“Don’t act so confidently,” Ravid told the puppet. “But… you are right. I will not let this traveler kill you.”
It turned around to Feng Bujue. “You, go and capture him first.”
“Capture ’him?” Feng Bujue glanced at the puppet and repeated, “Him?”
“On the forty-first minute,” Ravid replied, “I handed my potion to you, and it was then that you captured him for me.”
It pointed at the fourth corridor. “That time, you came from there.”
“Current quest changed, main quest updated,” the system said. Feng Bujue opened the game menu and saw that underneath the original quest to find the chemical potions, a sub quest had been added. “Find and capture the wooden puppet Billy inside the fourth corridor and bring him to Ravid in exchange for one of the chemical potions.”
Feng Bujue lifted his head to let out a deep sigh. “I have an assumption. If I go now to capture him and bring him back to you on the forty-first minute and then I don’t take the potion from you, will everything that is happening now will still occur?”
“You mean, if you do it that way, will the potion still be with me right now, yes?”
“Correct,” Feng Bujue said.
“But you have already taken it.” Ravid looked into Feng Bujue’s eyes. “Do you understand that?”
Feng Bujue was stunned for a few seconds. “You mean…”
“It is because you have already taken it. That is why you are asking me this question now,” Ravid explained. “Based on the other hypothesis, assuming you didn’t take it then, I would have handed the potion to you now. But even if that is the case, you still need to go and capture Billy because, if you didn’t, my cell would have been empty, and I would have given the potion to you, and this timeline itself wouldn’t have existed.
“So, if you follow the timeline to go and capture him and return at the forty-first minute, there are two possibilities. First, you have taken the potion from me, then the action and the existence of the previous you will have been corrected. And if you didn’t take it…”
Feng Bujue continued that train of thought. “Then the current me who is discussing this question with you now will be corrected.”
Ravid raised hand. “Think about it. If you pick the wrong road and cause a temporal anomaly to appear…”
“Then the game will be lost immediately…” Feng Bujue said to him. He turned to the puppet. “I do wish to discuss the meaning of life with you one day.”
“Ha ha…” The puppet chuckled darkly. “How can you be sure that we haven’t already done that?”
Feng Bujue paced before the four corridors. “So, I came from the fourth corridor and brought him back. Other than the one you had, where are the other three potions?”
“The one I had actually belonged to Aldan,” Ravid replied. It waved its paw and gave Aldan a look. The latter disappeared, and Ravid continued, “Of the four, he was one of the more cooperative ones.”
“Four?” Feng Bujue’s eyes moved to the four cells.
Ravid knew what Feng Bujue wanted to ask, so he answered immediately. “There should be four inmates here. The former warden, Sam Montier… I believe you have heard of him already. Somehow, it got into his mind that he was an inmate, so one day, he opened all the cells and let them out.”
It sat back in the seat and turned the light off in Billy’s cell. When the light went off, the puppet seemed to have been moved to another dimension, away from this one.
“Therefore, my master assigned me to take over this place,” Ravid said. “Aldan is cooperative. He merely likes to stay in dark, isolated corners and likes to hear ghost stories. He doesn’t appear to be aggressive or even resistant. I see him as the model inmate, so I made him my assistant.”
“So, a traitor…” Feng Bujue commented.
“What did you say‽”
“Nothing.” Feng Bujue smiled and brushed the comment away.
Ravid huffed and continued. “Each of the corridors here contain one of the potions you are looking for. Aldan resides in the third corridor, and he has already handed his potion to me, which I’ve given you from ’the near future’.”
It paused, toyed with its whiskers, probably realizing how strange it was sounding. “The puppet Billy was previously hiding in the fourth corridor. He has one of the potions too. After capturing him, naturally, you get your hand on his potion.”
“Okay, I think I get it now,” Feng Bujue said. “In other words, there is one potion in each corridor except for number three, and I will get the last one from you after entering the fourth corridor from the front and capturing Billy.”
Ravid nodded to show that he was right.
“Last two questions. First, in terms of pure distance, which corridor is the shortest?” Feng Bujue wished to use the shortest corridor to run back to the front first. Because it was already the eighty-fourth minute, he was worried that he did not have enough time to make up to deal with the mini boss inside the first and second corridors.
He planned to go back first and then enter the fourth corridor from the front to let the time realign itself. He would then have enough time to stop while inside the corridor to do something.
“I have no idea,” Ravid answered. “I’ve only been inside the first corridor, so I cannot tell you which one is longer or shorter.”
“What? And you call yourself the warden?” Feng Bujue asked with disbelief.
“If I could leave this place, I would have captured all the inmates already. Do you think I would still need your help?” Ravid answered matter-of-factly.
“Then what about the inmate hiding in the first corridor? Has he been captured by you already?” Feng Bujue raised his head to look at the four cells behind Ravid. “Which room is he stored in? Where is the potion he had?”
“I merely said that I’ve been down the first corridor. I didn’t say that I’ve captured anyone,” Ravid replied. “That thing… is rather unique. I personally suggest you take the first corridor only after you’ve dealt with everything else.”
“F*ck!” Feng Bujue cursed and turned to leave.
“Hey, didn’t you say you have two questions? What’s the second one?” Ravid asked.
Feng Bujue ran down the second corridor and yelled back without turning his head around. “The second question is… why didn’t you go and capture them yourself‽”
The man soon disappeared down the corridor.
At that moment, the time that Feng Bujue had experienced, based on his internal calculation, was close to forty minutes.