Chapter 51: Going back on your word is not a good thing to do.
Shen Ti slowly lowered his head, as if suddenly experiencing an unprecedented sensation, and stared at An Wujiu’s hand with great curiosity.
Porcelain white, with small wounds and red marks from the gun handle, a slender but powerful hand.
He found that he had spent too much time observing An Wujiu.
An Wujiu’s fingers traced up the raised ankle bone, almost reaching into the empty trouser leg. The dark depths aroused curiosity, as if a snake or something else might slip out at any moment, entwining his boldly roaming hand.
The fingers stopped.
An intense pain shot through An Wujiu’s mind, and in an instant, his state changed without warning.
Seeing his fingers on Shen Ti’s ankle, making ambiguous movements, An Wujiu was startled. He awkwardly withdrew his hand, like a rabbit swiftly dodging.
He wished he could forget everything that had happened before, but he remembered it all—not just in the current moment, but everything he had said and done that was frivolous and outrageous.
Like trying to kiss him.
Just as An Wujiu was consumed by regret, wondering whether to apologize for his actions, the withdrawn hand was suddenly pulled over and tightly grasped.
Looking up, he met Shen Ti’s eyes in a state of confusion.
“You’ve changed again.” There was a subtle change in Shen Ti’s expression, a smile breaking out from his calm demeanor, as if saying, “I caught you.”
An Wujiu pulled out his hand and stood up, feeling somewhat awkward due to the situation between them.
After some thought, he chose to play it off.
“Let’s go check the clues as well.” An Wujiu had learned to find excuses, even though this excuse was quite clumsy.
He turned away and walked toward the right corridor, his steps faster than usual, as if the things that had happened were candy stuck to his body that he desperately wanted to shake off by moving forward.
But after thinking of this metaphor in his mind, An Wujiu suddenly stopped in his tracks.
He didn’t really want to escape or shake off.
Meanwhile, Shen Ti’s mood soared suddenly. The guy in front of him had teased him just a moment ago, and now he had turned red, unable to speak.
The initiative had suddenly been reversed.
He even thought that if An Wujiu’s extremes could truly converge, becoming a complete person, it might be even more interesting.
In that case, both his bad and good sides would be willingly accepted and under his control.
Casually catching up with An Wujiu’s steps, Shen Ti embraced his shoulder and said in a relaxed and cheerful tone, “You remember everything, right? Backing out is not good behavior.”
“Benefits are something you can’t refuse to take back.”
“Right, the most dangerous creature on this floor.”
After three consecutive attacks, An Wujiu suffered a miserable defeat, losing basic language ability.
Completely under control.
“Wujiu!”
Just when An Wujiu was at a loss, he heard Josh’s shout, and he immediately felt as if he had grabbed onto a lifeline.
“I’m coming.” An Wujiu broke free from Shen Ti, quickly heading toward the source of the voice.
Around the corner, he saw Josh alone, seemingly having found something. Hearing the commotion, Josh turned and spotted them, so he ran excitedly toward them.
“I found these playing cards!”
Josh showed the playing cards in his hand to An Wujiu and Shen Ti.
Shen Ti’s first reaction was to look around and ask, “And where are they?”
“You mean Wu You and Miss Yang? We split left and right, and they went that way.” Josh pushed the poker cards in his hand toward them.
There were a total of six cards, black diamonds 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and one joker.
“Where did you find them?” An Wujiu questioned while observing the cards.
“Just around the corner, there’s a discarded card box here.” Josh took out the mentioned old box and said, “There are only a few playing cards inside.”
An Wujiu nodded, “The black diamond 2 is missing from here.”
Josh also nodded, seemingly realizing something. He looked up at Shen Ti, signaled something with his eyes, and Shen Ti understood. He nodded, holding the leftover lollipop in his mouth.
Everyone had reached a level of understanding where they could communicate without words.
