Double-sided knight?
“As the name suggests, a double-sided knight could be either the dark side or the light side.”
“Players who obtain the Double-Sided Knight will choose which faction to align with according to the rules after the game begins. If the Double-Sided Knight chooses the ordinary player faction, they must do their utmost to help the good guys identify the killer. Once the Double-Sided Knight is eliminated—whether through voting or being killed—the killer will gain an additional escape clue. If the good guys win, the Two-Faced Knight will have their original points multiplied by 1.5.”
This is like a gamble—though risky, the potential rewards are substantial.
The good guys need to protect the Knight, and the Knight must do everything possible to assist the good guys. If the Knight chooses the light side, they will become the killer’s primary target.
“Conversely, if the Double-Sided Knight chooses the killer, they join the dark faction. Once eliminated, the good players will obtain the killer’s identity information, accelerating the process of identifying the killer. Of course, if the dark faction wins, the Double-Sided Knight will also receive 1.5 times the points.”
Fang Juexia subconsciously calculated the probability of this role winning. If the double-sided knight can privately contact the killer, and the killer holds part of the key plot, this is unfair. Choosing the killer would have a higher win rate.
“You must be thinking now that if you were the double-sided knight, you would definitely choose the killer. However,“ the narrator’s voice carried a hint of laughter, ”in this season, nothing is that simple.”
“In Season 2, the Killer player will no longer have prior knowledge of the initial plot. You will soon receive a message about distributing character cards. In other words, both the Killer and the Double-Sided Knight will only learn their identities after entering the secret room. And aside from knowing their own identities, they will know nothing else.”
At this moment, Fang Juexia’s dull senses finally perked up.
He finally understood the fun of the revised rules. Under these rules, the Double-Sided Knight, Killer, and Good Guy players all have an equal chance of winning. Everyone is trapped in isolated black boxes, unable to see each other.
Everyone inevitably suspects and distrusts one another, even if they are allies in the same faction. Any single word could shatter this fragile cooperative relationship and push the other into the abyss.
This is fascinating.
“The rules have been read. Good luck to everyone.”
“The game officially begins.”
The narration abruptly stops amid static. The sudden silence amplifies the tension.
Fang Juexia takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and visualizes the trajectory of the ropes tied by the staff earlier.
They first placed the rope around his neck, then threaded the ends through his armpits, spiraling them around his arms and bending them behind his back in a yoga-like position. They then tied his wrists together, and the final step…
It was the person sitting across from him.
Why did this person act this way? Could it be that he couldn’t see either?
Fang Juexia waited for the next move, but it didn’t come, making him even more certain of his judgment.
That’s right, this person entered later than him and probably didn’t even know there was a second person in this secret room.
” I’m sitting across from you,“ Fang Juexia spoke up, not intending to scare him. ”Be careful; I can’t see. If you accidentally knock something over or bump into something, I won’t be able to help you for a while.” the two ends of the rope passed through the one that had been initially placed around the back of the neck, then pulled down and tied into a knot.
In other words, as long as he could untie the knot hanging above his wrists, he would have a chance to free himself.
After a brief silence, a soft laugh came from across the room.
It was brief, a faint sound wave carrying air currents toward him in the darkness.
For others, a laugh carries little information, but this single laugh shattered Fang Juexia’s composure since entering the room.
“Pei Tingsong.”
Fang Juexia blurted out the name. He was so certain that he didn’t even consider how the audience would react after the show aired, seeing him so confidently and easily identify the person on the other side, especially the CP fans, who would surely discuss it extensively.
There was another moment of silence on the other side.
This silence only strengthened his conviction.
“How boring,” Pei Tingsong’s voice came as expected, tinged with a hint of complaint. “I thought I’d be locked up with new friends.”
Having grown accustomed to Pei Tingsong’s teasing, Fang Juexia didn’t take it to heart. He said bluntly, “Once you escape, you’ll find new friends.”
“My hands are cuffed,” Pei Tingsong said.
While dealing with him, Fang Juexia tried to reach for the knot. Years of dance training had given him flexibility that most people couldn’t match. Although his wrists were bound, the production team probably worried that tying them too tightly would affect blood circulation, so they left some slack. He moved his wrists and tried to reach up as far as possible.
His fingertips indeed touched something resembling a knot.
But to completely untie it, he would need to exert more effort.
Fang Juexia suddenly heard a sound resembling falling blocks. He turned to the other side and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Nothing,” Pei Tingsong’s voice sounded very relaxed, just as he had said, as if he was there to play around. “My hands are cuffed, but they can still move. Just now, I felt a pile of metal blocks on the table in front of me, so I knocked them over.”
He said it matter-of-factly.
Fang Juexia heard other sounds and guessed that Pei Tingsong was probably piecing something together. Suddenly, he heard a clicking sound, as if something had just gotten stuck.
After several repetitions, he heard a beeping sound. Strangely, the sound wasn’t coming from the room’s speakers or from Pei Tingsong, but from his own helmet.
“Ding dong.”
The final提示音 ended. To Fang Juexia’s surprise, the square hood enveloping him suddenly scattered apart, like a gift box that had been torn open, each side falling in a different direction.
Fang Juexia saw everything in an instant.
Pei Tingsong, who had been enclosed by the hood, was sitting across from him at a table, his hands shackled. If Fang Juexia hadn’t been familiar with his voice, he wouldn’t have been able to guess who it was even through the hood.
“Hm?” Pei Tingsong asked questioningly.
“My hood is open.” Fang Juexia looked around and saw that the metal block in front of Pei Tingsong had been embedded into the tabletop. “It must be the mechanism in front of you that controls my hood.”
