Chapter 41: The First Victim

The man stood about 1.9 meters tall, but what stood out most was not his height, but his arms, which hung naturally and easily passed below his knees.

His arm span was so astonishing that it gave the impression that if he bent slightly at the waist, his fists could touch the ground.

Judging solely by his physical proportions, in Wen Xishu's eyes, this final teammate looked even more like an ape than Nisen.

Of course, what caught one's attention the most was the man's mouth, which was sealed by an iron mask. Wen Xishu had only ever seen such attire in anime.

Usually, once that mask was lifted, some kind of second phase would be triggered.

However, Kane, Park Mi-hee, and Sitha were all quite bold and didn't pay too much attention to this unusual look.

"My name is... Jung Jae," the man said with some difficulty.

"I'm sorry, I hope my appearance didn't frighten you... I have to be like this. I am trying to conquer a certain desire."

Jung Jae's voice sounded quite gentle. Without that iron mask, Jung Jae might have given the impression of a reassuringly tall man with a slightly honest and earnest demeanor.

Wen Xishu noticed that Jung Jae's gaze kept drifting toward Sitha, the Indian man.

"Is there some kind of scent on Sitha that is attracting him?"

"He's trying to suppress a certain desire?"

Wen Xishu couldn't help but ask:

"Are you sick?"

Jung Jae nodded:

"I am sick. But it's incurable."

Wen Xishu asked again:

"There's a Level 6 hospital on the second floor now—can't they cure you either?"

Jung Jae shook his head:

"After the pandemic ended, that hospital stopped being very accessible to ordinary people... I need money, to earn enough money inside the Weird Tower."

Wen Xishu suddenly thought of a hypothesis:

"Which tower did you go to last time?"

Jung Jae seemed rather fond of being asked questions; doing so helped quell a certain desire of his by shifting a portion of his attention elsewhere:

"The Weird Tower, fourth floor. That mission... I completed it. Level 4 completion rate."

The Weird Tower, the fourth floor, Level 4 completion rate.

The Weird Tower itself should grant bonuses, and coupled with a Level 4 completion rate, the supplies must have been extremely abundant...

Combining this with Jung Jae's physical fitness, Wen Xishu asked:

"What crime did you commit?"

Jung Jae was slightly startled, as if his train of thought hadn't kept up with Wen Xishu.

He remained silent for two or three seconds before slowly speaking:

"My father... was arrested in an anti-corruption sweep. Everyone in my family became a prisoner."

This turned out to be somewhat similar to his own fate.

Except that the term "anti-corruption sweep," combined with collective guilt... implied that Jung Jae's father was no ordinary person.

Wen Xishu asked one final question:

"How long ago was this?"

Jung Jae looked to be about thirty years old, but he already appeared somewhat weathered as he replied:

"Twelve years ago."

"Alright, welcome to our team."

Twelve years ago—it seemed unrelated to the Wen family.

Wen Xishu didn't sense even a shred of malice from Jung Jae, which he found to be a good thing.

As for Jung Jae's illness, perhaps it wasn't a disease at all.

Of course, Wen Xishu couldn't judge for sure yet.

"How about you be the captain?" Wen Xishu suddenly looked at Park Mi-hee.

Logically speaking, the probability of someone arranged by the higher-ups happening to become one's teammate was extremely low, but given that he was constantly experiencing various low-probability events, Wen Xishu never harbored wishful thinking.

Appointing Park Mi-hee as captain served a dual purpose: on one hand, he wanted to observe her, and on the other, Park Mi-hee might possess certain intelligence.

At this moment, Sitha raised an objection:

"Why should we let a woman be the captain? Women are meant to be—no, I can't accept this."

Wen Xishu looked at Kane:

"Do you also feel that this beautiful lady is unsuited to be captain?"

Kane shook his head:

"Of course not. Gender equality, hey—this lovely lady must have rich experience in climbing towers, and I'm more than willing to learn from her."

Neither Jung Jae nor Mendelmuhr spoke.

Park Mi-hee asked:

"Why did you choose me to be captain?"

Wen Xishu seemed to pivot to a different topic:

"The keyword for this mission is 'parrot.' Regarding parrots, having climbed the Lust Tower multiple times, do you have any impressions?"

Park Mi-hee frowned:

"This is my first time climbing the Weird Tower as well. How could I possibly know what a parrot represents? Although the highest tier of the bunker promoted the Huaxia language as the official tongue back then, your language... is quite obscure."

