Shang Sirui was so startled by his words that he quickly withdrew his hand. “Then… should I open it?”
Xia Xiqing walked over with a smile and took the key from his hand. “Of course we’re going to open it. We went through so much trouble to find this key.” As he spoke, he opened the door, and Shang Sirui consciously stepped back.
All three of their phones rang, and at the same time, the same sound came from the new room.
It was the announcement after they had cracked the room.
“Wow…” Shang Sirui tilted his head, peering past Xia Xiqing to look ahead. “This room is so big…” He saw two girls standing at the other door of the room. One of them looked familiar even from the side. “Hey, Chen Chen…”
The girl whose name was called wore a white long dress with a rose-colored belt, her black straight hair hanging down to her waist. Her makeup was simple, but her deep red lipstick stood out. Her features weren’t particularly striking, but she had a natural air of detachment. She also saw Shang Siru, so she raised her hand and gave a small smile, “Siru.”
Xia Xiqing rarely listened to Mandarin pop songs, but he knew Chen Chen‘s name. She had been the lead singer of a band before, but had to leave due to illness. After her comeback, she went solo, and her cool demeanor had earned her many female fans.
“Chen Chen,” Shang Sui saw that she was an acquaintance and approached her confidently, “Are you in this room?”
Chen Chen shook her head. “I just came out of the original room.”
Xia Xiqing glanced at his phone. Sure enough, the delivery times of the messages were almost identical. The room they were currently in was more of a living room than a bedroom.
He had finally figured out the layout of the house. It was essentially a closed four-bedroom, one-living-room structure. his and Zhou Ziheng’s original rooms were in one row with Shang Siru’s original room, while the opposite row was the original rooms of the two girls. However, only Shang Siru and Chen Chen‘s rooms could access this living room, while his and the other girl’s rooms could only access others’ rooms before reaching the living room.
Why was it arranged this way? Xia Xiqing pondered for a moment.
He finally noticed the girl standing beside Chen Chen. She had slightly curly medium-length hair tied up, wore a black knit dress suit, had makeup, and possessed a pair of beautiful eyes.
He suddenly recalled what Xiao Jie had mentioned before the show: besides himself, there was another civilian participant who was also a Mensa member.
That must be this girl.
So she was the first one to come out of her room?
Xia Xiqing understood that the program crew had arranged the difficulty of breaking out of the rooms based on the guests’ abilities to ensure that everyone could arrive at the living room, the central gathering place, at roughly the same time. Otherwise, if the guests escaped before meeting each other, the program would have no highlights.
But why put him and Zhou Ziheng together? Was it just for the sake of creating buzz? Xia Xiqing initially thought so, but after two rooms, he began to see the production team—or rather, the behind-the-scenes screenwriters—in a new light. He felt that every arrangement they made had a purpose.
So why exactly?
Zhou Ziheng hadn’t spoken a word. Perhaps it was because the actor and singer circles naturally had a barrier between them, and both he and Chen Chen were quiet personalities who couldn’t find much to talk about.
“Hello everyone, my name is Ruan Xiao.” The sweet-looking girl took the initiative to greet everyone. Xia Xiqing felt she looked familiar but wasn’t sure, so he smiled at her when their eyes met.
Everyone casually introduced themselves to one another and walked around the spacious living room. The living room was large, featuring a semi-open dining area with a large oval dining table and a row of sofas. Though there were many items, few seemed out of place, and no one found any useful clues.
The living room had a double-door entrance with a password lock, but there were two password input fields. The upper field had four spaces, with nine digits to choose from, while the lower field had only three spaces.
Xia Xiqing tried touching the lower three-digit input field with her finger. Upon clicking, an electronic keyboard appeared on the side, displaying the 26 letters of the English alphabet.
So we need to enter a word?
“Why don’t we give it a try?” Shang Sirui suggested from the side.
