Attention Sir, I Have Your Heart Handcuffed!-Chapter 617 - 459, Five Colors of the Phoenix (First Update)

Chapter 617: 459, Five Colors of the Phoenix (First Update)

Huangfu Huazhang raised his tired eyes: "Yes, there’s also Jieyou."

Shi Nian reminded him that he is not only a father, with the duty to protect his daughter; he cannot let his past nightmares recur, nor let his daughter suffer from a fate of childhood harm.

Since he gave life to her, he must be responsible for her life.

He wearily climbed up from the ground, turned around, and walked back in a lonely manner to face the bomb.

The timer is looping, perhaps time is no longer so pressing, but Shi Nian is right, he ultimately has to cut the wires and completely dismantle the bomb.

He took a deep breath, watching as another 5 minutes ran out on the timer and it reset back to 5 minutes, then reaching with scissors to gather all five wires to the blade.

With his back to Shi Nian, he announced in the desolate darkness, "I’m going to cut."

His voice was filled with exhaustion and helplessness.

Shi Nian took a deep breath: "Sir, we are all with you. This decision was made by all of us together, so you can confidently and boldly make the cut."

Tang Yanqing also snorted: "Even if you cut the wrong one, this time I swear I won’t laugh at you."

Hearing his provoking words, Huangfu Huazhang could only respond with a cold laugh.

If he cut the wrong wire, Tang Yanqing’s life would also end, leaving no chance to mock him.

But such words were unnecessary now; he just took a breath and fixed his gaze on the five wires.

"I still have some suspicions. This is also why I insisted on not cutting earlier, letting you accompany me in taking this gamble: logistically, this should be the final stage, and George’s aim to have me killed is about to succeed, so by his logic, the timer should have been set shorter to give me more pressure... but why did he instead set up this redundant looping timer?"

Shi Nian’s heart skipped heavily.

At this moment, she thought escape was within reach, so every bit of her urged Huangfu Huazhang to cut quickly. Even for this, she was willing to take a risk.

Yet at this moment, Huangfu Huazhang remained this calm and meticulous.

In that instant, she couldn’t help but be filled with admiration for him.

She quietly inhaled: "But it could be explained that George wants your life, sir, but he enjoys the torture at the brink of life and death even more, so he adjusted the final stage timer to looping to extend the despair of this life-death moment, allowing this tense emotion to repeatedly hit our psychological defenses."

"In this way, even if we manage to escape this time, we will be affected by this despair for quite a long time afterward... I suppose that’s exactly what he wants."

Tang Yanqing didn’t rush to speak but in this silent underground space, his heavy breathing was faintly audible.

This breathing betrayed his nervousness.

Huangfu Huazhang raised his voice to ask: "Tang Yanqing, what do you think?"

Tang Yanqing, upon being called, took a deep breath: "...I have the same worry as my cousin, I suspect there’s a trap in how this timer is set."

Huangfu Huazhang closed his eyes: "Speak!"

Tang Yanqing also tightly clenched his fingers: "I’m worried that if the five wires are cut at once, it could lead to an explosion!"

"What did you say?" Shi Nian was also taken aback: "But this deduction seems logical indeed, such reasoning should be the correct answer, why would it still explode?"

Huangfu Huazhang said solemnly: "Because this deduction is too logical, it might be precisely set up by George. He knows we would certainly deduce it this way, and understands we would firmly believe it due to the logical reasoning, so we would definitely cut all five... so he rather intentionally arranged it this way, once cut, it triggers an explosion instead!"

Tang Yanqing caught on: "And he set the timer to looping just to give us sufficient time to think about the Five-Colored Flag, then about the relationship between the Tang Family and the Ford family, and make this deduction. He feared that if time was too short, we might not have thought of this conclusion, then wouldn’t cut all five together."

"Moreover... elders in my family once said that the Five-Colored Flag, besides representing five nationalities at the time, and the five elements and virtues, also signified the five colors from the Phoenix. And the Phoenix is a firebird, cutting all five would symbolize rebirth through fire—meaning it would directly trigger the explosion!"

Fire raging to the sky... rebirth through fire. In Shi Nian’s mind, it was once again the great fire six years ago that swallowed everything!

With blazes reaching the sky, her mind turned blank.

Just a step away, and even if the deduction was correct, it would be more likely to lead to death!

