Chapter 102: Elevator Peril (3)

The descending elevator stopped at the fifth floor.

Inside the elevator.

Geng Hao was slightly dazed.

'Shouldn't it have stopped at the fourth floor?'

'Why the fifth floor...'

'Chen Ran pressed the button for the fourth floor earlier. Does that mean once a button is pressed, that floor won't appear anymore?'

'No, that's not right!'

'After Chen Ran pressed the fourth floor button, the elevator dropped to the third floor.'

'Which means Chen Ran was running an experiment just now, and through that experiment, he discovered...'

Suddenly, Geng Hao remembered what Chen Ran had said while standing on top of the elevator car about floor 3A and floor 17A.

'I think I've heard of something like this before...'

'Four sounds like death.'

'Eighteen represents the eighteen levels of Hell.'

'People in real estate are somewhat superstitious, so many developers consider these two numbers unlucky.'

'Some rename the fourth floor to 3A and the eighteenth floor to 17A.'

'Even more extreme developers turn these two floors into elevator mezzanines...'

Realizing this, Geng Hao's eyes widened.

'The fourth and eighteenth floors are elevator mezzanines!'

'An elevator mezzanine is either a dilapidated room or just a solid wall.'

'Regardless of which one it is, for us trapped in a runaway elevator, it is absolutely a perfect temporary refuge!'

'As long as we stand on the mezzanine and quietly wait for the elevator to crash into the ceiling, we can climb out along the shaft and escape!'

'In this Escape Room Game, what we really need to escape isn't the elevator itself, but the elevator shaft!'

Having deduced the true solution to this Escape Room Game, a joyful expression appeared on Geng Hao's face.

'No wonder it went straight down to the fifth floor instead of the fourth this time. The fourth floor simply doesn't exist.'

He looked at the display screen.

Now the elevator was scheduled to shoot upwards, and the destination floor was the nineteenth.

'It should have gone up to the eighteenth floor, but since this building doesn't have an eighteenth floor, it skipped it and went to the nineteenth. My deduction is spot on!'

But soon, Geng Hao's face turned deathly pale.

'It went to the fifth floor this time, and every time the elevator descends, the destination floor increases by one...'

'That means this elevator will never reach the fourth floor again!'

'But if the 18th Floor Mezzanine is a small dilapidated room, I still have a chance to get inside it...'

'I just have to wait for the elevator to descend to the seventeenth floor first.'

'Right now it is on the fifth floor. It needs to descend twelve more times to reach the seventeenth floor.'

'The current upward destination is the nineteenth floor. If it goes up twelve more times, that will be the thirty-first floor.'

'If the highest floor of this building is the thirty-third floor, I will be able to climb from the seventeenth-floor shaft to the 18th Floor Mezzanine before the elevator crashes into the roof.'

Figuring this out.

He decisively pressed the button for the eighteenth floor to end the elevator's waiting cooldown.

The next moment, the elevator shot upwards, arriving at the nineteenth floor in a flash.

He took out his flashlight and aimed it through the still-open hatch in the elevator ceiling.

'The nineteenth floor isn't the top!'

'Excellent!'

'Since the nineteenth floor isn't the top, and judging by the roof floor plan inside the elevator, I can deduce that this building actually has thirty-three floors.'

'The reasoning is simple. Since the nineteenth floor isn't the top, and the work uniforms have the characters for Mitsubishi printed on them, I can conclude we are in China.'

'Since it has more than eighteen floors, according to national regulations, there must be two safety exits.'

'That is also why most buildings in the country max out at six, eleven, eighteen, twenty-six, or thirty-three floors.'

'Buildings over six floors must install an elevator. Over eleven floors requires two elevators. Over eighteen floors requires two safety exits. Over twenty-six floors means reinforced seismic walls are mandatory. Over thirty-three floors must have a helipad...'

'Older buildings are the exception, of course, since these regulations had not been implemented when they were built.'

'Judging by the smart technology of this elevator, I can rule out this being an old building.'

'So the next threshold is...'

'The twenty-seventh floor!'

'If the elevator does not crash into the roof at the twenty-seventh floor, there is a high probability I can survive.'

'The elevator is stopped on the nineteenth floor.'

