With a whoosh, a door appeared on the wall directly opposite the bride, and it slowly opened.
The Shop Manager looked at Mu Mian with shock, "Have you seen our shop's walkthrough? How did you know the password?"
"It's a simple numerical reasoning problem. The numbers are divided into two parts, the decimal part is a geometric sequence with a common ratio of three. The integer part is also a sequence, where the differences between adjacent numbers form a new sequence, which is again a geometric sequence with a common ratio of three," Mu Mian explained earnestly.
The manager was dumbfounded, feeling dizzy just hearing her explanation. How could this be called simple?
Zhang and the others were no longer surprised, as Mu Mian's mental processing ability was on a different level from theirs.
"Is this touchscreen cleaned regularly?" Fang Rui asked.
"Yes, about once a week. We haven't had the chance to clean it this week, as the discovery of the corpse disrupted our work schedule."
Fang Rui turned to Wang, "Wang, collect fingerprints from the touchscreen."
To enter this hidden level, the killer would have had to input the password, so they might have left fingerprints on the screen. Of course, it was also possible that the killer had worn gloves while entering the password.
"Yes, boss!"
The Shop Manager led them into the hidden level.
The room was dark. The manager felt for an eyeball on the wall, and suddenly the room lit up with a pale green light, revealing numerous prop corpses dressed as brides or grooms.
The corpses appeared in male-female pairs, all with wound makeup on their faces. Some were hung on the walls, others suspended from the ceiling. Above their heads hung several empty nooses, as if waiting for new victims to be hung.
"These are all prop corpses," the Shop Manager said, pointing to a male corpse dressed as a groom hanging above their heads. "Except for that one. It's a real corpse, and we don't know how it got up there."
The corpse was suspended by a noose made of thick hemp rope. The deceased's face was pale, and his red tongue was slightly protruding. Combined with his bloody and horrific makeup, the sight was extremely eerie.
He wore a blood-stained black suit with a corsage on his chest. At first glance, there was no difference between him and the other prop corpses.
"Today, when our staff came in here to clean, they found an extra groom prop. At first, they thought some thoughtless player had moved it from another scene, which wasn't uncommon. Players often did such inconsiderate things.
Later, while cleaning the floor, the corpse's shoe touched their face, and that's when they realized the corpse was wearing AJs. They immediately knew something was wrong - who would put brand-name shoes on a prop corpse? When they touched it, they realized it was a real corpse. We called the police right away," the Shop Manager described how they discovered the body.
"Was the corpse in this state when you found it?" Mu Mian asked.
"Yes. We know some basics about crime scene preservation, so we didn't touch the body and immediately sealed off the scene."
Fang Rui asked, "Do you recognize this person? Is he a regular at your shop?"
The manager immediately shook his head, "I don't recognize him. His face is in this state, how could anyone tell who he is?"
The corpse was hanging quite high, and it would be troublesome to take down. Just as Fang Rui was about to ask the manager for a ladder, the manager said, "The rope's height can be controlled by a mechanism. By sliding the mechanism, it can go up or down. Do you want to lower the body?"
"Yes."
There were many skeleton hands on the wall. The manager found the one directly opposite the corpse and slid the ring on the skeleton hand outward. The corpse slowly began to descend, soon reaching the ground.
"This is another small mechanism. If players touch the rings on these skeletons, the hanging corpses will rise or fall," the manager explained, adding, "Isn't this design creative? It's unique to our shop!"
"..." Zhang was speechless, seeing that the manager was quite pleased with their terrifying and inconsiderate mechanisms.
The lighting wasn't very good, so Mu Mian could only roughly examine the body.
The deceased's face was pale, with a deep ligature mark on the neck. The mark was located between the hyoid bone and the thyroid cartilage, deepest near the throat and gradually becoming shallower on both sides.
The corneas were highly cloudy, with black spots on the sclera. The oral mucosa and conjunctiva showed signs of autolysis, and the abdomen was swollen due to decomposition. The livor mortis was approaching the fixation stage. From these characteristics, it could be deduced that the victim had been dead for 18-20 hours.
"The time of death should be between 3 and 5 PM yesterday," Mu Mian frowned, saying, "The cause of death appears to be hanging."
"Hanging? You mean he committed suicide?" the Shop Manager exclaimed, "Good heavens, why would he come to my shop to commit suicide? Isn't this bad for my business? He could have died anywhere, why here?"
"Hanging doesn't necessarily mean suicide," Mu Mian corrected him. "Hanging is death caused by asphyxiation due to the pressure of gravity on the neck. In layman's terms, he was hanged. There are two possibilities: he hanged himself, or someone vertically suspended him."
"That seems unlikely. It's not easy to hang a living person. Shouldn't a murderer strangle their victim?" The manager had some knowledge about murder cases.
Mu Mian explained, "We can distinguish between strangulation and hanging by the pattern of the ligature mark. In hanging, the victim's own weight acts vertically on the neck, so the force is uneven, resulting in a ligature mark that varies in depth and has gaps.
In strangulation, external mechanical force is applied to the neck. Since the neck is roughly circular, the force is more evenly distributed, resulting in a more consistent depth of the ligature mark.
Moreover, in most strangulation cases, the ligature marks intersect.
This corpse's ligature mark is inconsistent in depth, and the face is pale, which can prove that he died from hanging. If he had been strangled, his face would be purplish-red. Like those prop corpses hanging up there. Your prop corpses aren't very professionally made."
The shop owner fell silent.
Fang Rui examined the room for a while. He reached out and moved the ring on a skeleton hand. When he slid it outward, the rope would descend, the distance correlating with how far he slid the ring. When he slid the ring inward, the rope slowly ascended, the distance again related to how far he slid the ring.
Looking at the empty noose, he suddenly seemed to understand the killer's method.
He turned to Mu Mian, "Could the killer have first knocked out the victim, then put the noose around his neck, slid the ring to make the rope slowly rise, and let the victim be hanged to death? Did he use this method to try to make it look like suicide?"
"But he was able to crack the password at the entrance. Although that password isn't very complex, the fact that he solved it proves he's not a stupid person. How could he naively think this would disguise it as suicide? That idea is too foolish."
"..." Fang Rui felt he had been indirectly insulted. Was he also stupid for suggesting this theory?
"Fang Rui, you're very smart, don't doubt yourself," Mu Mian comforted him.
"..."
There were no surveillance cameras inside this room, but cameras were installed at the entrance and exit of the escape room, and they were functional. Fang Rui took the surveillance footage from the past month.
Back at the police station, Mu Mian cleaned off the heavy makeup on the deceased's face, revealing his clean, fair complexion. The victim had average looks with heavy dark circles under his eyes, indicating he might have been a night owl.
Apart from the abrasions on his neck, there were no other external injuries on his body, and no signs of struggle. This suggested he hadn't resisted before death.
The victim wore a suit on the outside, with a long-sleeved sweatshirt and blue jeans underneath. The suit jacket was directly put on over his other clothes. His inner clothing was neat, without any twisting that would indicate a struggle.
Mu Mian also took a blood sample from the victim for toxicology screening.
Fang Rui found a mobile phone in the victim's pocket, and they quickly identified the deceased.
The deceased was named Liu Xiaonian, a 24-year-old unemployed individual who lived with his parents and relied on them for financial support. Liu Xiaonian was also an enthusiast of escape room games.
