At nine o'clock in the morning, all the teammates came downstairs. Seeing the neatly arranged bread, milk, and fried eggs on the table, Ye Qi said with emotion, "Thank you, Professor Xiao. Thank you for making breakfast for everyone!"
Xiao Lou said, "Today I want to thank Captain Yu for making fried eggs for everyone."
Everyone: "??"
It was completely unimaginable to see the usually aloof man wearing an apron, frying eggs in the kitchen. His teammates all turned to look at Yu Hanjiang in disbelief...
Yu Hanjiang said calmly, "It's all thanks to Professor Xiao's excellent guidance. Everyone, please eat."
The group exchanged bewildered glances—so, Professor Xiao had instructed Officer Yu on how to make these eight fried eggs? And Professor Xiao had actually personally taught Captain Yu how to cook so early in the morning?
Shao Qingge, who knew everything, smiled without saying a word.
After tasting it, everyone praised Yu Hanjiang's fried eggs: "Delicious!" "I didn't expect Captain Yu to have such a talent for cooking." "Did she awaken another skill under Professor Xiao's guidance?" "Whoever marries Captain Yu will be very lucky."
Shao Qingge suddenly said, "Doesn't our Captain Yu already have a wife?"
Everyone turned to look at him in confusion.
Shao Qingge looked at Xiao Lou with a half-smile and said, " Captain Yu and our Professor Xiao were husband and wife for a lifetime, loving each other and growing old together. They even adopted a son and a daughter. If I remember correctly?"
Everyone then realized that he was referring to the plot of Red Heart 8.
Xiao Lou coughed lightly and said, " CEO Shao, don't joke like that. Those are all escape room settings."
Yu Hanjiang also said, "Let's not talk about the past."
Ye Qi, completely oblivious to the deeper meaning in Shao Qingge's words, immediately raised his hand in agreement: "Don't mention it. If anyone brings up the fact that I dressed up as a girl, I'll never forgive them! It's all in the past, let's forget about this embarrassing history."
Shao Qingge glanced at Ye Qi and thought to herself: What is a dark history for you might be a beautiful memory that Yu Hanjiang and Xiao Lou don't want to forget... However, Yu Hanjiang and Xiao Lou are currently in an ambiguous period of mutual liking and testing each other, so Shao Qingge didn't want to meddle and lowered her head to drink her milk.
Mo Xuemin asked, "What's our plan next? Continue to the next level, or take a couple of days off?"
Inside the Turmoil of War chamber, Yu Hanjiang and Xiao Lou were searching for the correct line of reasoning, only to have their deductions overturned several times. They interrogated the assassin and suspects throughout the night, likely having slept poorly for several nights. Long Sen, rushing to the capital, had also been sleepless for days. The others basically followed the two Hearts experts' line of reasoning, winning without much mental effort. They weren't tired at all, and continuing to attempt the challenges was no problem for them.
Ultimately, it depends on the opinions of Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang.
Just as Xiao Lou was about to speak, a message popped up on his phone: "Back from Red Heart 8? If you have time, please come to the Intelligence Bureau. I have something for you— Tang Ci."
After Xiao Lou opened and read the message, it suddenly disappeared. The message came from an unknown number; Tang Ci had clearly used some kind of automatic deletion program to avoid leaving any trace.
Yu Hanjiang's phone also rang. He looked down at his phone and obviously received the message as well.
The two exchanged a glance, and Yu Hanjiang said, " Professor Xiao and I have some things to take care of at noon and need to go out. Everyone, please rest at the villa first. We'll discuss the arrangements for the next stage when we get back."
None of the teammates had any objections.
At noon, Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang had lunch and then drove to find Tang Ci.
The abandoned construction site that the Intelligence Bureau people took them to last time was in a very remote location with a very winding route, making it difficult to find. Fortunately, Tang Ci sent a navigation app directly to their phones. They parked their car in a nearby parking lot and walked to the construction site. When they arrived at the location where the mechanism was triggered, the ground collapsed, and the two of them plummeted down again.
I remember last time, when they came to Tang Ci's underground factory together, Xiao Lou grabbed Yu Hanjiang's hand in a panic because of a sudden fall, and Yu Hanjiang held his hand back—that was the first time they held hands.
I still vividly remember the feeling of my heart racing when Yu Hanjiang held my hand. Actually, I think I had already fallen for Captain Yu back then, but I never really thought about it. I just assumed the racing heart was just nervousness...
The familiar surroundings reminded Xiao Lou of their first time holding hands.
Yu Hanjiang also recalled that time.
