Chapter 2 - Chapter 2: Survive and Escape

Zhou Ziheng is taken aback by Xia Xiqing speaking. Though he remains silent, his quickened heartrate betrays his startlement.

Zhou Ziheng squints, but Xia Xiqing just continues to look at him. The stalemate lasts for a short while before Xia Xiqing opens his mouth again, asking, "Did they gag you? It's alright, I just need you to help me take off this blindfold."

The firmness of Xia Xiqing's tone makes him difficult to refuse. Zhou Ziheng flexes his neck, silently considering.

To be honest, he really doesn't want anything to do with this guy.

But… if they keep up this stalemate, neither of them will be able to leave. Not to mention, they're on a reality show, and he doesn't want to make things difficult for the production team.

After much deliberation, Zhou Ziheng surrenders; he has no choice but to give up watching Xia Xiqing's struggles.

He shifts his weight forward onto his feet, forcing the rotating office chair he's sitting in to spin so that he's facing a long desk, on which, very close to him, sits a white porcelain vase full of white chrysanthemums. Zhou Ziheng struggles to stretch out his bound hands, reaching for that vase. Finally, he wraps his fingers around the neck of the vase, and then, resolutely, he dashes it against the edge of the desk with a resounding crash.

Zhou Ziheng raises his legs, sets the soles of his boots against the edge of the desk, and kicks off, sending him and his chair both over to where Xia Xiqing is.

"I can take off your blindfold, but in exchange, you must help me untie these ropes."

After spending two solid years genuinely fanboying over him, Xia Xiqing recognizes Zhou Ziheng's voice instantly, and he finds the current situation well within his expectations. He smiles, then says, "Deal."

The moment Xia Xiqing agrees, Zhou Ziheng reaches behind Xia Xiqing's head with his bound hands and removes the blindfold, throwing it aside.

His blurred vision quickly clearing, Xia Xiqing turns to the side and realizes how close the two of them are to each other; he can almost smell the refreshing scent of Zhou Ziheng's aftershave.

Xia Xiqing squints slightly against the light, and the confusion on his face morphs fluidly and flawlessly into surprise.

"Ziheng? So we've been trapped here together." Xia Xiqing's smile is very sweet, and the mole at the tip of his nose makes him look incredibly pure. "It feels like I'm in a dream; I still feel a bit dizzy."

This act of his is too good; as a professional actor, Zhou Ziheng can't help but be impressed. He just doesn't get it—how is it that Xia Xiqing can wear this type of smile without any sense of incongruity? There are likely very few people who, without seeing his true colors, wouldn't be fooled by him.

The escape room is full of cameras, able to cover every inch of it. Not wanting to be accused of being frigid towards his fans, Zhou Ziheng can only smile warmly in return. He gentles his voice, saying, "I was blindfolded too, and I was also pretty surprised when they took it off."

Even though Zhou Ziheng really doesn't like guys like Xia Xiqing, his pride as an actor and Jiang Yin's reminders have rendered him capable only of patiently enduring through this. He holds out the sharp piece of porcelain to Xia Xiqing. "If you don't mind."

"Of course not. I'm a longtime fan; I've seen all your films." Xia Xiqing awkwardly accepts the shard of porcelain with his handcuffed hands, bending forward to help Zhou Ziheng sever the rope.

"Thank you." Zhou Ziheng smiles without feeling.

The two of them, both accustomed to playacting, have turned pretense into a contest.

The rope is tough. As Xia Xiqing works on it, he says in a relaxed tone, "Ah, did they only say the rules once? I'm still a little confused."

Coming out of reminiscence, Zhou Ziheng doesn't hear Xia Xiqing's question. To avoid the embarrassment, he changes the topic: "Oh, right… I wanted to ask you—how did you know there'd be someone to help you take off your blindfold?"

Xia Xiqing knew he would ask this question. There's only the two of them here, and Zhou Ziheng is fully aware of why he'd been invited onto the program—and also why he agreed to come. If he's not a bit more candid, he'll lose even more trust, making the rest of the game more difficult to deal with.

It's better to be straightforward here.

The pair of artist's hands forcefully guides the broken shard back and forth across the rope. Xia Xiqing stares as the rope slowly separates, explaining in a soft voice, "Though this is the first time I've appeared on a program, I used to go to escape rooms a lot with friends, so I've got some experience.

"In this type of situation, you never want to be completely immersed in the experience. You have to always be aware of how the designer of the game would approach things."

He cuts through the rope and starts to pull it out from beneath Zhou Ziheng's hands. He continues, "The reason they lock us here is to see us escape it, not to watch us stay stuck in here for the entire game. If I were really alone in this room, hands and feet both tied, unable even to see, the chances of me escaping on my own are close to zero. So, there are only two possibilities. One, I'm waiting for someone else to escape their room and come find me here, where they can either help me or kill me. Two, there's someone else in this room, and we need to work together to escape. And, if you think about it from the perspective of the show's watchability…"

At this, Xia Xiqing raises his head slightly, meeting Zhou Ziheng's gaze.

He doesn't finish the sentence, just silently looks at him for three seconds.

Then, abruptly, he smiles.

At once, Zhou Ziheng gets a strange impression of being able to hear the words that Xia Xiqing didn't quite say out loud.

It's strange. They've only met each other a few days ago—they're not close, so the phenomenon of tacit agreement should be impossible for them; but, from Xia Xiqing's gaze, Zhou Ziheng is completely able to understand what he's implying.

And, if you think about it from the perspective of the show's watchability, the best way to generate online interest is if you and I are together.

"I was just trying out the second possibility. I didn't think I'd be so lucky as to hit the nail on the head."

Another lie.

And then Zhou Ziheng realizes that, at some point, Xia Xiqing had already finished untying his hands.

"All good."

"Thank you." Zhou Ziheng is still a little dazed. He feels like he's a pretty smart guy, but the awful first impression has clouded his judgment for this man. If he wants to win this game, he has to get over his prejudice.

Once he pulls himself together, Zhou Ziheng finds that Xia Xiqing has bent down, using his handcuffed hands to try to undo Zhou Ziheng's bound feet.

His hands are free now, so he's completely able to untie this knot on his own. He has no need at all for other people to help him cut through it with so violent a method as a piece of broken vase.

"I can—"

Before he finishes his sentence, Xia Xiqing raises his head with a questioning gaze. His lips are slightly flushed, and he's holding that shard of porcelain in his mouth. The collar of his white shirt, a few buttons undone, reveal his prominent collar bones.

His eyes unveiled by the blindfold, his grown-out hair that's been tied up, the angle at which he is bending, his posture so close by Zhou Ziheng's knees.

The handcuffs, the beauty mark at the tip of his nose, the sharp piece of broken vase, the pretty but capricious curve of his lips, the tips of his teeth holding onto the porcelain.

The weird atmosphere of this moment has sketched these broken elements into a strange piece of art, very foreign and, at the same time, filled with an enigmatic kind of chemistry like a pigment it's been brushed with.

Zhou Ziheng doesn't know why he suddenly feels so embarrassed; he's never felt like this before. He bends forward, reaching for the ropes at his feet.

In face of the unknown, people will always subconsciously become afraid.

Xia Xiqing doesn't seem to care about getting rebuffed. He removes the piece of porcelain from his teeth and hands it to Zhou Ziheng. "The knot seems pretty impossible. Try using this?"

Zhou Ziheng shakes his head, untying it with slight difficulty.

His offer of help rejected, Xia Xiqing straightens. Then, as if throwing a dart, he nimbly tosses the shard of vase into some corner of the room.

Finally untied, Zhou Ziheng has recovered his basic freedom of movement, able to at least leave this accursed chair. The earlier scene has left him somewhat creeped out even now, so he puts it off as merely the aftereffects of being tied up. Trying to relax, he turns his head to stretch out his neck, then cracks his knuckles. Meanwhile, Xia Xiqing is still handcuffed, unable to untie the restraints on his legs by himself.

It's a shame that he only asked for his blindfold to taken off. Their deal is done now, and Zhou Ziheng is completely able to leave him here as a sacrifice in the game—especially since he dislikes Xia Xiqing so much.

Xia Xiqing considers his options. They're on a show right now, and a move like abandoning one's teammate is typically considered too cutthroat, so celebrities usually wouldn't go for it. But this show is special in that it also presents a more psychological challenge; the hidden Killer will naturally make players doubt each other, so Xia Xiqing and Zhou Ziheng couldn't really regard the other as a teammate at all.

Hence, even if Zhou Ziheng chooses to leave him here, it would also be completely logical.

Meanwhile, Zhou Ziheng is also considering. The truth is, his morality doesn't allow himself to simply abandon someone like this, even if it's just a gamified simulation of survival. Only, he really doesn't like Xia Xiqing—he's trouble through and through, a time bomb waiting to go off. If he saves him now, he might just get betrayed at some point later in the game.

Wearing the smile of an angel even as he pushes him into the abyss—that's exactly what Xia Xiqing would do.

For a brief moment, they both struggle and deliberate alike.

"Even though you're my fan, in a game like this, I can't be sure that the production team wouldn't use your status as my fan to lower my guard." Just as Xia Xiqing reasoned, Zhou Ziheng gives the reason that is best able to defend against future criticism from the audience. But then again, even if the audience really does get upset, he doesn't care, because he really doesn't want to get stuck with Xia Xiqing. "I mean, if you're the Killer, I'd become your unwitting accomplice."

And what if you're the Killer? Xia Xiqing wants to ask, but he refrains. The question is too blunt, which contradicts the persona of harmlessness that he's been assigned.

He is truly at a loss.

Having mentally prepared himself in full, Zhou Ziheng turns around without reserve. Only, the moment he strides out, he feels a foot hooking around his shin.

"Don't go."

Zhou Ziheng turns back, seeing Xia Xiqing gazing at him from his seat on the chair. It's so strange—that pair of eyes are clearly on such a deceitful body, but they're somehow always able to give such an unbearably innocent look.

"How about we form an alliance, Ziheng. I'll unconditionally help you win this game." Xia Xiqing smiles. Only, his expression is not at all that of someone asking for help, but rather that of someone who holds all the leverage.

