“Well…” Igor looked doubtful. “What about the previous devil…”

“An adult human body contains about 65% water by weight.” Feng Bujue knew what he was going to ask and replied directly, “That thing looked like a dried corpse; its weight must have been very light, so it wouldn’t trigger the mechanism.”

As he said this, Jue Ge put down the toolbox he was carrying and began to take things out of his pockets.

“What are you…” Igor watched Jue Ge’s actions and asked, “Trying to reduce your weight to get through?”

“Yes.” Feng Bujue replied, “I’m Asian, and my frame is smaller than yours. I’m also thinner. If I remove all the weight, I might succeed.”

“Wa…wait a minute…” Igor panicked a little. “Are you going to leave me here?”

“Of course not.” Feng Bujue replied, “According to my speculation… there should be a switch to turn off the pressure sensor on the other side of the gate.” He paused. “I’ll go over there first, find the switch, and turn it off, then this section will be passable.”

“Oh…” Igor nodded.

“Okay, that’s about it; I won’t take off my clothes (because he can’t even if he wanted to).” Feng Bujue said, taking out everything he could from his person. “If I fail, you’ll have to try.”

“Eh? If you fail, then I…” Igor was about to ask how he would try, but the answer came to him. “Uh… you want me to saw off part of my body…”

Feng Bujue didn’t answer, just smiled at him, and then walked forward.

One step, two steps… He quickly stepped into the pressure-sensitive zone, and then…

Clang!

“As expected, it wouldn’t be that easy…” Jue Ge muttered, retreating back.

“Indeed… if I could pass without any weight, then when that barefoot guy went to Laboratory One to search, I could have slipped out of here silently, which wouldn’t make sense.” He thought as he retreated, “But… this place must have a way for ‘a single player to get through’; the system can’t set up a puzzle that ‘requires Igor’s help to get through’ here, because ‘reviving Igor’ is a variable event. Making the result of this event a ‘necessary connection’ to the main quest would lead to a certain chance of a hard lock…”

He was right. As mentioned earlier, “reviving Igor” definitely couldn’t be considered one of the necessary steps in the main quest. If the player chose to “end the suffering of that head” or caused Igor’s distrust during the conversation, or even started a fight… then it would no longer be possible to use this NPC’s power to pass through the gate.

Of course, in the current situation, Feng Bujue had already met the trigger conditions for “letting Igor help open the gate.”

However… everyone knows Jue Ge’s personality. Even if it’s “non-essential,” he must solve the method of “passing the puzzle alone” to feel comfortable.

“Heh…” Hearing the clang and watching Jue Ge return, Igor couldn’t help but chuckle twice. “Looks like… I can prepare myself…” He turned his head, looking at his shoulder, and said, “Sawing off an arm should be enough…”

“No, don’t rush.” Feng Bujue waved his hand, muttering thoughtfully, “Let me think again…”

Igor listened and didn’t respond, just silently waiting for Jue Ge to make a decision.

Although they hadn’t known each other for long, Igor had developed a strong sense of trust in the man named Feng Bujue… because this guy seemed to know everything and was always calm and collected, as if Mount Tai were collapsing in front of him without changing his expression.

“Oh… there’s also this trick.” Feng Bujue didn’t think for too long before he had an idea.

He walked to the toolbox, squatted down, and quickly took out several empty blood bags and matching needles.

“What are you…” Igor looked at Jue Ge with a questioning gaze.

“Since the specific gravity of the liquid in the body is high…” Feng Bujue said, tying a rubber band around his arm, “I’ll draw about 2000 milliliters of blood and try again.”

“Hey!” Igor was shocked to hear that. “That could kill you!”

“Hmm… you’re right, two thousand is a bit dangerous.” Jue Ge replied, nonchalantly inserting the needle into his blood vessel and untying the rubber band on his biceps. In the next second, his blood slowly flowed through the tube into the blood bag. “Let’s start with fifteen hundred.”

Igor was speechless. “Brother Feng… I appreciate your sentiment, but I think… I’d rather just cut off my arm.”

“Cutting off an arm won’t be enough.” Feng Bujue didn’t stop drawing blood, just said calmly, “Your build is already bigger than mine by a circle; the weight of one arm will probably only make your weight equal to mine.” He glanced up at the corridor. “To get through there, you’d have to cut off a leg on top of cutting off an arm.”

Hearing this, Igor instinctively looked down at his legs, as if wondering which one would hurt less to saw off.

“Also, when you hop across the corridor on one leg, I’ll have to find something to cover your severed limbs to prevent them from moving around in the light.” Feng Bujue’s narration continued, “Compared to that, drawing my blood is more convenient… anyway, I can immediately transfuse the blood back later, so it’s not a big problem.”

While the two were talking, Feng Bujue’s blood-drawing operation didn’t stop. Within minutes, he had drawn more than 1500 milliliters of blood, filling nearly four blood bags; at this point, he stopped and pressed a tourniquet against the wound.

“Hoo…” After drawing the blood, Jue Ge clearly felt dizzy and had blurred vision, so he took a few deep breaths in place.

“Brother Feng… are you okay?” Igor asked with a worried face.

“It’s nothing.” Feng Bujue said, then lay down on the ground.

“Hey! You’re lying down and you’re saying you’re okay!” Igor was shocked again.

“No, I just think that increasing the contact area with the ground will reduce the pressure.” Feng Bujue said, already beginning to crawl forward, “Although I don’t know if it’ll work, I’ll give it a try…”

Seconds later, Jue Ge crawled into the sensing area. As a result… the sound of the gate closing didn’t sound.

