Chapter 138 Lying in One Place
The archive room was pitch black, but fortunately they had lived on Planet A62 for many years and had long been accustomed to seeing in the dark.
Jiang He pointed to the knocker of a large iron gate about four or five meters ahead and asked, "Do you need to open the door?"
"Don't release the tentacles," Xiao Sen warned Jiang He before they appeared. "The mechanism in the archives building doesn't like Altered Objects. Altered Objects will trigger the self-destruct sequence."
After he finished speaking, Jiang He's hand twisted his waist.
Jiang He: ???
The expression on her face was even more shocked than Xiao Sen's. "It's not me."
It was the tentacle's protest against being called an alien creature by Xiao Sen.
Xiao Sen was much calmer than Jiang He. "Oh."
It sounds perfunctory, more like saying: If you say it's not, then it's not.
Jiang He: ...
Xiao Sen, "If I throw you over, can you grab the door knocker and pull it open?"
He changed the subject, seemingly giving her face and not intending to pursue the matter.
Jiang He felt even more upset, "Yes."
Xiao Sen, "Pull the door knocker outwards. Once the door is open, quickly jump in. Slow movements can easily lead to being caught between two doors."
Jiang He nodded: "Okay."
She adjusted her position in Xiao Sen's arms. This small space was only big enough for Xiao Sen's two feet to stand on. But if she wanted to jump towards the door, she would inevitably kick Xiao Sen and "borrow strength" from him.
Jiang He said to him, "Squat down and I'll stand on your shoulders."
Shawson, "Stand on my hand."
After he squatted down, standing on his shoulders would allow Jiang He to maintain his squatting position and not fall over easily while he was using his strength. But standing on his hands was different.
First of all, could his hands bear her weight, which was different from what it appeared?
Secondly, what if she kicked with her feet and broke his arms?
Jiang He's questioning look was too direct. Xiao Sen glanced at her and said, "There's an hourglass hanging on the corner of the door. There's not much time left."
He was so confident that Jiang He didn't dare to question him anymore.
So she stepped on his hands, and when he pushed his hands forward, she threw her whole body forward.
The door seemed to be only three or four meters away from her, but when she jumped forward, she was shocked to find that the door was getting farther and farther away, and it looked like thirty or forty meters. As the distance got farther, even the outline of the door became blurred.
Good job!
Jiang He took a deep breath and stepped forward with both feet in mid-air. Fortunately, Xiao Sen had pushed her forward, so she could still push forward in mid-air.
After jumping over it twice in a row, he was about to run out of energy when the distant door suddenly became very close. Just as Jiang He was about to fall, he reached out and grabbed the door knocker.
The door knocker seemed to be made of bronze metal and was very sturdy. Jiang He hung it on the door, took a deep breath, and glanced at the hourglass above the door.
There is one fifth left in the hourglass.
She turned her head to look at Xiao Sen. Xiao Sen seemed very close to her, only about one meter away. It seemed that he could leap over her with just a slight jump when dunking. But Jiang He had just been deceived by "visual estimation", so she naturally didn't realize that there was only one meter between her and Xiao Sen.
She glanced once, then again, and suddenly cried out, "The stone slabs are sinking beneath your feet."
The sinking speed was very slow, like a frog in boiling water, so Xiao Sen, the person involved, did not notice it.
Jiang He yelled at him, "Jump over here."
She grabbed the door knocker and stretched one of her legs outward, splitting it as wide as possible. "Jump over here and grab my leg."
Without her urging, Xiao Sen bent down and half-crouched, then suddenly jumped up and pounced towards Jiang He.
He was thin, and the squatting and jumping he just did were like an agile leopard, full of explosive power.
There is only a little left in the hourglass.
The moment Xiao Sen grabbed her ankle, Jiang He kicked the edge of the door with her other foot, used the force to pull the door open, and swung the pendant on her foot into the door.
At the same time, all the sand in the hourglass fell out.
The door opened outwards, and Jiang He was still hanging on the door knocker. At the moment when the sand leaked out, the door opened quickly outwards, and Jiang He was about to be trapped by the door.
She finally understood why Xiao Sen had reminded her that the door could trap people.
Before she experienced it, she had never imagined that there would be such a scene. The door was thick and heavy. She pulled the door knocker with one hand and supported the wall behind her with the other hand, but the gravity of the door was much greater than her strength.