Ruan Xiao objected, “With 26 letters and three to choose from, there are 26 to the third power, or 17,576 possible combinations.”
Hearing Ruan Xiao say this, Shang Siyi smiled with a complicated expression, “Never mind what I said, haha.”
Xia Xiqing was quite surprised. The Mensa Club was indeed different. Their mental arithmetic speed was too fast. However, Ruan Xiao was right. In this game, brute force was the least likely method. There should be clues to guide them. He walked around and noticed a perfectly circular circle drawn on the floor next to the sofa, just large enough for one person to stand in.
“The execution seat?” Shang Sirui, who had followed Xia Xiqing over, knelt down and read the words written around the edge of the circle.
Xia Xiqing nodded slightly. “It’s probably where the person being executed stands during the voting process.”
Shang Sirui was about to stand up and step on the circular floor when Xia Xiqing added, “The execution method was probably a swift drop.”
“Huh?” Shang Siru quickly withdrew his foot, which was suspended in midair, and laughed awkwardly, “Don’t scare me.”
Am I that scary? Xia Xiqing smiled helplessly.
He walked to another door in the living room and asked Ruan Xiao and Chen Chen, who were checking the refrigerator, “You two aren’t stuck in the same room, are you?”
Ruan Xiao shook her head, “We’re separated.” Saying this, she led the others to the other door in the living room, where Chen Chen and Ruan Xiao had been standing earlier.
“This door leads to Sister Chen Chen‘s room.” She opened the door, and the space inside was not very large. A strong rose fragrance wafted toward them, and Xia Xiqing furrowed his brows slightly—the scent was simply too overpowering.
The furnishings in this room were very different from those in the other rooms. The off-white walls were hung with many framed paintings, and on the other side of the bed stood an easel with a blank sheet of paper on it. The overall style of the room resembled the art studio that Xia Xiqing was all too familiar with.
Ruan Xiao led them to a large wardrobe on the far left of the studio. She opened the wardrobe, which contained several pieces of clothing. She moved the clothes aside with her hands, revealing a door leading to another room.
“This is my original room.”
Everyone passed through the “wardrobe door” one by one. Xia Xiqing, who was 1.83 meters tall, found it a bit inconvenient to pass through. He thought of Zhou Ziheng and turned back to look, only to find that he hadn’t followed. He wondered where he had gone and waited for a moment. Sure enough, he saw him crouching down, struggling to get through, and couldn’t help but laugh.
“Hey, Xiqing, what are you laughing at?” Shang Sirui looked at him with a puzzled expression.
Xia Xiqing shook his head, a smile curling at the corners of his mouth.
“Nothing.”
“Let’s go then.” Shang Sirui tugged at his sleeve, but it was empty, because Xia Xiqing had already turned around and was standing by the back door of the wardrobe, pulling it open a bit to let Zhou Ziheng out.
Zhou Ziheng stepped out of the wardrobe and looked up to see Xia Xiqing’s handsome smiling face. For some reason, he felt that the smile was tinged with mockery, which made him even more unhappy, but because of the cameras around him, he could only cover it up with a smile and say thank you insincerely.
“You’re welcome.”
Is that a habit of a playboy? Every word this man spoke seemed to be deliberately teasing, Zhou Ziheng thought.
Ruan Xiao, Chen Chen, and Shang Sui walked ahead, while Xia Xiqing and Zhou Ziheng followed behind. This room looked like a woman’s room, with an exquisitely crafted vanity table adorned with various cosmetics and perfumes. The wardrobe contained expensive suits and evening gowns. A portrait hung on the European-style white wooden bed, depicting a woman dressed in black with a beautiful face.
“Is this also a famous painting?” Zhou Ziheng spoke up in surprise. Xia Xiqing smiled and nodded, “It’s Kramskoy’s ‘The Unknown Woman,’ a very famous female portrait.”
