Chapter 1 Single-Player Scripted Task

A single-player scripted task...

A long-lost sense of joy inexplicably rose within Li Ang. He shook his head, logged out of the game plaza, and returned to the Longqing cruise ship in the real world to prepare.

Soon, it was afternoon. Li Ang had Chaii Chaii wait outside the cabin while he held an ordinary Beretta 92f pistol and waited quietly in the cabin.

The clock on the wall ticked, and as the second hand jumped to twelve, the scene before Li Ang's eyes suddenly went black.

————

Pain, cold, numbness.

Darkness all around.

An intense pain instantly overwhelmed his entire body. Li Ang felt as if he were sitting on the ground with his back against the wall. A cold current surged from the top of his head along his spine, all the way to his feet. His body instinctively wanted to stand up, but his wrists were cuffed by something, making it impossible to break free.

A burning pain suddenly came from the back of his left hand.

Like... handcuffs?

Where is this?

Detention center?

Prison?

A serial killer's secret basement?

His body acted before his mind, subconsciously calling upon the Divine Seal and psychic abilities, but received no response.

The player information panel, inventory, and skill bar that his consciousness summoned were all dimmed gray and unusable.

Okay, this phenomenon was already familiar.

[In this mission, the player is in complete role-playing mode, with no attribute enhancements. You cannot use skills or skill scrolls other than title skills, cannot retrieve items from your inventory, and cannot use equipment.]

[Phase 1 Mission Objective: Leave the current room]

[Mission Time Limit: None]

[Mission Reward: None]

[Failure Penalty: None]

“...”

Li Ang exhaled a mouthful of foul air. Just as he was about to complain, a sharp pain came from his heart.

Thump... thump!

Thump!

Thump...

His heart felt like it was on a roller coaster,

Sometimes beating violently,

Sometimes suddenly stagnating, stuck.

The discomfort that surged through his body made him instinctively gag, as if he had run five thousand meters in one breath and then suddenly stopped at the finish line.

Fortunately, the pain came quickly and went quickly.

His heartbeat immediately returned to normal. Li Ang leaned back, his upper body against the wall, and began to assess his current situation.

The Phase 1 mission objective was to leave the current room. The mission time limit, reward, and failure penalty were all classic non-existent elements, giving no hints whatsoever.

“Alright,”

Li Ang took a deep breath, “First, let’s check my own condition.”

He wiggled his fingers and toes, and his eyes, nose, mouth, ears, and other organs all responded. He was a healthy male.

“Judging from the contours felt by the tongue touching the teeth, the body I am ‘observing’ is my own.

However, in the scripted mission, the ‘me’ observed by others is still a character within the scripted mission.”

So the question is, who am “I”?

Where is this?

Why is “I” here?

Li Ang moved his wrists. As the pain in his body disappeared, he saw that the environment was not completely dark.

His current posture was that his hands were cuffed, his arms were raised, pressing against his ears, and his entire body was sitting on the ground against the wall.

To the left of the direction his feet were pointing, there was a narrow beam of light shining into the room from a position close to the ground.

The light was relatively bright, not natural sunlight, but artificial light.

In other words, it was shining in from outside the room, along the crack under the door.

However, due to the angle, this light could not help Li Ang see other things in the room clearly.

“I’m cuffed in a secret room, and there’s artificial light outside. No matter how you look at it, this scripted mission doesn’t seem like a harmonious and loving family-friendly type.”

Li Ang thought with a headache, “Serial killer? Psychopathic murderer? Transnational criminal organization? Human trafficking gang? Or simply wealthy and perverted enough to want to see a live-action Saw movie from rich businessmen and powerful figures.

Regardless of which possibility it is, calling for outside help now is the worst choice—the culprit who caused my current situation is very likely outside.”

He had to escape here quietly and quickly.

Li Ang continued to explore. His wrists were indeed cuffed,

But unlike ordinary handcuffs, the ones on his wrists didn’t have a chain in the middle. Instead, there were only two metal rings around his wrists.

Between the metal rings, there was a padlock.

The padlock was quite heavy and sturdy. The circular ring in the middle not only locked the handcuffs but also secured them to a metal pipe that looked like a heating pipe.

The metal pipe was horizontal and straight, suspended in the middle of the wall. Both ends had nails connected to the wall, preventing the padlock from moving, thus trapping Li Ang in place.

