CH 38

Chapter 38 – Mutual Intrigue

You kick him out and follow me ba

Fang Juexia knew that the escape rooms were connected to each other; once they left their room, they could enter the next room at any time, and someone else could also intrude into their escape room at any time. However, he just hadn’t expected that the first unknown player they would actually meet would be Xia Xiqing, the master of the last season of ‘Escape For Your Life.’

It wasn’t that Xia Xiqing’s intelligence would definitely rank first among all the players, but rather, his playing style was special and confusing, and he was definitely the best when it came to psychological warfare. No matter what kind of role card he drew, he always played rather villainously.

“Hello.” Fang Juexia bowed respectfully and introduced himself, “I am Fang Juexia.” He then remembered the Didi who couldn’t stand up to say hello, so he introduced him as well, “He’s Pei Tingsong, and his feet are cuffed right now, so he can’t get up. Both of us are members of Kaleido, and are the new players in this season.”

“Very good ah.” Xia Xiqing nodded with satisfaction. “This season, everyone’s a handsome little Ge.”

Since Fang Juexia had already taken the initiative to speak for him, Pei Tingsong, the one who always took on the rebellious role, just raised his hand as a greeting towards Xia Xiqing, who was still standing near the door.

“How are you this serious-looking? I like little serious people the most.” Xia Xiqing laughed and immediately pulled Fang Juexia into his arms. “I’m not actually a senior, I’m just an artist, don’t be so formal.” After saying that, he also patted Fang Juexia’s chest.

Fang Juexia seldom had such intimate contact with strangers. Even though he had seen Xia Xiqing on TV more than once, he still wasn’t really used to him.

He glanced at Xia Xiqing’s name tag, on which was written “Zaozao”. He couldn’t help but grip the appointment form in his hand tighter.

“And I’ve known about you for a long time,” said Xia Xiqing as he looked into his eyes.

Fang Juexia became a bit suspicious at this, and his way of expressing his suspicions was also to very directly question, “Why?”

“Why else?” Xia Xiqing was amused by him and explained, “Because you’re attractive ah, I noticed it the first time you entered the Hot Search list. Ah, and the behind the scene posts made by the magazine, along with those videos of the two of you—peak aesthetic. Has no one ever told you before? The birthmark at the corner of your eye is just like the finishing touch to a painting. I’ve also always wanted to draw you. Do you prefer watercolor or oil paintings? How about I paint a big one for you to hang up?”

“En…” Just as Fang Juexia was about to respond, he heard the very deliberate sound of someone clearing his throat nearby, which diverted his attention from this big boss.

“Geges, don’t just focus on chatting away,” said Pei Tingsong with a friendly smile on his face, staring at Fang Juexia and then pointing to his leg as he reminded, “Ge, I’m still stuck here.”

“Oh, right.” It was only then that remembered that he still had to finish solving the math problem. “I still have a clue that hasn’t been figured out yet.” He quickly walked over to the table in front of him, with Xia Xiqing following him slowly. “Don’t fuss, anyway, even if you could walk, you would still be stuck here.” Xia Xiqing’s gaze rapidly swept across the room, probably looking at the furnishings, as well as at Fang Juexia’s and Pei Tingsong’s costumes.

“It seems that Xiao Pei’s designated role is that of a psychologist?” Xia Xiqing laughed. “A 19-year-old psychologist…”

“20 years old.” Pei Tingsong retorted immediately, “Your internet speed must be slow, I have already celebrated a birthday.”

“Really? When did that happen?” Xia Xiqing was curious.

Pei Tingsong raised his eyebrows. “Around the same time you went public with who you were dating ba.”

Just as he finished saying that, he noticed Fang Juexia staring at him, and so, all Pei Tingsong could do was shift his gaze around. But, as soon as Fang Juexia drew close to him, he complained to his Gege in a voice carrying a bit of a grievance, adding a bit of coquettishness as well, “My legs are going numb.”

