Chapter 8 The Tenth Day

[Day Eight, all four subjects except Dr. Andrei have shown massive bleeding from their entire bodies. We had to send these four to the infirmary for emergency treatment.]

[Day Nine, Dr. Andrei, who remained in the prison cell, began to draw bizarre symbols and unidentifiable writings on the wall with his excrement. The amount he wrote was enormous. By the time I filed this record today, he had almost covered the entire wall with shit.]

The record ends here, with no entry for Day Ten.

Clearly, at this moment, Feng Bujue was experiencing "Day Ten"...

...

One hour later.

"Sure enough, there's no exit here either..." Feng Bujue arrived at another corner of the map, encountering a dead end as expected.

"Brother Feng, what do we do now?" Igor wore a worried expression. "We've walked all four sides and four corners of this floor... but there's just no exit."

As Igor said, they had already walked a full circle along the edge of this floor...

Along the way, the two encountered three mutated subjects from the sleep experiments.

Speaking of which, those three were miserable. When they met Brother Jue, they all thought they had encountered a "fellow being," so they were completely unguarded, and as a result, they were suddenly killed by someone, truly dying with eyes wide open in death.

"There's definitely an exit." After a moment of thought, Feng Bujue said, "It's just that... 'some guys' deliberately hid it."

The "some guys" he was referring to were naturally the Foundation's people.

When he encountered the first nameless mutated subject, Feng Bujue noticed... that the monster's "memory" had been modified; he clearly remembered various information, but he just couldn't remember where the exit was.

Later, the Barefoot Brother was in a similar situation... he could locate himself based on his coordinates and deduce the location of the archive room, but he couldn't remember the location of the exit.

This kind of collective "specific memory loss" was clearly due to some kind of higher-dimensional interference.

Brother Jue initially suspected that it was the "System" that did it, but after thinking about it carefully, he didn't think so...

That's right, Thriller Paradise's system would indeed do similar things, but the system's methods were usually clever and hidden, and wouldn't give people this obvious sense of abruptness.

Later, when Feng Bujue thought of the sandbox theory, he understood... the guys who made the "interference" and the ones who made this crude sandbox... were the same group of people.

To use an analogy... the system is like an excellent writer, who can seamlessly fix some small bugs inadvertently left in the previous text while pushing the plot forward.

And the Foundation... is like a terrible reality show director, who will overemphasize what he wants to do, making the audience feel fake and helpless during the viewing process.

"You mean..." Igor listened to Brother Jue's words, thought for a full ten seconds, and then asked, "The exit is disguised, so we can't see it even if we pass by?"

"Heh... a bunch of guys who can't even handle environmental details, asking them to disguise the exit... is a bit too much." Feng Bujue laughed. "I think, the actual situation is probably..." As he spoke, he turned to look at the corridor. "The exit here is not on the surrounding four sides, but somewhere in the middle of this floor."

"This..." Igor thought for a moment, then slapped his forehead. "That's right! This is underground, and the exit leads upwards, which means... the ceiling is the 'edge.'"

"I think..." Feng Bujue took over the other party's words and said, "The exit here is probably something like an elevator..." He shrugged. "The reason why we can't find the exit is actually very simple, because the signs in the environment are all gone. If those signs were still there, we could easily reach the exit." He paused. "Of course, if Nikolai and the others' memories hadn't been blocked by 'those guys,' we could also leave relatively easily."

Just as Brother Jue finished speaking, suddenly...

Buzz buzz buzz—

A series of buzzing sounds rang out.

Waves of invisible energy surged from all directions... and crisscrossed as they passed.

"Oh? What are they planning to do?" Feng Bujue stared with dead fish eyes, muttering to himself, "Could it be that they want to..."

Whoosh—

Suddenly, a gust of wind rose, interrupting Brother Jue's train of thought.

The person who launched the sudden attack... was none other than Igor!

"Hmph..." Feng Bujue snorted coldly, raising his arm to block, barely stopping the heavy punch that was aimed at his face.

However, although he protected his head, the bones in his forearm still couldn't withstand the heavy pressure and snapped in response.

"Aren't you planning to hide it anymore?" Feng Bujue's words were not addressed to Igor, but to those "who are watching here."

On the other hand, Igor took advantage of the situation to pursue and attack fiercely.

At this moment, this Soviet man was completely different from before. The originally straightforward and simple Igor had instantly become a ruthless combat machine with a cold expression.

"Ah... whatever." Feng Bujue retreated while fighting, his tone still as relaxed as ever. "No matter how you guys handle it, it's all the same to me."

Buzz buzz buzz—

The buzzing sound became more and more rapid, and all the scenery distorted, making people dizzy.

And Igor, like the surrounding scenery, became like a reflection in the water, and his speed was therefore affected... becoming increasingly slow.

"Clearly the technology isn't up to par, and you're still thinking of 'interfering excessively,' this is the result." Feng Bujue looked at the distorted things around him and commented calmly.

Six or seven seconds later, Brother Jue's arm had already completed its self-healing. Then, he used his speed advantage to distance himself from Igor. At the same time, he shouted loudly towards the empty space in the corridor, "You think you can stay out of it and use me as an experimental specimen to play with?" He smiled. "Heh... let's wait and see."

...

Even though the space was distorted quite severely, it couldn't stop Feng Bujue's actions.

Five minutes later, Brother Jue returned to the door of the archive room he had visited before.

Then...

"In a sense, this script is quite interesting..." Feng Bujue stood with his back to the door of the archive room, slightly sorting out his memories, and then said, "Rather than saying that the system has given me a difficult problem, it's better to say that it's a three-way game between me, the system, and the Foundation..."

As he spoke, he took out the stack of documents from his arms again.