Her hands were flexing, and just as the door was about to fall on her, there was a soft "click".
A thin stick was stuck between the door and the wall.
Xiao Sen pulled her feet from under the door, "It's me, come out quickly."
If the little stick can't hold on, it will be broken by the door.
"Don't pull, don't pull." Jiang He said hurriedly, "Stop pulling."
Xiao Sen: "What's wrong?"
Jiang He was silent for a moment, "My chest is stuck."
"How can your chest be stuck? Just breathe in, breathe in hard..." Xiao Sen said halfway, and his voice disappeared as if it was stuck.
Although it was dark, one of them was lying on the threshold and the other was sandwiched behind the door, and they were not facing each other in the same space, Jiang He still felt the awkwardness of the moment.
She took a breath and tried to move outward.
“Crack!”
The stick stuck between the door and the wall broke, and the entire door clamped towards Jiang He again.
But immediately, the door seemed to be stuck again and stopped pressing towards Jiang He.
Xiao Sen gritted his teeth and said to her, "Try to move outward."
Without his reminder, Jiang He took advantage of this opportunity to move outwards, finally moved to the side of the door, jumped into the door, and turned around to find that Xiao Sen was using his knee to support the bottom of the door.
Seeing her jump back to the threshold, he grabbed Jiang He's hand and pulled his knees back. The door was embedded into the wall with a "boom" the moment he pulled his knees back. The path inside the threshold also changed, with layers of upward spiral steps appearing.
Jiang He noticed that his kneecap was crushed to a bloody pulp and his calf was hanging in a twisted and broken position. She immediately pulled off her sleeve and tried to help him deal with it.
"Don't worry about it." Xiao Sen glanced at the winding stairs, "We have to get up the stairs as soon as possible."
His tone was serious. If he didn't climb the stairs quickly, there would be unforeseen consequences. Jiang He grabbed his wrist, yanked him onto his back, and quickly rushed towards the stairs.
She jumped three or four steps and quickly rushed up twice. When she looked back, she took a breath.
The stairs behind her were rapidly melting and disappearing, turning into gurgling magma with a sulfurous smell.
The smell of sulfur grew stronger and stronger, and the heat waves burned her lower limbs.
Jiang He withdrew his gaze and ran faster.
Xiao Sen on his back said, "At this speed, we can't rush up."
Jiang He took a deep breath and sped up to his maximum speed.
Xiao Sen: "I have a solution."
Jiang He was sweating all over, not because she was tired, but because she was hot. She ran too fast and didn't have the energy to ask him questions, so she just waited for him to continue.
Fortunately, Xiao Sen didn't force her to ask.
He took a breath and said, "Run another hundred and fifty steps and we'll be very close to the door. Put me down and I'll throw you up."
Jiang He: ???
Although Xiao Sen's suggestion was unreliable, Jiang He at least knew that there were more than 150 steps to the door at the end of the stairs, and she had to be even faster than she was now to rush to the door with Xiao Sen before the steps disappeared.
Xiao Sen continued, "You want to speed up and get us both to the door by speed."
There was obviously more to this sentence, and Jiang He ran quickly while waiting for his next sentence.
"Only one person can fit through the door. As long as you carry me on your back, I'll never see the door and will be climbing the stairs breathlessly and sweating all over."
He added, "But the lava is constantly swallowing up the stairs. We don't have much time. If you insist on carrying me, we will both be swallowed by the lava."
Jiang He didn't say anything. She went upstairs very quickly. When Xiao Sen said these words, she counted the stairs under her feet and found that she had reached 150 steps. Just as Xiao Sen said, she still couldn't see the end of the stairs, nor did she see any door appear.
The boiling magma was getting closer and closer, and Jiang He could even smell the smell of burning hair.
She suddenly grabbed Shawson's arm and swung him hard up the stairs.
The moment she threw Xiao Sen out, the stairs came to an end, and there was a door at the end. Xiao Sen was thrown out of the door, but he did not grab the door handle. Instead, he turned his head to look at Jiang He.
The magma was chasing them all the time. Although Jiang He was still trying his best to run upwards, his speed still slowed down because of that swing just now.