Fang Juexia didn’t even look at him. He just silently lowered his head, unfolded the paper again, and gazed at the numbers on the piece of paper.

[258，321456987，12369，12369874]

Xia Xiqing also came over at this time, stopping right next to Fang Juexia. The two people’s arms were close together, and he also bowed his head and asked, “Need help?”

“This sequence should be the clue to unlock the passcode lock of Xiao Pei’s foot cuffs,” Fang Juexia explained the situation simply.

“A sequence.” Xia Xiqing looked at the paper and laughed. “Do you study mathematics? So subconsciously…. A bunch of numbers set together doesn’t necessarily indicate a sequence.”

Upon hearing this, Fang Juexia felt stunned.

“The scriptwriter of this program always does all his homework on the players. He goes to the extent of understanding your specialties or your hobbies, even your experiences, and then, using your point of view, he sets the questions, tailoring them to your usual thought patterns.” Xia Xiqing deliberately scared them. “It’s very frightening.”

That’s right, he really did fall into his own usual thought patterns as soon as he saw the puzzle.

Fang Juexia looked at the string of numbers, this time simply looking at them one by one. As a result, he actually discovered certain rules that were there— many of these numbers had 123, 456, or 321 in them. 

So it wasn’t not a sequence of numbers, instead, it was a sequence of hints.

No wonder they used the Sudoku grid of 9 squares. After realising this, Fang Juexia suddenly marveled at the care the screenwriter had taken; he had probably looked through fan materials carefully and had discovered that one of Fang Juexia’s hobbies was playing Sudoku. Using this kind of grid wasn’t just a hint, it was probably also a way to confuse him. 

“Give me the pen.” Fang Juexia didn’t even lift up his head, directly stretching out his hand towards Pei Tingsong, who was on the opposite side. As soon as he said that, a pen was rolled over to him. Fang Juexia picked up the pen and started filling in the numbers in the nine squares printed on the paper.

123

456

789

Seeing that he was about to start the process of solving the problem, Xia Xiqing, a veteran player, suggested, “Little Serious, you’d better describe your thought process about reaching the solution of this problem out loud, otherwise the audience may not be able to follow your reasoning when this episode is broadcast. It will be troublesome for the program group in the editing stage, and they’ll have to insert subtitles for you then.”

Upon hearing his words, Fang Juexia raised his head to look at him, wearing a cute expression of sudden realization on his face.

He didn’t like talking, so he had completely forgotten about that point. 

Pei Tingsong’s eyes kept moving back and forth between the faces of the two people opposite him, and he was very unhappy inside. He had spent so much effort coaxing Fang Juexia into forming an alliance with him, but right after they had confirmed their cooperation, a Cheng Yaojin had burst into the scene, and with just a few words, had hooked Fang Juexia over to his side. What exactly was all of this?

Unfortunately, the party at the center of this issue was completely absorbed in solving the problem and had no time to take into account a certain someone’s mood.

Fang Juexia held the pen and explained while solving the problem, “The first clue on the paper is 258. In this nine-square grid that I have already drawn out, starting from 2, you can connect 258, thus drawing a vertical line from top to bottom, which actually represents the number 1.”

He then filled out the second of the nine-square grid on the paper. “The second clue is 321456987. If we draw a line like before, based on this order of numbers, we get a 5.”

In the same way, he quickly resolved the remaining two numbers, and ended his explanation with, “Same as above, we get 7 and 0.”

When he heard “same as above”, Pei Tingsong laughed. Fang Juexia raised his head and glanced at him.

Xia Xiqing, who stood next to them and was getting a third-party’s point of view, first glanced at Pei Tingsong, and then looked at Fang Juexia, after which, the corners of his mouth quirked up in a smile filled with an unclear meaning. 

“That’s the answer.” Xia Xiqing took a look at the paper. “1570, isn’t it?”