“Missing the 2, replaced with a joker…”
An Wujiu murmured, picking up the joker and examining it carefully. It was a black-and-white joker, and the back was not significantly different from the other cards.
Could it be that the joker was used to substitute for the 2?
Feeling the card, he suddenly noticed that the center of the back had a slightly sticky texture.
Glue?
Seeing An Wujiu notice the issue on the card, Josh also spoke, “This glue is from when the joker got stuck to the card box. I almost didn’t notice it. I checked it under the light and found that there was still a card inside.”
An Wujiu looked at the card box, indeed showing traces of something sticky.
“Could the numbers here correspond to our employee IDs?”
As Josh finished asking, Wu You and Yang Erci walked over from the other corner, coincidentally meeting the three of them.
“They didn’t bring along Nan Shan and Zhong Yirou?” An Wujiu asked Josh while holding the cards.
“We left them in the southwest corner,” Wu You replied, adding, “The Taoist said he could take care of Zhong Yirou himself.”
Indeed, holding on and supporting oneself consumes a lot of energy.
Gathering together, Wu You briefly explained the situation of the corridor they had inspected, with only two doors that couldn’t be opened at the moment.
“That door says it needs playing cards.”
“Playing cards?” Josh looked pleasantly surprised and handed the cards in his hand to them. “Do you think it’s these?”
After some discussion, they all felt that there must be something peculiar about the missing number 2, but for the moment, they couldn’t find more clues.
“Let’s try using the playing cards to see if we can open that door.” An Wujiu suggested.
They arrived at the door Wu You mentioned and saw Nan Shan meditating around the corner and Zhong Yirou, who had not yet regained consciousness.
Seeing the purple bruises on Zhong Yirou’s neck, An Wujiu vaguely felt that something was not quite right.
The door was eerie, clearly within the building, but covered with twisted vines. Pairs of vines intertwined upwards, as if extending from inside the door to the outside.
Only in the middle was a rectangular silver blank, appearing exactly like the shape of a playing card.
“Let’s try the joker first.” Josh handed it to them. “I feel like the joker should be a card with some special ability.”
Yang Erci took it and tried it, but the door had no response.
Thinking that her employee ID was B05, Yang Erci asked Josh for the black diamond 5 and lightly pressed it against the sensor on the door.
The door emitted a metallic, human-like voice.
“Please reverse the playing card.”
Yang Erci found it strange because the 5 was already facing the right way. But she still followed the door’s request, reversed the card, and placed it on the blank space on the door.
They thought the door would open, but it didn’t.
“What is our research target?”
The door raised this question to them but didn’t provide any hints.
Yang Erci tentatively entered a word: “human.”
“Wrong answer! B05, you have only two chances left!”
The lights in the entire corridor blinked, suddenly extinguishing. After about three seconds, the corridor lit up again, then instantly went dark. An Wujiu deliberately observed the countdown in his field of vision and noticed that about three seconds later, the corridor lit up again.
“Morse code,” An Wujiu suggested to Yang Er Ci. “Try to see the pattern of the lights going out.”
Yang Erci decisively broke off a section of vine from the ddoor andused the plant juice oozing from the cut to draw two short horizontal lines on the wall.
The lights in the room quickly extinguished, but this time the blackout was extremely short, lasting less than a second, and quickly lit up again. Yang Erci swiftly marked another dot on the wall, right after the previous short horizontal line.
The room lit up again, and in terms of sensation, there wasn’t much difference from before. However, An Wujiu deliberately observed the duration of the light-up this time, which was 2 seconds. If he hadn’t remembered incorrectly, the previous duration was 1 second.
After lighting up, the room went dark again, and this time the blackout was also less than a second—a brief extinguishing.
So far, the observed pattern was:
Long off, one-second light-up, long off, one-second light-up, short off, two-second light-up, short off.
After a second, the room’s lights lit up again.
In this way, Yang Erci followed the sequence of the corridor lights’ duration of extinguishment, recording the obtained results in order. The green slime adhered to the wall, forming a row of ciphertext.
