Chapter 1 The Situation

“How exactly did things turn out like this…” Feng Bujue muttered to himself in the darkness. “At this moment, I should be nonchalantly watching from the sidelines…” He sighed, “Ah… it seems a man as outstanding as myself, no matter where I hide, will be as conspicuous and extraordinary as a firefly in the dark… The melancholy gaze, the grizzled stubble, the uncanny skills, all deeply betray me.”

He amused himself by reciting this to himself. Because it was so dark around him (limited vision leading to heightened hearing), and it was an enclosed, open space (allowing sound to travel further), Jue-ge’s words reached the ears of his three teammates in the distance, without missing a single syllable.

“A person this shameless… I’ve truly never seen anything like it in my life,” Qiu Feng commented in a lowered voice.

“For him to still be nonchalantly spouting this nonsense in this situation…” Ji Chang said, “It can be considered a demonstration of strong mental fortitude.”

Honghu added, “Unfathomable…” As he spoke, he couldn’t help but shiver slightly, then he adjusted his glasses, “He might be the kind of opponent I least want to encounter…”

“Same here,” Qiu Feng replied. “It’s hard to imagine what would happen if a guy like that existed on the other side in a Slaughter Game.”

On this point, the three strategists were in complete agreement. Ji Chang also said, “If he weren’t a teammate but an opponent, it would indeed be a very bad thing… Have you guys noticed? Whether it's action or strategy, Brother Feng’s style seems to have no rules to follow, but in reality, it hides profound mysteries… Looking back, everything he has done has played a role, more or less. Of course… except for his unique sense of humor.”

“Schemers use unexpected moves and tricks; grand strategists borrow momentum and act accordingly,” Honghu pondered. “The former is the unorthodox path, usually used when one’s strength is insufficient, using tricks to make up for the difference. Even if successful, it only has temporary effects and has many loopholes. Once seen through, it can be easily resolved. The latter is the kingly path, acting in accordance with the situation, leaving no traces, the king of schemes, unstoppable.” He paused, then continued, “Logically speaking, we strategic players should pursue the latter, but Brother Feng, he…”

“Seems to be straying further and further down the unorthodox path…” Qiu Feng interjected.

Honghu said, “A person who can plan schemes is clever; a person who can plan grand strategies is formidable. But if someone can guarantee that every scheme they plan will succeed, then they can be called a divine strategist.”

“Heh… If Brother Feng were in the world of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, he’d probably be the type of… strategist who puts his plans in a brocade pouch, telling the general to open one and follow it at each location he arrives at, to show how he can predict everything like a god,” Qiu Feng said.

The three secretly discussed Jue-ge in this way, because they were all squatting at the edge of the circular hole. As long as they lowered their voices and faced downwards, their voices wouldn't travel too far. So, Feng Bujue didn't hear any of these conversations. If Jue-ge had really heard them, he probably wouldn’t have been ashamed but would have been even more smug and boastful…

About ten minutes later, Feng Bujue leisurely returned to his teammates’ side, his expression seemingly troubled.

“Looks like you didn’t find anything,” Qiu Feng said.

“Hehe…” Ji Chang smiled. “Actually, for Brother Feng to return unharmed is already a gain. At least he’s proven that this floor isn’t currently dangerous.”

“Next, the four of us can split into two groups and explore again carefully. We should be able to find some clues…” Honghu hadn’t finished speaking.

Feng Bujue directly interrupted, “I found a corpse in that direction.” As he said this, he pointed into the darkness.

These words were like a bucket of cold water poured over the heads of his teammates.

The atmosphere instantly dropped to freezing point, and everyone fell silent.

Feng Bujue continued, “To be precise, I found a fairly complete crime scene.”

The three remained silent, wanting to hear him finish speaking before expressing their opinions.

“And then…” Feng Bujue indeed had more to say. “I also found in that direction…” He pointed to the other side, “The corpses of the murderers.”

“‘Them’?” Qiu Feng repeated. “The murderers… plural?”

“That’s right, based on my preliminary investigation of the scene, I estimate that there were a total of four murderers working together,” Feng Bujue said.

“And those four murderers died near the crime scene?” Honghu interjected.

“No, only two died,” Feng Bujue said. “The other two escaped to the fourth floor.”

“What? You found a passage to the fourth floor?” Ji Chang asked.

“Yes, over there, there’s a spiral staircase,” Feng Bujue pointed to a third direction. “The two surviving murderers left traces when they went up the stairs, so it was easy to tell.” He turned his head. “Rushing up there rashly wouldn’t be wise, so I decided to come back and share the information with you first.”

After he said this, his teammates once again fell into contemplation.

About a minute later, Feng Bujue said, “Alright, now you should have a preliminary understanding of the situation. Come with me, I’ll take you to see the scenes in order.”

The words “in order” in his statement were crucial. The other three immediately understood that the order in which Feng Bujue discovered the three locations was not necessarily the order in which he described them, but he had already clarified the order of events through observation, so he was speaking in the order of "first murder scene, second murder scene, passage to the fourth floor."

