The old mazes were like treasure mazes in RPG games. At the end of each fork in the path, there was often a treasure chest. Opening the treasure chest would give you a card. When you encountered a door, there would usually be a password puzzle and a corresponding riddle. Solving the riddle and entering the password would open the mechanism.
But this maze is completely different.
The entire maze has countless doors, all of which are locked with combination locks—but where is the puzzle?!
This is like a test taker receiving an answer sheet, and the examiner instructs them to fill in the options with a pencil. But... no questions are given?
There are no questions; how am I supposed to choose A, B, C, or D? I can't just throw an eraser around and pick randomly, can I?
The five people were confused.
Old Mo scratched his head vigorously. He had already done his best to draw the maze plan in the shortest amount of time. Solving puzzles wasn't his forte. Old Mo looked at Yu Hanjiang and said, "How about we continue to ask Professor Xiao for help from outside the maze?"
The suggestion was immediately met with approval: "Yes, let's ask for help from outside the venue!" "We need Professor Xiao!"
Yu Hanjiang said, "I'm talking to him, don't worry."
When faced with a problem they couldn't solve, the team members all agreed to turn to Xiao Lou. He had solved so many riddles during the Lantern Festival, and they believed that this strange spiral maze wouldn't be a challenge for the academic genius, Xiao Lou.
Actually, Xiao Lou was also a little confused at this point. Before, there were always questions when solving problems, but this time there weren't?
How can he solve this?
He frowned as he looked at the maze pattern drawn on the white paper. After thinking for a long time, he suddenly realized something was wrong: "Right, you said earlier that there were 7 rooms on both sides when you went to the basement this afternoon, but now there are 5 on the left and 6 on the right, right?"
Yu Hanjiang nodded: "Yes, I'm sure I haven't misremembered."
Xiao Lou felt he had figured things out a little and continued to ask, "Are the missing rooms 601 and 701 on the left, and room 702 on the right?"
"That's right."
"Old Mo's maze floor plan has 5 loop-shaped units horizontally and 6 vertically. The layout of all the rooms and loop-shaped units in this maze is related to '5' and '6'."
How can we connect numbers 5 and 6 to the escape room theme?
Xiao Lou's eyes suddenly lit up: "The theme of this underground labyrinth should be [internal organs], which is exactly related to the organ transplant case we're investigating. Entering the labyrinth..."
In fact, Diamond A's warning to you was the question itself.
—The maze has a 30-minute time limit. If you can't find the correct exit, each of you will lose a kidney.
This was Diamond A's hint when we entered the secret room. At the time, no one thought much of it, assuming it was just a warning from the Guardian.
—One less kidney!
In retrospect, Diamond A's last words actually contained a hidden meaning.
Upon hearing Xiao Lou's analysis, Yu Hanjiang suddenly had a flash of inspiration: "Each corridor in the maze is missing three rooms. Guardian said we would be missing a kidney. The key word is 'missing.' Therefore, the missing rooms must be the password."
Xiao Lou nodded approvingly: "That's right. 601 and 701 are missing on the left, and 702 is missing on the right. Since the password is four digits, removing the initial password 0, the most likely result is 6712. The key now is to find the corresponding room."
Yu Hanjiang asked, "Is it related to the keyword 'kidney'?"
"Yes, a missing kidney." Xiao Lou took out a pen and began to draw carefully on the paper.
The five internal organs are the heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys.
The six viscera include the stomach, large intestine, small intestine, triple burner, bladder, and gallbladder.
The term "five viscera and six bowels" is a collective term for the human body's organs in Traditional Chinese Medicine. Since all the human body's organs are located in the torso, and the torso was not found in the Cheng Shaoyu dismemberment case, could this maze-like diagram with five horizontal and six vertical lines also be considered as the torso of a human body?
The more Xiao Lou thought about it, the more convinced he was that his line of thinking was correct.
He was extremely familiar with human anatomy. The kidneys are located in the posterior part of the waist. If the maze diagram is considered the human torso, the middle line can be seen as the central axis of the body, that is, the spine. Therefore, the kidneys should be located in the lower part of the body, specifically in the second-to-last row of the torso.
