Chapter 38

 “Besides the butterfly bookmark, are there any other clues?” Zhou Ziheng’s voice came from the other side. “With a sequence like this, the result calculated from only three known numbers may not be accurate.”

　 He was right. Xia Xiqing looked around and noticed a delicate, beautiful seashell next to the books. On the wall above the desk were several pictures: one was a close-up photograph of a sunflower, and the other was Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting “The Vitruvian Man,” which Xia Xiqing was all too familiar with.

　 These seemingly unrelated items caught Xia Xiqing’s attention. He stared intently at the wall and suddenly heard Zhou Ziheng’s voice.

“Why aren’t you speaking? What are you doing?”

　 “Looking at a painting of a naked man,” Xia Xiqing replied solemnly, his eyes still fixed on the painting on the wall. Zhou Ziheng seemed to be taken aback, coughing repeatedly before stammering, “Oh, do I have one on my wall too?”

　 Xia Xiqing was surprised. He tried to describe it to Zhou Ziheng, “A man with long curly hair standing with his legs together, his hands and feet precisely on an inscribed square, and his legs and arms spread apart precisely on an inscribed circle. Is that the painting?”

“Yes.”

　 This was definitely not a coincidence; the similarity between their rooms was too striking.

“Does this painting have any significance?” Although Zhou Ziheng had seen this painting many times, he knew little about art and could only consult an expert in the field.

Xia Xiqing stroked his chin, “It has great significance. This painting is a sketch illustration drawn by Leonardo da Vinci for Vitruvius’s ‘Ten Books on Architecture.’ Vitruvius once praised the golden ratio in his book, which inspired Leonardo da Vinci to draw this sketch of human proportions. The man in it is also considered by the world to be the epitome of perfect proportions…”

　 As he spoke, he felt an important thought flash through his mind, and Xia Xiqing suddenly stopped, “Wait a moment.”

He picked up the seashell on the table and turned his head to look at the close-up photo of the sunflower, observing the distribution and arrangement of the plump seeds inside.

And this famous “Vitruvian Man.”

　 Ah, I see.

“I get it now. It’s the golden ratio sequence.” Xia Xiqing calmly sat back down in his chair. “The spiral of the seashell, the arrangement of the sunflower seeds, and this painting—they’re all based on the golden ratio.”

　 Now Zhou Ziheng’s calculation of the fourth number was also verified. “The golden ratio sequence is the Fibonacci sequence, right? It seems I got it right. I just discovered that 987 is exactly equal to 377 plus 610, so I guessed that the last one might be 610 plus 987, equal to 1597. I didn’t expect it to be true.”

　 “So the other clues are just hints.” Xia Xiqing put down the seashell. “Try entering the password.”

Zhou Ziheng hummed in agreement. From Xia Xiqing’s room came the sound of him entering the four-digit password. Less than two seconds later, a mechanical voice announced, “Password successful.”

　 After all that trouble, he finally unlocked one, though it wasn’t his own room. Xia Xiqing was eagerly awaiting the good news, but Zhou Ziheng replied, “The password is correct, but I can’t open the drawer.”

　 “How is that possible…” Xia Xiqing knew they weren’t in the same room, and there was no password lock on his side either. But when he heard Zhou Ziheng say he couldn’t open it, he instinctively pulled on his own drawer.

To his surprise, it actually opened…

　 This was too bizarre. Xia Xiqing’s tone was full of disbelief. “That’s so strange. After you entered the correct password on your side, the drawer on my side actually opened.”

But the twist didn’t end there.

Zhou Ziheng replied immediately, “Now my drawer can open too. Strange.”

　 Hearing Zhou Ziheng mutter to himself, Xia Xiqing recalled his puzzled expression and couldn’t help but laugh. “Maybe you didn’t try hard enough just now.”

　 “Impossible, it really wouldn’t open earlier.”

Maybe it’s the production team’s fault; after all, these are all man-made props, so some flaws are understandable.

“Never mind, let’s see what’s inside first.”

　 Xia Xiqing looked into the drawer and the first thing he saw was a photo of a couple holding hands on the beach, carefully framed in a beautiful frame.

　 Judging from the photo, the owner of the bedroom had a girlfriend.

But why would such a photo be stuffed in a drawer? Xia Xiqing felt this was unreasonable, but he also knew that he shouldn’t overthink it at this moment. He casually placed the frame on the desk and continued to look through the other items in the drawer.

