Chapter 2775: Chapter 2770: 13 Stories of the 13th (27)

It really is here.

Without any politeness, the next second Fu Qian had already pulled open a Dark Gate behind the desk; inside, sure enough, was an old-fashioned safe embedded in the wall.

Facing the heavy black steel of the safe, Fu Qian compared it with the key in his hand and confirmed that the size matched the keyhole perfectly.

Why did he get it right in one try?

Very simple: this key had the same shape as the one clipped to the note.

The key the Director gave him was, as expected, meant to open some safe in the sanatorium.

Unfortunately, for now he couldn’t even be sure which safe it was for—he couldn’t even open the one in front of him.

The safe might be a bit old, but it still had a double-lock structure.

Besides the keyhole, there was an extra brass combination dial.

To be fair, that was perfectly normal.

These people, all either rich or noble, stayed here for half a year, a year at a time.

They’d obviously need a secure place to store jewelry, letters, and other valuables.

And since it was a facility provided to high-end clients, it was perfectly reasonable for the security to be a bit higher.

It’s just that, as far as Fu Qian knew, people who get used to living in a place like this tend to relax, which often turns the combination dial into a mere decoration.

The compartment was something others wouldn’t casually open in the first place; a lot of people were probably too lazy to set an extra password and simply used the key, opening and closing it as they pleased.

Yet right now, the key he’d inserted wouldn’t turn, which proved that Lady Trish’s male companion didn’t belong to that group of people and wasn’t as frivolous as he looked on the surface.

This, in turn, seemed to support what Lady Black House had said, showing that the man was not what he seemed.

Fu Qian nodded slightly, feeling no dissatisfaction toward the man; if anything, his own train of thought was getting smoother.

He even felt that the very existence of this combination dial was probably one of the reasons Lady Trish’s male companion hadn’t put up much resistance at the time.

For him, there was an extra layer of insurance to keep his secret from being discovered, so he could relax and let himself be knocked out.

But everyone knows there’s something called voyeuristic curiosity. He’d only meant to verify what the key was for, but that act, in turn, made whatever was in the safe feel even more tempting.

Especially since this was an old-fashioned safe; even if you weren’t a Master Level lockpicker, it wouldn’t be that hard to operate—click!

The next second, Fu Qian had already pushed the hidden panel back into place, not even bothering to pull out the key.

...

If someone could see everything he was doing, what would they be thinking right now?

This was absolutely not "playing hard to get." The next moment, Fu Qian left Lady Trish’s companion’s quarters without the slightest reluctance.

What he’d just done wasn’t a sudden burst of morals making him decide to respect the other party’s privacy.

He needed to keep his thinking clear: the bigger threat had already been confirmed; the question now was how to deal with it.

It might look passive, but to Fu Qian, this was far from being without a plan.

If everything in front of him was the result of the Director’s careful arrangement, if every single event was under his control, then what we were seeing was an almost flawless command of the situation.

But that kind of control had an inherent flaw—force always works both ways.

If no matter what I do, I can’t escape your arrangement, doesn’t that also mean that every move I make forces you to respond?

In that case, are you controlling me, or am I remote-controlling you?

Maybe the question sounded a bit abstract, but when applied to the current situation, things became very simple.

Fu Qian was ready to put on a two-person show with the other side.

...

Maybe the other side’s goal was still unclear—maybe it was one of those layered setups that looked like they encouraged him to open the safe but actually didn’t want him to open it at all—but none of that mattered.

What Fu Qian wanted was: you control the overall situation, but the tempo follows my lead.

In the end, by increasing the complexity at an exponential rate, he’d put massive pressure on the other side’s ability to keep control, forcing them to expose more.

And when you think about increasing complexity, the first obvious lever is "speed."

By darting back and forth quickly and introducing a huge number of variables, he could make it hard for the other side to keep up.

Of course, Fu Qian didn’t expect this tactic to throw things completely out of control or crash the other party’s brain.

Normally, when faced with a troublemaker like him, a controller’s response would be to escalate their methods, even resorting to violence, in order to restrict his range of action.

The situation might get less elegant, but it would still be under control.

But that was fine by Fu Qian, because what he wanted to find out was precisely that "range of action."

He’d said from the start that the core of everything he did was to probe the other side’s bottom line.

Besides "speed," there was another way to greatly increase pressure on the other party’s operation: what you might call "abstractness."

Inference is always based on common sense; once things stray from common sense, it’s like a refined scholar running into a thug.

Fu Qian certainly knew that, in a place where he could stir up such a storm in the sanatorium, the Director had plenty of experience dealing with "abstract" humans. On that front, it didn’t seem easy to pressure him.

But there was still a workaround—change the frequency, right?

Sometimes act like a person, sometimes not; that too was a rhythm he could keep firmly in his own hands.

And he had another big advantage here: the abstract style was his natural comfort zone.

All in all, even if there really was something interesting in that safe, Fu Qian didn’t feel any regret.

Because in his assessment, walking away directly would probably yield higher expected returns.

So after giving up, where should he look next?

The mountain at night wasn’t actually that quiet; Fu Qian could even hear low howls from who-knew-what, bird or beast.

With that as his background music, he oriented himself and ran straight downhill toward the main building.

The main building where Servis’s office was located.

...

The attending physician’s office had been his backup option for critical moments from the very beginning; wasn’t it time to make use of it?

And since it was a mysterious place that all sorts of people kept mentioning, at this moment there was probably nothing better for cranking up the complexity of the situation.

"—Who’s there?"

But there was a small problem: it was one thing for the VIP area to be quiet, the main building was never going to be that deserted.

Just as he approached the entrance Lady Trish had mentioned, Fu Qian ran into an obstacle.

With a low but wary shout, a beam of light swept over and fell at his feet.

Not bad, they were indeed well trained.

Though the voice was clearly unfamiliar, that didn’t stop Fu Qian from noticing the uniform the other man was wearing.

At a glance, it was clearly a formal post, though distinct from the female staff he’d seen in the daytime.

Guards?

A typical sanatorium might not need such a role, but considering the concentration of important people here, having this kind of setup was reasonable.

And even after spotting suspicious movement, the beam of light still didn’t shine directly on his face.

From this little detail alone, you could tell they were well trained.

"Outsiders."

Fu Qian dipped his head slightly and reported his identity.

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