Chapter 160 Finally Found the Entrance

If an ordinary person were trapped in this room, what would be their most natural thought?

Li Tianque's gaze naturally locked onto the button on the metal door ahead.

That's right, the immediate instinct would be to press the button on the metal door rather than search everywhere for an exit.

Li Tianque realized he had fallen into a mental trap earlier. Following Chu's train of thought, he had also assumed there must be a secret door hidden in this room.

However, even though Chu had locked the metal door from the outside, that did not guarantee the button could only open this specific metal door!

This button might have other purposes, or perhaps the unlocking mechanism of the metal door was designed so that pressing the button *after* it was locked from the outside would actually open the underground entrance.

Even if this guess were wrong, a normal person's first reaction would undoubtedly be to press this button.

Without further hesitation, Li Tianque ran with difficulty toward the button by the metal door.

By this time, Chu was less than a meter away from the pink sphere. The ladder on the sphere's body had completely retracted, and the metal wire in Chu's hand was melted and snapped at the same time.

As the wire melted, the pink sphere's two colloidal arms, resembling human arms, whipped around and lunged at Chu.

Caught off guard, Chu was enveloped by these arms.

Strangely enough, although Chu's body was wrapped by these arm-like colloids, she did not seem to be instantly corroded by the pink sphere's bodily fluids.

From this situation, it was clear that the corrosive fluids on the pink sphere were not present everywhere on its body.

Chu's reaction remained exceptionally swift. The moment she was encircled by the two arms, her hands abruptly threw out two strands of metal wire, hooking them onto the fixtures of the machine.

Relying on this pulling force, she quickly extricated herself. The overhead iron framework was also snapped instantly by the tension and came crashing down directly, smashing the pink sphere underneath.

Her movement was comparable to a gymnastic performance—smooth, flowing, and executed in one go.

Having no heart to watch the fight, Li Tianque immediately pressed the button on the metal door.

The button felt somewhat stiff, emitting a subtle frictional sound.

As the button was pressed, a few sounds of chains echoed from the edges of the metal door, yet it remained completely motionless.

Li Tianque tried pushing the door, but there was no response.

Li Tianque felt as though his guess might be wrong again, but he did not want to give up just like that.

Just imagine, if Fatty Bi had pressed the button the first time and gotten no response, he certainly would have continued trying other things rather than simply giving up!

What would he do next? Given his temper and personality, how would he act?

Li Tianque did not know Fatty Bi very well, but he could tell that his personality was rather fiery, straightforward, and rough.

Li Tianque forced himself to immerse into Fatty Bi's persona.

In daily life, guessing other people's thoughts often felt like an easy and interesting task, but under the present circumstances, genuinely forcing himself to adopt someone else's personality suddenly made Li Tianque feel intensely uncomfortable.

Damn it! It's so frustrating. What on earth would Fatty Bi do?

Right!

Anger—Fatty Bi would definitely get angry!

Given his violent temper, he would certainly be furious at a moment like this. Angry, angry—after getting angry, what would he do? Would he fly into a rage? Would he...

Li Tianque pressed the button several more times, still with no response. Trying to adjust his mindset, a nameless fury instantly flared up within him.

Angry, Li Tianque heavily smashed his hand down onto the button several times.

On the fourth strike, the button suddenly became rigid and stopped springing back.

"Beep—"

An electronic buzzer sounded, and the button actually underwent a change.

Li Tianque had expected his hammering to break the button, but the reality turned out quite unexpected.

The entire button protruded outward, forming a rectangular block on the metal wall with the button embedded in its center.

Beneath the protruding block, a yellow ON/OFF switch was unexpectedly hidden.

So that was it!

No wonder Fatty Bi had accidentally discovered this switch!

At that time, he must have also wanted to get out from here, but because Chu had locked the metal door from the outside, pressing the button yielded no reaction, driving him to angrily smash the switch with force.

By triggering the sensor device of the mechanism, he had accidentally uncovered this button.

Li Tianque hurriedly flipped the ON/OFF toggle switch.

Once the switch was flipped, a change quickly took place in the room.

A succession of mechanical metal gears began to rumble and operate, and the ground beneath their feet started to vibrate irregularly.

Li Tianque looked around and discovered that near the tiles right beside the rotting corpses earlier, a crack was gradually appearing.

This crack grew wider and wider, causing the surrounding rotting corpses to tremble continuously with a rattling sound, their heads beginning to bob and sway one by one.

The flashlight had rolled aside due to the vibration, plunging the room back into dimness, but fortunately, there was light coming from inside this crack.

The light was faint, but in this murky environment, it still appeared relatively distinct.

Filled with excitement, Li Tianque scrambled on all fours and ran toward the crack.

After swinging down from the metal wire, Chu had also stumbled and fallen to the ground. Because of the injury to her foot earlier, movement had become even more difficult for her.

Fortunately, the pink sphere had been heavily injured after being crushed the second time. Although the squirming sound of the sphere could still be heard beneath the machine frame, it probably wouldn't lunge forward again in the short term.

Running up to Chu, Li Tianque didn't even think before pulling her along, preparing to head down.

"I've found the entrance to the basement..." Li Tianque shouted to Chu.

Because Li Tianque's hands were covered in too much foul-smelling blood, his grip slipped and he almost failed to hold onto Chu.

Clearly, Chu had not expected Li Tianque to make such a move!

Li Tianque had indeed acted purely out of instinct, never expecting it to startle Chu so greatly.

Chu widened her eyes in anger, her expression terrifying to the extreme.

Meeting her gaze, Li Tianque once again felt that dreadful sense of oppression.

"Get your filthy hands off me!" Chu snapped angrily.

Li Tianque immediately let go as if electrocuted. Chu raised her cold brows, reverting to her former icy expression.

She pushed Li Tianque aside and took the lead, slipping into the crack.

Following closely behind her into the crack, Li Tianque discovered that it was actually a staircase extending downward. Judging by the current situation, the lights downstairs should be on.

Furthermore, the "he" mentioned by Fatty Bi and Chu might be down there...

Li Tianque and Chu hurried down. Groping along the wall in the dark, Li Tianque nearly tripped.

The staircase beneath this secret passage was much longer than the two had imagined. From the entrance to the bottom, it was at least a distance equivalent to three stories.

It seemed that this place led much deeper underground rather than into the wall of the basement level where the pink sphere had crawled out from, as they had previously guessed.

Faint light was visible within this enclosed secret passage, but all of it originated from the light at the corner at the very end of the stairs.

The brightness was barely enough to illuminate the steps. Li Tianque could only grope his way downward guided by instinct, which gradually widened the distance between him and Chu.

Chu walked very fast; before long, a gap of seven or eight steps had opened up between them.