Chapter 1 The Circular Room

Feng Bujue stood in a perfectly round room, the lighting soft and bright. Directly in front of him were four iron-barred doors, presumably leading to prison cells. However, not a single ray of light emanated from within, leaving the presence of occupants or objects unknown.

Behind him were another four doors, mirroring the fan-shaped area he'd seen at the other end of the corridor. He couldn't shake the feeling that he'd been played. Could it be that no matter which door he chose on the other side, it all led to the same place? Did all four corridors ultimately lead back to this "cell"?

"Ah, you're back again," a voice chimed.

In front of those four cell doors, in the very center of the circular room, sat a desk. The speaker was seated behind it, looking at Feng Bujue.

It was a large, wooden desk, seemingly made of high-quality wood. The details were exquisite – the curve of the table corners, the polish of the drawer handles, and the perfectly crafted carvings on the edges all spoke of elegance and refinement.

Such a piece of furniture, in reality, would be far beyond the reach of someone with Feng Bujue's income. Its price might even be twice that of the game pod. Back in the early twenty-first century, solid wood furniture was already a rarity. The furniture available to the general public was mostly made of pressed wood chips, and many even contained toxic or carcinogenic materials, which merchants still dared to pass off as real wood. By Feng Bujue's time, the oil crisis, environmental pollution, and the transformation of forests into deserts had made many goods related to natural resources a luxury. A desk like this was like a dinosaur, a flying saucer, or a beautiful woman without makeup – something you could only hope to see in a game.

"What do you mean... 'again'?" Feng Bujue asked, eyeing the creature before him. "And... why can you talk?"

"Why shouldn't I be able to talk?" the other replied.

"Hmm... let me think... because you're a rabbit!" Feng Bujue said, looking at the rabbit face and pretending to ponder before shouting.

The creature sitting behind the desk was indeed a rabbit – more precisely, a giant rabbit about the size of a kangaroo. Its joints were different from those of a real rabbit, its form clearly anthropomorphized. It could "sit" on a chair and use its not-so-long hands to pick things up. It was also wearing a white shirt, a black waistcoat, and even a bow tie, but no trousers.

"Interdimensional traveler, you have no manners whatsoever," the rabbit said. Two small mustaches curled upwards on its mouth, and a pair of glasses perched on its nose. "I am the loyal servant of the great Time Lord, the punctual, wise, elegant, and handsome..." The rabbit paused, using its short hand to stroke its long ears. "The one who strikes terror into the hearts of evildoers... Sir Rabbit!"

Feng Bujue slapped a hand to his forehead and dragged it down his face. "Heh... heh... it seems all the good names are taken by rabbits."

"It's Sir Rabbit! Not rabbit!" Rabbit corrected.

"Alright, alright..." Feng Bujue didn't want to argue with a rabbit. "Sir Rabbit, do you have any medicine?"

"Are you sick?"

The veins in Feng Bujue's forehead bulged. He was experiencing a complex mix of joy and anger. "I'm poisoned. I need to find four potions. Do you have any here..."

"Yes, I do," Rabbit replied before he could finish.

"Oh?" Feng Bujue was about to ask how he could get the medicine.

Rabbit added, "But I can't give it to you."

"What do you want?" Feng Bujue asked. "I didn't bring any carrots, you know."

"Who said anything about carrots!"

"I don't have any cabbage either."

"Alright, kid, that's enough!"

"If you want to experience the feeling of being pulled out of a hat..." Feng Bujue continued to challenge the rabbit's patience with rabbit jokes. "As long as you can find a giant top hat big enough to hold you, I'm happy to cooperate."

Rabbit tried to make a serious face and intimidate him. "If my cousin were here, your nostrils would probably be filled with dynamite right now." But no matter how hard it tried, its face wasn't threatening.

"Is your cousin Bugs Bunny?" Feng Bujue retorted.

Rabbit clenched its fists, grinding its rabbit teeth, and suddenly shouted, "Olden!"

In that instant, the shadowy figure with glowing blue eyes and exposed blood vessels that had been in the small dark room suddenly appeared beside Rabbit and replied, "What is it?"

"This one appeared seventy-seven minutes ago, teleported from your side, right?" Rabbit asked.

Olden replied, "Yes."

"Explain the function of the corridors to him," Rabbit said.

