4. We must try to understand the system and create some Molotov cocktails.

He took out a plastic bag and stood up.

"Within the limits not yet warned against by the system, a reasonable amount of audacity is permissible in the game. If this corpse were perfectly intact, it would imply a high probability of reanimation, so I certainly wouldn't play with it."

The bespectacled man, Li Jiangdong, and Ma Sihan were already dumbfounded. They felt that even if the corpse were in the pristine condition Li Nuo described, he would still, in all likelihood, choose to play with it.

Li Nuo pulled a map from the bag.

【Floor Plan of the Abandoned House】
【Type: Plot Item (Cannot be taken out of the scenario)】
【Brief Description: See for yourself】

The map showed an intricate web of paths, with four locations marked.

One was the position of the corpse, marked with an 'X'.

There were four rooms in the abandoned house. Starting from the initial room, at the end of the right-hand passage at the three-way junction, there was a room. This room was labeled "Door Password."

Returning to the three-way junction, at the end of the left-hand passage—the road where the corpse lay—was another room. Inside this room was a skull icon, likely denoting a monster, with the words "Door Password" written above it.

Along that same path, there was a small room marked with a key icon.

Beyond that, the interior of the house was filled with numerous intersecting alleyways.

"Two passwords, one in the room at the end of the right-hand side, and one on the monster. One of the rooms might require a small key to open. It looks convoluted, but the system only requires us to find one password to exit. For safety's sake, let's ignore that monster-like thing for now. The remaining steps are: open the door, get the key, open the next door, find the password slip, and finally, run to the finish line."

Li Nuo summarized, snapping his fingers. "Okay, let's go!"

"Brother... a question," Li Jiangdong asked, following behind. "Aren't you afraid? What if on the way..."

"Think in terms of game logic; nothing will happen right now," Li Nuo said. "This stage is a typical survival-horror level: find the key to open the door, trigger a trap, have a monster chase you, and finally, at the very last second, dash through the exit to end the game."

"What do you mean by a survival-horror level?" Li Jiangdong asked.

"Resident Evil," the bespectacled man said. "A horror game where a creature called a Tyrant chases the protagonist to build tension."

Li Nuo nodded. "Still, we can't rule out the possibility that the monster is a succubus."

The bespectacled man narrowed his eyes. "You're dangerous... you really are dangerous."

*My psychiatrist says that all the time too...* Li Nuo thought to himself, ignoring him.

This time, Li Nuo led the way. He headed toward the passage on the right that only contained one room. The others didn't ask why; they just felt that following him was the right thing to do.

Before long, they arrived in front of the room labeled "Door Password."

"It's a security door, too."

As Li Nuo muttered to himself, he turned the handle, but the door didn't budge.

"Need to find that other key then..." The bespectacled man took the map and looked toward the other path behind them. The others followed his gaze.

"Meaning, the key icon in the small room along the corpse's path signifies the location of the key to open this room. We have to go over there."

"I... I'm a bit scared."

Although no monster had appeared yet, being in such an oppressive atmosphere for a long time brought people to the brink of a mental breakdown.

Just then, *click*.

They turned around.

Li Nuo had already picked the lock using the wire Li Jiangdong had given him. He then kicked the door open with the urgency of someone catching a spouse in an affair.

The room was lit by an incandescent bulb. The moment the white light spilled out from the doorway, much of the oppression and fear seemed to dissipate.

"No danger here," Li Nuo said, looking slightly disappointed.

***

"Uh... did you trigger some kind of mechanism just now?" the bespectacled man asked, adding, "I mean, how did you open the door?"

Li Nuo picked up the U-shaped wire and said, "The interior decor is modern, which implies the lock should belong to a standard security door category. In this case, we can skip the key-hunting step and just pick the lock with a wire. If you're asking how, just look it up online. Bend the wire into a paperclip shape, and the rest is just experience..."

He had broad interests and many unique skills; lock-picking was one of them.

"You just need to offset the inner and outer cylinders to pop the lock. The key is how to manipulate the pins with the wire to make them fall into the slots, but the specific operation depends on experience. A master locksmith can even use a card to open a B-grade security door. This one is likely an aluminum alloy B-grade door; it's not hard. If it were a super-B-grade door, I might be out of luck."

In fact, never mind a wire—he had once tried using vermicelli noodles to pick a lock to help Uncle Wang next door catch Uncle Jie and Uncle Wei in the act. Uncle Wang had rewarded him with a box of instant noodles.

But to the others, this sounded different. It was hard not to associate someone who didn't fear corpses and knew how to pick locks with a certain type of habitual criminal.

Li Nuo walked slowly into the room, saying, "In any plot involving horror elements, doors are like they're cursed. No one knows when or behind which door a 'jump scare' will appear. I kicked the door because I thought it might startle whatever was inside, but clearly..."

"I didn't scare anyone."

In reality, he had already scared most of his "teammates" quite enough.

The eccentric man followed him into the room, and the bespectacled man entered third.

The moment the three of them stepped inside, the door slammed shut.

At the same time, the system's voice rang out:

【Entered the Puzzle Room, limited capacity 3/3】
【Please solve the puzzle within fifteen minutes. Upon success, you may retrieve the password to open the main door. Failure means no further attempts, and the Puzzle Room will close.】

Adjusting to the light, they looked at the scene behind the door.

It was a laboratory of about a dozen square meters, cluttered. Various test tubes and beakers were piled messily on the desk, which was covered in chaotic papers. In the corner across from them was a hospital bed stained with blood.

Most eye-catching was a safe next to the bed.

The eccentric man rubbed his temples, speaking in a tone that suggested he had everything under control: "Hmph, it seems this is indeed a puzzle-solving area."