“Good.” Feng Bujue said, “As long as I can get through…” His face was very pale, and he spoke weakly, “I’ll go over first…” The way he crawled also looked very difficult, “The worst case scenario is that I’ll reach the other side of the gate but faint before I can press the switch…” But he still managed to smile, “Heh… if that really happens, you can saw off your body yourself, come over to close the gate, and give me a blood transfusion.”

Here, Feng Bujue actually made a mistake. In reality, crawling forward was useless, because what he was facing… was a large-area weight sensor, and reducing local pressure wasn’t very meaningful. Instead of crawling forward, it would be better to “walk along the wall”; an experiment with an electronic scale would show that… while staying still, leaning against the wall or applying downward force to the wall with both hands could reduce the number on the scale.

But in any case, Feng Bujue successfully avoided triggering the pressure device’s trigger line… because his blood loss had greatly exceeded the system’s estimated value.

The density of blood is only slightly higher than water; the two are almost the same.

Drawing more than fifteen hundred milliliters of blood allowed Feng Bujue to lose about three or four pounds of weight.

And those three or four pounds… were exactly the limit set by the system.

Undoubtedly, the “weight requirement” for passing through this place was arranged by the system according to the player’s weight. Taking into account the premise that the player “cannot take off their clothes” and “excludes all other weight,” the theoretically most extreme method of passing is… to draw 500 milliliters of blood (an amount that wouldn’t cause significant discomfort in a normal adult), wrap some tape around your hands, then use both hands to grab the wall to reduce weight, and then walk sideways like this all the way.

Although Feng Bujue didn’t use the friction with the wall to reduce weight, he completely disregarded his own safety in drawing blood, allowing him to pass through the corridor smoothly.

“Hoo…” Feng Bujue took deep breaths while using his almost-perverted willpower to support his consciousness and body… struggling to crawl forward.

He crawled twenty meters in three minutes.

This time wasn’t short, but considering that he had just drawn nearly a third of his blood, it was already very difficult.

“Is that it…” After passing through the gate, Feng Bujue found a lever-style switch on the nearby wall.

He supported himself to get up, pulled the switch, and then raised his voice, shouting to Igor on the other side of the corner, “Igor, try stepping into the sensing area.”

“Okay!” Igor responded and did so.

This time… the gate didn’t close due to Igor’s weight, which meant that the switch Jue Ge pulled was the correct one.

So, Igor quickly packed up all the things on the ground, passed through the corridor, and ran to Jue Ge’s side.

“Brother Feng, don’t panic, I’ll give you a blood transfusion right away.” Igor quickly took out the bags of blood that Jue Ge had drawn and prepared to transfuse them back to him, “Uh…” But when he was preparing to operate, he realized that he didn’t know how.

“Heh… I’ll do it.” Jue Ge laughed. “Please help me sit against the wall.”

…

Ten minutes later, Feng Bujue had connected the drainage tube and blood bag, and fixed the needle in his vein. The first bag of blood he had drawn had already been transfused back by more than half.

“Brother Feng, are you feeling better?” Igor was standing against the wall, holding the blood bag above Jue Ge’s head.

“No.” Feng Bujue’s answer was straightforward, “Even if all of this is transfused back, the discomfort in my body won’t disappear immediately.”

“Oh…” Igor’s mouth twitched twice, “By the way, will this kind of input-output thing have any harm to your body?”

“It’s okay.” Feng Bujue replied, “This is just simple non-washed autologous reinfusion; as long as the blood drawn within six hours hasn’t been contaminated, transfusing it back directly has almost no side effects.” As he said this, he glanced up at the blood bag, “Besides, I’m using special blood collection bags, which have anticoagulants in them; if there are any side effects… at most, it’ll cause mild thrombosis or hemolysis.”

Igor didn’t understand most of this, he just looked at Jue Ge with admiration. “Brother Feng, you novelists really know a lot, it’s amazing.”

“Heh… you’ve misunderstood.” Feng Bujue laughed, “Among us writers… there are ignorant swindlers, actors who amuse people, self-admiring fools, and treacherous and wicked traitors… but there are few real intellectuals.” He continued in a self-deprecating tone, “Those with real knowledge study more substantial things… their research results will promote technological progress and bring tangible benefits to mankind.” He tilted his head, “As for people like us… except for a very few sages and pillars of society in these thousands of years, most of us are just fine if we don’t cause trouble for this world. Instead of worshiping us… you might as well worship religious leaders.”

Speaking of this, Jue Ge paused for a few seconds before adding, “By the way, the reason I know about blood transfusions is because I have a friend who is a doctor, and I specifically asked him about this.”

“Okay… well…” Igor was stunned by what Feng Bujue said; he didn’t know that Jue Ge was in a bad mood recently and liked to argue, so he couldn’t continue the conversation.

The two chatted for more than twenty minutes, and Feng Bujue quickly transfused two bags of blood back.

After switching to the third bag, Jue Ge stood up, “Okay… I feel much better, let’s transfuse the remaining two bags while walking.”

His face was indeed much better; compared to when he had just finished drawing blood, at least he had some color now.

“Ah… then I…” Igor continued, “Continue to lead the way?”

“Yes, thank you for your trouble.” Feng Bujue said, taking the blood bag from the other person’s hand, “I’ll hold this myself, and please carry the toolbox for me.”

“Okay, no problem.” Igor said, “I feel like I have endless energy now; carrying a toolbox is easy.”

“That’s good.” Feng Bujue nodded, not saying anything more.

In fact, Jue Ge had already seen that… this VNO-9 test subject was extremely strong. Just take what happened just now as an example; perhaps even Igor himself didn’t notice that when he was helping Jue Ge hold the blood bag, he never switched hands… his arm was held there steadily like a support, not even shaking for dozens of minutes. An ordinary person’s arm would have been sore long ago; if they didn’t switch arms, they would have to change their posture, but Igor didn’t even feel anything…