Chapter 13 The Unusual Corpse

Having spent some time in the dark, Feng Bujue’s eyes hadn’t fully adjusted when the lights came on.

However, he didn't dwell on adjusting to the light for too long.

A few seconds later, he could see normally, and his gaze immediately shifted to the corpse beside him.

It was indeed a corpse wearing a straitjacket. The head and right foot of the corpse were missing. Consistent with Jue-ge’s earlier assessment, the liquid flowing from the wounds wasn't blood, but an odorless, fluorescent green substance.

“Strange…” Feng Bujue glanced at the corpse, then looked down at his hands. Some of the sticky liquid still clung to them. “This liquid… doesn't glow in the dark?”

He didn’t dwell on that question for too long either, heading towards the metal door not far away.

*Clack-clack—*

There was no system prompt, but the clacking sound that came from turning the doorknob was enough to announce that the door was locked.

“Hmph… just as I expected.” Feng Bujue muttered, then walked towards the mirror on the opposite wall.

Soon, he stood before the mirror and extended a finger, pressing the fingertip perpendicularly against the mirror's surface.

“A one-way mirror, huh…” Jue-ge thought to himself, looking at the reflection of his finger in the mirror.

Right now, he was using the simple “finger test” (pressing a fingertip against the mirror's surface; if there's a gap between the reflected finger and your fingertip, it's a regular mirror; if the reflected finger and your fingertip touch, it’s a one-way mirror, with a see-through piece of glass behind it). Although this method wasn't 100% effective (if the reflective layer is sandwiched between two panes of glass, the finger test becomes unreliable), he was indeed successful at this moment.

Of course, even if the finger test hadn't worked, Jue-ge was still 90% sure that the large mirror before him was a two-way mirror.

Because, functionally, this room was either an “interrogation room” or an “experimental container.” If it were a prison cell, there was one problem… even if a cell didn't have a bed, it should at least have a toilet, otherwise the cell would quickly become a massive, sewer-less latrine…

So… if it was an interrogation room or an experimental container, surveillance was definitely essential.

In the 1940s, although filming and recording technology existed, the invention of surveillance cameras was still thirty years away. Therefore, the primary surveillance method used back then was… people watching.

In places like prisons, guards would simply watch through iron bars or windows. But in a secret underground research base like this, observation and recording were likely done through a one-way mirror.

“I feel like… there are eyes watching me from behind this mirror,” Feng Bujue thought. “But it's just a hunch, no real evidence… can't make any definitive statements.” He stared at the mirror for a few seconds, then added, “Hmm… regardless of whether there is or isn't, breaking this mirror with my bare hands is impossible without tools. This is military-grade facility after all, it's reasonable to assume there is bulletproof glass behind this one-way mirror.”

Thinking that, he turned to look at the corpse again.

Unexpectedly…

*Whoosh—whoosh—*

At that instant, the sound of fabric scraping against the floor suddenly echoed.

Through the mirror's reflection, Feng Bujue saw… the "corpse" on the floor, which had lost its head and right foot, suddenly began to squirm violently.

"What's going on?" Seeing this, Jue-ge immediately turned around and stared warily at the corpse.

"No head, no brain… to make a brainless body move, there has to be a power source…" In a split second, he came up with three hypotheses: One, an engineering-based remote control device; two, microorganisms or a chemical weapon; three, paranormal causes.

*Whoosh—whoosh—*

A few seconds passed, and the corpse moved even more violently, but… its movements seemed to have no pattern, simply thrashing around like a fish pulled from a river.

"Come to think of it… why didn't it move at all when I touched it earlier?" Feng Bujue pondered, taking a few steps away from the corpse. "The difference between then and now is…" Thinking this, he instinctively glanced at the light on the ceiling. "The light?" he murmured to himself. "Then… what's the principle behind it…"

In a flash, an idea sparked in Jue-ge's mind. The next second, he looked down at his hands.

"I see…" Seeing that the color of the sticky liquid on his hands was even brighter than before, Jue-ge immediately had an idea.

To verify his conjecture, Feng Bujue immediately did something that most people wouldn’t even consider…

He quickly walked back to the light switch, raised his hand, and turned off the lights again…

This time, the room didn't become completely dark, because the fluorescent liquid emitted a faint glow in the darkness.

However, this light began to fade almost as soon as it appeared, dimming at a rate visible to the human eye… After about seven or eight seconds, the liquid on Feng Bujue's hands was completely dark, while the liquid flowing from the corpse's neck and ankle only lasted for twenty or so seconds.

When the fluorescence on the liquid completely disappeared, the corpse stopped moving again, at least… judging from the sound, it was motionless.

"Whether the lights are on or off, my hands don't feel any different," Feng Bujue calmly murmured in the darkness. "That means this liquid can't work externally, it has to enter the body's circulatory system…" While thinking, he walked towards the corpse. "As for this guy… his whole body must be filled with this liquid…"

Before long, Feng Bujue squatted down and used his hands again to examine the corpse's wounds.

"Oh~ A bone saw…"

He couldn't be sure when he was groping around in the dark the first time; he glanced at it a few times under the light just now, and now, touching it again, things became clear…

"And the feeling the wounds give is… there was no sign of struggle while it was being sawed." After confirming this, Feng Bujue flipped the entire corpse over to untie the straps on the back of the straitjacket.

If, upon seeing this, you think Feng Bujue is acting out of humanitarianism to unbind the corpse, then you must be a very naive and kind person.

If you think Feng Bujue wants to take off the corpse's clothes and do something indecent to this headless male corpse, then I suggest you see a psychiatrist, or turn yourself in to the police as soon as possible.

