Edited by Ning
Shang Sirui was so frightened by his words that he withdrew his hands, “Then… then should I open it?”
Xia Xiqing smiled, walked over and took the key in his hand, “Open it, it took so much effort to find the key.” He opened the door while talking, and Shang Sirui consciously stood behind.
The phones of all three people rang, and at the same time, the same noise came from the new room.
It was the announcement after they cracked the room.
“Wow…” Shang Sirui tilted his head and crossed Xia Xiqing in front to look at the front. “This room is so big…” He saw two girls standing at the other door of the room. One of them, even her side profile, was very familiar, “Sister Cen Cen…”
The girl who was called by her name wore a long white dress with a rose belt, and her long straight black hair fell to her waist. She had simple and elegant makeup. The deep red lip makeup was particularly eye-catching. The facial features were not amazing, but they had a natural sense of alienation. She also saw Shang Sirui, so she raised her hand and gave a small smile, “Sirui.”
Xia Xiqing hardly listened to Chinese songs, but he knew the name of Cen Cen. She used to be the lead singer of a band. She later retired from the team due to illness. After coming back, she directly soloed. Because of her cool temperament, she was liked by many female fans.
“Sister Cen Cen,” Shang Sirui saw that she was an acquaintance, so he walked over boldly, “Are you from this room?”
Cen Cen shook her head, “I just came out of the original room.”
Xia Xiqing took a look at the mobile phone, and sure enough, the delivery time of several messages was almost the same. The room they were in now was not so much a room as a living room.
He has finally figured out the structure of this house. It was actually like a closed four-bedroom and one hall. His and Shou Ziheng’s original room was in the same row as Shang Sirui’s, while the two girls’ original rooms were in the opposite row. But only Shang Sirui’s and Cen Cen’s rooms lead to the living room, while theirs and the other girl’s room were connected to the living room through other rooms.
Why is it arranged like this? Xia Xiqing thought about it.
He finally noticed the girl standing next to Cen Cen, with curly mid-length hair, wearing a black knitted skirt suit, delicate makeup and beautiful eyes.
He suddenly remembered what Xiaojie had said before the show started recording. Besides himself, there was an amateur who was also a member of Mensa.
That should be this girl.
So she was the first person to come out of her room?
Xia Xiqing understands that the program team arranged the difficulty of breaking through the room according to the ability of the guests to ensure that everyone can come to the living room at the same time. Otherwise if the guests have escaped before they meet, there will be no point in the program.
But why put him and Zhou Ziheng together? Was it just for topic? Xia Xiqing thought so at the beginning, but after two rooms, he changed his view on the program group, or the screenwriter behind the scenes. He always felt that his every arrangement has a purpose.
So why exactly?
Zhou Ziheng hasn’t spoken, probably because the two circles of actors and singers are naturally separated. Plus, he and Cen Cen are both non-talkative characters and can’t chat much.
“Hello, everyone. My name is Ruan Xiao.” The sweet looking girl took the initiative to say hello to everyone. Xia Xiqing thought she was familiar, but he was not really sure. He also smiled at her when they looked at each other.
Everyone introduced themselves casually, and walked around in the spacious living room. The living room was very large and contained a semi-open dining room. There was a big oval dining table and a row of sofas. Although there were a lot of things, there were few things that seem unreasonable, and no one has found any useful clues.
There was a double door in the living room. There was also a code lock on it, but there were two password input fields. The input field on the top had four spaces, with nine digits to choose from, while the one on the bottom had only three spaces.
Xia Xiqing tried to touch the three input fields below with his fingers. At the moment of clicking, the input keyboard appeared on the electronic screen next to him, with 26 English letters on it.
So you have to fill in words?
“Shall we try?” Shang Sirui suggested next to him.