Shang Sui, who was walking ahead, heard Xia Xiqing’s words and couldn’t help but turn around with an admiring expression. “I feel like Xiqing is a walking encyclopedia of art. That’s amazing.”
Zhou Ziheng thought to himself, “If you want to hear about various physics formulas and laws, I can explain them one by one to you, along with introducing you to the big names in the physics academic community.”
However, the next moment, he was startled by his own childish thoughts.
Perhaps he disliked Xia Xiqing so much that he didn’t want to hear anyone praise such a cunning and hypocritical person.
Xia Xiqing and Shang Sirui exchanged a few casual remarks, but Shang Sirui, whose thoughts jumped around, soon shifted his attention to Ruan Xiao. “So you escaped from this room and entered Chen Chen’s room? You did it alone? That’s impressive.”
Ruan Xiao smiled and waved her hand. “Maybe my room was just simpler.” Her smile was sweet, yet it carried a resilience unlike that of other girls.
“Hmm… a numerical Huarong Dao puzzle.” Ruan Xiao walked over to the jewelry box on the bedside table, opened it, and revealed the Huarong Dao layout she had solved. “I first noticed that this makeup box had a lock, so I thought there might be a clue inside. I looked for the key, opened the Huarong Dao puzzle, and a red laser beam appeared.”
She tried pressing a button inside, and sure enough, a red laser beam appeared, shooting straight at the corner of the opposite wall. “My door was strange—no password, no keyhole. At first, I was stuck because I couldn’t find a way to escape. Later, I tried moving the makeup box and discovered that by using the reflection from the mirror across the room, I could make the red laser beam hit the metal handle on the door, which automatically unlocked it.”
“Oh my god… I might never have gotten out if it weren’t for you.” Shang Sui was deeply impressed.
“But you got out too, didn’t you?” Chen Chen smiled.
“I only got out because of these two big shots,” Shang Sui said with a playful smile, then automatically leaned against Xia Xingqing’s body.
Xia Xiqing didn’t push him away. He suddenly thought of the information he had found in other rooms that was unrelated to escaping the room, so he asked Ruan Xiao, “Did you find any other information in your room… I mean, information that wasn’t very useful?”
Ruan Xiao’s eyebrows twitched slightly, but only for an instant. She smiled, “No, I don’t think there was much information in my room.”
She was lying.
Xia Xingqing found it strange, but also felt it was reasonable. Ruan Xiao was also a smart person, and smart people were always cautious, especially towards other smart people. Now that all the players were present, she would definitely not reveal the clues she had.
He would have to find it himself, Xia Xingqing thought.
Perhaps out of natural curiosity and admiration for intelligent people, Shang Sui Rui kept chatting with Ruan Xiao about how to crack the lock on this room. Ruan Xiao and Chen Chen‘s rooms were connected, and the two had already formed a revolutionary comradeship. The three of them naturally came together, moving from this room to the connected room, and then from that room to the living room.
Xia Xiqing didn’t follow them. Instead, he slowly walked step by step along the close-up shots set up in the female host’s room, observing every detail until he reached the wardrobe. For some reason, he was suddenly drawn to a small wastepaper basket. Taking advantage of the fact that the others were temporarily not in the room, he quietly approached the wardrobe, only to find Zhou Ziheng had also come over. The two were in sync once again.
He was also following the camera, but from the opposite direction.
The two finally met in front of the wardrobe.
“Do you also feel something is off?” Xia Xiqing squatted down, emptied the trash can, and scattered the paper fragments on the ground.
Zhou Ziheng nodded, “This game taught me two things. First, every fragment is not random.”
Xia Xiqing shrugged indifferently, “And what’s the second?”
Zhou Ziheng picked up a piece of paper and looked into Xia Xiqing’s eyes, “When multitasking, you have to learn to focus on the essentials.”
Everyone was focused on decoding and escaping, forgetting the more important point.
“This game isn’t just about escaping the room. If you don’t uncover the killer, you still lose in the end.”
