As he knelt on one knee to untie the ropes binding Xia Xiqing’s legs, Zhou Ziheng couldn’t fathom what was happening. Why had he been swayed by this man? Why had he wavered in his resolve and agreed to his request?
None of this made sense.
Perhaps it was because they were recording a program. Since the man had already made the request, refusing him now would be awkward. Zhou Ziheng was trying to find an excuse for himself.
“Thank you,” Xia Xiqing’s voice sounded cheerful, even though his hands were still shackled. He stood up from the chair, wiggled his ankles on the floor, and turned his head to look around the room. Zhou Ziheng removed all the white cloth covering the room and placed it in a corner.
The room wasn’t very large, but judging by the furnishings, it was a fairly stylish study. The door they were most concerned about had a combination lock; entering the correct four-digit code on the touchscreen would unlock it.
The walls were covered in light brown wallpaper with subtle patterns, adorned with several paintings. There was also an oval mirror in a wooden frame, with a redwood cabinet against the wall to its right. On top of the cabinet sat a phonograph with a vinyl record placed on it.
None of this was Xia Xiqing’s focus. He was carefully searching for the camera placements in the room. After all, this was a reality show, and all the puzzles were prearranged, so there must be cameras set up to capture close-ups of the decoding process.
After roughly counting the cameras, Xia Xiqing had a clearer understanding of the situation. His professional instincts led him to glance at the paintings hanging on the wall. Zhou Ziheng followed him over, though he was more interested in checking the backs of the paintings for clues.
“What do you think of this painting?”
Upon hearing Xia Xiqing’s voice, Zhou Ziheng paused with the painting frame in his hand. Art had never been his specialty. Though he had acted since childhood, there was a significant gap between the expressive forms of painting and performing arts.
“I don’t know much about these things,” Zhou Ziheng replied honestly.
Xia Xiqing smiled, “This is a painting by Goya, ‘The Clothed Maja.’ There’s actually an interesting story behind this painting.”
Zhou Ziheng put the painting back and glanced at him. He wasn’t really interested in the story Xia Xiqing was talking about, but he remembered that they were recording, and it wouldn’t be good to remain silent, so he reluctantly agreed, “What story?”
“In 18th-century Spain, due to historical reasons, asceticism prevailed, and no nude figures were allowed in any artwork in the country. The only exception was ‘Venus at Her Mirror,’ which was spared punishment under the king’s protection.” Xia Xiqing extended her still-shackled hand and slowly traced the edge of the frame. Zhou Ziheng looked at the woman lying on the dark green velvet couch in the painting with some confusion. She wore a translucent white gown, and a rose-colored sash at her waist outlined her soft curves.
“She’s wearing…”
Xia Xingqing paused, glancing at Zhou Ziheng, her beautiful eyes slightly raised. “She wasn’t wearing anything originally. Legend has it that this woman was the favorite concubine of a Spanish nobleman, and Goya was commissioned to paint her full-length portrait.” As she spoke, Xia Xiqing suddenly chuckled, “Who knew he was completely captivated by her beauty and painted a nude portrait? When the matter was exposed, the nobleman was furious. To appease his anger, Goya painted another identical portrait titled ‘The Clothed Maja.’ Both paintings were eventually taken away.”
Zhou Ziheng furrowed his brows slightly, staring at the woman in the painting, saying nothing.
Xia Xiqing lowered his shackled hands and turned his face to look at Zhou Ziheng.
“Are you imagining another painting?”
Upon hearing this, Zhou Ziheng frowned at him, looking like a little tiger with all its fur standing on end, “I’m not.”
Xia Xiqing smiled and nodded, replying gently, “Just kidding.”
It wasn’t a joke at all.
Seeing the fake smile on his face, Zhou Ziheng grew even more displeased.
This guy really has no shame.
Zhou Ziheng left without a second glance, walking straight to the long table where he had been before, examining the clues on the table. Xia Xingqing remained standing in place, staring blankly at the painting on the wall.
