Chapter 54: Speedrunning the Tower of Anomalies

On the twenty-first floor of the Tower of Desire, Wen Xishu found Jack and helped him eliminate the "Corrupter" lurking in the shadows.

Thus, the original objective of the twenty-first floor of the Bizarre Tower—rescuing Jennifer—turned into escorting Jennifer.

Facts proved that altering the destiny trajectory of characters in the Tower of Desire could also change the overall ending of the Bizarre Tower.

It was like this last time, and it was like this this time. The puzzle that had originally perplexed Wen Xishu instantly found its answer the moment he touched the invitation letter.

[Due to changes in the plot of the Tower of Desire, Floor 6 of the Bizarre Tower, "The Parrot's Sorrow," will be rebooted.]

[All players currently participating in this mission (excluding the holder of the invitation letter) will have their memory modules updated synchronously.]

[Updating memory modules.]

[The Bizarre Tower is initiating logic repair simulations.]

[Simulation starting.]

[After that rainy night of extreme madness, the parrot was no longer a parrot. Its wings were strong and powerful, and it could finally fly toward the sky.]

[Only the wounds deep within the soul could never heal; the items hidden in the three rooms still awaited purification.]

[The predestined betrayal and abandonment did not arrive; Lu Tangrui completed her ascension journey, and the fourth door completely disappeared.]

[Within the region of Jiangcheng, Gui Tangrui constructed her own territory through sequences based on the fear deep within her heart.]

[The end is near. All living beings with the prefixes "Gui" and "Lu" will divide their respective domains and will not easily come into contact with other entities of the same level.]

[Anyone who trespasses into these domains without authorization risks being killed.]

[Hidden within Gui Tangrui's domain are three items that need purification—puzzles that only specific people can solve. She is waiting for the arrival of that person.]

[She has left a gift for that person.]

[On this day, you have received a mission to venture into that domain. This is the guidance of fate, but only those favored by fortune and endowed with wisdom can walk out of the domain.]

Simulation ended.

The world before Wen Xishu's eyes began to disintegrate, signaling his imminent teleportation back to the Bizarre Tower.

Countless guesses surfaced in his mind.

"So Tangrui really did forgive her parents in the near future, and as a result, suffered a devastating betrayal."

"This is also the fourth door. This betrayal left her even more fragmented, turning her from then on into a different kind of Lu Tangrui."

"So, what I did prevented the arrival of the fourth despair, and thus... the fourth door disappeared. No wonder Tangrui said in the truth-telling game that there was no fourth time—it turned out the fourth time hadn't arrived yet. Of course, it's impossible for it to arrive now anyway."

"Next, I only need to explore the three scenes. Hmm, that last sentence: 'only those favored by fortune and endowed with wisdom can walk out of the domain'..."

"The 'endowed with wisdom' refers to someone who can purely piece together various clues from the Bizarre Tower to solve the puzzles."

"And the 'favored by fortune'... wait, the favored one wouldn't happen to be me, would it?"

His brain began to spin with dizzying madness. Everything in Wen Xishu's field of vision disintegrated and then reassembled, countless white lines constructing the scenes within the Bizarre Tower.

When the dizziness in his brain finally subsided, he had returned to his original position. What greeted his eyes were the familiar scenery and—the familiar barrage of chat comments.

[I want revenge! I want revenge! I want revenge!]

Park Mi-hee still maintained a look of heartbreak over Zheng Zai, and Zheng Zai still maintained his posture of pounding the ground with both fists in agony.

Wen Xishu's consciousness finally returned from the Tower of Desire to the Bizarre Tower. Whether he was the one favored by fortune or not didn't actually matter.

What mattered was that at this moment, he knew how to clear the Bizarre Tower.

He took a deep breath:

"Zheng Zai, stop pounding the ground. No matter what you want to do, you have to survive first."

Another potential seed of slaughter, Wen Xishu evaluated Zheng Zai thus.