"Really? But in this game…" Zhou Ziheng quirks an eyebrow. "The way to win is to not trust anyone."

Pretty smart. Xia Xiqing chuckles.

"I am not asking you to trust me." His pupils, dark as the abyss, exude sweet temptation. "I am asking you to use me."

Moments later, as he kneels down to help Xia Xiqing untie the ropes around his legs, even Zhou Ziheng doesn't know how it is that he's been bewitched into softening his resolve and acquiescing to this man's request.

This is all highly illogical.

Trying to find an excuse for himself, he puts it off to the fact that they're filming a program—Xia Xiqing made a request, so not accepting it would make him look bad.

"Thanks." Xia Xiqing's tone is light and cheerful even though he remains handcuffed. He stands up from his seat, rolling his ankle in a quick stretch as he looks around, observing the room. Meanwhile, Zhou Ziheng goes off to remove all the white cloth covering the furniture, putting all of it in a corner.

The room's not too big, but, from its furnishings, it seems to be a stylish study. The most important feature is a password lock on the door, which will open if they input the correct four-digit pin using the touch screen.

The wallpaper lining the four inside walls is subtly patterned and light brown, over which hangs a couple of paintings and an oval mirror framed in wood. Against the wall and to the right of the mirror is a freestanding redwood cabinet, upon which sits a record player with a record in it.

But Xia Xiqing doesn't focus on these things. Instead, he carefully looks for signs of camera placement. After all, the puzzles have already been planned out, and this is a reality show, meaning that there will be cameras ready for close-ups of the puzzle-solving process.

After doing a rough count of the cameras, Xia Xiqing feels a lot more clear-headed. Professional curiosity makes him look to the paintings hanging on the wall. Zhou Ziheng approaches as well, but his intention is to look at the backs of the paintings for clues.

"What do you think of this one?"

Hearing this, Zhou Ziheng's hand pauses on the frame of the painting. Art is not his specialty; for all that he's been acting since a very young age, there is still a very big difference between visual arts and performing arts.

"I don't really understand this stuff," Zhou Ziheng says with honesty.

Xia Xiqing smiles. "This is Goya's The Clothed Maja. It's got a very interesting story behind it."

Zhou Ziheng puts the painting back and glances at Xia Xiqing. He's actually not at all interested in Xia Xiqing's story, but, considering they're on a show, it seems a bit rude to say nothing. So, somewhat reluctantly, he says, "What story?"

"In the eighteenth century, due to various historical reasons, Spain was shrouded in asceticism—nudity was completely banned from all artworks in the country. The only exception was Venus at her Mirror, which only survived due to the King's protection." Xia Xiqing stretches out his still handcuffed hands, stroking along the edge of the frame.

A bit confused, Zhou Ziheng looks at the lady in the painting. She reclines upon a divan upholstered in green velvet, wearing a gauzy gown of white chiffon. A wide sash the color of roses defines the soft curves of her waist.

"But she's wearing…"

Xia Xiqing's hand pauses, and he glances to Zhou Ziheng, raising an eyebrow. "She wore nothing at first. Some say that she was the mistress of a Spanish noble, and that she had commissioned a full-length portrait from Goya." Xia Xiqing suddenly chuckles. "Who knew he'd be so bewitched by her beauty that he'd paint her in nude. After it was discovered, the nobleman was very angry. To appease him, Goya painted another one, exactly the same, called The Clothed Maja. And in the end both paintings were taken away."

Zhou Ziheng wordlessly looks at the lady in the painting, his forehead in a slight furrow.

Xia Xiqing drops his cuffed hands, turning to Zhou Ziheng.

"Are you thinking about the other painting?"

At this, his frown deepens, staring at Xia Xiqing like a puffed-up little tiger with raised hackles. "I am not."

Xia Xiqing nods, smiling, and gently says, "I was just kidding."

He hadn't been kidding.

Seeing the fake smile on his face, Zhou Ziheng grows more annoyed.

This guy… he really has no shame at all.

He walks resolutely away, headed straight for that desk, examining it for clues. Xia Xiqing continues to watch the painting, staring at it.

Why would they put this here?

After a few minutes, Xia Xiqing turns around to see Zhou Ziheng standing beside the desk, staring at something on top of it. He walks over, seeing that it's a large book and the torn remains of a sticky note.

"It's completely shredded. The crew was so diligent," Xia Xiqing says wryly, seeing the snowflake-like pieces of paper.

Zhou Ziheng silently flips through the book, and a bookmark falls out, on which is a line of text:

Whatever I touch crumbles to pieces.

— Kafka

Xia Xiqing leans in. "It's from The Blue Octavo Notebooks."

Feeling Xia Xiqing's proximity to himself, Zhou Ziheng becomes a little ill at ease. He puts the book aside and picks up a piece of the shredded paper, looking at both its sides. He frowns in thought, then, without another word, begins to piece the note together. Xia Xiqing doesn't like tedious tasks like this, so he walks over to the record player. He glances his fingers lightly along the tonearm, guiding the stylus needle carefully onto the record.

There's a strange sense of inspiration that is unique to vinyl records like these, and, with a few fast-paced notes, the feeling quickly washes over the dull atmosphere of this enclosed space. Xia Xiqing leans against the cabinet, watching the young man who seems as dull as the room is.

"Have you ever heard this before?"

Eyes fixed on the desk before him, Zhou Ziheng does not raise his head. "I'm not very well versed in music."

He has little interest in the arts, nor does he have any goodwill for some idle artist who's never done a day of honest work in his life.

Xia Xiqing smiles. His hands are still cuffed, but he still looks like a professional music connoisseur, standing in front of that redwood cabinet and silently appreciating the music. It's a while before he speaks again: "It's the first movement of Miroirs, by Maurice Ravel. It was inspired by the concept of moths flying at flames in the dark." He turns, looking to the spinning record, and chuckles. "Though music critics usually say that the scattered semitones are like the flutters of a butterfly's wings, I feel like they sound more like a mirror shattering all over the floor."

He starts to regret his words the moment they leave his mouth, feeling like he shouldn't really be saying so much on a show. But then Zhou Ziheng suddenly raises his head from his heretofore unbroken concentration on those shreds of paper, then glances over at Xia Xiqing.

Perhaps it's because he likes Xia Xiqing's metaphor, but Zhou Ziheng, previously undistracted, also begins to listen to the incessant music as he works, trying to appreciate it. It is only when the torn sticky note is faultlessly returned to completion that he finally straightens.

"It's done? How impressive."

Xia Xiqing is a little surprised. All that's on the paper is a bunch of broken letters, and it'd been broken into so many tiny pieces. Xia Xiqing isn't particularly patient as a person, and just looking at it had made his head hurt. He walks over to the table, where Zhou Ziheng is in the middle of using the transparent tape on the table to secure the shreds of paper into a complete note.

Xia Xiqing takes a look. The letters are all legible now, but they're all random.

PGOEUDEAENHNRD

It's obviously a code. Xia Xiqing frowns, curious as to how Zhou Ziheng managed to pieces it together so quickly.

"You did it so quickly; how did you do it?"

Zhou Ziheng flips the note over, showing the back of the note, which has a line of beautifully handwritten words:

Tonight at 10, see you at Sophia (the restaurant).

"It was much easier to piece together using the information on the back."

Xia Xiqing nods. Even after realizing that the back had a complete sentence, it'd still take some time to distinguish out the front from the back.

Wait—front and back.

Xia Xiqing picks up the sticky note. As he suspected, it's specialty paper; though its two sides don't look all that different, the contrast can be felt. The front is very smooth, and the back is much rougher.

"You really are very attentive." Xia Xiqing puts the note back down on the table, smiling at Zhou Ziheng. "As expected from Ziheng."

Even though the words are so clearly complimentary, Zhou Ziheng doesn't believe in their sincerity. He answers somewhat stiffly, "This kind of paper is common in escape rooms. If you weren't distracted by music, you'd have noticed too."

"What can I do? Art is life." Xia Xiqing's hands are a little sore. He shrugs and looks down at the note. For some reason, the previously seamless music starts to lag, strange stutters beginning to emerge, making one displeased.

"Your 'art' seems to be getting on in years." Zhou Ziheng's voice carries a rare hint of sardonic mockery. The stuttering music makes him unable to concentrate, so he prepares to go over and turn it off.

Only, Xia Xiqing stands still, staring blankly into space. He seems almost dazed.

"Wait." Just as Zhou Ziheng touches the tonearm, Xia Xiqing stops him. "Don't turn it off."

"What is it?" Zhou Ziheng looks to Xia Xiqing, a little irked, only to find that he'd found a pen from the desk and is now noting something down on the paper from before.

Did he find something? Zhou Ziheng slowly retracts his hand, starting to properly listen to the strange, choppy music.

The stutters in the music seem random, sometimes it'd lag out for a brief moment, sometimes it'd be longer. But, upon paying closer attention, he finds that the lagging stops for a few seconds every two measures before reemerging. The lagging between the music notes seems without order. Some long, some short. Even the length of the pause seems consistent.

Like some sort of cycle…

Zhou Ziheng quickly realizes that every cycle is another repetition of the code.

Long—Short—Short—Short—Music

Short—Long—Short—Music

Short—Music

Short—Long—Music

Long—Short—Long—Music

…

Morse code.

He stands before the record player, listening for a few measures. Meanwhile, Xia Xiqing straightens from the desk, checks over the notes he just took, then walks over to Zhou Ziheng.

"You solved it?" Zhou Ziheng is somewhat astonished. As far as he's aware, Xia Xiqing majored in fine arts. How could he solve the Morse code so quickly?

Xia Xiqing nods, a small frown marring his forehead. He walks over to the mirror, staring carefully at it for a while, then tells Zhou Ziheng, "Stand back a little."

Zhou Ziheng doesn't understand, but he backs up a little anyways. He watches Xia Xiqing remove the tonearm, abruptly pausing the music. He's about to ask what the code was trying to say, but he's too late. Xia Xiqing steps back with his right foot, raises his handcuffed hands in front of his chest, then, using a practiced stance and movement, preforms a sidekick.

