However, "Manga Awareness" directly refused his request: "No, because this hasn't happened yet, so you can't see it. Just like you can't see the future, as long as it hasn't happened, you can't see it."
This statement from "Manga Awareness" also revealed a hidden piece of information: in the future, he probably wouldn't be able to change the plot by reading the manga in advance anymore.
But this was expected. Su Bei pretended to be disappointed, furrowing his brow for a moment before suggesting a compromise: "But this page of the manga has already been drawn, hasn't it? I just want to see the physical content of this page of the manga. That should be okay, right?"
In fact, this was his original plan. Immersing himself in the manga was obviously impossible. He just needed to see the clues "he" had left behind, as no one would understand himself better than he did.
The problem was that if he directly asked for this, "Manga Awareness" might not agree. That bit of guilt wasn't enough to make it relent.
So Su Bei chose to use the "door-in-the-face" technique.
If you want to open a window in a room, why not first ask to remove the roof? When the other party refuses, you can then propose your original request, making it harder for them to refuse.
Sure enough, how could the newly born "Manga Awareness" outwit a cunning human? It felt it had already refused the previous request once, and now that Su Bei had compromised, feeling guilty, it agreed: "Okay, do you want to see it now? But I can only give you a physical photo equivalent to the manga content."
"Now."
Instantly, a photo appeared on his phone. Su Bei opened it, and sure enough, it showed him in a school uniform, lying in a pool of blood on the bathroom floor.Seeing his own death was still a bit shocking. Su Bei raised an eyebrow and began examining the details.
As he observed in the manga, there were indeed many gears of various shapes and sizes scattered around the corpse. These gears seemed random, as if they had been subconsciously released in a moment of danger.
But Su Bei knew he had no such subconscious reaction, so seeing so many gears must have been a deliberate result by his manga self.
Suddenly, he noticed something unusual: "These gears are quite interesting..."
Su Bei zoomed in on the image and keenly observed that among the many gears in the photo, there were a few with very inconspicuous dark golden patterns. If he didn't understand his own ability, he might have overlooked these patterns just by looking at the photo.
Knowing himself well, he was aware that his [Gear] ability could theoretically create gears of different shapes, sizes, and patterns. However, since he had only recently awakened this ability and hadn't practiced enough, he could generally only instinctively produce random gears. Creating patterns required much more effort.
Why would his dying self expend significant effort to create these three patterned gears?
The only possibility was that these gears contained clues about the killer! In the photo, his feet were pointed toward the stall door, lying at the entrance of the last bathroom stall. His position was almost flat, except his left hand appeared to be in a defensive posture, clenched into a fist near his face, as if trying to block an attack.
The positions of the three patterned gears: one at each shoulder, and the last one beneath his naturally dropped left hand.
What were these three gears hinting at?
A triangle? But this triangle was neither equilateral nor isosceles, nor did it have a right angle, lacking any significant feature, making it unlikely to be a meaningful symbol.
Could these three gears be hinting at injuries in these three areas?
No, that seemed unlikely too. For someone deceased like him, the school would undoubtedly conduct an autopsy, making any issues on his body clear, with no need for a cryptic hint.
Were the gears hinting that these three areas on the killer had something special?
That's not right either. Su Bei had confronted the killer head-on and didn't notice anything special.
He frowned and stared at the photo, unwilling to miss any details.
Suddenly, Su Bei noticed something off in the photo—why was he blocking with his left hand?
He was undoubtedly right-handed and would instinctively use his right hand to defend himself in the face of danger. Unless the attacker struck from the left side.
But that didn't fit the actual situation.
He remembered that morning in the bathroom, under the forceful push of the plot, he had been dazed and was about to head straight to the last bathroom stall.
From the photo, it could be inferred that his manga self was supposed to push open the door of the last stall and then be killed by the hidden killer inside.
Since it was a frontal attack, he should have instinctively blocked with his right hand, not his left.
Realizing this, Su Bei's gaze fell on his tightly clenched left fist in the photo, and he suddenly had a bold guess: Could there be a patterned gear hidden in that hand?
Verifying this wasn't difficult. Su Bei did push-ups like crazy in his room until he was exhausted and had no strength left. Then he used his ability to create as many patterned gears as possible with his remaining strength.
