Chapter 254 Notes from Bedlam Asylum (IV)
The anti-dog's eyes wandered around, floating in the cafeteria of the lunatic asylum.

He thought to himself as he munched on some inedible toast.

"Any electronic signal sent inside the asylum will be intercepted, so TK's contact inside the asylum cannot use electronic equipment to contact the people of the Revolutionary Evening Bell. He should first obtain information from TK in some way, and then report the information to the organization by some means when he leaves the asylum after get off work at night."

"So, let's assume that he secretly contacts TK in the asylum every Saturday and learns the information that the other party wants to convey to the organization. The contact person will go off work on Saturday night, so when he can contact the organization, it will be Sunday. This just fits the intelligence that 'TK will contact the organization once every Sunday.'"

"Today is Saturday, which is the time when TK is in contact with the contact person. We need to observe the surroundings carefully to understand how TK is passing information to the caregiver or supervisor."

Thinking of this, Fanquan silently put down his spoon. Ke Yinzhi on the other side had just finished eating. He ate leisurely. After all, Hei Panguan had no performance pressure and had plenty of time to deal with this matter. On the other hand, if Fanquan acted a little later than Ke Yinzhi, he would only find a corpse instead of TK himself.

After the two new patients finished their breakfast, Ke Mingye continued to play the role of a competent supervisor, leading them out of the cafeteria and towards the entertainment facilities inside the asylum.

They visited the playground and the card room, and both places were empty.

"Then the question is, if I were TK...who would I keep in touch with and how would I keep in touch?"

As Ke Yinzhi followed the supervisor to tour the internal facilities of the asylum, he was thinking about this question in his mind at the same time as Fanquan.

The information in the hands of the two people is basically the same.

The people of the Revolutionary Evening Bell captured by the Control Bureau claimed that their boss "TK" was inside the mental hospital and he had never seen this boss, but TK would contact the Revolutionary Evening Bell once a week through letters on Sunday;
The Anti-Dogs learned about this from the Tengu Front.

Ke Yinzhi knew clearly that patients in S-class and A-class wards were strictly prohibited from having any communication with the outside world, so he could first rule out TK being in these two levels of wards.

Then the only areas that need attention are Class B and Class C.

However, there are more than 300 patients in these two ranges, and it is somewhat difficult to find TK among them.

Class B and Class C patients will have direct contact with caregivers and supervisors once or twice a week.

But during this period, whether it was injecting inhibitors, receiving "psychological treatment", or even bathing, the asylum would still keep the cameras turned on, so they had almost no room for private communication. Once there was any obscure contact, it would be recorded in the camera and trigger an alarm.

So, it is impossible for them to transmit information through direct contact.

They can only find an indirect way to convey information to each other. For example, TK writes what he wants to convey on a piece of paper, hides it somewhere in the asylum, and then lets the long-term caregiver or supervisor find it.

In addition to the wards, low-level patients spend their free time in the cafeteria, playground, card room, and library, so it would not be wrong to start from these places.

The three of them walked around and finally arrived at the library of Bedlam Asylum.

On Saturday, patients were strictly prohibited from entering the library and card room because they needed routine cleaning.

So when they arrived at these places, they were almost empty.

In the huge library, Ke Yinzhi and Fan Quan walked around, then found a seat in the corner with a book and sat down.

Fanquan flipped through the pages of the book, thinking in his heart: "If I were that TK, what should I do to pass the information to the organization staff without hiding it from the management."

Based on the patient's range of motion, he made some guesses about the following ways of conveying information:

1. Canteen.

The nurse in charge of the cafeteria gave TK a piece of information hidden in the food. TK held the piece of paper in his mouth while eating, and then took it away from the cafeteria to check it in a place without surveillance cameras. After that, he wrote the message he wanted to convey on the piece of paper, and when the cafeteria opened that night, he spit the piece of paper into the food he had not finished eating before the nurse closed the market.

If this is the case, then the organization member who contacted TK was hiding inside the asylum disguised as a caregiver.

But to be honest, it's not very realistic, because the cafeteria's surveillance cameras are still very dense, and it's extremely difficult to do anything tricky. In the short term, you can try to get away with it, but it's not realistic to do so in the long term, so the problem is - TK has indeed managed to maintain long-term contact with the organization, once a week, without interruption.

2. Playground.

There are densely packed surveillance cameras on the playground, which can even hear the patients' voices and see every detail of their movements.

Same as in the cafeteria, it’s not realistic to do anything tricky on the playground because the probability of being caught is very high.

3. Card room.

The card room will provide paper and pen to record the details of the game, and there will be armed supervisors watching them to ensure that they do not quarrel over playing cards or cause trouble in the card room.

Fanquan wondered if it was possible that TK would write the information on a piece of paper and put it in the card box, so that the caregiver could check every card box when cleaning the card room to find the piece of paper hidden inside.

However, each patient is only allowed into the card room once a month.

