“Current quest completed. Main quest updated.”
When Feng Bujue obtained the third potion, the sub-quest in his menu to exchange Billy for one of the chemical potions got a tick next to it. The other quest, ’Find the chemical potions (3/4)’, had been updated as well.
Technically, Feng Bujue’s action was no different from getting rid of someone when they were no longer useful. Ravid’s head was shot through by the bullet, and it exploded in a shower of blood. The blood sprayed everywhere, dying the table, floor, ceiling… and of course, Feng Bujue, who was standing nearby, red.
Ravid’s body that was as large as a kangaroo toppled backward as it knocked the chair down. It slumped heavily on the ground, and the curled rabbit’s foot was still twitching.
“Currently, the time is…” Feng Bujue wiped his face for the umpteenth time. “sixty-five minutes.”
His eyes moved to Billy the puppet, who should have been on the table, but he had disappeared.
“It looks like you couldn’t continue this act anymore,” Feng Bujue said with a smile.
The light in the first prison cell came on by itself. Billy was sitting inside, still perched on the same chair. The light from above lit up his dark expression. “Were there any flaws, or was it simply due to this one mistake by Ravid?”
“There were too many flaws,” Feng Bujue replied. “The shot was merely a final test.”
He placed the gun on the table, placed his hands in his pockets, and shuffled to stand before the prison cell. “In regards to when my suspicion started… well, it should be from the very beginning.”
“Humph… Even though you’ve seen through the trick, isn’t that a bit too much of an exaggeration?” Billy said.
“You don’t believe me? Is it that you can’t believe it or won’t believe it?” Feng Bujue taunted. “In any case, I still have twenty-seven minutes before the poison will kill me, so I have more than enough time to explain it to you.”
He walked back and grabbed the chair that had fallen next to the Ravid. He dragged it over to the cell door and sat down across from Billy. He cleared his throat and said, “I’m not going to repeat the whole introduction… I admit that it is well thought out, filled with traps and seduction, and it is specially formulated to trick me. Just like you said, you can indeed ’precisely predict a person’s mind’, or at least you know how to use certain method to direct my analysis and progress.
“But there is one sentence that you shouldn’t have said… ’During this period, you might run into some people or witness some things. What you see and what you hear might affect your course of action and disturb your decision’.”
“But… that sentence…” Billy tried to chime in.
But Feng Bujue cut him off. “…attempted to make use of my reverse psychology, making me suspect that the things I saw could have been part of an illusion and that the things I heard could have been lies.
“But both of us know that this is not a lie. The entire beginning monologue, at least from your perspective, was all true. You would not lie to the player at the start of the scenario. When explaining the rules, I believe that is your pride, a type of insistence.”
He shrugged and pointed at Ravid’s body. “Even when the time came to lie, you tried your best not to lie through your own lips, and most of the time, you kept silent or gave out sentences that were vague and ambiguous. The lying work was all done by a rabbit…”
Feng Bujue thought back to how Aldan looked. “…and a creature that I wouldn’t even know how to describe.”
Feng Bujue’s index finger slid down from his forehead to the tip of his nose habitually.
“There is no second timeline at all. The four corridors traversing to the twenty-third, forty-sixth, and sixty-ninth minutes are all… smokescreens.” He leaned closer and used his finger to tap at his temple. “You tried to make use of my hobby for puzzle-solving and a fake pattern to misdirect my thoughts and actions.
“I have to admit, you did well. You must have predicted the steps of my analysis beforehand… The presence of the rooms, the location of the potions, the length of the corridors, the time needed to cross the corridor, and so on… What kind of information I should be given and what kind of information should be hidden, you planned all that. Based on your direction, actually, I only had one route to choose.”
Feng Bujue raised one finger.
“In the fan-shaped room, the performance from the first corridor was very successful. That indeed gave me a very long pause. You knew, based on my personality, after seeing that, I would choose another corridor to explore. And then, corridor two, three, or four…” His finger changed according to the number. “No matter which one I picked, you only needed to change the pattern accordingly.
“No matter which corridor I entered, you would arrange for me to run into Aldan. That challenge of telling a ghost story was like a strange dying message left at a crime scene to misdirect the investigation. Using that type of method to teleport me to the end appeared very normal because the more curious it was, the less one would investigate it.
