Secret World: I Became a God Through Lies

Chapter 206 The Person with the Broken Connection Is Out of Control

Not all mysteries are waiting for you to solve.
Some things, you can stand inside, but never see their whole picture.

During the break between the fifth round of counting, the theater fell into a brief but heavy silence.

The puppet stood quietly in the center of the stage, its silver rod dangling, its head bowed, its wide, cracked smile unmoving.
It was as if they were quietly listening to everyone's breathing and heartbeat.

This is one of the few "breathing times"—but it is more suffocating than ever before.

"Hurry up, check behind that bookshelf again!"

Wang Yichen was panting heavily, cold sweat streaming down his forehead, his eyes filled with anxiety and exhaustion. "Don't forget to check under the floor tiles! Are there any hidden compartments? Switches? Buttons?!"

Eileen knelt on the ground, her knuckles blood red, trying little by little to pry open a piece of wooden floorboard at the edge of the stage. Her nails were already split, and her fingertips were stained with blood, but she made no progress.

“How could there not be?” Fujimiya Sumi slumped down beside a broken statue, her eyes vacant. “...It must hold a method, right...?”

"Damn it—damn it!" Wang Yichen suddenly roared, kicking over a puppet prop.

Snapped!
A barely perceptible arc of static electricity suddenly flashed through the air.

Wang Yichen's right wrist suddenly trembled, he let out a muffled groan, took half a step back, covered his hand, and turned pale.

"Damaging performance props is prohibited."

The puppet's sweet, cloying voice rang out again, its sound like a feather brushing against bone, "A second offense—disqualification from the performance~"

In that instant, even breathing felt like a mistake.

Eileen was so frightened that she quickly backed away, while Mu Sisi huddled in the corner, letting out soft sobs.
Fujimiya Sumire hugged her knees like a frozen doll, too afraid to move.

Even resistance became an unacceptable act.

Everything fell into a deathly silence, as if the stage had already decided the fate of the audience, and everyone else was just a prop strung on a thread.

At this most somber moment, a deep yet clear voice broke the oppressive silence.

"...You're looking in the wrong direction."

Everyone looked up abruptly, their gazes all falling on that figure—

Rudolf stood at the edge of the stage, a cold light from the chandelier above illuminating his serious expression.

"It's not a puzzle room; you won't find the exit by lifting bricks."

"This is a structure that has been designed."

"Designed?" Wang Yichen squatted at the bottom of the dance steps, staring up at Rudolf, his tone filled with an undisguised despair and doubt.

"You mean, this dance hall... is a mystery in itself?" Mu Sisi's voice trembled, yet it revealed a glimmer of hope.

Rudolf did not answer directly, but turned around and walked step by step to the center of the hall, looking up at the dome.

"Have you noticed? The direction of the light from the chandelier doesn't match the path of the red carpet on the ground."

"The stage appears symmetrical with the puppet at its center, but its position forms an asymmetrical axis with the pillar behind it."

“Structurally, such a deviation is extremely unreasonable.” His tone grew increasingly firm.
"Unless—the designer wants us to 'ignore' a certain point."

Vera's eyes flashed: "Hidden guidance."

“Yes.” Rudolf nodded. “Deliberately breaking the symmetry, using space to deceive the eye—leading us to focus our attention on the ‘stage’ while avoiding the real core.”

He pointed with perfect accuracy: "The fifth load-bearing column, at three o'clock."

"Based on the offset angle of the column, the overlapping of the chandelier cones, the misalignment of the red carpet center line, and the sound field feedback, that spot is the 'blind spot'."

“There, the only point in all the structural logic is ‘compressed’.”

"Also—a core node."

“You mean,” Mu Sisi immediately squatted down, opened her drawing folder, “you give me the coordinates, and I’ll draw them.”

"The stage is in the center, the puppet is the origin, and the pillars are numbered clockwise—number three is 2° west, number seven is 4° south..."

"Okay, draw the light trails as well, and mark the sound bounce as a dotted line."

Her pen flew across the paper, beads of sweat trickling down her forehead, but she never stopped.

A structural diagram was quickly formed, and an inexplicable "blank" appeared between column number five and its base on the drawing.

Zhuang Yege narrowed his eyes: "That 'blank' space... seems to be a reserved sealing position for the operation of some kind of structure."

"Then tear it down." His voice was cold and decisive.

He patted the spirit pouch at his waist, and the paper umbrella spirit slave Yan Chuan Xiaodu reappeared.

Holding a tattered umbrella, barefoot, with a bright, comedic smile spreading across her face, she skipped and hopped toward the fifth pillar.

Everyone held their breath nervously.

The next second—

"Click."

A soft, yet highly penetrating sound came from beneath the base of the column.

Debris fell like dust, and a bronze mechanism emerged from the ground, its top inlaid with a slowly pulsating red eyeball rune.

“Found it,” Rudolf whispered, a long-lost gleam of triumph in his eyes.

Si Ming clapped lazily to the side and laughed, "A very beautiful 'layout deconstruction'. Worth having an extra dessert tonight."

Vera stepped forward, a rare hint of surprise and relief in her eyes.

"Finally... we found a blank page in the script."

"Don't disturb the puppet," Vera immediately whispered, a faint golden light appearing in her palm to suppress her voice within a radius of several meters.

Si Ming didn't move, but simply tilted his head slightly, a smile playing on his lips: "Looks like the three of us finally have something to do today."

Yan Chuanxiao skillfully slipped into the gap between the pillar and the floor, flicked his fingertip, and pulled off a piece of bronze mechanism that was fastened in place.

"Click——"

A soft sound, like the first drop of blood when a vein is pierced.

