Chapter 41: The First Deceased

The man was about one meter ninety tall, but what stood out most wasn't his height, but his arms, which hung naturally and easily reached past his knees.

His wingspan was astonishing, to the point where it felt like he could touch the ground with his fists if he bent over just a little.

Judging solely by limb proportions, in Wen Xishu's eyes, this last teammate looked more like an ape than Liu Jinsen did.

Of course, what was most striking was the man's mouth, which was sealed by an iron muzzle. Wen Xishu had only ever seen such an getup in anime.

Usually, once the muzzle was removed, it would trigger some sort of second phase.

However, neither Kai En, Park Meixi, nor Xita were easily intimidated, and they didn't pay much mind to this attire.

"My name is... Zheng Zai." The man spoke with some difficulty.

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

Zheng Zai's voice sounded quite gentle. If not for that iron muzzle, Zheng Zai might have given the impression of a tall, reliable man with a hint of simple honesty.

Wen Xishu noticed that Zheng Zai's gaze would drift toward Xita, the Indian man, from time to time.

"Is there some kind of scent on Xita that attracts him?"

"He is trying to break a certain desire?"

Wen Xishu couldn't help but ask:

"Are you sick?"

Zheng Zai nodded:

"I am sick. But it cannot be cured."

Wen Xishu asked again:

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

Zheng Zai shook his head:

"After the epidemic ended, that hospital stopped being open to ordinary people... I have to earn money, earn enough money in the Mysterious Tower."

Wen Xishu suddenly had a guess:

"Which tower did you go to last time?"

Zheng Zai quite liked it when people asked questions; that way, a certain desire of his would diminish because his attention would be partially diverted:

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

The Mysterious Tower, fourth floor, Level 4 completion.

The Mysterious Tower itself should have bonuses, and with a Level 4 completion, the supplies should be very abundant...

Combining this with Zheng Zai's physical fitness, Wen Xishu said:

"What crime did you commit?"

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

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

"My father... was arrested during an anti-corruption campaign. My family are all prisoners."

It was surprisingly similar to his own fate.

It was just that the term "anti-corruption," combined with the guilt-by-association... Zheng Zai's father must not have been an ordinary person.

Wen Xishu asked one last question:

"How long ago did this happen?"

Zheng Zai looked about thirty years old, but he already seemed somewhat world-weary. He replied:

"Twelve years ago."

"Alright, welcome to our team."

Twelve years ago; it seemed to have no connection to the Wen family.

Wen Xishu did not feel a shred of malice from Zheng Zai, which made him feel quite good.

As for Zheng Zai's illness, perhaps it wasn't an illness at all.

Of course, Wen Xishu couldn't judge that for now.

"Captain, why don't you take the lead?" Wen Xishu suddenly looked at Park Meixi.

Logically speaking, the probability of someone arranged by the upper levels happening to become his teammate was very low, but based on the fact that he was always experiencing various low-probability events, Wen Xishu never relied on luck.

Arranging for Park Meixi to be the captain was partly to observe her, and partly because she might have some intelligence.

At this moment, Xita raised an objection:

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

Wen Xishu looked at Kai En:

"Do you also think this beautiful lady is not suitable to be the captain?"

Kai En shook his head:

"Of course not. Men and women are equal. Hey, this beautiful lady must have rich experience in tower ascension; I am willing to learn from her."

Zheng Zai and Mendemuer said nothing.

Park Meixi asked:

"Why did you choose me to be the captain?"

Wen Xishu seemed to change the subject:

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

Park Meixi frowned:

"This is my first time climbing the Mysterious Tower, how could I know what a parrot represents? Although the highest levels of the bunker promoted the use of the Huaxia language as the official language back then, your language... is very obscure."

"Your writing is simply complex for the sake of being complex."

Wen Xishu said:

"Alright, alright, Ms. Park, I don't expect you to understand the beauty of the Chinese language, but what I want to say is, do you have any memories of parrots in the Tower of Desire?"

Park Meixi seemed to sense that in Wen Xishu's words, there might be a connection between the Tower of Desire and the Mysterious Tower.

She actually valued Wen Xishu's words quite a bit.

After all...

Unlike the others, Park Meixi had indeed come here specifically for Wen Xishu; Wen Xishu's intuition was not wrong.

The six people had already formed a team, and they had less than an hour to prepare for battle.

Park Meixi naturally hoped to survive as well; only by surviving could she have a chance at a better life.

For this mission, the bunker's upper levels—mainly the Administrative Bureau—had arranged for 244 female special agents. Although these women usually only mingled in the lower levels of the Tower of Desire, they each had their own skills.

And the Bunker Security Bureau had also arranged for quite a few non-academy graduates to infiltrate the Mysterious Tower, totaling 450 men.

Students who graduated from the academies were related to the Three Towers Academy and could not be persecuted. But the Security Bureau recruited people from the lower levels every year to do "dirty work," and even cultivated suicide squads.

Nearly seven hundred people were thrown into the Mysterious Tower just to team up with Wen Xishu and obtain the secret to clearing it. All of these people might die; the Bunker Security Bureau and the Administrative Bureau were actually prepared to pay huge compensations for this.

