“Hmm… This might work on female players who love animals.” Feng Bujue moved his gaze away from the newspaper to look at the monkey inside the cage. “If it’s necessary, even in real life, I would not have hesitated… much less in a game.”
He put the newspaper down like his interest in it had been lost. “But… since the recording has given me such a precise weight, it should be a type of hint.”
He walked to the machine, squatted down, and leaned close to take a look. In that posture, he walked around the machine and then used his fist to punch the shell of the machine before kicking it heavily twice. The shell was not your typical thin iron sheet but a sturdy metallic slab. The corners were securely welded and could not be deconstructed with his bare hands, and the machine was too unwieldy to be moved alone.
There were no obvious cracks on the surface, and the two meters were secured tightly. In less than three minutes, finding an opening in this machine did not appear possible. Therefore, Feng Bujue walked back to the iron cage. As the recording said, it was welded to the ground and would not budge at all. He walked around the room, and it was empty other than the four walls. He walked back to the middle of the room and grabbed the doll while he sat on the wooden chair. Because of the miniscule size, he was technically squatting instead of sitting.
“If I need to escape this room without killing the monkey… then other than this chair and doll that weigh 7,500 grams, I need to find another 7,500 grams.” He placed his right elbow on his knee and titled his head to the side. His index finger and middle finger tapped his forehead rhythmically.
“At most, the Walkman will weight around one thousand grams, the syringe will be even less. I cannot remove the clothes or shoes due to system limitations. Hmm… Suddenly, I miss that rock. It probably weighs at least two thousand grams,” he said with a smile. “Then… in this empty room, there is only one thing left that can be moved…”
He lifted his head to look at the lighting system above him.
It was a hanging lamp, and the fluorescent tube was around one meter long, encased in a plastic shell. It was hanging by two cables from the ceiling, and the electrical wire was curled around the two cables. The ceiling in this room was much lower than the previous room, but the height was still around four meters. The light was not attached to the ceiling, but it was still too high for Feng Bujue to reach.
He stood his tiptoes on the small chair. He stretched upward, and his fingers were still around one inch away from his goal. The distance was just far enough to be out of the man’s reach. The chair was so small that standing with both feet on it was already very difficult; to jump on it and reach out to grab the light was impossible.
Time was passing by, and Feng Bujue only had seventy-three seconds left. He glanced at the timer, and then surprisingly, he laughed. He commented to himself, “Who would have thought things would be so difficult? Hah… This is exactly what I’m looking for.”
After some contemplation, Feng Bujue moved his attention back to the doll. He seemed to have landed on an idea already. He ran to pick up the doll and undressed it. He ran back to the chair and used his left hand to grab one of the sleeves of the suit and toss it upward.
Even though the suit was for children, it was large enough to hook onto the light. Feng Bujue raised his right hand to pull on the other sleeve that had gone over the upper side of the tube. The suit was now nuzzled over one end of the tube. Feng Bujue yanked with both hands, and one of the cables snapped. The light swung downward, connected via the other remaining cable. It dangled in the air like a sausage left to dry.
Now, Feng Bujue could grab the light with his own hands. The tube was encased in a plastic shell, so he did not need to worry about injuring himself. However, once the light was disconnected, the room submerged into darkness. Thankfully, it was not too difficult to grab the dangling tube. After he grabbed hold of it, he pulled harder, and the other cable snapped as well. He held the tube in his hand.
From earlier, Feng Bujue had been counting down the time in his heart. There should be around thirty-five seconds left. The machine was still operating loudly in the dark. He did not rush to the sound but carefully stepped down from the chair. He used his feet to find the doll that had fallen to the ground. After memorizing the location of those two items, he counted the steps that he took to reach the machine.
The rest was simple. Based on the sound, he could easily work out the location of the mouth. Feng Bujue leaned back as he fed the tube into the mouth of the machine. The gears crushed the tube, and even though there was some broken glass that flew out during the process, Feng Bujue was spared the injury because he was already prepared.
After three quarters of the tube had disappeared down the mouth, he released his grip. He turned and walked in the direction that he had come from. He recounted the steps and quickly moved in the dark. He took careful measure of the size of the steps that he took, afraid that he might kick the stuff that he needed away. He did not have time to waste searching in the dark.
Thankfully, no accidents like that happened. He reached the doll in less than ten seconds. The time was winding down. Feng Bujue squatted down and grabbed the doll with one hand and the wooden chair with another. He turned and ran to the machine. This time, he did not need to be careful about the steps he took, so his gait was large, and he reached the machine in just a few seconds. He dropped the stuff in.
The wooden chair’s back was larger than the mouth of the machine; Feng Bujue had noticed that earlier and noted it in his heart. If not for that knowledge, he would have become flustered. But Feng Bujue would not make that kind of mistake. He stepped on the chair to bend it. Then, the chair became small enough to feed into the machine.
In his mind, he had five seconds left. At about three seconds, the machine stopped working. Due to the enveloping darkness, Feng Bujue could not see the numbers of the timer or the weight. He had no idea whether the machine stopped because he had reached the goal of 15,000 grams or he had failed.
The next few seconds were long and arduous. Nothing happened, and Feng Bujue’s heart slowly sank. Was the light tube not heavy enough? In reality, that kind of hanging lamp, even with the plastic casing, might not weigh more than 7,500 grams. But when he was holding it earlier, he had felt that it was heavier than that. He believed that was part of the game’s set up as well, or had he calculated wrongly? Was the only way to leave this room to kill the monkey?
All the suspicion and questions disappeared with the sound of another click. The door to the next room opened. In reality, it took around ten seconds for the mechanism to trigger, but it just appeared longer to Feng Bujue due to the situation that he was in.
A ray of light shot in through the open door, a sign that the game was not yet over.