Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang's hospital is the People's Hospital in the city center, surrounded by financial buildings, shopping plazas, pedestrian streets, food courts, and countless companies. The bustling city center has a huge flow of people. It is lunchtime, and the streets are full of food delivery riders delivering food. The food court is crowded with people, and the air is filled with the aroma of various foods.
The city appeared bustling and prosperous on the surface, but the people hurrying to and fro were unaware of the enormous crisis lurking beneath the surface. Xiao Lou walked to the intersection, glanced at the pedestrians, and turned to Yu Hanjiang, asking, "What's the situation with that student you brought today? Are there many infected people at their school?"
Yu Hanjiang frowned and said, "This morning I received a call to go to No. 7 Middle School. The injured male student was suddenly attacked without warning by Zhou Yu from Class 8 of the third year of high school in the bathroom. Zhou Yu bit off a large piece of flesh from his arm and scratched several other boys. I conducted a brief investigation at the school. According to the homeroom teacher, Zhou Yu is introverted and gentle and has never been in a fight before. He just went home this morning on leave."
Yu Hanjiang paused, his face grim, and said, "He's obviously been parasitized. I didn't expect the parasite to be so intelligent; it actually knew how to lie and deceive the teacher, using excuses to skip class. More than a dozen students were scratched by him, all with superficial wounds, and they were left at school to be bandaged and treated by the school doctor. If those people had also mutated, I'm afraid the entire No. 7 Middle School would have already fallen by now."
Xiao Lou: "......"
The surviving parasites are incredibly prolific and extremely intelligent. Perhaps they'll find an excuse to keep teachers and students in the classroom... Who could imagine that their classmates, with whom they spend every day, would become puppets of these insects?!
By this morning, a large number of students at No. 7 Middle School may have already been infected by the parasite.
At first, the infected only showed ordinary flu symptoms, and they may not even know that they have been parasitized. Then, when the students went home from school at noon, they infected their parents, who then carried the parasite to various workplaces...
Xiao Lou grew increasingly alarmed. So many infected people had already appeared on the first day, without even time to adapt to the environment… He hurriedly said, "We need to find our teammates quickly. It would be terrible if everyone got infected without knowing the situation."
Yu Hanjiang nodded readily: "Let's go!"
The two strode briskly past the food street and shopping malls, quickly arriving at the city center square—
In the middle of the square is a large sculpture, with many seats around the perimeter. Some elderly people are sitting in the seats, leisurely basking in the sun, while some children are excitedly taking pictures in front of the sculpture.
It was an ordinary-looking city square, but there weren't many people gathered there.
Xiao Lou spotted Ye Qi standing in the middle of the square at a glance.
Ye Qi, dressed in a hooded hoodie and ripped jeans, looked quite fashionable. Holding a guitar, he loudly advertised, "Dear uncles, aunts, handsome men, and beautiful women, I'd like to sing a song for you. If you think my singing is pretty good, please give me some pocket money. I'm in dire need of money, so I'm doing this to help you out. Thank you everyone..."
Ye Qi's familiar tactics never fail him.
Seeing that he was lively and energetic, and that his voice was clear and loud, Xiao Lou finally felt relieved and immediately went to him.
Ye Qi's eyes lit up when he saw Yu Hanjiang and Xiao Lou dressed in their finest attire.
His guitar card can put a large area to sleep for 3 seconds when the skill is used, but when the skill is not used, it is no different from a normal guitar and can be played casually. Just as Ye Qi was about to play the guitar and sing, Xiao Lou suddenly shook his head to stop him. Yu Hanjiang stepped forward and whispered, "You're the one who ran away from home, right? Your parents have reported you missing. Come with me."
Ye Qi looked completely bewildered: "??"
How did I become someone who ran away from home?
Although he didn't know what was going on, he obediently packed up his guitar and left with Yu Hanjiang.
The people who were about to gather around to listen to the song looked completely bewildered—the young boy had obediently followed the police? It seems he ran away from home during his rebellious phase and got caught by the police!
Ye Qi followed Officer Yu, who had a serious expression, and asked in confusion, "What's going on?"
Yu Hanjiang said, "There's danger; you can't stay in the crowd."
Ye Qi nodded understandingly and said, " Captain Yu is wearing a police uniform, and Professor Xiao is wearing a white coat. It seems you've been assigned the roles of police officer and doctor, right? Is this escape room going to be linked to Hearts again, to help us solve the case?"
"It's not about solving a case, it's just assigning us identities and some clues." Yu Hanjiang looked at Ye Qi, frowned, and asked, "Where is your refresh point? Is anything amiss around here?"