In less than half a breath, the stairs beneath Jiang He's feet disappeared. She subconsciously grabbed the stair railing and barely managed to hold on. Before she could jump, the railing melted and disappeared.
Her body tried to climb up a second time to save herself, but the railings and stairs melted and disappeared too quickly. Jiang He missed again and fell into the bubbling magma.
At the critical moment, her hand was caught.
Jiang He raised her eyes and found that it was Xiao Sen who had already reached the door. A black spine stretched out from his back and wrapped around the door handle. He fell down hanging on his own black spine, just able to grab her hand as she fell into the lava.
Jiang He stared at the slender black spine on his back. The magma beneath her feet was boiling hot. She still had the leisure to ask him, "Isn't this considered alienation?"
"No." Xiao Sen slowly retracted his spine as the two of them rose upwards. "This is not alienation."
Jiang He seemed to understand, but not quite. Remembering that he could pull out his spine and turn it into a black sword, he suspected that his sword was an alienation.
But for a normal person, stretching and pulling out the spine like this is not normal, right?
For some unknown reason, Jiang He asked him, "Are you in pain?"
Jiang He remembered that Chen Zhiyun had extracted her spine in this way before, but it was only a short piece. However, she did not use anesthesia and screamed in pain, so she subconsciously asked this question.
Xiao Sen didn't answer. His eyes were reflecting the magma fire, very bright, as if a big fire was burning in his eyes.
He asked Jiang He, "Aren't you afraid that you'll be burned to ashes by the magma?"
Jiang He was actually gambling just now. She thought that with her agility, she could quickly grab the stair railing after throwing him out, but his knee was injured and his agility was far inferior to hers. If she gave this task to him, he would definitely fail.
Furthermore, she had been burned by the lava fire in the mining area, and she herself could also emit lava. In short, she was also part of the lava. Even if she didn't grab the railing and really fell into the lava, the possibility of being burned to death would not be very high.
Xiao Sen didn't wait for Jiang He to respond and continued, "I'll throw you towards the door, and you open it quickly this time. Don't get caught in the door again."
The voice was spoken quickly, perhaps because he didn't want to know Jiang He's true thoughts.
"Okay." Jiang He thought the situation was urgent, and being caught in the door was too embarrassing, and she didn't want to repeat it again.
After being thrown up by Xiao Sen, she quickly grabbed the door handle and grabbed Xiao Sen's spine and rushed into the door.
Xiao Sen was brought to the threshold by her. He lay on the threshold, looking at his spine, which was still being pulled by Jiang He.
Jiang He was not holding one end of the spine, but only the middle section. The other end of the spine was tied to the door handle.
But after the door slammed against the wall, it stuck tightly to the wall. Xiao Sen had difficulty pulling his spine away from the door handle. He said to Jiang He, "Break it."
Jiang He was stunned. This was his spine, not something else. But there was no other way at the moment. Jiang He lowered his eyes slightly, found the place closest to the door and pulled it apart.
The broken spine instantly jumped back to Xiao Sen's back, with only the part that was clamped by the door exposed outside, which hurt Jiang He's eyes.
Xiao Sen didn't notice Jiang He's expression. He had already rolled towards the threshold while he was talking. As Jiang He broke his spine, a huge rock fell from above the door, blocking it tightly.
Jiang He immediately turned his head to look at Xiao Sen, "Did you hear any sound?"
Xiao Sen looked at Jiang He's fingers.
Jiang He's fingers were dripping with water.
Drop by drop, like water wearing away stone, the water drops hit the ground and splash.
The sound Jiang He heard was the sound of water dripping from her fingers onto the ground.
Xiao Sen's fingers were also dripping, but he was sitting on the ground, so the dripping sound was very light.
"What's going on?" Jiang He was a little surprised and guessed that there was something strange about this new place.
The first two doors had already made her understand that no matter how dangerous the situation was, as long as she could successfully find the door, she could escape.
So now, she needs to find the escape door in this space.
There were walls all around, it was very empty, and water was dripping down from the ceiling.
Soon, all I could hear was the sound of dripping water.
Xiao Sen behind her said to her, "Don't look for it anymore. The door will only appear under the water when the water covers our bodies."
