“You once escaped unscathed from my grasp, but that doesn’t mean you’re particularly clever.

You’re keen on deducing objective facts, but can you accurately fathom the human mind?

Many have participated in my games, those who destroy their own lives and have no respect for life itself, and you… how are you any different from them?”

Upon hearing this, Feng Bujue suddenly felt that the other party was implying something else, and the puppet’s next words quickly confirmed his thoughts.

“When the shadow of the unknown lingers in the mind, most people feel helpless and afraid, giving rise to anger and hysteria. These all stem from their attachment to life.

But you, you don’t confide in or seek help from anyone, you just live numbly, continuing your dull life as usual. You haven’t shown that instinctive, intense will to survive.

Your behavior shows that you have no gratitude for being alive, which is a contempt for the laws of survival. Even a trapped beast knows to fight, but you seem as relaxed and unconcerned as if you’ve already given up.

I abhor the ungrateful.

Do you think that being fearless can help you escape judgment?”

While listening to the other party’s narration, Feng Bujue was also thinking… the last virtual character who saw through and mentioned that there was something wrong with his brain was X-23, but the puppet Billy had actually been in contact with him even earlier. Moreover, in that script, Billy had already shown a certain ability to transcend the setting. Although the matter of the shadow in his brain could be explained as information detected by the game pod or mastered by the system after neural connection, hearing these words spoken to his face still caused a certain amount of psychological pressure.

Billy continued, “Death is always a surprise party, unless your heart is already dead.

But in my opinion, your heart is as vibrant as any normal person, and your mind is far more active than theirs. You have the same joys, sorrows, loves, and desires as others, yet you don’t care whether you’ll die in the next second.

Now, let’s see if you can maintain this attitude to the end.

Now, you must pay the price.”

Rumbling sounds of heavy machinery starting to operate suddenly came from under Feng Bujue’s feet, and the metal floor of the secret room immediately split apart, dividing into two with the entrance door as the central axis. The floor moved towards both sides of the room, but not quickly, enough for Feng Bujue to jump to one side.

Below the floor was a pool filled with water, with a depth about the same as the height of the room, about seven or eight meters, enough to drown someone like Feng Bujue who couldn’t swim.

“This pool isn’t filled with water, but gasoline. Soon, you will lose your foothold.

As a person who can't swim, you need enough courage to fight against the instinct to struggle for survival and find the potion hidden at the bottom of the pool.”

The puppet paused at this point, then went on to some details: “When the floor of the room is completely retracted into the walls on both sides, the gasoline level will begin to drop. At the same time, the floor will close again toward the middle. The water level will stop when it drops to half of its original level, and at that moment, the floor will close forever above your head. Even if you enter this room again, it will not open…”

Before he could finish speaking, Feng Bujue had already jumped into the gasoline pool with a splash.

He really couldn’t swim, but he could hold his breath. He took a deep breath, puffed out his cheeks, and pinched his nose with one hand, plunging into the gasoline pool with his feet down.

He sank rapidly to the bottom of the pool…

Based on the rules described by Billy, this game only offered one chance, and one failure meant permanent failure. Before the sentence “Even if you enter this room again” was finished, Feng Bujue knew what the other party meant… Even if he drowned in the gasoline pool and resurrected with the Contra Medal, killing his way back from the corridor, the floor would not open again, because once the floor closed, it would be “closed forever.”

In addition, at the same time as the floor closed, the water level would drop, presumably to prevent Feng Bujue from returning to the surface after taking the potion, grabbing the edge of the floor, and climbing up.

Simply put, this game was roughly about letting a person who couldn’t swim find an item at the bottom of a gasoline pool where the light above was gradually being blocked. If he drowned before finding it, it would be a failure. Even if he found it and luckily made it back to the surface with a doggy paddle, and the floor wasn’t completely closed at that time, he wouldn’t be able to reach the floor and climb up.

Judging from the known information, the conventional way to pass the level was… to jump into the gasoline pool, find the potion, put it in his inventory, and then struggle against his survival instincts at the bottom of the pool, drown in the shortest possible time, and finally use the Contra Medal’s resurrection teleportation to leave.

In fact, for those who were good at swimming, finding the potion was not difficult. There was air in the space between the floor and the pool. As long as they were patient and rationally allocated their strength, even after the floor was completely closed, they could constantly go back and forth between the surface and the bottom to change their breath, slowly groping for the location of the potion. After all, the area at the bottom of the pool was limited, and when the water level dropped to half, it would only be three or four meters deep. At most, they could search the bottom thoroughly by going back and forth a dozen times.

Of course, this method required attention to two points: first, keep your eyes closed; and second, never let gasoline get into your lungs.

The first point was common sense. Gasoline would cause burns to the mucous membranes. If it was just a drop or two, it would be fine to rinse it with water immediately and let it evaporate on its own, but opening your eyes wide in a gasoline pool was definitely an act of self-mutilation. Besides, after the floor closed, there would be no light in this space, so opening your eyes would just be a blur.

The second point was very unfavorable for Feng Bujue, who couldn’t swim. Assuming that he could struggle to return to the gasoline surface, which had less buoyancy than water, a person who hadn’t learned how to coordinate his movements with exhalation would easily choke on water in this situation. If gasoline really got into his lungs, then he could only wait to drown in pain.

Feng Bujue also knew these things. While listening to the rules, he was already thinking about countermeasures.

When the floor began to move, Feng Bujue had already turned his attention to the bottom of the pool. The light shining on the bottom of the gasoline pool was first a crack, and then it became wider and wider. Since the location of the lights was in the middle area of the ceiling, the entire bottom of the pool had been illuminated before the floor was completely opened, but… looking from above, it seemed that there was nothing at the bottom.

It was precisely after confirming this that Feng Bujue jumped down decisively. His angle and direction of entry were based on his reasoning about the location of the potion—the thing was in the shadow of the iron cage.