Fang Juexia froze for a second.
Just a moment ago, he had been brainstorming, calculating the strengths of the two people in front of him and his own chances of winning. But the moment he heard Pei Tingsong’s words, his rapidly spinning brain malfunctioned.
He always lost his composure because of Pei Tingsong.
“Clap—clap—” The sound of applause interrupted Fang Juexia’s thoughts.
Standing to the side, Xia Xiqing lowered his hand and sighed, “Are all you guys in the boy band this good at playing games?”
Pei Tingsong replied bluntly, “You’re still better at it than us.”
His words caused Fang Juexia’s thought process to restart. No, Pei Tingsong was just playing a game. His words were always misleading, and in fact, he was no different from Xia Xiqing.
No, he might even have a business motive.
He seemed sincere, but in reality, not a single word could be trusted.
“My knight…” Fang Juexia turned away, picked up the appointment slip he had deliberately left on the table, and raised the corner of his mouth. “The way you put it, it’s as if I’m the killer who needs a black knight to protect me.”
After speaking, he raised his head, using the basic yet most skilled expression management of an idol to hide his momentary panic. The gaze he directed at Pei Tingsong was filled with doubt and judgment. “Like Xiqing, I don’t quite believe in your knightly identity. Though I wouldn’t dare to blindly trust his words either.”
“Clearly, you can’t explain your logic now, and there’s no behavior or statement to verify your logic unless you reveal your faction. Anything else you say is baseless.”
It was clear that Xia Xingqing did not choose to directly reveal his faction.
After hearing his words, Pei Tingsong did not continue with childish rebuttals or arguments. Instead, he remained calm in the face of Fang Juexia’s sudden questioning. “It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me. At this point, no one knows if what anyone says is true or false, but everything has a sequence of events.”
Fang Juexia maintained a faint smile on his face, his tone calm, “You were the one who initiated it.”
Whether it was Xia Xiqing or Pei Tingsong, these two fake knights seemed to be arguing with each other, but in reality, they were more subtly probing each other around Fang Juexia.
After speaking, he looked down at the reservation list. The second line read “Zaozao’s name.” “With only two private rooms, two knights have already appeared. Whether there’s really a killer stirring up trouble here, no one can be certain. It seems like you’re all trying to win my vote, which makes me hesitant to act rashly.”
Fang Juexia made his position clear. Xia Xiqing laughed, as if breaking their alliance was already a significant achievement. “You have a point.” He kept his hands in his pockets, looking relaxed. “Let’s figure out the plot first, or escape first. There’s no need for us three to fight like this. There’s still some time before the first round of voting. We can talk about it then.”
Pei Tingsong narrowed his eyes slightly. “Then, Xi Qing, you must have found some clues about the plot in that secret room earlier, right?”
At this point, they both knew that neither of them was easy to deal with, and hiding things would only arouse suspicion. Xia Xiqing casually pulled out a small booklet from his school uniform pocket, “Actually, I wanted to show you this earlier,” he gave Pei Tingsong a look, “but he was so focused on solving the puzzle to save you that he forgot.”
He handed the booklet over. “This is a medical record. The name on it matches the one on my ID badge—both are ‘Zaozao.’ It sounds like a nickname or an alias.”
Fang Juexia took the medical record and flipped through it. It contained records of symptoms related to mental illnesses.
[Name: Zaozao Gender: Female Age: 17]
Pei Tingsong noticed the key point first, “Hey, it says the gender is female.”
Xia Xiqing glanced at it, “Really? I didn’t notice. Maybe they thought I looked good enough to play a female role? Maybe it was the screenwriter’s family’s idea.”
Fang Juexia focused on the medical records and read aloud softly, “The patient was diagnosed with depression on February 10 due to low mood, prolonged insomnia and anxiety, mental weakness, fear of social interaction, and physical contact. Currently, she is taking…”
Before he could finish, Pei Tingsong rolled his eyes, “The character doesn’t resemble the real person at all.”
Xia Xiqing laughed, “I’m perfectly suited for this tragic character.”
“The appointment on this form is for March 2, which means that Zao Zao might have come to see…” Fang Juexia glanced at Pei Tingsong, who picked up the thread, “Dr. Tian.”