"I'm at a music conservatory. I had class in the morning, and the floating window told me to follow the instructions. The teacher was going to take attendance, so I had to go to class with my classmates first." Ye Qi took off his hood and looked nervously at Xiao Lou. "After class, it was lunchtime, so I asked around for the location of the plaza and came to find you guys right away. What happened? You guys look so nervous!"
Xiao Lou asked, "Did anything unusual happen during your class?"
Ye Qi thought about it carefully and said, "Many of my classmates have colds, and there have been people coughing in the classroom. The teacher said that the temperature has dropped in the past few days and reminded everyone to keep warm. I wore thermal underwear and a wool sweater when I went into the room, so I didn't feel cold."
To prepare for the survival escape room challenge, everyone went shopping and bought several sets of clothes, including both winter and summer outfits. Following Lao Mo's advice, everyone wore several layers before entering the escape room. If the environment were summer...
You can take off your coat; you don't need to in winter. Xiao Lou was wearing a shirt and a sweater underneath, and even with just a white coat on top, it wasn't cold.
He explained to Ye Qi in a low voice, "The flu is likely a precursor to a mutation. It seems that many people in your Music Conservatory have also been infected. What we're encountering this time is more terrifying than the Zombie Virus. It's an unknown parasite that infects humans, resides in their brains, controls their bodies, and rapidly attacks other humans to reproduce. There have already been a large number of infected individuals at the hospital and No. 7 Middle School."
Ye Qi's eyes widened: "Insects?"
He shuddered, goosebumps rising all over his body, and said with a look of disgust, "That sounds awful!"
Xiao Lou said, "What's even scarier is that Infected can disguise themselves and look no different from normal people. We didn't dare let you continue singing just now because once you started singing, you would be immediately surrounded by the crowd, and there might be an Infected among them who would suddenly attack you. We can't go to crowded places now; we need to find another way to rejoin our teammates."
Ye Qi suddenly realized: "I understand!"
The square has too many people. If an outbreak occurs, people will bite each other. If they are scratched or bitten while trying to escape, the consequences will be unimaginable.
Thinking of the students in the Music Conservatory who were constantly coughing, Ye Qi felt a chill run down his spine: "When I'm in class, the students sitting in front of and behind me are all coughing. If a cold is a sign of being infected, could I have caught it too?"
Xiao Lou comforted him, saying, "The known transmission route is through blood. You'll be fine as long as you weren't scratched."
Ye Qi breathed a sigh of relief, his face pale, and said, "Thank goodness it wasn't airborne!"
Xiao Lou's gaze swept across the surrounding buildings, and she quickly spotted a good spot. She said, "That clothing store over there, see it? The three-story building that's shaped like a book page."
Yu Hanjiang and Ye Qi followed his gaze—sure enough, there was a clothing store in the southeast corner of the square. Two walls of floor-to-ceiling windows, shaped like open book pages, and crystal chandeliers hung inside; the decor was very luxurious. The mannequins in the store were wearing fur coats, which looked extremely expensive.
Xiao Lou said, "This store is luxuriously decorated, and the clothes must be very expensive. There won't be too many customers at lunchtime. Even if there are only two or three staff members, we can handle it. We can use this place as a temporary base to meet up with our teammates first."
Yu Hanjiang nodded in agreement: "High-end clothing stores do have fewer customers at lunchtime. But how do we notify everyone that we've hidden inside?"
Xiao Lou said, "I have a way. I have Liu Qiao's kongming lantern."
Yu Hanjiang paused slightly—he remembered this plaque. Back in Liuxi Village, Liu Qiao had placed a kongming lantern on the mountain and hung a cloth on it with the words " Challengers, please meet here." He couldn't help but wonder, "Did Liu Qiao give you this plaque?"
Xiao Lou explained, "Before entering the Spade Secret Room, I was worried that if everyone got separated, and Ye Qi's method of playing the piano and singing didn't work, it would be more troublesome to gather everyone together. So I asked Liu Qiao for the [ kongming lantern ]. As long as I put the lantern above the clothing store, everyone will notice the kongming lantern in the sky as soon as they arrive at the square."
The kongming lantern is an A card with a simple function—to place the kongming lantern high in the air as a signal. The kongming lantern comes with a white cloth, similar to the promotional slogans hanging under balloons when a shopping mall opens, which can be written on with your finger.
Xiao Lou took out a white cloth and wrote two words on it: "Sharp Arrow"—this was the team name they had decided on. When everyone saw Liu Qiao's kongming lantern and the Sharp Arrow symbol, they naturally knew that was the team's meeting point.
Ye Qi gave a thumbs up and praised, "This way of combining music is much more reliable than the singing and playing the piano I came up with!"
Xiao Lou said, "Let's go, let's go to the clothing store first."
The three of them quickly arrived at the clothing store. Looking inside through the floor-to-ceiling windows, they saw that the store was indeed very quiet on a weekday noon. There were only two pretty sales assistants and a cashier, and not a single customer in sight.
