Chapter 289 - 128: Pure Blue Hell
On February 22nd, when Chen Zhou arrived at the beach with Lai Fu, glancing distantly at the wooden and stone wall, he saw the swarm of light blue dots floating in the sky, and a foreboding premonition immediately rose in his heart.
Since the first reward, he had only seen this blue light once, and that was the puzzle block called the "Holy Sword."
The events that followed were not pleasant, as that little block tormented him for a full half month.
Despite solving the mystery of the Holy Sword over five months ago, the long and tedious process still gave him a lingering fear.
For nearly five months, he hadn't received any more bizarre puzzle rewards.
Chen Zhou initially thought that future rewards would be the standard types of supplies, never imagining that just after escaping the shadow of the past, new torment would begin again.
Reminding himself internally to keep a calm mindset and face the puzzle bravely, his hand involuntarily tightened the leash around Lai Fu.
There was no helping it, anyone who had the experience of facing a small block, repeatedly manipulating and continually guessing its internal structure, enduring for a whole half month, would naturally feel dread when seeing something similar again.
After all, these puzzles were made specifically to torment people, unlike game bosses of high difficulty that could be cracked through constant practice and remembering moves.
The only way to solve them was through exhaustive trial and error.
And exhaustive trial and error is undoubtedly the most mentally draining path to puzzle-solving.
"Let's see what kind of suffering it wants to put me through this time."
With a spirit as if facing death, Chen Zhou walked closer to the wooden and stone wall, looking up at the blue dots floating above his head.
These things, defying the common sense of physics, quietly floated more than four meters above the ground, only clear in their entire form when seen up close.
They were small, blue jigsaw puzzle pieces, irregularly layered above the wooden and stone wall.
Each puzzle piece was about one square centimeter in size, with the same blue on both the front and back, all pieces were like this.
Seeing them, Chen Zhou couldn't help but think of a notorious puzzle known for tormenting: the "Pure White Hell."
The Pure White Hell, as the name implies, was entirely white, and assembling it depended only on constantly comparing various shapes, consistently trial and error.
It could be said the restoration process of the entire puzzle, except for the edges, was essentially without any pattern, especially the initial stages, which truly deserved the term "Hell."
The key point was, this puzzle had a very large number of pieces.
As far as Chen Zhou knew, the Pure White Hell had 1000 and 2000-piece versions.
And the blue puzzle pieces floating above him at the moment seemed to be more than 2000 at a glance.
According to the principle of the Space-Time Administration Bureau setting puzzles with more quantity without increased difficulty, he estimated this puzzle had at least 3000 pieces.
However, the good news was that the puzzle's rules were simple. Although restoring it was tedious, it wasn't mentally exhausting.
At the same time, the progress of the puzzle was visible to the naked eye, and the gradually expanding puzzle area served as a motivation for the puzzler.
Unlike that small block, during the puzzle-solving process, one couldn't know what step they were in, and a mistake could mean starting over, which was much more torturous on a person.
Moreover, even if restored exhaustively, the fewer pieces remaining, the less computing was needed, and the faster the speed would become.
He had seen a video documenting the complete assembly of a 2000-piece Pure White Hell puzzle, and if memory served, the puzzler took less than 100 hours to complete it.
Calculating with ten hours of work per day, the time needed to complete this Pure Blue puzzle would be at most about one hundred and twenty hours, not particularly difficult.
Of course, what's difficult or not is relative.
Had he not been tormented by the "Holy Sword," Chen Zhou's mentality might not have remained this stable.
After all, the puzzle was already presented to him. Rather than fearing the puzzle-solving process, it was better to treat it as an ordinary jigsaw puzzle, enjoying the process of restoring it.
Besides, wasn't there a reward after completing it?
The first puzzle safe provided bullets for a handgun and some seemingly important documents, the second puzzle granted him the right to exploit loopholes appropriately.
For this third puzzle, even if the reward wasn't as generous as the second, it was probably still superior to the other rewards, at least at an annual gift package level.
...
Having prepared himself mentally, he tied Lai Fu to a coastal tree, picked up a long wooden board, ready to knock down the blue blocks floating in the air—
He wondered why the Space-Time Administration Bureau let them float so high.
Sometimes Chen Zhou thought that these civilizations advanced beyond human imagination could indeed be quite childish in their doings.
For example, the words projected on the table after the last puzzle was solved, and now these inexplicably floating puzzle pieces in the sky.
"Do they think this looks cool?"
Thinking this, like using a stick to knock down fruit from high up in a tree, Chen Zhou struck down the first puzzle piece.
The puzzle piece, glowing with blue light, lost its mysterious levitating power as it fell from above, lying quietly in the sand like a common piece of phosphorescent plastic.
The sky was starting to rain, soon coating its surface with a drop of water.
Picking up the puzzle piece and putting it in his backpack, he looked up at the remaining densely floating pieces in the sky.
Chen Zhou couldn't help but rub his neck, as if already feeling the neck and shoulder aches from knocking all of them down, understanding the unique dark sense of humor of the "futurists."
It turned out that the puzzle floating in the sky was not for show, but to exhaust him by knocking down all the blocks one by one—this was also part of the torment.