Looking around, the room seemed to be a consultation room, with a bookshelf on one side filled with books on psychology. He also examined Pei Tingsong’s attire—a white shirt with a name tag pinned to the front.
Perhaps he was playing the role of a psychiatrist.
Lowering his head, Fang Juexia noticed a display screen embedded in the armrest of his sofa chair. He tried to lean to one side and touch the screen with his elbow.
The screen lit up, displaying the common digital numbers for hours, minutes, and seconds seen on electronic clocks, all represented by seven-segment horizontal lines.
The hood on Pei Tingsong’s head emitted a sound, a female AI voice.
“What time is it?”
Was it really about time? But that was too simple.
“Did you find any clues?” Pei Tingsong asked.
“Hmm.” Fang Juexia identified the LED data tubes on the display screen—09:15:50.
He tried to say the answer, even though it was too simple, “9:15:50 AM?”
The hood emitted a piercing beep.
“Sorry, incorrect answer.”
Fang Juexia had already anticipated this, “I knew it was wrong…”
His attention was entirely focused on these numbers, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was. After all, these six numbers were clearly formed by the LED lines.
“We can’t be stuck at the easiest level right from the start, that’s ridiculous,” Pei Tingsong began to mutter, “I wanted to come in first, but now I’ll probably be last.”
Fang Juexia couldn’t help but frown. “Stop saying first place all the time. What’s the point…”
Suddenly, something flashed through his mind, so he turned his head again to look at the six numbers, especially the number 1 after the first colon.
1…
He finally figured out what was off.
The vertical and horizontal lines in the digital display were not square rectangles but polygons with varying angles, some of which were hexagonal prisms. In previous electronic watches, the number 1 was composed of two vertical lines, with the left side slightly shorter than the right, forming a small slope, resembling the printed character for 1.
But now, the “1” on this display was reversed, with the left side higher than the right.
Ah, I see.
“I get it, it’s reversed.” Fang Juexia twisted her body as much as she could, trying to flip herself upside down to read the numbers, “05, 51, 60…”
Fang Juexia touched the display screen again, and the square hood on Pei Tingsong’s head asked again, “What time is it now?”
“5:52 AM sharp.”
Two seconds later, “Ding dong.” The hood on Pei Tingsong’s head fell off just like before. To Fang Juexia, it looked a bit comical, as if Pei Tingsong were a wrapped-up surprise gift appearing before him.
Fang Juexia shrugged it off, still smiling, “I can untie this rope. Do you believe me?”
But he dared not say he didn’t believe him. Given Fang Juexia’s personality, he wouldn’t say something like that without being completely sure.
So Pei Tingsong sat back in his chair, even though his hands were cuffed, and smiled at the person in front of him, “Please.”
Fang Juexia straightened his chest, his wrists already loosened considerably from his earlier movements.
He reached up with effort, managing to grasp the large knot. His fingers felt along the ropes, following their twists and turns to find the end. Even the most complex binding with a single rope would ultimately have two ends overlapping and fastened together.
Pei Tingsong watched quietly. In his line of sight, Fang Juexia’s body was tightly bound by snake-like ropes, the intertwined ropes rubbing against the fabric of his clothes, outlining his clear inverted triangle figure.
As he struggled to escape, his muscle contours moved in sync. When he turned his head to look back, the curve of his neck stretched out, beautiful and slender, exuding a fragile beauty. The coarse rope slid down from the collar of his shirt, rubbing against the back of his neck, irritating his sensitive skin until it turned red.
The pleasure of observation was indirect yet novel.
“Got it.”
He heard Fang Juexia mutter to himself. The tightness caused by the bonds made his speech slightly labored, and the fine white skin on his forehead was covered in sweat, shimmering with a delicate luster under the light.
The performance didn’t last too long, though every movement seemed to linger in Pei Tingsong’s mind, slowly grinding away. But Fang Juexia, as he had said, relied on his remarkable flexibility and memory recall ability to untie the knot hanging on his back.
He turned his neck, and his arms could now be lowered without bending, though his wrists were still bound by the live knot.
At this point, Pei Tingsong couldn’t help but clap his hands. “That’s incredible. But what about the rest? Can your fingers still untie the knot on your wrists?”
Fang Juexia glanced at him, then looked at the camera pointed at him on the table, and took a deep breath.
“I hope the production team can add a warning message during the broadcast for the following segment,” Fang Juexia leaned forward as much as possible, as if to make space behind him. He moved his shoulder joints and slightly tugged at his wrists, which were bound behind his back. “The following actions are extremely dangerous. Non-professionals should not attempt to imitate them, especially children.”
Pei Tingsong looked puzzled, but the next moment, Fang Juexia lifted his bound arms behind him, thrust them forward, and somehow flipped his arms from behind his back to the front!
“How… how did you do that?!” Pei Tingsong was so shocked he couldn’t say anything else, but instead burst into laughter. It was like watching a circus performance—this defied the laws of human anatomy.
The show’s director was probably also shocked. Such a complex binding could actually be undone by one person alone. This was too unbelievable.
Fang Juexia moved his joints, raised his bound wrists, and tried to bite through the last knot with his teeth. He explained, “I have high flexibility; I started learning to dance in kindergarten.”
Just then, his phone in his pocket started vibrating. At the same time, a vibration sound came from Pei Tingsong’s end.
Putting aside the knot for now, Fang Juexia struggled to pull out his phone with his bound hands and unlocked it.
The screen lit up, displaying a message.
[Escape to Freedom: Player, welcome to the card-drawing phase. In this round of the game, your role is… ]
The text disappeared, and two cards appeared on the screen. One depicted a knight in black armor, while the other symbolized the white knight of light.
[Dual-sided Knight.]
[Please choose your faction.]
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