Why was this painting here?
After standing there for a few minutes, Xia Xiqing turned around and saw Zhou Ziheng standing by the long desk he had been leaning against earlier, intently examining the surface. He walked over as well. On the table lay a thick book and a torn-up sticky note.
“It’s torn into such small pieces. The props team really went all out.” Xia Xiqing remarked playfully, gazing at the snowflake-like fragments with a gentle tone.
Zhou Ziheng flipped through the book in silence, and a bookmark fell out, bearing a single line of text.
[Whatever I touch, breaks. —Kafka]
Xia Xiqing leaned in, “Kafka’s Poetry Collection.”
Feeling Xia Xiqing approach him, Zhou Ziheng felt a bit uneasy. He set the book aside, picked up one of the small fragments, flipped it over to examine it, furrowed his brow in thought, then said nothing and began piecing them together one by one. Xia Xiqing disliked such tedious work, so he walked over to the phonograph, gently ran his fingers over the tone arm, and placed the needle lightly on the record.
The ethereal quality unique to vinyl records quickly permeated the stuffy, enclosed space with its rapid rhythm. Xia Xiqing leaned against the cabinet, watching the equally stuffy young man.
“Have you heard this piece before?”
Zhou Ziheng didn’t look up, focusing intently on the table. “I’m not very knowledgeable about music.”
He had no interest in art and even less regard for the bohemian types who pursued it.
Xia Xiqing smiled. Though his hands were shackled, he stood before the redwood cabinet like a professional music connoisseur, immersing himself in the piece for a moment before speaking slowly, “This is the first movement of Ravel’s piano suite *Mirrors*, inspired by moths fluttering toward the flame in the darkness.” He turned his head to look at the slowly rotating record and chuckled, “Though music critics say these delicate half-steps resemble the fluttering wings of a butterfly, to me they sound like shattered mirrors scattered across the ground.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, he regretted it, thinking he shouldn’t have said so much on the show. But Zhou Ziheng, who had been intently piecing together the fragments, suddenly lifted his head and glanced over at Xia Xiqing.
Perhaps he found the metaphor apt, for Zhou Ziheng, who had been completely absorbed in his work, now found himself distracted by the flowing melody, trying to appreciate the piece. It wasn’t until the broken note was accurately restored that he sat up straight.
“You finished it? You’re so talented.”
Xia Xiqing was a bit surprised. The note was covered in broken letters, with so many fragments that it gave him a headache just looking at it. As he spoke, he walked over to the desk, where Zhou Ziheng was using transparent tape to piece the fragments back into a complete sheet of paper.
He glanced at it. The letters on the sticky note were all visible and had been restored, but they formed a random sequence of letters.
PGOEUDEAENHNRD
It was clearly a code. Xia Xiqing furrowed his brow slightly. He was now curious about how Zhou Ziheng had managed to piece together the fragments so quickly.
“You’re so fast. How did you do it?”
Zhou Ziheng flipped the paper over. On the back was a complete sentence written in beautiful handwriting.
[See you at Sophia Restaurant at 10 PM tonight.]
“The information on the back is much easier to restore than the information on the front.”
Xia Xiqing nodded. Even if one could discern that the back contained a complete sentence, distinguishing between the front and back alone would take some time.
Wait, front and back.
Xia Xiqing reached out and picked up the note, feeling it in his hand. Sure enough, the paper had been specially treated. It looked no different, but the texture was different. The front was very smooth to the touch, while the back was much rougher.
“You’re really observant,” Xia Xiqing placed the paper back on the table with his handcuffed hands, turned his face toward Zhou Ziheng, and smiled, “No wonder it’s Ziheng.”
Despite such words of admiration, Zhou Ziheng couldn’t believe it. He responded stiffly, “This special paper is common in escape rooms. If you hadn’t been distracted by the music, you would have noticed it too.”