During the rapid descent, a strong feeling of weightlessness
It can make people nervous, especially since Mr. Tang's elevator had no lights and was pitch black all around, making it feel like suddenly falling into the dark depths of the earth.
Yu Hanjiang took Xiao Lou's hand and said softly, "Be careful, don't slip."
Xiao Lou hummed in agreement, feeling a little embarrassed to return the handshake, but she didn't pull away, and just quietly let him hold her hand.
The elevator continued to fall for an unknown amount of time before finally slowing down and stopping.
Once again, the two saw that familiar corridor, brightly lit by glaring incandescent lights. After verifying their identities in front of the metal door, the passage opened for them.
Yu Hanjiang led Xiao Lou into the underground factory.
To Yu Hanjiang's surprise, his elder brother Lu Jiuchuan was also there, lying on the bed next to him, with Tang Ci seemingly treating him. Hearing footsteps, Lu Jiuchuan turned around and saw his younger brother and Xiao Lou standing side by side—holding hands.
Lu Jiuchuan slightly raised the corners of his lips, his smile playful: "Little Xiao is here?"
Xiao Lou immediately pulled his hand back as if he had been electrocuted, his ears burning slightly. He had forgotten to let go, and Yu Hanjiang's brother had seen them holding hands... Would Ninth Brother think too much about it?
Yu Hanjiang remained calm and asked in a low voice, "Brother, what are you doing here?"
Lu Jiuchuan said, " Xiao Tang asked me to come. She said she's been researching data recently and has made some discoveries."
Yu Hanjiang asked with interest, "What did Mr. Tang discover?"
Tang Ci opened a large screen in front of him, which was covered with dense code that the other three could not understand.
Xiao Lou guessed, "What kind of program is this?"
Sitting in his wheelchair, Tang Ci pressed several keys in quick succession. A scene from a God's-eye view began to play on the screen, with many chibi-style characters playing various roles. He said, "This is the code for an RPG game. I analyzed samples of A-level Heart Room and found that the Heart Room's plot is dynamically adjusted at any time. Depending on the different choices made by each Challenger, the plot will change, just like those multi-ending RPGs I've played before."
His words enlightened Xiao Lou: "That's right, the plot we're experiencing keeps changing, and every choice we make will affect the subsequent plot. It really is like a multi-line RPG game!"
Tang Ci nodded: " Professor Xiao, have you heard of RPG games with multiple endings?"
Xiao Lou said, "I played a lot of games when I was in college, including single-player games, online games, and escape room games."
Yu Hanjiang looked at him in surprise: "I thought you were a top student who studied every day in college, you actually played games?"
Lu Jiuchuan sat up in bed and joked, "You don't understand, do you? Top students are smart. They can learn in a day what others take a week to understand. They're bored the rest of the time, and they don't have a girlfriend, so all they can do is play games, right?"
Xiao Lou coughed lightly: "Ninth Brother is right. I don't spend too much time studying, but I do spend the rest of my time playing a lot of games." This is also why he later became obsessed with escape rooms and achieved an S-level Hearts rating after entering this world.
Tang Ci said, " Heart Room is like a multiplayer online role-playing game with multiple endings. It's similar to the single-player story-driven games that were popular in the past. If you're not careful with your choices, you might immediately trigger a death tag and end up with a team wipe."
Yu Hanjiang understood as well. Recalling the experience of Red Heart 8, it was indeed thrilling. A slight misstep could have led to the team's annihilation.
Tang Ci said, "In this kind of multiplayer role-playing game, if you want to achieve the perfect ending, no one can make a mistake. You should have felt that in Red Heart 8, right?"
Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang exchanged a glance and nodded simultaneously.
Lu Jiuchuan stroked his chin and said, "So, when we were in the S-level secret chamber, we chose Plum Blossom, which we thought was very simple, and ended up being wiped out in Plum Blossom J... If we had chosen Hearts first, we might have been wiped out in Hearts J as well, right? After all, there are a few people on our team who don't know anything about solving cases, and the clues assigned to them are likely to be missed by them."
Upon hearing this, Yu Hanjiang finally understood Tang Ci's meaning: "Mr. Tang means that we need to start cultivating each team member's logical analysis ability from now on, and try not to miss any clues when we get to the S-level secret chamber, so as not to take the wrong path and trigger a death ending?"
Tang Ci nodded: "Yes, there's one more thing. I've discovered that the scoring rules for Heart Room are also fluctuating. Solving the main storyline might only get you a [Perfect Clearance], but to draw the S-rank Treasure Chest card, you need to complete more side quests and solve all of them to achieve an S-rank score."
Xiao Lou nodded in understanding: "I understand. We only got a perfect clear this time because we solved the Three of a Kind side quest."
