Once he drank the coffee, Feng Bujue realized that his Stamina Points had noticeably increased. It seemed like some of the ’food’ in the scenario had a hidden recovery effect.
“From the looks of it… the snacks sold at the market are not only to satisfy hungry players or for people to act cool.” Feng Bujue looked at his status in the menu and said to himself, “But snacks do not have item properties. To uncover what kind of food has what effect, one has to try them out one by one in-game…”
As he spoke, he took out a bag of beef jerky from his pocket. Feng Bujue bought this alongside the other tool at the convenience store near the experiment zone. When he was counting his inventory earlier, he had forgotten about this. He had bought this at the time to act dumb. Because, at the time, Brother Jue still did not want to expose himself, he did not want his teammates to know that he had bought a bunch of tools, so he had bought the snacks as an excuse. Perhaps it was the rules of the scenario. Even though he had been through the water, he did not lose any of the item in his inventory. When Feng Bujue had sat up in his tub, everything had still been in his pockets.
“With misfortune following me, will I choke on this snack?” Feng Bujue realized that problem after opening the package, but he did not dawdle on it. He shrugged and tossed a piece of beef jerky into his mouth. He munched on the snack, and his brain was processing the content from pages 599 to 602.
“This is my memory space. Other than the puzzles added by the system, everything here should be simulated from my memory. In other words… the words in this book, including the content from that astronomy book, should be things from my own brain…”
Feng Bujue turned his gaze back to the bookshelf.
“My memory is not bad, and I have an impression of things that I’ve seen. In this place, even if it is information that only exists in my subconscious, it should be able to replicate it as well…”
By then, Feng Bujue had wolfed down half the bag of the beef jerky. He glanced at the menu. As he expected, his Life Points had risen by five percent. Even though it was not much, it was an extra recovery outside of the normal recovery rate. Combined with the auto-recovery, Feng Bujue’s Life Points had returned to forty-two percent. He had left the danger zone. Seeing that, he tossed the rest of the packet right down his gullet. Then, he sat up and walked into the kitchen. He tossed the empty bag in the trashcan, washed his hands, and dried them with the towel. Then, he returned to the bookshelf and picked a book. He read this book rarely; it was about botanical study.
“Hmm… As expected.” Feng Bujue flipped to the back, and the words that appeared before him were all blurred out and hard to read. He turned the book to the front again. The contents page was fine—everything was clear—but when turned to the first chapter, the smaller details were cut out, and more blurs started to appear.
“The things that I have forgotten or information that I have not seen will not be in focus.” Feng Bujue closed the door and turned to the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes on the coffee table. “I can remember the content for Sherlock Holmes, and in detail too, so the whole book has been replicated.”
He lowered his head to mumble, “Since this is information that I already know, the game hints for me to read the pages from 599 to 602, actually, it did not really want me to read the book, but…”
He returned to the sofa and turned open the thick book again.
“When I searched the room, I saw my own home as a strange new area. Then I found my breakthrough. Now… I shouldn’t see this book as a detective novel I’ve read but as a game clue in the scenario.”
After he had that paradigm shift, Feng Bujue picked up the book by only pages 599 to 600 and shone the flashlight on them.
“Hmm… Even with the light, the words don’t change.”
He turned the book over and looked at it from another angle, but there was still nothing.
“Soaking it in water or roasting it by fire are irreversible trial methods. These pieces of paper aren’t too thick. They couldn’t hide anything in between.”
Once a puzzle had reached a dead end, the next thing to do was to step back and see if there was any missed information or a way to find a new path. Therefore, Feng Bujue looked through the items that he had gotten after he entered the scenario but had not used. “The things I’ve obtained inside the experiment zone but haven’t used until now… the folding knife, the lighter, the Nokia, and… the match?”
With that in mind, he took out the match and examined it carefully.
“The Nokia’s battery and the folding knife can create fire… but just at a glance, there are two items that have seemingly repetitious function, and they are the lighter and the match.”
Feng Bujue picked up the lighter and flicked the gear. A wisp of a flame appeared.
“Hmm… still usable.”
That was expected because he had inserted and taken out the objects from his inventory. They might have been ruined in water, but after being placed in the inventory, they would be fixed.
“In this room, there are many methods to get fire. There’s the stove and so many electrical wires. I can even use the food in the fridge to create a chemical fire. The lighter will lose its uniqueness here, but… the match…” His eyes moved to the match again. “Other than lighting a flame, it seems to be related to a ’match puzzle’…”
The puzzled he meant was the mathematical kind that required you to move a match to form a new formula or something of that sort.
“Hmm… but that doesn’t seem to be related to anything before me.” He just was about to put down the match when he realized something. “Wait… this is the match owned by the girl who sells matches, and… as everyone knows, in that fairytale, whenever the girl lights a match, she can combine it with her surroundings to see a beautiful illusion…”
A new assumption appeared in Feng Bujue’s mind. He stood up immediately and turned the light in the living room off before returning to the sofa. He turned the page to 600. With a deep breath and the match in his grasp, he said, “Hopefully, this won’t be a waste…”
Feng Bujue swiped the match on the coarser side of the table and lit it up.
The moment the flame appeared, a 3D image floated up from the open book, and Feng Bujue was like an audience member sucked into a realistic 3D movie as the sound of a waterfall rushed by his ears…