“Right, to see Dr. Tian for a follow-up, or some other kind of psychological treatment.” Fang Juexia looked at Xia Xiqing again, “Xiqing, can we go to your room and take a look?”
“Of course. This room might provide some clues about Zaozao’s storyline.” Xia Xiqing turned around and led them over. “At first, I found it a bit odd that this room was so sparsely decorated, different from the first season. It looked a bit like they cut corners.”
Indeed, as Xia Xiqing mentioned, the room was unexpectedly simple, with only a sofa and a small coffee table as furnishings. On the coffee table lay a landline phone, a handbook on mental health, and an oil painting that had been taken down and placed on the sofa.
Seeing Fang Juexia looking at the painting, Xia Xiqing casually explained, “This is Van Gogh’s ‘The Garden.’ I took it down to solve the puzzle.”
“Van Gogh…” Pei Tingsong sat down on the sofa and glanced at the wallpaper in this room, which was pink, unlike the blue wallpaper outside.
Fang Juexia examined the room carefully, feeling something was off. “At first, I thought it was like the first season, where each room was designed to match the players’ characters, their own living spaces. But now it doesn’t seem that way.”
Hearing him say that, Xia Xiqing picked up a backpack from the side of the sofa and emptied its contents onto the coffee table. “If you’re looking for the player settings, these are probably props prepared by the production team.”
On the coffee table were a few paintbrushes, a box of new, unopened paint, high school textbooks, and a flyer for an art training institution. Fang Juexia knelt by the coffee table and instinctively began organizing the props, arranging them neatly and examining each one.
Pei Tingsong glanced through them and speculated, “So this character is a 17-year-old female high school student studying art who suffers from depression and comes to Dr. Tian’s clinic for treatment.”
“Not only that, look at this.” Xia Xiqing opened the textbook, which contained a suicide note that had been torn up and then glued back together.
Fang Juexia glanced at it. It was indeed a girl’s handwriting, neat and clean, but it had been torn to pieces.
Xia Xiqing picked up the suicide note and read it aloud, “By the time you read this suicide note, I may have already left this world forever. I tried to love this world, but this world did not give me a shred of warmth. I know that those who have hurt me will not change because of my departure; they will continue to hurt more children. They tear our bodies apart with violence and crush our childhoods with authority. But at least in this final moment, I must stand up and expose…”
His voice trailed off. Pei Tingsong, who had been flipping through an art training booklet, looked up. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s over.” Xia Xiqing put down the suicide note. “It stops here. When I saw it, it was just a pile of fragments. I pieced them together to form a complete sheet of paper, but the suicide note is incomplete.”
Pei Tingsong confirmed it was indeed unfinished. “Could it be that this girl had considered suicide before, so she wrote the suicide note in advance, but later changed her mind and regretted it, so she tore up the suicide note?”
“That logic makes sense.” Xia Xiqing put down the suicide note. “I was thinking, she mentioned ‘the person who hurt her’ in the suicide note, as well as ‘tearing apart her body’ and ‘crushing her childhood.’ These words likely imply that she suffered harm during her childhood. Among these players, could someone be playing the role of the person who hurt her?”
Xia Xiqing’s line of thinking also gave Fang Juexia a hint. In past versions of Escape from Heaven, the killer was often the murderer or perpetrator in the plot. Following this line of thinking, perhaps they could find the real killer.
Having found a tool to hint at the character’s identity, what about this locked room? Could there be some kind of metaphor here?
Fang Juexia looked around and noticed that the room didn’t even have a bed.
“Xiqing…”
Pei Tingsong sat to one side and heard Fang Juexia unconsciously call out Xia Qing’s name, addressing him affectionately as “brother,” completely unlike the cold demeanor he displayed when facing him. He felt a bit uneasy. These matters could have been discussed with him, but Fang Juexia chose to bypass him.
He couldn’t describe what this feeling was, but he felt somewhat irritated.
Fang Juexia continued to ask Xia Qing, “Most of the rooms we escaped from before were bedrooms or study rooms. What do you think this room is?”
Xia Qing sensed something from his tone. He looked around carefully and glanced through the door connected to the examination room. Suddenly, he thought of something. “Are you saying this is the waiting room?”
