Feng Bujue didn't worry that he would be over within one shot. Under the given circumstance that he had four Contra Medals, the first four deaths were just a kind of using consumable items. Currently, unless he got disconnected or retreated purposely, in Single Player Survival Mode Nightmare difficulty level, there were only two cases of failure. The first one, he had used up all the four Medals and got killed for the fifth time. The second one, according to what the BOSS said through the speaker, [Once the poison burst out, you will be judged as failing the scenario], this meant, when his 92 minutes ran up, he would be declared failed.
In short, no matter what was waiting for him in the first corridor, in the worst case, Feng Bujue only had to die once. The factor that directly led to failure in clearing the scenario didn't exist. Of course, if it did exist, this factor would be completely unknown. However, this possibility was small and unreasonable. It was like when you play Super Mario, and the description says that you only die when you jump into the holes or your time is up. Turns out, when you just bump to the brick, it explodes… Apparently, this would turn into a game with a different nature…
After yelling for a while but receiving no answer, Feng Bujue held up his arms, determinedly walked forward, moving his body to face the corridor behind the first door. He was ready to receive a headshot. Unexpectedly, no one was in the hallway in front of him.
Neither the shooter nor weapon. The corridor was empty.
The shooter had shot out from a very far distance that naked eyes couldn't see, perhaps? And the gunshot had traveled through the whole corridor to get there? Feng Bujue thought.
If it happened this way, he could confirm that the weapon the other had used wasn't the Kill In One Shot pistol. Because this gun couldn't work with the targets out of the user's line of sight. If not, when the user just pointed the gun towards the sky or an empty corridor, no one knew how many people at the horizon would get hit.
As for what kind of weapon used by the shooter... based on the distance, a sniper rifle was the biggest suspect. But if a person's neck were to be pierced by a 12.7 mm caliber and above sniper bullet, it would absolutely not be the kind of penetration and blood spraying out effect just now, but rather, the whole head should fall off.
But if it was just a standard gun, how could it reach such precise range and accuracy? Had the shooter installed the sniper scope on the Kill In One Shot pistol? Or perhaps the shooter got some skill that allowed him to observe a far far away distance, like the hawk's eyes or something?
Another suspicion was that if the other did shoot out from a really far distance, he certainly didn't hear Feng Bujue's surrender declaration. So… What was he doing now? If he lay still at his spot, he would see Feng Bujue coming to the door. Or after he had killed the man, he dropped the gun and ran away? If he had run away, which direction he was heading to? This side, or the other end of the corridor?
"If the other can see me, and moreover, he is me, he can notice that the other guy and I aren't the same Feng Bujue. If he couldn't distinguish us, he should have recognized that his first shot didn't succeed and launched the next shot already. But he didn't… Is it the 'cool down' time of his skill or weapon?" Feng Bujue wondered, "No… Not that."
He dropped his arms, entering the first door neither slowly nor hurriedly. He was carefully observing the floor, the walls, and the ceiling of the corridor ahead while walking forward in an attempt to find some clues.
Feng Bujue crossed out the assumption of long-range shooting, although it could explain why he had heard only the footsteps of the escapee and his voice, and why there was no sound in the corridor after the gunshot. However, there was another explanation for the case of an empty corridor, much simpler. It was also the more reasonable explanation at this stage.
"They are all illusions…" said Feng Bujue. "The previous 'me' and the gunshot are just the information my hearing and sight had caught, but there's no body or cartridge, and even the bloodstain on the ground had turned into a white halo and disappeared…" He turned, looking at the fan-shaped lobby. " He said 'All are wrong' and 'You mustn't… again,' it indicates that I had taken this way and it's not the right way so I shouldn't follow it again?" He rubbed his chin. "Well, think about the other way around… I should leave this effect aside and take this path?"
Indeed, he couldn't find anything abnormal around. This corridor looked exactly the same with the corridor section he had walked through before. Even if it didn't have any significant feature, and every part looked identical, there was no footprint left on the floor. He turned back to the fan-shaped lobby, stayed there for more than ten seconds, but there was still no sign of a FLAG that had been triggered.
Looking at the four doors in front of him, and the four paths behind, Feng Bujue mused. "According to the standard rationality, each of the four paths would lead to one of the four chemical bottles, but if it's another situation, in which there's only one correct path to take, leading to the all four chemical bottles while the other three lead to death…"
He scratched his head. "Or… two hallways lead to the chemical bottles, and the other two are the deadly ways. Or, three of them are the correct ways and the only one left is the dead end road." He shifted his look to the first door. "Should the previous event be a hint or an interference… or I'm just overthinking about the time and space overlapping, or…"
"Ah..." Feng Bujue looked up at the ceiling. "Such a simple background and too little clues, what should I do…"
Although from the beginning of the chapter until here, Jue-Ge's thinking process and actions have been pictured with more than one thousand words, in fact, he had spent only two minutes walking back and forth. In simple words, what he had done could be described: dodge to the door, think, make some steps forward, think, return to the fan-shaped lobby, then think again.
According to the brief introduction of the plot, from the time Feng Bujue had regained his mobility until now, it was 17 minutes. And from the moment he had heard the key word '92 minutes' from the speaker, it was 16 minutes. It wasn't a big difference. No matter which point of time he would use as the standard, this 1 minute difference could be negligible.
Currently, he could divide the required average period of time to find the four chemical bottles. 92 minutes can be split into four sessions, each has 23 minutes. In other words, at every 23 minutes, Feng Bujue had to find a bottle. This was how he could be able to make the antidote before the poison burst out.
At this moment, he hadn't seen the shadow of the first bottle yet. If he still lingered here, it wouldn't be a good solution. Thus, he turned around and entered the third corridor.