Chapter 18 Weight

“Hmm… this trick might still work on female players who are overflowing with compassion.” Feng Bujue moved his gaze from the newspaper and glanced at the monkey in the cage. “If necessary, even in reality, I wouldn't hesitate… let alone this is just a game.” He put down the newspaper, seemingly losing interest in its contents. “But… since they told me the precise weight, that should be a hint, right?”

He walked to the machine, squatted down, and brought his face very close, observing it carefully. He circled the machine once, then knocked on its shell with his fist, and kicked it hard twice with his foot. Clearly, the shell of this machine was not just a layer of iron, but a rather sturdy iron plate, and the screws at the joints were very tight, impossible to dismantle by hand, and impossible to move with one person's strength.

There were no obvious gaps on the surface of the machine, and the two gauges were also fixed very firmly. With less than three minutes remaining, it would be futile to find loopholes in the machine itself.

So, Feng Bujue went to tug at the iron cage holding the monkey a few times. It was indeed welded shut and did not move an inch. He looked around the room; besides the four walls, there was nothing.

He walked back to the center of the room, picked up the doll, and sat down on the small wooden chair. Because the chair was very small, Feng Bujue was almost squatting while sitting.

"To pass this room without killing the monkey… besides the 7.5 kilograms of this chair and doll, I need to find another 7.5 kilograms of objects." He rested his right elbow on his knee, tilted his head, and gently tapped his forehead with his index and middle fingers.

"That Walkman weighs at most a kilogram, not to mention the syringe. The clothes, pants, and running shoes cannot be removed due to system restrictions. Hmm… I suddenly miss that stone; at least it could add half a kilogram." He said with a smile, "Then… in this room with six bare walls, there's only one thing left that can move…" He looked up, looking at the lighting equipment above his head.

It was a suspended fluorescent lamp, the tube about one meter long, embedded in a plastic lamp shell, hanging from the ceiling by two wires. The wires were wrapped around the two hanging lines.

The ceiling of this room was much lower than outside, but it was still about four meters high. The suspended lamp tube was not close to the ceiling, but it was not at a height that Feng Bujue could reach.

He stood up, stepped onto the wooden chair, stood on tiptoe on the small stool, and stretched out his arms to measure. His fingertips were still about a foot away from the lamp tube. This distance was not long, not short, just out of reach. The chair under his feet was very small, and it was difficult to stand on it with his feet together. It was obviously impossible to jump straight up with force and reach out to grab something above his head.

Time was passing. Feng Bujue had only 73 seconds left.

After reaching out to observe the distance, he glanced back at the timer, then smiled, muttering to himself: "It's difficult right from the start… ha… just what I wanted."

After a little thought, Feng Bujue's eyes moved to the doll again. He seemed to have thought of a way. He quickly ran over to pick up the doll, took off the black suit on the doll and held it in his hand, then returned to the wooden chair, stood still, grabbed one sleeve of the suit with his left hand, and flicked it upwards.

Although this little suit was just a child's size, it was enough to go over the lamp tube. Feng Bujue then raised his right hand, grabbed the other sleeve of the suit above the lamp tube. The suit was now like a rein on a horse's mouth. Feng Bujue pulled both ends with his hands, and with a strong tug, one side of the hanging line of the lamp tube broke. One end of the fluorescent lamp's lamp shell hung down, the other end still hanging by the wire, swinging under the ceiling like a hanging sausage.

Now, Feng Bujue could directly grab the lamp tube. The three sides of the lamp tube were plastic shells, so he didn't have to worry about breaking the glass by holding it. Although the room was plunged into darkness due to the loss of lighting, it was not difficult to touch the "floating" lamp tube in front of him. After he grabbed the lamp tube, with a little force, he tore off the other end of the wire as well, taking the one-meter-long fluorescent lamp tube along with the plastic shell in his hand.

From the beginning, Feng Bujue had been counting down the time in his mind. At this moment, there should be about 35 seconds left. In the darkness, the machine was still running, rumbling. He did not rush to the sound, but carefully stepped down from the chair, used his feet to find the doll on the ground, remembered the position of these two things, and walked towards the machine while counting his steps.

It was simple to come to the machine. He could clearly know the position of the round opening just by the sound. Feng Bujue tilted his head back, stretched the lamp tube into the machine, and two rows of gears crushed the fluorescent lamp, pressing it down and squeezing it through the gap in the middle. Although some small pieces of broken glass splashed out during the process, Feng Bujue had prepared for it and was not hurt at all.

After three-quarters of the lamp tube entered the machine, he let go, turned around, faced the direction he had just come from, counted his steps, and walked quickly in the darkness. He deliberately controlled his stride, for fear of kicking the things he wanted to take with a big foot. He didn't have time to lie on the ground and grope around in the dark.

Unsurprisingly, he gently touched the doll on the ground within ten steps. Time was already tight. Feng Bujue quickly squatted down, grabbed the doll with one hand, and held the small wooden chair with the other. He turned around and ran towards the machine. This time, he didn't have to consider turning back, so he took big steps and reached the machine in a few seconds, quickly throwing the doll into it.

The back of the wooden chair was slightly longer than the diameter of the round opening. Feng Bujue had noticed this long ago and kept it in mind. If he hadn't considered this, he would have found that the small wooden chair was stuck outside the opening and couldn't be inserted. However, Feng Bujue would not make such a mistake, never. Before going to pull the lamp, he had thought about every step in the darkness.

While the machine was still crushing the doll, he grabbed the back of the wooden chair with one hand, slanted it on the ground, and stomped hard with his foot, deforming the board of the chair seat. This folded stool could be easily inserted into the round opening.

The time calculated in his mind was only five seconds left. The folded wooden chair was successfully filled into the machine. Almost three seconds later, the rumbling of the machine stopped. Because it was completely dark, Feng Bujue could not see the situation on the countdown timer and the gauges. He didn't know whether he had satisfied the weight of 15 kilograms and stopped the game, or whether the time had run out and the machine had stopped running.

In the next few seconds, time was so long and difficult to endure. Nothing happened. Feng Bujue's heart gradually sank. Was the weight of the lamp tube not enough? In reality, this kind of suspended fluorescent lamp, including the lamp shell and tube, might be less than 7.5 kilograms, but the thing he had just held in his hand felt obviously heavier than this weight. He believed that this was also the weight intentionally set in the game. Was the puzzle-solving idea wrong? Was the only way to escape this room to kill the monkey?

All the doubts disappeared with a strange "click." The door to the next room opened at this time. In fact, the reaction time of the mechanism was only about ten seconds.

A light shone in from the crack in the door, declaring that the game was still continuing…