[- -..-..]
“There are many possibilities like this,” Yang Erci said. “Two horizontal lines represent M, but considering the dot after them, it could also be G, and with one more dot, it becomes Z.”
Josh was already confused by her explanation. “MGZ? What does that mean?”
“Morse code uses combinations of dashes and dots to represent letters,” Yang Er Ci explained to him.
“My mistake, I only mentioned the extinguishments and didn’t ask you to pay attention to the duration of the light-ups.” An Wujiu also broke off a vine and drew several slashes on her ciphertext as separators.
[- -././-./.]
“The duration of the light-up is either one second or two seconds, but the occurrences of two seconds are less frequent, so it should be used as a delimiter.”
An Wujiu spoke calmly, with no significant emotional fluctuations on his face. Only now did Wu You belatedly realize this.
“Wujiu-ge, you’ve changed back again.”
An Wujiu smiled, “I said some things before that offended everyone. Don’t take it to heart; just consider me talking nonsense while drunk.”
Josh quickly waved his hands, but Shen Ti laughed behind him.
Hearing Shen Ti’s laughter, An Wujiu thought about turning back but held back.
He just wanted to embarrass him at moments like this.
An Wujiu cleared his throat in a somewhat unnatural manner, diverting attention back to the ciphertext.
But Yang Erci had already deciphered it, “The four separated parts are G, E, N, E. Gene.”
“Gene?” An Wujiu thought of the previous question about the research target.
It made sense.
“Could it be too simple?” An Wujiu asked.
“If someone doesn’t understand Morse code, they probably won’t be able to decipher it,” Wu You said, feeling a bit cold. Subconsciously, he put both of his hands into his sleeves.
Then he suddenly realized that this was Nan Shan’s habitual movement, so he put his hands down again, shaking them off a few times with a look of disdain.
Yang Erci entered the results.
But as An Wujiu anticipated, the result was indeed incorrect.
“Wrong answer! B05, you only have one more chance to enter the password!”
Suddenly, Yang Erci realized something, “Should it be reversed? Like the black diamond 5 just now.”
But even though she thought of this possibility, she didn’t dare to try it easily.
After all, it was the last chance.
An Wujiu frowned, looking at the sequence without saying a word.
Shen Ti pushed Wu You’s head aside, occupied his spot, stood next to An Wujiu, and then leaned against the wall, carefully examining the ciphertext.
“The duration of the light-up seconds has significance, but what about the extinguishment seconds?”
“Three seconds.” An Wujiu suddenly thought of something. “What if it’s a shift? Like the second floor.”
Yang Erci was somewhat hesitant due to the previous wrong answer, “Shift three times? What if it’s not?”
“There seem to be very few instances of having three chances in these small puzzles. It’s likely prepared for this kind of thinking. If the answer can be obtained in one attempt, there wouldn’t be three chances provided.”
“I’ll add something.” Shen Ti raised his hand. “Considering the research project here, I automatically assume it’s a project that can’t be disclosed to the public. In this case, they would rarely set the research target directly as the password; it’s too easily exposed.”
After a moment of contemplation, Yang Erci decided to go along with An Wujiu’s idea. After all, it included considerations for both the extinguishment and light-up seconds, making it more comprehensive.
“If each letter is shifted backward, it’s… JHQH.” Yang Er Ci thought for a moment. “Reversed, it becomes HQHJ.”
Wu You put his hands in the pockets of his lab coat, “Let’s try. It’s just one chance anyway.”
Yang Erci entered the results.
Two seconds later.
“Welcome back, B05! The power transposition mechanism at the fourth corner of this floor has encountered a problem and requires external force to resolve. Please take care!”
“Otherwise, the system will not function correctly, and the laboratory door cannot be opened for you.”
“Countdown for resolution: 60 seconds, starting now.”
The moment the prompt ended, the entire room plunged into complete darkness. This time, it never lit up again, and above their heads appeared a giant red countdown, decreasing by one second at a time.