“Probably,” Fang Juexia was someone who was strict and precise with his words. Until the passcode lock was unlocked, he wouldn’t make a firm assertion. “I’ll go try it.”

“You let him bend down himself and try it out bei, with your height, isn’t it uncomfortable for you to tunnel down there?” But before Xia Xiqing could finish his sentence, Fang Juexia had already wormed his way down.

He really was quite straightforward.

Xia Xiqing scanned the table and found the appointment form that Fang Juexia had randomly placed on it before. It seemed to be a new clue that they should have just discovered. Xia Xiqing thought to himself that this was indeed a new player; only new players would be unaware of how unscrupulously everyone played in a game like this, and it was rare to see someone throw away a clue as soon as he found it, not treating it as taboo at all.

Xia Xiqing looked at the form and casually asked, “This appointment form… Where did you guys find it?” He was just probing, not expecting that anyone would actually randomly answer him.

So he was surprised when Fang Juexia, who was all the way under the table, still took the time to answer his senior’s question. He honestly explained, “It was in a book on the bookcase.”

“The bookcase?” Xia Xiqing raised his head and glanced at the rather spectacular collection of books crammed into the bookcase. “Tch, tch, this twisted program group…. You guys didn’t really flip through every single book ba?”

Pei Tingsong knocked on the table with his knuckle, causing Xia Xiqing to turn to look at him.

He then saw Pei Tingsong point at the ceiling, where some sound was coming from.

The hypnosis monologue was still sounding, and it had played twice by now; they were afraid it was on an infinite loop.

When he had entered the room, Xia Xiqing had wanted to ask about it, but had forgotten about this annoying thing as they discussed other things. Now, he stood and listened to it quietly, sensing that something wasn’t quite right. “This is a word puzzle?”

“That’s right.” Pei Tingsong pushed the notebook in front of him to Xia Xiqing. The complete monologue was written in the notebook, and it was arranged neatly. It looked like Pei Tingsong had deliberately written it out so neatly.

“The words are pretty good-looking.”

[Now next please, I will hypnotize you

Your muscles on your body, relax them all

Then empty the thoughts in your mind and enter into the void.

Let the top of your mind stretch out into its deepest reaches.

The outside shelf of the world that created these emotions is where they return to

Now think of a world where depression and resentment never interfere with you

Then feel the splendid palace built by your consciousness.

Climb the bookcase-like steps and go to the deepest place.

There is the home of the soul in all its tranquility

Look, the blue sea in the middle of this pure land

Now a book this is not, don’t be afraid, the rustling chilly wind will never blow here.

Stretch yourself open and spread out in the warm sunshine to your heart’s content

Now then, it is time to slowly open the door of your subconscious mind.

To open up your memory and your true self]

“Fortunately you thought of writing this narration down, you’re pretty fast at writing. The answer to these kinds of neatly arranged word puzzles is usually hidden in the first or last word of each line…” Xia Xiqing tried to solve it based on that rule, but found that it didn’t work. “It’s not the first or last letter? It can’t be that it wants you to reverse the whole thing?”

At this moment, Pei Tingsong couldn’t really pay attention to Xia Xiqing’s question, because he had just discovered that Fang Juexia hadn’t made any movement for a long time after getting under the table. 

What was the matter with this guy? 

He bent over and looked down, just to see Fang Juexia sitting on the floor with his legs crossed. He was bent over with his head bowed as he gazed at the paper lying on his leg, seemingly lost in thought.

Feeling that it was strange, Pei Tingsong stretched out one of his hands and rubbed his hair. “Hey, what are you doing? You’ve already found the answer but you’re not hurrying to enter it in, is it that you can’t bear to let me out ah?”

Fang Juexia raised his head when he heard his voice, and his eyebrows twisted as he said, “It’s not right.”

“What’s not right?” Pei Tingsong didn’t understand and asked, “The answer isn’t right?”

