Chapter 468: Stomach

Time was limited, every second counted. Li Cheng had no time to ask the other's exact identity, and quickly said in lip-speech: "Do you have any lock-breaking or lock-picking tools on you?"

"No."

That was troublesome. The inside of the metal door had no keyhole or door handle,

and through the trapdoor window, looking at the opposite side of the corridor, one could see the underground cells arranged in two columns of five rows, ten cells in total. The other eight cells showed no movement.

Furthermore, the metal door used an electronic combination lock, and the number keypad was positioned too low — even a child's arm reaching through the trapdoor window couldn't reach the keypad.

"But I do have an investigation skill that barely works."

Oracle placed both hands on the lower edge of the trapdoor window, closed her eyes tightly, and after a moment opened them and said: "This underground cell block has no surveillance cameras. Among the living, besides the two of us, there's only one guard at the door. But I don't know how heavily armed he is."

"Got it."

A blessing in disguise — the Killing Field system still had a shred of humanity, not throwing out a hellish scenario where the hero starts with a single wooden stick and runs into a Demon King blocking the door right after leaving the newbie village.

After thinking for a moment, Li Cheng stepped back half a pace and took out the 【Electronic Pet Egg】.

Like the other props, the 【Electronic Pet Egg】 had also been greatly weakened, turning into a plastic toy with a rougher, cheaper texture.

On a screen about the size of four fingernails, a clump of pixelated slime was rolling around leisurely.

'So Hui Yu's type in the Killing Field is slime? Case closed. No wonder she was making white-cut okra with rice on New Year's Eve — turns out she wanted to eat slime rice.'

Li Cheng silently complained to himself and pressed the summon button.

Under his expectant, hopeful gaze, a clump of grey metallic slime rolled out from the screen and slid down into Li Cheng's palm.

The slime slowly wriggled, grew two eyes and a line for a mouth, let out a soft "gulp," and flung itself into Li Cheng's arms.

We're done for!

Hui Yu's already not-high IQ, after being weakened, appeared even more "pure as ever,"

Li Cheng gestured at her for quite a while, "Turn into a mirror, a mirror, understand?"

The slime-form Hui Yu blinked, indicating she understood, then turned gold.

Li Cheng's eye corner twitched. He buried his head under the faucet and said in a low voice, "A mirror, not gold."

Understood.

Hui Yu blinked again, immediately stretched her body, and turned into a round ball with a tail.

Can she get even that wrong?

Li Cheng's eye corner twitched again. If the mission log hadn't explicitly stated the weakening effect, he would have suspected Hui Yu was maliciously acting cute. "It's a mirror, not sperm!"

Got it, got it.

Hui Yu nodded, and under Li Cheng's aching-balls gaze, transformed into a lifelike, certain unnamed Russian president.

Holy shit, this is Kyoko, isn't it?

And it's the wide-body version too. I think you want to eat seaweed egg-drop soup.

Li Cheng rubbed his faintly aching temples, looked up at the mirror above the washbasin, and wondered whether he could use a pillow as padding to smash the glass and take a shard.

Fortunately, at this point Hui Yu finally understood his intent and turned into a small, exquisite round mirror with a handle.

Li Cheng sighed, gripped the handle, extended it through the trapdoor window, and carefully rotated the mirror surface to observe the corridor.

At the end of the corridor, a broad-shouldered, thick-waisted, tall security guard sat in a chair, wearing a blue uniform with a rubber baton and walkie-talkie at his waist, idly flipping through a fashion magazine.

If it's only one person, should be manageable.

Li Cheng retracted the mirror and exchanged intel with Oracle across the corridor.

The latter thought for a moment, took a silicone teacup lid from her backpack slot, and said, "Block the water flow, lure the guard over and pin him down — can you do it?"

"Should be able to."

Li Cheng instantly understood Oracle's meaning. He took out the 【Bat Hook Gun】, which had been reduced to a sticky-hand children's toy, aimed at the silicone teacup lid, and hurled it hard.

Smack.