Ruan Xiao rejected, “26 letters to choose from, three permutations and combinations, the third power of 26 letters, 17,576 possibilities.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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Wlj Wldlcu kjr ajxfc jyjmx. Zfcrj lr gfjiis vloofgfca, jcv atf wfcaji jglatwfalm rqffv lr abb ojra. Dea Eejc Wljb kjr gluta. Pc atlr ujwf, fztjeralnf lr atf wbra lwqbrrlyif wfatbv, jcv la rtbeiv yf uelvfv ys miefr. Lf kjixfv jgbecv jcv obecv atja j qfgofma mlgmif kjr vgjkc bc atf oibbg cfza ab atf rboj, pera fcbeut rqjmf obg bcf qfgrbc ab rajcv.
“Out?” Shang Sirui, who followed Xia Xiqing, squatted on the ground and read the words written in the circle.
Xia Xiqing hummed softly, “It’s probably the place where the people who are voted for execution will stand.”
Shang Sirui was standing up, raising his feet to step on the round floor. Xia Xiqing added, “The way of execution is probably a fall down.”
“Ah?” Shang Sirui quickly retracted his feet in midair and laughed bitterly, “Don’t scare me.”
“Guessing.” Xia Xiqing smiled and turned around. He looked up and saw Zhou Ziheng standing by the dining table. The other party also happened to see him, but he quickly turned away.
Am I that terrible? Xia Xiqing smiled helplessly.
He walked to the other door of the living room and asked Ruan Xiao and Cen Cen who were checking the refrigerator, “You two were not trapped in the same room, right?”
Ruan Xiao shook her head, “We are separated.” Then she led the others to the other door of the living room, where Cen Cen and Ruan Xiao stood at the beginning.
“Behind this door is Sister Cen Cen’s room.” She opened the door, and the space inside was not large, and a rose scent came over their faces. Xia Xiqing frowned slightly. The scent was too strong.
The furnishings in this room were quite different from other rooms. There were many framed paintings on the off-white wall, and a drawing board stood on the other side of the bed. There was a blank sheet of paper on it, and the style of the whole room looked more like a studio that Xia Xiqing was more familiar with.
Ruan Xiao led them to a huge closet on the far left of the studio. She opened the closet, and there were a lot of clothes in it. She moved all the clothes aside with her hands, revealing the door to another room.
“This one is my original room.”
Everyone passed through the “closet door” one by one. Xia Xiqing was 183 meters tall. It was a little inconvenient when he passed. He thought of Zhou Ziheng, so he looked back and found that he hadn’t followed, and didn’t know what he’s doing. He stood at the same place and waited for a while, sure enough, he couldn’t help but laugh when he saw that he was struggling, bending his waist.
“Hey, Xiqing, what are you laughing at?” Shang Sirui gave him a confused look.
Xia Xiqing shook his head, smiling at the corners of his mouth.
“It’s nothing.”
“Let’s go, then.” Shang Sirui tugged his sleeve but missed, because Xia Xiqing had already turned around, standing at the back door of the closet and pulling the door open so that Zhou Ziheng could come out.
As soon as Zhou Ziheng stepped out of the closet, he looked up and saw Xia Xiqing’s beautiful smiling face. He didn’t know why. He felt that there was a hint of ridicule in that smile. He was even more unhappy, but due to the surrounding cameras, he could only cover it up with a smile and said thank you against his will.
“You’re welcome.”
Is it a prodigal’s habit? The end of every sentence of this man seemed to be deliberately provocative, Zhou Ziheng thought.
Ruan Xiao, Cen Cen and Shang Sirui walked in front, while Xia Xiqing and Zhou Ziheng walked behind. This room looks like a woman’s room. There was an exquisite dressing table, with every kind of cosmetics and perfume on it, and all kinds of expensive suits and dresses in the wardrobe. A portrait was hung on a European-style white wooden bed. It was a beautiful woman dressed in black.
“Is this also a famous painting?” Zhou Ziheng opened his mouth unexpectedly, and Xia Xiqing nodded with a smile on his face, “Ivan Kramskoi’s《The Unknown Woman 》, a very famous portrait of a woman.”
Shang Sirui, who was walking in the front, heard Xia Xiqing’s words and couldn’t help turning his head and admiring him, “I feel like Xiqing is like a walking art encyclopedia, he’s too amazing.”