"Your writing system is simply complex for the sake of complexity."

Wen Xishu said:

"Alright, alright, Ms. Park. I don't expect you to appreciate the elegance of the Chinese language, but what I want to ask is: during your time in the Lust Tower, do you have any memories regarding parrots?"

Park Mi-hee seemed to catch the implication in Wen Xishu's words that a connection might exist between the Lust Tower and the Weird Tower.

In truth, she placed considerable importance on what Wen Xishu said.

After all...

Unlike the others, Park Mi-hee had come here specifically targeted at Wen Xishu; his intuition had not been wrong.

The six of them had completed their team formation, leaving them with less than an hour to prepare for battle.

Naturally, Park Mi-hee also hoped to survive; only by staying alive could she have a chance at a better life.

For this mission, the bunker's upper echelon—primarily the Administration Bureau—had deployed a female special operations team numbering 244 members. Although these women usually only lingered on the lower levels of the Lust Tower, each possessed her own unique skills.

Meanwhile, the Bunker Security Bureau had also dispatched 450 non-academy-graduate males to infiltrate the Weird Tower.

Academy graduates were tied to the Three Towers Academy and could not be persecuted. However, the Security Bureau recruited individuals from the lower strata every year to handle "dirty work," even training them as suicide squads.

Nearly seven hundred people had been thrown into the Weird Tower solely to team up with Wen Xishu and extract his secrets for clearing the tower. With the high probability that all of these people might die, both the Security Bureau and the Administration Bureau had actually prepared themselves to pay out astronomical compensations.

And that was just accounting for those with official assignments; the number of unassigned individuals—actual criminals in the truest sense—who had been arranged into the mix was unknown, with certain statistics remaining hidden even from Park Mi-hee.

All of this underscored just how vital the secrets concealed within Wen Xishu truly were.

Park Mi-hee said:

"You should all know Wenren Jing, the premier figure of the Lust Tower, right?"

Everyone nodded; that name was virtually a household word.

Park Mi-hee continued:

"Wenren Jing once had regrets as well. Regarding parrots, the only thing I know of is the colorful bird written about on the fourth floor..."

"'Even colorful birds can have regrets. What she wanted was not love; I gave her the wrong thing. Back then, coveting speed, I used the wrong method—that was one of the very few Level 1 completion rates in my life.'"

"'To this day, I still regret why I viewed her so superficially. What the bird truly desired was genuine freedom.'"

Park Mi-hee stated:

"My study of the Huaxia language is indeed insufficient, but I can still read between the lines and tell that the younger Wenren Jing expressed profound regret over the ultimate fate of that bird."

"You ask me about parrots... the only thing that comes to my mind is that colorful bird."

Wen Xishu nodded:

"See? You are very well-suited to be captain. After all, you possess an experience none of the rest of us have. Perhaps during this team formation, some passing recollection of yours will be of immense help to us."

Park Mi-hee did not decline.

She believed her cover remained intact, and only by staying undercover could she gather as much intelligence on Wen Xishu as possible.

Otherwise, once the target grew guarded, things would become troublesome.

Therefore, she nodded:

"Judging by your tone... these two birds are connected? If that's truly the case, I hope my memories will genuinely be of assistance to everyone."

Park Mi-hee was chosen as the team's captain, and the six members briefly familiarized themselves with one another.

Aside from Wen Xishu and Jung Jae, everyone else was exploring the Weird Tower for the first time, having previously operated in other tower systems.

Time passed quickly. Once everyone had finished their preparations without error, they simultaneously activated their login devices.

...

...

The world of the parrot descended.

Wen Xishu felt no surprise; this place was unsurprisingly not some birdcage, but rather a special room enclosed by doors on all four sides.

Aside from those four doors, the room contained nothing but a chaotic swirling vortex.

In a way, this room did bear a faint resemblance to a parrot cage.

Because from Wen Xishu's perspective, with the four doors standing open, it looked like an open birdcage, yet the birds dared not fly away. Much like everyone present, hesitating in place while waiting for someone to issue a command.

[Please choose a door and locate the item requiring purification behind it. Each item allows two people to leave. Your final score will be determined by the quantity of purifiable items successfully acquired.]

