The 'Involution King' Second Female Lead Quits [Quick Transmigration] - Chapter 67

Chapter 67: The Fourth World [13]

Poison Gas

No one knew the price of entering the wrong password, but if they didn’t try, they would never make any progress, and being trapped here was not a good thing.

“You guys back up a bit. If the password is wrong, at least don’t get in my way when I run,” Li Jianwei said with a smile, her hand already pressing the first number.

Shu Heng’s lips moved, and as Li Jianwei pressed the second number, she quietly backed up. She didn’t go far, only about five meters, with her body pressed against the wall.

Xiao Gao and Xiao Di followed suit, backing up like Shu Heng and pressing themselves against the wall on the other side so as not to hinder Li Jianwei from dodging danger.

Beep beep beep beep—

The remaining six digits were quickly entered by Li Jianwei. The moment she pressed the confirm button, Li Jianwei took a big step back, creating distance from the password door.

“Password correct, unlocked—”

A soulless electronic voice rang out, causing the four tense people to slightly let out half a breath of relief.

Li Jianwei first pushed the door inward, creating a gap the size of a fist. After confirming there were no monster movements inside and no resistance at the door, she slowly pushed the door open.

“No danger found for now. It’s a new tunnel,” Li Jianwei said, then opened the door completely.

Inside was still a tunnel, but it was narrower than the one outside, only wide enough for two people to walk side by side at most.

Given that they might need to swing their weapons for defense if they encountered a monster, Li Jianwei still led the way, followed by Xiao Di, Shu Heng, and Xiao Gao, who was in the rear.

After walking about three hundred meters, no danger appeared, only a glass cabinet filled with protective suits.

Next to the glass cabinet was a door that could be opened by pressing a button, but it had a huge poison gas warning sign on it.

“This wants us to put on the protective suits and then go through here?” Xiao Di speculated, her eyes on the glass cabinet. There were many protective suits inside, at least ten.

“Possibly, but we don’t know how potent the poison gas inside is,” Li Jianwei said. “Entering recklessly without knowing what the protective suits do is a risk.”

Through the only window on the door, they could see that the room was full of green gas.

“Let me try it. If I’m wearing a protective suit, I shouldn’t get poisoned immediately,” Xiao Gao volunteered.

Since they were a team, they had to share the risks. They couldn’t always let Li Jianwei and Shu Heng take the lead in dangerous situations.

Li Jianwei didn’t refuse, only giving two instructions. “Pay attention to the durability of the protective suit. If it starts to drop, don’t stay in there for too long. We still have the other password door to open. Maybe the correct path is on the other side.”

Xiao Gao made an “ok” gesture, put on a protective suit first, and after everyone backed up a certain distance, she pressed the button and entered the room full of green gas.

Xiao Gao was unsure of the gas’s potency, so she kept an eye on her status while observing the room’s layout.

After staying for about five minutes, Xiao Gao felt her breathing become difficult, and a poison accumulation bar appeared on her status, jumping up by one point per second.

Xiao Gao didn’t dare to be overconfident and immediately pressed the button to exit the poison gas room.

Fortunately, after the door closed, the poison accumulation bar began to drop by one point every five seconds and returned to zero in a short while.

Xiao Gao told them her experience one by one. “The visibility is very low inside. There are four round handwheels on the wall that can be turned. I tried them all, but I haven’t found what they do yet.”

“Do we have to turn the handwheels at the same time? We happen to be four people,” Xiao Di asked.

“Alliance is what binds two people together. If opening the door requires four people, it’s very unfriendly to solo players.”

Shu Heng pinched her chin in thought. “Let’s put the protective suits away and go check the other side. Maybe that one isn’t a poison gas room.”

After counting, there were eleven protective suits in total. One was given to Xiao Gao, and Shu Heng and Xiao Di each took half of the remaining ones.

The four of them quickly doubled back to the right-side tunnel, where Li Jianwei smoothly used the previous password to open the metal door.

After pushing the door open and walking three hundred meters, another door that could be opened with a button appeared in their sight. However, there was no poison gas here, but rather a room filled with red lasers.

The moment the door was pushed open, three mutated rats scurried out from different locations.

“Careful!” Li Jianwei pulled out her titanium sword and swung it at where the mutated rats were pouncing.

But the titanium sword didn’t hit anything, only making the sound of cutting through air.

“It’s lasers. These lasers are very lethal!” Xiao Di couldn’t help but raise her voice.

She had just seen it clearly: when the mutated rats pounced, they were sliced into two pieces by the lasers in the air. A foul stench immediately wafted out.

“They are indeed very strong, but there’s air between the lasers, so it’s not hard to avoid them,” Li Jianwei said after observing. “It just means the passing speed will be slower.”

After making sure no new mutated rats would scurry out, Li Jianwei demonstrated to the other three what it meant to have a flexible body.