“Right.” Fang Juexia nodded repeatedly. “It’s just a guess.” He held the appointment slip in his hand and pointed at Pei Tingsong. “Little Pei is Dr. Tian, the psychologist. You are Zaozao, the patient who came for a follow-up visit after giving up on suicide. As for why you’re in the waiting room…”
Pei Tingsong continued, “Because the person being seen now is you.” He read out the first name on the appointment slip, “Yan Teacher.”
Fang Juexia nodded. That was why, when they had clicked on the screen of the door earlier, the prompt had said, “Your appointment time has not yet ended. Please do not leave.”
“I get it now,” Xia Xiqing laughed. “So the remaining players should all be on this list.” He read out the names one by one, “Teacher Yan, Zaozao, Xixi, Zoe. That means there are five players in total this time. One psychologist and four patients. Teacher Yan, who is seeing the psychologist, is trapped in the consultation room with the psychologist, while the remaining three are separated in different waiting rooms.”
“That should be correct.” Fang Juexia stood up.
Pei Tingsong leaned back on the sofa, “But we’re stuck here now. Even if we figure all this out, it won’t do us any good. Let’s think about how to get out first.”
“How about this: Xiao Pei can rest on the sofa for a while.” Xia Xiqing winked at Fang Juexia, “Me and Xiao Zhengjing will go look for a way to unlock the door?”
Pei Tingsong sat up straight suddenly, like a dog with its fur standing on end, “That’s not possible. What if you go out and leave me locked inside?”
Xia Xiqing smiled, “Why would we do something like that?”
“Come on, Xiqing,” Pei Tingsong tugged at the corner of his mouth, “You did that in the first season, and it was to our senior brother.”
Fang Juexia didn’t pay attention to their bickering. He was completely focused on what Xia Xiqing had just said about going out. He muttered to himself, as he always did when he was thinking seriously, “There’s no lock on that door, and it just said that my appointment time isn’t over yet, so I can’t go out…”
Wait a minute.
The appointment time isn’t over yet, and the people waiting to be seen are waiting next door.
He suddenly thought of something and tried to stand up, but his legs had gone numb from crouching, and he felt a bit weak. He couldn’t control himself and leaned toward the sofa, almost falling onto Pei Tingsong. Pei Tingsong hurriedly helped him up, pulling him to sit beside her, and teased him, “You get weak in the legs too easily.”
Xia Xiqing burst out laughing and unexpectedly agreed with Pei Tingsong, “Yeah, my legs go weak before I even do anything.”
Fang Juexia didn’t notice anything wrong, as his legs were so numb he couldn’t think straight. On the other hand, Pei Tingsong immediately let go of Fang Juexia’s hand and moved to the other side.
Fang Juexia rubbed his legs and asked, leaning to the side, “Xiqing, you said your secret room is relatively simple. Could it be that the screenwriter did it on purpose?”
Xia Xingqing narrowed his eyes, pondered for a few seconds, and suddenly understood Fang Juexia’s meaning. “You’re saying that giving me a simple secret room was to ensure I could enter your room sooner.”
Pei Tingsong also realized, “Generally, the difficulty of the secret rooms should be assigned based on the players’ abilities. Giving you, a high-level player, a simple secret room while trapping the two of us newbies is to ensure that you can definitely enter before we leave, entering this examination room.”
At this point, the three of them stood up simultaneously, and Pei Tingsong instinctively reached out to support Fang Juexia. However, Fang Juexia looked up and whispered, “My legs aren’t weak anymore.” Then he walked faster than anyone else.
So quickly over the weakness? That’s impressive.
I see you, Fang Juexia, are the toughest in the world—your legs are strong, and your heart is even stronger.
Pei Tingsong rolled his eyes behind him but still followed Fang Juexia. They passed through the door connecting the two secret rooms and arrived at the previous psychologist’s consultation room, stopping in front of the black door.
“I hope we’re not mistaken.” Fang Juexia tapped the dark screen, which no longer displayed the Greek letters or the reminder that the appointment time had not yet ended.
However, contrary to their expectations, no new Greek letters or puzzles appeared.
Just as Fang Juexia was puzzled, a new prompt sounded.
“Hello, your appointment time has ended. Please follow the instructions to find the correct exit and leave the examination room.”
It wasn’t that simple after all.
