MM Racing Chapter 109 The Acceleration of Time
Chapter 109 The Acceleration of Time
Lu Dan didn't rush to move. He lay on his side on the cold metal floor and used the strength of his shoulder to wriggle until his back pressed against a wall.
After bracing himself against the wall, he used his flexibility and explosive power to forcefully turn his wrist from behind back to the front, making a cracking sound at the joint.
Then, he moved his hand down and successfully untied the ropes binding his feet.
About two minutes later, Lu Dan stood up.
There are no reference points.
His brow furrowed slightly.
Human perception of time relies on reference points: sunrise and sunset, the ticking of clocks, and even the beating of the heart.
In an absolutely still environment, the senses can be deceived, and time can be stretched infinitely.
His gaze fell on his left wrist, where he had put an old-fashioned mechanical watch with a yellowed dial.
The watch strap is severely worn; it must be a "gift" from the script.
"Tick-tock, tick-tock..."
He stared at the second hand, silently counting in his head: 1, 2, 3...
When he counted to 10, his gaze focused on the dial, and the second hand had moved 15 seconds.
Error or illusion?
He didn't rush to conclusions. Instead, he closed his eyes again, adjusted his breathing, pressed his carotid artery, and counted down again in sync with his heartbeat.
This time he counted for a full minute before looking at the dial again.
The minute hand on the dial had already passed the mark for nearly two minutes, while the second hand was racing.
"That's interesting; time seems to be speeding up."
The gears of the watch clanged sharply, as if a mad craftsman was frantically winding the mainspring inside.
"If it's a constant acceleration, that's manageable. The problem is..."
A glint of gold flashed in Lu Dan's eyes; he decided to conduct a rigorous mathematical calculation.
He sat cross-legged, treating the watch as his opponent.
"start."
In the first test, after 5 minutes of sensation, the dial showed 8 minutes and 30 seconds had passed, with a flow rate ratio of approximately 1:1.7.
Lu Dan didn't move, continuing to wait. He sat there in the darkness, letting the annoying ticking sound assault his eardrums.
In the second test, another 5 minutes passed, and this time the dial ran for a full 15 minutes, with a flow rate ratio of 1:3.
"Acceleration is not linear, it is exponential."
Lu Dan's brain was working at lightning speed, constructing and deducing formulas one after another.
If a healthy adult male does not eat or drink, he can survive for about 96 hours, or 5760 minutes, under extreme conditions.
After just two five-minute test cycles, the flow rate ratio soared from 1.7 to 3.
This means that every second here is faster than the last second.
如果按照这个趋势，第三个五分钟流速比可能会达到1:6，第四个五分钟1:12，第五个五分钟1:24。
By the same token, after one hour in real time, the flow of time in this room will reach an astronomical figure.
"The calculation results..." Lu Dan licked his slightly chapped lips and came to a chilling conclusion.
"If I can't get out within two hours in outside time, this watch will run for 96 hours."
"That means in two hours, I will become a corpse in this room, dying of thirst and starvation."
Lu Dan stood up; he had to find a way out before his body functions were overwhelmed by the torrent of time.
He began frantically pounding on the wall, scrutinizing every inch, searching for even the slightest hollow sound.
......
In another room, Lin Xiaoxiao huddled in a corner, her hands tightly wrapped around her shoulders.
She suffers from severe claustrophobia, which sounds ironic. But Lin Xiaoxiao chose psychology precisely to save herself.
She tried to dissect her fears, attempting to use the scalpel of reason to cut out the lesions left over from her childhood.
When she was five years old, her mother locked her in an abandoned wardrobe. No matter how much she cried and pounded on it, the wardrobe door wouldn't open.
Over several hours, the darkness slowly eroded her sense of security.
Since then, whenever I am in a narrow, enclosed space, a feeling of suffocation will come like a persistent, malignant infection.
And now, this room is the ultimate upgraded version of the wardrobe.
The two trays that appeared before her made her think it was a hallucination.
She stretched out her trembling hand, her fingertips stopping not far from the apple with the human head on it.
She could feel a faint body temperature, and even smell the exact same scent emanating from the head as her usual shampoo—it felt so real.
"Eat myself?"
Lin Xiaoxiao's eyes began to glaze over.
If she eats it, even if she survives, will she still be the same Lin Xiaoxiao?
If we don't eat it, where is the key?
Her gaze shifted to the green liquid on the other side.
Ten minutes of light, ten minutes of reason.
For Lin Xiaoxiao, who was in the abyss of darkness and on the verge of mental collapse, the temptation was even greater than that unknown freedom.
She's in such a bad state right now; her brain is like a mess, and she's completely unable to make any effective logical deductions.
If you blindly go after people, who knows if you'll trigger some deadly trap? Who knows if it's some kind of test of humanity?