Tang Ci took a card from the card holder and handed it to Xiao Lou, saying, "Ninth Brother asked me to give this to you. It should be helpful for you to get through the secret chamber later."
Xiao Lou took it and saw that it was an S-level tool card [drone]. It was a high-tech instrument card that looked very similar to the mechanical spiders and drones that Mr. Tang had made. It was shaped like a small dragonfly kite, with a monitoring screen in the middle and a camera in the head.
Tang Ci explained, "The drone can fly into the air and take continuous pictures. In static shooting mode, it can take up to 10 pictures a day, and in dynamic monitoring mode, it can monitor for 5 minutes at a time. When used in Diamond Secret Room, it can be used to film the maze path from high altitude; in Hearts and Spade Secret Room, it can be used as a monitor. It can be placed at a designated high altitude and remotely controlled. After the card is retrieved, it will bring you the video data."
Upon hearing this, Yu Hanjiang also thought the card was very powerful. Drones could actually be very useful for solving cases, as they could take photos of the crime scene from different angles, which would be helpful for subsequent analysis and reasoning. However…
High-tech products like drones might have been forbidden in ancient secret chambers.
Thinking of this, Yu Hanjiang couldn't help but ask, " Are there many ancient settings in the A-grade secret room at the back?"
Lu Jiuchuan said, "Not necessarily. The Red Heart 8 we experienced was an ancient political intrigue game, while Hearts 9 and Hearts 10 were modern games. However, other guilds' elite teams have experienced interstellar and Republican-era worlds. The A-grade secret room is randomly generated based on the team, so guides are not of any value."
Tang Ci added, "But based on big data, the probability of this happening in ancient times is relatively small. There are still quite a few opportunities to use drones."
Xiao Lou carefully put the card away: "Thank you, Mr. Tang and Ninth Brother. I'll keep this card."
Lu Jiuchuan laughed heartily, "We're family, no need to be so polite."
Xiao Lou was taken aback—family? It's probably because Ninth Brother already considers them teammates.
Only Yu Hanjiang understood what Ninth Brother meant. Ninth Brother knew that Yu Hanjiang liked Xiao Lou, which meant that he had already accepted Xiao Lou.
After leaving Tang Ci's underground factory, Yu Hanjiang drove Xiao Lou back to the villa.
The two were silent for a moment on the way before Xiao Lou said, "Mr. Tang and Ninth Brother, although we don't need to actively try to pass the challenges now, every week we're late means they have to endure an extra week of Weekly Routine, right? Ninth Brother showed up at the underground factory today, and I don't think it's that simple. He seems to be injured again and went to Mr. Tang for treatment..."
Yu Hanjiang nodded: "I can tell, he's just too embarrassed to say it out loud."
Lu Jiuchuan's current identity remains that of an undercover agent for the Hunter Alliance. Every time he enters the Weekly Routine, he must recruit teammates to assist in completing the mission, and he also needs to find a perfect excuse to explain to the Hunter Alliance why he failed the mission.
Last time, Chu Huaying stabbed him in the back and he got away with it. Yu Hanjiang doesn't know how he'll act this time, but it certainly won't be easy.
In fact, every week's weekly routine is a life-or-death struggle for Brother Jiu.
Thinking of this, Yu Hanjiang's expression immediately turned serious: "Let's speed things up and meet up with them as soon as possible."
Xiao Lou and he are already bound by a contract book, meaning they'll be together no matter where they go. As long as the person he likes is by his side and he can see Xiao Lou every day, he's already content; there's no need to rush into confirming their relationship.
The most important thing right now is to get everyone out of this world as soon as possible.
Xiao Lou thought so too. As the owner of the contract book, he needed to consider his teammates' feelings. Lao Mo, Long Sen, Qu Wanyue, Ye Qi, CEO Shao, and Liu Qiao all had reasons to go back. Besides, Brother Jiu was walking on a knife's edge every day, risking his life with every weekly routine; Mr. Tang was physically disabled, yet he was still diligently studying the secret room data of this world...
It would be really wrong of them to drag this out any longer.
So, after returning to the villa, Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang gathered their teammates and decided to continue the challenge in the afternoon.
The two exchanged a glance and immediately drew their next card.
diamond 8.
Author's Note:
The timing for confessing is wrong. They're both each other's first love, Xiao Lou is too shy to confess first, and Captain Yu is a total clueless guy who hasn't even figured out Xiao Lou likes him yet.
After chasing after him for so long, I found out... huh? Xiao Lou likes me too?
Captain Yu will be all fired up and going straight for it then.