That morning, the police received a report of a murder at an escape room in a downtown shopping mall.
Fang Rui and Mu Mian drove to the mall.
The escape room was called "Poe's Cottage," located on the fourth floor of the mall.
Last month, this place was chosen as a filming location for a popular variety show, which made it suddenly famous. Many young people liked to choose it as a team-building venue. The customer flow increased dramatically.
The owner of the store was wealthy and rented an entire floor for the venue. The exterior decoration style was Gothic horror, and as soon as one reached the fourth floor, they could feel a terrifying and chilling atmosphere that sent shivers down one's spine.
"Officers, you're finally here." The store manager hurried over when he saw the police arrive. The manager's name was Wang Huajian, a middle-aged man in his forties wearing black-framed glasses. He looked very anxious at the moment.
"Where was the body found? Please take us there."
"Inside the escape room, the body was discovered in the hidden level called 'Bride and Groom Collection Room'."
The manager led them inside while explaining the situation, "We rarely go to that room normally. We didn't expect someone to hang themselves in there. Fortunately, it was discovered in time. If it had been found any later, the body would probably have started to decay and smell."
After discovering the body, the manager immediately sealed off the scene, both to protect the site and prevent the news from spreading, which could affect their store's reputation.
The room the manager was taking them to was part of a scenario called "Escape from the Mental Hospital," which was their most popular escape room.
Players need to find various clues and props to deduce the correct escape route. Along the way, they encounter many horrifying scenes, such as a blood-splattered operating room, a collection room full of human organs, a gallows room hung with corpses... During the game, people dressed as ghosts or mental patients wielding chainsaws would attack the players.
"Ah! What's this thing?" Zhang accidentally touched a bone hanging on the wall, and suddenly a human head dropped from the ceiling, hitting Zhang in the face. Zhang looked up, his eyes meeting a pair of pale eyes with a blue glow.
"You need to be careful, don't touch things randomly. There are many small traps here. They're not dangerous, just a bit scary," the manager warned.
These traps needed to be manually turned off, which was troublesome, so even though a murder had occurred, the manager still hadn't stopped those mechanisms.
He was thinking that once the police removed the body, he would continue business as usual. The store had quite a large customer flow, and even though it was a weekday, there were still quite a few players coming to play.
Mu Mian curiously touched the human head. She found that the face was made of silicone, with very realistic features that looked real at first glance. It felt cold and soft to the touch, quite pleasant to feel.
"Dr. Mu, don't just touch it, help me get it away!" Zhang was on the verge of tears. The head was right in his face, and he didn't dare to touch it or move, stuck in an awkward position.
Chen Xue silently helped him remove it.
"Zhang, don't be afraid. Stay behind me, I'll protect you!" Chen Xue said to Zhang.
"Okay!" Zhang clung to Chen Xue's arm, trembling.
Wang from the tech department was also shaking, "Chen Xue, I'm scared too. What kind of place is this?"
"Wang, you're a man, be brave!" Chen Xue encouraged Wang.
"..." Wang was speechless. Chen Xue was so biased. Why was it okay for Zhang not to be brave? Well, who could blame him for being single?
Mu Mian picked up a corpse from the ground, pinching its scarred hand to show Zhang and Wang, "These corpses are all fake! Feel them, human skin can't possibly be this elastic. Why are you afraid of something fake?"
"Ah, Dr. Mu, take it away, take it away quickly!" Zhang shrank behind Chen Xue, tightly hugging her arm, "It's not that I'm a coward, it's just that this place triggers my fear of certain things that shouldn't exist after the founding of the country! I'm not afraid when encountering real corpses."
Chen Xue said to Mu Mian, "Mian Mian, stop scaring Zhang. He's timid."
"Alright." Mu Mian put the prop corpse back in its place.
Mu Mian then looked at Fang Rui, "Fang Rui, are you scared? If you're afraid, you can hide behind me. I'm not afraid of these things. I'll protect you."
"Not really scared." Fang Rui was a firm materialist, and besides, he had been forced to watch horror movies with his mother since childhood, so he was already immune to these startling horror scenes.
"Okay." Mu Mian's tone was somewhat disappointed, "You're quite brave."
The hidden level was in the innermost part of the escape room, considered the final scene.
The further they went, the more horrifying the scenes became. The air conditioning on the wall occasionally blew cold air, giving a feeling of chilly gusts. The props inside were made extremely realistically, providing a fully immersive experience.
Chen Xue was also starting to struggle, holding hands with Zhang as they walked carefully, afraid of triggering any traps or having strange human organs or bizarrely shaped creatures suddenly jump out.
This wasn't an escape room at all; it was practically a haunted house! It required courage rather than intelligence!
"You seem a bit timid," the manager said, noticing Zhang and the others trembling in fear. He tried to lighten the mood, "We've already turned off many of the traps now, and we've turned on more lights. The people pretending to be ghosts aren't coming out either, so it's not as scary anymore. If you have time another day, you should come and experience it!"
"No, thanks." If it weren't for solving the case, they would never come to this man-made haunted place again!
Mu Mian looked at Chen Xue, who was practically hugging Zhang now, and couldn't help but remind her, "Chen Xue, you're a forensic expert. You're not afraid of real corpses, why are you scared of fake ones?"
"Because real corpses don't sway back and forth, they don't suddenly grab my leg, and they don't make scary noises," Chen Xue said, shaking.
"Chen Xue, don't be afraid, I'll protect you!" Zhang said in a weak voice.
"...You'd better protect yourself first," Wang commented sourly.
Is it really that scary? Mu Mian tilted her head to look at Fang Rui: "Fang Rui, if you feel scared, you can hold my hand. I won't make fun of you for being timid."
"I'm not very scared!"
"Really not scared?"
"...Really." Fang Rui couldn't understand why Mu Mian looked so disappointed that he wasn't afraid.
Fang Rui had been observing the structure of the escape room. He found that this theme focused on horror, with the deduction part being quite simple. Players just needed to keep walking forward to easily find the exit — provided they were brave enough.
Although they had only walked for a few short minutes, it felt like the longest few minutes of Zhang and the others' lives. Meanwhile, Mu Mian had spent an incredibly exciting few minutes. She never knew there were such fun places.
She decided that on her next day off, she would spend an entire day here.
The manager stopped at a room. The room was decorated like a bridal chamber, with a skeleton bride standing by the door, wearing a beautiful wedding dress and a crown on her head. Its hollow eyes were staring intently at them.
"The key to triggering this hidden level, 'Bride and Groom Collection Room,' is to hug this skeleton bride," the manager said, pointing at the skeleton bride. "Many players don't think of this, so very few discover this hidden level. Isn't this design clever?"
Mu Mian's eyes lit up as she looked at the skeleton bride, "Can I hug it?"
Fang Rui held Mu Mian back, stopping her action, "It's been hugged by many people. It's covered in bacteria."
"Alright then."
The manager went over and hugged the bride. With a whoosh, the black wallpaper painted with fluorescent skulls was pushed up, revealing an electronic screen.
A string of numbers appeared on the electronic screen: 1,12.35.914.2741.81; () Please find the pattern in this string of numbers, deduce the next number according to the pattern, and fill it in the brackets.
"Just a moment, I need to find the password," the manager took out a piece of paper from his pocket with many strings of numbers written on it. "This puzzle appears randomly, there are many questions, and I can't remember all the passwords. Let me find it."
The store manager seemed very anxious. As a result, the more frantic he became, the harder it was for him to find the password.
Mu Mian put on her gloves and typed the numbers on the screen: 122.243.
