y = -1; -5$.
And if $|x-1|=4$ and $|y+3| =1$ then $x-1 = -4$ and $x =-3$ and $y= -2,4$ (as above).
And if $nm = 5$ then $|x-1| = 5$ so $x-1 = -5$ and $x =-4$ and $|y+3| = 1$ and $y=-2,-4$.
So all solutions are.
$(x,y) = \{$
$(-1, -2),(-1, -4), (-2,-2),(-2,-4), (-1,-1),(-1,-5), (-3,-2)(-3,-4), (-4,-2),(-4,-4)$
$\}$.
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