The sticky-hand toy flew across the corridor and precisely latched onto the silicone teacup lid in Oracle's hand. Li Cheng held his breath, stepped back half a pace, and yanked hard. The sticky hand contracted again, flying backward along with the teacup lid.

Because of its own height, the teacup lid struck the upper edge of the metal frame as it passed through the trapdoor window, producing a soft "thud."

The security guard at the end of the corridor heard the noise, put down his magazine and looked forward, but saw nothing. He blinked in confusion and picked up the magazine again.

Phew, that was close.

Li Cheng let out a breath of relief, and used the teacup lid with its built-in suction to cover the cell's floor drain.

Then he stood the pillow upright in the washbasin, turned the faucet to maximum, and used the pillow to absorb the sound of the water.

The water flowed unceasingly, overflowing the washbasin and trickling through the not-very-spacious cell. Soon it seeped out under the door and pooled in the middle of the corridor.

Hearing the faint sound, the security guard put down his magazine again, saw the pooled water in the corridor, and reluctantly stood up and walked over.

He casually pushed open the trapdoor window and saw the bedding on the children's bed bunched up, with someone lying on their side asleep inside. The faucet was running.

"Fuck."

The guard cursed in American profanity, entered the password on the keypad, pushed the door open, and walked into the cell.

He first irritably turned off the faucet, then yanked back the blanket — only to be stunned to find the blanket completely empty. The supposed side-lying human shape was merely the form created by folded bedding.

And the golden hair exposed outside the blanket had been cut off and scattered there as a deliberate disguise.

Some unknown terror crawled up his spine. The guard's whole body went cold, and he instinctively turned his head — only to see that eight-or-nine-year-old blonde, blue-eyed loli hanging upside-down from the ceiling beam in a bizarre posture.

Her head faced the corridor direction, both hands bracing against the upper edge of the metal door, both feet hooked upside-down onto the metal pipe on the ceiling.

The instant their eyes met, she grinned, suddenly withdrew both hands, converting potential energy into kinetic energy, swung through the air above the cell, and punched the guard right in the forehead.

Thirty kilograms of body weight, plus gravitational potential energy — the guard was hammered two steps backward, his feet uncontrollably slipping on the wet floor, and he crashed to the ground with a thud.

Plop!

Li Cheng landed steadily like a gymnast, both feet stepping on the guard's big stomach — ah no, his belly — nearly popping the latter's eyeballs out.

"You little bi"

The guard roared and drew the rubber baton from his waist, but before he could swing it, Li Cheng stabbed down with a blade.

The Ash Rain slime, now a small metal knife, easily pierced the security guard's upper arm, making him howl in pain and drop his rubber baton.

"Shhh, shhh, shhh. I ask, you answer."

Li Cheng sat on the security guard's chest, shook his wet, flowing blond hair, and pressed the protruding part of the handcuff against Qian Yanqiu's eyeball. "How many security personnel are on the island? What's the password to the cell across the way?"

"gotohell"

The security guard's eyes went wide; the moment he finished his curse, his heartbeat stopped and he stopped breathing.

"WTF?"

This time it was Li Cheng's turn to be shocked. He hurriedly pressed on the guard's heart, lifted the back of his head, and discovered a tiny wound trickling a thin line of blood.

Turns out this guard normally ate a high-oil, high-fat diet, with many meals and large portions.

His fasting blood sugar was comparable to a Xuanlei Qilin watermelon; his high blood lipids made the blood viscous, and his high blood pressure pushed the blood along,

his entire circulatory system relying on bugs to cancel each other out in order to stay balanced.

Now this collision was equivalent to breaking that balance—direct cerebral hemorrhage and sudden death, a vengeful ghost breaking free of its bindings, no less.

"Tell me that's not a stretch."

The underground cell had no key, only a combination lock; without the password, naturally the lock couldn't be opened.

Li Cheng facepalmed wordlessly, stood up a little awkwardly, and looked toward the divine prisoner in the cell across the way. "Lao Yu, how about you work the sewing machine for a bit? I'll come back to rescue you in a while."