　 “What did you find?” Zhou Ziheng asked from the other end.

Xia Xiqing casually replied, “A picture frame,” then spotted what seemed to be a more promising clue. “I found a notebook, it looks like…” He flipped through it and noticed dates and some brief entries. “A diary?”

　 “I also saw a diary, but no photo album,” Zhou Ziheng continued to share the information he had. “There’s also a birthday card with a sentence written on it.”

While Zhou Ziheng was listing the clues he had found, Xia Xiqing had already opened the birthday card and read the sentence aloud.

　 “The moment I met you was the beginning of the Big Bang. Every particle left me and rushed toward you. After that smallest of moments, the universe was truly born.”

After reading it all in one breath, Xia Xiqing suddenly realized that it was a love note between a couple. The atmosphere became somewhat awkward, and Xia Xiqing didn’t know what to say. It was his own fault for speaking too quickly, so he couldn’t blame anyone else.

“Um, so, are all science students this good at flirting?” To ease the awkwardness, Xia Xiqing added this question.

　 The more panicked you are, the more likely you are to say the wrong thing—that saying really is true. Immediately after asking the question, Xia Xiqing remembered the photo of the Tyndall effect that Zhou Ziheng had taken on the plane.

Oh no, Zhou Ziheng must have misunderstood that he was flirting with him, but he hadn’t meant to steer the conversation in that direction at all.

　 He had thought Zhou Ziheng couldn’t speak, but who knew he would actually respond.

“It depends on who it is.”

Zhou Ziheng’s voice didn’t sound awkward at all; on the contrary, he sounded quite calm, which made Xia Xiqing feel embarrassed. It seemed that he was the only one who felt awkward from beginning to end. Xia Xiqing, too preoccupied with his own embarrassment, completely missed Zhou Ziheng’s subtle implication and failed to realize that he was the very “someone” Zhou Ziheng was referring to.

“Ah, the birthday on this card is October 23rd. I think this clue might come in handy later.” In an effort to preserve his “invincible” dignity in front of this innocent young man, Xia Xiqing awkwardly changed the subject. Zhou Ziheng noticed his unease, but their frequencies simply couldn’t align. He assumed his offhand remark had put pressure on Xia Xiqing, and changing the subject was a subtle way of declining.

　 Both of them went around in circles, completely unaware.

As he put down the birthday card, Xia Xiqing once again focused his attention on the notebook from earlier. It was a slightly worn diary, with frayed edges and curled corners, clearly having been used for quite some time. Thinking this, Xia Xiqing flipped open the first page.

　 “Let me take a look at this diary,” Xia Xiqing said to Zhou Ziheng through the radio, then focused all his attention on the diary.

[November 11, 2014, sunny]

　 [I thought this was going to be the worst day of my life. A lonely young man with a broken leg spending Singles’ Day alone in a hospital ward. But then a new roommate arrived in the double room, and she was an incredibly cute girl. When she smiled, she had two little rabbit teeth, like a little rabbit. She was so adorable.]

　 This is that guy’s diary… Xia Xiqing quickly flipped through it and stopped at a certain page.

“Ugh, it took over six months to win her over…” He looked at the page dated [May 20, 2015] and couldn’t help but mutter to himself.

“Won her over?”

　 Xia Xiqing heard Zhou Ziheng’s question and the sound of pages turning on the other end, thinking that he must not have seen the rest yet. “You’re reading too slowly.” After saying that, he quickly flipped through the pages again and happened to see a page in the diary that read, [She’s been hospitalized again. I hope the surgery goes smoothly and there are no complications.]

　 This girl had been hospitalized repeatedly, so she must have a serious illness.

He suddenly thought of the book on the desk earlier.

“His girlfriend’s illness must be the one in the third book… left heart hypoplasia syndrome. This disease seems to be a congenital heart disease.” Xia Xiqing flipped through the previous book, trying to find some useful information in it.

　 “This radio was a gift from the girl,” Zhou Ziheng suddenly spoke up, “Did you see it?”

“Let me take a look.” Xia Xiqing flipped back a few pages and indeed found the page Zhou Ziheng had mentioned.

