Chapter 44: Self-Defense

Li Cheng rinsed the key with the current, waded through seawater up to his chest, returned to the model ship, and inserted the key into the lock.

Click.

The key locked firmly in place, and the door opened at once.

The room was dimly lit; the "captain's" corpse was likewise coated in epoxy resin, frozen in a rigid smile. Behind it stood a tall wooden cabinet, all its drawers sealed shut and unopenable.

In the center sat a broken marine chronometer, its hands frozen, showing London time as 17:06.

On the wooden desk before the captain lay a finely crafted metal instrument, and beneath it, in blood, were written words.

【Step onto the bow, grip the helm, noon has arrived—hoist sail and set course!】

The Killing Field's script tasks automatically included translation, projecting the meaning of text directly into the player's mind to resolve communication barriers.

This was, in a sense, a balancing strategy—the Killing Field never issued impossible tasks; the difficulty of generated tasks always fell within the player's capacity to solve.

Without this thoughtful translation patch, a scenario would arise where low-IQ players, precisely because they understood nothing, faced solo tasks of lower difficulty than those generated for high-IQ players—an obvious unfairness.

The Killing Field needed a team of well-rounded enforcers—physically, intellectually, morally, aesthetically, and laboriously developed (though perhaps lacking in morality and aesthetics)—not just a band of muscle-bound brutes.

Li Cheng picked up the metal instrument: it consisted of a 144° arc, an index arm, a movable mirror, a fixed mirror, a telescope, and a micrometer wheel, named a sextant—plainly put, a handheld angular measuring device, essential in the Age of Sail for determining latitude at sea.

The sextant's index arm and micrometer wheel were both set to zero; the telescope was merely decorative, lacking any magnifying function.

Li Cheng suddenly realized something: a sextant without telescope function, the words "noon has arrived" on the desk, the broken marine chronometer.

So that's how it was.

He carried the sextant and strode out of the cabin to the ship's bow, where the helm stood.

As a member of the Astronomy Club, Li Cheng knew how to determine a photo's location from the constellations and shooting time, and how to use a sextant.

He pulled the sextant's index arm, adjusted the movable mirror and micrometer wheel, and pointed the telescope toward the spotlight mounted high on the ceiling.

Since no sunlight could be seen indoors, that spotlight was the so-called "sun."

The latitude of the observation point equals the zenith distance of the celestial body (90 degrees minus its altitude above the horizon) plus its declination.

Calculated: 20 degrees north latitude.

As for longitude, it was provided by the marine chronometer.

The chronometer showed London time as 5 p. m. Since sextant measurements for latitude assume noon by default, and the captain's desk explicitly stated "noon has arrived," the local time here could be roughly estimated as 12 p. m.

The chronometer showed London time as 5 p. m., meaning a five-hour difference; each hour corresponds to 15 degrees of longitude, so the current longitude was 75.9 degrees west.

The chronometer's damage and frozen hands were clearly part of the puzzle—if it had been functional, players who delayed too long would have obtained inaccurate readings.

Thus, both latitude and longitude were determined: 20 degrees north, 75.9 degrees west.

Li Cheng jumped off the sailboat, swam through two and a half meters of seawater, reached the room's exit, and turned the dial lock, inputting the numbers 20-759.

Click—

The lock opened immediately; the metal plate rose automatically, revealing a narrow, elongated passage just wide enough for one person to pass.

The passage sloped upward, so although the room was flooded, no turbulent whirlpools formed.

Li Cheng swam into the passage, climbed out as the metal plate behind him slowly descended, and entered the next room.

"Phew, finally figured it out."

Drenched in seawater, he shook his hair, still clutching the heavy sextant.

Theoretically, the principle of designing a puzzle room was "do not multiply entities beyond necessity"—too many clues or usable items would confuse players with excessive options.

It also prevented players with unconventional thinking from combining clues outside the intended design to force their way through.

For example, the star-shaped key Li Cheng had used to open the captain's cabin—once the door opened, if the key had remained stuck in the lock and could not be removed, that meant it had fulfilled its purpose and no longer needed to be carried around as clutter.

Or a metal magnetic rod, intended to let players use its magnetic property to retrieve a key placed inside a long container, unreachable by hand.

Yet some physically overpowering players had simply used the rod to knock out the guard at the room's end, smashing their way through.

While such methods weren't technically invalid, fairness demanded they be avoided.

Speaking of which, Li Cheng carried the sextant for a simple reason—it was heavy and had sharp edges; if danger arose, he could use it as a weapon.

Lately, he had been browsing online for various martial arts—absorbing techniques from kung fu, sanda, muay thai, jujitsu, swordsmanship, and even Chen Hegao's Unlimited Combat System.

In emergencies, he could wield everyday items like a ruler, scissors, or a metal flute as weapons.

After all, he had already entered the transcendent realm; using his bare body to fight might accidentally kill an ordinary person.

"By the way, 20 degrees north, 75.9 degrees west—that should be Cuba. Does the location of the previous room's measurement mean anything?"

Li Cheng muttered softly, observing the room before him.

The second room was even smaller than the last. Its interior was cozy: beige curtains, brown carpet, leather sofa, bookshelves filled with books, a fireplace burning wood, and a red telephone on the coffee table.

It looked no different from a typical middle-class living room.

The only anomaly was the window—the frame was sealed shut, yet through it, one could see flashing lights and a bustling urban landscape.

Was this puzzle room installed inside a skyscraper?

(End of Chapter)