And this was just the ones with official status; as for those without, the true criminals, who knows how many were arranged? Some data was unknown even to Park Meixi herself.

All of this indicated just how important the secret hidden within Wen Xishu was.

Park Meixi said:

"You should know the number one person of the Tower of Desire, Wen Renjing, right?"

Everyone nodded; this name was known to everyone.

Park Meixi continued:

"Wen Renjing once had regrets too. Regarding parrots, all I know is the colorful bird written about by Wen Renjing on the fourth floor..."

"'Even colorful birds can have regrets. She didn't want love; I gave her the wrong thing. At that time, I was greedy for speed and used the wrong method. That was one of the very few Level 1 completions in my life.'"

"'To this day, I still regret why I looked at her so superficially. What the bird wanted was true freedom.'"

Park Meixi said:

"My study of the Huaxia language is indeed insufficient, but I can still read from this that the earlier Wen Renjing expressed great regret over the final fate of that bird."

"You ask me about parrots... all I can think of is the colorful bird."

Wen Xishu nodded:

"See, you are very suitable to be the captain; after all, you have experience that none of us have. Perhaps in this team-up, some things you occasionally recall will be of great help to us."

Park Meixi did not decline.

She believed she hadn't been exposed, and only by not being exposed could she obtain Wen Xishu's intelligence as much as possible.

Otherwise, once the other party became guarded, it would be troublesome.

So she nodded:

"Listening to you, these two birds... are related? If that's really the case, I hope my memory is truly helpful to everyone."

The six-person team was led by Park Meixi, and the six of them also briefly got to know each other.

Except for Wen Xishu and Zheng Zai, everyone else was exploring the Mysterious Tower for the first time, having previously been in other tower systems.

Time passed quickly, and after everyone was prepared, they simultaneously activated their login devices.

……

……

The world of the parrot descended.

Wen Xishu was not surprised; this was certainly not a birdcage. Instead, it was a special room... with doors on all four sides.

Besides the four doors, there was only a chaotic vortex in the room; nothing else.

This room did have a bit of a birdcage feel to it.

Because in Wen Xishu's view, the four doors opening was like an open birdcage, yet the birds dared not fly away. Just like everyone here, hesitating on the spot, waiting for someone to give an order.

【Please choose a door and find the item behind it that needs to be purified. Each item allows two people to leave. The final score will be determined by the number of purifiable items obtained.】

"It seems we need to enter the room and find an item... We have six people, and as long as we find three items, we can all leave," said Mendemuer.

Although he was timid, he hadn't been scared into an inability to think by the scene.

Xita walked to the side of one of the doors:

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

Black vortexes filled every part of their vision. Wen Xishu and the others could not see the scene inside the doors.

Wen Xishu had to admit, brainstorming was necessary. He immediately felt that the doors led to another space.

So if they couldn't see, they could only enter blindly.

But the logic of the Indian man was indeed impossible to fathom; Xita actually thought of... going to take a sniff first.

Heaven knows what scent he smelled that made him feel familiar and fond of it?

However, this did give Wen Xishu a bit of an idea:

"Then let's take this door? Staying here won't help. It seems the four doors lead to four different scenes, and these scenes... will eventually form the birdcage that makes the 'parrot' fall."

"In the four scenes, there are four different items, and we need to find them. If we find one, it should allow two people to leave. Those who leave might achieve a Level 1 completion."

"Whoever finds it can leave, and can designate one person to leave with them. No problem, right?"

Hearing that it was just finding items, everyone felt the difficulty didn't seem high.

Xita said:

"No problem, let's enter quickly, I can't wait."

Zheng Zai also slowly said:

"No, prob, lem."

After entering the Mysterious Tower area, Wen Xishu felt Zheng Zai becoming increasingly eerie; when his eyes looked at Xita, they became more and more terrifying and ferocious.

Xita himself didn't notice, his mind entirely on the scent behind the door that he liked.

Park Meixi had no objections to Wen Xishu's instructions, though she wasn't blindly obedient:

"If we stand here and don't move, will we be forcibly returned safely after seven days? This isn't the Tower of Desire; there isn't a setting where we die if the mission objective doesn't achieve happiness."

This suggestion was very good. In Wen Xishu's view, raising this suggestion could, to a certain extent, reduce his suspicion of Park Meixi.

Because it was reasonable.

Everyone didn't know the danger behind the doors, so waiting on the spot for seven days wasn't impossible.

However, before Wen Xishu could give a reason why they couldn't do that—the variables in the scene had already made everyone realize they couldn't.

Because... Xita felt the door move.

He was the one closest to the door because he had leaned in to sniff it with his nose.

So Xita was the first to feel the subtle movement of the door.

"The door is moving, it's leaning toward us!"

Wen Xishu glanced at Park Meixi:

"Captain, it seems we can't stay here. Assuming one door contains one scene, and there is a strange object in the scene to harm us..."

"Then if we stay here... it will very likely cause all four doors to gather together, and we will enter four scenes simultaneously."

