The rain in Gotham was unceasing, with the distant "rumbling" of thunder, accompanied by moist and slightly cold air seeping in through the window gaps. In the long-cold coffee, the brilliance of lightning was reflected.
Hugo removed his glasses and massaged his brows, raising his body straight from his desk. He glanced at the documents beside him and the cooled coffee. He thought that he really wasn't suitable for working late into the night. He always drifted off to sleep.
That's when he heard a familiar voice echoing in the room: "Hugo wakes up again in his office, the coffee he brewed at noon has grown cold. But it doesn't matter, if he drinks this cup of coffee, he will see a key hidden at the bottom. Where does this key lead?"
Hugo slowly reached for the coffee, grabbed it and poured it into his mouth. The cold coffee didn't taste good, he frowned and then felt his lips touching a metallic item – a key.
A key…where does it unlock?
Hugo shook his head, looking for lockers on the left and right by the front of the office desk. He noticed only a drawer with a lock on his right side. He inserted the key and twisted it right; the drawer opened.
The voice echoed again: "Oh, it seems this key is for opening the drawer of the office cabinet! Hugo is so clever!"
"Hugo pulled open the drawer and found a daily schedule inside. According to the daily schedule, he had to get to ward 302 at 9:20 for rounds…"
"Hugo is a devoted doctor, he wouldn't want to miss the rounds time, but where exactly is room 302?"
Hugo opened the drawer and took out a paper--it read, "Go to room 302 for rounds before 9:20."
Hugo turned back to look at the weather outside the window, and then the voice went on: "Hugo looked out of the window and found that it was a rainy day. He couldn't figure out the time by judging the color of the sky. In such case, he has a problem - he needs to find a clock..."
Hugo turned his head and looked down at his wrist. The voice said again: "Suddenly Hugo remembered he was wearing a wristwatch."
Indeed there was a watch on Hugo's wrist showing 9:17, the voice continued: "Whoa! Too late! He only has 3 minutes left to get to room 302, Hugo knows he must hurry!"
Hugo speeded up, leaving his desk and walking to the door. He turned the doorknob, only to find it would not budge. The voice once more said: "No doubt about it, this door needs a key too. Hugo needs to find it."
Just as Hugo started frantically rummaging around the room for the key, the voice kept whispering in his ear: "It's quite strange, isn't it? This isn't a game, why does each door need a corresponding key?"
"Actually, I hate those puzzle games, where you have to solve a riddle every few steps. They're just wasting my life. Why don't we just choose a quicker way, like kicking the door down. How does that sound?"
"Don't worry about it, you're just eager to see better to the patients, it's late, and everyone must have gone off work by now, no one should see…"
Hugo stopped his action and looked at the door. It's just a wooden door. In his view, the wooden door began to age rapidly, becoming rickety. He thought—why go through so much trouble to find a key when you can just kick the door down?
He approached the door, lifted up his foot, and kicked hard. Just at the moment when his foot was about to hit the door, that door turned into a big red button. Countless alarms began to blink crazily in the room, and sharp, piercing warnings went off.
Once Hugo had kicked that button and it was pressed down, the wallpapers in the room fell off, revealing walls full of various types of bombs. As the loud explosion sounded, Hugo was blown into pieces.
And the last scene he saw before his death was himself standing outside the door, with a malicious smirk on his face.
Seeing Hugo back on the first floor again, Victor asked: "It's another special area, isn't it?"
"Yes, I call it Room of Self-Control."
"What's that voice that keeps misleading Hugo?"
"It's called 'Temptation.'"
Under the puzzled gaze of the others, Schiller began to explain once again: "Living in society, we inevitably need to abide by rules. However, obeying rules is not easy, as we often face various temptations."
"It lies and creates illusions, luring people step by step to break the rules. The temptation Hugo experienced was relatively mild. Temptation just created an illustration of his day-to-day work, leading him step by step to kick that button..."
"When I got there, it was not gentle at all with me. Travesty of hundreds of floors was par for the course."
"So how to get out of here? You said Temptation can set up endless traps, luring you in various ways. How can we breakthrough this level?"
"Actually there are many methods. Although Temptation creates illusions and traps, there are always flaws. I can't explain the specifics to you, but there's a correct example…"
"It's that staircase-climbing lunatic from last time, who sat still from the moment he entered this level. He kept chatting with Temptation until it went mad. Temptation was crying and yelling, and ran to the upper level to emphasize. Hence, he succeeded."