More importantly, she needed light; she was terrified.
The fear of darkness has surpassed the fear of death.
Lin Xiaoxiao bit her tongue, and the strong taste of blood brought her back to a sliver of clarity.
She dared not gamble that this disgusting apple would grant her freedom.
She needs to see the world clearly first; only by regaining her rationality can she find a real way to break the deadlock.
"I must survive first."
Lin Xiaoxiao grabbed the green liquid abruptly, without giving herself time to hesitate, raised her head, closed her eyes, and drank the liquid in one gulp.
The liquid slid down my throat, carrying a minty coolness, and went straight to the top of my head.
"Cough cough..."
Lin Xiaoxiao threw down the cup, braced herself on the ground, and gasped for breath.
The whispers in my ear disappeared, and the noise in front of me subsided.
Then, the light came.
Lin Xiaoxiao's vision changed. The wall, which was originally as black as ink, now emitted a faint glow in her eyes, and the cold metallic patterns were clearly visible.
She gained 10 minutes of night vision.
Under the light, she looked at the tray again, but there was no head with her face there.
There lay a pig's heart, slowly rotting and emitting a foul stench, covered with rusty fishhooks, from which flesh and blood hung, still pulsating slightly.
Lin Xiaoxiao was covered in cold sweat.
If she had chosen to eat the apple, those fishhooks would have instantly torn her esophagus and stomach.
"B's greed is C's poison."
For some reason, a sentence suddenly popped into her mind.
She took away her clarity of mind, which meant she gave up the key.
So who will bear the cost of this choice?
......
Lu Dan's wall-pounding exercise didn't last long because his physical strength was rapidly depleting.
Although only a dozen minutes may have passed in real time, almost three hours have passed on the rapidly accelerating clock face.
Hunger and thirst were frantically draining the energy from his body.
At this moment, a sudden change occurred.
"Boom!"
A muffled rumble came from the center of the floor.
Lu Dan sprang back instantly, staring warily at the ground.
The floorboards split open, revealing a bottomless black hole below.
Immediately afterwards, a thick metal pillar slowly rose up.
What appeared before Lu Dan was an exquisite and retro-style giant balance scale.
The balance scale is made entirely of brass, with intricate patterns engraved on the base, resembling two intertwined venomous snakes.
On each side of the balance scale, there are two items.
On the left tray is a glass of blood-red liquid, and on the right tray is a bright red, round, and plump apple.
A faint red light shone down from the bottom of the scales, illuminating a line of text:
【C】
Please select.
Lu Dan narrowed his eyes, not letting what was in front of him cloud his judgment.
In moments of accelerated time and extreme thirst, both water and food became deadly temptations.
But he was more concerned about the device itself.
The scales represent balance, and also transactions.
Lu Dan moved closer, and under the red light, he saw an extremely subtle incongruity beneath the apple's skin—something seemed to be wriggling beneath the smooth red skin.
"Hmph, as expected, nothing good." Lu Dan sneered.
He then looked at the red water on his left. Although he didn't know what it was, the smell of blood made him instinctively repel it.
This seems to be a difficult choice.
But just as Lu Dan was pondering this, a bizarre scene unfolded.
He hadn't touched anything, yet the scales suddenly moved.
"Squeak—"
The left tray suddenly tilted upwards, while the right tray sank heavily downwards, and the scales were out of balance.
"What's going on?" Lu Dan's pupils contracted.
The most likely explanation is that it's a linkage device, with the other end of the balance connected to someone else's room.
Just now, someone took away the chips over there, causing the imbalance on this side.
Who is it? A or B?
Lu Dan's mind raced. If this was a game of strategy, then the other party's choice had already affected him.
As the scales tilted, the two bronze snakes on the base began to move.
As the left coil tilted upwards, the mouth of the bronze snake on the left began to slowly close, and inside its mouth was a rolled-up strip of parchment.
"Click-clack—"
The sharp copper teeth were slowly cutting into the strip of paper.
At the same time, as the right plate sank, the mouth of the bronze snake on the right also closed.
It held a gleaming brass key in its mouth.
Lu Dan instantly understood the rules; it was a trap of dynamic equilibrium.
Because someone in the other room took something, the balance on Lu Dan's side became unbalanced, with the left side lighter than the right.
If he does nothing, the note on the left will be shredded and the key on the right will be bitten off.
To keep his possessions, he must readjust the balance by taking them.
If he takes away the red liquid, the left side will be lighter, and the paper strip will definitely break.
If he takes the apple, the right side will become lighter, and the scale will bounce back, but it may also cause the red liquid on the left side to fall heavily and shatter the paper.
This forces him to choose between intelligence and a way out.
In the urgency of the situation, he didn't have time to think and reached for the key in the mouth of the bronze snake on the right. A second later, the entire scale shook violently and shattered with a crash.