Xiao Lou walked behind the clothing store and put the lantern on. The card was activated and placed high in the air.
People in the square soon noticed a large lantern resembling a hot air balloon in the sky, with the words "Sharp Arrow" written on a white cloth hanging above it. The crowd assumed it was an advertising slogan for a grand opening and few paid any attention.
After making the arrangements, Xiao Lou, Yu Hanjiang, and Ye Qi went into the clothing store together.
What's embarrassing is...
This clothing store sells only women's clothing.
The women's coats, fur coats, and high-end down jackets were indeed shockingly expensive.
Three grown men walked into the women's clothing store. The sales assistants were all taken aback. One of them, a sales assistant with a ponytail, quickly realized what was going on and walked up to them with a smile, asking, "Gentlemen, are you here to choose clothes for your girlfriends?"
Yu Hanjiang calmly replied, "I'll buy it for my mother."
Xiao Lou immediately played along: "Mom's birthday is in a few days, we're here to pick out a birthday present for her. You go ahead and do your work, we'll look around first."
The sales assistant nodded and said, "Okay, these are all the new styles for this season. Please take your time looking around. Let me know what size you need."
After the sales assistant left, all three of them breathed a sigh of relief.
The sales assistants at the clothing store seemed perfectly normal and probably hadn't been infected. But the three of them remained vigilant. They pretended to be picking out clothes for their mother, browsing slowly in the store, while Yu Hanjiang kept a close eye on the sales assistants' every move.
Just then, a man and a woman suddenly pushed the door open and came in.
—— Long Sen and Qu Wanyue!
The two had clearly seen the meeting point and also saw it through the floor-to-ceiling windows outside.
Xiao Lou and the other two walked straight in.
A shop assistant approached him, and Long Sen said, "Well, your birthday is coming up soon, how about I buy you some clothes?"
Qu Wanyue agreed, saying, "Okay, I'll pick some."
She pretended to be picking out clothes and walked near Xiao Lou. "Coincidentally," she and Xiao Lou both took a liking to the same item. Qu Wanyue asked, "Sir, may I take a look at this one?" Xiao Lou handed her the clothes and said, "Please go ahead."
As he handed over the clothes, Xiao Lou lowered his voice and said, "Wait until everyone is here."
Qu Wanyue nodded to indicate that she understood.
She chose the dress, walked up to Long Sen, and relayed Xiao Lou's instructions to him.
The two continued to slowly pick out clothes in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, while Xiao Lou and the other two moved to the other side so that their teammates could see them.
Not long after, Mo Xuemin and Liu Qiao also came in.
Seeing that her teammates were all there, Liu Qiao pretended to buy clothes and wandered around the clothing store. She casually walked up to Xiao Lou and said softly, " Uncle Mo and I met in the square. We saw Kongming Lantern and came here. We're meeting here?"
Xiao Lou nodded: "Yes, are you all alright?"
Liu Qiao said, "It's okay. I came to the square to find you after class this morning. Uncle Mo said he was assigned to a nearby decoration company, and he came here after he finished meeting with his clients."
Her gaze swept across the room, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Ye Qi, Captain Yu, and the Longqu Couple all there.
The group browsed the clothing store for a long time. Several shop assistants realized that they were just browsing and had no intention of buying any clothes, so their attitude naturally turned cold. They ignored them and sat down at the cashier to chat.
The shop assistants ignored him, which suited Xiao Lou just fine.
He gave his teammates a wink, signaling them to gather in a corner near the fitting room. He then quickly explained the current situation in a low voice, and his teammates' expressions turned grim after hearing it.
Qu Wanyue frowned and said, "At the dance center where I work, several children are also coughing. Does that mean they've been infected too?"
Long Sen said, "It's the same at the sports school. This morning, many people asked for leave during sprint training, saying they had a bad cold."
Liu Qiao and Mo Xuemin also mentioned that some people in their Medical School and the renovation company had caught colds. Liu Qiao added, "When I was in class, a classmate was injured and said to have been bitten. He was about to go to the hospital to get a rabies vaccine."
It seems that the epidemic started spreading from every corner of the city.
Many people have been infected, and the source of the infection is still unknown. However, given this "multi-point spread" pattern, the epidemic may spread faster than anyone imagines!
Xiao Lou stood in the corner, looking out at the square through the floor-to-ceiling window.
There was nothing unusual in the plaza outside, but a growing unease crept into his heart: " Where's CEO Shao? Why hasn't he arrived yet?"
It's already 1 p.m. Even if Shao Qingge takes his time to have lunch before coming, he should have arrived by now, right?
The teammates exchanged glances and all said they hadn't seen Shao Qingge.
Xiao Lou asked worriedly, "Could something have happened to him?"
****