Feng Bujue waited for more than three minutes until he could not feel his hand anymore.
“Look, this is an arm where the cells have died from flash freezing.” Like a magician, he extended his frozen arm to Mr. Freeze. Then he showed the pill in his other hand. “This is a medicine that can cure everything.”
Even though Mr. Freeze was covered in full armor, within the glass helmet, he still wore a pair of sunglasses, so Feng Bujue could not see his eyes. If he could see, he would realize that Mr. Freeze’s eyes were filled with bafflement…
“Now, it’s time to witness the miracle…” Feng Bujue tossed the pill into his mouth and swallowed it.
Mr. Freeze was an intellectual; he was not the type of supervillain that had gone far off the deep end. When he saw what Feng Bujue did, he could not help but say, “I must remind you, Mr. Feng, as interesting as your performance is, that is secondary. If you cannot prove what you said, you will end up the same as the two at the door.”
“See, it has already healed.” Before the man finished, Feng Bujue said that. He wiggled his arm about, and the layer of dead skin fell away with the frost.
“Good as new.” He clenched his healed hand into a fist and wiggled his fingers. “I can move it freely.”
Mr. Freeze put down his gun and rushed forward to grab Feng Bujue’s arm and pull it to his eyes to inspect.
“Hmm… interesting… there is a drug that can instantly recover the permanent damage on the cellular level.” He released Feng Bujue’s hand and said, “But that does not mean… that medicine can change my cold-bloodedness, or… cure my wife’s illness.”
“As I’ve said, Prof. Fries, this medicine cures everything,” Feng Bujue said. “Aids, cancer, Parkinson’s, and so on… Be it natural, genetic corruption or a virus, reversible or permanent… with one of these pills, everything can be fixed. This can even turn a zombified person back to normal. There is nothing worth doubting about it.”
“No, the whole sentence you just said is worth doubting,” Mr. Freeze said. “Unless… you can give me a sample to have me study its chemical make-up.”
“Forgive my honesty, Prof. Fries, but that is not possible,” Feng Bujue answered. “Based on what I know, a certain organization has already conducted a lot of experiments and tried to synthesize this medicine, but they all failed. Trust me, prof, the scientific knowledge and the manpower and wealth of that organization… is not below you or any other person on this planet.”
“Since this medicine cannot be made, where did you get this medicine? A gift from god?” Fries asked.
“There are many things that cannot be explained with science. You can choose not to believe me, prof, but… you have to make a choice now,” Feng Bujue said. “I have already shown you the function of this medicine, so the choice is simple for you. One, trust and accept my help; two, deny and give up this chance to save your wife.”
He observed the smallest expression on the man’s face. With gaining confidence, his tone became firmer.
“This ‘gift from God’ is limited in number, and I can only provide you with two of them, one for you and another for your wife. Even if you kill me, you won’t get more.”
Feng Bujue stated his bottom line. For him, exhausting three SCP-500 pills for aid from Mr. Freeze was his limit. If that was not enough, he would rather give up this chance to cooperate.
Mr. Freeze considered it for few seconds, and his eyes wavered behind the glasses. The most important thing in his life was his wife, and he had seen the effect of the medicine for himself. He would not give up this chance.
“I still have a third choice,” Mr. Freeze said. “That is to freeze you now and take all the medicine from you.”
That was obviously a test.
“Haha… you wouldn’t do something so rash, Professor.” Feng Bujue naturally understood the man’s intention. “Since I mentioned a term that you have not heard before earlier, the sub-dimensional pocket. After you freeze me, it is unknown whether you’ll be able to retrieve the medicine from me. Furthermore… I believe you have already seen that under necessary circumstances, I am not afraid of death.”
“Humph… you are a clever man.” Mr. Freeze smiled as he walked to the side. “I like to interact with such people. But there is one thing I don’t understand—why would you help me? Is it because you’ve read about my story in the paper and you wish to convince a villain like myself to turn good?”
“We both know that you have gone down the path of no return,” Feng Bujue said. “My suggestion is for you to take this time to consider how you shall explain what happened after she is unfrozen and wakes up. Also… even if you really turn over a new leaf, that is definitely not why I’m helping you.”
“That means you’re up for a trade.” Mr. Freeze made the correct assessment.
