Feng Bujue shone his flashlight around to see the general situation there. After confirming that there were no traps or something like that, he swaggered there.
The corpse had long become a skeleton. From the bones, he could recognize that this was a male. Apparently, after he died, wild animals had been playing with his corpse for a while. He was probably dragged here from somewhere else, but it was hard to tell where was his death scene though.
The clothes on the corpse must have been soon dragged by the other wild animals. Feng Bujue crouched down next to the skeleton to check it. Soon, he found a small iron box in one of the pockets of the corpse’s clothes.
The iron box looked as thin as a finger, around the size of a small photo. Perhaps it was used to carry photos. The box had some rust, which was a normal phenomenon in such humid environment. Feng Bujue took out his dagger and attempted to open the box from its edges.
There was no photo inside the box, only a pencil and a folded piece of paper which was filled with words.
[Name: A Message from the Unknown Dead]
[Type: Related to the plot]
[Quality: Shabby]
[Functions: Unknown]
[Being able to be brought out of the scenario: No]
[Remarks: Although you’ve found this, you don’t need to read it at this moment. Once you read the content, everything would never be the same.]
At the first glance, Feng Bujue felt something odd with the item’s properties and the remarks. It seemed it was something important that the dead had left there. But what about ‘don’t need to read at this moment’?
"Would it... change the plot if I read this paper?" Feng Bujue mumbled, "‘Do not need to read it’… Now, there’s only me in this scenario. In the next two hours, I just need to be careful and 90% that I could finish the game. However, if by any chance I happen to read this… it would bring some bad changes…"
If there were another player, he would give it up immediately. But to Feng Bujue, this was his Achilles heel. If you find a beauty to seduce him, he could let the girl sit in his lap without a small surge in his heart; but if you put a pile of papers in front of him and tell him that no one could explain or reason these details, he will absolutely storm over and grab them.
At this moment, Feng Bujue’s reading addiction had burst out—he felt unbearably itchy. Unless there was a teammate like Like Rain to take it away from his sight, he must read it.
He unfolded the piece of paper and shone his flashlight on it. Turned out it was written in Russian.
Feng Bujue’s heart slightly sank as an extremely horrible thought popped up in his mind, which turned out to be true in the next couple minutes.
Although this novelist reasoning was kind of a genius, he didn’t know Russian. Fortunately, the system had the translation function, so the Chinese translation appeared in his menu.
[If someone saw this letter, I’m dead already. This is good for me, as a relief, and I deserve it.]
[My name is Zaroff, the owner of this island. Perhaps you have met someone addressing himself as General Zaroff in the castle. Perhaps not yet. No matter what, you should know he is a counterfeit. He’s called Rainsford.]
[I have invented a hunting game, in which I was hunting down human preys. Rainsford used to be my prey, also the only survivor in my game. I can still recall every detail of that hunt. He was very excellent in using only one dagger to kill a Malaysian trapper and catch a Burmese tiger. I was also a good person. I have taken the upper hand many times, but I was kind enough to let him go.]
[He survived up to the third day and won the game. I lost, but my mood wasn’t bad since it was an exciting hunting game for me. As I had promised, I let him recover in the castle and then I gave him enough food and water for his trip on a sailing boat to leave the island.]
[I thought that I would never meet Mister Rainsford again in this life. Unexpectedly, he came to the island again six months later.]
[He told me that after he had left the island, he started to miss our game and that the other kind of entertainment couldn’t stir him up. He thought he wanted to join me.]
[At first, I didn’t accept his request, and I also wanted him to leave. However, he did not hesitate to make himself a prey and beg me again.]
[I thought I’m a crazy man, but at that moment, I knew he was truly insane.]
[So I had the second game with him. Moreover, I had declared that I wouldn’t give him mercy. If he could survive my hunt for three days, I would let him be my hunting partner.]
[I had never expected that he would succeed again, even easier than the previous time. I didn’t even know how he did it. In those three days, he hadn’t appeared once in my shooting range. He seemed to be able to listen to things from very far away. Before I can approach him, he had already left with a speed even faster than mine. His traces showed that he was as agile as a monkey, however, I couldn’t understand why he seemed not to need food, excretion, sleep or rest.]
[On the third day, I had released three hounds and made them chase after Rainsford. Later on, I only found three dead dogs. None of them died because of traps or cuts from daggers. Someone had killed them barehanded.]
[Afterwards, Rainsford started to hunt with me. Since then, his behaviors had become very strange, always asking me to trap more people here. I told him if we caused too many troubles in the sea, the government would notice us. However, he was like a greedy addict who could never be satisfied.]
[He had improved the traps in the sea and started to import more wild animals. I told him that those animals could harm us too, but he ignored me. Rainsford then completely lost his mind. He is 10 times crazier and crueler than me.]
[Nine days ago, I thought I would kill him when he was asleep. This is not an act of a gentleman, but I have no other choice. Maybe I have created this demon, so now I have to finish him myself.]
[When I was sneaking into his room, he was already waiting for me behind the door, wearing a sinister grin on his face.]
[Ivan pushed me from behind and subdued me. He then threw me into the cell. He was my most loyal servant and he would never betray me. I’m not superstitious, but I could only assume that Rainford had controlled Ivan through some kind of mysterious spells, so it could explain many things.]
[Today, I’m a prey. During the past nine days, Rainsford always knows where I am. I know that, but he will never come to see me or kill me. Moreover, he will never let me approach the castle or leave the island. He wants me to die hopelessly in the mouths of those wild animals. Being torn apart by the claws of my ‘preys’, it will be the best mockery he got for me, a great and proud hunter.]
[On the fourth day, I met a dying sailor. He got ambushed by a tiger. He told me that there was a man who called himself General Zaroff and forced them to play a game. At that moment, I understood that I was replaced.]
[Everything is coming to an end now. I have wounds all over my body, and I have a fever. I don’t know for how long I haven’t closed my eyes. If death is coming for me sooner or later, at this moment, I only hope that it will come to me serenely and quickly.]
[I’m writing this not for my repentance or my redemption. I just thought I should leave a message to someone… Rainsford is not a human. He’s an unknown evil incarnation.]
[Hurry! Get away from here! As far as possible! Even if you have to drown yourself in the sea, don’t stay on the island!]