"Oh," Olden responded, turning to Feng Bujue.

Hearing the words "seventy-seven minutes," Feng Bujue felt a jolt of alarm. He thought, "Impossible! Although the earlier running and cold environment could have interfered with my internal clock, I'd estimate it's only been about thirty minutes at most. What's with seventy-seven?"

Olden quickly answered Feng Bujue's doubts. It didn't actually have a mouth on its face, and its voice came directly from the black shadows. "Passing through the door from the 'starting end' room to the other end of the corridor, the 'terminal end', causes a change in time." It raised its hand, pointing to the second door from the left behind Feng Bujue. "This second door, which is the third door at the starting end. Entering this third corridor and arriving here takes sixty-nine minutes, plus the time you spend in the corridor."

Feng Bujue immediately asked, "What about the other three?"

"The second corridor is forty-six minutes, plus the time to pass through," Olden replied. "The first and fourth are the same, both twenty-three minutes, plus the time to pass through."

Something flashed through Feng Bujue's mind, and he immediately asked, "Have I already been here?"

"Yes, you already took the medicine from my hand!" Rabbit looked at its pocket watch again. "But the current you seems to be a Feng Bujue who's only been alive for thirty minutes. Hmm... so, I only need to explain it to you, and I don't need to waste words with the others."

"So... there are two kinds of time here? One is the time I'm experiencing, and the other is the time of this place?" Feng Bujue said.

"No matter which timeline you reach ninety-two minutes on, you will die from the poison," Rabbit continued.

Feng Bujue was silent for a full minute before speaking again. "What if I go back through these corridors?"

"Passing through the corridor from the terminal end to the starting end, no matter which one you take, will rewind the time by twenty-three minutes according to the current time of this cell, but... you still have to add the time you spend passing through the corridor," Olden replied.

"Now it's the seventy-ninth minute of the cell time. If I need fifteen minutes to run through one of these corridors, then when I run back to the 'starting end' from here and exit the door, it will be... seventy-one minutes?" Feng Bujue asked.

"That's right," Rabbit added. "However, the time at the starting end isn't really important. As long as you enter the corridor from the starting end, time will be calculated according to the time at the terminal end of the corridor. For example, if you arrive at the starting end room at the ninetieth minute, don't panic. Just rush into the first corridor, and your time will synchronize with the twenty-third minute of the cell. Of course, if you turn back before running through the entire corridor, then the time will be calculated from the moment you leave the starting end room, plus the time you spend in the corridor."

"This perverted setting, did you come up with it, you rabbit?" Feng Bujue asked.

Rabbit slammed its hand on the table. "I'm warning you, Mr. Thirty-two-minute-old Feng Bujue! You're wasting your time!"

After hearing the rules, Feng Bujue understood that, according to the map time, he shouldn't die. As long as he ran back and forth a few times, he could reach twenty-three, forty-six, or sixty-nine, plus some time after running. The key was still the time he himself experienced. Taking that time as the standard, the conditions for failure remained unchanged, and he would still die from the poison at ninety-two minutes.

Rabbit hadn't finished speaking. He continued, "Clearly, Olden and I are helping you, or we wouldn't have told you all this." He reached under the table and pressed a switch, saying at the same time, "The one who set up this game is him!"

In that instant, one of the four cells behind Rabbit lit up. In the pitch-black cell, a white cone of light shone down from directly above, illuminating the scene within.

The floor of the cell was cement, as were the three walls and the ceiling. Through the iron bars, one could see a stool in the center of the cell. On the stool sat a small wooden puppet, a puppet wearing a suit and a red bow tie.

The puppet's face was shaped like the Chinese character 申 (shēn), pale, and sinister, with black hair plastered to its head. It was staring at the three people outside the cell door, or rather, one person, one rabbit, and one monster... with its red and black eyes.

Feng Bujue immediately drew his gun and walked over, pointing it at the puppet, which often appeared in the *Saw* films, through the iron bars of the cell door. He said in a very serious tone, "Give me one reason not to kill you."

A hoarse, low voice, as if from a recording, came from the puppet's abdomen, but its mouth was also moving. "Pulling the trigger won't truly kill me, and it won't help you in the game you're playing." Its neck actually turned, turning its face towards Rabbit. "Besides, even if I become a prisoner, you don't have the authority to deal with me. Am I right, Rabbit?"