The oval mirror shatters with a crash. He pulls his foot back, and the reflective shards fall to the cabinet and the floor in a rush of crystalline clinks. As the glass fall away, the true form of the florally carved frame finally emerges.

The wooden frame has a gray backing, to which a silver key is glued.

"If you don't mind." Turning around to glance at Zhou Ziheng, Xia Xiqing shows him his bound hands.

The extent of Xia Xiqing's cleverness has honestly surpassed Zhou Ziheng's expectations.

For but a second, he considers if he should take advantage of Xia Xiqing's lowered guard and take the key for himself, using it as leverage later on. After all, Xia Xiqing is such a cunning man, and he's also very likely to be the Killer.

But he ends up deciding against it. Seeing that pair of wrists, red from friction with the handcuffs, Zhou Ziheng feels that his earlier thoughts were truly somewhat contemptible.

If he gets stabbed in the back later in the game, well, it would certainly be unfortunate, but it is what it is. Zhou Ziheng steps up to take the key from the frame. Whoever was in charge of the prop was truly diligent—the key has been secured very well—and it takes him no small amount of effort to detach it.

Xia Xiqing obediently extends his arms, presenting his wrists to Zhou Ziheng. The scene of him bending over his hands to unclasp them is an extremely enjoyable sight to Xia Xiqing.

This angle highlights the jut of Zhou Ziheng's nose and the exquisite shape of his eyes. It's a testosterone-fueled type of carved exquisiteness. The beautiful curve formed by the joining of his brow ridge to the bridge of his nose looks like it came from a range of windswept mountains. The shape of his lowered head and the focus in his staring eyes remind Xia Xiqing of Paolo from Rodin's sculpture, The Kiss.

If they weren't on a reality show, Xia Xiqing would definitely lean in and say into his ear:

You have a very kissable face.

"Done."

Handcuffs successfully unlocked, Zhou Ziheng raises his head, unexpectedly meeting Xia Xiqing's direct gaze. He frowns subconsciously before glancing sideways and clearing his throat. He flicks his wrist to remove the loosened handcuffs, grasping them in a single hand, and then he sets them down on top of the cabinet with a click.

Xia Xiqing smiles, saying a soft "Thanks," as he touches his wrists. Remembering back to when he'd been finishing up with the code and Zhou Ziheng's expression as he listened to the music, Xia Xiqing asks, "You also figured out it was Morse code, right?"

Zhou Ziheng nods, reaching into his pocket to check the time. "But I never memorized the exact Morse code correlations to letters, so I found it a bit difficult to solve."

Xia Xiqing resumes the paused music and explains, "At first there's a long lag, then three short ones before the music resumes. Long-short-short-short corresponds to B. After that is a sequence of short-long-short, which is R." The coded music continues to play. "The sequence of short on its own is E. Short-long is A. Long-short-long is K."

B-R-E-A-K—Break

Before Xia Xiqing explains the remaining two words, Zhou Ziheng says in English, "Break the mirror."

"Exactly." Xia Xiqing laughs. This laugh seems different from before, more candid.

Zhou Ziheng figures that he's probably just imagining it.

"Why are you so familiar with Morse code?" Zhou Ziheng walks over to stop the music, picking up the vinyl record he hadn't paid much attention to earlier and observes it, squinting.

"My Math Olympiads teacher from middle school mentioned it, and I found it very interesting. I even used it to send answers during exams. I haven't used it ever since I joined the liberal arts stream in high school, so it took me a little while to remember it just now." Xia Xiqing toes the ground lightly with his dress shoes. "But the way it's been designed by the production team, isn't it a little too hard? If a contestant didn't just happen to know this stuff, it'd probably be impossible to solve, no?"

"They actually thought it through quite well." Zhou Ziheng passes the vinyl record to Xia Xiqing, on which is written the English word, Mirror. "You put this on when I was putting the sticky note together the note pieces. If a contestant is familiar with classical music like you, they might recognize it as Miroirs on their own, and thus associate it with the mirror beside the record player. But, if they didn't know, they could find it on the vinyl record itself, so it's inevitable that they'd think about the mirror."

"And to connect it with breaking the mirror…" Xia Xiqing thinks back to the bookmark they found in the book. "Whatever I touch crumbles to pieces."

Zhou Ziheng nods. "I think that the torn-up note is also a hint. The production team prepared quite a few ways to solve the puzzle. You just chose the most direct path."

"Yet it also cost the greatest amount of brainpower." Xia Xiqing shrugs a little. "But compared to the efficiency in making all these connections, math is much quicker and much more precise."

Zhou Ziheng wonders how it is that someone who studied art would be so good at math.

Meanwhile, Xia Xiqing has already shifted his focus to the note that Zhou Ziheng put together. "The scrambled letters should be another code, but probably with a different key." He walks over and picks it up. "Maybe this will lead to the code we need to open the door."

This coincides with Zhou Ziheng's thoughts. Only, beyond this sticky note, he keeps feeling that the room contains more information. It's just that he's yet to find a good way to differentiate useful information from trivial information.

The two of them return to the sticky note that was shredded then pieced back together.

Xia Xiqing flips the note over to the side with words, carefully examining it. Then, he takes the bookmark out of the book and proceeds to say something that currently seems somewhat useless:

"Don't you think the handwriting is different on these two?"

Zhou Ziheng had noticed it as well. The handwriting on the bookmark is less reserved, seemingly belonging to a man, whereas the sticky note was written in a more delicate script. The difference isn't that glaring, but, just from the force with which the strokes begin and release, it does seem like two different people wrote those two sentences.

He points at the bookmark. "I think this one was written by the owner of this study."

Xia Xiqing actually agrees with him, but, for the sake of the show and the audience's understanding, he kindly asks, "But what if the owner of the study borrowed this book? The bookmark could very well belong to someone else."

Zhou Ziheng shakes his head and raises his hand, pointing at the bookshelf. "On the third row, counting from the left, the first six books belong to the same series as this novel, and this one is the finale. Other than this series, there are a bunch of other series on the shelf too. I don't think a person who likes to collect entire series of books would borrow a book for reading, especially a series finale."

Xia Xiqing puts on the reverential expression that fans so often use. "Wow, it's such a waste of talent that our Heng-Heng hasn't been cast as a detective yet."

Our Heng-Heng??? For all that Zhou Ziheng has already gotten used to seeing this term of address in his fan community, upon hearing it come out of this guy's mouth, Zhou Ziheng feels his typically excellent control over his expressions starting to slip.

Seeing such seemingly genuine worship in Xia Xiqing's eyes, Zhou Ziheng can't help but mentally retort:

It's also such a waste of talent that you're not an actor.

But, remembering again that they're on camera and that he shouldn't act too aloof towards such an enthusiastic "fan", Zhou Ziheng clears his throat, then mutters, "It's not certain that I won't."

For some strange reason, Xia Xiqing finds Zhou Ziheng just the slightest bit adorable at this moment.

He shakes himself mentally—he must be addled to think that.

When Zhou Ziheng sees Xia Xiqing about to step on a piece of the vase that he smashed at the beginning, he feels compelled to warn him, reaching out and dragging at his arm. "Careful."

Xia Xiqing heeds his words and looks down. "Oh, it's the vase that got smashed at the beginning—I almost forgot about it. Perhaps the theme for this room of ours is 'fragments.'"

His words were casually intended, but as Xia Xiqing thinks it over, something feels off. Zhou Ziheng had that theory of association about how contestants could have connected "break" to "mirror" by looking at the bookmark and the vinyl record—so, shouldn't the equally fragile vase also reveal clues upon being broken?

It seems that Zhou Ziheng might have picked something up from Xia Xiqing's words as, in tacit agreement, the two of them squat down almost simultaneously to examine the shattered remains of the porcelain vase and also the scattered bouquet of white chrysanthemums that are on the floor.

Using the stem of a flower, Xia Xiqing turns over the mess of broken shards. Sure enough, he finds a thin roll of paper. "Found it."

The guy who wrote the script for this room really was thorough. There are so many clues stuffed into every little nook and cranny. If they hadn't thought of the overall theme, fragments, then they probably wouldn't have smashed the vase.

No, that's not it. He very quickly backpedals.

Zhou Ziheng suddenly says: "So the crew tied us up but didn't give us anything to cut our way out—except I had a decorative vase within my reach. This was probably just so that we'd smash it."

Their thoughts have aligned. Xia Xiqing is a little surprised, but he quickly replies with a hum of affirmation. "It should be as you said. Only, we shifted focus early on, so we didn't find the clue in the vase at first."

Like when you play Pac-Man or Snake: no matter where you start or where you go, you have to eat all the dots that the game gives you, because otherwise it's game over.

He suddenly begins to appreciate the script writer a bit. Whoever wrote this escape room is smart—the clues don't come in chains, where you always need the previous clue in order to find the subsequent one. It's much more playable to design the room so that the order in which a player finds the clues doesn't matter, even creating multiple potential ways to solve a single puzzle. Also, this writer has added a villainous role, the Killer, and turned a pure puzzle game into complete psychological warfare with such a simple change.

Interesting.

They open up the scroll, revealing a short poem.

We are two pieces of what once was a whole.

Destiny took you out of my body, from my bones, my flesh, my heart, bluntly piecing these meaningless organs together.

With you, who were also taken apart and reconstructed, one after the other, I was buried.

Buried under this fence covered with roses in full bloom.

Only disassembly anew,

Will return you to me, will return me to you.

From above to below, connected to each other.

Only then will everything have meaning anew.

It seems to be a somewhat gothic poem, but Xia Xiqing keeps feeling like there's something off about it. He turns to the back, and finds, written there in English:

2 you.

"There must be a reason for using the Arabic numeral '2' instead of the English word 'to.'" Xia Xiqing can't be sure of much else, but he's certain about this. So far in this game, the only regularity has been that they can't let go of anything out of the ordinary.

Zhou Ziheng keeps staring, brow furrowed, as if very carefully considering this poem.

Suddenly, their cell phones ring.

Thoughts interrupted, they take out their phones. Displayed on the screen is a new notification:

Please be warned that the first player has escaped their original room and has gone into the room of another player.

