On the wall that was adjacent to the simple bed, there were plenty of faded marks. They seemed to be carving the same symbol… four straight vertical lines and another horizontal line that crossed the four straight lines. This was a common marking used by those to mark the days of their imprisonment. If they were Chinese, they would probably carve the character 正, but the wall before his eyes had these five markings.
"Hmm… From the markings on the wall, there have been at least six people…" Feng Bujue's eyes wandered among the markings on the wall, and he mumbled to himself. It was not hard to come to this conclusion. Even though the markings were of the same type, the depth, length, and angle of the carvings were all different. Furthermore, to prevent their own markings from being mixed up with the others, everyone's markings had a generous distance away from the rest.
"To leave such a marking on a stone wall, it is impossible for them to use their fingers. They must've relied on some kind of tool." Feng Bujue knelt on the bed and leaned closer to the wall. He used his palm to feel and sense the carved marking. "All of these people used the same tool…"
He looked around the room.
"That tool is currently sitting somewhere inside this room…" An answer flashed in his mind the next second. "Is it the eating utensil?"
He looked closely at the four walls, the ceiling, and the floor of the entire room. "Hmm… All the markings are collected on this wall that is next to the bed. There is no sign of anything else like it elsewhere in the room…
"I'm assuming they only gain access to the eating utensil during mealtime, and they have to hand the plates and utensil back to their warden after the meal, or else there will be some kind of punishment," Feng Bujue analyzed. "Then, the only time that they have to carve these markings is during their mealtime…"
He moved his eyes back to the carved markings. "Since they ate on the bed, after eating, it is convenient for them to carve on the wall, which would be right next to them…
"No, that does not sound right!"
Feng Bujue immediately denied that supposition. He rushed to the steel door and looked around through the small window above it. The corridor outside the room was laid with wooden boards, and the walls were made from stone. The height of the ceiling was slightly higher than the ceiling inside the room.
Where the wall and the ceiling met, at regular intervals, there would be fixed a fluorescent light. Looking out from inside the cell, there was nothing worth noting within viewing distance. It was hard to tell what was in the darkness beyond twenty meters away from the door.
After looking around for several seconds, Feng Bujue then lay on the ground to inspect the rectangular hole that was cut into the steel door. He practically stuck his face to it and used his nose to take a sniff at it. He used his hand to caress the edges of the hole and then licked at his finger.
He stood up with a satisfied expression on his face.
"The top and bottom edges of the hole have a lingering smell of food, which proves that this hole is being used as some kind of food transport mechanism." His eyes once again moved to the corner that was furthest away from the door. "And the plastic pail for one's refuse is placed at the other corner of the room…"
He returned to the bed and assumed a thinking pose. "The inmate's zone of mobility covers the entire room. They can move to the door to take the food and can go to the other side of the room when they need to use the toilet. If these markings were made by the eating utensil, they could have carved them on any of the other walls.
"So… assuming there is no such thing as an eating utensil…"
Feng Bujue stood up again. Standing in the middle of the room, he assumed the famous pose of Shinichi Kudo. He held his chin with one hand, and his other hand held the elbow of his other arm. He looked at the door, and the images of the past seemed to flash across his mind. In his assumed situation, the food that was sent in through the hole contained only a bread and a plastic bowl that held some water or soup.
"Hmm… the chance that there is no eating utensil is quite high." Feng Bujue once again tossed his gaze back to the markings on the wall. "In that case, how did they leave the markings on the wall? And it is on a stone wall…"
After removing the wrong assumption, the truth would be before his eyes. A light bulb moment came to him, and a smile appeared on the corner of Feng Bujue's lips. He moved forward and lifted the bedsheet-cum-mattress, and he finally found the item he was looking for. The bed was a finished furniture in and of itself. There was no part that could be removed. The four legs were welded to the ground, and the frame was made from iron. The bed's base was not wood but metal springs that were entwined together. But of those springs, there were a few that were already broken. Even though he could not yank the springs completely out from the bed, he could pull out the end of the broken ones, bend it toward the wall, and use it to carve the markings on the wall.
"No wonder the markings are all on the wall next to the bed, and they are all below a certain height. Due to the pulling force on the other end of the spring, they could not do the marking evenly to write Chinese characters, so they had to use the more primitive fashion to record the passing of days."
Feng Bujue needed just five minutes to deduce the origin of the markings. For him, this kind of surrounding observation, information collection, hypothesis making, and problem solving was the best time he could possibly have. It made him forget even the dull pain that was supposed to be ravaging his body.
"There are no windows in the room, so the inmates cannot have a view of dusk or dawn. Therefore, the measurement that they had to rely on for how many days had passed… would be their own senses, their biological clock, and the number of times the warden came by to provide the food." Feng Bujue stood up and paced around the room. "And the tool used to make these marking is not that easy to find… Hmm… Looks like this place has been the holding cell for more than six people. But among the many inmates, only six of them have a relatively clear mind and quick thinking skill. They did not give up on the need to survive.