'Right now, Chen Ran should be hiding in the 18th Floor Mezzanine to avoid being crushed into minced meat by the elevator. In that case, he should be able to hear me from the nineteenth floor.'

With that thought in mind.

He looked at his Watch. There were four minutes and twenty seconds left until the elevator's next rapid descent.

Geng Hao immediately stepped onto the handrail, poked his head out the top of the elevator, and roared outward, "Chen Ran, can you hear me?"

The only answer he received was...

His own echoing voice.

For some reason, a bad premonition welled up in Geng Hao's heart.

He shouted a few more times, but Chen Ran remained entirely unresponsive in the shaft.

Back inside the elevator.

Geng Hao fell into deep thought.

'There are two possibilities. One: Chen Ran failed to climb the shaft and has already been crushed into meat paste by the ascending elevator car.'

'Two: Chen Ran successfully climbed the shaft and is currently standing in the 18th Floor Mezzanine, but for some reason, he cannot hear my voice.'

'The first possibility can essentially be ruled out. Generally speaking, each floor is about 2.8 meters high.'

'The distance from the seventeenth to the eighteenth floor is merely 2.8 meters.'

'If a grown man cannot climb a height of 2.8 meters with a rope, he might as well just bang his head against a block of tofu and end it all.'

'That leaves only the second possibility. Chen Ran is already standing in the 18th Floor Mezzanine, and he heard me calling him, but he simply doesn't want to answer...'

'Why wouldn't he answer?'

'I already explained to him earlier what kind of situation would unfold if I died.'

'He isn't an idiot. He should be trying his best to help me escape this Escape Room Game.'

'No, there's another possibility. The 18th Floor Mezzanine is a dilapidated room, and he is hiding inside it to avoid getting caught in the crossfire when the elevator crashes into the roof and shatters the top level.'

'Therefore, he can't hear anything.'

'Right, right, right!'

'That must be the reason!'

Having consoled himself, Geng Hao took off his backpack inside the elevator and pulled out his rope, carabiners, and a Grappling Hook for climbing.

It had to be said that a Veteran Player's tools were vastly superior to those of a Newbie like Chen Ran.

'Actually, I have a second option. I don't have to wait for the elevator to descend to the seventeenth floor. We are on the nineteenth floor now. If I perfectly time it and jump from the top of the elevator one second before it rapidly descends, I could potentially grab onto the eighteenth-floor ledge as I fall.'

'Actually, I have a second option. I don't have to wait for the elevator to descend to the seventeenth floor. We are on the nineteenth floor now. If I perfectly time it and jump from the top of the elevator one second before it rapidly descends, I could potentially grab onto the eighteenth-floor ledge as I fall.'

'However, this requires coordination. Someone needs to stay inside the elevator to track the time and warn me, just like the starting gun fired by a referee in track and field.'

'If I jump even one second too late or too early, I will fall to my death in the shaft.'

'If I track the time myself, it would be extremely difficult to achieve the Unity of Will and Deed, making it impossible to accurately time my jump one second before the elevator falls.'

Geng Hao was caught in a dilemma. On one hand, if he stayed in the elevator, he would have to gamble that the twenty-sixth floor wasn't the top. If he won the bet, he had a chance to survive, but if he lost, he would undoubtedly die.

On the other hand, he could choose to jump from the nineteenth floor, but that required Chen Ran's help. However, Chen Ran wasn't answering him, which put him in a very difficult spot.

After thinking for a moment.

He climbed out of the elevator once again. Standing on the exterior roof, he tossed his flashlight upwards. The flashlight spun as it flew through the air. Aided by the occasional illumination of the upper shaft, he saw no sign of a sealed ceiling.

'This is the nineteenth floor. If the shaft was capped at the twenty-sixth floor, the flashlight's beam would have revealed the ceiling, but I didn't see it just now...'

'That means there is no ceiling on the twenty-sixth floor.'

'This building has thirty-three floors!'

It wasn't until he reached this conclusion that the heavy stone in Geng Hao's heart finally dropped.

He returned inside the elevator.

Waiting quietly for the elevator to ascend to the thirty-first floor later on, at which point its descent destination would be:

The seventeenth floor.

He would then have five minutes to climb from the seventeenth floor to the 18th Floor Mezzanine.