Chapter 13 Hints

Feng Bujue looked at the item description and said, "Even though it still feels a bit nonsensical, it's still a kind of hint." He touched his nose. "The red key is hidden in a red place, so the yellow, blue, black, white, and gray keys are hidden in corresponding places with those five colors, right?"

He put the key away. The first question that popped into his head was, "Is the yellow one hidden in shit?" With this question in mind, he left the kitchen and headed for the third room.

That room was across the hallway. It only had a small window, and it was nailed shut with several planks. Although the windows in the other rooms didn't let in much light either, this one seemed particularly dim.

The room had a terrible stench. The wide wooden floor was covered in a layer of gray dust. Feng Bujue had switched his gloves to display mode, and freed one hand to cover his mouth and nose to resist the dual impact of dust and stench.

The room in front of him was empty. Although there were still some traces of furniture placement on the floor near the walls and corners, it was difficult to judge the original appearance of this room.

Feng Bujue guessed that when the owner of the mansion first started his evil deeds, he probably hadn't prepared a dedicated prison cell yet. Therefore, this room was likely used as a temporary prison at the beginning. Of course, now that he had the two-story underground facility, it could be said that he had put his criminal enterprise on the right track.

"The black or gray key should be here," Feng Bujue thought.

He held up the kerosene lamp and began a careful examination. This kind of empty room was actually easier to search. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all clear at a glance. Feng Bujue walked around and quickly found a severely corroded floorboard directly below the nailed-shut window.

He squatted down, clenched his fist, and knocked on the wooden board twice. With a crack, the board broke. He reached his hand into the dark hole under the floor and quickly found an item:

[Name: Black Key]

[Type: Story-Related]

[Quality: Common]

[Function: Permanently unlocks the black iron door, disappears immediately after use]

[Can be brought out of the script: No]

[Note: Hidden in a dark place]

"It always feels like the keys in this step of the mission are hidden very casually..." Feng Bujue muttered, "Compared to the maddening puzzles underground, this is just testing patience and attention to detail, right?"

The fourth room he went to was the foyer. Strictly speaking, it couldn't be considered a room, because the foyer was connected to the hallway and had no door to the inside. The only door was the [unopenable] mansion gate.

There was very little furniture left in the foyer. It was scattered haphazardly on the floor in a mess. There was a wall clock on the wall, which was probably broken, because Feng Bujue had glanced at this clock the last time he passed by, and the positions of its hour and minute hands hadn't changed.

He stood in front of the clock for a long time, and suddenly blurted out, "Could this...just look like a clock, but in reality, it's recording the date..."

Feng Bujue was getting hung up on the setting of this world again. The clock looked exactly like a twelve-hour clock, no different from the real world, but he insisted on speculating...that the twelve numbers plus the two hands, one long and one short, represented a calendar.

He rummaged through the foyer for a while, but didn't find the key. However, he discovered another story item:

[Name: Feathered Leather Cap]

[Type: Story-Related]

[Quality: Common]

[Function: Unknown]

[Can be brought out of the script: Yes]

[Note: A very ordinary leather cap, even if decorated with a bright, long feather, it's hard to hide its poor quality]

"This is the fourth story item that can be brought out of the script," Feng Bujue said. "Soap, dentures, perfume, feathered leather cap...what does it all mean..."

After leaving the foyer, he went to the last room on the first floor that he hadn't entered—the toilet.

Whether it was because the tech tree in this world was a bit skewed, or because of system limitations, there were fluorescent lights downstairs, but only kerosene lamps upstairs; the kitchen had a gas stove, but the ventilation was a chimney; and the toilet in front of him had a flush toilet, but no light bulb installed. Next to the door was a small table with an empty saucer, with some wax residue remaining inside.

"Having to light a candle to go to the toilet in the middle of the night, how scary is that..." Feng Bujue put the toilet lid down, stood on it, and wanted to try if the small window in the toilet could be opened. "Oh, right, there's no mirror here anyway, so it can't be that scary." He knocked on the frosted glass. It was very sturdy, and the size wasn't enough for him to climb out.

"Okay, okay, which one will it be, the white key or the yellow key?" Feng Bujue had already looked inside the toilet bowl, and there was only clean water, so he said as he opened the toilet tank.

Bang, the door behind him closed again.

"Here we go again? What can opening the tank trigger?" Feng Bujue quickly turned around to open the door, but he couldn't budge it at all, as if someone outside was holding onto the handle for dear life. And this time, no system prompt sounded.

"I don't even have a death warning this time, what's going on..." Feng Bujue knew how treacherous nightmare difficulty was. Instant death flags were commonplace. Even saying the wrong thing when interacting with an NPC could result in instant death.

