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Book 4: Chapter 49: Birdcage

When Chen Heng walked to that cage and wanted to open it, he found it strangely sturdy.

Not that Chen Heng could not break this cage, but from its appearance and sturdiness, this was clearly a hurdle that Nightingale laid for herself.

As a result, Chen Heng did not dare use brute force to break the cage. Since he could not use brute force, he could only open it the normal way—unlocking it.

There was a lock on the cage, and it looked like the ancient locks of Chen Heng’s world. Picking such locks was very easy, so Chen Heng manifested a metal pin with his Will Energy and tried to pick the lock. Unsurprisingly, he failed.

Although it was easy to pick such locks, Chen Heng was not a professional locksmith. Furthermore, he suspected that even if he could pick such locks in reality, he needed to find the correct key in this heart maze to open the lock.

Since he could not take shortcuts, he could only find the key the old-fashioned way.

The first thing to check was the six Sarkaz soldiers, who had already gotten back to their feet.

These Sarkaz soldiers were quite foolish. They only just stood up and immediately charged Chen Heng again. Who knows whether these soldiers were foolish in the first place or it was Nightingale’s conception of the Sarkaz people as quick to take action without thinking?

Sarkaz Soldier A charged forward, and it was immediately game over. Before the soldiers arrived before Chen Heng, he used his invisible hand to hold them up in the air.

Even when Chen Heng held them upside down, the Sarkaz soldiers did not submit, persisting in struggling, so he used some ropes to bind them firmly.

He spent five minutes searching these soldiers but did not find anything like a key.

His second target was the Sarkaz soldier’s corpse on the stretcher.

This soldier had sustained very severe injuries before being transported over the battlefield. He had already died before even receiving treatment. There were many wounds on his body, and he was dead. That was why Chen Heng did not check him first.

Just because he had killed before did not mean he was willing to search a corpse. He was not a forensic doctor, after all.

After enduring his disgust and searching the Sarkaz corpse, Chen Heng still did not find a key. He did not even turn up a single piece of metal.

Chen Heng scrutinized his surroundings, which were humid and dark. Besides the one containing Nightingale, there should be many other jail cells for locking prisoners up.

However, these cells had no one; they were all empty.

Furthermore, Chen Heng could feel tremors coming from above. If he listened carefully, he could even hear shouting.

If Chen Heng guessed right, this should be an underground prison amid the battlefield. Those locked here should be the Medic operators with healing abilities and uncertain loyalties.

As for hostages, as long as the Sarkaz were not fools, they would not place the hostages beneath the battlefield. They did not need to take regular soldiers as hostages, so those soldiers would be directly killed. Hostages with special statuses would not be locked up in the battlefield, unless something was wrong with the field commander’s head.

Just as Chen Heng was preparing to go off to search for clues, he suddenly noticed Nightingale holding something that looked like a key when he was about to tell her his intentions.

“...” The key is in the hands of the prisoner. What kind of trashy game design is this?

However, this made sense after some thought. They were in Nightingale’s heart maze. To explain it seriously, the heart maze was a hurdle Nightingale set up for herself. It would depend on Nightingale whether she could pull through. From this perspective, it was normal that she held the key to her cage.

Normal, my ass! Had I known Nightingale held the key, I would not have searched those six Sarkaz men and that bloody Sarkaz corpse!

“Hey! Nightingale, do you hear me? I’m Chen Heng…I’m He Who Knows Fate.” He suddenly remembered he had not told Nightingale his real name.

However, Nightingale did not respond to Chen Heng; she did not even move.

When Nightingale remained still, he decided to try taking the key from her hands.

Chen Heng approached Nightingale and found she had many bruises and wounds, which provoked heartache.

For some reason, all the children of this Nightingale’s age that Chen Heng came in contact with had tragic pasts.

First was Sirin. Her father had never shown himself, and her mother died to the Honkai. Then Otto experimented on her. Tragic did not begin to cover it. When she gained strength, she started her revenge on society. Unfortunately, she got beaten up by all the other factions.

Next was Luo Li; she was quite tragic too. If Chen Heng recalled right, the current Luo Li’s parents had already died. If he followed the original timeline trajectory, the Secret Scholar Society would capture her to experiment on her in a few months to study her time ability. Although the Secret Scholar Society figured nothing out, she had been miserably tortured.

The third was the Nightingale at this age. Her parents…Shining and Nearl? That means this child had no parents. She was a sacrifice in the Sarkaz internal war, kept in a cramped space and forced to treat others. She even had her life force plundered, forcibly drawn out. Furthermore, based on her current injuries, she had suffered a lot of humiliation.

All the girls this age that I met had tragic lives. Is it because of me or them? Do I have a particular affinity for tragic backgrounds?

Chen Heng shook his head and dismissed these stray thoughts. The important thing right now was to get the key from Nightingale.

As the cage was not large and Nightingale sat in the center, Chen Heng could reach the key in her hand at a stretch.

However, Chen Heng found he could not insert his hand between the cage’s—rather, this enormous birdcage’s—bars. It felt like something blocked him. Despite the sizeable gap, he could not put his hand in.

Perhaps the birdcage only allowed the inside to pass things out, and people outside could not get the things inside?

What a ridiculous rule! There is such a big gap, and the key is so near, yet I can’t get it. This is like solving a difficult math question. The teacher already gave the answer, but he wants the solution. This feels exactly the same.