The three followed Feng Bujue, heading toward a corner of the third floor. Halfway there, they smelled an unpleasant odor, presumably the stench emanating from the corpses.

Before long, they saw a corpse lying flat on the floor tiles, illuminated by the beams of their flashlights.

The deceased… well, she was a witch.

She was wearing coarse black clothes, and the cloak on her body was tattered, dirty, and smelly. Her face was extremely ugly, a huge hooked nose sat in the center, and there were protruding, pus-filled bumps on the tip of her nose and on her chin. Dense wrinkles were as clear as scars, and a pair of bulging eyes stared unblinkingly.

Of course, if you feel that these iconic clothes and appearance are not enough to prove that she is a witch, then… next to the corpse’s hand, there was also a hat, a broom, and an apple.

The hat was a black, pointed, wide-brimmed hat; the broom was wooden, the kind Mr. Potter often rides; and the apple was bright red, full, as if it had just been picked from a tree.

“Let me explain, there are a total of two fatal wounds,” Feng Bujue said, squatting next to the corpse emitting waves of stench, explaining without any pressure. “And both are obvious.”

He stretched the flashlight over, focusing the light on the top of the witch’s head. Under the light, it could be seen that the corpse’s skull had been lifted, and brain matter and blood flowed on the ground. The brain in the head was also missing.

“The first is on the head. Someone used a sharp weapon, striking along the hairline to split her skull and send it flying,” Feng Bujue said. “As for where the brain went… you’ll understand in a moment.”

Looking at Feng Bujue’s casual explanation and battle-hardened demeanor, his three teammates were all filled with awe.

“The second is the chest cavity,” Feng Bujue moved the flashlight’s light down, shining it on the witch’s torso.

The witch had been disemboweled, her ribs pried open to both sides, and all her internal organs were exposed to the air.

“The heart and gallbladder have been removed,” Feng Bujue said. “The other organs have varying degrees of damage, but at least they are still in the body.”

“Then… how did you see that… there were four murderers?” Qiu Feng asked.

“Oh, the clues are still quite obvious,” Feng Bujue stood up. “First of all, without a doubt, this is a witch.” As he spoke, he picked up the flashlight and shone it on a wall only two meters away from the corpse.

The three teammates all showed surprised expressions at this moment because there was a line of blood-written words on the wall.

The line was in English, and the system menu also provided a translation. The content was: [There’s no place like home.]

“Secondly, there’s this hint,” Feng Bujue continued.

“Wait… could this be…” Ji Chang had already understood, but the other two seemed a little confused.

“That’s right, this is Dorothy’s line at the end of *The Wizard of Oz*,” Feng Bujue shone the flashlight’s light on the old witch’s feet. “Look, she doesn’t have shoes on her feet, so that can be considered proof, right?”

“You’ve got to be kidding…” This time, Qiu Feng and Honghu also realized who the "four murderers" Feng Bujue was talking about were.

“Yeah, this puzzle is simple like a joke,” Feng Bujue shone the light on the corpse, explaining, “It’s nothing more than the quartet subduing the witch together, then the Lion tore open her torso, took the ‘gall’ from inside, the Tin Man dug out the ‘heart’, and then they used an axe to split the witch’s skull, so the Scarecrow could take the ‘brain’. As for Dorothy, she stripped off the witch’s magic shoes.” His tone was very relaxed, and he even addressed the words on the wall, “Nine out of ten people who write on the walls of crime scenes are idiotic embellishers, and there’s one genius.” He pursed his lips and shook his head. “But this line makes me feel very puzzled.” He looked at his teammates with a questioning look, “What are your thoughts?”

“My thought is… you’re too calm, aren’t you?” Qiu Feng said. “When I said ‘you’ve got to be kidding,’ I meant this situation is destroying my childhood!”

“Oh… you meant that,” Feng Bujue said. “Unfortunately, I’ve always sneered at this kind of children’s literature since childhood, although I’ve seen quite a bit of it…”

“Artists really are a bit abnormal…” Honghu coldly retorted, then brought the topic back on track. “Regarding this line of blood words… I think there are two possibilities.” He paused, then continued, “First, the murderer has nothing to do with *The Wizard of Oz* quartet. This line was left by the real killer to mislead us. Second, assuming that Dorothy and her group really killed the witch… then this line might be a hint given by the system, not written by anyone.”

“Yeah… that’s about the same as my initial assumption,” Feng Bujue nodded. “Alright, let’s go to the second location.” He shone the flashlight on the corpse again, “Oh, right, now there’s no need to guarantee the integrity of the scene anymore. Take everything you can take, it might be useful.”

So, the three people other than Feng Bujue each picked up an item.

Honghu needed a hand to hold the flashlight, so he picked up the smallest item, the apple; Qiu Feng, at Jue-ge’s suggestion, took the broom (when Qiu Feng asked why, Feng Bujue replied—Qiu Feng sweeps away fallen leaves); Ji Chang took the witch’s pointed wide-brimmed hat.

[Name: Apple]

[Type: Story Related]

[Quality: Normal]

[Function: Unknown]

[Whether it can be brought out of this scenario: No]

[Remarks: A bright red apple, it looks very tempting.]

