Strange Building and Madman

The madman's footsteps and sinister laughter drew closer and closer.

He was in the corridor outside the room.

This old-fashioned apartment building resembled an old hospital from the nineties. Each floor had many rooms, divided into left and right by a straight hallway.

The bathrooms and laundry areas were communal, usually located at the end of the corridor, just like the stairwell.

Wen Xishu lay beneath the bed and waited patiently.

He wore a smile, and his calm expression gave Jennifer a strange sense of security.

Her heart, which had been pounding wildly with fear, gradually returned to a normal rhythm.

Even so, the madman's footsteps would not stop.

Wen Xishu did not panic.

He had avoided the first death point—the opening kill—which convinced him that the dangers here followed a pattern.

He had noticed that everyone in the Bunker referred to exploring the three towers as the Three Towers Game.

That meant every dangerous situation, like a game, had some method of clearing it.

"Never lose your head just because the footsteps are getting closer."

Wen Xishu began waiting patiently.

As the footsteps continued to approach and Jennifer fell into terror again, Wen Xishu first made a shushing gesture.

All those experiences from his previous life where he could not leave bad reviews had given him an exceptionally strong heart.

Then Wen Xishu picked up his phone, quickly opened the notes app, and typed one-handed:

"Don't be afraid. Stay quiet. Do whatever I tell you to do. Blink if you understand."

Jennifer blinked.

"Good girl."

Wen Xishu relaxed.

After calming Jennifer down, he continued waiting.

Just as the madman's footsteps seemed to reach the door, as though he were about to open it—

The madman spoke again:

"Dear Jenny, are you going to stay quiet like Remian?"

"He hid for quite a while, but I already smashed his brain to pieces. Hehehe."

"He can't slander me over the phone anymore. Never again! He can't! Now, he's Silent Remian!"

The footsteps shattered the floorboards. Mentioning that final sentence had clearly sent the madman into a rage.

Wen Xishu felt the entire building shaking.

That made him realize that the monsters in the Strange Tower likely possessed supernatural powers.

But he still did not panic:

"Unlike the previous times, the madman mentioned someone named Remian this time."

"He was angry because Remian often slandered him over the phone."

"The key information should be Silent Remian and the phone."

As though he had seen through the boss's windup, Wen Xishu realized this was a breakthrough.

He decisively opened his phone again, his fingers calmly scrolling through the contacts list.

Sure enough, he found Remian.

And when he stared at Remian, an illusory dialog box actually popped up.

But what it contained made his head feel dizzy.

It was full of garbled characters.

"It really is a game. Certain special places or items provide hints."

"But it's probably because my Magic Resistance is too low. I should have been able to see some information about Remian here..."

"But now, that information has been completely blocked, and staring at it can even affect my thoughts."

Wen Xishu looked away.

"It's fine. Even if I don't know Remian's information, I can still guess what I need to do."

The sound of the doorknob turning came from outside. The madman was about to enter the room.

Jennifer's pupils trembled. She was terrified to the extreme, afraid that a grotesque face would suddenly peer beneath the bed and excitedly say, "Found you."

But at that moment, Wen Xishu called Remian.

Silent Remian, slandering people over the phone, the madman's unusual rage...

To Wen Xishu, those clues practically told him exactly how to dismantle the boss's next move.

A phone suddenly rang upstairs, and the madman's footsteps abruptly stopped.

It was not just upstairs. After that first ringtone sounded, phones began ringing from almost every direction, filling the entire building.

It was like a thousand phones suddenly going off at once in the middle of a sleeping midnight.

"Another supernatural phenomenon... This building seems to amplify the madman's inner thoughts," Wen Xishu silently analyzed.

The enormous, chaotic chorus of ringtones enraged the madman:

"Remian! You're still alive! I'm going to kill you! I'm going to stomp your head to pieces!"

"So noisy! So noisy! You little coward who chirps behind people's backs!"

In an instant, the voice moved from this room to several floors above.

Wen Xishu smiled at Jennifer and rapidly typed with the astonishing speed of a man who had been single for years:

"See? I told you there was no problem. Now we can leave this room."

Wen Xishu calmly crawled out from beneath the bed, like some Mr. Wang regaining his manhood after the wronged husband had left.

Tears glimmered in Jennifer's eyes. The madman's footsteps had clearly frightened her badly.

But Wen Xishu gave her a sense of security once again.

Ghoul Jennifer's favorability increased slightly. Desire Jennifer's favorability increased slightly.

A message appeared in Wen Xishu's mind.

Wen Xishu was a little confused. Jennifer existed in both the Desire Tower and the Strange Tower?

Was the Desire Tower's mission also to rescue Jennifer?

Wen Xishu did not dwell on the question. He wanted to take Jennifer toward the exit downstairs and leave this building as quickly as possible.

He had avoided the opening kill and found a way to lure the madman away. That meant he had already bypassed two death points.

As he left the building, Wen Xishu began reading the notes on his phone.

"I'm playing someone who came to rescue Jennifer."

"When I arrived here, the person I was playing had already made contact with Jennifer."

"They should have spoken before."

His guess was correct. The notes contained the following—

"Something happened to Uncle Jack. He suddenly went mad. He killed Uncle Remian, and a lot of people in the building!"

"I'm scared. I want to leave, but Mom told me to hide under the bed and not leave."

Those were Jennifer's words.

The little girl was actually very smart. She had known from the beginning to communicate using a phone. The rescuer had also asked a question:

"Were you and Jack close?"

Jennifer's answer was this:

"Uncle Jack likes Mom. He and Uncle Remian both like Mom, but Mom doesn't like them..."

"Mom said she would definitely take me to live in a brighter apartment building. She doesn't want to have too much contact with the poor people in this building. She's going to live in a villa."

"But... I like the people here very much, especially Uncle Jack."

"Uncle Jack used to be a very nice person. He often played with me. He didn't play with me just to make Mom happy."

"He really liked playing with me. I liked playing with him too."

"I don't know why Uncle Jack became like this."

Wen Xishu quickly finished reading everything.

"It looks like this is the backstory of a certain area on the twenty-first floor of the Strange Tower."

A good man suddenly went mad, gained supernatural powers, and then slaughtered all his neighbors...

Wen Xishu had a feeling that if he only escaped, he would probably achieve only the lowest Completion Level.

Ensuring Jennifer survived might earn a second or even third Completion Level.

But to reach the fourth Completion Level, he would have to do more.

Just then, he discovered another terrible problem—

Loop Building.

At the end of the corridor, there should originally have been stairs leading to the next floor or the floor above.

But Wen Xishu led Jennifer down the corridor for a long time... only to return to where they had started.

A ghostly loop. The Loop Building. The stairs that had been there were gone.

At that moment, the entire building began shaking slightly again. The eerie phone ringtones disappeared completely.

Because Remian's phone, along with Remian's corpse that had been destroyed a second time, had been stomped into mush.

"Damn Remian! You little bastard who nags behind people's backs! Damn it! Damn it!"

"Jen—ni—fer! Let's go watch my performance together! I practiced at home for so long. You'll come, right?"

The target of his words had shifted back to Jennifer once more.

Wen Xishu could feel that Jack the madman was already very close to them.

The eerie, perverted laughter made Wen Xishu think of spiderwebs clinging to his body, enough to drive anyone mad.

Unable to see an exit, Jennifer's eyes filled with tears. She truly did not know what to do, and wanted to hide beneath the bed from before again.

But Wen Xishu suddenly grabbed her. With utter calm, he held his phone screen toward Jennifer:

"Good girl, don't be afraid. I've got everything under control."

"Now tell me where Jack's room is. We're going to watch his performance."