Chapter 518: 518 Chapter Furnace (23)_1 Chapter 518: 518 Chapter Furnace (23)_1 “`
It should be here.
He checked the number on the door and nodded with satisfaction.
Considering the preciousness of time, Fu Qian didn’t waste any after coming out of the police station and headed straight to the address he got from Chief Stan.
Although the previous tussle with Stan had yielded some information, to maintain his coolness, he had to pretend to be inscrutable, so the information he got was actually quite trivial.
What could be ascertained so far was that Stan was undoubtedly related to the body in the storage room, and it was even highly likely that he was the one who did it, while Joseph was aware of it.
But what exactly happened at the time, and for what reason, was not yet certain.
Whether all this would be of any use in exonerating himself was just as uncertain.
Maybe this place would offer him some answers.
While pondering, Fu Qian tried to push the door.
It opened with a sound, un-locked.
Inside was a run-of-the-mill room that appeared to have been unoccupied for some time, with everything quite messy, the floor covered in footprints.
Chief Stan had indeed been here, as expected.
Fu Qian mumbled to himself, not surprised at all.
The footprints on the floor were clearly those of more than one person, and, considering the exaggerated level of messiness, it was obvious that the door had been un-locked for a long time and had been repeatedly visited by thieves or the like.
According to the weird rules of this world, everyone, prompted by cues, naturally assumes that locks can only be opened by keys, so there is no possibility of picking locks.
And it’s quite rare for someone to leave their home without locking the door.
It is very likely that someone came with a key later and deliberately chose not to lock the door on leaving.
While contemplating this, Fu Qian surveyed his surroundings.
Chief Stan, without a doubt, fit the bill.
Firstly, when a person dies, the keys they had are likely to end up in the hands of the killer.
Moreover, not only did Stan know this address, but when facing Fu Qian’s request to check the belongings, he suggested he come here and didn’t mention the key at all, as if he was sure Fu Qian could enter the room.
As for why he intentionally left the door un-locked to cover up traces, the best way was to involve more people.
Leaving the door un-locked over time would erase any traces.
Indeed, this strategy seemed to be successful, judging by how many times this place must have been rifled through already.
At a glance, there seemed to be nothing of value left.
But that was to others.
After looking around, Fu Qian’s gaze quickly settled on a desk.
The items on the desk were just as messy, including drawers that had been pulled open.
Stepping forward, Fu Qian picked up a notebook from the desk.
It was thin with ordinary craftsmanship, the sort you could buy offhand in any stationery store.
The only special feature was a very simple lock on the side of the notebook.
“Locked, a key is needed to open it.”
Fu Qian tried and quickly received the expected prompt.
No doubt this was the reason it hadn’t been opened; very few would bother to find a key for something that seemed worthless.
Given how simple the lock was, Fu Qian found a piece of wire, poked it open in a few seconds.
“… Very peculiar place, they seem to have a special way of thinking, believing that anything locked can’t be opened, and never questioning why …”
After opening it, inside was something like a diary.
The use of “they” as a pronoun.
Fu Qian narrowed his eyes slightly, continuing to read on.
“… I even asked my classmates what to do if the key were lost? They told me you could only have a new key made, but the procedure would be cumbersome, so I’d better keep it safe …”
“… Strange, but one thing is certain now, I just need the simplest lock to easily keep secrets… and once I leave, by just losing the key, this information will become untouchable, quite interesting …”
“… Things are becoming incomprehensible, I have completed one task after another, and the content is very simple, not difficult at all, but there is always the next one waiting for me …”
“… I’m sure I haven’t done anything wrong, but it’s as if I’m in a whirlpool, getting deeper and deeper involved, and there is no sign of an end, I’ve never experienced anything like this …”
“… I’m starting to hesitate, like whether or not to try failing a task to see the reaction? But wouldn’t that be throwing all my efforts away… Persist a little longer, keep it up, Edlar …”
As expected!
Reading this far, Fu Qian sighed deeply.
The speculation he’d always had was finally confirmed today.
It was obvious that this notebook came from the hand of a predecessor, who, unsurprisingly, had died behind that bizarre door.
And from the notebook, one could clearly sense his transition from initial curiosity to later unease.
The earlier parts of the journal were not dated, but each had a number.
The numbers had jumps and were not completely regular; at the point where self-doubt was expressed, the number by the side had reached 12.
Fu Qian surmised that this was probably the number of tasks completed.
It was likely that upon realizing he could never escape, he subconsciously began counting the tasks.
At the same time, from the content of the diary, it could be seen that this Edlar guy probably hadn’t received the prompt about escaping Furnace; otherwise, he wouldn’t have the confusion as to why he had not completed it yet.
As for why he did not receive the prompt, in Fu Qian’s view, the reason had already been written in the diary—he had completed every single task.
That is to say, he never experienced failing a task and losing SAN Points.
It seems that the containment condition prompt requiring the loss of SAN Points to be triggered was correct.
This is the importance of doubting one’s sanity!
Fu Qian felt very sentimental for a moment.
Although he himself had no evidence to prove anything abnormal at that time, wanting to avoid being too passive, he directly chose to fail a task once.
It turned out that his subconscious action was correct.
Actually, by the end, Edlar could no longer possibly receive prompts, given that he had gone through at least twelve tasks.
And given the previous experience where the punishment was exponentially increasing, if he tried to fail a task deliberately at that point, the SAN Points to be deducted would be astronomically high, likely driving him insane.
While hesitating over whether to fail on purpose, he actually had no room for error left.
Additionally, based on his descriptions, the tasks he received were seemingly not very difficult.
This reminded Fu Qian of his first task.
It seems that if he had complied with the requirements and not exposed the teacher-student abusive relationship, perhaps there would not have been so many complications later, and the difficulty of the tasks would have decreased significantly.
That was a path he had not chosen.
Speaking of which, the name Edlar felt somewhat familiar; it seemed he had seen it somewhere.
After briefly searching his memory, Fu Qian quickly thought of where it was—Medea’s pile of photos.
One of her former lovers, it seemed, was named this.
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