"You... you you you you..." Lucifer stammered, pointing at that thing for a long time, unable to remember how to say it in English.
Meanwhile, Anatoli had already started inspecting the small bedside cabinet, the only thing in the room besides the bed with research value. The cabinet was made of iron, so it couldn't be smashed open with violence; it was set into the wall at the back, making it impossible to take away. There was nothing placed on top, but there was a drawer. The drawer's surface had no keyhole, suggesting it wasn't opened with a key.
The drawer had a handle, but you couldn't pull it open directly. However, if you tried to pull, you'd find the drawer could move and make a "clattering" sound.
Anatoli was busy studying the cabinet, ignoring Lucifer. Lucifer reached out to grab him but at the moment of touching his shoulder, he heard a muffled groan.
Lucifer quickly withdrew his hand, wings snapping closed. Anatoli turned to look at him and said, "If you can't help, go sit over there, don't cause trouble here, okay?"
"Who says I can't help?!" Lucifer raised his voice, "This is a dual-player game, I have to participate!"
Anatoli showed a bit of helplessness. He squatted on the ground and turned around, pointing to the bed. Lucifer thought Anatoli wanted him to inspect the bedding, so he walked over. Instead, Anatoli grabbed him by the side of his wings and sat him down.
Anatoli squatted on the ground, looking up at him and said, "You're a god; you can get whatever you want effortlessly. This means, over the thousands of years since your birth, your brain has never really worked. Lucifer, this kind of puzzle game isn't suitable for you. Just stay put, okay?"
Lucifer almost jumped up but without the divine power, combined with his wings making him heavier than ordinary people, he couldn't jump up, only flapped his wings fiercely.
"Are you saying I'm stupid, Anatoli? You're the first one to say that. I'm the Satan ruling Hell..."
"You're not stupid," Anatoli calmly said, "God gave you great wisdom to understand very complex cosmic structures and effortlessly edit cosmic programs."
"Then why do you say I'm not suited for puzzle games?"
"I'm just saying you're not skilled at putting in labor to get results for this process. You usually get results directly. Isn't it true?"
"Remember the bet we made in Hell?" Anatoli looked into Lucifer's eyes and said, "Whether you could catch us without using your universe administrator's powers."
Lucifer's expression became somewhat gloomy: "I've said it many times. If I knew you cared so much about them, I wouldn't have..."
"I'm not talking about that," Anatoli took a light breath and said, "You agreed to the wager, trying not to use divine power but, as a ruler and general, commanded Hell's forces to hunt us down and win the bet. But you lost."
"It's not because we were strong, but because you're not skilled at doing things without divine power. If I remember correctly, your bar management wasn't good, right?"
"The reasons for the bar's poor management are complex," Lucifer tried to explain, "There are always those that refuse to see sense coming to cause trouble; I don't want to expose my identity and make a big fuss."
"And what then?"
"I found them annoying, so I had to close the bar and open another elsewhere," Lucifer said, spreading his hands.
"But it's not that easy," Anatoli said, "You need enough funds, find a suitable place, redecorate, plan menus, recruit staff. If none of this requires you to exert effort, if everything appears out of thin air, you will continue the cycle of business failure."
"I didn't," Lucifer immediately said, "You might not know, but this time the bar I opened in Seashore City hasn't closed; Shiller and I chose the location."
"Limited funds? Choosing the location after weighing the pros and cons? Careful management and planning?"
"Certainly!" Lucifer snorted softly, "Even though it might be unexpected for you, since I lost the bet, I've seriously reflected. After clearing Hell, I rarely conjure things out of thin air anymore. Though sometimes I feel poor enough to want to hit my head against the wall, I've pulled through, haven't I?"
Anatoli suddenly laughed. His upper eyelid's arched outline became particularly striking, resembling a crescent moon. Then he reigned in his smile, lowered his gaze, and said nothing more.
"Why do I feel you're upset?" Lucifer asked.
"Nothing, just that my shoulder hurts a bit," Anatoli said, "I've never participated in this kind of game, I thought breaking a clavicle or something was normal at the start."
"So you actually broke your clavicle completely to remove that ring?!" Lucifer roared, "Are you insane?! How can there be rules forcing self-harm..."
"I envy your beautiful perception of the world," Anatoli muttered in Russian, "whereas I always think of it as unpleasant."
"Don't try to fool me," Lucifer replied in Russian, "You're still using your native language to change the subject. What I'm saying is, you can consider this place as a large amusement park, not a life-and-death test..."
"No. Don't always be so optimistic, Lucifer. Consider, if you were the one locked up, what would you do?"
"Of course, I would use wisdom to solve the puzzle, rather than mutilate myself like you..."
