Chapter 515: Chapter 515: Furnace (20)_1 Chapter 515: Chapter 515: Furnace (20)_1 The punishment for failing the mission is actually exponentially increasing?
In the darkness, Fu Qian remained silent for several seconds after confirming the loss of his SAN Points.
It had to be said, the price for going against the grain this time was indeed much greater than anticipated.
At the same time, in those few seconds, all the tasks he had undertaken along the way flashed rapidly through his mind, leading him to a possible conclusion.
Not counting the escape from Furnace, this was precisely the sixth task since his arrival.
And when he failed the first task, only 1 SAN Point was deducted.
Using the simplest algorithm to find a pattern, if the punishment for failing each task doubled, then the sixth task would be exactly 32 points.
That’s not good news at all!
Fu Qian was filled with emotion.
Even worse, the punishment wasn’t accumulating with failures, but increased exponentially regardless of success or failure.
If the punishment indeed followed this pattern, then the punishment for failing the next task would be 64.
[Current task updated: Evade Chief Stan’s pursuit until dawn]
Just as he thought of this, a new task prompt appeared in his mind at the right time.
Chief Stan, is he the one leading the hunt against me?
Confronted with the new task prompt, Fu Qian was pensive.
Without a doubt, the content of the tasks also changed with the evolving situation.
If he had chosen to surrender earlier, the next task certainly wouldn’t be this one but more likely to clear his suspicions.
There was still a long time till dawn, and thanks to abandoning his car and proceeding on foot earlier, he had bought himself some time.
However, without a car, his range of movement was greatly reduced.
Chief Stan’s men would likely set up checkpoints around where the car was abandoned, then begin a grid by grid search.
Even so, Fu Qian was confident he could handle it.
Now he was concerned with another question—why?
Why was Chief Stan so urgently looking for him?
Such intense reaction must certainly have a special reason.
If the punishment for task failure truly was rising exponentially, then as tasks progressed, the margin for error in his actions would become narrower.
After the loss of those 32 SAN Points, he was now left with only 185 points, meaning he could only fail one more time, any further failures would directly result in idiocy.
He didn’t have much time left!
So, simply completing the tasks wasn’t enough; he needed to find a way out of Furnace as soon as possible.
And as he had analyzed before, the probability of the police reacting this quickly just due to Joseph’s matter was very small.
Being targeted by Chief Stan must have other reasons.
Given his limited retained memories, after much thought, the only issue he could recall that might be problematic was the corpse behind the door in the storage room.
Did Chief Stan know about that body and has been silently keeping track?
Did he suspect Fu Qian and Daniel might have discovered the body behind the door, causing such an extreme reaction?
Fu Qian silently pondered this possibility.
If it was true, it would only mean the people from this place had plenty of secrets!
While he was reflecting, a police car approached not too far ahead and slowly stopped by the roadside.
Under the streetlight, a thin-faced middle-aged man got out of the back seat of the police car.
Even though his hair was somewhat graying, his gaze was extremely sharp and commanding.
Was this Chief Stan?
Fu Qian observed the uniform on the middle-aged man and concealed himself further into the darkness.
After the latter looked around and found nothing, he eventually ascended the stairs surrounded by others.
For Medea, this was indeed a long night!
Watching the group’s movements, Fu Qian thought to himself.
The man here was obviously looking for Medea, and there was a ninety-nine percent chance he was trying to find out his own whereabouts from her.
In fact, if he had followed the hints strictly, he should be upstairs waiting for him right now.
Pressing his foot down, Fu Qian confirmed that his wound was not too much of a hindrance and stealthily made his way out using the shadows.
He wasn’t worried about Medea, as neither she nor Daniel knew much about him.
Moreover, due to the previous incident, Medea would surely be desperately covering up and probably wouldn’t be too honest.
For him, the first thing to do at the moment was undoubtedly to get as far away from the area as possible before it was sealed off.
But that was far from enough, considering this might be his only margin for error, he must come up with a way to confirm more information.
In fact, Fu Qian already had an idea for that.
As the saying goes, it’s easiest to catch fish in murky waters, to expose more information, one naturally has to stir up the waters first.
After sneaking a distance in the darkness, Fu Qian flagged down a taxi and gave an address.
The taxi driver was a bald, muscular man who squinted at Fu Qian before finally signaling for him to get in.
“Right here is fine,”
After a while, Fu Qian signaled for the driver to stop at a secluded spot by the side of the road.
After paying the fare, he pulled out two banknotes and handed one to the driver.
“Wait for me here, I’ll be out within fifteen minutes,”
“Only fifteen minutes,”
The driver took the banknote and looked up at the building by the roadside.
He clearly didn’t like Fu Qian’s tone, but the allure of the banknote was infinite.
“Good.”
Fu Qian didn’t say much and got out of the car directly.
Of course, he didn’t just pick a random place to flee; the building not far away was Daniel’s home.
This was something Fu Qian had specifically confirmed while meandering around after dinner.
At this moment, one could imagine that Daniel’s family was probably very busy.
So, after getting out of the cab, Fu Qian didn’t actually go to the door to disturb them; instead, he found a spot out of the driver’s line of sight and concealed himself.
Then, after about fifteen minutes, Fu Qian saw the headlights of the taxi he arrived in light up, and without hesitation, it drove away.
Clearly, considering that he hadn’t come out on time, the driver wasn’t planning to wait any longer.
This should be about right,
Fu Qian nodded to himself, thinking.
Taking a taxi to escape was only a matter of time before getting caught.
He never intended to fool the police with this move; in fact, he did it to make sure they found out.
Given the current situation, Chief Stan would almost certainly get feedback from the bald driver—
“Yes, I did drive such a person.”
“He arrived at his destination and asked me to wait fifteen minutes for him, saying he would return quickly, but unfortunately, no one showed up even after the time was up, so I drove off.”
And any normal person hearing such a description would have an obvious reaction—they were associated with Daniel’s family, visited in the dead of night, and then never came out again.
And once Chief Stan accepted this scenario, it would be time to test the strength of Daniel’s family.