Only Pei Tingsong subconsciously focused on the words, “correct exit…”
Suddenly, the speakers in the room emitted a voice, an announcement.
“Please note that two players have already left the initialization room and entered the public area.”
Such an announcement would undoubtedly increase the psychological burden on other players. However, Fang Juexia didn’t feel much about it. After all, the most difficult parts were usually the public areas and plot reconstruction.
Xia Xiqing joked, “This room is indeed difficult, with many trivial obstacles. You guys are pretty unlucky. It’s almost as bad as my first season’s second episode’s hellish dungeon.”
Fang Juexia knew what was going on. This room was a psychologist’s office, so it was naturally difficult. As idols, they often appeared on variety shows as mere decorations. Now it seemed that the Escape from Heaven production team indeed liked to go against the grain, giving them two initialization rooms that were high-difficulty dungeons. If they solved them, the audience would feel a sense of reversal; if they couldn’t, Xia Xiqing would come in to help.
As he thought this, he noticed Xia Xiqing’s gaze was drawn to the painting by the door.
“Based on past experience, the paintings are always problematic.” Xia Xiqing tried to remove the painting from the wall but found it was securely fixed in place. “The prop team really put in a lot of effort.”
Fang Juexia wasn’t particularly interested in the content of the painting, but Pei Tingsong spoke up, “I was just thinking that the painting technique used in this piece is quite unique—there are no outlines of any objects, just grids.” He turned to Xia Xiqing for clarification, “Xiqing, could you explain this to us?”
Xia Xiqing laughed, “You’re the first person on this show to ask me to explain a painting.”
Pei Tingsong shrugged, “Philosophy and art are of the same origin.”
“You’re quite the wordsmith.” Xia Xiqing looked at the painting. “This is actually a world-renowned masterpiece, Piet Mondrian’s ‘Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow.’ The entire painting is indeed made up of grids. What you mentioned earlier about the contours of objects is the classical style, which draws inspiration from nature. Artists knew that nature is beautiful, so they painted landscapes and figures to depict beauty. Mondrian’s grid paintings are another innovation—the abstract style. He sought to explore whether beauty still exists after stripping away all external forms.”
Fang Juexia looked at the painting before him, with countless black horizontal and vertical lines forming squares of various sizes, filled with color. Perhaps because he was born with a preference for precision and clarity, this grid painting, which combines rigorous structure with rich artistic color, was indeed beautiful in his eyes.
Pei Tingsong nodded, “In other words, his grid actually deconstructs the world, treating horizontal and vertical lines as the essence of the world.”
“You can understand it that way,” Xia Xiqing was a little surprised that this 20-year-old boy had such a high level of understanding of art. “This is a kind of artistic pursuit of the origin of the world.”
Strangely enough, these words resonated with both Fang Juexia and Pei Tingsong. In secular terms, philosophy and mathematics are disciplines that explore the essence of the world, though they often don’t intersect. Yet at this moment, the purpose of this quest converged in the form of artistic expression, which was truly fascinating.
“You have a good eye for art. This painting is Mondrian’s attempt to find inner peace, which fits the setting of a psychologist’s office.”
Fang Juexia couldn’t help but speak up, “Although I don’t study painting, seeing this reminds me of Pythagoras.”
Xia Xiqing laughed, “You’re right, maybe we’re both geometry nerds, but Pythagoras probably liked triangles more. If you draw a diagonal line, it looks more like…” He spoke while drawing a diagonal line on the painting with his finger, but suddenly noticed something, “Hm?”
He placed both palms on the painting and ran his hands over the entire surface.
Peisheng asked, “What’s wrong? Is something off?”
Xia Xiqing didn’t turn around, but asked them, “Is the fifth Greek letter Ε?”
Fang Juexia nodded, “That’s right.”
“The final clue is hidden in this grid painting.” Xia Xiqing grabbed Fang Juexia’s hand and placed it on the painting. “Feel it. Some of the horizontal and vertical lines on the painting are raised, and the raised parts are shaped like Ε.”
Sure enough, they were.
“Really, this is so hard to spot.” Fang Juexia looked surprised and turned to look at Pei Tingsong, but the other person’s expression was unexpectedly unpleasant.
What’s wrong?