"Wow, that was fast." Xia Xiqing looks around. Smiling, he puts his phone away, his expression both innocent and relieved. "But they haven't come to our room. If this person is the Killer, able to go into any random room… This is a scary game."

But Zhou Ziheng asks in response, "But what if they're a regular player, and they walk into the Killer's room?"

Xia Xiqing turns to him, choosing an angle that avoids all close-up cameras. Then, he reaches up as if to adjust his collar, but instead he covers the mic that's on him. Fully exhibiting his terrible personality, he smirks lazily and mouths in a mocking manner, "A lamb entering the den of a tiger—isn't that more exciting?"

Zhou Ziheng feels distinctly the change that has overcome Xia Xiqing. Just moments ago, he'd been somewhat distant and half-hearted, but now, upon finding out that someone else has broken out of their room, Xia Xiqing has completely gotten his head in the game.

But he also knows: it isn't that Xia Xiqing is particularly competitive; it's just that he wants to get out to find the excitement and watch all the fun.

Unfortunately, to find a messy situation and make it more chaotic is probably his real intention.

"Don't you think the poem is very strange?" With a pen that he got from who-knows-where, Xia Xiqing underlines a few lines at the end:

Only disassembly anew,

Will return you to me, will return me to you.

From above to below, connected to each other.

Only then will everything have meaning anew.

He then takes out the sticky note that Zhou Ziheng had pieced pack together, the front of which shows a line of scrambled letters. "I think this poem is telling us how to decode this message."

Zhou Ziheng nods in agreement, then silently reads the poem, this time more carefully:

We are two pieces of what once was a whole.

Destiny took you out of my body, from my bones, my flesh, my heart, bluntly piecing these meaningless organs together.

With you, who were also taken apart and reconstructed, one after the other, I was buried.

Buried under this fence covered with roses in full bloom.

Only disassembly anew,

Will return you to me, will return me to you.

From above to below, connected to each other.

Only then will everything have meaning anew.

Pieces of a whole, taken out, pieced together, buried one after the other…

Without quite meaning to, he reads aloud: "Buried under this fence covered with roses in full bloom…"

Fence, fence…

Fence.

Suddenly, the light of realization flashes through him.

"Rail Fence Cipher."

One in English, and the other in Chinese, the two of them speak simultaneously. Then, they look at each other with surprise.

Xia Xiqing laughs. "They say that fans take after their idols. It must be true; we seem pretty in sync."

Zhou Ziheng sneers internally. Sorry, but he does not at all want to be idolized by this type of person.

However, he has to admit that Xia Xiqing's reaction speed surprised him. "How do you know about the Rail Fence Cipher?" Zhou Ziheng asks.

Xia Xiqing responds casually, "My nephew is in IT. He and I researched a bit about cryptography at some point."

Your nephew? Zhou Ziheng frowns at Xia Xiqing.

How old are you?

He doesn't ask it out loud, and neither does he believe Xia Xiqing's words. He picks up the pen Xia Xiqing found earlier, ready to decode the message.

Xia Xiqing flips the poem over, revealing the "2 you" message on the back. Laughing, he says, "The production team has actually been pretty obvious with this clue. This '2' here is not the English word 'to' because it's hinting at how the message is a two-rail fence, right?"

Zhou Ziheng hums in agreement and starts to count the letters in the message. Finding the center, he draws a line down the middle to separate them into two groups. Though he knows Xia Xiqing should be familiar with the deciphering process for this code, Zhou Ziheng still explains it aloud for the sake of the audience, "The first half of the poem describes the encryption process, and, starting from 'Only disassembly anew,' it hints at the decryption process. Based on the '2' written on the back, we can divide the letters into two groups, each containing seven letters."

PGOEUDE | AENHNRD

"'Will return you to me, will return me to you,' should be suggesting that we rearrange the positions of these two groups." Zhou Ziheng rewrite the two groups in two rows, lining up the letters:

PGOEUDE

AENHNRD

Bent over the code, Zhou Ziheng recites the second-to-last line of the poem, "'From above to below, connected to each other.'" With his pen, Zhou Ziheng draws a line, starting at the P, then going down to the A right below it, then going back up to the G, and so on and so forth across the entire code, drawing the line through every letter until he arrives at the last one, D.

"Then if I write it down in sequence…" Zhou Ziheng carefully writes down the final solution:

PAGEONEHUNDRED

Page one hundred.

"Page one hundred." Xia Xiqing picks up that incredibly thick book beside him, turning to the one hundredth page.

The entire page is covered in tiny characters like ants, but the forty-second line contains four Arabic numerals:

I live only for my desires, for this cliff of fiery passion. If I could, the moment before my desire burns to ash, I want to be the 1414th rose in the sea of flowers within your heart. No more, no less, I want to be that exact one.

"1414." Xia Xiqing puts down the book, walking to the front of the study and putting these four numbers into the password lock.

The lock emits blue light in response, flashing thrice. Then, a green message appears on the screen:

PASSWORD CORRECT!

Xia Xiqing tries the door gently, pushing it until her hears a creak. The door is indeed unlocked. Xia Xiqing is about to leave on his own when he notices the close-up camera on the door lock, so he turns back to smile at Zhou Ziheng, saying, "We can leave now. Shall we?"

Leaning against the desk, Zhou Ziheng takes a long look at him before finally stuffing his hands into his jacket pockets and walking over.

There's the sound of a new notification.

Please be warned that two players have just now escaped their original room and have gone into the room of another player.

"Our alliance is still on?" Zhou Ziheng suddenly asks.

Xia Xiqing smiles and pushes the door fully open. "Of course, if you haven't yet squeezed me dry of all utility."

The words "squeezed" and "dry" are subtle, subtle enough that Zhou Ziheng doesn't even realize that he's being teased as he innocently follows behind Xia Xiqing out of their original room.

The house has a strange layout; there's no hallway between one room and the next, so they open their door and walk right into a new room. The guy in the room is hunched over something when he hears from behind him the wall—at least what he'd thought was a wall—suddenly open. He startles with a shudder.

Dedicated to his character design, Xia Xiqing smiles in greeting at the room's original occupant. "Hi. We're the players who just escaped our first room. You should've gotten the production team's message by now."

The man before them is wearing an oversized hoodie in pastel yellow. His hair looks quite fluffy, and it's been bleached brown. Having turned around towards the sound, he sees Zhou Ziheng and a relieved expression appears on his attractive face. "Oh, it's Ziheng! I'm so glad it's you." Then he smiles at Xia Xiqing. "Hello, hello… Oh, aren't you the one who recently—a couple days ago on Weibo…" He trails off in an inquisitive tone.

Xia Xiqing considerately introducing himself, "Xia Xiqing." Then, as the guy is about to introduce himself, Xia Xiqing immediately adds, "Shang Sirui, right? I really like your group's songs."

Shang Sirui is the center of a male idol group called HighFive. He and Zhou Ziheng once worked together on a movie, though Shang Sirui had taken on more of a cameo role. Xia Xiqing doesn't actually like the type of music that idol groups usually make—saying that he does was pure politeness on his part. However, this idol group is pretty well-known by their generation, especially Shang Sirui, who, with his pretty face and a somewhat absentminded personality, has become the most popular member of this idol group.

"Really?" Shang Sirui laughs. "Oh, you escaped so quickly. You must both be amazing at this game. I feel like I've been flailing around blindly this whole time; I still haven't gotten much of anything in terms of useful clues. I just find it so strange—whatever possessed my manager to pick such a hard show for me?"

Xia Xiqing almost laughs out loud. This idol speaks like he's doing stand-up comedy. No wonder the internet likes to make fun of the things he says.

"Two is better than one." Zhou Ziheng walks over to Shang Sirui to look over his progress.

Xia Xiqing hadn't realized when Zhou Ziheng and Shang Sirui stood apart, but now that they're next to each other, Xia Xiqing notices how tall Zhou Ziheng is, and how his shoulders are also wider. Even Shang Sirui, whose physique is pretty ideal in terms of male idol groups, begins to seem delicate when standing next to Zhou Ziheng. If Xia Xiqing remembers correctly, there's even a shipping fandom for the pairing between these two.

Zhou Ziheng's mega-alpha persona really does fit him well.

Even though both Shang Sirui and Zhou Ziheng have countless fans who follow them only for their looks, the ways in which they're attractive are completely different. Shang Sirui's features are more subtle, giving him a youthful vibe and making him seem young enough to still be in high school. Meanwhile, Zhou Ziheng's features are sharper; there even used to be people who'd mistake him for being mixed race.

To Xia Xiqing, it is of course the latter aesthetic that's more attractive.

After this round of admiration, Xia Xiqing looks about the room. This space is very different from where he and Zhou Ziheng had come from; it's clearly a simply furnished bedroom: there's a wardrobe made of dark wood, a round table on a wool rug, and a midsize bed.

Shang Sirui's strategy seems a bit different from theirs. He seems to have gathered up everything that looked like a clue to him and put them on the round table to analyze one by one.

"Ziheng, can you help me see if this stuff is at all useful?"

Zhou Ziheng makes a noise of affirmation and walks over to help him look over the clues.

Xia Xiqing doesn't approach them, instead walking around the modest space. Unlike the study, not much decorates the walls of this room. He feels along the finely textured wallpaper and finds a tiny camera on the wall facing the bed. But it's strange—the camera's scope is limited to a stretch of almost completely bare wall.

Suddenly, he notices two tiny nails on that wall, blending in completely to the texture of the wallpaper and thus very difficult to detect. Xia Xiqing reaches out to touch them, sensing something off about it all.

Was there maybe a painting that hung here?

"Xiqing? You should also come and take a look at these clues. I can't make head or tails of it," Shang Sirui says, waving at Xia Xiqing, who, pulled from his thoughts, turns back to see Shang Sirui and Zhou Ziheng crowding around the round table. He hums obediently and walks over to them.

There aren't many clues on the table: a slip of paper, an organizer, and a laptop.

As Shang Sirui explains to Zhou Ziheng where he found these clues, Xia Xiqing moves the laptop's cursor. In response, the monitor lights up, showing the interface of an internet browser. The window has three tabs open, and Xia Xiqing clicks through them. The first one contains information about an art exhibition, and the second one is in the middle of pre-ordering a book. Once he clicks to the third one, he comes to a sudden realization.