"It seems we need to enter the rooms and search for an item... There are six of us, so as long as we find three items, everyone can leave," Mendelmuhr said.

Though timid, he hadn't been so frightened by the scenario that he lost the ability to think.

Sitha, meanwhile, walked up to one of the doors:

"I... I smell a scent I like!"

Black vortexes filled every corner of vision. Wen Xishu and the others could not see what lay beyond the doors.

Wen Xishu had to admit the value of pooling collective wisdom. His immediate intuition told him that the doors led to different spatial dimensions.

Since nothing could be seen, they had no choice but to plunge in blindly.

Yet the Indian man's logic was truly unfathomable; Sitha's very first thought had been... to take a sniff.

Heaven knows what kind of scent he had caught that made him find it both familiar and appealing!

Still, this did provide Wen Xishu with a line of reasoning:

"Then let's take this door? Standing here and doing nothing accomplishes nothing. From the look of it, the four doors lead to four distinct scenarios, and these scenarios... will ultimately assemble the birdcage that causes the 'parrot' to fall."

"Within the four scenarios, four different items exist, and we need to locate them. Finding one should allow two people to leave, and those who depart might achieve a Level 1 completion rate."

"Whoever finds it can leave and designate one other person to depart with them. Any objections?"

Hearing that the task merely involved searching for items, the others felt the difficulty didn't seem too high.

Sitha chimed in:

"No objections, let's go in quickly. I can't wait anymore."

Jung Jae also spoke slowly:

"No... ob... jec... tion."

Upon entering the Weird Tower zone, Wen Xishu felt Jung Jae becoming increasingly bizarre; the expression in his eyes whenever he looked at Sitha grew more and more terrifying and ferocious.

Sitha himself hadn't noticed, his mind entirely consumed by the appealing scent lingering behind the door.

Park Mi-hee raised no objections to Wen Xishu's directions, though she wasn't blindly obeying him either:

"If we stand here and do nothing, after seven days, will we be forcibly and safely sent back? This isn't the Lust Tower; there's no rule stating we'll die if the mission objective doesn't yield pleasure."

This was a well-crafted suggestion. From Wen Xishu's perspective, proposing such an idea would, to a certain extent, reduce his suspicion toward Park Mi-hee.

Because it was logical.

Since no one knew the dangers lurking behind the doors, waiting in place for seven days wasn't entirely out of the question.

However, before Wen Xishu could voice a reason why they couldn't do that, a variable within the arena made everyone realize they couldn't afford to wait.

Because... Sitha sensed that the door was moving.

He was the one standing closest to the door, having pressed his nose right up against it to sniff.

Consequently, Sitha was the first to perceive the subtle shifting of the door.

"The door is moving! It's drifting toward us!"

Wen Xishu glanced at Park Mi-hee:
"Captain, it seems we cannot stay here. Assuming each door represents a scenario, and within that scenario resides an anomalous entity meant to harm us..."

"Then if we remain here indefinitely... it will likely cause all four doors to converge, plunging us into all four scenarios simultaneously."

"When that happens, the danger and variables will multiply fourfold... no, if combinations are involved, even more than that."

Park Mi-hee nodded:

"My oversight. I'll defer to you."

In truth, the surrounding pitch-black chaos had already made Park Mi-hee deeply uncomfortable; she loathed such environments.

She wanted to survive, and to do that, she had to make good use of Wen Xishu.

Wen Xishu didn't bother exposing her intentions. Without further hesitation—moving even faster than Sitha—he was the first to step through the door.

Seeing the chaotic void swallow Wen Xishu's figure, the others felt a twinge of fear, but recalling Wen Xishu's words, they too stepped through the door one by one.

...
...

Books were scattered all over the floor.

Viewed from a high angle, one would see a desk taller than a person, laden with various exercise books and workbooks. The open workbooks bore the frantic claw marks of fingernails tearing through paper.

Wen Xishu was the first to enter, and the moment he arrived, he realized this was a study.

A massive study.

When he discovered that books originally palm-sized were now half as tall as himself, he deduced that either he had been shrunk down, or everything in this study was oversized compared to a conventional human workspace.

To Wen Xishu, the office desk felt as high as a defensive wall.

When he raised his head, the ceiling felt dozens of meters away.

Many objects were scattered across the room: a pen holder, a trophy, numerous books on a bookshelf, the desk, the office table, a chair, award certificates, a music box...