The heating pipe was not turned on and felt cold to the touch.

Because there was a gap between the heating pipe and the wall, Li Ang could look up to a limited extent.

“Too dark, can’t see anything.

Hmm... What am I wearing?”

Li Ang gently tapped the ground with his feet. The feeling was comfortable, and the sound was crisp—high-quality leather boots.

He then lowered his head to bite his collar and licked the fabric.

Now it was a complete role-playing scripted mission, and he was wearing the clothes of the script character.

Judging from the feel, it was a suit, and a relatively high-end one.

“The price of a suit depends on the fabric, the tailoring, and the tailoring craftsmanship.

Let’s not talk about the latter two for now. The lining of this suit, that is, the reverse side of the fabric, uses wool, linen, and it seems... horsehair?

The fineness of the wool yarn is at least 100 count or more, 120 to 150 count, light, soft, and strong.

This kind of natural material can reset when the suit fabric and accessories move.

Moreover, the lining of this suit is not a mass-produced fused lining—using only a single layer of low-grade fabric as the lining.

It’s at least semi-handmade or even fully handmade.

The price of this suit alone is enough to exchange for a commoner’s entire outfit.

If it’s a made-to-measure, big-name haute couture model, the price will be even higher.

Ordinary white-collar workers can't afford it.”

Li Ang analyzed calmly. He wasn’t too interested in luxury consumption but had seen some wealthy families when he worked as a tutor.

He knew a little about so-called luxury consumer goods.

If, in the real world before he became a player, he saw such a suit worth at least twenty or thirty thousand,

Then he would definitely accidentally spill the white boiled water (0 yuan) from his portable thermos cup (99 yuan),

Spill it on his Android phone (128g gray (3400 yuan + 200 screen insurance)),

Causing the phone to accidentally slip out of his hand and fall to the ground along with his discounted down jacket (378 yuan) and work pants (69 yuan).

Finally, he would catch it with his labor protection snow boots (size 43, 200 yuan),

Avoiding the fate of raising his head at a forty-five-degree angle to the sky, tears flowing, and sadness turning into a river.

“Okay, so I found out that the character I’m playing is very rich. Then what?”

Li Ang continued to observe the surroundings of the room. He gradually slid down from the wall, trying to straighten his arms as much as possible and slowly sweep the ground with his feet (the room’s floor was made of wood, with a smooth surface and no burrs),

To see if he could sweep anything.

With a clatter,

As if he had kicked something made of plastic,

Li Ang was overjoyed and slowly hooked the hard object with the instep of his leather boot, clamping it between his feet,

And then gently tossed it upwards.

Li Ang’s soccer skills were pretty good. With one toss, the object drew a perfect arc in the darkness and landed right between his hands.

Got it!

Li Ang felt relieved and exhaled a mouthful of foul air.

His handcuffed hands felt the surface of the plastic object.

The object was about two fingers thick, palm-sized, and heavy to the touch, seemingly made of aluminum alloy.

The front end was a round piece of glass,

And the bottom end had a movable button that could be pressed.

This is a... flashlight?

Li Ang laboriously moved his palms and pressed the button at the bottom. Sure enough, a bright light bloomed from the front end of the flashlight.

Li Ang had anticipated this. The moment he pressed the button, he pressed the front end of the flashlight with his palm to avoid the strong beam of light shining on his eyes, which had been in the dark for a long time.

“This flashlight is so bright.”

Li Ang took a deep breath and slowly allowed his eyes to adapt to the light. When he felt he could, he released the palm pressing on the front end of the flashlight—his palm was a little hot.

He used the flashlight to illuminate the room.

The room was about three meters square, with dark-colored hardwood floors, a yellow circular lampshade on the ceiling, and light green wallpaper on the walls.

The door next to him was an ordinary wooden door with a golden doorknob, which looked like it might not be locked.

“Ordinary wooden door?”

Li Ang’s heart stirred. If this was a serial killer’s secret basement, then the security measures shouldn’t be so simple.

The wooden door looked like it had terrible soundproofing, and the lock structure was relatively fragile. It seemed that a healthy adult male could break it open with a strong impact.

Li Ang had several guesses in his mind.

