Chapter 173: Chapter 161 Elevator Puzzle_2 Chapter 173: Chapter 161 Elevator Puzzle_2 But in the end, he gave up on the idea of opening the elevator.

Because even the cutting capability of the vibrating dagger could only leave a few scratches on it, indicating that the material density of this elevator was extremely high. It was estimated that not even a direct laser could penetrate it, so forcefully opening it was absolutely impossible.

At this moment, 30 seconds had already passed.

Chen Xiao quickly turned around, facing the mirror behind him.

Since the idea of “getting out” was temporarily ruled out, the most suspicious thing remaining… was this mirror.

Chen Xiao hurried towards the mirror… Since the elevator’s door was “long” distance from the mirror, it took nearly two more seconds for Chen Xiao to reach it, and he carelessly flashed a smile at his reflection.

Then, as if disgusted by himself, he quickly stifled his smile.

Next, he approached the mirror, first “huffing” a breath onto it, wiping the “mist” with his sleeve, then brought his eyes close enough to almost touch the mirror, straining to see inside as if trying to let his gaze pass through… A second later, he saw nothing out of the ordinary.

So Chen Xiao moved to the side of the mirror, pressed his face against the wall beside it, closed the eye on the outer side, and used his hand to block the light, carefully observing the mirror’s surface, only to find that the mirror had no outstanding or indented curves.

That is to say, it was just an ordinary mirror.

And after Chen Xiao confirmed this… he suddenly turned hostile, like someone who’d changed his face, and struck it with a blow.

“Whoosh—” went the sound.

The mirror was instantly smashed into pieces, scattering on the ground. Only the four corners still hung on the wall, shaking dangerously, looking like they couldn’t hold on much longer.

But with the sound of the glass shattering… what appeared in front of Chen Xiao was not some cipher code or a switch of any sort.

It was… a wall.

Yes, it was a wall identical to the surrounding ones, meaning there was nothing behind the mirror…

“Eh?” Chen Xiao puzzled for a moment, then hurriedly stepped forward, knocking around the frame of the mirror like knocking on a door, only to find… really no difference.

It seemed that neither this wall nor the mirror could provide any clues.

At this point, according to the countdown in Chen Xiao’s mind, 3:40 had arrived, and Chen Xiao was still clueless about what to do.

But then

“Hehehe—”

Chen Xiao chuckled throatily, showing no sign of anxiety.

Having checked both the “door” and the “window,” he then shifted his gaze to the floor.

Then, relying on his keen powers of observation, he determined that… there was nothing on the ground…

Well, this isn’t just a sentence to pad out the word count. It means that there were no gaps on the floor, no accumulations of dust to deduce whether there were any air vents and their direction. During his back and forth pacing just now, Chen Xiao had also deliberately stomped with force in different areas to roughly verify that the floorboard’s material was completely consistent with the surrounding walls, meaning there was no point in trying to smash or hack at it, it would definitely be useless.

This whole process… took less than a second!

…

…

A door, a wall, a mirror, and a floorboard~

And the remaining two walls, aside from each having a handrail, had been glanced at many times with peripheral vision and basically could also hold no clues.

That meant, whatever was associated with this countdown, was on top, within the elevator’s ceiling.

Chen Xiao raised his head, taking a look at the ceiling above,

Licked his lips.

Because…

The ceiling was a bit high, so high that even if Chen Xiao exerted all his strength, as if he were trying to suckle, he still couldn’t reach it.

But this was hardly a problem for Chen Xiao…

Since the handrails inside the elevator were just made of ordinary steel embedded in the elevator walls, with a “clang, clang” sound, a handrail was cut down by Chen Xiao using a vibrating knife.

Then, holding this handrail like a stick, he began to hammer against the ceiling of the elevator “bang, bang, bang, bang”! The noise was so intense that it sounded like he was setting off firecrackers inside a house—had this been at his own place, the upstairs neighbors would certainly have reported him, and the landlady would probably end up holding Xiaoxiao’s little hand, engaging in an all-night chat.

Without further ado, under such high-frequency and rapid knocking, Chen Xiao finally found a very small area on the ceiling where the sound was different from other places…

“Heh heh—found it!” Chen Xiao’s heart leaped with joy, and then he poked even more ferociously at that spot with the stick.

Soon, the different spot was poked through by Chen Xiao.

Accompanied by a “crackling” noise, the broken material fell to the ground, looking like some kind of white tile, almost identical to the ceiling, making it impossible to distinguish.

Behind this tile, a square opening about 10 centimeters squared appeared above Chen Xiao’s head.

And it was pitch black, impossible to see what was inside.

Chen Xiao didn’t think too much, even though he hadn’t wasted much time, the countdown timer still had reached

2:55, and the following numbers changed to 175. Although he didn’t know what would happen when the countdown ended, it definitely wouldn’t be good.

So, almost following the momentum of poking through that tile, he immediately inserted the iron rod, which was the handrail, into the opening.

But then, the stick was blocked. About 20 centimeters away from the pitch-black opening, there was a slanted baffle, forming a 60-degree angle with the wall next to the opening, and the baffle was very sturdy, probably made of the same material as the surrounding walls.

Which meant that something rigid like an iron rod definitely couldn’t be extended inside.

Moreover, this distance from the hole was just right, and the angle was not very sharp, as if to hint to people that this hole… was designed for a person to reach into with an arm.

Chen Xiao thought for a moment…

There was likely a button or something similar inside the hole that, if pressed, should stop the countdown.

Although this was just a guess, no matter how he thought about it, this hidden opening must be the key connected to the countdown. So, knowing what the target was, what came next was much easier.

Chen Xiao glanced at the distance between the walls on either side of the elevator, turned around, and with a swift motion of his hand,

“clang, clang”—in two strokes, he cut down another handrail from the opposite wall, too.

Now, Chen Xiao had two steel pipes in his hands,

Afterward, he positioned the two handrails parallel to each other, slanted across the inside of the elevator, with one end against the corner of a wall and the ground, and the other leaning against the wall on the opposite side. Then, Chen Xiao began to undress…

To prevent everyone from getting any strange ideas, I want to emphasize that he only took off his purple suit jacket…

After that, he tied the sleeves of the jacket to the two handrails. Since there were several protrusions on the handrails from when they were attached to the walls, the sleeves could easily be caught on them without worrying about slipping off. Besides, the suit was bulletproof, so it certainly wouldn’t have a problem supporting the slight build of Chen Xiao. In this way, something resembling a “hammock” was created as a small step.

Without wasting any time, he then stood on the jacket, hovering in mid-air. Due to gravity, the jacket sank about 10 centimeters, which was just the right distance for Chen Xiao to use his body to push against the two iron rods, keeping the rods from being pulled too close by the weight of the clothing, and maintaining balance.

With this height, he could now extend his elbow into the hidden opening, and indeed, Chen Xiao did just that.

But just as his entire elbow entered the opening,

Chen Xiao

froze…

Because, within the reach of his hand… there was only emptiness, nothing at all.