In fact, Jue-ge just wanted to take the metal buckle off the strap…

After unfastening the buckle, Feng Bujue stood up, turned around, and headed straight for the metal door without stopping.

Because he had turned on the lights once just now, this room was no longer "dark" to Jue-ge. The image of the entire room was imprinted in his mind. With his trained, centimeter-precise sense of distance and control over his stride, Feng Bujue could move freely around the room even with his eyes closed.

"Okay… 1940s… If I'm not mistaken, it's a pin tumbler lock…" Feng Bujue pried out the metal pin on the strap buckle and inserted it into the keyhole of the metal door. "Traditional things are actually harder to deal with…"

These words were undoubtedly based on experience. According to Feng Bujue's rich experience of breaking and picking locks (don't ask me where that experience came from), the older the lock, the more it tested one's basic lock-picking skills. The "anti-theft doors" of the early 21st century were actually the easiest to open… the ones to fear were the locks from before the 1990s, some of which couldn't be opened even with professional tools, and could only be smashed open.

*Click—*

Long story short, after fiddling with the door for nearly five minutes, the sound of the lock cylinder finally echoed.

Feng Bujue breathed a sigh of relief, put the metal buckle into his pocket, and then stood up naturally and opened the door…

*Creak—eee—*

The sound of the door opening was familiar, very similar to the sound at the beginning of the opening CG.

Perhaps all the metal doors in this base made such noises when opened, or perhaps… this was the last door Andrei had opened before his death.

But in any case, this sound was a psychological suggestion… a suggestion that could raise one's fear level.

"The corridor lighting is normal, huh…" Two seconds later, Feng Bujue stared with dead-fish eyes and a listless expression as he walked out of the room.

He naturally understood the meaning of designing the door opening sound like this, but unfortunately, he couldn't be scared.

"This corridor and the one in the opening aren't the same place, right…" Because the metal door had inevitably made a sound, Feng Bujue didn't remain silent. He muttered in a low voice, "The color of the walls and some of the details are different…"

The kind of "difference" he was talking about might be overlooked by ordinary people, but he remembered it clearly.

Similar examples have been given in the previous text, this is the problem of personal brain filtering mechanism. We "normal people" are often as good as blind; take me for example… there's a desk lamp next to my computer, and the lamp has a lampshade. This thing is only thirty or forty centimeters away from me, and it appears in my field of vision for most of the day, but… if you ask me how many pleats there are on this lamp's lampshade, I can't tell you.

You can all try it… For example, how many sockets are there in the room you live in, what words are printed on the pen you use every day, what is the title of the first book on the top right of your hand right now… Can you answer without looking?

Feng Bujue… knew these details very clearly, and after years of training, he no longer needed to make a conscious effort to complete this kind of observation and memory task.

"No forks in the road, huh…" After observing for a few seconds, Jue-ge realized that the room he was in was located at the end of a corridor, and the direction of the room door was directly facing the corridor. "In other words, I can only walk in this direction, and this direction…" He looked back at the room behind him again. "Is away from the room behind the mirror…"

After thinking for a few seconds, he closed the metal door behind him, leaving only a slit, and then continued forward along the corridor.

"Heh… as expected, there are some." Before he had walked far, Feng Bujue noticed a few scattered drops of fluorescent liquid on the ground in front of him. "Let me see… where you guys took the head and foot."

According to Jue-ge's speculation, the corpse's head and foot were undoubtedly sawed off and taken away, and the people who did this were definitely more than one. If one person was operating… halfway through sawing, the corpse would move violently due to the fluorescent liquid flowing out of its body and reacting to the light. In that case… even if that person could finish sawing, the corpse's wounds would be a mess.

Therefore, this work had to be done by several people together, sawing off the head and foot at the same time, sawing off both sides together, then immediately turning off the lights and leaving.

And when those people came to the corridor with the head and foot, because there were also lights in the corridor, those two severed parts would definitely react, which would likely cause some fluorescent liquid to spill out and drip on the ground.

"If you were a cleaner here, your salary would definitely be high…" Feng Bujue followed the fluorescent liquid forward, and after walking around a corner, he saw another metal door. However, the dripping fluorescent liquid didn't stop in front of the door, indicating that the head and foot hadn't been taken into this room.

Feng Bujue walked to the door and tried turning the doorknob with a try-it-and-see attitude… As a result, it was locked.

Since it couldn't be opened, he was relieved and decided to keep moving forward.

After walking another twenty or so meters and rounding another corner, a third room appeared, and the traces of fluorescent liquid disappeared at the door of this room.

The door to this room wasn't made of metal, but rather a sliding door composed of two white door panels, the kind commonly used in hospital emergency rooms.

Feng Bujue knew at a glance that he had come to the right place.

He tiptoed over, first standing at the door and holding his breath to listen for a while… but he didn't hear any movement.

So, he gently pushed open the door…

Just a crack in the door was enough for the strong smell of disinfectant in the room to leak out.

Feng Bujue didn't pay much attention to the smell. He steadily pushed the door open about half a meter, then poked his head in for a look.

The lights in this third room were already on. Jue-ge swept his gaze around… and saw several yellowing walls, a pile of medical equipment, a pile of experimental equipment of unknown purpose, and an area surrounded by curtains that seemed to house a hospital bed, and also… a floor covered in fluorescent liquid.

"Very good…" Feng Bujue was very pleased to see that there were no living people within his field of vision. He slipped in with a flash. "Get a set of surgical tools, for murder, first aid, carpentry… fully capable." He said this to himself in his mind, and approached the cart full of surgical tools near the hospital bed.

Just as he came to the cart, preparing to choose a few items for self-defense, suddenly!

"Ugh—"

A chilling groan came from the corridor outside the door…