The room should be some kind of storage room. In the area beyond his reach, there were several open cardboard boxes. Due to the angle, he couldn’t see what was in the boxes.

The presence of the handcuffs meant he couldn’t move over to kick the boxes and check them.

“The walls of the room don’t seem to have any soundproofing measures.

If I took off my boots and then kicked them out with my feet, letting the boots hit the wall and bounce back to hit the cardboard box, and then kick the cardboard box towards me, would I be able to get the cardboard box...”

Li Ang imagined it for a moment, then immediately dismissed this unrealistic assumption.

Not to mention whether he could complete such a difficult technical movement like a professional soccer player,

What if he kicked his shoes away with great force, making a sound and alarming the possible murderer outside?

Moreover, there were several cardboard boxes, and he only had one pair of shoes.

“This path is not feasible, so what about other factors?”

This scripted mission was complete role-playing, limiting the player's strength, meaning it was a puzzle-solving type,

Testing observation and logical reasoning skills.

Under the light,

Li Ang scanned the entire room. Apart from kicking off his boots, smashing the ceiling lampshade, and cutting his hands with the lampshade fragments,

Looking around, only the handcuffs on his hands were most likely the next step in the puzzle.

“Hmm... let me see what’s going on with these handcuffs.”

Li Ang took a deep breath, squinted his eyes under the light, and carefully observed the handcuffs.

Generally speaking, there are two common forms of handcuffs in the world: chain cuffs and plate cuffs.

The former is an early design, with two to three iron rings connected between the cuff rings. Because the iron rings are connected to each other, the handcuffed person can still move freely within a certain range.

It is even possible to strangle someone by putting the handcuffs around their neck and tightening them.

To avoid this situation, plate cuffs are now more commonly used,

That is, using fewer iron rings in parallel, reducing the distance between the cuff rings, making it impossible to move freely or rotate the wrists back and forth.

The handcuffs on Li Ang’s hands were obviously modified from common plate cuffs.

The protruding iron ring components of the cuff rings were sawed off,

And a brass-colored padlock was used to fasten the two cuff rings together.

In addition to the handcuffs, the padlock was also around a metal pipe similar to a heating pipe.

“Hmm... think about it.

The information on these handcuffs.

First of all, their owner has access to modern handcuffs, but didn’t use them directly, but used a cuff ring + padlock method to bind me.

If he had active handcuffs, he could have directly cuffed me to the heating pipe, without going to the extra effort – the distance between the two cuff rings of the plate cuffs is also very short, not worse than the discomfort brought by the padlock.”

Li Ang thought for a while and couldn’t figure out the reason, so he had to take the next step.

He slowly retracted his feet, pressed his back against the wall, and slowly stood up,

Then used his spine to brace against the wall and pulled his wrists forward.

“Hiss—”

Pulling his wrists hard forward, the handcuffs remained motionless. Even the seemingly flimsy heating pipe didn’t shake even a little.

“Okay, violent methods won’t work.”

Li Ang gritted his teeth and shook his sore wrists, “Hmm? What’s this...”

When he pulled the handcuffs hard, the position of the padlock also changed.

Originally, the padlock was firmly clamped between his hands and the pipe, lying horizontally, parallel to the ground.

Li Ang’s struggle caused the two cuff rings to loosen slightly, allowing the padlock to fall down.

After the padlock fell, from Li Ang’s angle, he could see that on top of the padlock,

There were three small metal rings,

And each metal ring had a metal object similar to a key hanging on it.

The key is on the lock?

Li Ang’s heart shook. He perked up, licked his slightly chapped lips, and used the flashlight to illuminate the padlock.

Although the flashlight was bright, Li Ang’s own eyes would also be illuminated by the light at this angle,

But he still managed to see the structure of the padlock.

It turned out that the three metal rings on the padlock really had three keys hanging on them,

But the problem was that one of the three keys was normal,

And the other two were incomplete,

With only the upper half, and only the lower half.

The incomplete key in the lower half was connected to the metal ring through a round hole.

“Damn! That’s too much! Starting with pitch darkness and severe pain, limiting player skills,

Now the first puzzle is a compound decryption of three keys and a lock.

Killing Field System, just say if you want to kill me.”

Li Ang cursed and complained wildly in his heart, but his brain became more and more calm and excited.