Eldritch Horror Theatre

Why did the Director seem to have a split personality?

This was exactly the question Fu Qian suspected he had found the answer to.

His attitude was erratic, full of contradictions from start to finish.

He reveled in the chaos, trying to drive Fu Qian into the core of the Sanitarium—the Head Physician’s Office.

Yet when they actually reached the door, he chickened out, reverting to his righteous persona of exposing the dark truth.

Even his dedicated actor was being tortured to the brink of madness. He had been so impressive from his debut right up to the station, only to look completely pathetic the rest of the way.

Why would the Director behave like this?

The answer: because this wasn’t the performance of one person alone.

What Brother Buyiren displayed was actually the will of two different people.

...The suspicion he had harbored from the start truly blossomed and bore fruit at this moment.

The note in Brother Buyiren’s hand was particularly powerful evidence, despite its brevity.

First, it indisputably proved the Director’s existence.

He had genuinely been controlling the scene from the very beginning. As a result, anything could be interpreted as part of a conspiracy.

Second was the content of the note itself. As he had deduced earlier, it was a hidden trump card left for Brother Buyiren.

The specific strategy was simple: whenever he lost control of the situation, he could employ a stalling tactic by handing over a little initiative to Fu Qian, the intruder, rather than constantly trying to suppress him.

In all fairness, this arrangement was perfectly reasonable. It even reflected the Director’s ”operational limits.”

As the intruder constantly caught in their schemes, Fu Qian’s behavior had taken a radical turn after he left Mrs. Tracy’s male companion.

Whether it was emergency damage control or a pre-planned part of the plot, Buyiren had stepped up to shoulder that pressure alone, guiding the pacing the entire way.

But as everyone knew, even when a genius actor improvised, the director still needed to step in and manage the scene from time to time.

Especially since his scene partner absolutely loved pressuring others and torturing their nerves.

So, no matter how much direction the Director had given Buyiren beforehand, the ensuing developments were bound to spiral out of control.

If he still wanted to keep things under control at that point, he would have to resort to more drastic measures.

Measures like the message on the note: ”Yes, yes, yes, everything you say is right.”

Conveying this attitude through Buyiren wasn’t meant as mockery; it was meant to loosen the reins on the intruder.

Just like Buyiren, Fu Qian had also gained a certain degree of freedom to improvise.

Up to this point, this could simply be viewed as the success of his earlier plan: testing the limits of the Director’s control.

However, the subsequent developments changed things. With further probing, he had pointed out the contradictions in Buyiren’s behavior, which led Buyiren to directly hand over the note and reveal its contents.

What the Director displayed then was no longer just a struggle for control, but genuine ambiguity in his stance.

He didn’t mind exposing his own powerlessness at all, completely handing over the initiative to a dangerous element like Fu Qian while Buyiren was reduced to a mere supporting character.

And the only trigger for all of this was Fu Qian noticing the ”hesitation” in Buyiren’s heart.

...

So, Buyiren’s earlier predicament—where Fu Qian’s rapid flip-flopping had dragged him into such a wretched state—was actually within the Director’s expectations?

He had known about the ”hesitation” in Buyiren’s heart all along, even if it didn’t look like a deliberate setup, but rather the actor’s genuine feelings.

The Director didn’t even mind letting Fu Qian know all this, granting him a more comprehensive perspective of the entire event—

This was indeed a prank orchestrated by the Director. If the intruder was easy to handle, he would let Buyiren control the scene from start to finish, playing the intruder for a fool until the very end.

But if the intruder proved to be suitably sharp, he would lay all his cards on the table: ”Congratulations, you guessed right. This guy in front of you really is hesitating. As for why, why don’t you take another guess?”

Fu Qian could almost hear someone saying those exact words to him.

It wouldn’t even be hard to guess. The reason Buyiren’s behavior was so full of contradictions was because the Director and Servis were not the same person.

He had theorized earlier that, barring the involvement of supernatural forces, the only one capable of making so many people cooperate flawlessly was the true person in charge of the Sanitarium: the elusive Servis.

Whether Servis was actually the Director—turning the Sanitarium into his own personal amusement park due to some twisted fetish—had always been one of Fu Qian’s working theories.

Yet the Director’s act of revealing the note was essentially a blatant denial of that theory.

There was a high probability that Buyiren had been sent by Servis, but the Director wasn’t necessarily Servis. In fact, the two might hold completely opposite stances.

One wanted the intruder to board the train, while the other wanted the intruder to enter the Head Physician’s Office.

While their specific motives were still unclear, the most direct consequence was that Buyiren, caught in the crossfire, was in absolute agony.

Of course, this was all still just speculation. He couldn’t rule out the possibility that this was all a conspiracy concocted by ”Director Servis” to mislead him into thinking exactly this.

But at least under this assumption, Buyiren’s behavior suddenly made a lot more sense.

Obeying Servis’s orders while simultaneously trying to follow the Director’s script constantly left him stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Fu Qian didn’t even need to push him much; Buyiren was practically jumping back and forth on his own.

Under these circumstances, the pacing Fu Qian had set was even livelier than he had imagined.

In essence, this was actually a trio act, rather than the two-man show he had initially assumed.

The results were fantastic. Not only had he successfully tested the Director’s limits, but the divide between the two opposing wills had become increasingly obvious, eventually separating completely as if spun out in a centrifuge.

Excellent. Now he only needed to answer one question to make the entire logic flawless: why did Buyiren have to go along with the Director’s script?

He could even expand on that a bit: why were so many people, including Servis himself, playing along with the Director’s script?

”The person who wrote this doesn’t seem to have much faith in you, do they?”

Instead of burning it after reading, Fu Qian neatly folded the note and tucked it away. He shot Brother Buyiren a look, opening his mouth to sow discord once again.

...

”I’m sorry, but I won’t reveal anything related to that object.”

Even though he was already familiar with Fu Qian’s sheer audacity, this precise strike at his sore spot still made Brother Buyiren’s breath hitch for a moment.

After taking a moment to collect himself, he shook his head coldly, expressing that his hands were tied.

”I thought I was the one leading this operation?”

Fu Qian looked thoroughly surprised.

”That’s correct, of course. You can have me carry out any plan you have in mind—but surely you aren’t going to claim that ’answering questions’ counts as an operation?”

Brother Buyiren maintained his frosty expression, emphasizing his point once again.

”Of course not.”

Fu Qian’s expression morphed into a smile in an instant, showing he was above playing such petty word games.

”Our next operation is... you can leave.”