"Sirui, have you done anything on this laptop?"

Interrupted in his conversation with Zhou Ziheng, Shang Sirui turns to Xia Xiqing. "Huh? No, I haven't. This laptop has no internet access. The three webpages were already open when I got here."

Zhou Ziheng glances over. Lit up by the light of the laptop monitor, Xia Xiqing blinks slowly, as if very deep in thought.

"What did you find?"

Hearing Zhou Ziheng's voice, Xia Xiqing turns to him. "Do you remember the sticky note in our room? It had something written on its back."

Xia Xiqing is about to continue, but Zhou Ziheng takes the note out of his pocket. Xia Xiqing is surprised; though he's already witnessed how detail-oriented Zhou Ziheng can be, he didn't think it was to this extent. "I can't believe you brought it here."

"Who said taking clues was against the rules?" Zhou Ziheng quirks an eyebrow and puts the note down on the table. He pulls a chair over from beside him and sits down, reading the message out loud: "Tonight at 10, see you at Sophia (the restaurant)."

"Sophia?" Shang Sirui asks, frowning.

"Yes." Xia Xiqing moves the laptop so Zhou Ziheng and Shang Sirui can see better. "The last tab is the official webpage of the restaurant 'Sophia.'"

Shang Sirui squints at the screen, then sheepishly scratches his head. "Oh, it's all in English…"

Internally, Xia Xiqing can only shake his head in exasperation. Can't you have some self-awareness? You're a celebrity!If this had been a live-stream and didn't have any postproduction to cut out this line, Shang Sirui's anti-fans would have a field day—they might even start saying that he's illiterate. His competitors would of course pay to publicize this, and then he'll really never hear the end of it.

"'Rose Day'?" Zhou Ziheng seems to have found something interesting on the webpage.

Shang Sirui looks confused, so Xia Xiqing explains, "It seems to be a couples' event. It says here that on the day of the event, the restaurant will be decorated with thousands of roses, and they'll even have a special menu with food and drinks that contain roses as an ingredient."

"Does this have anything to do with us getting out of the room?" Shang Sirui, bending over at the waist, looks up at Xia Xiqing.

Even though he's kind of at the end of his ropes with this guy, Xia Xiqing smiles gently at him in response. "I don't know either."

At that, Shang Sirui turns his questioning face to Zhou Ziheng, who props his chin on his left hand and pokes at the note with his right index finger. "Two clues have pointed to this restaurant. It can't be meaningless."

He's right. If there had only been one, then it could be just filler detail. But two? It has to have been intentional.

Seeing how confused Shang Sirui seems, Xia Xiqing, who is burdened with an angelic character design, fears he might become embarrassed. Xia Xiqing also fears that the show might be impacted overall, so he tries to shift the focus off of this incomplete chain of clues about the restaurant: "Did you guys find out anything from the other clues?" Xia Xiqing picks the slip of paper up from the table. The front shows a line of characters written in a script that has let to lose its childishness. The writer must not be too much older than ten.

Dad, the teacher gave me a question today, but I can't solve it. Can you please help me solve it?

Xia Xiqing flips to the back, where a four-digit number is written alongside two empty brackets.

1634 ( ) ( )

Is it a sequence?

But there's so little information given.

Based on their experience from the first room, it doesn't seem like the production team would make things so difficult for their guests, meaning that, if this was supposed to be some sort of sequence, there should at least be three numbers in the pattern already, but there's only one number here, and it's got four digits. What a headache.

Xia Xiqing looks to Shang Sirui. "Sirui, where did you find this piece of paper?"

Shang Sirui points at the nightstand. "Over there, but it was the only thing on there."

Xia Xiqing nods. Even though he believes him, he still feels like this kid isn't very careful about things. So, he walks over for a closer inspection. Indeed, there's nothing else atop the nightstand, but he still feels like something is off; the crew must have hidden something else. So, he walks around the nightstand, searching, and finds a small, easily overlooked wastebasket in the crack between the nightstand and the bed. He takes it out and pours everything in it on the floor.

"Oh wow, I didn't even see that." Seeing Xia Xiqing's discovery, Shang Sirui immediately stands up and approaches, crouching down before Xia Xiqing and mirroring what he's doing. One by one, he unfolds the balls of crumpled paper, spreading each page all out on the floor. "What's inside all this?"

"I'm not sure either, but the production team deliberately created so much trash—there must have been a reason for it," Xia Xiqing replies, all the while continuing to sort. Finally, he opens up a piece of crumpled paper and sees a couple of equations written on it.

He examines it more closely and realizes that it's a half-finished calculation.

"Got it." Paper in hand, Xia Xiqing stands up and walks over to the round table, where Zhou Ziheng is still looking at the Rose Day advertisement on the restaurant's website. His face wears an unreadable look that, as soon as he sees Shang Sirui and Xia Xiqing, is quickly replaced by his normal expression. "What did you find?"

"Calculations. Here, don't you think this handwriting looks familiar?" Xia Xiqing passes the scrap paper to Zhou Ziheng, who takes it and looks it over before setting it on the table, the corners of his lips curving very slightly.

It's such an attractive smirk. Xia Xiqing is momentarily stunned.

Zhou Ziheng really is his exact type.

Wait, he's getting distracted. He's getting distracted by a pretty face.

"The calculations here and the bookmark in the study were written by the same hand. We must be right that the sticky note was written by a woman." Zhou Ziheng puts the piece of crumpled paper back on the table. "At this point, we can probably confirm that our protagonist is a married man who's already a father."

"Also possibly having an affair." Xia Xiqing sneers.

Shang Sirui is completely lost. Bewildered, he asks, "How did you two figure this out?"

Xia Xiqing blinks. "Just a random guess."

"Oh," Shang Sirui says, then begins to laugh in an adorably airheaded way. "I feel like I'm not even in the same dimension as you two. You're so in sync with each other! It's like you instantly understand what each other is saying."

It's not that we're in sync; it's just that we've both got a functional brain, Xia Xiqing thinks.

He picks up a pen and bends down to underline the calculations on that scrap paper. "Anyway, let's look at this first."

The question only gave 1634, and this piece of paper only contains one line of calculations.

1 × 1 × 1 × 1 + 6 × 6 × 6 × 6 + 3 × 3 × 3 × 3 + 4 × 4 × 4 × 4 = ?

Xia Xiqing quickly works through the equation, then immediately understands, but before he voices his discovery, Zhou Ziheng, still looking at that webpage, beats him to it.

"It's a narcissistic number, isn't it? The four-digit ones are called four-leaf rose numbers."

Xia Xiqing crosses out the question mark in the calculations and instead writes down a number behind the equal sign: 1634.

But wait, how did he know?

"Exactly." Xia Xiqing raises an eyebrow and levels a questioning look at Zhou Ziheng. "But how did you know it's a narcissistic number without even working through the calculations?" Isn't he majoring in physics? How can he be so good at mental arithmetic?

Zhou Ziheng points at the laptop. "See here: the roses on this webpage."

Shang Sirui, who's never been good at arithmetic, had been looking at the webpage alongside Zhou Ziheng, so he's also figured out the secret. "Oh! The roses on here are all the same image, just copy-pasted everywhere. They all look the same and they all have exactly four leaves. And I was wondering why they all felt so off." Quickly, a confused look resurfaces on his pretty face. "But… what's a four-leaf rose number?"

Xia Xiqing points at the equation. "This is the definition itself. See, 1634 is the sum of the fourth powers of its digits. It is a four-digit narcissistic number."

Shang Sirui nods, looking like he only has a hazy notion. Seeing as the two of them knew about this sort of number, he gladly says, "Ah ha! So the rest of the two numbers are also four-leaf rose numbers? We know the answers now?"

This kid is too optimistic. Xia Xiqing feels a headache coming on. He subconsciously twirled the pen in his hand and bluntly answers in the negative, "I don't know the answers." Eyeing Zhou Ziheng, he asks, "Do you know what the other four-leaf rose numbers are?"

Zhou Ziheng shakes his head. "I just know that there are three of them."

Well, he is a physics major, not a mathematics major. Probably the only people with the leisure time to study this stuff would be mathematicians.

Who'd be so bored as to memorize this? Xia Xiqing sighs. He gets a headache every time he encounters anything that requires patience. He pokes at the paper with the tip of his pen. "So, what do we do? Trial and error?"

 "Till this season ends?" Zhou Ziheng asks self- deprecatingly. "Brute force calculations might not be too useful situations like these."

"Trial and error? Brute force calculations?" Shang Sirui rubs his face furiously, seeming hopelessly confused. "Are you guys speaking Chinese?"

Xia Xiqing laughs, tucking his too-long hair behind his ear. "Well, the point is that we can't do it by hand, so it's perfectly fine if you didn't understand."

"If only I knew this show required brains, I'd have gotten my manager to turn it down…" Shang Sirui is naturally friendly. Hand resting on Xia Xiqing's shoulder, he grins so widely that his eyes become slits, completely abandoning any composure that would befit an idol. "There's a reason my character design is 'airhead,' after all."

This kid is too fun. In terms of flirting, Xia Xiqing is used to attacking with gentleness. Having done it so much, it's mere habit that makes him turn to Shang Sirui and smile. "A small correction: even if you are an airhead, you're still a pretty airhead."

"Oh?" Shang Sirui drapes his arm around Xia Xiqing's neck, pulling him very close. "But I feel like you're prettier than I am…" Shang Sirui dissolves into laughter.

Seeing them stand so close to each other, acting all touchy-feely, Zhou Ziheng feels so viscerally discomfited that it almost becomes a physical sensation. On one hand, he feels his antipathy for Xia Xiqing deepening, but, on the other, he's a little worried about Shang Sirui—the kid's a bit clueless.

The way Xia Xiqing was speaking just now, the tone he used—Zhou Ziheng is certain that it had been flirting. As a person, Xia Xiqing is practically poisonous. No matter who he's talking to, he always smiles so sweetly, as if there's syrup coming out of his eyes.

But is it possible… could he be into Shang Sirui? The idea scares him. Zhou Ziheng frowns and clears his throat, catching the other two's attention. "I think we must have missed some key clue. The production team wouldn't make it so hard for us guests, and it's practically impossible to solve this by hand."

