Puzzle Madness

Chapter 180 Autumn is the Hunting Season (Sixteen)
His cheeks puffed out, and he clenched his teeth, trying to pull the folding knife horizontally from left to right.

That must have been incredibly painful: the tiny blade tip couldn't even tear the wound open horizontally, but instead got stuck directly in his neck. Huang Youtian curled up in excruciating pain, bending over like a shrimp.

No one could see the monster's expression. In fact, its hazy outline showed that it wasn't even looking at Huang Youtian—its head was tilted back in the dark mist, its chin almost touching the ceiling.

Perhaps worried about damaging the exhibits, the monster did not swing its cleaver.

It simply reached out and grabbed Huang Youtian—its well-trimmed thumb, like an open bottle cap, pressed against Huang Youtian's chin and lifted it upwards.

With a crisp "click," Huang Youtian's head twisted up and down, his neck deformed like a snake from the impact, and his eyes stared at Ai Xi and Mu Jingzai behind him.

The chaotic emotions in his eyes vanished in an instant: he was dead too.
-
"Stop looking, it's time to go."

Ai Xi looked the monster up and down and said to the boy with the glasses staring blankly at everything.

Meanwhile, the monster was still examining Huang Youtian as if he were a bottle of cola, holding him in its hand and picking him up and putting him down, rotating him back and forth and weighing him incessantly.

The team that once consisted of five people is now reduced to only two survivors: Ai Xi and Mu Jingzai.

She took the first step, followed closely by the boy with the glasses who had come to his senses: this was also his only choice, and the last remaining flashlight was in Ai Xi's hand.

They had no intention of violently confronting the monster, which was clearly not an opponent that humans could easily defeat.

Not to mention them, who were unarmed.

So everything comes back to the very beginning: escape.

Passing through the exhibition hall and continuing forward—on both sides are gates similar to those in the previous prison cells; only the interior is much cleaner, as if it has never been used to detain victims.

The door at the end of the corridor should have led to the next room, or it might have been the exit.
But now it was tightly sealed, and the large lock on the gate swayed slightly, making a mocking clanging sound.

Ai Xi didn't even glance at the [exit], but instead casually pulled open a gate and crawled inside with Eyeglasses Boy; then she pulled down the long gate, sealing the iron gate tightly.

This is a dead end, definitely not a place to go when escaping; it's more like deliberately walking into a monster's cage.

More leather bags hung on the wall: they hadn't been processed or tanned yet; their pink linings were visible: they must have been used as storage rooms, and they smelled like cured meat.

"What's the point of us hiding here?" Glasses Guy stammered breathlessly, looking around. "There's no way out here."

His hand reached behind his back and scratched, as if his previous sprain hadn't healed. But this time, he gripped something tightly:
"Are we supposed to wait until the monster leaves before we go out? It's just the two of us left, and I'm so scared."

"You—do you have any other ideas, Ai Xi? You're so smart."

When the boy with the eyepiece turned his head back, the silent Ai Xi unzipped her school uniform.

She wore only a sports vest underneath her long-sleeved school uniform.

The bare skin around the vest was covered with battery-like lumps, wrapped in insulating tape, pressed tightly against the skin, and secured with transparent tape; among the tangled wires were old scars and allergic rashes caused by pressure.

There are old cuts from knife blades, cigarette burns, and dents from missing pieces of flesh around her navel and collarbone, all of different kinds and unknown how many years they have been there; due to her low body fat percentage from long-term exercise, her muscle contours are well-defined and prominent, which makes the scars even more noticeable.

In the center of his chest was a rough, acrylic-like disc, also secured with tape, which served as the convergence point for the electrical wires. It was adorned with countless tiny, glittering beads.

This must be some kind of handcrafted device, intricately coiled. If it weren't for her oversized long-sleeved tracksuit, it wouldn't have been able to be concealed at all.

"Uh, what are these? They look..."

The eyepiece stared wide-eyed, out of curiosity and surprise; but in the dim light of the flashlight, it was difficult to see the details.

"Remember? I said I brought a very bright flashlight."

Ai Xi said. She suddenly switched off the flashlight in her hand, plunging everything into darkness.
"Don't blink." *Slap!*
A crisp click, as if some switch had been pressed—
A sun rises in the small room.

Light surged from the center of Ai Xi's chest, shining directly into the head of the boy with the eyepiece, accompanied by a burnt smell.

Even a dark wilderness can be illuminated in an instant; let alone the eyes of people who are used to dim lighting.

The boy with the eyepiece closed his eyes in time—he even tried to turn his head, but he was a beat too slow.

The light was so real that it pierced his eyes; his eyeballs felt like they were on fire, like they were being filled with magma and were melting.

He let out a scream and tried to rub and pat his eyes:

"Ah! What are you doing--"

Honk! Honk! Honk! Honk!
The sound of a monster moving rapidly and violently came from afar outside the door, and one could imagine that it had already shaken off Huang Youtian's corpse; its huge fists were pounding on the concrete ground and dragging itself forward.

With each collision, the scraping sound became incredibly loud.

Click click click click:

A rapid snapping of the latches—someone pulled out a utility knife and extended the blade.

But who else could be in this cramped little room but Ai Xi?
The light lasted only a few seconds. But after it went out, a hazy, incandescent white light remained in the eyepiece, like it was stuffed with cotton.
He quickly stepped back, bracing his back against the jarring concrete wall; he swung one hand frantically forward, while the other finally pulled something out from his lower back—
A burst of light flashed, and bursts of pale blue arcs of electricity danced in the air, snapping outwards as the man with the goggles waved them around.

He had a stun gun hidden in his lower back—perhaps the back injury he had shown before was just a charade: it's just unclear why it hadn't been used.

Sizzle, sizzle.

The sound of shoes scraping against concrete, mixed with the gust of wind blowing in their faces—the man with the eyepieces flailing his hands hit something, and immediately followed up by thrusting out the stun gun.

But its soft, amorphous texture is not human at all:

It was Ai Xi's school uniform that she threw over—
"what!"

One misjudgment led him into a feint: in his blindness, a sharp object grazed past the man's ankle, accompanied by the soft sound of metal cutting through flesh.

Immediately followed by a fleeting, sharp pain and a feeling of powerlessness: his ankle bone seemed to be pulled out of his body in an instant, and he staggered, hopping around on one foot, almost unable to stand.

"Why?! Stop—"

Another sharp pain, along with fear, struck; this time it was his other ankle. In the blink of an eye, the support on both sides of his lower limbs was lost.

With a terrified scream, Eyeglasses finally slumped to the ground, leaning against the concrete wall behind him—based on his understanding of the human body, he knew his Achilles tendon had been severed.

The cutting motion was somewhat clumsy and awkward, but without hesitation: the second cut was faster and smoother than the first.

A heavy pressure pressed against his chest, making it hard for Glasses to breathe. Someone was stepping on his thin chest: it was Ai Xi's oversized men's running shoes.

Ai Xi's voice drifted down from above. She was crouching down, her knees pressed against the boy's neck, using her weight to suppress him; the utility knife clicked as it was pushed.
Is it very bright?

"This isn't even the brightest flashlight in the world—those kinds are too expensive, so I made one myself. It's a bit rudimentary, but don't mind it."

"It only lasts a few seconds and isn't bright enough; let's see if we can continue to improve it to be lighter. It'll do for now."

Click, click. The sound of a lighter striking, and a slight warmth emanating from it:
"Have you heard of [Crazy]? Do you know where your power comes from, hmm, Glasses Killer?"

(End of this chapter)