Chapter 1068: A Familiar Little Game
The four segments of the arc lines, drawn with a blue ballpoint pen, connected to form an irregular circle. The faint light under the door seam gave the paper a pale appearance, making the blue ink look even brighter.
Behind each set of criminal records was the same circle. Bohemia spread these doc.u.ments out on the floor and placed the four bank statements under them. As she pondered, her face became increasingly creased, resembling a dumpling that had lost its moisture.
During her contemplation, the Descartes Spirit floated around her, like a dog circling a dumpling. The dumpling and the dog fell into silence for several minutes. They both felt that the frequent appearance of the number four was no coincidence: four sets of criminal records, four bank statements, four segments of arc lines...
What could it all mean?
Bohemia sighed and slumped onto the floor as if she had given up.
"If I could give this difficult problem I encountered to Lin Sanjiu," she began to daydream, "if she can"t answer it, she would have to accept my punishment instead of me..."
"Actually, you can."
The voice of the Pocket Dimension host, which hadn"t been heard in a long time, suddenly rang out, startling both the dog and the dumpling. Once they realized what it was, Bohemia breathed a sigh of relief. When the Pocket Dimension host was conversing with her, the game was in a paused state, so she didn"t need to worry about the mysterious person in the building.
"Don"t forget, you possess the "Trading Right" that allows you to communicate with another game."
"But you said I could only look..."
"At the current stage, yes. But once your rights are upgraded, you can interact with NPCs from neighboring games, exchange, influence their progress, and even change the questions... Would you like to play another little game to win a higher level of rights?"
Bohemia"s hair was stirred into a whirlwind, "No... not now... You"re just deceiving me! I clearly selected the "Harm Others for Personal Gain" mode, and after completing the little game, I neither saw how she was harmed nor discovered any benefits for myself."
"By eliminating the "Serial Killer" factor from Prison Storm, you"ve removed one life-threatening element. Isn"t that a benefit?" The Pocket Dimension host paused for a moment and continued, "As for causing harm, that"s something you"ll have to do yourself."
The host seemed quite eager and hoped that Bohemia would take action against Lin Sanjiu soon. He hinted, "Even if you can only observe at the moment, there are still ways for you to play a prank on her."
"Just say what you want to say."
"I can"t be too direct," maintaining an appearance of fairness was important.
Bohemia waved her hand irritably, trying to brush away these annoying matters like flies. "Let"s not discuss this for now! I need to figure out this mess of fours."
"By partic.i.p.ating in the little game, you won"t delay the progress of Prison Storm. After you complete this game, your upgraded Trading Right will be sufficient to help Lin Sanjiu tackle this challenging problem. I guarantee it."
In Puppeteer"s words, Lin Sanjiu"s head was like a sieve, with Bohemia and herself having minimal utility. However, the benefit was that if Bohemia answered incorrectly, Lin Sanjiu would have to strip and face punishment according to the rules of the Final Exam game. Bohemia readily agreed, "Okay!"
The Pocket Dimension host spoke in a cheerful tone when he opened his mouth again, sounding like a salesman who had just sold a vacuum cleaner.
"The objective of the little game is to spend the night in this office building without being seen or detected by anyone. When morning comes, the third phase will end."
It sounded less complicated than last time. In addition to the original goal of surviving until morning and avoiding being seen, it seemed quite straightforward.
"Please note that when you have no interactions with the game, your self-perception and physical abilities remain similar to your usual state. Once you engage with the game, your agility, speed... will be at an average female"s level. For instance, if someone is approaching you, you won"t be able to run as fast as usual."
"Understood, you"ve made yourself clear."
After the Pocket Dimension host disappeared, Bohemia turned around to find the Descartes Spirit hovering over the files, making them look even blurrier. Bohemia used her Higher Consciousness to poke it a couple of times, and it surprisingly remained quiet for a while before saying in a faint voice, "I"m a Pocket Dimension, just like this place... Why?"
"How can you compare yourself to Puppeteer, the big boss"s, Pocket Dimension?" Bohemia replied while turning the doork.n.o.b and locking the door: "I"m not going out tonight; I"ll hide here and see if anyone can find me."
"You"re cornering yourself," The Descartes Spirit commented.
Bohemia turned a deaf ear to it. It was already nighttime, and apart from the staff on duty, everyone else had gone home. The resting place for the on-duty employees wasn"t in this building. Other than the mysterious person who had quietly come upstairs once, who else would be looking for her here? Since the mysterious person"s obvious target was her office, she should be safe by staying here.