"All the markings stopped at the ninth day. This proves that none of these people survive past day ten. Based on the markings left by the other people before them, they should be able to tell that… on the tenth day or the night of the ninth night, something will happen. Based on the circumstances, there is a one percent chance of being releases, one percent chance of changing the rooms, and the remaining ninety-eight percent chance is being slaughtered…" Feng Bujue huffed coldly. "Humph… if that is the case, the only thing that they can do is record the number of days they have been imprisoned on the wall."
He walked to the wall and leaned against it to check his height.
"Without a scenario introduction, I cannot even confirm whether I am playing the role of Feng Bujue or someone else. Hmm… At least the height looks similar." He placed his hand on the top of his head and moved away from the wall while his hand remained fixed to the spot. With a cursory glance, he believed it was about 1.8 meters tall. "The clothes I'm wearing are my own, and the inventory slots…"
He glanced at the game menu. In the inventory, the flashlight, SCP-500, Mad Moxxi's Bad Touch, and Life Points Recovery Potions had all been grayed out. It meant that they could not be retrieved or used.
"Tsk… I should have known," he grumbled with annoyance to himself. "Fine… let me think… The person who was dragging 'me' in the introductory cinematic, from a basic view, did not look like he was over 1.7 meters tall, but he was able to drag an adult that was about 1.8 meters tall with just one hand, and it did not look it was that difficult for him.
"Then he must have a superhuman ability… At least in terms of strength, he is about the same level as a player like me, who is at level twenty-seven. If this man is the one who is controlling the food intake of the inmates, giving them only one meal per day, then he could have easily controlled all the inmates in this place without the use of any weapons."
Feng Bujue walked to the door. "Who would be the type of person who might be into this kind of imprisonment play? A mass murderer, a torture artist, a cannibal, a mad scientist…"
Referencing that to the few spoken words from the boss during the opening cinematic, Feng Bujue used his fist to punch against his palm. "Yes, it has to be a scientist. But the words that he said… were those meant for me, or was he talking to himself? Or is it both—it is both for me and for him?"
As he spoke, he pulled on the iron bars of the small window above the steel door. He tried to pull and push it. The door creaked noisily, but as expected… the door was locked. The steel door did not have a handle on either side. There was only a keyhole. But since there was a small window in the door, one could push and pull on the door without a handle. Feng Bujue squatted down again and peered into the keyhole. This probably would amount to nothing…
"Escape from the room… Haha…" Feng Bujue confirmed the mission statement in the quest tab. "Since this is a scenario in the middle stages of the game and is a Solo Nightmare Mission, it must be specially generated for me. I can give up on breaking down the door with brute force, so that leaves me with the option of figuring out a way to undo the lock…"
He took out the wrench and started a carpet search. Starting from the side of the door, he knocked lightly on every inch of the wall and floor to find some kind of trap or hidden compartment. Even the corners behind the plastic pail and the wooden cupboard were checked thoroughly. He moved the two objects to the side and continued his expansive search. In the end, he found nothing.
Therefore, he started to pull apart the mattress. The mattress was quite thick, but it was not stuffed with cotton or swan feathers. Instead, it was filled with broken patches of cloth. They looked like cut up strips of unused clothes. They came from various materials and colors. Other than those patches of cloth, Feng Bujue did not find anything else from the mattress. So… he tossed all the patches of cloth on the ground and tried to categorize them.
Based on color, material, and size… Feng Bujue made different arrangements, but they did not to mean anything. There was no visible pattern among the patches of cloth, but he still had not given up. He attempted to use the many colorful patches to try to see if he could make a jigsaw puzzle out of it…
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He sat on the ground and toyed with the cloth for half an hour. Finally, the man gave up. After a series of attempts that a normal person would not even consider, he came to the conclusion that a normal person would come to in about a few seconds.
"This is just a bunch of useless broken patches of cloth.
"Sigh… that was such a waste of time. A bunch of trash. Even if I can bind them into a rope, there is nothing that I can use in there to hang myself," Feng Bujue said self-deprecatingly. "But where else could the key be hidden?
"The three drawers of the cupboard are already empty. And that pail… has about inches of sh*t and pee caked at the bottom. There is a chance that the key is hidden there…"
Scared by his own though, he swallowed. "The bottom is too deep, and it is too difficult to bend over and stick my hand in to search. If I splash the content of the pail all over the ground but end up with nothing, then this room…"
He had to chase the strange thought out of his mind, so he walked to the small wooden cupboard first. This time, he yanked out all three drawers from the cupboard and placed them on the ground. Then he laid the cupboard itself on its back. He reached his hands in to search. Unfortunately, he found nothing but dust. He knocked on every inch of the cupboard, and he found nothing like a hidden compartment.
The three drawers were laid adjacent to each other on the ground. The wooden board was just that thick. Without inspection, one could tell that there would not be a hidden compartment in them.
Therefore… the puzzle solving once again came to an impasse.
"It really is hidden inside the sh*t… This is too much…" Feng Bujue turned around to look at the plastic pail at the corner of the room. "What kind of scenario is this? This is so disgusting…"
Suddenly an idea popped up in his mind. "Eh! I can pour the stuff inside the pail into the three drawers. Won't that keep the place clean? The drawers are not that deep, and it will be easier for me to look for thing." With that in mind, he quickly put it into action. As he stood up, he held one of the drawers and walked toward the pail. Thankfully, at that moment, his eyes caught something.
