Chapter 469: Dandruff

"Fuck, no!"

The Divine Decree took a deep breath and said calmly, "I still have some skill items I can barely use—they'll help us escape together. Why don't you check this guard for clues to open the password lock?"

"Alright."

Li Cheng turned off the faucet, removed the silicone cup cover from the drain, yanked the guard's upper body up, pressed him against the bed rail, and searched his pockets.

The guard had only one walkie-talkie, one rubber baton, one pack of cigarettes with matches, one pencil, and a key whose lock it could open was unknown.

Judging by the key's size, it clearly didn't fit handcuffs or leg irons.

"This—"

Li Cheng frowned slightly and turned his head toward The Divine Decree. "Was your Stage One task the same as mine—to escape the SVIP cell within twenty minutes?"

"Yes."

"That's strange."

Li Cheng rubbed his chin; the golden-haired little girl in the mirror mirrored his puzzled expression.

The Arena never issues impossible tasks—even if the goal is absurd, there's always one or more ways to complete it.

In other words, within the twenty-minute limit, there must be some way for The Divine Decree to escape without compromising Li Cheng's own path to survival.

He thought for a moment, let go of the guard, walked to the end of the corridor, and picked up the fashion magazine titled "Taste."

The magazine's material was pristine, dated August 2009, and clearly stated that James Cameron's "Avatar" would premiere in North America in February 2010, with an estimated $150 million spent on pre-release promotion.

Something was off.

Li Cheng raised an eyebrow; if he remembered correctly, "Avatar" had actually premiered in North America on December 18, 2009—just a week before Christmas.

The highest-grossing windows in North America were either summer (June–July), autumn (September–November), or winter (December).

What the hell was February?

Unusual events always conceal something sinister. Li Cheng suppressed his doubt and kept flipping through the magazine, finding no further anomalies—except on the second-to-last page, an English word puzzle.

English uses the Latin alphabet for phonetic representation, combining letters to record pronunciation; word puzzles have long been popular across North America, from children to adults.

But this popularity, to some extent, reveals English as a shitheap language—its spelling is wildly chaotic and its expression extremely imprecise.

It borrows vocabulary extensively from Old Germanic, French, Greek, Persian, and Sanskrit linguistic systems.

As a result, whether native or non-native speakers, anyone wanting to study professionally or read academic papers must learn the specialized English of their field.

Architecture, chemical engineering, machinery, the internet, metallurgy, medicine.

It's like sprinting into a cyberpunk era—the industry barriers are so high that even textbooks look like alien scripts to outsiders, adding massive learning costs.

Cough cough, Li Cheng's bitterness stems purely from righteous indignation—not because he was forced to read this pile of garbage called an English dictionary while using his multi-brain-domain learning method.

In short, the magazine's English word puzzle was unfinished, containing only one word.

Boobies: meaning gannet (a large tropical seabird); breasts; idiot; fool.

The guard had circled this word in pencil; the edges of the circle trembled slightly, indicating he was in good spirits when he wrote it.

"What the hell does this mean?"

Li Cheng, stumped, pressed his ear against the security door leading upstairs.

The door itself wasn't locked; upon careful listening, faint music and footsteps could be heard.

Someone was definitely upstairs—going out now would be like walking into a trap.

Li Cheng turned to the corridor; both sides of the prison cells had nine-digit numeric locks, not alphabetic. He paused, then whispered to The Divine Decree, "When the guard opened my cell, he entered a seven-digit code, right?"

"Mm-hmm."

The Divine Decree nodded. "Because the guard was so large, I couldn't see exactly which numbers he pressed, but it was definitely seven digits."

Seven digits.

Li Cheng took a deep breath, his mind racing, and walked back to the original cell, pushing open each sliding window to peer inside.

Unfortunately, the other eight single cells were empty—no other kidnapped minors, no usable items.

Time ticked away second by second.

After exchanging information, Li Cheng suddenly noticed the guard hadn't washed his hair in days—his scalp was covered in dandruff.

In that instant, countless shampoo commercials flashed through Li Cheng's mind.

"Adolph Strong Oil Control," "Bawang Anti-Hair Loss," "Hair Gone Without a Trace, Dandruff More Outstanding."

"Wait a minute—could it be…"

His expression twisted; he strained to drag the guard's corpse out of the cell, closed the door again, and frantically rubbed the guard's scalp with his hands.

Dandruff fell like snowflakes onto the numeric keypad; a light blow scattered some, while others clung to the nine-grid numbers.

The areas where dandruff stuck showed grease residue—proof of long-term use.

The password digits for Li Cheng's cell were: 0, 1, 3, 5, 8.

Five digits. Seven-digit password.

Li Cheng dragged the corpse to The Divine Decree's cell and repeated the process, brushing off dandruff to reveal the digits: 0, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7.

The two sets of digits differed. Li Cheng and The Divine Decree narrowed their eyes, thought for a moment, and almost simultaneously said: "Boobies!"

They locked eyes, both seeing surprise in the other's gaze.

This guy's brain works pretty fast.

Boobies, written entirely in uppercase, becomes BOOBIES.

At first glance unrelated to numbers, but rotated 180°, the letters can be interpreted on a standard seven-segment calculator display as 5318008.

Li Cheng entered the code. A sharp "click" echoed—the original cell door unlocked.

He grinned, turned toward The Divine Decree's cell,

Entered 7734206.

This sequence of numbers also corresponds to letters—if rotated 180°, it spells the English word,

go2hell.

The "gotohell" the security guard said to Li Cheng before dying wasn't actually cursing him to die — it really was answering Li Cheng's question about "what's the password to the cell across the way."

Seems this big-stomach guy was actually pretty honest.

"Well, nobody wants this sort of thing to happen, mate. Next time speak up sooner, yeah?"

Li Cheng muttered in a TVB tone, reaching out to close the security guard's unclosed-dead eyes, then pulled open the Oracle's cell door.

"Phew, thanks, buddy."

Behind the cell door, the Oracle, just like him, was a delicately-featured little girl of eight or nine.

The difference was that the Oracle had long black hair, fairer skin, and visibly atrophied muscles in both legs. A wheelchair sat by the head of the bed.

"Let me reintroduce myself. Oracle, Lv28 lone-wolf player, lives in seclusion, hasn't joined any guild."

The Oracle reached out and shook hands with Li Cheng, her expression subtle as she said: "The little girl I'm playing has paralyzed legs — has to use a wheelchair."

"Understood, understood,"

Li Cheng consoled her: "There's this big yellow dog downstairs from my place who's also in a wheelchair. Later I saw he was having too rough a time — every day going out he had to push the wheelchair by hand — so I took advantage of the night to sneak into his place and help him convert the hand-push wheelchair into a foot-pedal one."