Chapter 6: A World of Ice and Fire

When I turned around, I saw Xu Meijing’s box being flooded with water, the sound of rushing filling the air. The pipe at the top was meant for adding water. The stream poured down from above Xu Meijing’s head to her feet, and in the blink of an eye, she was drenched from head to toe, looking like a soaked, bedraggled chicken.

“Zheng Yan! It’s ice water! Cold, freezing water!” Xu Meijing hugged herself with both arms, shivering inside the glass box. I could see goosebumps springing up on her skin, and her feet were hopping and kicking about in panic.

Years ago, Xu Meijing had chosen a bag of money over a basin of water; now, the very water that could have saved her had become a merciless instrument of death. The pipe was only as thick as an arm, but the space inside the glass box was limited. At this rate, the box would be filled in less than three minutes, and the inevitable outcome would be Xu Meijing drowning, trapped and helpless.

The most twisted part of it all was that the water pouring in was ice-cold. A normal human body temperature is around thirty-seven point eight degrees Celsius, and being immersed in water at zero degrees is extremely dangerous. As far as I could tell, Xu Meijing wouldn’t last more than five minutes in the icy water. Her organs would quickly shrink and slow their metabolism, and she might even suffer organ failure.

In other words, I had at most five minutes to rescue Xu Meijing from the box, or she would be left dead or permanently crippled.

While I was mulling over these possibilities, thirty centimeters of ice water had already filled the box. As the frigid water met the warm glass, a layer of chill spread out. Xu Meijing frantically waved her hands inside, begging me for help. “Zheng Yan, I’m freezing to death! Find a hammer to smash this glass! Please, I don’t want to die!”

I stood motionless. I did bring an iron axe from the auto repair room, but that would be a waste of time. This kind of glass couldn’t be broken with an axe. Only an industrial mechanical hammer, one with pressure greater than the glass’s resistance, could do it—and there was no way to get one now.

I remembered something my father once told me about tempered glass: it’s vulnerable to scratches but not to impact. In industrial design, everything has its nemesis. No matter how tough the glass, it fears a diamond. To break free from this tempered prison, I needed something harder than the glass itself—only then could I scratch it open.

What material is harder than glass? My mind raced for the answer. The best option was diamond, followed by tungsten steel, then regular steel. Iron was next, but its hardness was less than glass.

Iron?

A sudden idea struck me. Iron’s hardness is usually lower than glass, but after heat treatment, its hardness increases several times over. It should be enough to surpass the tempered glass before me! There was already some treated iron in Kitchen Warehouse No. 9!

I spun around and rushed toward Warehouse No. 9. I’d barely taken two steps when Gu Meijuan shrieked. She pointed at the glass beneath her feet, her voice trembling with terror. “Zheng Yan, look! Look at the glass…”

I followed her pointing finger and felt a chill run down my spine. The glass beneath Gu Meijuan’s feet was changing color!

The glass glowed with a fluorescent red light. At a glance, I knew what was happening: the cable beneath the glass was electrifying it, heating it up! As the cable heated the glass, the temperature inside the box would steadily rise, much like the heated windows we see in cars. Glass conducts heat well, and with high power output, the temperature would soar rapidly.

This transparent glass box was like a pot slowly boiling a frog. Gu Meijuan wouldn’t die immediately, but as time passed, the heat would only intensify, the temperature inside would keep climbing, and the oxygen would gradually disappear. It was clear what would happen: Gu Meijuan would either suffocate or be roasted alive. The torment and agony would be unimaginable.

At that moment, I finally understood what Du Jiang meant by “the extremes of ice and fire.” Gu Meijuan had pushed her friend into the fire, and her own punishment was to be roasted. Xu Meijing couldn’t bear to sacrifice a basin of water to save a classmate, so Du Jiang punished her with ice water. One punishment with ice, one with fire—both betrayers suffering the consequences of their actions. The meaning of “the extremes of ice and fire” was laid bare.

“Zheng Yan, save me! Du Jiang is going to burn me alive!” Gu Meijuan cried out, desperate.

“Zheng Yan, I… I’m about to drown… You can’t leave me behind…” Xu Meijing’s eyes brimmed with tears. The ice water had now reached her knees, her whole body soaked, her face wet with water and tears, indistinguishable from one another.

Their cries for help echoed back and forth, and I was trapped in the corridor, frantic. I touched Gu Meijuan’s glass to check its temperature—about twenty to thirty degrees on the surface. Inside, Gu Meijuan was sweating profusely, beads of sweat rolling down her forehead and nose. She had unzipped her dress, revealing pale, delicate skin.

The human body can withstand temperatures up to seventy degrees. Judging by the rate of heat transfer, I had only three to five minutes left. Xu Meijing’s limit was also five minutes. I could save only one of them. Who should I save? How?

“Hot, hot, hot! I can’t take it anymore! Zheng Yan, I can’t breathe!” Gu Meijuan was swaying inside, barely able to stay upright.

A reflexive idea came to me: the heating wires embedded in the glass surface! Those copper wires could be targeted.

Wielding the iron axe from the auto repair room, I summoned all my strength and hacked at the wires. In no time, I had broken all the heating wires on the glass surface. This somewhat slowed the heat transfer, but I knew it was only a stopgap—the power source was still heating the box, I had merely bought a little more time. It was a temporary fix, not a real solution; I needed another way to save Gu Meijuan.

Having dealt with her immediate crisis, I dashed back to Kitchen Warehouse No. 9, skirting the edge of the homeroom teacher’s half-dismembered corpse. There was no time to worry about the gruesome scene. I grabbed a half-length iron chain from the floor; the clasp in the middle was shaped like an inverted triangular prism, perfect for scratching the glass.

When I returned to the storeroom, the situation was even worse than I had imagined. Gu Meijuan’s fire box was radiating heat, and she had stripped off her clothes, wearing only black underwear. Her pale skin was flushed, and she had placed her skirt on the floor to block the heat, yet she was still suffering, stamping her feet and sobbing as the searing air tormented her.

Xu Meijing’s ice box was equally dire. The icy water had reached her chest, her expression more ghastly than Gu Meijuan’s. Her lips were purple, her face bloodless, and she couldn’t even speak, trembling all over.

I quickly pulled out the iron clasp I’d found and, using the axe for leverage, struck the glass with all my might. As expected, the treated iron managed to scratch small pits the size of a fingernail into the crystal glass.

This proved the treated iron was harder than the tempered glass. If I kept at it, I should be able to break the glass.

But I was faced with a dilemma. If I used all my strength to shatter Xu Meijing’s tempered glass, I wouldn’t have time to help Gu Meijuan. Du Jiang was right—I had only one chance. I could only save one woman.

“Gurgle…”

At that critical moment, Xu Meijing couldn’t hold out any longer. One leg jerked inside the box, and she sank down and swallowed a couple mouthfuls of icy water. The shock of cold must have triggered her survival instinct, and she quickly stood up, eyes wide in terror, waving to me desperately.

“Zheng Yan! You can’t just watch me burn alive!” Gu Meijuan’s cries were even more desperate on the other side.

I turned to look, and was instantly stunned by the scene before me. Even the axe in my hand slipped and fell to the floor.

…