He was absolutely right. The biggest challenge of this show wasn’t who could escape first, but whether ordinary players could find the killer and eliminate them. Otherwise, if the killer became the final victor, everyone’s efforts would be in vain.
Xia Xiqing thought about what he would do if he were the killer at this point.
As he pondered this, Zhou Ziheng spoke again, “Everyone is now present, and the first round of voting and execution is imminent. Someone will be eliminated shortly.”
“It’s too rushed,” Xia Xiqing scratched the hair hanging over his forehead, furrowed his brows, and looked up at Zhou Ziheng. “If you were the killer, what would you do before the first round of voting begins?”
The two exchanged a glance, their eyes exchanging dangerous signals.
“Kill the person most likely to guess the killer’s identity.”
Xia Xiqing chuckled softly, licking his lips. “Hmm, this is too thrilling.”
He wasn’t the killer. Seeing how engrossed Zhou Ziheng was in searching for the killer, he definitely wasn’t either, unless his acting skills were so superb that he could completely disguise himself as an ordinary player.
With his acting skills, it was indeed possible, but Xia Xiqing was more inclined to believe that he wasn’t the killer. If he were the killer, Xia Xiqing would have died countless times by now.
In any case, he was well aware that he was the most dangerous one now. As an ordinary player, he had uncovered too many clues from the start, and the only person who could be considered an ally still harbored hostility toward him.
“I’m curious—you don’t trust me, but how much do you believe what Ruan Xiao said earlier?” Xia Xiqing asked.
Zhou Ziheng didn’t look up, only muttered, “The decryption method is true, but there are no clues.” After saying that, he pointed at the fragments on the ground.
That was quite reasonable.
Sure enough, this person only had a bias against him. For some reason, Xia Xiqing actually felt quite happy about it.
It was clear that the scattered paper fragments had once been a complete document. The two of them knelt on the ground, piecing them together. Zhou Ziheng didn’t speak; his mind was still replaying the fragmented clues from earlier, afraid he might have missed something, yet also afraid he might have misjudged Xia Xiqing based on his first impression.
In the quiet atmosphere, Xia Xiqing suddenly spoke up, “Do you believe I’m not the killer now?”
Zhou Ziheng looked up at him, his deep eyes staring at him for a few seconds, as if trying to pierce through him. Xia Xiqing didn’t flinch at all.
He wanted to know what Zhou Ziheng was trying to see in his eyes.
But if he knew what Zhou Ziheng wanted, he could give it to him.
Though it was only a few seconds of eye contact, time seemed to slow down in that moment. The final frame was Zhou Ziheng lowering his eyelids in defeat, his thick lashes trembling slightly. He said nothing, lowering his head to continue piecing together the scattered paper fragments, as if he hadn’t heard Xia Xiqing’s question at all.
Xia Xiqing had already anticipated that he wouldn’t get a definitive answer. No answer was already an answer, and he didn’t care much. He just smiled and asked again, “Then who do you suspect?” He added, “I mean, besides me, are there any other suspects?”
Zhou Ziheng didn’t look up, nor did he think too much about it. It was just an instinctive urge to confront Xia Xiqing that made him blurt out the words.
“You will always be the suspect in my heart.”
Such an ambiguous statement made even Xia Xiqing, a seasoned veteran of the dating scene, pause for a moment.
It took him about three seconds to realize something was off. He suddenly looked up, a hint of surprise in his eyes. As a science student, his logical mind couldn’t distinguish between the two phrases—“You’re always the suspect in my heart” and “You’re always the suspect in my heart”—during that brief moment of wording, which led to this mess.
With the same subject-verb-object structure, a minor change in wording could create so much ambiguity. Words and language, with their inherent uncertainty, were truly cunning.
“Oh, I see…” Xia Xingqing’s voice softened. “It’s truly my honor.”
Author’s Note: Zhou Ziheng: Look at my big mouth [slap in the face]
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