"The system wants me to crack this sandbox and go out to find trouble with the Foundation, but it also has to try its best to ensure that the inherent difficulty and principles of the nightmare script are not broken; the Foundation hopes to observe me and interfere with me, but it also has to prevent me from noticing their existence." Feng Bujue thought in his heart, "However, simply noticing the existence of the Foundation doesn't count as 'cracking the worldview'; at this stage, the system should have limited—I must get 'out' of here to complete the 'cracking.'"

While thinking, Feng Bujue had quickly reorganized the documents in his hand back to the state they were in when he first took them out, with the front and back order being exactly the same.

"Right now, the Foundation's use of this 'emergency measure' shows that they have given up observing me and have changed their goal to 'preventing me from getting out.'" Feng Bujue's thoughts had been straightened out and were gradually becoming clear. "This change is equivalent to revealing a piece of information to me... that is—from the perspective of the Foundation's people, who have a god's-eye view... 'something that can help me get out' has already fallen into my hands."

At this moment, Feng Bujue once again opened the documents and quickly scanned all the content from beginning to end.

"From this, it can be seen... I misunderstood the meaning of these documents from the beginning..." This time, after Brother Jue finished reading the files, he smiled. "Those documents that seem very comical, and those documents related to sleep experiments that I thought were useful... in essence, are actually the same thing. Because my thinking is still limited to the so-called 'main line' and 'plot,' I subconsciously classified these documents." He shook his head. "But in fact... I only need to use the purest puzzle-solving ideas to regard these six documents as the same set of information fragments."

As he thought of this, dozens of different pieces of information flashed chaotically before Brother Jue's eyes, each piece of information... like a slender strand of spider silk, and finally... converged into a huge, well-organized net.

"Mele Yawu... Russian... turn left..."

"The initial 'five' days... no abnormalities... that is, keep going forward... five intersections..."

"Day 'Six'... the situation took a 'sharp turn' for the worse... turn... which way to turn?"

Feng Bujue thought and hurried on, stopping in place here and looking to both sides.

"In the following days... the prisoners sat 'back-to-back'..." He repeated this sentence and noticed that on the right side within sight, there were two doors in opposite positions, while there were none on the left. "Hmm... I see..."

After confirming the direction to turn, Brother Jue continued to move forward.

"Day 'Nine'... 'four' prisoners... 'two' of them... until day 'Fourteen'..."

The next set of information was slightly more difficult, requiring him to go to three intersections to investigate separately to find the keywords indicated by four and two... that is, the number and arrangement of the doors, and then walk the distance of fourteen intersections in the correct direction.

Following this analogy, after deciphering all the hints from the first two documents, Feng Bujue came to the door of a room.

He tried the metal door of this room, and the voice he got was—[Old metal door, the lock is rusted, but it seems that it can be forced open]

With this sentence, Brother Jue was relieved.

Now he doesn't need anyone to help him, he can just kick the door open with ease.

So, Brother Jue smoothly entered the room and found a [key] in the room.

The appearance of this item is a verification of his previous series of deductions.

After Feng Bujue put the key in his pocket, he entered the next stage of deduction...

"The second experiment began... that is, the second journey began..."

"The experimental subjects and experimental methods used in this experiment will be adjusted to obtain more diverse data... that is... this section will adopt completely new 'rules,' which will be more complicated than the first section."

From a puzzle-solving point of view, every sentence in the experimental report can be interpreted as meaningful information.

"Fifteen death row prisoners aged between thirty and sixty... fifteen... between thirty and sixty... hmm... odd or even numbers?"

"Group one, five... the same as the first time... group two, three... groups three and four, two each... groups five, six, and seven, one each..."

This time the puzzle was more complicated than the first section. Feng Bujue thought for a while, and although he had some assumptions, he didn't crack it.

However... he soon realized that the first puzzle was composed of "two documents," so this second section may also require combining two of them to look at; therefore, in addition to the large number of numbers and concepts provided by the second sleep experiment, Feng Bujue also considered the "Resurrection Disk Project"...

"Changed the use of water to land... change the use... change the mode of operation... change... the concept?"

"Novgorod... circular... change the concept... return to use..."

"Oh..." Brother Jue thought for a while, "It's like this..."

When he turned the map he depicted in his mind into a top-down plan view, he immediately had a breakthrough.

This second puzzle is indeed very difficult... specifically, it is to regard this rectangular base, which is viewed from above, as a part of a circle. To put it figuratively... it's like a waffle.

Feng Bujue, who naturally remembered walking around the edge of the base, also remembered that the number of horizontal and vertical corridors in this base were odd and even, respectively.

Group one, five, the same as the first experiment... means that the first step is to walk five segments, and move in the same direction as the first step of the first puzzle.

Next... don't look at group two, but continue to look at the situation of group one...

"On the eighth day, a fight broke out in group one, one person died, and the other four were injured to varying degrees." This is the next piece of information about group one.

From this point on, the rules have changed, "day" no longer refers to segments but to doors. And "fight," "death," and "injury"... these words have all been fulfilled in the system voice that can be triggered by each closed door.

Following this analogy, regard the corridor as part of the middle of the "circle," and proceed clockwise step by step.

Sometimes, there will also be situations where you have to "walk diagonally"; because players cannot walk through walls, walking diagonally is composed of three steps: walking straight, turning, and walking straight again, but it is still considered one "segment."

In short... when the second journey was over, Feng Bujue arrived at the door of a room [that requires a key to unlock].

It took him a lot of time to get here; even for Brother Jue, it was quite difficult to compare the entire plan of the base in his mind, while also taking into account the conversion of encrypted information, reasoning analysis, and other things...

"Phew..." After listening to the voice prompt, Brother Jue took a deep breath, then took out the key in his pocket and reached for the door lock...