Chapter 102
Chapter 102
“What do you plan to do?” the Old Man asked Jiang Li.
Jiang Li thought for a moment and looked at him. “Do you have an extra flashlight?”
The Old Man nodded. “I do.”
After saying that, he turned back into the room.
Leaning on his cane, he walked to the nightstand.
He skillfully pulled open the top drawer and took out a black flashlight.
“When we go out, we’ll each have a flashlight. I’ll shine mine ahead, and you’ll shine yours behind,” Jiang Li proposed her plan.
Illuminating the front would freeze the Wooden Figures ahead.
Illuminating the back would freeze the Wooden Figures behind them.
As long as the two of them cooperated, they could escape this trap.
“One of them will fail,” the Old Man said, putting the flashlight back.
He rested both hands on his cane and spoke from experience:
“I tried that years ago. I used a flashlight to light the front and a phone light to light the back, but one direction always fails.”
This was a lesson the Old Man had learned through countless attempts.
Years ago, he had been quite smug for a while after coming up with this method.
It was with that very hope that he had tried again and again.
During every game, either the front would have a problem or the back would.
At first, he really thought it was his own fault.
It wasn’t until later, when he had nearly blinded himself with his attempts, that the Old Man finally realized the truth.
Perhaps this was the “Hidden Rule” of this game of Red Light, Green Light.
Otherwise, how could it be so easy? How could one escape just by using two lights?
It was nothing more than a pipe dream; in the end, all that awaited him was total blindness.
After losing his sight, the hope of escaping became even more remote.
This bit of experience from the Old Man was vital information for Jiang Li.
She truly hadn’t expected such a result.
“In that case, I’ll come get you at two in the afternoon,” Jiang Li said before leaving Room 501.
Time quickly reached 2:00 PM sharp.
The Old Man in Room 501 had long since finished packing.
He had been sitting in his room, waiting.
Over the past many years, many Service Staff members had tried to take him out.
He still remembered a Young Lady, about seventeen or eighteen, who had been just like Jiang Li-full of fighting spirit and trying every possible method.
That Young Lady didn’t succeed in the end; instead, she lost her own Eyes in the process.
Later, the Young Lady struggled to survive for a while before eventually suffering a mental breakdown.
After that, there was no sign of the Young Lady.
She might have turned into a Wooden Figure.
Or she might have died.
Regardless, the Old Man never saw her again.
*Knock, knock, knock-*
The knocking sounded at the door of Room 501.
The Old Man stood up and headed out, leaning on his cane.
The red carpet that originally lined the corridor was now gone.
Jiang Li had moved it to the utility room in advance.
“Can you run? If not, get in the cart.”
Jiang Li pushed over a Cleaning Cart and gestured for the Old Man to get on.
Without the help of this cart, the Old Man’s movement speed as a Blind Man would only hold them back.
The Old Man was well aware of his disadvantage.
He did as he was told and sat down without refusing.
Jiang Li tied a flashlight to the front of the cart to free up her hands to push.
“Do you have the Elevator Card? I need to see it.” Jiang Li didn’t entirely trust the Old Man’s character.
The Old Man hesitated.
Two seconds later, he spoke: “Don’t worry, I have it. But I can’t give it to you now. If you snatch the card away, what happens to a poor old man like me?”
That the Old Man would give such an answer was within Jiang Li’s expectations.
Jiang Li didn’t force the issue.
If the Old Man refused to give it to her when the time came, she had plenty of ways to deal with him.
Jiang Li finished settling the Old Man into the cart.
The time was drawing closer to 14:10.
Just before the corridor plunged into darkness, the Old Man’s rapid alarm clock began to ring.
“Ring-ring-ring-ring! Ring-ring-ring-ring!…”
Jiang Li retrieved the Little Match from her Space, struck it, and lit it.
Whether they could escape or not depended entirely on this one move.
The spectating netizens were baffled, offering their own guesses in the bullet chat.
-“My god, what is she doing?”
-“Jiang Li isn’t planning to just use matches the whole time, is she?”
-“Is this some kind of joke!?”
Everyone stared intently at their screens, wanting to see exactly what Jiang Li was up to.
Inside the Live Streaming Room.
The lights in the hotel’s 5th-floor corridor began to go out, one by one, with a series of sharp clicks.
Aside from Room 501, the other nineteen room doors swung open simultaneously.
Countless Wooden Figures rushed out from those rooms.
The moment the corridor went dark, Jiang Li quickly struck a match and set fire to something beside her-
A Wooden Figure!
Jiang Li remembered a sentence the Girl at the Hot Spring Pool had said:
“Staying here to work is better than turning into a pile of rotten wood.”
She was right-rotten wood.
In this 123 Wooden Man game, “rotten wood” was the key to breaking the deadlock.
Precisely because they were “rotten wood,” they were even easier to ignite!
The moment the Wooden Figure beside her came into contact with the match, the flames whooshed upward, immediately spreading across its entire body.
These Wooden Figures were extremely flammable.
They were essentially fuel prepared for the adventurers to burn.
As for whether an adventurer could discover this “combustible material,” that depended on whether they knew how to make the best use of their resources.
The instant the Wooden Figure beside Jiang Li caught fire, all the other Wooden Figures in the corridor froze in place.
Seizing this opportunity, Jiang Li pushed the small cart and sprinted forward without looking back.
At that moment.
A ghostly wind began to howl through the hotel corridor.
“Are you lighting candles? They’ll be blown out,” the Old Man reminded her kindly.
He seemed to sense that something was burning behind him.
The Old Man assumed it was a pile of candles.
Jiang Li curled her lips into a smile. “Don’t worry, they won’t go out.”
A weak candle flame could be extinguished by the wind.
But a Great Fire could not.
Once wood started burning, the wind wouldn’t put out the flames; instead, it would provide oxygen.
Oxygen is exactly what fire needs to burn!
The more oxygen supplied, the more fiercely the fire would rage!
Sure enough.
After the gust of wind rose, the ignited Wooden Figure burned even more violently.
At the corner of the corridor, Jiang Li continued to light the next Wooden Figure, creating a relay of firelight.
Jiang Li pushed the Old Man into another mad dash.
The cycle repeated.
This time, the corridor still consisted of ten turns.
Jiang Li pushed the cart all the way, knocking aside many Wooden Figures and burning quite a few as well.
After enduring many hardships, they finally reached the final stretch of the corridor.
The Elevator Entrance was right ahead.
“Give me the Elevator Card, quick!” Jiang Li’s expression was urgent.
She glanced at the Wooden Figure behind her; it was almost burnt out.
Jiang Li quickly lit another one to keep the light going.
The Old Man realized they had escaped the corridor.
He climbed down from the cart unhurriedly, shook out his clothes, and leaned on his cane.
“Elevator Card? What Elevator Card? I don’t have any Elevator Card on me.”
After the Old Man spoke, he relied on his memory to grope his way into the Guest Elevator.
He then turned toward Jiang Li and revealed a sinister, Aberration smile.