She poked half her face out from the crack in the ground, blinked, and smiled as she handed over a thin piece of paper with a faint metallic sheen: "Here, there's a door."

Vera immediately bent down, put her two fingers together, and unleashed her spiritual power like splashing water, thus flicking open the mechanism lock.

“It’s a mechanical gate,” Rudolf confirmed, crouching down to examine it closely before swiftly and steadily prying the entire hatch open.

Behind the hatch, a metal core about forty centimeters in diameter is embedded in a heavy base, surrounded by fine copper wires as thin as hair, interwoven like blood vessels, with faint reddish light pulses between them, as if it were the life pulse of the entire ballroom.

“We’ve found it.” Rudolf’s voice was low, with an almost certain calm.

His gaze swept over the dense array of symbols on the metal core; they weren't some mysterious language, but rather standardized engineering circuit markings—

This is the true "master control sub-cabin" of the dance hall.

“Simply cutting off the main power line here will cause the entire stage system to collapse—the threads, the puppets, the sound tracks, the electromagnetic guides, and every control point.”

"So how do you plan to cut it?" Si Ming walked slowly from behind the pillar, his gaze sweeping over her like a cold glint.

Rudolf didn't hesitate: "Manually. It must be done while it's distracted by counting, and the window must remain open for no more than five seconds."

He stood up, opened his tool bag, his movements decisive yet unhurried, revealing the composure that only a skilled engineer possesses.

"Wait for my signal. No one is to move beforehand." After he finished speaking, he looked at Si Ming, and they exchanged a glance.

Si Ming nodded slightly for the first time, a hint of approval appearing in his eyes.

That wasn't a compliment, but rather a form of recognition—he had seen another "better bettor."

The puppet returned to the center of the stage, its silver rod raised high, its head slightly lowered, as if humming something.

A subtle and eerie melody emanated from its chest.

Like an old nursery rhyme in a rusty music box, the tone is sometimes high-pitched and sometimes murmuring, sending chills down your spine.

"Round Six—Let's begin!"

It trailed off, then the stick struck the floor with a soft "thump".

"one."

Rudolf took a deep breath and lay prone beneath the main control hatch.

With his left hand firmly supporting the power supply chassis, the cutter in his right hand was already embedded between the three core feed lines.

"two."

His knuckles were clenched tightly, cold sweat dripped from his forehead onto the edge of the hatch, but his eyes were fixed on the three main lines marked with different colors as if focused by a laser.

"three."

Inside the dance hall, everyone's nerves seemed to be suspended by an invisible string, afraid to breathe, and even their heartbeats were suppressed into tinnitus.

"Four."

The puppet's voice was slow, as if playing a cruel rhythm game: "Five cats ~ six lamps ~ seven mouths ~ eight..."

"Now," Si Ming commanded in a low voice.

Click——!
With a swift stroke, Rudolf precisely severed the three main threads, sparks flying instantly.

boom! !

At that moment, the air seemed to tear apart as if a taut cloth had been torn apart!
Countless faint threads exploded in the air, like an invisible rain, the dense cracking sounds like shards of glass collapsing together, creating a continuous "crackling" sound.

Mu Sisi collapsed to the ground, panting heavily, her eyes filled with disbelief: "...It's broken?"

Eileen stared blankly at her wrist; the silk threads that had once bound her had turned to ash and were silently sliding down her palm. "We...are we free?"

Wang Yichen seemed to wake from a dream, turned his head and looked around, staring blankly at the scattered remnants of silver wire on the ground, as if realizing for the first time that he was still alive.

Meanwhile, in the center of the stage, the puppet remained in a turned-around position.

But its movement faltered, and the silver rod slipped from its fingertips, striking the stage floor with a "clink" and producing a clear metallic sound.

Its head rotated slowly, stuck like a rusted gear, making a "click-click-click" sound that sent chills down your spine.

“...the disobedient thread..."

“…Disobedient…No…”

Its smile began to crumble, the program crashed like a logical error, and finally, with a "click," its head completely detached, tumbling to the edge of the stage.

His mangled body lost its balance and collapsed heavily, a broken whisper escaping from his chest:

"...Who...cut...the stage..."

It stopped moving.

The entire theater was so quiet that it felt as if you could hear the Grim Reaper's fingertips striking the door knocker at any moment.

Mu Sisi was the first to rush towards Rudolf, almost crying as she cried out, "You...you saved us."

Her eyes held undisguised shock, awe, and gratitude for being pulled back from the brink of despair.

Rudolf was breathing heavily, his face was pale, but his voice was calm: "I just dismantled an electronic control system."

Fujimiya Sumi said in a low voice, "But none of us can think of that."

What surrounded him was no longer doubt and anger, but the first instance of trust in "ordinary people".

Vera stood to the side and whispered, "Perhaps... we shouldn't treat mortals as a burden anymore."

Zhuang Yege finally nodded, her eyes flickering slightly.

Si Ming simply stood in the corner with a faint smile, looking thoughtfully at Rudolf, as if evaluating a gambler who dared to place a bet despite being a first-time visitor to the table.

"Look," Mu Sisi suddenly held up her drawing board, on which was a structural diagram she had hand-drawn with Rudolf, precisely marking the control core and the routing of the power lines—

"We...maybe we can go even further."

At that moment, a faint tremor came from deep within the theater.

Everyone looked toward the end of the stage—the black archway that had never been opened.

Behind the door was a darkness that seemed to devour the soul.

Si Ming turned around, squinted at that spot, and softly uttered a sentence:
"The real 'puppet master'...it's time to make his appearance."

You think you can escape by cutting the wire?

But they didn't see the other end of the line.
It's not you that's connected—

Rather, it's the obsession of the entire stage.

(End of this chapter)