Xia Xiqing nods in agreement. They wouldn't make it so hard for their guests, especially not the original occupant of this room, Shang Sirui. This room also seems easier than their previous room, so there must have been some important detail that they missed, or the chain of clues wouldn't have ended so abruptly here.

It's just, he really doesn't like anything that requires trial and error to complete. Going through each number and checking to see if it works, repeating the calculations thousands of times—this type of tedious work shouldn't be done by humans. At this thought, he chuckles a little. "Ah, if only my nephew were here. Stuff like narcissistic numbers, it's what they get for practice questions when they first start learning to code. He must've done so many of those questions that he might've even memorized the answers."

"Woah, your nephew? How old is he? Did he start coding in elementary school or something? What sort of family is this? Are you all gods?" Shang Sirui's arm is still draped around Xia Xiqing, and they're so close that almost half his weight is leaning on him.

Xia Xiqing suddenly realizes what he just said. He looks at Zhou Ziheng, and finds Zhou Ziheng looking back at him knowingly. Their weird chemistry resumes.

Zhou Ziheng takes control of the mouse, moving the cursor up to minimize the initial web browser. Then he searches through the desktop and various folders.

Xia Xiqing mutters, "No, you won't find like this. There has to be a directory address." He walks back to the garbage bin.

"Hey, what are you doing?"

"There might be a clue. I hope."

He collects all the papers and checks each of them carefully. Some say irrelevant things, and some are children's drawings. He stops when he finds one with a single line of text on it.

A directory address, just as he expected.

"Under the D: drive." Xia Xiqing passes the paper to Zhou Ziheng, who inputs the address accordingly and finds a file called Rose.exe. After clicking on it, a line is printed out.

1634 8208 9474

"Science and technology are the primary productive force." Xia Xiqing lets out a relieved sigh and copies the numbers down.

Zhou Ziheng leans against the chair, spreading his legs shoulder width apart and shoving his hands inside his pockets. He focuses on sorting out the clues they currently have.

Zhou Ziheng reasons it out: "If this room is like the last one, then the two missing numbers that we've just found should be the password for something in this room. Right now, we don't have anything that requires a password, which means we've missed a clue."

Zhou Ziheng's voice is deep, reminds Xia Xiqing of the bell ringing on the Giotto's Bell Tower and the sunset of Florence Cathedral.

When he passed there, carrying his palette on his back, the deep sound of the bell strikes passed through his soul like electricity passing through his body.

"Umm?"

Xia Xiqing leaves his thoughts behind upon hearing Zhou Ziheng's question.

"What do you think?" Zhou Ziheng looks at him, confused.

Xia Xiqing nods. Even though he missed some context, he can guess that Zhou Ziheng was talking about the missing clue.

"Yes, our goal right now is to find the clue missing from our chain." He looks at the only clue on the table that they haven't yet solved, the organizer. The thing is the size of his hand. He flips through it.

Shang Sirui, who's spent most of his time looking around the room, looks at the organizer and says, "I found this one beside the pillow. I went through it but didn't find anything useful. Most of the things on there are like meetings, picking up the kid, and stuff like that. Oh, and the kid also writes in it, all sorts of random stuff."

A kid?

Xia Xiqing is alarmed. He quickly checks the organizer again, and indeed, there are some notes written in the same handwriting by the same kid who wrote the four-leaf rose number,the contents of which were wishes that his dad would take him out to play or participate in the parents-teacher meet and so on.

He goes through it again but still doesn't find anything worth thinking about.

So why does he feel something isn't right?

Xia Xiqing puts the organizer down and cups his chin, thinking. Zhou Ziheng takes the organizer, plays with it for a while, then suddenly says, "There's a page missing here?"

"Really?" Xia Xiqing raises his head. He didn't notice it before, but there does seem to be a page missing.

"So, in the garbage bin…" Xia Xiqing suddenly remembers that there was a piece of crumpled paper about the right size for the organizer. It had the same ten-year-old or so kid's handwriting on it.

He walks over, kneels down, and eventually locates that piece of paper. Shang Sirui goes to him, and reads aloud the message that's on it.

"Dad, the pen you gave me dropped under the bed, and I can't reach it. Can you help me find it?"

Pen?

Zhou Ziheng walks to them and kneels down in front of the bed to check its underside, but the bed goes all the way to the floor, with no spare space under it, and it seems solid.

Xia Xiqing knocks on the surface of the wood.

Hallow.

The moment he stands up, he spots a camera on a leg of the bed, which only confirms his theory. "We need to move the bed."

"What? Really?" Shang Sirui is doubtful. "I mean, uh, are we sure we're looking at the right place? A pen could mean nothing, and besides, there's so much information in that organizer…"

Zhou Ziheng shakes his head and asks, "Is this paper in the organizer?"

"Of course not, it's ripped out." Shang Sirui doesn't get the point.

Zhou Ziheng nods. "So, if you're the owner of the organizer, why would you rip out one page?"

Shang Sirui stands there, thinking, arms crossed in front of his chest. "Ripped out… I think there're many possibilities, for example, it could be useless? Ah, but I think the whole organizer is kind of pointless. Or it could mean that he doesn't want anyone else to see it?" Shang Sirui suddenly understands the point Zhou Ziheng was trying to make. "He doesn't want people to see it!"

Zhou Ziheng smiles with a rather gratified look.

Xia Xiqing is on one side of the bed, trying to lift it up. Just when he is about to ask for help, he finds that the bed is extremely light, and he can do it all on his own.

It sure is a prop…

They easily move the bed away. There's not much under the bed, just a box. Strictly speaking, it's a safe that requires two lines of passcode, each with four digits.

There's also a rose on the safe, the stem of which has retained four tiny leaves.

"Wow, I really feel I got carried by two Masters." Shang Sirui happily picks up the safe and inputs the two passcodes. And after two clicking sounds, the safe opens.

Xia Xiqing smiles in resignation. More like a noob player accidentally stepping into a pro-level game.

Zhou Ziheng sees his warm smile and wonders—is Xia Xiqing really into Shang Sirui?

A complete and utter misunderstanding.

"A key!" Shang Sirui takes a key out of the safe eagerly, disregarding everything else. "We can finally leave!"

Xia Xiqing, however, sees that there's something else in the safe, a folder. He opens it and finds a copy of an asset transfer agreement inside. His expression suddenly darkens, and he puts the document aside.

Leaning against the wall, Zhou Ziheng quietly observes Xia Xiqing. It's one of his hobbies as an actor. It's strange—did this guy just forget to mask his emotions? He's normally more careful about his facial expressions.

"Is there anything else in there?" he asks.

There is indeed something else inside the safe, and it seems to be an empty medical record folder. "It is stuck on there." Xia Xiqing tries and fails to remove it from the safe. "Just an empty medical record folder. No name or age or anything on it."

Shang Sirui is not interested in the newly discovered clue. Getting out of the room seems to be the most important goal for him, so he puts the key into the lock on the door. "Hey guys, the key works."

"Careful—you don't know who's outside the door." Zhou Ziheng warns him.

Xia Xiqing laughs and lazily eyes Zhou Ziheng. Their eyes meet again.

You don't know who's inside the door, let alone outside.

Startled, Shang Sirui pulls his hand back. "Wait, so, do we still open it?"

Xia Xiqing walks over to him with a smile and takes the key from him. "Of course we do. We put so much time into finding this key."

He then opens the door with Shang Sirui standing behind him.

Their phones ring again. At the same time, they hear the same ring coming from the new room.

It's the message of someone getting out of their room.

"Wow…" Shang Sirui turns his head and looks past Xia Xiqing. "This room is big…" He then sees two girls standing in front of another door in this room. He recognizes one of them from her side profile. "Hey, it's Cen Cen-jie…"

The girl whose name he called is in a white dress with a rose-colored belt, black hair long enough to reach her waist. Her makeup is light except for her deep red lipstick. Her aesthetic, though not gorgeous, has a naturally distant vibe to it. She waves at Shang Sirui with a light smile. "Hi, Sirui."

Xia Xiqing is not into pop songs, but he knows Cen Cen. She was the lead singer of a band for a while, but she eventually left the band due to health conditions. Then she became a solo singer when she recovered. She's known for her influence among female fans.

"Cen Cen-jie." Seeing a familiar face, Shang Sirui walks over fearlessly. "Are you from this room?"

Cen Cen shakes her head. "I just came out of my room."

Xia Xiqing checks his phone. Ah, it seems that the two messages announcing the newest escapes had happened at around the same time. They currently stand in a much larger room that seems to serve as a living space.

The structure of this place finally seems clearer to him. This must be a five-room suite with four outer rooms and a living space in the middle. Their starting room and Shang Sirui's starting room are on the same row, while the starting rooms of these two girls lie on the opposite row. However, only Shang Sirui and Cen Cen's rooms are connected to this living space, and the rest of them—him, Zhou Ziheng, and the other girl—have to go through someone else's room before they can get to the living space.

Why this setup? Xia Xiqing ponders it over.

He finally notices the girl beside Cen Cen, who stands there in a black ensemble with a knit top and skirt. She has medium-long hair, delicate makeup, and a pair of naturally beautiful eyes.

Xia Xiqing suddenly remembers that the other layman on this show is a girl who's also a member of Mensa.

This should be her.

So, she was the first one to escape?

Xia Xiqing realizes that the production team must have put them in their rooms based on the rooms' difficulty levels and the guests' personal skills. They wanted to make sure that all of the players could meet in the living space around the same time. After all, they can't make a show out of someone getting out before he or she even sees other players.

But why would they put Zhou Ziheng and him together in one room? Is it only to increase watchability? That was what Xia Xiqing thought before, but now he's not so sure. After escaping from two rooms, his impression of the production team, or more precisely, the script writer, has changed. There seems to be a purpose to every single one of his arrangement.

So, why exactly this setup?

Zhou Ziheng is quiet around Cen Cen. They're both the quiet type, and since they come from two fairly different circles within the greater entertainment industry, they don't have much to talk about.