4. Library.

The library, like the card room, is open only to one patient once a month.

When Fanquan came in, he took a quick look at the borrowing records and observed the people who came to borrow books every Saturday of every month.

There are not many candidates screened out, but if you want to find one here, you can do it.

But there is one strange thing - TK contacts the organization once a week, but the library and card room are only open to patients once a month. Whether TK passes information to his contacts by putting it in books or hiding it inside a card box, these two methods can only be used once a month.

In this way, even if he used both methods, there would still be a gap of two or three weeks in between, which seemed somewhat strange.

This means that if the above conjectures are true, then even if books and cards are excluded, TK is still using several other ways to convey information at the same time.

Fanquan was thinking when Ke Mingye's cold voice interrupted his thoughts.

Ke Mingye asked, "Have you had enough of walking around? If you have, go back to the ward. Now is not the time for you to stay anywhere else."

"Just be patient, buddy."

Ke Yinzhi held his chin with one hand, lowered his eyes, and flipped through the book casually.

Fan Quan sat opposite him, silent, thinking about something similar to what Ke Yinzhi was thinking about.

"Each book has a serial number. Put them away and don't try to sneak them back to the ward. Otherwise, you will be severely punished." Ke Mingye said to Ke Yinzhi, "It is already a special case to allow you to bring one book back to the ward. You can't bring more than that."

Ke Yinzhi lowered his head to look at the book and responded disapprovingly.

"Haha, is it necessary to be so... harsh? I'm a patient, not a prisoner."

"Don't think I don't know where you come from." Ke Mingye said, "You say you are patients, but in fact you are criminals who use mental illness to cover up yourselves. The government doesn't know how to deal with you guys who are pretending to be crazy, so they sent you all to the mental hospital."

He thought: Being an overseer is awesome! Only when I was cosplaying as a mean overseer in this damn place could I have the opportunity to speak to my brother in such a condescending and bossy manner.

Of course, this also requires Ke Yinzhi's cooperation - if Ke Yinzhi suddenly doesn't want to pretend anymore and directly reveals his identity, then it wouldn't be too much for Ke Mingye, the little supervisor, to kowtow to him twice.

"Whatever you think." Ke Yinzhi said with a smile.

As they were talking, a tall and thin figure suddenly opened the door of the library with a key and walked in from under the slightly bright dark blue sky.

Ke Yinzhi and Fanquan both raised their eyebrows and looked up at the same time. They saw the newcomer had sparse gray hair, a hunched back, and a gloomy temperament. He was wearing a hospital gown and single-sided reading glasses. The hospital gown on this person was different from that of other patients. The difference was that he had two badges on his chest, one with a book and the other with a card.

The moment Ke Mingye turned his head to look at this man, his superhuman panel popped up.

[Codename: Memory Monster]

【Name：Francis】

[Danger rating: E]

[Introduction: Francis is a person with special abilities. His special abilities allow him to remember everything, but the corresponding side effect is that he cannot remember faces and names, which makes him unable to survive in society and become a marginal figure. After failing to find a suitable job for many times (some people also claim that he did something bad and entered the mental hospital on his own initiative), he was sent to Bedlam Mental Hospital by the government and lived in the hospital for decades. ]

Seeing this, Ke Yinzhi stared at Francis, the memory freak, for a long time before slowly turning his head to Ke Mingye and asking, "Mr. Supervisor, didn't you say that the card room and library need to be routinely cleaned on Saturdays, so patients are strictly prohibited from entering?"

"His situation is rather special."

Having said that, Ke Mingye paused and glanced at the message Cai Bing sent via the panel, which focused on a make-up lesson.

[Cai Bing: This patient named "Francis" was selected to be the administrator of the library and card room because he has performed very well in the past ten years. He can enter the library and card room at will during the break.] Ke Mingye said as he looked at the patient: "This patient is called Francis. Because of his good performance, he is the administrator of the library and the card room in the hospital. He can use the key to enter and exit these two places at will during the break."

"I see……"

Ke Yinzhi seemed to be thinking about something.

In the sight of the three people, Francis lowered his head slightly, and like a walking corpse, walked calmly to the No. 1 bookshelf on the left side of the last row.

He muttered a string of numbers and began to arrange the books on the bookshelf. There were 24 books on the entire bookshelf, arranged in three rows, top, middle and bottom, with 8 books in each row.

Fan Quan silently observed Francis out of the corner of his eye; Ke Yinzhi supported his chin and observed him from the side, his clear eyes full of curiosity.

"What is he doing?"

After a while, Fan Quan couldn't help but ask.

"Mr. Overseer, what is he doing?"

Ke Yinzhi spoke almost at the same time as him and asked similar questions.

"You can ask him yourself." Ke Mingye adjusted the brim of his hat and replied in a cold tone, "I'm not interested in what mentally ill people like to do."

Hearing this, Fan Quan and Ke Yinzhi looked at each other, then stood up from the table where people sat down to read, and slowly walked behind Francis.

