Li Cheng put on gloves, tucked the newspaper into the Backpack, and put the gloves away as well, then stepped out of the cell, leaving the cell door slightly ajar, muttering to himself, "Like the previous newspapers, this one also talks about the Zeluo civilization and the Iron Plague war."
"Is there a problem?" Gray Rain asked.
"It’s too coincidental."
Li Cheng said, "To get this newspaper, I first needed to obtain coins to buy the rabbit doll. To get the coins, I had to enter the bottom-left cell. To enter that cell, I had to get your help... All of these steps are interconnected, just like a man-made puzzle game. It even gave me an outside chance."
He pulled out the [Final Redemption] pistol and spun it, "The power of this gun is so great, it should be able to forcefully blast open the cell door.
In other words, the sequence of attacks can be changed, and as long as you use items, you won’t get seriously stuck.
For example, I could first use this gun to break into the bottom-left cell, get 80∑ in coins, and then buy the 10∑ rabbit doll and 5∑ corn juice in one go.
With the corn juice, I could bribe you, and then pry open the door to the bottom-right cell to exchange the rabbit doll for the newspaper.
Or I could use this gun to directly attack the vending machine, steal the doll and corn juice, then bribe you, and the result would still be the same.
This design is too deliberate."
"You mean... the prison wants you to escape quickly?"
"It might also mean that the prison wants me to die quickly." Li Cheng casually spoke as he arrived in front of the last two engine rooms.
Reversal, Mislead, Protagonist Effect had all been conquered; only Flashback and Coherence remained.
Since the sequence of conquests can be disrupted, there is no difference between the last two rooms; Li Cheng chose Coherence on the right.
Upon entering the engine room, he saw a solitary red button placed on the floor, the room’s layout identical to the [Misleading Room].
His eye twitched, [Misleading Room] had made him believe he was a character in his own created comic, almost leading him to die of old age inside, this Coherence so similar to Misleading Room, what are they up to?
By now it was too late to retreat, due to the double-door setup, the outer wooden door cannot be opened until after the button is pressed.
The two exchanged glances and pressed the red button together.
One second, two seconds...
Time ticked by slowly, the surroundings remained unchanged, no monster popped out to eat them, nor were they teleported elsewhere.
"..." Gray Rain cautiously surveyed her surroundings, crouched down, touched the solid ground, and said incredulously, "What’s going on? Why is there no response?"
Li Cheng took out a machete, poked the walls to confirm there were no traps. Seeing the wooden door open on its own, he walked out.
Everything outside the engine room was the same as before; the anonymous prisoner in the bottom-right cell was still lying there, and the vending machine display also showed that only two minutes had passed.
"Just one button in the room?" Gray Rain spoke suspiciously, "We haven’t been trapped in a life-like illusion, have we?"
"It shouldn’t be." Li Cheng took out the toy factory key and the emergency escape card from the Backpack. These two items were the most mysterious on his person, a usual illusion could not simulate them.
He pondered, "The feature of Coherence is to disrupt narrative completeness and temporarily add settings. For example, refreshing a wall out of the Escapee’s sight on the fly. The room just now was empty, obviously not matching up. Unless..."
"Unless these door signs can be taken down." Li Cheng reached out to manipulate the door sign, tried to pry it with his hand, and then with the Straight Blade, but after much effort, he could not dismantle any plaque.
Not succeeding, he wasn’t annoyed—this instead proved other things.
He immediately headed towards the last engine room labeled [Flashback].
"Wait!" Gray Rain hurriedly followed, walking shoulder to shoulder with Li Cheng as they pushed open the wooden door of the Flashback room, complaining, "Are you holding back some clues on purpose? We’re teammates now, don’t hide things, okay?"
"I’m not intentionally hiding anything, just have an immature hypothesis."
Li Cheng waited for the metallic sliding door ahead to open, and said, "Would a painter sell a half-finished painting? Would a chef serve a half-done dish? Would a programmer upload half-written code? Uh, wait, that might actually happen.
Cough, anyway, we don’t have enough clues at this stage, analyzing it would be useless."
"Tch." The rightful source is novel-fire.net
Gray Rain clicked her tongue unhappily, her eyes filled with unease and anticipation.
Pressing the buttons in all five engine rooms would lead to a successful escape. They had already succeeded four times, only the last Flashback room remained.
Although she could not recall the specifics of her previous escape attempts, an indistinct feeling told her that none had gone as smoothly as now.
Li Cheng truly was her lucky star.
As the metal sliding door opened completely, the scenery in front of them suddenly changed. The two of them had come onto a... transportation machine.
The cabin was quite spacious, nearly 7 meters wide and almost 5 meters high, slightly larger than the real-world’s largest military transport plane An-225.
Through the windows, they could see the transport machine had four huge engines, currently flying among the clouds.
On the inner walls on both sides of the cabin, there hung nets each carrying a large number of individual Weapon Equipment.
In the middle were several battered infantry vehicles parked, their designs very sci-fi and futuristic, obviously much more advanced than Earth’s technology. The rear compartments of the vehicles were also loaded with four sealed lead barrels.