Soon, he was completely drained of energy, and four scattered gears appeared around him. This was his limit when he was exhausted.
After a long time, he finally grinned, staring at the ceiling and muttering to himself, "There's indeed one in my hand."
Having confirmed the clue he left behind, the next step was to solve the puzzle.
The clue must be hidden in the positions of these four patterned gears.
Both hands and both shoulders—could it indicate that the killer's shoulders and hands are unusual?
No, impossible. Su Bei quickly dismissed this guess. He had seen the killer with his own eyes; the opponent was wrapped up tightly, and based on the silhouette alone, there was nothing unusual about the hands and shoulders.
Someone as prepared as he was didn't notice anything amiss, so it's even less likely that the ambushed "Su Bei" in the manga would have.
Since it wasn't about body parts, the gears must be trying to convey a pattern or design.
If all four patterned gears were connected by lines, they would form a diamond shape.
"Could it be that the killer has a diamond-shaped mark on their exposed skin?" Su Bei muttered to himself.
This seemed possible, or rather, it was the most plausible hypothesis at the moment. After all, he was in a fight with the opponent and didn't pay much attention to such details. And in manga, it's quite common for characters to belong to organizations with distinctive marks.
Perhaps he could investigate from this angle and see if there was any organization whose members bore such symbols. Though it might not necessarily be a diamond shape, as the pattern formed by the four gears could represent something else; a diamond was just the simplest interpretation.
With this thought, he jumped up, went to his desk, and sketched a simple outline of the corpse from the manga, marking the positions of the four gears, and then started trying different arrangements.
He considered various patterns: diamond, lightning bolt, arrow, pitchfork, Z-shape, and so on, committing them to memory.
Su Bei organized the effective clues he had about the killer. The primary clue was the tattoo, which would likely appear on subsequent victims. Therefore, he could use this clue to hint to the protagonist, showcasing his foresight, but he couldn't utilize it directly for himself.
The truly useful clues he could provide were the killer's red eyes and the ability to turn into smoke.
How could he use his "Gear" ability to represent these two clues?
After studying for a while in his dormitory, Su Bei finally had an idea. Once prepared, he checked the time, stretched, and walked out of the door.
It was time to make the next move.
It was now 4:30 PM, and his destination was the cafeteria. Clearly, going to the cafeteria at this hour wasn't for eating. As Su Bei had in mind, it was to prepare for the next plot development.
The original manga plot had been completely disrupted because of him, the awakened cannon fodder. He didn't die in the bathroom, so the storyline that was supposed to be triggered no longer existed.
However, the manga must continue, so the same event would happen again, only this time the victim would not be him.
As the "Manga Awareness" had said: someone else would die in his place.
This inference led to several conclusions: firstly, the gray mist killer must still be lurking in the school; perhaps he was originally a part of the school. Secondly, the next person to die would likely die today and would appear in places where the protagonist would most likely go, such as the cafeteria or the bathhouse.
After all, the protagonist had to witness the incident today for the plot to continue smoothly. If it happened tomorrow, it would slow down the manga's pace.
Walking to the cafeteria now was a precautionary measure. If the next person died in the cafeteria, he might witness the killer's actions again. Even if he didn't see it happen, seeing the victim in advance would be beneficial.
If the crime scene wasn't the cafeteria, it didn't matter; he could still keep watch at the bathhouse at night. At worst, he wouldn't sleep tonight and would keep an eye on any movement outside. Su Bei was convinced the next murder would occur today.
Thanks to the afternoon, he had already observed all the visible surveillance cameras along the route from the cafeteria to the dormitory building.
He walked nonchalantly into the public restroom by the roadside and, upon coming out, began carefully avoiding the cameras.
Thanks to the existence of abilities, the number of surveillance cameras in the school wasn't high. Naturally, ability users trusted their abilities more, believing they could check memories and such, so they didn't invest much in surveillance.
Thus, Su Bei wasn't worried about any hidden cameras in the school; he only needed to avoid the obvious ones.
Staying in the shadows outside the surveillance range of the teaching building, he quickly made his way to the cafeteria.
When he was about ten meters away, he suddenly saw a wisp of gray smoke drift out from a side window.
The gray smoke was too familiar. Su Bei's eyes lit up immediately, realizing he had come to the right place.
He had arrived at the scene of the second murder!
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