[May 20, 2016, sunny]  

 [She gave me an old antique today, a radio! She said that her grandfather had saved up a lot of money to buy it for her grandmother when he was young, as a proposal gift. When she was a child, she would lie next to the radio every day listening to stories. I can still imagine that little bunny rabbit. Ah, if only I could travel back in time, I would love to see what she looked like as a child.]

　 “So this radio is a prop with a story behind it.” Xia Xiqing smiled, “This old antique won’t have to witness their marriage, will it? Three generations of loyal servants.”

“No.” Zhou Ziheng calmly dismissed Xia Xiqing’s joke, “Their relationship has hit a rough patch.”

　 “…What?”

“Flip back a few pages.”

　 Xia Xiqing flipped to the last few pages as Zhou Ziheng had instructed.

[May 13, 2019, cloudy]

[We had a fight today. I feel like we haven’t had a proper conversation in a long time. Why did we end up like this? I really don’t understand. Does time really change everything?]

　 Upon reading this sentence, Xia Xiqing fell silent. Such tales of love and heartbreak are commonplace, beginning with beauty but eventually giving way to friction, conflict, jealousy, and resentment. These negative emotions grow unchecked until they consume the relationship entirely, transforming once-beloved faces into something repulsive.

　 So why start in the first place?

The most stable and harmless relationship in this world is no relationship at all.

This realistic love story sent Xia Xiqing into a low mood. He casually flipped through the last few pages, using this method to hide the turmoil in his heart, until his finger stopped on the last page.

　 [May 20, 2019, heavy rain]

[Why did I turn off my phone? Even if I was misunderstood and angry, I shouldn’t have turned it off. If I hadn’t turned it off, she wouldn’t have fainted from emotional distress. Emergency contact… This card is so ironic. The only time I needed it, I was the one who cut off the connection. The one who should have died was me.]

　 “The girl died…” Xia Xiqing didn’t expect such an ending. “She died of a sudden heart attack.”

　 “Died of…” Zhou Ziheng seemed to have something to say, but he paused, then asked after a moment, “So she died because they couldn’t save her in time?” Based on the arrangement of the previous episode’s locked-room script, every prop in the room had a purpose. Their functions could be roughly divided into two categories: one was clues to unlock the password, but there were too many dates in the diary. Without other clues to complement them, it was unlikely that the password could be deduced.

　 The other category was related to the escape room plot, or more specifically, the killer. But that made even less sense. So far, this story seemed to be nothing more than a love story, bearing no resemblance to the previous episode’s suspenseful murder mystery.

So what kind of identity should the killer in this episode have?

　 Xia Xiqing, lost in thought, furrowed his brows. There was nothing else in the drawer. He slowly closed it, his gaze falling on the photo frame he had taken out earlier and placed upside down on the table.

It was then that he noticed a sentence written on the back of the frame.

[Return it to its proper place.]

　 The right place?

This matched Xia Xiqing’s initial thoughts when he first saw the photo frame. A photo frame like this should be placed on the table, not in a drawer. If you connect this to the information about the male and female leads arguing, it makes sense.

Xia Xiqing picked up the photo frame.

Where should it be placed?

　 “Are you sure there’s no photo frame on your side? On the desk? Or anywhere else?” Without any clues, Xia Xiqing had no choice but to confirm with Zhou Ziheng again. After all, their rooms had so many similarities; perhaps the photo frame had already been fixed in place somewhere in his room.

“No, I didn’t find any photo frame,” Zhou Ziheng said with certainty.

　 Just then, Xia Xiqing suddenly noticed a palm-sized rectangular indentation on the desktop to the right of the laptop, in the upper right corner of the desk. He looked down at the edge of the photo frame in his hand, and a rather bizarre idea popped into his head.

　 Could it be…

He tried placing the photo frame in the recess at the top right corner, and as he had imagined, the frame and its stand fit perfectly into the recess!

“I found the right spot,” Xia Xiqing sighed with relief. It turned out that these recesses were useful after all. It was a good thing he had felt something was off as soon as he entered the room.

　 Just then, the desk lamp suddenly turned on by itself, without any warning.

However, that wasn’t the strangest part. What truly sent a chill down his spine was Zhou Ziheng’s next statement.

　 “The picture frame appeared,” Zhou Ziheng said in astonishment, almost unable to believe it himself. “Do you know how it came out? It was like a mechanism—a part of the desk opened, and the picture frame was pushed up from inside, standing upright in the upper right corner of the desk.”

“What did you say?”