Chapter 36 - The Secret Room

There was absolutely no delay; the surroundings instantly changed, and Li Cheng stopped the countdown in his mind, gaining a clearer understanding of the formidable power of the Slaughter Field Game.

[In this mission, the player is in full role-playing mode, only retaining Attribute Enhancement.

You cannot use any Skills or Skill Scrolls other than title Skills, cannot access items in the Backpack, and cannot use Equipment items.]

[Owen Hedges, this is your name.

You were once a respected human rights lawyer with a happy and fulfilling family, until a fire engulfed your loved ones.

That beautiful life is gone forever, and you, falling into long-term disillusionment, have lost your job, lingered in aimlessness, on the brink of bankruptcy, and, introduced by a friend, participated in an escape room game with a reward of fifty thousand dollars.

Only, this game is not quite what you imagined…]

After the briefing ended, Li Cheng raised an eyebrow and indeed noticed that the Backpack slots in the player panel had all turned grey, unable to access items.

At the same time, his body was also restricted; he couldn’t summon the Mantis Arm Bone Blade and other enhanced organs.

The only benefit, perhaps, was that the infection state of the Master of Insects had been sealed off as well.

First and foremost, observe the surroundings.

The most noticeable feature was the corpse standing in front of him, approximately 1.8 meters tall, a white male in his forties with a beard, a stiff smile on his face, wearing a sailor’s cap and sunglasses on the bridge of his nose, dressed in an old sailor suit without pockets, holding a rusty razor in a shaving pose.

A layer of a solid high-polymer compound, similar to epoxy resin, covered the skin of the corpse, allowing it to remain standing.

Through the transparent gelatinous layer, the decay marks on the surface of the body were clearly visible, and the stench of decay and the strong smell of rum were detectable.

After a brief inspection of the corpse, Li Cheng moved his gaze and looked around.

This room was eight meters square, with liquid crystal panels on all four walls, displaying ocean scenes.

The room had a ceiling height of seven meters, and in one corner hung a very bright spotlight.

The left side of the room was covered with a thick layer of fine sand, on which some plastic tropical landscape plants were placed.

On the right side of the room there was salty sea water, in which a seven-meter-long miniature model of a twin-masted sailing ship was stranded – fixed firmly to the floor by welding.

In Li Cheng’s vision, his own body was still his own.

However, the reflection in the water showed that Li Cheng looked like a somewhat disillusioned middle-aged white man, clearly the “Owen Hedges” mentioned in the mission briefing.

“Whoo—”

From the speakers at the top of the room came the faint howling of the wind and the cries of seagulls, creating an overall atmosphere of a tropical island.

Uh…

What is this, a pirate-themed park?

Just as he was internally criticizing, with a “buzz,” a rectangular metal plate at the top of the room withdrew backwards, and after a moment, a rush of water poured down from it, showering on the landscape plants.

Li Cheng sidestepped to dodge the water flow, smelling the salty sea.

The indoor surface clearly had no drains, and as more water poured in, the water level slowly rose.

Li Cheng glanced at the area of the metal plates, and the formula for water flow volume came to mind.

The flow rate equals the cross-section area multiplied by the speed of the flow.

Judging by the slow speed of the water and limited area of the metal plates, there was plenty of time…

“Buzz!

Buzz!”

More metal plates were retracted from the top of the room, and torrents of seawater poured in, the water level rising noticeably faster, quickly covering Li Cheng’s ankles.

Tough break.

“If it’s an escape room, there should be cameras,” he reasoned.

Li Cheng placed his hand on his forehead to shield the strong light from the spotlight and indeed spotted a long surveillance camera in the corner of the ceiling.

He waved at the camera and shouted, “Kids, in fact, I’m John F.

Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States.

I didn’t die.

If you let me out, I’ll share half of the eight hundred tons of gold buried under the White House with you!”

Such an enticing offer did not elicit any response.

Li Cheng calmly lowered his arm, unsurprised – he just wanted to test if someone was on the other end of the camera and if they would move the camera to better focus.

With the water continuously pouring in and time running out, Li Cheng quickly began to explore the room for any clues.

The closest thing to an exit in the room, was a square metal panel embedded in the wall with a rotary numeric code lock on it.

The code lock had two slots on the left and three on the right, a total of five digits.

Apart from this lock, there was another one in the room, the lock on the door to the captain’s cabin on that sailboat model, which had a peculiarly shaped keyhole that required a star-shaped key.

Through the keyhole, one could faintly see a wax figure inside, dressed as a captain.

The wax figure was seated behind the captain’s desk with a hearty laugh expression, and the parrot wax figure on its shoulder was emitting a cheerful singing voice.

“What do we do with a drunken sailor?

(What shall we do with a drunken sailor?)

What do we do with a drunken sailor?

(What shall we do with a drunken sailor?)

Early in the morning!

(In the early morning!)”

This song is called “Drunken Sailor,” a fairly well-known Irish sea shanty.

It has appeared in both “SpongeBob” and “The Truman Show.”

The water level continued to rise, gradually submerging the artificial beach and sweeping over the boat model.

Li Cheng withdrew his gaze.

With the strength and agility attributes he had retained, he could, theoretically, smash through the thick hardwood door before drowning, given enough time and effort.

“One of the iron rules of the Slaughter Field Game is that no impossible tasks are issued.

No matter how perilous the predicament is, there must be one, or several, ways to survive.”

“The objective of this task is to stay alive until escaping from the Dark Room, with a time limit of 1 hour.

Judging by the flow of water, the room would be submerged long before that time.

This implies that the so-called ‘Dark Room’ encompasses a larger area than this room.”

“Accordingly, if I spend too much time and Qi Power here, I may not have enough energy to break through the remaining ‘Dark Room.’ With this reasoning, the possibility that brute force is the sole solution significantly decreases…”

At this thought, he suddenly realized something.

The parrot wax figure in the captain’s cabin must have been installed with some audio device, endlessly repeating the first three lines of “Drunken Sailor” in a loop.

“Ah, so that’s how it is.”

Li Cheng grinned and immediately jumped down from the boat model, wading through waist-deep water to come back to the sailor wax figure he first encountered and removed the rusty razor from its hand.

The Irish folk song “Drunken Sailor” tells of a crew punishing a sailor who has gotten drunk and caused trouble; the next line of the lyrics being “Shave his belly with a rusty razor,”

That is, shave his belly with a rusty razor.

The body of the sailor wax figure was covered with a durable polymer compound everywhere except for a vertical slit under the clothing on the belly area.

Li Cheng removed the razor blade and started searching.

A revolting smell gushed out, and the cold, sticky sensation at his fingertips was nauseatingly disgusting—it was utterly repulsive.

Any normal person would undoubtedly be extremely uncomfortable at this point and might even throw up.

But Li Cheng didn’t feel much discomfort— not only had he already experienced life-and-death struggles, but under the atmosphere of this Otherworld, all those norms, laws, morals, and social concepts that once restrained him were gone.

He no longer needed to pretend to be a good student, nor did he have to play the role of a sensible orphan living under others’ roofs; he just needed to be purely himself.

It was an indescribably…

unprecedented sense of ease.

“I’ve found it.”

He yanked his arm back suddenly, holding a star-shaped key tightly in his hand.