Li Jianwei was the tallest of the four, but it didn’t affect her ability to perform various difficult movements and pass through the messy, irregular laser array without a scratch.

In just ten minutes, Li Jianwei had gone around the laser-filled room and returned to the doorway.

“There are four special prism-shaped columns that can reflect the lasers. And there’s a door marked as ‘exit,’ but it has a lock on it. It probably needs some special method to open.”

Li Jianwei shared her speculation. “I suspect these four columns are related to the round handwheels in the opposite room. If we can reflect the lasers onto the lock, we should be able to find a new path.”

“Very likely. This requires cooperation between the two sides,” Shu Heng’s furrowed brow slowly relaxed. “Xiao Gao and I will go and turn the handwheels. You and Xiao Di will stay here. How about we communicate through our friend channels?”

“We have no problem with that,” Xiao Gao and Xiao Di immediately said.

Li Jianwei, of course, wouldn’t object to Shu Heng’s suggestion and immediately took on the task of observing the lasers.

Some of the prism-shaped columns were deep inside, requiring them to cross some lasers to see. Li Jianwei felt that she, being more agile, was better suited for the task.

An hour later, the two-sided cooperation officially began.

[Li Jianwei: It’s moving. This round handwheel corresponds to the foremost prism column. Following your previous order, they correspond to prism columns 3, 4, 2, and 1, respectively.]

[Shu Heng: Okay, next I will start from prism column 1. First, determine the angle for one full turn, then you tell me roughly how many turns are needed, and finally, we’ll make fine adjustments.]

The time they could stay in the poison gas room at once was limited. To ensure both of their conditions were good enough, Shu Heng and Xiao Gao took turns entering.

Xiao Gao’s spatial imagination was average, so she simply acted as the executor of the commands, letting Shu Heng take charge of the command.

[Li Jianwei: The laser melted the lock. Turn it about five more turns to move the laser away from the metal door.]

[Li Jianwei: Okay, now please don’t do anything. I’ll see if I can open the door.]

[Li Jianwei: It can be opened. I’ll wait for you at the entrance. Just follow my route through the lasers.]

After busy work that lasted for nearly three hours, the four finally passed through the laser-filled room and arrived in a new tunnel.

Before Xiao Di could even exclaim, a poison accumulation bar appeared in all four of their status windows, jumping up by 1 point at a time.

At the same time, a metal door suddenly closed behind them, completely cutting off their retreat.

“Quick, put on the protective suits,” Shu Heng said, quickly putting on her yellow protective suit.

Four little yellow people appeared in the tunnel. Because the protective suits were quite thick, their voices sounded a bit muffled.

“The poison accumulation speed has slowed down. Keep up with me,” Li Jianwei wasted no time, taking out her weapon and jogging in the tunnel.

This poison accumulation bar did not look like a good thing. If it reached 100 points, they might be directly poisoned to death, which would be more dangerous than monsters.

The other three didn’t dare to delay. At this point, they couldn’t care less about whether monsters would sneak attack them and started to jog as well.

When the poison accumulation bar rose to 20, the first fork in the road appeared, and the lights disappeared.

Shu Heng didn’t rush to make a choice. Instead, she and Li Jianwei each chose a path and then reported a number.

Shu Heng: “12.”

Li Jianwei: “15.”

“Go this way,” Li Jianwei said, putting on her headlamp and choosing her own path.

“That’s the time for one tick of the poison accumulation bar. The longer time should be the relatively correct path,” Xiao Gao explained.

A hint of understanding flashed in Xiao Di’s eyes, along with a touch of envy.

So this was what it meant to have a telepathic connection. They didn’t even need to discuss it and already knew which path to choose. But Xiao Gao was also excellent; she figured it out right away.

After walking for about six minutes, the fork became three paths. Xiao Gao, without a doubt, joined in on the number reporting.

Fortunately, a third fork didn’t appear. The speed of their poison accumulation bar’s ticking also slowed down to about one tick per minute. After they reached the end, the scene that greeted them changed from a dark tunnel to an exit sign glowing with green light.

“There’s a lot of chaotic noise outside the door, like a lot of creatures are crawling on the ground,” Li Jianwei said, her expression not looking good, but it was hidden by the thick protective suit.

“Let’s replenish our status. The number of monsters inside should be very large,” Shu Heng’s voice sounded as calm as ever.

“Xiao Di and I will be in the back to provide light. Li Jianwei and Xiao Gao will be responsible for killing the monsters that scurry out after the door is opened,” Shu Heng assigned the tasks. “If the number of monsters is too great, Xiao Di will provide the light, and the three of us will clear the monsters.”

“Okay,” the other three immediately agreed.

The poison accumulation bar had already exceeded 50 and was approaching 60. They didn’t have much time left!