Upon hearing their conversation, Xia Xiqing also crouched down and added, “Shouldn’t be ah, it’s obvious that this is how number shape questions are solved. Your answer should have no problems. Did you input the code wrong? Do you want to try it again?”

The logic was sound, but the answer really wasn’t right. 

Right in front of them, Fang Juexia input the 1570 number that they had arrived on as the solution, but the lock didn’t loosen at all. No matter how hard he shook it, it remained as motionless as it was before.

“It’s really not right.” Xia Xiqing thought that this was a little inconceivable.

Fang Juexia thought about why; the method of solving this riddle was already very obvious, but the answer they had gotten was actually wrong.

“Your guys’ room is much more difficult than mine. When the game started, I, at least, had freedom of movement. It seems that I can finally count as not having gotten the hell script this time round.” Xia Xiqing stood up and waved the notebook with the hypnotic sentences in his hand. “Xiao Pei, you haven’t finished explaining. I just looked over it again, and it’s the third word, but why?”

He was really good. Pei Tingsong simply analyzed the previous situations, “Many of the clues in this room are marked with Greek letters. The first clue that hinted at the tool to undo Juexia Ge’s ropes was a wooden card with an α on it. The second clue that hinted at the location of the key to my handcuffs had β on it. “

“En.” Xia Xiqing nodded. 

“Before this hypnosis recording started playing, the Greek letter γ was displayed on the screen on the door. You should know that γ comes third in the Greek alphabet. In fact, it implies that this so-called acrostic puzzle isn’t using the first word, but the third word.”

Fang Juexia, who was still under the table, heard Pei Tingsong’s explanation and suddenly realized something. He picked up the triangular block that had been lying on the ground and when he turned it around, it looked quite like the Greek letter Δ.

“So that’s how it is, so the third word from top to bottom is…. Please on the top shelf of the bookcase the blue book open it up.” Xia Xiqing couldn’t help but admire these two little idols who had just joined the show. They were worthy of being the new guests that Jing Yin had searched for so long and so hard. 

Sure enough, they weren’t here to just be vegetarians. 

He looked at the various objects with letters on them spread across the room. “I don’t have any of these marks in my room, Greek letters… It must be because they know that one of you is a philosophy student and the other studied math, so both of you would naturally be sensitive to the Greek alphabet, and therefore they used these. Otherwise, wouldn’t English and Arabic numerals work just fine?”

Everything he said was correct. Since the writers used the Greek alphabet when creating the puzzles, they must have checked their identities quite thoroughly, and knowing that naturally implied some other information as well.

Information on Δ….

A white light flashed through Fang Juexia’s brain.

That’s it!

It really isn’t 1570, that is just the raw initial result.

After doing a quick calculation in his head, Fang Juexia once again approached Pei Tingsong’s left leg, and ducked down to enter the new answer. 

5，9，1，4

“Click.”

The lock opened.

There was still the cuff on the right, and he soon turned the numbers on its passcode lock. 

3，1，3，4

Right!

Finally decoded it. Fang Juexia happily pulled on Pei Tingsong’s pant leg and poked half of his head out from under the table, looking just like a child waiting for praise as he declared, “It’s open now.”

Pei Tingsong, who had originally still been talking to Xia Xiqing, looked down after his pant leg was pulled on. Fang Juexia, who was crouched on the ground, pointed to the open foot cuffs, and said again, “I unlocked it.”

Pei Tingsong looked completely surprised. Obviously, he had just told them moments ago that his answer was wrong, but then he managed to unlock them so quickly. He sat back in his chair and held out his hand to Fang Juexia. “You come out first.”

“How fast ah.” Xia Xiqing also felt curious. “What was the answer?”

Fang Juexia, using Pei Tingsong’s hand as support, came out from under the table and sighed. “What you guys said just now reminded me of something.”

“What we said?” Xia Xiqing looked at Pei Tingsong. “What did we just say?”