"Hello everyone. My name is Ruan Xiao," the other girl greets them. Her aesthetic, contrary to Cen Cen's, is on the sweeter side of pretty. Xia Xiqing feels that she looks a bit familiar to him, but he's not too certain, so he simply smiles when their eyes meet.

They quickly introduce themselves, then they begin to inspect the spacious living space. The living space is large, including a semi open dining room with a big round dining table. There's also a sofa arrangement. On first glance, nothing seems out of place. None of them has much luck with clues.

There's an electronic lock at the entrance, and it's different this time—the touch screen requires two passcodes to open. The first code takes four digits, and there's a number pad with nine numbers to choose from. The second code takes three digits. Xia Xiqing touches the input space for the second code, and the screen instantly displays a keyboard containing twenty-six letters.

So, it needs a word?

"We could try and see?" Shang Sirui suggests.

Ruan Xiao rejects the idea. "Each digit of the code has twenty-six different letters as possibilities. That means twenty-six cubed, or seventeen thousand five hundred and seventy-six possibilities in total."

Shang Sirui laughs awkwardly. "Ah, never mind."

As expected of a member of Mensa—she is astonishingly fast at mental calculations. Xia Xiqing is duly impressed. And she's right. In this game, brute force is the least likely way to solve anything. There should be clues for the codes.

He walks around and sees a circle on the floor beside the sofa. The circle is just big enough for one person to stand in it.

Shang Sirui has followed Xia Xiqing around, and he's paused to read aloud the words written beside this circle: "Elimination seat?"

Xia Xiqing hums in agreement. "Probably where we vote out the Killer."

Shang Sirui lifts a foot as if to step inside the circle. Xia Xiqing stops him, adding, "The method of elimination is probably to drop the supposed Killer down a hole…"

"Ah?" Shang Sirui retracts his foot and laughs nervously. "Are you trying to scare me?"

"Just a guess." Xia Xiqing smiles and turns around. Head up, he meets Zhou Ziheng's gaze, but the kid turns away after seeing Xia Xiqing.

Am I that scary? Xia Xiqing smiles helplessly.

He walks to the door that leads to the other set of rooms and directs his next question at the girls who are in the middle of investigating the fridge: "You two weren't from the same room, right?"

Ruan Xiao shakes her head. "We were in separate rooms." Then she walks over and leads everyone through the door.

"Cen Cen-jie's room is this one, behind the door." She pushes the door open, and Xia Xiqing smells the scent of roses. He frowns at the overwhelming odor.

The layout of this room is very different from other two. There are lots of paintings hanging on the walls, and there's an easel board by the bed, on which is a blank piece of paper. The layout of the room is that of an art studio, and Xia Xiqing is very familiar with those.

Ruan Xiao takes them to an enormous wardrobe in the left corner, and, after she opens it, she pushes all the clothes to the side, and a door appears.

"This is the room I started in."

One by one, they go through the door in the wardrobe. Xia Xiqing is six feet tall, and he finds the door a bit cumbersome to go through. He remembers that Zhou Ziheng is taller than him, so he turns around only to find that Zhou Ziheng hasn't been following the rest of them. Hmm, he stands on the other side for a while to wait for Zhou Ziheng. Eventually, he sees him trying to contort his way through the door, and he can't help but laugh at the sight.

"Eh? What's so funny?" Shang Sirui gives Xia Xiqing a confused look.

Xia Xiqing shakes his head, wiping the smile from his lips.

"Nothing."

"Let's go then." Shang Sirui tries to drag on Xia Xiqing's sleeve, but finds that he's out of reach, having stayed back to hold the door open for Zhou Ziheng.

Stepping out of the wardrobe, the first thing Zhou Ziheng sees is Xia Xiqing's pretty face. For some strange reason, the way Xia Xiqing smiles makes him feel mocked, and he finds his mood souring. But they're currently on cameras, so he can only smile, hiding away his grumpiness, and thank Xia Xiqing.

"You're welcome."

Is this how a flirty guy speaks? Everything that comes out of his mouth seems like flirting.

Ruan Xiao, Cen Cen, and Shang Sirui walk in front while Xia Xiqing and Zhou Ziheng walk behind them. This new room seems to be a woman's bedroom. There is a very exquisite vanity table, with all sorts of cosmetics and perfume. The wardrobe is also filled with lots of expensive outfits and formal ensembles. The white European style bed has a carved headboard made of solid wood, and above it is the painted portrait of a beautiful woman dressed in black.

"Is this painting famous too?" Surprisingly, Zhou Ziheng is the first to speak.

Xia Xiqing smiles and nods. "Kramskoi's The Unknown Woman. It's a very famous portrait."

Shang Sirui turns around, looking impressed. "Wow, I feel like Xiqing is like a walking, talking art encyclopedia."

If you want to know about physics equations and theorems, I can start spouting off facts too. I can also give an introductory summary of world-famous physicists, Zhou Ziheng silently retorts.

Then, the next instant, he's taken aback by how his childish his thoughts were just now.

Maybe it's because he dislikes Xia Xiqing too much on a personal level—he finds himself uncomfortable even with other people praising such a two-faced guy.

After exchanging a bit of small talk with Xia Xiqing, Shang Sirui shifts his attention to Ruan Xiao. "So, you had to get out of this room before you entered Cen Cen-jie's room, right? And all by yourself? Wow!"

Ruan Xiao waves her hand, smiling. "Maybe my room is relatively simple." Her smile is sweet, but somehow also formidable.

"What was your puzzle?" Zhou Ziheng asks.

"Hmm, a sliding block puzzle." She walks to the drawer beside the bed and opens it. In it is the sliding block puzzle she mentioned. "I found this drawer locked, so I was convinced a clue was in it. Then, I went to look for a key. After I solved the sliding block puzzle, a red laser beam appeared."

She pressed some buttons inside the puzzle box, and a red laser beam points to the corner of the room. "My door is unusual, with no passcodes or key holes. I didn't know how I could open the door until I found out I could move things around and get the laser beam to reflect onto the metal door handle. Then it just automatically opened."

"Oh wow… I couldn't have gotten out of this room if my life depended on it." Shang Sirui is utterly impressed.

"But you did still manage to escape from your own room, didn't you?" Cen Cen says, smiling.

"Yeah, with the help of these two masters." Shang Sirui laughs, moving closer to Xia Xiqing.

Xia Xiqing doesn't back away. Instead, having suddenly remembered those seemingly irrelevant clues in his and Shang Sirui's rooms, he turns to Ruan Xiao. "Did you find other information in your room? I mean… any clues you couldn't quite use."

Ruan Xiao's eyebrow twitches slightly, but only for a split second. She smiles. "Hmm, not really. There isn't much in my room."

She's lying.

Xia Xiqing doesn't actually find this response that unreasonable. Ruan Xiao is a smart girl, and acting on the defensive, especially against other smart people, is very normal. Right now, with every player in the room, there's no way she'll give away her clues.

Need to find it on his own, then.

In curiosity and awe alike, Shang Sirui asks Ruan Xiao about how she unlocked the door of this room. Having solved her own room with Ruan Xiao's help, Cen Cen hangs around, and the three of them naturally walk together out of the room and into the next, then finally out into the central living space.

Xia Xiqing stays in this room. He follows the specialty camera lenses step by step until he stops in front of the wardrobe. For some reason, his attention is drawn to a small trash can. Taking advantage of the other three having left the room, he quietly walks over. But then he discovers that Zhou Ziheng has also approached. It seems that they have once again found themselves thinking in sync.

Zhou Ziheng has also arrived by following the cameras, only he came from the other direction.

"Suspicious?" Xia Xiqing asks. He leans over and empties the trash can onto the floor. Bits and pieces of paper scatter at his feet.

Zhou Ziheng nods. "This game has taught me two things. One, all pieces are valuable pieces."

"And?"

Zhou Ziheng picks up a piece of trash and looks at Xia Xiqing. "Multitasking requires prioritization."

While everyone's focusing on solving puzzles and escaping the room, they've neglected a very important aspect of the game.

"We can solve all the puzzles and escape all the rooms, but if we can't find the Killer, the game is over for us."

He's got a point. The goal of the game is to capture the Killer. Escaping is useless if the Killer manages to get away. If that happens, all their efforts would be wasted.

Xia Xiqing turns it over in his head. If he were the Killer, what would he do?

First, he'd do all he could to hide his identity, as well as any evidence that could reveal his identity. However, it's inevitable for his identity to be revealed eventually, since someone has to die in this game. Secondly—

Zhou Ziheng interrupts, "Everyone is here, so we'll probably start voting for elimination soon."

Very little time is left for the Killer. Xia Xiqing scratches his head and looks at Zhou Ziheng. "If you were the Killer, what would you do right before voting begins?"

They exchange a look, both cognizant of their current danger.

"Kill the one most likely to guess who the Killer is."

Xia Xiqing smirks and licks his lips. "Exciting!"

Xia Xiqing knows that he himself can't be the Killer. And, seeing how much effort Zhou Ziheng is putting into trying to find the Killer, he isn't either—unless he's a good enough of an actor to completely pull off pretending to be an ordinary player.

Xia Xiqing chooses to believe that, despite being one of the most talented actors of his age, Zhou Ziheng is not the Killer. Anyways, if he were, he probably would've already killed Xia Xiqing.

Regardless, Xia Xiqing is well aware that he himself is currently the most favorable victim. He's a normal player, and he's been responsible for way too many clues. Also, the only person that could currently be considered his ally kind of hates him.

"I know you don't believe me, but, out of curiosity, how much do you believe of what Ruan Xiao said earlier?" Xia Xiqing asks.

Zhou Ziheng doesn't look up. Instead, he just quietly responds. "She was truthful about how she solved her room, but it's false that her room has no clues." Saying that, he points at the torn-up pieces of paper on the floor.

Right on.

It seems that he's the only one against whom Zhou Ziheng is prejudiced. Xia Xiqing finds himself strangely pleased at that thought.

The paper shreds are clearly the remnants of what once was a complete document. The two of them work together to piece everything back together. Zhou Ziheng doesn't speak; he's trying to recall the fragmented clues from earlier. He is both afraid that he's missing something, and also afraid that his judgement is clouded with regards to Xia Xiqing due to the first impression he got of this guy.

