Chapter 580

No time to ponder what this sudden "killing field" in his mind might be—everyone present, except Midnight Dad still struggling with the blast door, raised their right hands to look at their wristwatches.

On the left side of the watch were three plastic buttons, with no text or symbols indicating their functions.

The Laughing God, clad in white space suit, pressed the first button first; receiving no response, he pressed the other two, then pressed two and three together—none of the screens lit up.

Others followed suit, with identical results.

Blood Lion Roared murmured: "An instinct tells me the broadcast's words can't be ignored—if we don't activate the wristwatches within five minutes, we'll truly die."

"Same here—I feel I must believe it," the Laughing God raised a hand, cheerfully saying, "Like believing in Mom."

"Only believe Mom, not Dad? Are you discriminating against men?"

Li Cheng instinctively retorted: "Believe Dad, believe Dad, believe Dad."

"Stop fooling around—four minutes twenty seconds left."

Valkyrie, with her warrior's voice, twisted her wrist until the bottom of the wristwatch fused perfectly with the space suit, leaving no seam visible.

The outermost layer of the space suit was made of multi-layered fiber composite fabric, resistant to abrasion and wear, coated with an extremely tough rubber paint—impossible to open the wristwatch and inspect its internal structure with these short, clumsy gloves.

The Out-of-Control in yellow space suit murmured: "In my memory, all spacewalk suits were two-piece: you first slid into the upper torso mounted on a stand, then had others help you put on the lower pants."

Between them was a flexible rotating bearing belt.

But the suit we're wearing now…"

The equipment everyone wore did have a bearing belt, but its center held a deep, eight-pointed star-shaped keyhole—without a key, it couldn't be opened, meaning the space suit couldn't be removed to access the wristwatch with more dexterous human fingers.

"The rotary handles on the other three blast doors won't turn either."

Zhongli Mie Ming sprinted across the circular hall; though the space suits looked clumsy and heavy, their layers seemed to contain exoskeletal frames, making walking and jumping effortless—especially now that everyone had shaken off their daze and regained mobility.

"Wait—doesn't each of our wristwatches have a metal wire extending from it?"

Blood Lion Roared realized something and said quickly: "Then this isn't damage—it's deliberately designed…"

"Four minutes left," Li Cheng reminded, silently counting down in his mind.

Everyone reacted differently: some helped Midnight Dad ram the door, others rhythmically tapped the watch buttons, some reached for the metal hoses hanging from the ceiling, trying to find an escape route; the brown-suited Dir and the cyan-suited Hydra briefly conferred, then twisted the wires from their wristwatches together, attempting to activate the watches via short-circuit—still to no avail.

"Could it be that the wristwatches need electricity to activate?"

Edith in the orange space suit's mind raced—when she swept her hand across her chest, she felt slight resistance, proving gas existed in the hall's space.

Meanwhile, the metal hose connected to the suit's backpack had initially been venting gas, indicating the backpack was some kind of life-support device.

Considering that during these minutes, her breathing had been smooth, with no dizziness from high CO₂ concentration, and her life-support system had kept running, this indirectly proved the built-in battery still had charge—just wasn't powering the wristwatch.

Could it be… the loudspeaker was hinting that we should pick one companion to kill, smash their life-support backpack, and extract the battery to power everyone else's wristwatches?

Thinking this, Edith subtly turned aside, blocking others' view, and gripped the handrail tightly, trying to pull out the metal tube to use as a club for self-defense.

The loudspeaker only said to activate the noisy kid's wristwatch and obey the instructions—it never said everyone had to activate theirs…

Clang! Clang!

Before Edith could act, Master Pi Fu, directly opposite, unhesitatingly threw his entire body against the railing, kicking and prying until he twisted and snapped off half the metal bar.

The loud noise drew everyone's gaze; Master Pi Fu clicked his tongue in mock regret, releasing the still-attached bar to the grating floor, and said calmly: "Why are you all staring at me? As a spacefarer, carrying a short metal spear for self-defense is perfectly reasonable, isn't it?"

Perfectly reasonable… bullshit. Don't think we don't know what you're thinking.