If Zheng Zai were Gui Zhengzai, Wen Xishu would be very happy to analyze the case of Zheng Zai's father and untie the knots in Zheng Zai's heart.

Unfortunately, Zheng Zai belonged to the Bunker, and everyone would eventually return to the Bunker. To run amok in the Bunker, there was still a very long way to go.

However, he would definitely settle accounts with the Bunker's higher-ups for what they had done to him.

Given this stance, Zheng Zai was actually a suitable person to win over.

It was just that Wen Xishu still needed to observe Zheng Zai further.

"I have great sympathy for what you've been through, and I will bring you back alive. Now, pull yourself together, understand?" Wen Xishu said in a friendly tone.

He had already switched back to his other persona, roughly similar to Gui Wen Xishu.

"But... there are only three of us now. This room is too huge; either the room has been magnified, or we've been shrunk. In short, for us now, finding that pollutant in such a huge room is... going to be very difficult, right?"

The speaker was Park Mi-hee.

Park Mi-hee wasn't actually wrong. If they searched item by item, clearing the level would be extremely difficult because the Bizarre Tower had an anti-afk mechanism.

According to Wen Xishu's analysis, this anti-afk mechanism would make their active area smaller and smaller.

Wen Xishu said:

"The answer is actually quite simple. I already know what the item that needs purification is."

Park Mi-hee was startled, and Zheng Zai also turned around, looking with a hint of awe at this teenager who was several years younger than him.

"You know what the item is, so you actually... deliberately let Kane and Mender还会er and the others..."

Park Mi-hee voiced the conclusion she had already guessed.

Wen Xishu said:

"Yes, they were far too evil, and each of them carried heavy sins. I do not cooperate with them."

"Before I solve the puzzle here, I need to ask you one thing: how many doors were there when we first came in?"

***

Zheng Zai and Park Mi-hee were a bit puzzled because this question was far too simple.

"Three... three doors, right? Why are you asking this?" Park Mi-hee said.

Wen Xishu thought to himself that as expected, apart from himself who held the invitation letter, everyone else's memories had been replaced.

He had wanted to test the effect of the invitation letter last time. Although the prompt gave hints, some things still needed to be tested firsthand.

This result still made Wen Xishu feel shaken.

Because within the Three Towers, the Bunker people could alter the destiny trajectories of the Three Towers people and anchor memories...

Yet, if one were to analyze the entire matter in reverse, could it also be interpreted as—the Three Towers were actually altering the memories of the Bunker people as well?

Under the effect of the Deranged Die, Wen Xishu could use the rules and powers of the other two towers inside the Tower of Desire.

But inside the Bunker, except for specific areas, even the Deranged Die failed to function.

The Bunker seemed to be a tower even more confining than the Tower of Desire.

However, these speculations were far too distant. Wen Xishu quickly pulled his thoughts back to reality:

"Ah, nothing is wrong. Alright, let's get down to business. This is a study, and there are many exercises placed here. If we study these exercises, we will find they are competition-level problems."

Zheng Zai's eyes widened in sheer admiration, mostly because—even though his academic performance was fairly decent—he had no idea these were competition-level problems.

Because the Bunker had abolished academic competitions a long time ago.

This was also true for Park Mi-hee. Park Mi-hee actually didn't know much about the Wen family's second young master; she had only crammed temporarily upon receiving the mission.

She only knew that the Wen family's second young master was a madman, but now it seemed... he wasn't mad, and much like Wen Renjing, he possessed a vast amount of knowledge about the world of the Tower of Desire.

The difficulty of early Bunker student exercises was very high because among the earliest people to enter the Bunker was a man named Mr. Jin, who was a genuine Longxia person.

He was a figure comparable in renown to Albert Napolitano. Later on, he seemed to have gone to the Council of Elders and became mysterious.

It was precisely because of Mr. Jin that the language of the Bunker became Longxia instead of Italian. This was why everyone spoke the same language.