Schiller turned his head to look at Jack, who was still ignoring him.
"Alright, but now, Hugo is back at the first floor again. What to do this time?"
Schiller sighed. Although Victor didn't know how a globe could sigh, he heard Schiller sighing. He heard Schiller continue: "To be honest, he's a bit disappointing... Or is it that the madman's performance has infinitely raised my expectations for the challengers?"
"Anyway, I'll talk to the elevator manager and ask him to teleport Hugo to a higher level."
The torrential downpour gradually weakened, turning into a fine and cold drizzle. The densely packed rain lines descended from the twilight, resembling gold dust falling from the sky.
When Hugo woke, he found himself tied to a chair, and then he saw a strangely looking person approaching.
The man had a cylindrical head, a square body, and his arms and legs were also square. He wore a jet-black cape.
He stretched out a hand pointing straight ahead. Hugo found that his hand was a capital "C", and when combined with the arm, it resembled a wrench. He extended the hand and said to Hugo's back, "Let him go, Joker! Or you'll pay!"
Hugo tried to look back and found a similar character behind him. This guy was wearing a purple suit and had Joker's makeup on his face. The Joker also extended his "C-shaped" hand, saying, "Batman! It's time to make a choice, you..."
Before he could finish, there was a "pop" sound, and the whole world went dark. Hugo was thrown back a layer, and Victor in the audience stood up and asked, "Wait! What's going on? Why is everyone here made of Lego? Where is this?"
Victor saw Schiller hurriedly pulling up the curtain. Flustered, he replied, "This is a layer whose name shall not be spoken of, don't ask too many questions..."
After pondering for a while, Victor exposed a teasing smile and said, "I never thought you'd have such a childlike side. You weren't hiding in your room playing role-play with Lego figurines, were you?"
"I didn't, stop making things up. Even if I wanted to role-play, they wouldn't be my choice…"
At this moment, Jack woke up. He squinted, lifted his head to look upward, and flashed a smile of schadenfreude.
Following his gaze up, through layers of floors and with the view continually rising, it finally stopped in a somewhat dim projection room.
In the projection room were two sofas, each occupied by a figure, one black and one white. The white figure was dressed in a white lab coat, and the black figure in a black trench coat. Both figures were Schiller.
The Schiller in the lab coat exhaled and said, "That was close. Had the show continued, not only my dark history would have been revealed, but also piracy issues might have arisen..."
Then he turned to the DC Schiller and chuckled, "But it doesn't matter since it was your secret past."
"That's stereotyping. Why can't adults play with Lego?"
"But you live in Gotham, assembling DC World in your mind with Lego blocks, and then role-playing with the Lego characters. That's kind of weird, isn't it?"
"Not counting this level, Dr. Hugo should be nearing his limit soon, right?" DC Schiller changed the subject.
"Based on our previous assumptions, once he takes all of this as truth, and his belief reaches a certain level of determination, he will be able to utilize his obsession to pry open the deep consciousness channel," added the Schiller in the white coat.
"In theory that's how it should work, but whether our plan will be successful is yet to be seen," said Marvel Schiller.
"If the previous level isn't count, we'll need another level. Which one do you think would be the best?"
"Let him go to the 190th floor where the madman has been trapped for a very long time..."
When Hugo woke up again, he found himself in a vast white space, facing a dancing apple.
The apple had hands and feet just like in cartoons, made up of thin black lines, and was performing ballet.
He simply watched the apple dance, and all the spectators watched him as he watched the apple dance. Evans yawned and then asked, "Where the hell is this place? Why is there a dancing apple?"
"This place is..." Schiller also yawned, and although Victor completely failed to understand how a globe can yawn, he heard Schiller's yawn.
"This place is named Boring Square. As the name suggests, the theme here is boredom. It manifests whatever you find most boring. Apparently, Dr. Hugo finds watching an apple dance the most boring."
"So how did that previous master pass this level?"
"In fact, he hasn't passed this level yet."
"So can we observe his current situation? Can you switch the stage to him? I am kind of curious."
Schiller stood up and Victor thought he was going to switch the stage by walking over to it. But he walked over to Jack instead and, pointing at him, said, "This is what he looks like now."
Jack had one of his eyes closed, and the other one slightly open. He glanced at Schiller, then closed the slightly open eye again.
Schiller explained, "He's a madman who went insane because Batman wasn't in Gotham."
"A madman gone mad?"
"Yes, according to the concept that 'negative times negative equals positive', we call such people – sane."