Everyone here seemed sharp as knives—what Edith thought, others thought too; they didn't speak, but their body language was highly suspicious.

"Buttons don't work, blast doors won't open—"

Su Nisheng in the purple space suit looked up at the hemispherical dome; the metal ceiling had no rivets or screws, as if molded as one piece. She lowered her gaze to the faintly glowing blue pool, fixing her eyes on the dozen or so palm-sized metal plates scattered across its bottom.

After a brief pause, she said calmly: "I'll retrieve those metal plates."

Zhongli Mie Ming exclaimed in shock: "You're sure—"

Before "sure" could leave his lips, Su Nisheng had already flipped gracefully over the railing and plunged into the water.

Wow, Dongguan kid's hurdle—so cool.

Huh? Who's Dongguan kid?

Li Cheng, Valkyrie, Blood Lion Roared, and others all leaned over the railing, staring at the water's surface.

The pool was about ten meters deep; normally, an ordinary person or amateur diver would need a minute to reach the bottom—but Su Nisheng, clad in full protective gear, didn't need to worry about water pressure, and quickly dove down, using hands and feet to snatch up the dozen metal plates.

"The water's too deep—help her!" Valkyrie said sternly.

In this situation, even if we can't say "those who carry fire for others must not freeze in snow," we can at least say: when the lips are gone, the teeth feel cold.

Out-of-Control said nothing, yanked loose several loosely attached hoses, tied their ends together, and threw them to Li Cheng.

Li Cheng tightly bound one end of the hose to the railing; Valkyrie, leading the way, tied the other end around her waist and dove in, grabbing Su Nisheng.

"Pull!"

Out-of-Control roared; everyone on shore—including Midnight Dad, who'd been hostile at first—pulled the hose with all their strength.

Valkyrie and Su Nisheng swam upward, climbing along the sloped inner wall of the pool with immense effort, finally reaching the surface.

The space suit sealed perfectly; Su Nisheng's exhausted breathing still came through the speaker clearly. She didn't rest, immediately spreading out all the metal plates.

The plates came in two types: one silver-white, one slightly yellowish; both had adhesive tape on their backs—peeled away, revealing brown woolen fabric underneath.

"What's this? A key?"

Midnight Dad turned to the blast door; beside it was indeed a device resembling a card reader—but its thickness didn't match the metal plates.

"No."

Su Nisheng paused, tore off several pieces of tape, then stacked the differently colored metal plates on top of each other.

Li Cheng, Out-of-Control, and the Laughing God froze for a moment, then immediately moved to help, tearing off the remaining adhesive tapes in coordination with Su Nisheng.

"Two minutes left," Blood Lion Roared couldn't help asking: "What are you doing?"

"The wristwatch needs electricity to activate, right? Unless you're some unnamed Canadian electric eel who can generate power with electro-acoustics—"

Li Cheng didn't look up, saying: "Then we need a voltaic pile."

"The most primitive battery."

Out of Control seemed to guess what Blood Xue Shi Paoxiao was about to ask next, and quickly said, "Two different metals produce a potential difference, serving as the positive and negative poles of a battery, with an isolation layer soaked in conductive solution in between, forming an ion-conducting channel inside, creating a closed circuit. Like this."

He took the voltaic pile from Su Nisheng's hand, pressed the metal plates tightly together with a little force, then ran the metal wire along the edge of the wristwatch, pressed it against the two ends of the pile, and finally pressed the wristwatch button.

Sizzle.

The LCD panel suddenly lit up, displaying an eight-pointed star pattern, flickering on and off like breathing.

Out of Control tossed the voltaic pile to Li Cheng, and everyone, including Midnight Old Man, took turns using the voltaic pile to activate their wristwatches. With 30 seconds left on the countdown, all of them had completed startup.

"Welcome!"

Once the pattern brightness frequencies of everyone's wristwatches synchronized, a triangular-shaped, single-eyed unicycle robot abruptly appeared on the screen.

It cheerfully slid its small wheels across everyone's screen one by one, and in a somewhat manic, excited tone, shrieked: "I am the AI of Xinxiang Base, you can call me Noisy Kid. Welcome, awakeners, repairmen, and the... alien species hiding among the repairmen."