“When I arrived at this supposed ’prison’, the real show began. The series of words by Aldan and Ravid, combined with your performance from inside the cell, was all to make me believe in this so-called corridor of time.
“This way, to not create a temporal anomaly and to avoid the ninety-second minute of the map time, I only had one path left to choose—to return via the second corridor, come back through the fourth corridor, and then head toward the first corridor. This was what you were trying to make me do, the only route that was possible after analyzing everything that Ravid said.”
Feng Bujue turned around to look at the first corridor.
“To continue, you hoped that with my habits, I would take the gun you gave me, walk into the first corridor, and find ’someone’ that is behind it without hesitation.” He turned back to Billy. “In your calculation, I would have only one Contra Medal left, not two like now, and I would possess three chemical potions and be close to clearing the scenario.
“The scene that you had me see at the beginning… is like a ticking time bomb buried in my mind. At the last moment, with my personality, I have to admit, even if I died, I would try my best to stop that last scene from happening…” He pointed at the gun with his index finger. “In conclusion, based on your prediction, I would have ended up walking down the first corridor, opening the door, and killing anything that appeared before me.”
Billy was surprisingly calm. Perhaps at this point, he already had nothing to lose. “Since you have already guessed so much, why don’t you try to guess why I had to do all that?”
“That is very simple. You wish to break out from the prison, right?” Feng Bujue said. He was right again. Billy lifted his head slightly but said nothing.
“I believe… this whole space that we’re in is a ’prison’ in itself.” Feng Bujue scanned the four cells. “These four cells are merely decorations.”
He tapped on the iron bars with his fingers. “Since we’ve reached this point, I shall point out a few of the bigger flaws. When I saw SCP-173, I was certain that the rabbit was pulling my leg. It said that four inmates were kept here, hah… but one knows iron bars are not going to hold SCP-173. Or as an unblinking puppet, do you plan to stare at SCP-173 through the iron bars forever?
“Secondly, both Aldan and SCP-173 can teleport, so what use are the corridors? Lastly, you shouldn’t have gotten Ravid to say that it has taken over the warden post of Sam Montier. When we’re in the same room, your presence and lethality are at least twice those of that rabbit, and you want me to believe that it is your warden?”
Feng Bujue shook his head and chuckled coldly. “If I’m not mistaken, the real warden is guarding the entrance to this space, and the entrance is inside the first corridor.
“Your ability at manipulating space is unrivalled. I believe… the length of the corridor, the changes of the room, everything can be changed with one of your thoughts. How long I take to run down the corridor and how long before I run into the rooms are within your control.
“But you and your underlings, or cellmates, came up with this whole show, created such complicated rules, dropped multiple hints, controlled my source of information, and patiently set up so many things… just to make me do something so simple?
“You’re the one who gave me the gun, Aldan had fingers that could pull the trigger, and even Ravid could have attempted it, so why didn’t you all do it yourself?”
Feng Bujue crossed his legs. “Initially, my prediction was… none of you could open that door, or you couldn’t get close or even touch it, but after some thought, I realized…”
Feng Bujue revealed a wicked smile but did not reveal the basis of his analysis, which was from the brief introductory cinematic—’Overlapping space, the game of death, endless terror, and recurring nightmares.’ This sentence was given by the system when the scenario started and was not mentioned by the boss. This sentence was the real key to unlocking the secret of this scenario.
That ’overlapping space’ coincided perfectly with Billy’s scam. In a way, it had confused Feng Bujue, but he understood it after chewing on it for some time.
“I believe you have tried that multiple times already, yes?” Feng Bujue said with a smile. “Even after killing the warden, you are unable to escape, right?”
“Is that so funny to you?” Billy replied.
“Why don’t you tell me what is not funny about it?”
“Killing the warden not only won’t allow us to escape, it will trigger a temporal rotation,” Billy explained. “The power of me, Aldan, and Ravid that has been recovered, especially the power to manipulate time and space, will revert to zero as if time has gone back on itself, but our memory will remain.
“That 173 that you mentioned… I have no idea what it is. It is not our cellmate but a part of the punishment. Whenever we try to escape, the ’rotation’ occurs, and a new monster like 173 appears inside the prison to kill us again and again… until we’ve recovered enough power to regain control of the prison.”
Feng Bujue nodded. “So, you wish to borrow my power to break out of this endless rotation?”