“Wait, external force?” Josh’s voice sounded anxious. “There’s no heavy object or anything here.”
Indeed, this floor was even more empty and clean than the other floors, with not even a fire hydrant in sight.
While in a hurry, the group walked toward the corner.
“No heavy objects…” Shen Ti was not anxious at all, strolling at the back like a tail.
He was even a bit nonchalant, “Then let’s use people.”
With that, he deliberately bounced a couple of times, saying, “Heavy enough.”
“Indeed, huh?” Wu You muttered softly, “Foolish big guy…”
At the moment Shen Ti finished speaking, Yang Erci, who was leading the way, saw a green square on the ground at the corner where Nan Shan and Zhong Yirou were.
With 40 seconds left, she immediately ran to the next corner. In the darkness, she saw a new square, this time in red.
Meanwhile, An Wujiu had already asked Wu You, “Do you want to stay inside the room or outside?”
Wu You quickly responded, “I’ll follow your arrangement.”
After a moment of thought, An Wujiu placed Wu You outside, saying, “Hurry over and stand at the southeast corner.”
Without a second thought, Wu You ran toward the corner An Wujiu mentioned.
They heard Yang Erci’s voice, “It’s a person! Bring Zhong Yirou over!”
Josh responded with a sound and went over to help Zhong Yirou, who was leaning against the wall, and brought her to the corner where Yang Erci was.
It was a red square.
But as soon as Zhong Yirou stepped on it, the square turned green.
“I tried it. Someone must stand here; otherwise, it stays red. This should be the external force compression mentioned earlier,” Yang Erci explained.
There was only one more to go. The four of them rushed over.
Yang Erci directly said, “I’ll stay here.”
“Although you’re very dedicated,” Shen Ti glanced at the countdown, which had only ten seconds left, “you definitely won’t work. You have access to this floor.”
“How about me?” Josh volunteered to stand on it, and the countdown description paused.
“Shen Ti is right. Miss Yang, if you stay here, you won’t be able to move freely. I’m not good at solving puzzles, but at least I can be of some use here.”
“Alright then.” Yang Erci had no other choice.
The room’s lights didn’t come on, but a new prompt sound appeared.
“Is processing complete?”
Yang Erci responded, “Yes, it’s done.”
“Okay, B03, please proceed to the genetic laboratory. One thing to note, the power transposition system must be kept operational. Even a one-second malfunction could lead to irreversible consequences.”
The people at the four corners couldn’t leave.
“Be careful,” Yang Erci specifically instructed Josh.
“Sure, I’m just feeling a bit uneasy. It’s dark here, and it happens to be the four corners, which reminds me of some creepy supernatural game where four people have to stand at the corners, but without moving…”
“Don’t be scared,” Yang Erci said. “Even scarier things have been encountered on the previous floors. Our communicators should still work; if anything happens, find a way to contact us.”
“Yeah… hurry out.”
Following the prompt sound, the three of them returned to the genetic laboratory they were in before. The door, covered in vines, creaked open on its own.
Inside was pitch black, and Yang Erci walked in front.
After Shen Ti entered last, the door slammed shut with a heavy thud.
An Wujiu turned his head and saw Shen Ti’s hair standing on end, frozen in place.
It wasn’t clear if he was genuinely afraid or just playing on what Josh mentioned about a creepy game.
“Don’t scare me like that.” Shen Ti patted his chest and then playfully stuck close to An Wujiu.
“You must protect me; I still owe you a favor.”
Author’s Note:
Yang Er Ci: Speechless, entangled with two guys on the contact list.
Morse code is actually super simple, representing letters with dots and dashes. There’s a specific Morse code chart; you can look it up to understand.
In the story, the long duration of the light being off represents a dash, and the short duration represents a dot. The blackout time is 3 seconds, and then a shift of 3 was applied, transforming G shifted three times into J, like that.