His originally relaxed nerves tightened up again, ready to use his skills to deal with possible crises. At this time, his survival value had returned to more than 40% under natural recovery, but it was hard to say how much this little bit of health could do in a nightmare script.

Step by step, Feng Bujue cautiously approached the toilet. He had already constructed several possible horror scenes in his mind, such as the toilet suddenly turning into a monster, opening its "big mouth" to bite him; or...the monster using its "mouth" to spray something that would flood the entire toilet...either way, it would be worthy of the word "horror."

Of course, imagination was imagination. The actual situation was...besides the door being locked, nothing else unusual happened.

He leaned closer and looked at the tank. At the bottom of the tank, there was indeed a key:

[Name: Blue Key]

[Type: Story-Related]

[Quality: Common]

[Function: Permanently unlocks the blue iron door, disappears immediately after use]

[Can be brought out of the script: No]

[Note: Hidden in water]

"This is changing the rules again, isn't it...according to this logic, should the red key be hidden in fire?" Feng Bujue complained and put the key away.

His thinking didn't stop for a moment, and he quickly realized why the door closed, "I understand...there are six keys in total, three on the first floor and three on the second floor. When I found the last key on the first floor, it triggered the plot. Something must happen next, and then I can go to the second floor."

"The foyer is connected to the hallway, so there's no key there. And the kitchen, empty room, and toilet are all rooms with doors. No matter which of the above rooms I'm in when I find the third key, I'll be locked inside," he continued to analyze. "The question is...what will happen...will the lump of flesh at the entrance of the second-floor stairs move away or disappear on its own after I'm locked up for a while?"

Pat, pat...strange sounds came from the hallway.

Feng Bujue's expression changed slightly. He took a few steps forward, pressed against the door panel, and listened carefully.

Pat pat...pat pat...it seemed like something was moving quickly on the wooden floor.

The strange sound became more and more frequent, more and more dense, as if a large pile of rats as fat as cats were surging through the hallway.

"Really?" Feng Bujue swallowed and imagined the scene of those glued-together pieces of flesh moving like creatures and squeezing together through the hallway. "Guys with trypophobia might get goosebumps under this kind of psychological suggestion," he said lightly, "but this kind of setting is..."

Bang bang bang—

"Hey! It's actually knocking on the door!" Before Feng Bujue could finish speaking, the toilet door was knocked three times, and the impact point was in the upper part of the door panel. "Wait...this door isn't even locked, is it..."

Indeed, the toilet door had no lock cylinder. It could be opened by simply turning the doorknob. However, there was a bolt lock installed on the inside of the toilet, which could be used to lock the door from the inside, but at this time, the bolt was not engaged at all.

"Oh...I understand, the thing outside doesn't have fingers, it can't hold the doorknob." Feng Bujue said as he put the bolt on. "Ha...you can't do anything now."

Bang bang bang bang—

The thing outside hit the door a few more times very urgently, and also vaguely made some sounds: "Cough...cough...uh..."

"Eh? Does it want me to open the door through communication?" Feng Bujue said, "Hmm...no, it should just be the roar in the monster's throat."

The pattering sound outside rang again. The thing seemed to start moving again. Judging from the sound, it circled around the room, then went to the front door, but it didn't seem to be able to open the door either. Two minutes later, it returned to the toilet door and hit the door a few more times.

This time, its garbled voice became very strange. Feng Bujue vaguely felt that there was a sob and a plea in the voice.

"Something seems a bit wrong," Feng Bujue thought.

At this time, another sound rang out, a very clear sound of human footsteps. The footsteps came from the second-floor stairs and approached this place along the hallway.

The sound of knocking on the door also became more and more urgent at this time, and the sound made by the thing outside became like a roar.

Click, the toilet door opened.

Feng Bujue opened it.

In the past minute, Feng Bujue had naturally already discovered that the doorknob could be turned normally again. Therefore, he made a deduction: this place must be a choice, a choice that might affect the ending of the script.

The upper body of the creature at the door was basically still human, but it had no hair, fingers, tongue, or chin. And its lower body was more bizarre. Its lower body was connected to more than a hundred "feet," each foot composed of human finger joints, about ten sections per foot, which was the length of three fingers.

After Feng Bujue saw this guy, he didn't say anything, just silently stepped aside, wanting to see its reaction. As a result, it flew past Feng Bujue's side and fled to the corner of the toilet, shivering.

"As expected, it's running for its life..." Feng Bujue held the kerosene lamp, stuck his head out, wanting to confirm who the footsteps approaching in the hallway were from. "Then...what does the real monster look like..."