Gamers Are Fierce-Chapter 575 - 573: The Wick

The script this time was permeated with strangeness at every turn. As things progressed to this stage, even Li Ang harbored doubts about the hidden truths behind it all.

Judging from the structure of the passage and the echoes I heard when I threw the Hex Screwdriver toward the ceiling, the ceiling must be at least 150mm thick. Logically speaking, the sound from upstairs shouldn't have traveled down so clearly, Li Ang murmured to himself. "Unless the floor is specially designed to conduct sound—and moreover, it's one-way sound transmission."

He muttered, "From their conversation, they seem to be a married couple with a daughter, probably living in a detached house in the suburbs. The man is a researcher, quite possibly an Alchemist, currently busy with some experiment, with no time to spend with his wife and daughter."

Li Ang rubbed his chin. "Could I be the experiment's sample? Observing how a lab rat solves a maze? If that's the case, that could explain why the man and woman upstairs didn't hear my shouts. They had everything premeditated, acting out their planned charade after observing me get the letter. But no, if they were already conspirators, they could have just performed in front of me. In that case, the information I've gathered might all be false... Unless the man and woman upstairs are completely unaware of the Underground Palace, and someone else designed it and trapped me..."

To deceive an Alchemist, how difficult would it be to construct a massive Underground Palace beneath their house? No matter how I think about it, it couldn't possibly be less difficult than when I secretly modified my rented house without the landlady's knowledge...

The more he thought about it, the more possibilities emerged. Li Ang shook his head, clearing his mind. Occam's razor; I'll just continue gathering information, he decided.

He flipped through the letter again. Its handwriting was just as messy as before, but it did not bear the marks of a pigpen cipher disguised as stains.

Understandable. The same trick won't work on a Saint Fighter. If the designer of the dungeon uses a pigpen cipher again, that would be too amateurish, Li Ang thought.

Li Ang set aside the letter and picked up the portable kerosene lamp and matchbox from the floor. The lamp was made of metal and glass, predominantly red. It was wider at both ends and narrow in the middle, shaped like a gourd, and had no wick, but there was a knob on one side of the lamp head for adjusting where a wick would go.

He casually picked up the matchbox. It was made of sturdy cardboard, about half the size of his palm, with no brand label on the outer packaging, and had a red and black phosphorus surface on its left side.

"Ordinary Red phosphorus, White Phosphorus," he noted, sniffing the phosphorus surface. He pulled open the matchbox and found two matches inside.

"So what?" Li Ang muttered, annoyed. "Give me a kerosene lamp but no wick? Am I supposed to fashion one for you on the spot?"

He paused, looking down at the strips of bedsheet tied around his waist. Wait a minute... It seems I actually *can* make one myself...

Li Ang sat cross-legged on the ground, took out the Hex Screwdriver, and after some effort, dismantled the kerosene lamp. After examining it, he fashioned a makeshift wick from the bedsheet scraps and some cotton, then inserted it into the lamp.

"Wearing these gloves really makes every task cumbersome," he sighed. "I'm starting to empathize with Doraemon, who only has those round hands."

Sighing again, Li Ang reassembled the kerosene lamp and wiped his hands on the remaining fabric scraps.

After reassembling the lamp, he thoroughly searched the room to ensure there were no hidden elements. Then, carrying the lamp and matches, he walked out through the first door.

The outer door of Room B was still closed. A large number of broken wooden chair pieces were scattered in the space between the two doors. Li Ang picked one up and noticed that the broken surfaces lacked the natural grain that wood should have; all the "wood" was just sawdust forcibly bonded together into a solid shape.

Forcibly changing the composition of a material... That must be Alchemy, right? No wonder it's so sturdy, he realized.

Li Ang dropped the wood fragment, looked towards the closed outer door of Room B, and muttered uncertainly to himself, "Should I stand back there..."

He stepped back onto the circular pattern between the two doors. Sure enough, the red light activated again. The inner door slowly closed and, after a few seconds, the outer door of the room began to open.

To avoid being locked in again, Li Ang hurriedly jumped outside, only to find the corridor plunged into complete darkness, with no light visible.

My lamp went out? Li Ang wondered.

He looked up at the dark ceiling. Relying on memory, he pulled out a match, struck it on the matchbox's phosphorus surface, and lit first the match, then the lamp's wick. Light once again filled the corridor.

Li Ang shook his hand to extinguish the match, carefully placing it back into the matchbox. Watching the outer door of Room B close automatically, he furrowed his brow. "Both doors can't be open at the same time..." he mused. "It's kind of like... an airlock, or a laboratory?"