She closed her eyes, taking deep breaths: "So now, what should we do?"

Tang Yanqing slowly said: "Cut them one by one."

Huangfu Huazhang inspected the five wires carefully under the flashlight: "Which one to start with?"

Saying this, he suddenly turned back to glance at the prison cell door.

Shi Nian was standing inside the door, close to the entrance. He frowned: "You wait outside for me."

Shi Nian quickly waved her hand: "I’ll stand right here with you, sir. Don’t worry, I won’t get in your way."

Tang Yanqing’s voice came through: "Since George is playing reverse logic, then the cutting sequence of the wires also requires reverse logic: among the five lead wires, the one that Big Cousin probably hates the most is the green one. If we follow straightforward logic, George would think Big Cousin would cut the green wire first—George would think the same, so we must do the opposite and cut the green one last."

Huangfu Huazhang nodded immediately: "I agree."

His eyes sparkled: "Among the remaining red, yellow, blue, and black colors, black is the most personally related to me. If choosing with straightforward thinking, I would subconsciously keep the black wire to cut last. So using reverse logic, I should cut the black wire first!"

"Exactly!" Tang Yanqing cheered excitedly in a low voice.

Without hesitation, Huangfu Huazhang raised his hand and sliced through the black wire.

As expected, no explosion occurred in the basement as a result, and everything continued to function sequentially.

Huangfu Huazhang and Tang Yanqing couldn’t help but punch the air lightly: "We bet correctly!"

Within the chain of logic, perhaps the hardest link is precisely the first one. Betting correctly on this first link proves that the principle of this logic is correct, and thus further action should proceed according to this rule step by step.

Huangfu Huazhang immediately retracted his smile and added: "What do you think about the remaining red, blue, yellow wires?"

Tang Yanqing frowned: "Red, blue, yellow, one of these colors is somewhat special."

Huangfu Huazhang quickly followed: "Exactly, that’s what I mean: the traditional primary colors are red, green, blue. Yellow is not a primary color."

Tang Yanqing took a deep breath: "Cut the yellow wire!"

.

In the basement, the voices of two men closely interlinked, overlapping each other. Shi Nian, standing aside, found it hard to interject.

At this moment, it was the collision of the brains of two reasoning experts, and more importantly, the first meaningful cooperation between two men who had been opposed for many years.

One person’s words, the other could understand and respond to; the opinion of one person would be immediately met with approval and response from the other.

Shi Nian knew it might not be the right moment, yet she still felt her eyes heating up and her nose tingling with emotion.

Once quite regretful that such outstanding individuals couldn’t stand side by side, but had to be at odds; she once fantasized about bringing them together one day... Unexpectantly, she had the fortune to see it at this life-and-death moment.

From this perspective, even if today doesn’t end in a smooth escape, it would still feel fulfilling.

In this situation in the basement, even Tang Yanxi couldn’t sit idly by.

He stood up and grabbed George again.

But George just stared at him coldly, refusing to give an answer.

Just then, a series of hurried footsteps suddenly echoed from the corridor outside the door.

Tang Yanxi’s heart skipped a beat, and he hurriedly locked George in the restroom, pressing his ear against the door to listen.

There were four footsteps, clearly two people.

With a deep breath, Tang Yanxi was already prepared.

Perhaps these were George’s men, coming to join him.

The footsteps soon closed in and stopped right by the door, followed by a confident but soft knock on the door.

Tang Yanxi covered his mouth with a scarf, using a muffled voice to mimic George’s: "Who?"

But there was no answer from outside the door; instead, it went quiet.

Tang Yanxi squinted his eyes, crouched down, and looked through the gap beneath the door.

As he expected, those two didn’t answer but spread apart, hiding on either side of the door.

Tang Yanxi’s heart sank.

It seemed these two were not ordinary underlings of George but rather experts.

Watching their movement frequency through the crack, one slightly faster, one slightly slower—proving one leads, one follows. The lead was extremely cautious and hard to deal with.

Even more unsettling was Tang Yanxi’s suspicion due to his years of mastering voice mimicry. He had successfully fooled an Isee leader by imitating George before, so why didn’t his earlier muffled attempt deceive those outside the door?

There was only one answer: the newcomers were extremely familiar with George, even discerning subtle characteristics of his voice.

So, who were these people?!