“The meaning of the letters. In fact, the problem description for this puzzle wasn’t complete. In addition to the hints given on this paper, there was a hidden condition as well, that is, the Greek letter Δ.” After saying that, he looked at Xia Xiqing and asked, “Xiqing Ge, what do you think Δ stands for to a person who studies mathematics?”

Xia Xiqing was a little confused at first. His eyes flickered for a bit, but then suddenly he laughed and said two words, “An increment.”

“That’s right.” Fang Juexia had known that he could respond immediately. “Δ means an increment. So the four numbers we got are not the real answer, it is just an initial result that hasn’t been incremented yet.”

Xia Xiqing asked again, “But all we know is that we have to increment, they didn’t give us how much to do so by ah?”

“They actually did.” Fang Juexia looked at Pei Tingsong. “Xiao Pei just said that these Greek letters have an order. Δ is the fourth, so the amount we have to increment by is 4.”

Pei Tingsong stood up and moved around a bit. “So 1570 is the initial number, and using this as the base, we add 4 to each digit. Ah, wait a minute, you could also subtract 4 ah.”

“You’re right.” Fang Juexia’s eyes shone while talking about the way to solve the problem. “I did keep feeling that it was strange before. There are clearly two foot cuffs here, but only one clue was given. This was illogical. If the code to unlock both of the cuffs was the same, it would be too wasteful. The program group for ‘Escape For Your Life’ wouldn’t do such superfluous things.”

“Then I realized that increments can be added or subtracted. So, one side is 1570, where you add 4 to each digit, and after not carrying any ones over, you take the final digits to get 5914. On the right is the initial four digits minus four, and of course we take the absolute value of each digit, thereby getting 3134. These are the two codes to unlock the cuffs.”

Pei Tingsong liked to look at the expression that would appear on Fang Juexia’s face after he managed to successfully solve a problem; it was the same one that would appear after someone had praised him for his outstanding performance on the stage. He would smile happily, his smile completely bright and sincere; it was totally different from his usual cold appearance. His outer shell melted, revealing his clean and confident personality hidden inside. 

Whenever this happened, all Pei Tingsong wanted to do was praise him and let him know that he was sparkling right now. 

Unfortunately, this time, someone else stole his opportunity to do so first.

“Really so good, you’re stronger than I thought.” Xia Xiqing came to a stand beside Fang Juexia from his original position across the table, and after deliberately lowering his voice, he asked, “Do you want to team up with me? Gege will carry you, and the two of us can definitely win.”

Team up?

Before Fang Juexia could open his mouth, Pei Tingsong, who had been stretching and moving at the side, immediately dragged Fang Juexia over to him, grabbing his shoulder, and smirking a little at Xia Xiqing as he announced, “Sorry, this guy has already formed an alliance with me.”

“An alliance?” Xia Xiqing laughed and threw the notebook in his hand on the table. “Little Didi, alliances on ‘Escape For Your Life’ are more fragile than paper.” Having said that, he looked at Fang Juexia, and while wearing an expression of wanting to see the world plunged into chaos, he instigated, “You kick him out and follow me ba.”

Kick??

What kind of word was that to use here?

Although Pei Tingsong was angry, he still had a bit of confidence in the friendship he had just established with Fang Juexia. He held onto his shoulder more tightly and said, “You give up ba, Juexia…”

“What conditions do you have?” Fang Juexia suddenly opened his mouth and directly interrupted Pei Tingsong’s words.

Conditions???

Pei Tingsong reached out and pulled at Fang Juexia’s cheek, in an attempt to force him to turn around to face him. However, who would have known that not only Fang Juexia would not give him any reasonable explanation, but that he would also frown and push his hand away. He even adjusted the glasses on the bridge of his nose before facing Xia Xiqing again.