In the early days, Mr. Jin relied on his formidable strength to unify various decrees, unify the language, unify the Bunker currency, and unify the Bunker culture.

However, there was one catch: Longxia people were far too formidable in their learning capacity.

They were not even satisfied with ordinary exercises and began doing more advanced exercises, namely competition-level problems.

The most absurd part was that the ingrained competitive drive in the bones of Longxia people resulted in exceptionally high learning intensity for their children.

When exams were too difficult, only the group of people capable of solving those problems benefited. And the selection for all kinds of high-level positions naturally came from that group with good grades.

As the saying goes: "Do not worry about scarcity, but rather about uneven distribution." Thus, under collective protests, the difficulty of various exam questions in the Bunker was lowered considerably, shifting from the standard difficulty of Longxia's Huanggang level to the easy difficulty of Freedom Country's happy education level.

All kinds of hell-difficulty exercise competitions were also canceled.

Of course, there was another major reason that caused this magical, surreal situation—the Bunker did not have particularly harsh cultural requirements. The Bunker's core demand was to cultivate people capable of exploring the Three Towers.

From Park Mi-hee's perspective, Wen Xishu's generation could not possibly have come into contact with such esoteric knowledge, which meant he must have learned it outside the Bunker, from the world of the Three Towers.

A deeper dread toward Wen Xishu took root in her heart, implying that Wen Xishu's timeline for exploring the Three Towers was extremely early.

"We need to observe the structure of the study, combine it with the dialogue when the monster appeared, and... that piece of women's clothing, as well as the music box's melody, to make a comprehensive judgment."

"The music box is destined not to be the item that needs purification, because it was merely a method used by the girl to mask her screams when she was being harmed."

"Its existence lacks the nature of a source."

Wen Xishu was looking at the problem with the answer already in mind. He said:

"The item that truly needs purification is that award certificate we ignored from the very beginning."

Actually, everyone had noticed these elements the first time they entered—

The pen holder placed in the room, the trophy, the many books on the bookshelf, the desk, the office desk, the chair, the award certificate, the music box...

Both Park Mi-hee and Zheng Zai seemed to have guessed something.

Wen Xishu nodded and said:

"The fundamental reason this child came here for tutoring and suffered harm was because her parents expected her to win awards."

"To her, that was an award certificate bearing sin. It was the product of gathered vanity, and also the source of her suffering."

The feeling of looking at a problem with the answer in hand was inexplicably quite satisfying. This time, Wen Xishu did not play the game of "who goes to die."

He walked toward the award certificate himself, full of confidence. But regardless of anything else, in Park Mi-hee's eyes, this scene was still somewhat crazy.

Was he really... completely free of doubt regarding his own judgment?

Yes, Wen Xishu had zero doubts about his own judgment; after all, he had already cleared the hidden mission of the Tower of Desire.

[This item conceals an unyielding sin. Are you sure you want to purify it?]

Without hesitation, Wen Xishu chose to purify it.

The moment his hand touched the award certificate, Park Mi-hee could barely bring herself to watch.

Zheng Zai, on the other hand, had glowing eyes, as if he were seeing Wen Xishu in a completely new light. The awe in his eyes deepened.

No black smoke appeared, no monsters appeared, and the music box did not play.

Everything was completely tranquil. Until a prompt appeared in everyone's mind.

[Someone in your team has unraveled the puzzle and is about to proceed to the next room.]

And the prompt Wen Xishu received was:

[You have found a contaminated item. You may choose to end the Three Towers game early and head to the Guide's location, or you may choose to take one teammate back with you.]

[Or, do you wish to delve deeper into the game?]

Park Mi-hee looked pleadingly at Wen Xishu. She genuinely hoped Wen Xishu would take her away from here and back to the Bunker right then and there.

Wen Xishu knew what was on Park Mi-hee's mind, but he had no intention of letting her go.

A door appeared in the center of the room, standing straight and tall. This meant that the current scenario had concluded.