"At that time, the danger and variables will be four times... no, if there are combinations, more than four times."

Park Meixi nodded:

"My oversight, I'll listen to you."

Actually, the pitch-black chaos all around already made Park Meixi uncomfortable; she was afraid of this kind of scene.

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

Wen Xishu didn't expose her thoughts; he didn't hesitate anymore, and even faster than Xita, he was the first to walk into the door.

The others, seeing the chaos swallow Wen Xishu's figure, although they felt a little fear in their hearts, thought of Wen Xishu's statement and entered the doors one by one.

……

……

Books were scattered all over the floor.

If viewed from a high vantage point, one would see a desk taller than a person, with some exercise books and notebooks placed on it; the opened notebooks had traces of fingernails tearing through the pages.

Wen Xishu was the first to enter, and the moment he did, he discovered this was a study.

A huge study.

When he discovered that the palm-sized books were actually half his height, he realized that either he had been shrunk, or everything in this study was larger than conventional human study furnishings.

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

When he looked up, he felt the ceiling was dozens of meters away.

There were many things in the room. A pen holder, a trophy, many books on the bookshelf, a desk, an office desk, a chair, a certificate, a music box...

Everything was larger than he had expected.

Wen Xishu walked in front of a huge, tattered book page.

It was his first time seeing such a huge page, as if a page from an exercise book filled with problems had been stretched out on a massive 65-inch screen.

"This is... first-year junior high exercises?"

The scene was Jiangcheng.

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

He guessed that this might be a place similar to Suzhou or Shanghai.

The room's decoration style didn't show any problems, but the scattered pages and discarded books made it look like it had experienced a fight.

Before Wen Xishu could analyze what the pollutant was and how to find it, he heard the voice of the Indian man, Xita:

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

Xita began to run frantically toward a corner of the room.

If the proportions were normal, this room would be about twenty square meters; even running diagonally would only be a few steps.

But because the proportions had changed, Xita ran for a while, almost at a hundred-meter sprint speed.

At this moment, Wen Xishu, Kai En, Mendemuer, and Zheng Zai all looked at the destination of Xita's sprint—

The things there made Kai En reveal a mysterious smile, while Wen Xishu frowned slightly.

They were women's clothing.

Because they were magnified, the lace panties were enough to cover Xita's entire upper body. And that was indeed what Xita was thinking.

Like a pervert, he frantically wanted to press his whole body against them.

When a person is in a state of hunger, their sense of smell becomes sharp.

But perhaps only the Indian race would have such a change in that regard.

Xita was actually able to smell the scent on the women's clothing from behind the door, a distance of actually dozens of meters; Wen Xishu had to admire him.

But at this moment, Wen Xishu also saw the barrage.

From Zheng Zai.

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

Wen Xishu suddenly had a feeling that a big scene was about to happen.

Not long after Xita's wild run, Zheng Zai finally couldn't control himself; his reason was trying to control his body not to move, but his limbs had already begun to twitch involuntarily.

It looked just like a zombie.

At the same time, Xita had already rushed in front of the huge clothing.

But suddenly, Xita stopped his steps again.

Because in his mind, a piece of information appeared:

【You have found an item; it has traces of sin on it. Do you want to purify it?】

There was a pollutant in the room that needed to be purified; as long as this item was found, one could obtain the opportunity to leave the Mysterious Tower and receive at least a Level 1 completion reward.

As soon as Xita saw that there were traces of sin on it, combined with the fact that his brain was overly excited by the scent of the woman, he barely thought and chose to purify it.

In this instant, the study, which had previously only looked a bit messy, changed.

An eerie aura descended in this moment, and the huge music box that Wen Xishu had noticed from the beginning suddenly emitted music.

Wen Xishu seemed to have guessed this development; he even guessed why Xita had paused, because when he touched the book page, he had received the same prompt.

It was just that Wen Xishu chose "Refuse to Purify."

This game was about finding items; if it were in the Tower of Desire, perhaps there would be no penalty for mistakes, but this was the Mysterious Tower—once found incorrectly, there would inevitably be a penalty.

So Wen Xishu refused to purify.

At this moment, he could have warned Xita, but he didn't.

His eyes were as cold as polar ice, and the playfulness in the depths of his pupils made him look like a troll.

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

【Good girl, you really know how to hide, so you're here; today's lesson is very tight!】

This voice was full of grease, making one feel disgusted, especially Park Meixi, who instantly thought of those fat leaders in the upper levels.

Not long after the voice fell, everyone saw a terrifying scene: the strange object hidden in the items finally revealed its figure.

Wen Xishu began to look for a hiding place; he didn't look at what was happening.

He only guessed from the prompt that he had to hide next. He didn't share this information with anyone.

"Sorry, Liu sir, of course I want to be a good person, provided that in the game rules, a good person can live to the end."

Xita didn't know what he was encountering, and let out a shrill scream.

The first teammate met his death.

(The word count of this chapter should be more than yesterday's two chapters, but there is still one more chapter! Will be posted in the afternoon.)

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 42 =====