“You’re right. If we want to talk about cooperating together, there must be some conditions.” Xia Xiqing leaned against the table and made it seem like he was in a very tangled situation. “Hm…”

“No ba, Fang Juexia. You’re not really going to believe his words ba?” Pei Tingsong couldn’t believe that he was actually seriously considering this proposal. “It can’t be you don’t know how crafty he’s been when playing in the games before?”

Suddenly, Xia Xiqing slapped the table and said, “Alright, the condition is me showing all my cards.” He looked at Fang Juexia with a sincere expression as he confessed, “I am the double-faced knight.”

Fang Juexia looked directly into his eyes. Or, in other words, they looked at each other.

Stress stimulates adrenaline, and, coincidentally, excitement did too. 

He was very clear that Xia Xiqing was lying about his identity.

In order to not be cheated by him, from the moment Xia Xiqing had walked through that door, Fang Juexia had consciously shown weakness in front of him. For example, he had waited for him to tell him the rules of the number puzzle first, as well as that moment when he had just randomly thrown the appointment form on the table. All of these factors worked to build up the image of him being a naive novice player in Xia Xiqing’s eyes.

Having watched a lot of episodes from the previous season, Fang Juexia understood the gaming style and intelligence level of the person in front of him. If he showed complete trust in Xia Xiqing and allied with him now, he would look suspicious to him. But because of how he had resolved the unexpected number problem just now, Xia Xiqing had already learned about his strength. At this time, it would be too fake if he pretended to be a newcomer who could only follow suit.

If he questioned him now and made his doubts about his statement too clear, it was very likely that Xia Xiqing would start to suspect whether he was a player with a special role or not, since otherwise he shouldn’t have so much confidence while asking. It was quite difficult to reach a middle ground, which was a dilemma.

“How about it?” Seeing that he didn’t reply immediately, Xia Xiqing offered another condition. He was wreathed in smiles as he guided him towards his side gently. “Or how about, if you and I team up, I will tell you my camp.”

Fang Juexia’s expression didn’t change as he replied, “To be honest, I don’t really dare to believe anything you say.”

“The player who always blows himself up has blown himself up, and you still don’t believe him?” Xia Xiqing raised his eyebrows.

Fang Juexia nodded. “I only believe in logic. You can try to convince me.”

Xia Xiqing shook his head, and with a smile, said, “You are too cute, really. Of course, I can convince you since I am indeed the knight. Whatever thought process you want to hear in order to be convinced, I can tell you.”

Fang Juexia secretly breathed in relief on the inside, confirming to himself that at least he was playing Tai Chi in the right direction, but it wasn’t long before he heard another voice.

“What a coincidence,” Pei Tingsong stretched. “I’m a knight too. So awkward ah.”

Fang Juexia turned his head to look at him, trying to maintain the doubtful consideration that an ordinary player should have.

The most awkward person in this situation was him as the real knight.

But now, he felt too embarrassed to even show his embarrassment.

“Really?” Xia Xiqing stood up with a smile, looked at Pei Tingsong, pursed the corners of his mouth, and the expression on his face was obviously full of questioning as he argued, “Only donning this knight’s role after I said something, your credibility is a bit weak.”

Fang Juexia couldn’t figure out Pei Tingsong’s intentions in standing out at this moment. He completely hadn’t expected this guy to self-detonate his own role as a knight. Although Pei Tingsong’s way of doing things was always very tiger-like and he always managed to catch people unprepared, he was smart enough and very logical, and his ability to wreak confusion on other people’s sense of judgement was no less than that of Xia Xiqing’s.

That meant that this was also a tactic ba.

It couldn’t be that he was trying to bluff his way into getting access to information about his and Xia Xiqing’s identity?

In any case, Fang Juexia had already made his choice; he would lie in wait at the moment. Right now, as an ordinary player, he should feel confused or curious. 

“Then which camp did you choose?” Fang Juexia looked at Pei Tingsong.

Who would have known that Pei Tingsong would tilt his head and smile before stating, “It’s not important which camp I chose. As long as our alliance has not been dissolved, I am your knight.”