"Oh!" Feng Bujue raised the drawer above his head to look at the bottom of the drawer. "Hahaha!"
After a maddened guffaw, he turned the two other drawers over and placed them upside down. There was a word written in blood on the bottom of the three drawers. Feng Bujue arranged them based on the position they had in the cupboard. The back of the top drawer had the word 'bed', the middle drawer had the word 'key', and the bottom drawer had the word 'bracket'.
"In other words, the key is hidden…" Feng Bujue whipped his head around to look at the bed again. He walked around and used the wrench to knock at the object. Soon, he found something strange. The side of the frame that was facing away from the wall was empty while the frame that was attached to the wall was solid. Feng Bujue started from the head of the bed and knocked on every inch of it. When he reached the middle, he heard something that came from within.
"The key is hidden in this kind of place… can a person even find this?" Feng Bujue could not help but curse. Actually, there was nothing that he should be complaining about. After all, the hints had been provided on the back of the drawers. The player required the hint to find and confirm the hinting spot, or else who would be able predict the key was hidden at some place like that?
Ping ping ping.
With some knocking and twisting, not even a dent appeared on the bed.
"What is the meaning of this? It is not damaged at all even after using an excellent quality wrench, or is this a hint… that an electric saw is hidden inside the sh*t pail?"
He sat with his legs crossed on the ground. After acting like Shinichi Kudo, he was now mimicking Monk Yi Xiu.
"I got it!" After some time, an idea really did come to Feng Bujue. With the realization that he had nothing to lose, he used 'Not So Hasty Repair' on the bed, but he failed. With a sixty percent success rate from his D level Workmanship and a ten percent success buff from Alchemist's Determination, he still failed.
This made Feng Bujue start to wonder if he had the correct path. However, the loss of two hundred stamina points was not enough to stop him. After all, this skill did not have a cooldown, so he quickly used it again. This time, the skill was successful, and the shape of the bed changed.
"I knew it! This thing is considered a mechanical product!" Feng Bujue was overjoyed. This bed was made from pure metal and could not be compartmentalized. Even though it looked simple and clean, it was quite reasonable for it to be categorized as a mechanical product because it came with a mechanism.
Just like how Feng Bujue fixed the communicator system in the Village of Heavenly Blessings, the bed was an object whose properties he could not observe from the game menu but could still be fixed. After Feng Bujue used his skill to improve the quality to normal, the rust on the bed disappeared, and the springs on the bottom of the mattress also miraculously returned to their original position. And the most crucial change happened to the two ends of the frame that faced outward, to the connecting points that joined the tail and head of the bed together. Two extra metallic screws appeared. Originally, these two parts had been rusted and worn away, until their shape could not be seen anymore. But now, with the wrench Feng Bujue had, he could easily undo the screws. The man got to work. After working for several minutes, he successfully removed the metallic side frames from the bed.
After fixing the bed, the side frame became a two meters iron rod with a hollow center. As long as the person was a young male, whenever they held something like that, they had the urge to twirl it around to mimic a certain Monkey God. For some reason, this desire did not disappear even after Feng Bujue reached adulthood. Perhaps it would disappear when he became middle aged.
Feng Bujue stood the rod on its end and knocked it twice against the ground. He thought that the key would slide down the hollow center, but after removing the rod, there was nothing on the ground.
"Eh?" Feng Bujue held up the rod and closed one eye while his other eye peered into the rod. He could see some light coming from the other end. There was the shape of some small object in the middle of the rod, it should be the key, but for some reason, the item was refusing to loosen. Feng Bujue turned the rod over and knocked it from the other side to see if there was any reaction. It was still the same. He slowly became angry. He sat on the ground, held the rod, and knocked it around for a while. He looked, and the placement of the key was still the same.
"What is this? It jingled when I knocked at it through the rod, which means that it is not fixed or welded to the inside wall, but no matter what, it refuses to slide out…"
He tried to confirm if the rod was larger in the middle and tighter near the ends. That was not the problem. "This is just the first puzzle. Is there really a need to make it this hard? What else do you want from me?"
This 'what else do you want from me?' suddenly gave Feng Bujue some inspiration.
"Wait a minute…" He thought and reached into his pocket. The soap, candle, and comb from earlier were kept there.
"Until now, the analysis part aside… in terms of actual actions, my skill 'Not So Hasty Repair' and Mario's Wrench were instrumental. Without these two, I couldn't have reached this stage," Feng Bujue said. "Since this is a scenario designed by the system specifically for me, then…"
He took out anti-gravity gun from his inventory. This thing was not grayed out, so…
Feng Bujue pressed the suction button, and the candle floated. He adjusted it to a suitable angle and then he shoved the candle into one end of the hollow rod. As he expected, it fitted perfectly.
"Fine, this kind of design is not so bad. At least I will find out easily whether I am on the right path or not during the puzzle solving," Feng Bujue said and pressed the fire button.