Everything was far larger than he had anticipated.

Wen Xishu walked up to a giant, tattered page of a notebook.

It was his first time seeing a page of writing so immense, looking as though a standard exercise book covered in math problems had been blown up onto a 65-inch ultra-high-definition screen.

"This is... middle school homework?"

The setting was Jiangcheng.

Wen Xishu viewed the Three Towers world as a parallel universe version of his previous life's world.

He guessed this place might resemble somewhere like Suzhou or Shanghai.

The room's interior design revealed nothing immediately amiss, but the scattered pages and discarded books made it look like a struggle had taken place here.

Before Wen Xishu could analyze what the anomaly might be or how to find the contaminated object, he heard the voice of Sitha, the Indian man:

"I smell it! It's that scent, it's that scent!"

Sitha began frantically sprinting toward a corner of the room.

Under normal proportions, this room would be about twenty square meters—running diagonally across it would take just a few steps.

However, due to the altered scale, Sitha had to run for quite a while, nearly at a hundred-meter sprint pace.

At this moment, Wen Xishu, Kane, Mendelmuhr, and Jung Jae all looked toward the destination of Sitha's sprint—

The object resting there made Kane wear a mysterious smile, while Wen Xishu furrowed his brow slightly.

It was a piece of women's clothing.

Magnified by the scale, that piece of lace underwear was large enough to cover Sitha's upper body entirely. And indeed, that seemed to be what Sitha intended.

Acting like a total perriot, he frantically tried to press his entire body against it.

When people are in a state of deprivation, their sense of smell tends to sharpen.

Yet probably only someone of Sitha's background would experience such an extreme manifestation of that change in that particular area.

Sitha had actually managed to pick up the scent on a piece of women's clothing from behind the door, across an actual distance of dozens of meters. Wen Xishu had to admire him.

At that exact moment, however, Wen Xishu also caught sight of a prompt from Jung Jae.

"Meat... I want to eat meat!"

Wen Xishu suddenly had a premonition that a major spectacle was about to unfold.

Shortly after Sitha's frantic dash, Jung Jae finally lost his grip on self-control. His rational mind tried to command his body to stay still, but his limbs had already begun twitching involuntarily.

He looked remarkably like a zombie.

Meanwhile, Sitha had already reached the gigantic piece of clothing.

Yet abruptly, Sitha halted in his tracks.

Because a piece of information had surfaced in his mind:

[You have located an item bearing traces of sin. Do you wish to purify it?]

The room contained a contaminated object requiring purification; simply finding this item granted an opportunity to leave the Weird Tower and rewarded the finder with at least a Level 1 completion rate.

The moment Sitha saw that it bore traces of sin, coupled with his brain being overly stimulated by the scent of the woman, he made a choice without a moment's hesitation: he chose to purify it.

In that instant, the study, which had previously appeared merely cluttered, underwent a transformation.

An ominous aura descended instantly, and the massive music box that Wen Xishu had noticed earlier suddenly began to play.

Wen Xishu seemed to have anticipated this development; he had even guessed why Sitha had paused, having received the exact same prompt when he touched the notebook page earlier.

Only, Wen Xishu had chosen to "refuse purification."

This game was about finding items. In the Lust Tower, perhaps incorrect choices carried no penalties, but this was the Weird Tower—making a wrong move would inevitably bring retribution.

Therefore, Wen Xishu had declined purification.

At that moment, he could have warned Sitha, but he chose not to.

His eyes were as cold as polar frost, and the amusement deep within his pupils made him look like a spectator enjoying a show.

As the music played, everyone heard a prompt echo in their minds.

[Good girl, you really know how to hide! So you were here all along—today's lessons are packed tightly!]

The voice reeked of oily, unctuous creepiness that instantly nauseated the listeners, particularly Park Mi-hee, who immediately conjured images of those obese, high-ranking officials.

Not long after the voice faded, everyone witnessed a horrifying scene as the anomaly hiding within the object finally revealed its true form.

Wen Xishu began searching for a hiding spot, ignoring whatever was happening.

Based on the prompt, he deduced that hiding was mandatory now. He shared none of this information with anyone else.

"Apologies, Officer Liu. I certainly want to be a good person, provided the rules of the game allow good people to survive until the end."

Sitha, unaware of what he was facing, let out a piercing, miserable scream.

The first teammate had met his death.