Wen Xishu said:

"Let's go, don't waste time. We're heading to the second door and striving to return to the Bunker in an hour."

"Zheng Zai, are you willing to accompany me to collect all the items?"

Zheng Zai felt his blood boiling. He truly liked Wen Xishu's reckless drive. He nodded fiercely:

"I'll listen to you!"

Park Mi-hee gave Wen Xishu a deep look, knowing she couldn't leave.

She only hoped she could survive in the hands of this freak. Even if it meant using her body to serve Wen Xishu, she would do it.

When the eerie door appeared in the middle of the huge study, Wen Xishu was the first to step through it.

"Such nerve and talent... Is he really Wen Xishu?"

This thought flashed across Zheng Zai's mind, but because it was too absurd, he dismissed it as impossible.

Park Mi-hee was the last to enter the eerie door standing in the middle of the room.

***

The second scenario was, just as Wen Xishu had guessed, a bedroom.

This bedroom was located in that old residential complex in Jiangcheng, the place where Tang Fangting and Cheng Yingna lived.

The bedroom was a standard female student's bedroom. Clearly, there should have been a family atmosphere here, but instead, it was rigidly and overwhelmingly piled high with various books and exercise workbooks.

There were many items, yet not a single thing like a plush toy could be found.

In the corner sat a guitar, but it was shattered and ruined. On the bedroom desk, there was also a bowl of meticulously brewed sweet soup.

It exuded a black aura, causing everyone to notice it at first glance.

Unlike the first scenario—this time Wen Xishu, Park Mi-hee, and Zheng Zai all held paper and pens in their hands.

These were the starting items.

"This second scenario actually looks narrower than the first... But it feels like we've become a bit smaller. The actual space has grown larger instead."

The speaker was Zheng Zai, who noticed that compared to the previous scenario, the objects here seemed larger.

"Do you think that bowl of soup might be the item we're looking for?" Park Mi-hee looked at Wen Xishu.

Wen Xishu smiled:

"You can go try it. Actively purifying the item will earn you extra points from me."

Park Mi-hee, of course, didn't dare. Right now, she looked entirely like someone who had learned her lesson and was begging to be spared.

Zheng Zai said:

"Should I give it a try?"

Wen Xishu shook his head:

"Zheng Zai, don't rush."

Wen Xishu actually knew what the answer was; it was definitely not that bowl of sweet soup.

The sweet soup exuding a black aura was the medicine that destroyed the girl's dream. After that, the girl's voice became hoarse.

That was painful, but the true root of the pain did not lie there. Just like the music box, it was merely a smoke screen.

Wen Xishu chose to wait because he wanted to see what kind of method this round's anti-afk mechanism would use.

He didn't wait long.

Soon, the black aura in the room began to coalesce. Park Mi-hee's legs went soft with fright, and she almost lost her footing.

Unlike the previous time which featured black tentacles, this time, what appeared in the room... were countless eyes.

In mid-air, on the walls, on the ceiling, on the bed, and even inside the drawers. Under the gaze of these eyes, the room had no blind spots.

"Tentacles symbolize sex and violence. Eyes symbolize absolute desire for control."

"She had experienced devastation, and she had also experienced surveillance."

Wen Xishu thought silently in his heart; Tangrui's past was indeed oppressive.

"What should we do... hide like the last round?" Park Mi-hee looked to Wen Xishu for help.

Realizing there was no escape, Zheng Zai intended to step in front of Wen Xishu to draw as much attention as possible.

Wen Xishu took note of both of their actions.

[Our good child, you must develop the habit of keeping a diary. Every single thing at school, whether good or bad, must be written down.]

The prompt appeared in everyone's mind.

Wen Xishu was actually waiting for this. He had to put on a show and act a little, otherwise directly purifying the item upon entering the room would look far too fake.

"Still, this prompt is far too simple and direct," Wen Xishu thought.

At the same time, Wen Xishu said:

"I already know everything. Later on, just do whatever I say."