"You're very clever..." Li Nuo nodded and turned back to try the door. This time, it felt like a solid wall and didn't budge. There was no sound from Li Jiangdong and Ma Sihan, who were locked outside.

"A sealed space deliberately created by the system," Li Nuo speculated, turning back.

On the safe was the English word "pontil."

A note was taped beneath it: *Input the 11-digit password based on the letters, find the key number in the room, and input it.*

"I think this is more like a riddle than a puzzle..." Li Nuo said.

The eccentric man was silent for a moment before saying, "16151420912. It can be solved by following the alphabetical order, but the difficulty is that key number..."

The bespectacled man said, "'Pontil,' an iron rod."

Li Nuo heard this and started searching, pulling a black iron rod from behind the blood-stained hospital bed.

A large display panel floated up for everyone to see.

【Zhuang Chen's Iron Rod】
【Quality: Excellent】
【Bonus: None】
【Equipment Requirement: None】
【Effect: Damage increased by 50% when on a vehicle】
【Description: The owner of this weapon was a motorcycle racer named Zhuang Chen. He looked honest but fought ruthlessly. This iron rod had been with him for years, to the point of becoming an extension of himself. Relying on this synergy, Zhuang Chen stood undefeated on the road racing circuit for years. Until one day, a mad scientist named Frankenstein challenged Zhuang Chen for money. If Zhuang Chen lost the next race, he would have to agree to one request.】

【But in that very race, Zhuang Chen was punched off the track by his own brother, Jefferson, and lost. When Zhuang Chen, who had fainted by the side of the road, woke up, he found himself lying on a hospital bed. He had apparently been injected with anesthesia. In his dazed state, he saw a box at the head of his bed, but due to the anesthesia, his field of vision was limited, and he could only see a few lines of text on the box:】
【Question: Xiao Ming and Xiao Hong have a total of 5 sticks. Xiao Hong gives Xiao Ming 2 sticks, then Xiao Ming embarrassedly returns 1 stick to Xiao Hong. Xiao Hong is unhappy and gives Xiao Ming 2 more sticks. At this moment, Xiao Hong has 2 sticks. How many sticks did Xiao Ming have at the beginning?】

Li Nuo stared with dead fish eyes at the word problem. "Are these two kids sick in the head..."

The eccentric man didn't seem to mind; he stretched his neck to take a look and immediately provided the answer: "Xiao Ming had 0 sticks at the beginning. So why does Xiao Hong have so many sticks?"

"Maybe Xiao Hong is a boy and Xiao Ming is a girl..."

Li Nuo narrowed his eyes and first entered the password 16151420912 into the safe. He double-checked the word problem and then entered the answer, "0."

The safe clicked open, and inside was a slip of paper.

【Puzzle solved. Please take the slip and leave the room.】

Hearing the system's voice, neither Li Nuo nor the eccentric man reached for the paper. They remained silent for half a minute.

The bespectacled man, who had remained invisible throughout, asked timidly, "Uh... why aren't you guys taking it?"

Li Nuo said, "Something feels off. The system only told us to leave the room; it didn't say to leave *immediately*."

He opened his task panel; the countdown for the 【Puzzle Room】 task was still running. "Which means it's implied we can take our time."

The eccentric man said in an incredibly pretentious tone, "Actually, by combining the three elements of monster, slaughter, and escape, and connecting it to the intricate paths shown on the map, we can conclude that those paths are intended for us to escape."

"Ah..." the bespectacled man was stunned.

The eccentric man continued, "According to the original rules, we should have searched for the key to open the 【Puzzle Room】, then the monster would have appeared, chasing us into this room to increase the tension." He pointed at Li Nuo and continued, "But he picked the lock directly, causing us to skip a dangerous procedure."

The bespectacled man looked at Li Nuo, puzzled. "But... didn't you say earlier that this is a game? Shouldn't a game have rules?"

"Life is a game; does it have rules?" Li Nuo shrugged. "Actually, it makes sense if you think about it this way: the other password slip is on the monster. Theoretically, we would need to kill it to get it. By comparison, isn't the puzzle-solving method too low-risk? Based on this guy's explanation, even without using force, just by using the puzzle-solving method, the tension faced is actually the same."

The bespectacled man nodded blankly. He understood roughly what these two big shots were talking about but still couldn't digest it quickly. He asked, "So what do we do now?"

Li Nuo scanned the equipment in the room, picking up a glass bottle and some chemicals as he spoke: "Bottles, sugar, cotton cloth, magnesium powder, aluminum powder, rubber gloves..."

The eccentric man walked over, took a look, and said, "Molotov cocktail?"

"Do you know how to make one?" Li Nuo asked.

"Hmph." The eccentric man snorted coldly. "I do."

The two hit it off instantly, their eyes locking onto the lone bespectacled man. The guy panicked: "I... I'm just an ordinary person, where would I have learned this..."

"I remember you have a megaphone, right?" Li Nuo asked.

The bespectacled man nodded. "You can use it however you want, just don't use me."

Li Nuo took the megaphone, and a panel popped up:

【Megaphone Full of Blood and Tears】
【Quality: Common】
【Description: The story recorded inside is full of blood and tears.】

Li Nuo turned down the volume and pressed the playback button for the recording:

——The Jiangnan Leather Factory has gone bankrupt! The bastard, the bastard boss Huang He, ate, drank, whored, and gambled, owed 350 million, and ran off with his sister-in-law!

——We have no, no, no choice, taking wallets to pay off wages!

——Wallets that were originally 100, 200, 300, all for 20! 20, 20, all for 20! All, all, all for 20!

——Huang He, you bastard, you bastard Huang He, you are not, you are not, you are not a human...