Suddenly, Xia Xiqing asks, "Do you believe me when I say I'm not the Killer?"

Zhou Ziheng stares at him, but Xia Xiqing seems unbothered by his penetrating stare.

Xia Xiqing wants to know what Zhou Ziheng is trying to find in his eyes.

If only he knew what Zhou Ziheng is looking for, then he could give it to him.

A few eternal seconds later, Zhou Ziheng finally admits defeat to the staring contest and continues to piece together the paper shreds, completely ignoring Xia Xiqing's question.

Knowing he won't get a direct answer, Xia Xiqing smiles. "Anyone else you suspect?" he asks, then amends, "I mean, other than me?"

Without raising his head or even any consideration at all, Zhou Ziheng gives in to his desire for a quick retort to Xia Xiqing's question and blurts, "You'll always be my suspect."

In the face of such a double entendre, even an experienced player of the dating game like Xia Xiqing has to pause for a moment.

About three seconds later, Zhou Ziheng finally realizes that he seems to have misspoken. He suddenly looks up, eyes wide with alarm. The thought process of a STEM major had rendered him for a very brief moment unable to tell the difference between "You'll always be a suspect to me," and "You'll always be my suspect." How awkward…

The two sentences have the same subject, the same predicate, and the same object, but a small difference in the bits and pieces that connect those three main elements have caused so much ambiguity. Why must language be so vague and tricky?

"In which case…" Xia Xiqing's voice softens. "I must say I'm honored."

What had been meant as a comeback has been rendered flirtatious. Zhou Ziheng has no one to blame but himself. Speechless, Zhou Ziheng returns to the work at hand.

But Xia Xiqing notices: Zhou Ziheng's ears have turned red.

It's clearly him who initiated the flirting, so why is it also him who gets to play the blushing maiden?

Negligent arson is still arson!

Under Zhou Ziheng's hands, the pieces of paper begin to slowly come together and turn into a single, legible document.

"Divorce… settlement?" He reads it out in a low voice, then recalls the document from Shang Sirui's room.

"The document in the safe earlier, was it an asset transfer agreement?" Zhou Ziheng asks. Then, when he receives no answer, he looks up to see Xia Xiqing staring blankly at the words on the document.

Xia Xiqing doesn't return to himself until Zhou Ziheng nudges him. With a strange look on his face, he responds, posthaste, "Oh yes. I think it was."

Despite not knowing Xia Xiqing for long, Zhou Ziheng has seen him wearing many different personalities. However, whatever it was just now, that was especially odd.

Realizing that his emotions have gotten away from him, Xia Xiqing quickly schools his features. Feeling that he's been staring a bit too much at Xia Xiqing's face, Zhou Ziheng also decides to retreat from this awkward moment. He begins to examine the document in front of them. Strangely enough, the divorce settlement agreement is actually pretty thorough, detailing matters like asset division and the custody of the couple's fourteen-year-old child with very convincing jargon. The production team is really very meticulous.

"Are you finished? I have to tell you something." Xia Xiqing gathers the torn-up pieces of paper and returns them to the trash.

 "Come with me." Then he stands up and pulls Zhou Ziheng towards the wardrobe.

Seeing them emerge from the wardrobe, Shang Sirui tries to wave them down.

Zhou Ziheng quickly answers, "We're going search the room for more clues." As he speaks, the hand that was gripping his sleeve shifts to his wrist. "Hey!"

Xia Xiqing pulls Zhou Ziheng further into the room, then shuts the doors.

"What did you want to say?" Zhou Ziheng stares at Xia Xiqing.

Xia Xiqing walks over to the bed and sits down. With the doors closed, the smell of roses in this room is suffocating. "We've met everyone by now, which means that we've already met the Killer."

Zhou Ziheng crosses his arms and nods in agreement.

"Have you noticed that every room has two sets of puzzles? One set is for leaving the room, and the other set seems completely unrelated." Xia Xiqing is in full work mode now, listing off his every deduction. "Things like the note about Sophia, the laptop webpage about the same restaurant, the asset transfer agreement, and the empty medical record, even the divorce settlement agreement in the woman's bedroom. So there must be a similar set of clues in this room too." Xia Xiqing pauses, looking around the room.

"What do you think these clues lead to?" Zhou Ziheng questions.

Xia Xiqing lies back on the bed. The clues are so scattered that it's giving him a headache. He removes the rubber band tying his hair and scratches his head. As he turns his neck, Xia Xiqing suddenly notices a painting on the wall.

"Well?" Zhou Ziheng asks, "Anything else you want to share?"

Xia Xiqing sits up and approaches the painting. His hair loosely scatters down by his ears, making him look all the more gentle. He walks over to the painting and carefully examines it. Then, very firmly, he says, "The owner of this house is having an affair." He looks at Zhou Ziheng. "And his lover is the owner of this room."

"Because the room smells like roses?" Zhou Ziheng actually has his own suspicions, but he did not jump to conclusion given the lack of more convincing evidence.

Xia Xiqing shakes his head. "Not completely." Then he points to the painting. A man in a white shirt has his arms slung around the waist of a woman. "This is Fragonard's The Lock, a famous painting about the passion of an affair."

Zhou Ziheng walks over to take a closer look at the painting. As he had no prior knowledge of art, he could only ask, "How can you tell?"

Xia Xiqing enjoys being questioned by Zhou Ziheng; more than that, he also enjoys answering Zhou Ziheng's questions. He smiles and begins to explain, "See the flowers in the bottom right corner? Those are for his lover. But when he enters the room, and sees her, the flowers are thrown aside as he embraces her with one arm and reaches out with the other to lock the door. Can you imagine the scene?"

Startled, Zhou Ziheng really does find an image of the scene recreating itself in his mind.

This guy's really too perverted to be asking him so bluntly every time. He probably won't be able to look straight at the word "imagine" again in the future.

To cover up his embarassment, he frowns and changes the topic. "So what does the painting have to do with the room?"

"It's not just this one. It's all the paintings in this room. They're either themed around love, or they're the portraits of men. Look at the easel and the clothes in the wardrobe. All signs point to a female artist." Xia Xiqing walks towards the easel. "I believe the unused clues around this house tells a story, and what an interesting plot it must have."

Like most escape rooms, there's a theme, and that theme will later be used to help solve certain riddles. This show, however, doesn't tell you the story before you start the game. Every room seems to be independent yet there's a chain of clues—independent of unlocking the room doors—that relies on you to piece it together to unravel the plot as you play. As far as the details of this story, Xia Xiqing has yet to uncover them, finding the clues presently too confusing to put together.

There must be one very important piece of the puzzle that remains hidden.

Examining Xia Xiqing's side profile, Zhou Ziheng notices a long scar along Xia Xiqing's chin. It seems to have endured stitches once upon a time. In truth, Xia Xiqing suits his palate a lot more when he's concentrating. And with that pretty, harmless face of him, he can deceive everyone.

Time is ticking, and Zhou Ziheng is struggling. He's never faced such a hard choice before. It has been a few hours, and the first round of voting is about to start. He doesn't know if anyone will be killed during voting.

Fine…

He resignedly reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small brown vial and places it in front of Xia Xiqing.

 Surprised, Xia Xiqing casts a glance at Zhou Ziheng when he takes the vial. Zhou Ziheng has an odd look on his face. Reluctant and awkward.

Xia Xiqing can't help but laughs. "What's this, hm?"

This frivolous lilt again. Zhou Ziheng feels vexed in spite of himself; he's even starting to regret sharing his secret clue. He looks at Xia Xiqing's long slender fingers wrapped around the mouth of the brown vial, almost wanting to take the vial back. Better yet, snatch it back. Now.

Xia Xiqing looks into his eyes with raised eyebrows. "You have anything to say?" This time, he draws out the end of his sentence even more.

Zhou Ziheng coughs. Forget it, it's already done. "I found this in the living space. It had fallen to a corner of the dining table."

Xia Xiqing examines the bottle, finding it labeled with chemistry symbols.

"It's cyanide, extremely toxic." As the STEM major, Zhou Ziheng makes himself useful by directly giving the answer to Xia Xiqing.

Hearing this, Xia Xiqing freezes, everything having come together in his mind.

No wonder…

No wonder there was a vase full of white chrysanthemums in the study. No wonder the furniture had been covered in white cloth.

"The owner of this home was murdered." Xia Xiqing looks to Zhou Ziheng, who meets his gaze and gives a light nod of his head.

"Doesn't the story make sense now?" Zhou Ziheng asks.

Yes indeed. Xia Xiqing begins to string it all together. "The owner takes the female artist as a mistress. Then he attempts to transfer his assets and divorce his wife. Now he's dead…"

"The typical suspect would be the wife," Zhou Ziheng says, then continues, "Upon seeing the divorce settlement, the wife tears it apart and, in a fit of passion, murders her husband."

Xia Xiqing frowns. "The artist very obviously invited the husband to the restaurant. But what if the husband didn't end up going through with the divorce and instead chose to stay with his wife. That way, the lover is equally likely to have committed the murder."

Zhou Ziheng stares at The Lock. "That could make sense. Too many hidden messages have come from the paintings."

Without a connoisseur of art like Xia Xiqing, these clues would certainly seem quite vague, but could it be that he's overanalyzing things?

But he could also be right.

"Yeah, the paintings hold a lot of information." At Zhou Ziheng's reminder, Xia Xiqing attempts to sort out the paintings. "Most of these paintings signify affairs. The Unknown Woman in the wife's room, and the…"

The Clothed Maja.

Xia Xiqing suddenly remembers what the Maja is wearing in that painting. He gapes for a brief moment before asking, "Have you noticed? The Maja's clothes…"

"Yeah, it's the same outfit as Cen Cen is wearing," Zhou Ziheng agrees.

The players of this game have actually been cast as the various characters of the story.

Xia Xiqing rakes his hand through his hair in disbelief. Then, he notices that all the men in the paintings are wearing a collared white button-up shirt. Just like his own.

"So… I've been cast as the husband?"

Not even the players know who they're supposed to be in the story until they solve the puzzle.

Who could have written such an unnerving script?