Jiang He was surprised and glanced at the dripping ceiling again. "The water isn't dripping fast, just like the speed of water dripping from our fingers. The ground is very open. At this rate of dripping, if the accumulated water could flood our bodies, the water in our bodies would have dripped away long ago, right?"
"Yes." Xiao Sen nodded, "The water in the body will drip out when the accumulated water reaches half the height of the body."
Jiang He looked down at his dripping fingers and pondered for a moment, then looked around the empty space, hitting the wall with his hands and kicking the ground with his feet.
Xiao Sen didn't ask her why she did this. He looked at her. Even such a rough action looked very elegant when done by her.
He was enjoying a wonderful performance, not blinking, not missing any of her perfect movements.
"I have an idea, but I don't know if it will work." Jiang He looked up at Xiao Sen and said, "There's a high chance it will fail. By the way, how did you open the door last time?"
"Me? Last time, I was dripping wet all over myself and fell to the ground, waiting for the water to cover me. Only then did I see the door underwater."
He added, "It's a bit tough being dehydrated."
"It's a bit difficult" is an euphemism. To be more precise, it's painful.
Jiang He: "Then I'll try a new method."
It's better than losing water and waiting for pain to come.
The ground was not made of metal, but a stone-like brick floor. Jiang He squatted down and punched the ground again and again.
After smashing the ground in the middle, Jiang He began to sort out the cracked stones and polished the middle into a flat area that could accommodate two people lying down, like a rectangular coffin, one foot above the ground.
After the coffin-shaped puddle was completed, she used stones to scratch the surrounding ground, creating one ditch after another.
The original ground was very smooth, and all she had to do was use these ditches to divert the water into the pit.
After doing all this, she was so tired that she was sweating all over and almost fainted.
Of course, Jiang He knew clearly that he was not tired, but his fingers were dripping with water and he was exhausted.
But he still gritted his teeth and held on to his breath, walked to Xiao Sen, grabbed his arm and tried to lift him up.
She had not forgotten that his kneecap was broken and his calf was bent, making it difficult for him to walk, so she tried to lift him up and put him in the pit.
Xiao Sen seemed to know what she was going to do. After she grabbed his arm, he immediately stood up and said, "Thank you for helping me."
Jiang He was extremely exhausted. After hearing what he said, he didn't try to lift him up. "Oh."
Although she was supporting Xiao Sen, her entire body was almost leaning on him. Her mouth was dry and her voice was hoarse. "I don't seem to be right."
"You've been exercising, and exercise accelerates the falling of water droplets. You're very dehydrated now."
No wonder, but thinking that there was already a shallow layer of water in the pit, after lying in the pit, Jiang He turned his head to drink the water in the pit.
She did take two bottles of wine, but the wine was crushed when she was pinched by the door. If she had known that there would be a shortage of water, she would have protected the two bottles of wine. Alas, it was too late.
"You can't drink this water," Xiao Sen stopped her. "It will cause hallucinations, and after hallucinations, you won't be able to distinguish the real door."
Jiang He: ...
Although it was very uncomfortable, Jiang He had come this far and naturally would not give up halfway. Upon hearing this, he pursed his lips and straightened his head.
To distract herself from the discomfort caused by dehydration, she asked Xiao Sen, "The previous door was fire, and this door is water. Do we have to go through three more rounds?"
There are only gold, wood and earth left.
"There's only one golden door left." Xiao Sen wasn't surprised that Jiang He could figure out the logic of these mechanisms. His voice was cold, like the sound of gold and jade amid the sound of dripping water. Perhaps because he had deliberately lowered his voice, it actually had a gentle tone. "The first door is earth. The earth under your feet falls. The second door is fire and wood. The stairs are wood. This is the water door."
"Why do Fire and Wood care about what's inside the door?" Jiang He's focus was not on what was inside the golden door. She couldn't understand why these two became a pair when the others were just doors.
Xiao Sen, "I want to know too."
His words were strangely suggestive, as if the person who really should know was Jiang He.
However, Jiang He did not ask again. She was too exhausted and her eyelids could not help but close together.
While she was half asleep, her mouth was pried open, and a sticky, fishy liquid flowed into her mouth like silk threads, moistening her dry throat that was about to smoke and catch fire, and then spread along her throat to her internal organs, like cracked land being irrigated by water. In her coma, she gurgled with satisfaction.
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