Chapter 12 He Is Helping You

Feng Bujue stood in a perfectly circular room, the light in it soft and bright. Directly in front of him were four iron-barred doors, presumably leading to prison cells, though not a single glimmer of light emanated from within. Whether there were people or objects inside the cells remained unknown.

Behind him, there were also four doors. The scene on that side was identical to the fan-shaped area he had seen at the other end of the corridor, giving him the feeling he was being played. Could it be… that no matter which option he chose, it was essentially the same? Did all four corridors lead to this "jail cell"?

"Ah, you've come again," a voice said.

In front of the four prison doors, right in the center of the circular room, stood a desk, and the speaker was sitting in a chair behind it, looking at Feng Bujue.

It was a large, wooden desk, made of what appeared to be very high-grade wood. The details of the desk were meticulous: the curve of the corners, the polishing of the drawer handles, and the well-placed carvings on the edges, all exuding elegance and nobility.

Such a piece of furniture, in reality, would be beyond the means of someone with Feng Bujue's income. Its price might even be more than twice that of the game pod. One had to remember that, back in the early 21st century, pure wood furniture was already a rarity. The furniture that ordinary people could buy was mostly made of pressed wood chips, and many were made of toxic or carcinogenic materials, but merchants still dared to pass them off as wood furniture. By the time of Feng Bujue's era, the oil crisis, environmental pollution, and the desertification of forests had made many commodities related to natural resources into luxury goods. A desk like the one before him was akin to a dinosaur, a flying saucer, or a beautiful woman without makeup—a rare sight only to be encountered in games.

"What do you mean… 'again'?" Feng Bujue asked, looking at the figure before him. "And… why can you talk?"

"Why can't I talk?" the figure replied.

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

The figure sitting behind the desk talking to Feng Bujue was indeed a rabbit, or rather, a giant rabbit about the size of a kangaroo. Its joints were slightly different from those of a real rabbit, its appearance clearly anthropomorphized. It could "sit" in 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 pants.

"Interdimensional traveler, you are very impolite," the rabbit said. It had a small mustache curving upwards on either side of its mouth, and wore a pair of glasses on its nose. "I am the loyal servant of the great Time Lord, the punctual, wise, elegant, handsome…" The rabbit even stroked the large, long ears on its head with its short hand. "The one who makes evildoers tremble in fear… Lord Rabbit!"

Feng Bujue slapped his forehead and rubbed his face downwards. "Heh… heh… truly, all the good names are taken by rabbits."

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

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

"Are you sick?"

Veins popped out on Feng Bujue's forehead, his emotions 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!"

"No cabbage either."

"You brat, know when to stop!"

"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 yourself, I'm happy to cooperate."

Rabbit tried to make a serious face to intimidate him. "If my cousin were here, you'd probably have two sticks of dynamite shoved up your nostrils by now." But no matter how it looked, its face had no intimidating power.

"Your cousin is Bugs Bunny?" Feng Bujue retorted.

Rabbit clenched its fist, grinding its rabbit teeth, and suddenly shouted, "Alden!"

In that instant, the shadow from the small dark room with glowing blue eyes and exposed blood vessels suddenly appeared beside Rabbit and replied, "What is it?"

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

Alden replied, "Yes."

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

"Oh," Alden responded, then turned to Feng Bujue.

When Feng Bujue heard the words "seventy-seven minutes," his heart skipped a beat. "Impossible, right? Although the previous running and low-temperature environment would have interfered with my physiological clock, I calculated that it's only been about thirty minutes at most. What's with the seventy-seven?"

Alden quickly cleared up Feng Bujue's doubts. It didn't actually have a mouth on its face, the voice coming directly from the black shadow: "Passing through the door from the 'start' room to the other end of the corridor, the 'end,' will cause time to change." It raised its hand, pointing to the second door from the left behind Feng Bujue. "The second door here, is the third door from the 'start.' Entering this third corridor, the time upon arrival here will be sixty-nine minutes, plus the time you spend in the corridor."

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

"The second corridor is forty-six minutes, plus travel time," Alden replied. "The first and fourth are the same, both twenty-three minutes, plus travel time."

Something flashed in Feng Bujue's mind, and he immediately asked again, "Have I been here before?"

"Yes, you took the medicine from my hand just now!" Rabbit looked at its pocket watch again. "But the current you seems to be Feng Bujue who has only lived for thirty minutes. Hmm… that means I only need to explain it to you, and I don't need to waste any more words with the others."

"So… there are two kinds of time here? One is the time I experience, 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 poisoning," Rabbit continued his words.

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

"Passing through the corridor from the 'end' to the 'start,' no matter which one you take, you can rewind twenty-three minutes according to the current time in this jail cell, but… you still have to add the time you spend passing through the corridor," Alden replied.

"It's the seventy-ninth minute of jail cell time now. Assuming it takes me fifteen minutes to run through one of the corridors, then if I run back to the 'start' from here, it would be… the seventy-first minute after leaving the door?" Feng Bujue asked.

"That's right," Rabbit continued, "However, the time at the 'start' isn't important. As long as you enter the corridor from the 'start,' the time will be calculated according to the time at the end of the corridor. For example, if you reach the 'start' 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 jail 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 'start' room, and added to the time you spent in the corridor."

"Was this perverted setting thought up by you, you rabbit?" Feng Bujue asked.

Rabbit slammed the table. "I'm warning you, Mr. Thirty-two-minute Madman Feng! You are wasting your time!"

After hearing the rules, Feng Bujue also 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 this time as the standard, the conditions for failure remained unchanged. He would still die from poisoning at ninety-two minutes.

Rabbit's words weren't finished yet. He continued, "Obviously, Alden and I are helping you, otherwise we wouldn't have told you all this." He reached under the table, pressed a switch, and said, "The person who set up this game is him!"

In that instant, one of the four prison cells behind Rabbit lit up. In that dark cell, a white conical light was cast from directly above, illuminating the scene inside.

The floor of the prison cell was concrete, as were the three walls and the ceiling. Through the iron bars, one could see a stool placed in the center of the cell, and 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 character 申, pale, eerie, with black hair wrapped around its head. It stared at the three people outside the prison door with its red and black eyes, or rather, one person, one rabbit, and one monster…

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

A hoarse, low, recording-like voice came from the puppet's abdomen, but its mouth was also moving: "Pulling the trigger won't really kill me, and it won't help you in the game you're playing either." Its neck actually rotated a little, turning its face towards Rabbit's direction. "Besides, even if I become a prisoner, you don't have the right to dispose of me. Am I right, Rabbit?"