Zhou Ziheng thought in his heart, if you want to listen to all kinds of physics formulas and laws, I can also tell you one by one, together with the leading figures in the field of popular science physics academia.
But the next second, he was startled by the childish thought in his heart.
Maybe I hate Xia Xiqing so much that I don’t want to hear anyone praising such a cunning and hypocritical person.
Xia Xiqing and Shang Sirui laughed together. Before saying a few words, Shang Sirui, who had a short attention span, turned his attention to Ruan Xiao, “So you escaped from this room and entered Sister Cen Cen’s room? Alone? That’s amazing.”
Ruan Xiao smiled and waved her hand, “Maybe my room was simpler.” Her smile was sweet, and showed a tenacity different from other girls.
“What was the puzzle?” Zhou Ziheng asked.
“Hmm…a numerical Klotski puzzle.”Ruan Xiao walked to the jewelry box on the bedside table and opened it. Inside was the Klotski layout that she had cracked, “I first discovered that this makeup box had a lock, and thought there should be clues inside, so I looked for the key, and a red laser appeared after solving the Klotski.”
She tried to push one of the buttons inside, and sure enough, a red laser appeared, shooting straight at the opposite corner of the wall, “My door is very strange. There was no password and no keyhole. At first, I was stuck in the fact that I didn’t find a way to escape. Later, I tried to move the make-up box, and found that by using the reflection of the vanity mirror on the opposite, the red laser could shine on the metal handle of the door, and it would automatically unlock the lock.”
“My God If I were you, I would never be able to get out of here for the rest of my life.” Shang Sirui was impressed.
“Didn’t you come out, too?” Cen Cen said with a smile.
“I came out thanks to the blessings of these two big men.” Shang Sirui’s smiled playfully and automatically pasted himself onto Xia Xiqing’s body.
Xia Xiqing didn’t push him away either. He suddenly thought of the information he found in other rooms that had nothing to do with escaping from the room, so he asked Ruan Xiao, “Have you found any other information in your room? I mean, things that were not very useful.”
Ruan Xiao’s eyebrows moved slightly, but only for a moment, she laughed, “No, I don’t think there was much information in my room.”
She’s lying.
Xia Xiqing felt strange, but he thought it was reasonable. Ruan Xiao is also a smart person. Smart people are wary, especially of other smart people.
Now that all the players are present, she will definitely not tell the clues in her hand.
I have to find it by myself, Xia Xiqing thought.
Probably because he has a natural curiosity and admiration for smart people, Shang Sirui has been chatting with Ruan Xiao about how to break the lock of this room. Since Ruan Xiao and Cen Cen’s rooms were connected, the two of them already have the relationship of revolutionary comrades in arms. Three people naturally come together, from this room to the connected room, and from that room to the living room.
Instead of following them, Xia Xiqing followed the close-up lenses of cameras arranged in the female owner’s room, slowly walking step by step, observing every detail until he came to the wardrobe. For some reason he didn’t know why, he was suddenly attracted by a small wastepaper basket. Taking advantage of the fact that several other people were not in the room for the time being, he quietly went to the wardrobe, only to find that Zhou Ziheng had come, and the two were synchronized again.
He also followed the camera, but started from the opposite direction.
The two finally met in front of this wardrobe.
“You also think something is wrong?” Xia Xiqing squatted down and emptied the wastebasket. Scraps of paper were scattered all over the floor.
Zhou Ziheng nodded, “This game taught me two things. First, every fragment is not accidental.”
Xia Xiqing couldn’t deny that, he shrugged, “What else?”
Zhou Ziheng picked up a piece of fragments and looked up at Xia Xiqing’s eyes. “When multiple tasks are in parallel, we should learn to grasp the key points.”
Everyone focused on decryption and escape, forgetting the more important point.
“This game is not just an escape room. If you don’t find out the killer, you will lose in the end.”
He’s absolutely right. The biggest difficulty of this show is not who can escape first, but whether ordinary players can find the killer and execute him. Otherwise, once the killer becomes the final winner, everyone’s efforts will be wasted.
Xia Xiqing thought about what he would do at this time if he was the killer.
