Eldritch Horror Theatre

This was why one had to be merciful.

Mrs. Tracy's immaculately dressed male companion possessed an entirely different side.

He deeply loathed that version of himself, yet actively worked to make himself even more despised.

Fu Qian felt that just trying to parse that sentence brought on a heavy sense of Suffocation.

This Sanitarium really had no shortage of heavyweights.

However, when Fu Qian had made his move earlier, and even after he tied the man up right there, the beast of hatred beneath that false exterior had never bared its fangs.

He hadn't escalated the encounter into a bloodbath simply because it would have been pointless and would have restricted his future operational space. The threat of the Well of Time hadn't even been discovered yet.

Looking back on it now, his concern about restricting his operational space had been entirely correct, though the severity of the consequences might have been even more extreme than he'd imagined.

His latest conclusion was that the Well of Time might be triggered by touching the "darkness" in people's hearts, or rather, their emotional knots.

It could practically be called a dead knot.

The man's performance back then had truly been masterful. Even his subsequent fainting was real, as was his anger after being mocked about his lost virility.

Yet even under those circumstances, he hadn't revealed his true self, which genuinely showed just how terminally ill his mind was.

If that condition ever flared up, the consequences would likely be staggering.

What? Since the man was unconscious, killing him wouldn't have any impact because he wouldn't even have the chance to panic or overthink?

Fu Qian figured that if it were really that easy, the rest of the mission would be an absolute breeze.

He would just need to stay in stealth mode, knocking people out and slitting their throats. He could kill everyone within thirteen days and then swagger right out the front door.

But if he actually killed someone, regardless of whether the victim was conscious, it meant a specific piece of "darkness" would permanently vanish from the Sanitarium.

Would something like that truly have no consequences?

Given the sheer weirdness of this place, assuming so would be far too optimistic.

Speaking of which, the victim should have been discovered a while ago, yet the Sanitarium remained completely tranquil. It made him wonder what kind of arrangements the Director had made behind the scenes.

"But it was precisely that mental state that granted him insight far beyond ordinary people, which ultimately helped me."

While Fu Qian was lost in thought, Madam Dark Room finished summarizing the man's life and looked over with a half-smile.

"I wonder if this has brought you any inspiration? And how does Mr. Fu plan to help me?"

...

Sure enough, she knew the Columnist and even remembered his name.

Madam Dark Room was obviously applying pressure, but Fu Qian interpreted it as a sign of respect.

Her impatience was completely normal. After all, she had been eager to go back and take care of her friend just a moment ago.

"I actually do have some inspiration. So, are you ready?"

But there was no way Fu Qian would let her leave that easily. He hadn't called out to stop her just for the fun of it.

When she had turned around at his request, her face had twitched uncontrollably, proving her heart was far less calm than her exterior.

It wasn't surprising. After all, because of his actions, the only effective medicine in the Sanitarium had been desecrated in her eyes.

Even if he had only been posing as the man during his encounter with the Hairpin Woman.

An illness of the heart required medicine of the heart, but the flaw with emotional medicine was that it could easily spoil under specific circumstances.

Even if Mrs. Tracy's male companion returned, he probably wouldn't be of much help to her condition anymore.

In short, he could completely imagine the despair breeding within her. Fu Qian strongly suspected that if he let Madam Dark Room leave the room in her current state, Judgment Day would drastically accelerate.

Yes, emergency damage control—that was the real reason he had stopped her.

Perhaps to Servis, Madam Dark Room's toothache was incredibly tedious.

But when it came to his mission, her bite was likely quite vicious; one snap of her jaws could chew several days off his timeline.

As for how exactly he was going to control the damage after stopping her?

"Are you truly not joking?"

He could hear that even Madam Dark Room was mulling over this question, looking entirely unconvinced.

"You aren't going to..."

Watching Fu Qian stand up and approach her, she seemed to realize something and immediately covered her mouth.

"Relax. I wouldn't knock your teeth out."

Fu Qian naturally understood what Madam Dark Room was thinking.

Given his past behavior and his blatant lack of faith in talk therapy, she was clearly worried that he would resort to violent methods to solve her problem.

He could only chalk it up to the prejudices in people's hearts.

With a long sigh, Fu Qian bypassed her hands and delivered a sharp chop to her neck.

...

It seemed there were no changes. Was the probability of falling into the Well not that high?

Casually catching Madam Dark Room's limp body, Fu Qian kept his gaze fixed on the window.

His final conclusion was that the darkness hadn't changed at all. The night still seemed very long.

Madam Dark Room had actually been rather sharp, but ultimately, not sharp enough.

Knocking her teeth out so they wouldn't hurt anymore was indeed a crude but effective line of thought.

But as everyone knew, an unscrupulous doctor would never cure the root cause if treating the symptoms was an option.

So why knock her teeth out when knocking her unconscious worked just fine?

This way, it provided short-term pain relief without actually curing the problem. Truly perfect.

Of course, it wasn't as if Fu Qian had found a profitable venture and decided to indefinitely collect medical fees.

From the moment he had called her back, he had never actually intended to imitate Mrs. Tracy's male companion and treat her condition.

However, one must keep distinct matters separate. Right now, the only critical issue was how to stabilize this potential time bomb—

If she just walked away, she might lose hope, suffer a mental breakdown, and cause a massive disaster. So, she had to stay.

But fully playing the role of a miracle doctor and completely curing her carried the exact same risks.

Neither thoroughly tightening her emotional knot nor untying it would work; what he needed was to maintain the status quo.

So the final solution was obvious: put her down physically and let her sleep here for a while, buying himself some time to act.

Naturally, there were still risks to this approach. For example, it would be hard to predict her reaction when she woke up.

But on the one hand, he had to act expediently in an emergency, and this was already the lowest-risk way to handle it.

On the other hand, he might not even need that much time. Given how rapidly Judgment Day was approaching, Madam Dark Room might only need a short nap before the grand finale played out.

Not to mention he had deliberately struck her hard to drag out her slumber as much as possible.

The results were reassuring. At the very least, knocking her out didn't seem to trigger the Well of Time.

He could even consider this a standard emergency response method moving forward.

As for what to do next?

Fu Qian took out the set of keys he had grabbed from Mrs. Tracy's male companion. His gaze bypassed a walnut desk and locked onto a specific spot on the wall panel behind it.

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