As a precaution, she gathered the files and stashed them under the secretary"s desk. She moved two chairs aside, creating a small s.p.a.ce on the floor, just enough for her to take a nap.
"Why are you so relaxed?" the Descartes Spirit strongly disapproved.
Just as Bohemia settled on the floor, the ringing of a telephone abruptly broke the night"s silence. It was sharp and piercing, cutting through the wooden door. She flinched and listened for a few seconds, realizing that the ringing came from the warden"s office.
The corridor resounded with the phone"s clamor as if it were a disturbed lake. Bohemia held her breath and waited until the seemingly endless ringing finally stopped, leaving the office building in silence once more.
Who would be calling the office at this late hour?
Bohemia huddled on the floor, her gaze firmly fixed on the crack under the door. The pale corridor light shone through the gap as a straight line. If someone walked by, their shadow would break the light, pa.s.sing right in front of her.
"h.e.l.lo," she waved her hand, trying to shoo away the Descartes Spirit, who was circling around near her head. With the mosaic, there was a risk of missing the shadow.
"h.e.l.lo!"
Bohemia propped herself up with her elbow and sat up. "What are you doing?" she whispered harshly, "If you have something to say, say it. Are you annoying me or what?"
The room fell quiet. She thought the Descartes Spirit had something to tell her but, after a couple of seconds, it remained silent as if it was sulking. Bohemia was too tired to engage with it and was about to lie back down when she suddenly looked at the floor.
Her own shadow was cast on the floor, which wasn"t unusual in itself. The moonlight must have come through the window behind her. And the Descartes Spirit was right in front of the window...
In that split second, the same decisiveness that had saved Bohemia several times in the past urged her to roll and crouch to the side. She pulled her limbs in and hid herself under the office desk.
With the wooden panels on three sides of the desk covering and s.h.i.+elding her, Bohemia felt her hairs stand on end, her heart pounding. She peeked out and saw the Descartes Spirit still floating motionless in place.
The moonlight cast a rectangular brightness on the floor, and the shape of the light formed a clear border with the surrounding darkness, creating a rectangle.
Hold on...
The bottom of this illuminated area, that is, the bottom of the window, wasn"t straight. A semicircular, arched shadow was slowly rising from the bottom of the window.
Bohemia stared at the floor, not daring to blink, watching the shadow slowly ascend from the moonlight. She finally understood what the Descartes Spirit had wanted her to see. Gaining some courage, she sat up slowly and peered out from under the desk.
A pair of eyes, illuminated by the moonlight, were firmly fixed on the room from the half-oval shadow. In the dim light, those eyes had a faint glint. After a moment, the gleaming eyes moved slightly left and right, seemingly to a.s.sess the unoccupied room. Then, the figure continued to rise slowly, gradually revealing the head, shoulders, and half of the body.
It was a man – but due to the backlighting, Bohemia couldn"t see who it was.
He had climbed up with a ladder. After exposing half of his body, he pushed open the window without a thought – apparently, the Sandwich Secretary hadn"t considered locking the window. He sat on the windowsill and climbed inside. His feet touched the floor without making a sound.
In the moonlight, those thick rubber-soled shoes approached Bohemia step by step.
The Descartes Spirit still floated in place, and now, it couldn"t hold back and let out a triumphant "hmm."
For the first time, Bohemia couldn"t even muster the thought to scold it. She tightly covered her mouth and nose, wis.h.i.+ng she could curl up into a ball. She saw those shoes getting closer and closer. She inched back, shrinking as much as possible. Finally, the shoes stopped at the edge of the office desk.
With a "click," the man seemed to have turned on a small flashlight. The flashlight must have been tiny because the beam was thin and barely illuminated anything. It slid across the floor, heading for the surface of the desk. Then, a faint rustling sound came from above her, indicating the man was rummaging through the Sandwich Secretary"s things.
Bohemia tried to recall the layout of the desk. Beneath the broad desk surface, except for the support structures on both sides, there was just a file cabinet. On the outer side of the desk, the area she had crawled into, there was a back panel that covered roughly half of its height. She was now tucked behind this panel, with the file cabinet taking up most of the s.p.a.ce.
The rustling sounds became more hurried, possibly because the man hadn"t found anything of value. The feet moved forward by half a step. Bohemia instinctively squeezed herself further back, but she heard a soft, s.h.i.+fting sound behind her, and her heart sank.
She had just b.u.mped into the files she had stashed under the desk moments ago.