The first was to conceal one’s identity as much as possible and cover up all the clues that might reveal oneself, but for a killer, revealing one’s identity is inevitable, after all, they have to kill a person anyway. Second…
As he was thinking, Zhou Ziheng said again, “Now everyone is here, it won’t be long before the first round of voting. Someone will be eliminated soon.”
“Too soon.” Xia Xiqing grabbed the hair hanging on his forehead, frowned and looked up at Zhou Ziheng, “If you are the killer, what will you do before the first round of voting?”
They looked at each other, exchanging dangerous signals.
“Kill the person who is most likely to guess the identity of the killer.”
Xia Xiqing chuckled and licked his lips, “Tsk, it’s too exciting.”
He is not the killer. Seeing Zhou Ziheng looking for the killer so devotedly, he certainly is not either, unless his acting skills are really superb enough to completely pretend to be an ordinary player.
With his acting skills, it is indeed possible, but Xia Xiqing is more willing to believe that he is not. If he were the killer, he would have died many times over.
In any case, he knew very well that he was the most dangerous one now. As an ordinary player, he found too many clues from the beginning, and the only person who was considered an ally was still hostile to himself.
“I’m curious. You don’t believe me. How much do you believe what Ruan Xiao said just now?” Xia Xiqing asked.
Zhou Ziheng didn’t look up, but he said in a low voice, “The decryption idea is true, and having no clue is false.” After speaking, he pointed to the fragments on the ground.
Very relevant.
Sure enough, this person only has prejudice against himself. He doesn’t know why, but Xia Xiqing still feels very happy.
Obviously, the scraps of paper on the ground used to be a complete document. The two people squatted on the ground and pieced it together. Zhou Ziheng didn’t speak, he was still thinking about the fragmented clues over and over again in his mind, fearing that he had missed something, and fearing that his first impression of Xia Xiqing might lead to a misjudgment.
In the quiet atmosphere, Xia Xiqing suddenly said, “Do you believe I am not the killer now?”
Zhou Ziheng looked up at him. His deep eyes looked at him for a few seconds, as if to penetrate him. Xia Xiqing did not dodge at all.
He wanted to know what Zhou Ziheng was trying to see in his eyes.
But if he knows what Zhou Ziheng wants, he can give him.
Obviously they spend only a few seconds staring at each other, but time seems to have turned into slow motion at this moment. The last frame is Zhou Ziheng’s first lowered eyelids and trembling thick eyelashes. He didn’t say anything, lowered his head and continued to piece together the torn pieces of paper, as if he hadn’t heard Xia Xiqing’s question before.
Xia Xiqing had already expected that he would not get his affirmative answer. No answer is already an answer. He didn’t care very much, he just smiled and asked again, “Then who do you suspect in your heart?” Then he added, “I mean are there any other suspects besides me?”
Zhou Ziheng didn’t look up, and didn’t even think too much, but his subconscious impulse to bite Xia Xiqing made him blurt out.
“You will always be the suspect in my heart.”
Such a sentence full of ambiguity made the love scene veteran Xia Xiqing uncontrollably stunned.
It was about three seconds later that Zhou Ziheng realized something was wrong. He suddenly raised his head, with a hint of surprise in his eyes. The science student’s thinking made him unable to distinguish between [You will always be the suspect in my heart] and [In my heart, you will always be a suspect] for a moment, which caused such a big problem.
With the same subject, predicate and object, there are so many ambiguous changes in details out of thin air. Things like words, which are full of uncertainty, are really too cunning.
“In that case…” Xia Xiqing’s voice softened, “It’s really an honor for me.”
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Zhou Ziheng: Look at my broken mouth [facepalm]
This is really a scene where you don’t know if you wanna laugh or cry
Damn this two big boss IQ is not really the same as mine~
Thanks for the chapter<3
….I feel like lighting a candle and laughing at ZZH at the same time~
Thanks for the chapter~
pfft—
Thanks for the chapter! ♡
This pair is too cute da.mit
😂 they’re pretty cute
Thank you for the chapter ~
Well thanks for that unexpected bite of dog food!
Thanks for the chapter <3