Francis seemed unconscious, still mumbling something as he arranged the 1 books on bookshelf No. 24.

Fan Quan and Ke Yinzhi stood side by side against the wall of the library.

The two of them quietly observed this memory freak from behind.

Francis' lips moved slightly as he muttered a string of vague numbers, quietly arranging the books on bookshelf number one.

Seeing that Ke Yinzhi and Fanquan were observing very attentively, as if they didn't want to miss any important clues, Ke Mingye suddenly felt that he was being excluded, so he sighed and sent a message to Fanquan.

[Failed Man: How about it, intellectual, do you have any idea? ]

[Anti-Dog: I have a lot of guesses, but there are so many that I don't know where to start. After all, we still know nothing about that TK. But... now I have one. ]

【Failed Man: What? 】

[Anti-Dog: This patient who works as a librarian is a little strange. ]

[Failed Man: You don’t want to tell me that this bald guy is the “TK” you and my brother are looking for, right? ]

[Anti-Dog: No, if TK and he cooperated, then many things would make sense. ]

[Failed Man: Come on, try to find the leader of the revolutionary bell before my brother kills me. It’s like a race with the King of Hell.]

"Mr. Francis, what are you doing?" Ke Yinzhi watched for a long time, and finally couldn't help but speak, and asked Francis with a curious tone.

"Play a game."

"what game?"

"There was a man, a patient. He gave me an order to arrange the books in the library and the cards in the card room." Francis said hoarsely, "If I win, I can prove to him that I have a good memory. We play this game often, we are... very good friends."

Ke Yinzhi raised his brows slightly.

He thought, "If that's the case, it would explain why the card room and library are only open once a month, but TK is able to communicate with the contact person in the hospital every week."

Similarly, there was a hint of surprise in Fanquan's eyes, but he tried to keep his expression as calm as possible.

Anti-dog said: "It sounds really interesting, can we also join this 'game'?"

"No, this is a game between the two of us." Francis said slowly.

Ke Yinzhi asked: "Who is the person who plays this game with you?"

"I...I don't know."

Francis lowered his head, his expression focused, and spoke intermittently, "I can remember everything, but I can't remember people's names or their faces. It's just that we have been playing this game for a long time, and he... is my only friend."

Ke Yinzhi and Fan Quan were silent for a while.

Ke Mingye crossed his arms and said coldly, "Francis can't remember faces or names, so he is ostracized by society, unlike you criminals."

"I see..." Ke Yinzhi paused, "Mr. Supervisor, you said before that each book has a serial number."

"Yes. You can check it in the notebook at the front desk. Take it yourself." Ke Mingye pointed to the desk at the front desk.

Hearing this, Fan Quan took over in two steps instead of Ke Yinzhi, took the notebook from the front desk, and then looked through it together with Ke Yinzhi.

"Thank you." Ke Yinzhi said.

"You're welcome." Fanquan said, "I'm just curious about what 'game' he's playing."

"It seems that we are all the same, very curious and eager to learn."

Ke Yinzhi looked at the book serial numbers on the notebook while teasing, and then glanced at the twenty-four books that Francis had rearranged.

Corresponding to the data in the notebook, he quickly discovered that the serial numbers of the 1 books on bookshelf No. 24 were exactly 01 to 024.

Soon, after rearranging the 1 books on shelf No. 24, Francis left the library and walked straight to the card room next door.

Ke Yinzhi and Fan Quan followed behind.

"Do you remember the order in which these 24 books are arranged?" Ke Yinzhi asked suddenly.

"I even memorized the serial number," Anti-Dog said bluntly.

"Oh, me too."

The two watched as Francis used the key to open the card room and came to the cabinet where the card box was placed.

At first glance, there are probably thousands of decks of playing cards here, and they are arranged in an orderly manner. Each deck of cards is also marked with a serial number such as 001, 002, and is placed strictly from left to right and from top to bottom in the order of the serial number.

Francis was seen mumbling something as he did before, opening decks of playing cards and rearranging the cards inside.

Then a short while later, he put every card back and placed the deck of cards back on the cabinet.

"So, what game do you think he is playing?" Ke Yinzhi put his hand on his chin.

Anti-Dog thought for a moment and said, "Will the books he just arranged in the library correspond to the cards in the card room?"

Ke Yinzhi said: "I think this is possible. The serial numbers of the 25 books he arranged just now are serial number 02, serial number 05, serial number 09 from left to right and from top to bottom..."

Muttering to himself, Ke Yinzhi reached out and took out the playing card boxes with corresponding serial numbers from the cabinet one by one.

"Could it be possible that the order in which the books are placed is the same order in which the cards are taken out..." Fanquan thought silently.

Ke Yinzhi said: "He arranged the cards in the box. Perhaps he was conveying some kind of message through the order of the cards?"

Anti-Dog asked, "So what do you think the message might be?"

“You’ll know after you see it.”

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(End of this chapter)