Xia Xiqing tried to push the raised line with his finger, but the Greek letter-shaped line was twisted by him.
Suddenly, the display screen on the door to their right lit up again, showing a lowercase ε, and at the same time, the painting in front of them suddenly moved!
Xia Xiqing and Fang Juexia let go of their hands and took a step back. He watched as the painting split in the middle, as if it had been cut horizontally into two halves, one moving upward and the other downward, heading in different directions. The movement stopped only when the upper half exceeded the height of the right door and the lower half touched the ground.
“There are actually tracks hidden inside this wall,” Pei Tingsong couldn’t believe it, even though he had already witnessed the prop team’s ingenuity before.
The tracks were hidden beneath the wallpaper, perfectly aligned with the width of the painting. It seemed they had been waiting for them to discover the issue with the painting and activate the corresponding mechanism.
As the painting frame and tracks slid open, they tore through the blue wallpaper, which fluttered down half-unraveled, revealing the white section beneath. They had assumed it was part of the wall, but when Xia Xiqing peeled back the wallpaper covering the tracks, a brand-new white door appeared before them.
And where the painting had been hanging, there was a display screen identical to the one on the right door.
Who would have believed that this secret room would have two doors!
Pei Tingsong understood, “So that’s what the correct exit meant earlier.”
Both screens lit up simultaneously, emitting a new prompt sound, “Patient, your appointment time has ended. You may now leave.”
The AI lock on the white door spoke in an electronic voice, “We are the AI locks for these two doors. Under special program settings, one of us will always speak the truth, while the other will always lie.”
The black door continued, “If you are asked to make a direct choice, the success rate is only 50%. Therefore, you have the right to ask one question, and we can only answer yes or no. Please think carefully. If you make the wrong choice, we will lock the doors, and you will have to wait an hour before trying again.”
Two doors, only one question allowed, one door always tells the truth, the other always lies, and both can only answer yes or no.
This is a logic puzzle.
Fang Juexia tried to simplify and formalize the problem, quickly deducing the solution in his mind, but he was too late.
“Me?”
“So soon?” Xia Xiqing glanced at him. “If you get it wrong, you’ll have to wait an hour.”
Hearing Pei Tingsong’s voice, Fang Juexia turned his head to look at him. Seeing his confident expression, he assumed he already had the answer. After all, Pei Tingsong had studied systematic logic.
Fang Juexia nodded, choosing to trust him.
He saw Pei Tingsong with his arms crossed, ready to speak, and thought he would listen carefully to his question. But instead, the guy asked him, “Brother, which door do you like? The white one or the black one?”
The sudden question caught Fang Juexia off guard. He didn’t know if it was because of the word “brother” or because of the random question.
“Hmm…” Fang Juexia pointed randomly, “The white one, the new door.”
Xia Xiqing’s gaze darted back and forth between the two, wearing an expression that seemed to find the whole situation particularly amusing. Sure enough, he preferred observing human nature over these convoluted, cold logic puzzles.
“Alright.” Pei Tingsong stood in front of the white door and posed this crucial question.
“May I ask, would the other AI say this door is the real exit?”
Author’s note: I posted Mondrian’s painting on Weibo. If you want to see it, you can go there. The last question is derived from a very classic logic puzzle—the gates of heaven and hell. I’m sure many readers have seen other versions of this question. In fact, there are many versions of the question posed at the end, and I’m sure there will be other answers in the comments section.
Some readers may find it a bit confusing, so I will explain Xiao Pei’s reasoning behind this question. If you want to think about it yourself, don’t read on yet.
He chose the white door pointed out by his brother (lao) and asked the AI if the other AI would say that this door is the real exit. In simple terms, he asked the AIs to answer each other’s questions.
If this white door is indeed the real exit:
The real AI would say: No (because the other AI is a fake AI, and it would lie and not admit that the white door is the real exit).
The fake AI would say: No (because the real AI would actually say yes, but the fake AI would lie).
If this white door is a fake exit:
The real AI would answer: Yes (because the fake AI would lie and say this door is the real exit).
The fake AI would answer: Yes (because the real AI says no, but the fake AI would lie when relaying the message).
In other words, when Xiao Pei asks this question, if both AIs answer no, the door must be the real exit; otherwise, it is the fake exit.
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