“Indeed.”
“Do I have anything that might interest you? I don’t think you’re after money, are you?”
“No, no, no… that is too mundane,” Feng Bujue said. “The thing I want is already… oh no, I mean, will be a set of useless iron.”
He pointed at Mr. Freeze. “I wish want a set of your armor and a few Freeze Ray Guns.”
“Is that all?” Mr. Freeze asked.
“If possible…” Feng Bujue turned around and pointed at King of Shadows and the Blood Golem inside the ice. “I wish for you to help create an explosion that can destroy an entire street to kill the both of them.”
Mr. Freeze glanced at the ice and was startled. “They are still alive?”
“Yes,” Feng Bujue replied with absolute confidence because he could see from the game menu that the word next to King of Shadows’ name was ‘alive’. “There is some kind of symbiotic relationship between him and this monster. Even though he is in a dead state inside the ice, as long as the monster can survive in the ice, like it is now… his own cells and body can retain a self-regenerative ability.”
“You mean… after the ice melts, they can walk out from it without being harmed?” Mr. Freeze asked.
“Yes,” Feng Bujue answered. “So, I have to damage them enough to destroy both of them at the same time to kill them.”
“Hahaha… after all, this place is of no use to me anymore. It’s fine to blow it up.” Mr. Freeze smiled as he agreed to Feng Bujue’s request. King of Shadows, who was inside the ice, could not see the two because the Blood Golem blocked his sight, and he could not hear their conversation. The only thing he could do was pray… that before the man did anything crazy, the Blood Golem could shake out from the ice.
The method that he had used to follow Feng Bujue was indeed through a summoned creature. The creature was the Voice of Shadow. It was a type of highly intelligent but non-combative creature. The voice that spoke to him at the park was the secret behind his sleuthing ability.
———
Name: Summoning—Voice of Shadow
Skill Property: Active Skill, Permanent
Skill Type: Summoning
Effect: Summon one Voice of Shadow (No cooldown time but can only be used once after entering the scenario. Can exist without time limit. Only one summoned creature can exist at one time.)
Consumption: Fifty Sorcery Points and one summoned creature (other than Voice of Shadow)
Learning Requirement: Summoning C
Remark: Voice of Shadow does not possess any fighting ability and hides in the player’s shadow. It possesses its own personality and high intelligence, so it can communicate with the player. When another player uses a summoning skill in the scenario, the Voice of Shadow can sense the other summoned creature and form a bond with the player’s own shadow (no distance limit). As long as the connection is not broken, the Voice of Shadow can detect the player’s location at any time.
———
King of Shadows depended on this creature to find Feng Bujue. It was not that he targeted Feng Bujue; it was just that no other players had used a summoning skill, so he could not trace them.
The tracking effect on Feng Bujue was deactivated then. The connection between Voice of Shadow and Feng Bujue’s shadow, even though it was not shown in the player’s menu, was essentially a debuff. SCP-500 could clear all debuffs, and that included this one. Actually, there were a few other ways to disturb the connection with the Voice of Shadow, like staying in a room with bright lights for few seconds or using certain skills from the Medic Mastery.
Other than that… the Voice of Shadow had a hidden negative trait. When there was another person who summoned a level A or stronger creature, the Voice of Shadow would disappear out of fear… Of course, King of Shadows had not faced that before, so he did not know about that condition.
“Hi, I’m going to blow you up.” Feng Bujue wrote this on a piece of paper, walked to the ice block, and found a spot where King of Shadows could see him to show this to him.
This b*stard… is he doing this on purpose? King of Shadows mumbled internally.
Feng Bujue turned the paper over. “In Battle Royale Mode, there is no punishment for leaving. You can consider that.”
When King of Shadows saw that, he scoffed. Humph… laughable, looks like you aren’t able to kill me with an explosion.
Feng Bujue looked at him for several seconds. Seeing that the man had no intention of going offline, he took out another piece of paper from behind him.
“People always hope for a fluke. I can understand that. Just wait and see then. Hehehe :D”
Feng Bujue turned to set up the bomb with Mr. Freeze.
Hey, why did you use both words and emoticons! This is too much! Such an insult cannot be taken lying down!
But King of Shadows could only shout in his heart; not a word could be heard.