On the maze-like diagram, Xiao Lou quickly drew the distribution of the five internal organs according to their positions.
Lungs Lungs Lungs
Lungs, lungs, heart, lungs
Lungs Lungs Lungs
Liver and Spleen
One kidney one kidney one
11111
The human body has two kidneys. The key word in this maze is "missing". The deceased Liu Renyuan was missing his right kidney, and the deliveryman Wang Wei also died after his right kidney was surgically removed. The crucial room must be the area of the right kidney.
This maze diagram is a top view, like a person lying in bed. It can be understood as a frontal view of human anatomy. The right kidney is located on the back of the body, so it naturally follows the rule of "mirror rotation"—the right kidney is actually located on the left side of the diagram.
If you ignore the "left-right mirror image" rule, you might end up booking the wrong room.
After Xiao Lou finished drawing the diagram, he double-checked his reasoning before telling Yu Hanjiang the result: "Since we are seeing a frontal view, the kidneys are on the back of the body, and the right kidney needs to be mirrored and rotated to the left. The bottom left corner of the maze, the second-to-last row and second-to-last column of the loop-shaped unit area, is where the right kidney is located in the torso. That corridor has 11 rooms, and the second-to-last row, which is room 201 on the left, should be the exit of this maze."
Upon hearing Xiao Lou's words, Yu Hanjiang didn't care whether he understood them or not. He was certain that Xiao Lou was right, and given the urgency, Yu Hanjiang led everyone to the door of the room Xiao Lou had indicated without hesitation.
At this point, there were only 5 minutes left in the countdown.
Yu Hanjiang entered the four-digit password "6712" into the combination lock in room 201.
A soft "beep" sounded in my ear, and the door really opened!
Yu Hanjiang led his teammates into the room, which was completely empty, but connected to another corridor. This corridor was the very one that Yu Hanjiang had entered with the agent that afternoon – the actual basement of Antai Garden!
There is a switch next to the corridor. When you press it, a dim light will turn on overhead.
A notification flashed before the eyes of all five people simultaneously—
[Congratulations on completing the Antai Garden underground maze! Time taken: 25 minutes and 3 seconds. Maze rating: S]
All four of them breathed a sigh of relief. Ye Qi almost jumped up excitedly: "We're really out?! Captain Yu, how did you find the exit in so many rooms? You found it right away!"
" Xiao Lou found it." Yu Hanjiang explained Xiao Lou's theory of "five internal organs" and "missing keywords" to everyone. His teammates were confused and didn't know how the kidneys could be related to room 201, but they all had a feeling of "impressive but incomprehensible".
Finally, Ye Qi murmured, "Seeking help from outside the arena is really impressive."
Old Mo laughed and said, "It's a good thing that Captain Yu and Professor Xiao connected via Telepathic Connection. Otherwise, how would we laymen who don't understand human anatomy figure figure out the location of the internal organs and kidneys?"
Everyone: "..."
That's true. If it weren't for Xiao Lou's help, Yu Hanjiang and his teammates would have spent 24 hours in this maze, let alone 30 minutes, and they would never have realized that the entire maze could be understood as the torso of a human body, and that finding the location of the right kidney would lead to the exit.
The maze is also connected to the internal organs, and this organ smuggling case may be far more complicated than people think.
Among the deceased discovered so far, some had undergone heart transplants, kidney transplants, etc.
Will there be a need for liver transplantation?
Xiao Lou noticed Yu Hanjiang's thoughts and said, "Liver transplantation is also very common in clinical practice, and removing one or two lobules of the liver causes very little damage to the body. Furthermore, if an illegal clinic is involved in a comprehensive transplant business, the entire human body is valuable; we can't ignore corneal transplants e
ither, given the importance of matching corneas."
It's the simplest.
Yu Hanjiang said with a stern face, "Alright, I'll lead everyone to search first."
The basement was dimly lit and emanated a strong chill. What would happen when the series of sealed rooms in the corridor were opened this time?