Chapter 172: Chapter 161 Elevator Puzzle Chapter 172: Chapter 161 Elevator Puzzle On the mobile phone screen, apart from the constantly decreasing time, there was another line with a three-digit number.

It decreased uniformly from 298, to 297, at a rate of one second per second.

It was easy to see that the three digits below represented the remaining seconds of the 5-minute countdown above… but why it was necessary to display the seconds again in this way was a mystery.

Besides these two lines of numbers, the rest of the mobile phone screen was a blank, devoid of any words.

Chen Xiao furrowed his brow; this inexplicable message provided no hints nor instructions on what to do, there was no question posed or a single word, leaving him baffled with nothing but a “countdown”.

“Yo-ho~~” Chen Xiao greeted his phone, to no response…

Following that, he poked at the phone’s screen and then “smack”, threw it onto the ground, only to realize immediately that he couldn’t dismiss this interface.

This countdown was a constant reminder that there was something people were supposed to do.

Chen Xiao licked his lips… It seemed that the event affecting the timer was not on the phone itself, so he stopped trying to study it and simply pocketed it.

As for checking how much time was left on the countdown, he never needed any tools for that.

Then Chen Xiao once again cast his gaze around himself. Although he had habitually scanned the elevator interior upon entering, he felt it was necessary to observe it more carefully,

One because he had not scanned when he entered the elevator, and two because at that time, this countdown without any prompt had not yet appeared. So perhaps just recently, there might have been some change inside this elevator.

Without further ado, let’s take a look at this elevator.

Er… but honestly, there really wasn’t much to see in such a cramped space.

The entire elevator was only about 3 to 4 square meters, completely white, and a long space, with a narrow gap on the left and right, just wide enough for two people to stand side by side. Its length was about twice its width and on the wall facing the door, there was a mirror, only one-fifth the size of the wall it was mounted on, and at just the right height to reflect everything above Chen Xiao’s waist. On the two walls, excluding the “door” and “mirror”, there were two “long stick”-shaped handrails embedded, with nothing else whatsoever. As for the ceiling, after the machine that emitted the red light finished scanning, it retracted back into the ceiling, fitting so seamlessly that not even a knife could be inserted. The lighting within the elevator mainly came from the special metal material of the ceiling itself, so there was no “lamp” of any sort. Additionally, the floor of the elevator was made from the same material, making the entire interior, aside from the elevator doors that could open left and right, a nearly gapless, sealed space.

The elevator door itself was unadorned, and next to it were only two buttons, one with two opposing arrows indicating “open”, and the other with converging arrows indicating “close”. There were no buttons for floor numbers.

Chen Xiao spent a second to take another look at the structure of the elevator. Afterwards, his conclusion was… nothing had changed…

However, he didn’t show any regret, because this meant that whatever the countdown was prompting him to do had been there all along, not something that suddenly appeared after the countdown had started.

Consequently, he did something he was certain was pointless: he pressed the two buttons beside the elevator doors.

…

…

“Hm… just as expected, nothing happened!” Chen Xiao muttered to himself. Although he had anticipated this outcome, he always felt uneasy not trying.

Of course, even though he tried, he didn’t waste even a second because while one hand was pressing the elevator buttons, the other was already reaching into his crotch… and had pulled out a silver revolver. (You dirty bunch… what were you thinking?)

Then, gripping the gun barrel, he unhesitantly swung with a motion akin to wielding a hammer, and struck the elevator door with the butt of his gun.

With a loud “clang”, it was as though a gong had sounded in the nearly enclosed, narrow space, nearly causing Chen Xiao to fall flat on his behind.

After shaking his head to reorient his vision, he saw that the elevator door was indeed dented in a large area, but overall, there was no significant damage. In other words, using the gun butt to smash the door open was feasible, but by the time he succeeded, dinner would have probably been long over.

Seeing that the plan to “break open the elevator door” was a bust, Chen Xiao once again reached into his crotch and pulled out a switchblade.

With a “click”, the switchblade was unsheathed, and taking advantage of the few seconds of vibration, Chen Xiao stepped forward, thrusting the knife towards the elevator door…

Subsequently, with a “thud”… er… it didn’t go in.

“What the fuck?” Chen Xiao was slightly shocked, “Is this door that sturdy?”

Then, undeterred, he gathered his strength and slashed and jabbed the knife several times on the door, even inserting it into the gap of the dented door and wiggling it back and forth.