…………

[Name: Broom]

[Type: Story Related]

[Quality: Normal]

[Function: Unknown]

[Whether it can be brought out of this scenario: No]

[Remarks: It seems to have other functions besides sweeping.]

…………

[Name: Pointed Hat]

[Type: Story Related]

[Quality: Normal]

[Function: Unknown]

[Whether it can be brought out of this scenario: No]

[Remarks: It’s okay to wear it if you don’t mind the smell inside.]

The descriptions of these three items uphold the overall style of this scenario… which is to not give you clear hints. It's up to you to figure out how to use these things. Anyway, the second to last line says that they cannot be taken out of the script, which proves that they are useful.

“Look at these bloody footprints…” Feng Bujue led his teammates toward the second crime scene, shining the flashlight on the marks on the marble floor tiles. “The most obvious is the lion’s footprint, followed by the Tin Man.” He pointed with his finger. “The shallower cloth shoe marks are the Scarecrow’s, and the remaining two rows of small footprints are naturally left by Dorothy.”

They walked along the wall, and as they spoke, they arrived at the second corpse location, no more than a hundred meters away from the witch’s death site.

“What’s going on here…” Qiu Feng said.

This time, the two corpses that appeared before their eyes were a little girl wearing a blue dress and shirt and a huge lion.

Feng Bujue, like a commentator, stepped forward and said with great interest, “Dorothy should have been killed by the Lion.” He shone the flashlight towards the corpse’s head. “A large chunk has been bitten off the side of her neck, tearing away the bone and flesh, and her face has been clawed like a horror movie protagonist.”

He turned his head, pointing to a pair of silver high heels scattered next to Dorothy’s corpse: “These should be the witch’s shoes. It seems she didn’t immediately put on the shoes after killing the witch, but just carried them away in her hand.”

“Wait…” Ji Chang said, “How do I remember… in *The Wizard of Oz*, the Eastern Witch’s magic shoes were red?”

“That’s a common misconception,” Feng Bujue replied. “In Lyman Frank Baum’s original work, the shoes were actually silver. But because the 1939 film version of *The Wizard of Oz* is very classic, most subsequent film and television adaptations have been influenced by it, setting the witch’s shoes as red.”

“You even know about this kind of thing…” Even Honghu expressed amazement at the breadth of Feng Bujue’s knowledge.

“This is common sense,” Feng Bujue replied.

“What common sense… If you hadn’t said it, I wouldn’t even know who the author of *The Wizard of Oz* was…” Qiu Feng said bluntly.

“Then there’s nothing I can do, anyway, for me it’s common sense,” Feng Bujue came to the lion’s corpse again. “Let’s take a look at this guy.”

“Obviously, he was killed by an axe,” Honghu said, looking at the lion’s corpse. “And judging from the angle and depth of these wounds, and the bloodstains on the ground, he engaged in a fight with the one holding the axe before he died.”

Ji Chang added, “Judging only from the scars… it’s undoubtedly the Lion killed Dorothy, and the Tin Man killed the Lion.”

“It should be said that the Tin Man and the Scarecrow killed the Lion together,” Feng Bujue added. “You see…” He squatted down, put the flashlight on the ground, wrapped his arms around the Lion’s head, and pried open the beast’s large mouth. “There’s a tuft of straw in his mouth, see?”

“Okay, okay… don’t be so meticulous…” Qiu Feng advised.

Feng Bujue closed the Lion’s mouth, patted the mane on his clothes, but got a handful of blood. He didn’t care too much, he just stood up and said, “However, I think the Scarecrow’s strength can’t have any impact on the Lion at all, even if he participated in the attack, it could only cause a tickling injury, and the one who actually killed the Lion was still the Tin Man.”

“There are messages here too…” As Honghu spoke, the flashlight in his hand was already shining towards the direction of the wall.

On the wall here, there were also blood-written words.

“Ah, that’s right,” Feng Bujue replied, “Also a very suggestive hint.”

[When you think you've gotten what you wanted, you've actually lost more]

The three, except for Jue-ge, stared at this line for a long time, and Ji Chang was the first to speak, “Putting aside the philosophical meaning that this sentence may contain… the metaphorical situation should be…” He paused slightly for a second, then continued, “The Lion obtained ‘courage’, so he wanted to eat Dorothy, and the Tin Man with a ‘heart’ and the Scarecrow with a ‘brain’ killed the Lion after seeing this scene.”

“On the surface… that’s indeed the case,” Honghu replied.

“Oh? On the surface?” Ji Chang asked doubtfully.

Qiu Feng also read out beside him: “If you think about it carefully… there are indeed many doubts.”

“For example?” Ji Chang asked.

Honghu replied again, “If the Lion didn’t have the courage to attack people before he gained courage, how do you explain the death of the old witch?” He pushed his glasses. “Also, since Dorothy got the witch’s shoes, why didn’t she put them on and leave? These shoes have teleportation magic, don’t they?”

Feng Bujue said again, “Well… let’s put these questions aside for now.” As he spoke, he bent down and picked up the pair of silver magic shoes. “Let’s follow me to the stairs leading to the fourth floor first.”