Chapter 17 The Fourth Floor

"This staircase should lead to the fourth floor... or somewhere else. Anyway, it can take us forward." Feng Bujue said, shining his flashlight upward.

Before the four of them was a spiral staircase made of stone, its design quite peculiar. From an architectural standpoint, this staircase was impossible to build due to the lack of sufficient support points. But considering this was a game, and the script was already unrealistic, no one bothered to dwell on it...

"Hmm... there are indeed footprints on the steps," Ji Chang said, looking at the staircase.

"And only going up..." Honghu added.

Qiu Feng mused, "Aside from the possibility of them walking backward down to this floor... the Scarecrow and Tin Man must have gone to the fourth floor and not returned."

Feng Bujue said, "I circled the entire perimeter of the third floor and calculated the area. It's much larger than the two lit floors below, a clear spatial anomaly. I suspect the lack of lighting is to conceal this." He paused. "I think the guiding clue on this floor is the smell. As long as you detect the stench of corpses while searching, you can find one of the two murder scenes. Then, following the bloody footprints will lead you to the other scene and the staircase to the fourth floor."

"So... you're judging that there are no other clues on this floor besides these three locations?" Honghu asked.

"That's what I believe, at least. Of course... if you really want to explore the central area of this floor in detail, it's not impossible. But doing so in this dark, open environment would take a lot of time and might not yield any results," Feng Bujue said. "Currently, the number of floors above, whether those floors have lighting, all are unknown... It's best to conserve the flashlight's power."

"I also think there's no need for further exploration on this floor," Qiu Feng said. "Brother Feng has already searched the surroundings and found these three locations that form a complete information chain. If we continue to explore, with only two flashlights, we'd have to split into two groups, and one group's search efficiency would likely be much slower than Brother Feng's."

"Agreed," Ji Chang said.

Honghu said, "I have no objections either, but..." He looked up at the end of the spiral staircase, where a rectangular wooden board was set into the ceiling. "Who will push open that wooden board? What if there's an axe waiting up there..."

"Just have Qiu Feng use the broom to prop it open," Feng Bujue said. "At most, the axe will hit the broom."

"You're so f***ing clever..." Qiu Feng retorted, the seemingly profane intensifier somehow not censored by the system. But after speaking, he still reluctantly took the lead up the staircase.

Feng Bujue shrugged, glanced at the other two teammates, and the three smiled silently, following Qiu Feng's footsteps.

The staircase wasn't long. After about one and a half rotations, Qiu Feng approached the ceiling. He raised the broom, the wooden end facing upward, and pushed against the wooden board. With a creak, the board flipped open.

A sliver of light shone down. Looking up through the opening, the fourth floor seemed to be a space with a high ceiling, and a curved wall was very close. Since the light was coming from the side, it was unclear what the source was.

"Hey... what's that smell..." Qiu Feng, standing in the front, smelled a strange odor as soon as he opened the board.

"Probably another corpse," Feng Bujue replied calmly from behind him.

"Is it okay for me to go up like this..." Qiu Feng asked again.

"They're already dead, what's there to be afraid of," Feng Bujue said.

His words were open to interpretation. While most people in the world fear corpses, many also believe the living are more terrifying.

Qiu Feng took several deep breaths and then burst upward in one go. He knew that if there really was an axe waiting in his blind spot ready to fall, sneaking a peek would be more dangerous. It was better to rush up instantly and face the opponent from an equal vantage point.

Feng Bujue, right behind him, followed at a leisurely pace with a relaxed and contented expression. Honghu and Ji Chang, blocked behind Brother Jue, could only follow his lead.

After the four of them went up to the fourth floor, they finally saw the situation above the wooden door.

It was the inside of a windmill...

The surrounding walls were made of brick and wood, forming a circular enclosure. The light... seemed to be sunlight, shining in from a small window at the top of the windmill.

As for the strange odor... it came from the Scarecrow. On one side of the windmill's wall, the four players found its corpse, its death the most bizarre they had ever seen.

A rusty spear had pierced through the brick wall from outside the windmill, precisely impaling the Scarecrow standing inside. The Scarecrow's body hung by the wall like a sausage.

Since its straw head was stuffed with the witch's brain, and the spear had pierced right through its head, brain matter covered the Scarecrow's entire body.

"Where do I even begin to complain about this..." Qiu Feng said, gazing at the scene.

"Let's go out and see what's happening outside," Feng Bujue said, already walking to the windmill's door, ready to push it open.

The teammates didn't stop him, but followed behind him to go outside.

Outside the windmill was a space like a theatrical stage.

The area of the fourth floor was about the same size as the first floor, with a ceiling more than ten meters high, but no supporting pillars. On the ceiling, blue sky and white clouds were painted in oil... On the distant four walls, in addition to the same sky and clouds, green mountains and rivers were also painted.

In a corner between the ceiling and two walls, there was a "sun" suspended by four steel wires. This thing was probably only about three meters in diameter and seemed to be made of paper, but for some reason, it was emitting light... And the light it emitted was no different from real sunlight, even making people feel a hint of warmth when it shone on them.

"Each floor is more bizarre than the last..." Ji Chang sighed.

Feng Bujue walked halfway around the windmill and saw the truth of how the Scarecrow was killed. "Hmph... I knew it was this guy..."

The other three also looked over, and they saw... outside the windmill, the back half of the spear that killed the Scarecrow was still sticking out in mid-air, but the "knight" who used the spear in the ambush was already dead on the ground.

The dead man was wearing a standard medieval knight's armor, and his head had been chopped off along with the helmet. The wound on his neck was very clean, indicating it was the work of an axe once again.