"I just hope I can mutilate myself faster than you, so I can stop you." Anatoli turned back to study the nightstand, leaving Lucifer dumbfounded by the remark.
Silence filled the room. Thor stood in front of Loki with a crowbar, while Loki sat on the ground, curling one leg and turning his head aside, "As you can see, I really can't get up."
Thor squatted down, looking into his eyes, and asked, "Why didn't you tell me? Loki? Why didn't you tell me that your clavicle is locked?"
"Because you always make a fuss," Loki frowned, looking at him. "As if I'm about to die. I know what you want to say now. You want to say participating in this kind of level was a mistake because I've never been injured like this since I was a kid. I shouldn't have rushed into this high-difficulty level knowing something like this could happen. That's not what a smart person would do."
Thor squatted down and then sat cross-legged, looking at Loki, "Loki, perhaps you don't believe this, but I don't actually want to say that. If I could calm down immediately after seeing you get hurt, I could tell you that I see the effort you make when facing challenges, instead of only seeing the part where the challenge defeats you. But the truth is I can't. Normally, I just can't keep calm in such situations."
"If it wasn't for swallowing a bit of water just now, making me a little weak, the roar you would hear from me would be ten times louder. Because otherwise, I have no way to vent my pain. Do you understand?"
"You swallowed water?" Loki looked at him wide-eyed, "Are you an idiot? Don't you know you can't breathe underwater?!"
Loki instinctively tried to stand up, completely forgetting that his clavicle was still locked. He exerted his leg, the clavicle ring tugged at him, and he let out a scream.
"Ugh!!!!"
He fell sideways to the right, and Thor quickly rushed forward to support him, then straightened his body, waving the crowbar in his hand, "I was thinking we could take a break, but now it looks like we should get you down first."
Loki was in so much pain that he was dizzy and shaking all over, "One thing is right. I never should have... damn it. Don't let me find out who designed this level... hissing..."
After Loki started cursing, Thor fell silent. He picked up the crowbar and began prying the iron rod. After a few tries, the rod came loose. With the rod falling off, Loki collapsed onto the ground, panting heavily.
Thor went over to help him up and guided him to lie on the bed. Loki struggled to turn over, swallowed, and said, "We're still one key short from getting out... now there's only the nightstand left... take a look... check the nightstand..."
Thor went over and began examining the nightstand. He first knocked on it with the crowbar, studied the seams with the wall, and tugged hard on the drawer, but it was clearly ineffective.
All this time he kept talking, "Loki, you may be very smart, but your memory really isn't the best. Almost every time you got injured as a child, it was so painful you couldn't move, wishing you could faint in Frigga's arms. Yet every time you dove headlong into danger, you seemed to never remember any of that..."
"Shut up, Thor, shut up!" Loki tapped the edge of the bed, "I've grown up. I am now the Prince of Asgard..."
But because of his hand movement, he pulled at the clavicle wound again, causing him to tremble all over, the veins on his forehead pressed against the bedboard bulging, leaving him speechless for a moment.
Thor had to pause his actions to help adjust Loki's posture, saying, "I've never thought being afraid of pain meant a lack of bravery, but you always seem to think so yourself."
Loki pressed his lips and said nothing, feeling like he couldn't speak. After lying quietly on the bed for a while, he finally said in a low voice, "I heard... when you pulled the drawer just now, there was a sound... try again..."
Thor paused his actions. He adjusted his posture, knelt beside the nightstand, leaned his body forward, pressed his ear close, and tugged at the drawer, indeed hearing a "clatter" sound. This noise sounded odd, unlike that of regular drawer components, it resembled something colliding.
Loki showed an expression of realization and said, "There must be a mechanism inside."
"A ball mechanism," Erik said, "I saw one when I was cracking Fisher's safe. Remember that guy?"
"The casino owner? Didn't he die on a yacht?" Charles sat on the bed, playing with the iron rod, "Didn't you kill him?"
"No. He offended the Hellfire Club and was taken out by the Black Emperor at the time." Erik gently pulled the drawer with his hand, "He was a safe tycoon. His private vault had everything. Unfortunately, not a single non-metal safe."
Charles chuckled, "Then why bother studying the safe's mechanisms?"
"Many safes have automatic destruction devices under external pressure." Erik raised the drawer a little, placed his ear close, and listened carefully, "I got it. There's an S-shaped channel inside that allows a ball to roll. It's the ball that's stuck in the drawer. I need to maneuver the drawer, allowing the ball to drop down so I can open it."
"Pull out a little, then lift. Push it back, then lift again. Next, press the back part down..."
Click.
"Done."