Eldritch Horror Theatre

So it wasn't that she had failed to recognize him, but that she had "truly" recognized him.

She didn't hesitate after her unusual gesture. The attendant's light footsteps quickly faded away.

For Fu Qian, both the earlier warning and the item now in his hand made one thing perfectly clear.

The attendant hadn't mistaken him for the uniform's original owner out of incompetence. On the contrary, she had come specifically for him.

She not only knew he was the Columnist who was supposed to be tied up there after suddenly going mad, but she had also made a special trip to warn him and even deliver something.

It certainly hadn't disappointed him. This Sanitarium was getting more interesting by the minute.

At the same time, a familiar thought struck him with a growing sense of déjà vu: wasn't her timing a little too perfect?

How did she know he would escape?

How did she know he would escape at this exact moment?

Despite these suspicions, Fu Qian didn't chase after her for answers. Instead, he kept his pace, heading in the opposite direction.

A moment later, he looked down at the item in his hand.

[The Columnist, having narrowly escaped, knew full well that his crude disguise wouldn't buy him much time.

However, before he could slip through the thornbush fences and flee into the mountains, he fortunately learned that the route was actually a trap.

After a brief internal struggle, he chose to trust this warning. Instead, he decided to find a place to hide within the Sanitarium first.]

...

So there really was a Director?

The item in his hand was quite simple: a neatly folded piece of stationery.

Tucked inside the pale golden paper was a key of a much richer gold.

Unfolding the note revealed those three sentences.

The contents were so unnervingly appropriate for the situation that the whole ordeal felt even more surreal.

The good news: his earlier hunch was correct. Someone really did seem to be pulling the strings from the shadows.

The bad news: they seemed to be controlling a little too much.

It was no longer just a matter of someone showing up at the perfect time to drop a hint.

It looked like even Mrs. Tracy and her companion's passionate rendezvous had been factored into the plan.

Including the fact that he would use their distraction as an opportunity to escape?

If that were true, it was quite impressive.

Were Mrs. Tracy and her lover working for this unseen mastermind too?

If so, he could only admit that the mastermind had found two exceptional actors.

The raw passion those two illicit lovers had displayed was entirely devoid of any theatrical artificiality.

Most importantly, Fu Qian himself—the core catalyst pushing the plot forward—had absolutely been improvising.

He had heard stories of Directors deliberately keeping the true script from their actors, only to produce timeless cinematic classics.

But trying to apply that logic here felt a bit too cliché to be convincing.

Ultimately, everything unfolding before him seemed to be rapidly plummeting toward the transcendent side.

Did this mean that with his ordinary human constitution, he was supposed to face-tank an authority like destiny?

The difficulty level had just spiked dramatically. In stark contrast was the Warehouse's utterly incomprehensible logic.

If brute force was an option, what kind of mindset made them insist the administrator stick to dramatic roleplay?

Of course, this was no time for complaints. A critical decision lay right in front of him—

The script had been delivered straight into his hands. As an actor who had just run lines with the Director, should he play along with the script?

His thoughts raced, but his feet never stopped. Turning another corner, Fu Qian was once again met with the eerie desolation of this area. He hadn't encountered a single soul.

At the same time, the thornbush fence he had seen through the window earlier was now completely unobstructed before him.

...

You tell me there's a trap there, and I'm just supposed to blindly believe it?

You tell me I won't go there, and I'm just supposed to turn away?

It was the wrong season for it, but the thorny shrubs looked bizarrely, vibrantly green.

Staring at that strange hue, Fu Qian slowly began to appreciate the twisted fun of this mission.

If there was no trap at all, but he chose to believe the warning and avoided the route, wouldn't that in itself be a trap?

It truly was a brilliant dilemma.

Yet, even a choice like this didn't make Fu Qian pause for a second.

His pace remained steady, his speed completely unchanged. He simply turned around in silence, heading in the exact opposite direction of the fence.

The paradox might seem like a perfect way to overthink oneself into circles, but only if one lacked the proper perspective.

Whether there was actually a trap by the fence was completely irrelevant. The fact that someone could say "there is a trap" was what truly mattered.

It meant this escape route had been factored into their calculations long ago.

Fleeing into the mountains was a gambit that relied entirely on seizing the initiative. Now, it had lost its greatest advantage.

The only question remaining was whether he was willing to risk total exposure for a desperate, last-ditch effort—treating a dead horse as if it were alive.

Fu Qian merely weighed the odds and decided the risk vastly outweighed the reward.

Ultimately, he decided to play the part of a good actor for the time being.

Besides, even if he chose to cooperate with the Director, there was still one glaring issue: where was the rest of the script? Was that it?

The script was exactly three sentences long. Where exactly was the escaped Columnist supposed to hide within the Sanitarium?

Twirling the extra key, Fu Qian compared it to the ring of keys he already had.

Sure enough, it was identical in design to one of them.

...

Did the key from the note also belong to a VIP exclusive residence?

It wasn't the most rigorous deduction, but it was an easy leap in logic to make.

That thought easily reminded Fu Qian of the residence Mrs. Tracy had willingly disclosed earlier.

Comparatively speaking, that area undoubtedly offered the strongest privacy in the entire Sanitarium. It seemed like the perfect place to hide a person.

At the same time, actually running over there to hide seemed like a rather irrational choice.

For one thing, the distance was staggering. The two locations were on opposite ends of the complex, meaning he would have to cross the entire Sanitarium to get there.

For another, even if he subscribed to the belief that "the most dangerous place is the safest," this was hardly the way to apply it.

Once Mrs. Tracy's male companion was discovered—completely stripped of his uniform—it would be obvious that someone was using his identity as a disguise.

At that point, his quarters and the surrounding area would undoubtedly become a primary focus of the search.

However—

With just a single glance, Fu Qian pocketed the keys. Without breaking his stride, he made a beeline for the VIP Area.

He always had to remember the importance of staying true to one's original aspiration. The goal this time had never been "hide well and don't get caught," but rather to "leave this place before Judgment Day."

What he needed to do now was to instigate interactions, and use those to forge a path to survival.

And clearly, whether it was Mrs. Tracy and her lover or this mysterious Director, that area was the epicenter for all the most crucial elements.

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