“There’s no helping it; art is life.” Xia Xiqing’s hands were a bit sore, so he moved his shoulders and looked down at the paper. For some reason, the originally ethereal and clear music from the phonograph suddenly became choppy, with strange glitches that were unpleasant to the ear.
“Your ‘art’ seems a bit outdated.” Zhou Ziheng rarely used a mocking tone, but the stuttering music made it hard for him to concentrate, so he prepared to walk over and turn it off.
At that moment, Xia Xiqing stood motionless, his eyes fixed on an unknown point, as if lost in thought.
“Wait a moment.” Just as Zhou Ziheng placed his hand on the tone arm, Xia Xiqing called out to stop him. “Don’t turn it off yet.”
“What’s wrong?” Zhou Ziheng looked at him with some dissatisfaction and saw that Xia Xiqing had found a pen on the table and was writing something on the piece of paper.
Had he discovered something? Zhou Ziheng slowly withdrew his hand and began to listen carefully to this strange, discontinuous song.
The pauses in the music seemed almost random at first listen, sometimes brief, sometimes longer. But upon closer listening, he noticed that after every two measures, the pauses would stop for a few seconds before reappearing, and even the duration of the pauses was consistent.
It was like some kind of loop…
Zhou Ziheng quickly realized that the beginning of each loop was a repetition of the code.
Long pause—short pause—short pause—short pause—music
Short pause—long pause—short pause—music
Short—music
Long—short—music
Long — short — long — music
“Did you figure it out?” he asked, somewhat surprised, since as far as he knew, Xia Xiqing’s major was art, so how could he have deciphered Morse code so quickly?
Xia Xiqing nodded, his brow slightly furrowed. He walked over to the mirror he had seen earlier, stared at it intently for a moment, then said to Zhou Ziheng, “Step back a little.”
Zhou Ziheng was puzzled but stepped back anyway. He saw Xia Xiqing remove the tone arm, and the music stopped abruptly. He was about to ask Xia Xiqing what information he had obtained after decoding it, but he was too late. Xia Xiqing took a step back with his right foot, clenched his hands, which were shackled by handcuffs, in front of his chest, and with an extremely skilled posture and movement, kicked sideways with his leg.
With a loud bang, the oval mirror shattered suddenly. He withdrew his leg lightly, and the shards reflecting light fell onto the wooden cabinet and floor with a crisp cracking sound. As they fell, the original appearance of the carved mirror frame finally revealed itself.
Stuck to the gray base of the frame was a silver key.
“Please help me unlock this,” Xia Xiqing turned his head to look at Zhou Ziheng and extended his bound hands toward him.
To be honest, Xia Xiqing’s intelligence exceeded Zhou Ziheng’s imagination.
In that split second of thought, he even considered taking the key for himself while Xia Xiqing was off guard, using it as leverage against him in the future. After all, this was a cunning individual, and there was a high likelihood he was a killer.
But in the end, he abandoned the idea. Zhou Ziheng glanced at the wrists, which were slightly reddened from the handcuffs, and felt that his thoughts were truly despicable.
If he were to be ambushed later, he could only blame himself for his misfortune. Zhou Ziheng stepped forward and removed the key. The props team had indeed put a lot of effort into it; the key was stuck on extremely firmly, and it took him quite some effort to finally pry it off.
Xia Xiqing obediently extended his hands toward Zhou Ziheng, watching as he bent down to unlock the handcuffs. This scene was a great aesthetic pleasure for him.
Zhou Ziheng’s straight nose and exquisitely angled eyes looked even more refined from this low angle, a sculpted elegance brimming with masculine hormones. The beautiful lines where his eyebrows and nose bridge met and rose were like silent mountains toppling in a fierce wind. His lowered head and focused, intense gaze reminded Xia Xiqing of Paul in Rodin’s sculpture “The Kiss.”
If it weren’t for the reality show being recorded, Xia Xiqing would have leaned in to whisper something in his ear.
[Your face is really suited for kissing.]
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