CH 41

Chapter 41 – Each With Their Own Idea

True knights never retreat.

There was a sudden clattering sound. The conversation between the two of them was interrupted, and when Shang Sirui glanced over, he saw that Fang Juexia had accidentally dropped the book, that they had just taken out of the safe, onto the ground. 

Fang Juexia quickly squatted down and felt around for the book on the ground with his hands. His entire field of vision was plunged into complete darkness, when suddenly, he felt something; however, it wasn’t a book, but rather the texture of a cool leather glove.

The deprivation of his sense of vision had resulted in his sense of touch growing that much more profound.

“This book is quite thick.” Pei Tingsong composedly picked up the book before he could and glanced at the cover. “North…” After saying just that word, he used his ungloved warm hand and pulled Fang Juexia up, helping him into standing upright, while complaining out loud at the same time, “Get up bei, or else, in a while, your legs will go soft again.”

Although Fang Juexia looked calm on the surface, these words of Pei Tingsong’s echoed in his heart repeatedly.

Pei Tingsong placed the book on the table casually and continued to chat with Shang Sirui.

Zhou Ziheng, Xia Xiqing, and Zhai Ying, who had finished looking at the relationship map on the wall, were still discussing it. 

Due to his habit of thinking rigorously, Zhou Ziheng kept feeling as though this relationship map might not be completely depended upon. Xia Xiqing on the other hand, felt that his resistance to this map was a little too much, and commented, “You are being very strange, if you had gotten the good camp card as usual, you wouldn’t play like this.”

“Of course, this is only my opinion,” Zhou Ziheng didn’t concede in the slightest, and argued, “But you can’t always rely on the players’ gaming habits to judge what’s going on; that counts as outside information ba.”

“So,” Zhai Ying interrupted them in the middle of their debate, “In your opinion, my role is that of a detective who suddenly burst into the scene. If we proceed to deduce on the basis of a conventional plot line, then this person is a clue provider. However, as Zhou Ziheng said, if these clues do not hold up, then the role of detective could be to create a twist in the plot.”

While speaking, she unbuttoned her overcoat and put one hand into the pockets of her riding pants before continuing, “Then, if we follow this route, is it possible that the most vulnerable looking female high school student could create this kind of dramatic twist? And then there’s the psychiatrist, the most positive looking character. Of course, if the lead singer of a band is involved in a homicide, it may also create a sensation.”

Her logic was clear, and her speech was very organized. After hearing this, Fang Juexia went towards their group and added, “I agree with Zhai Ying. In fact, in addition to all this, the two characters, that of the teacher and the college student, are very easily forgettable because they are not that distinctive, and inconspicuous characters like these are also often linked to twists in the plot. So I think that everyone is, roughly and equally, as suspicious.”

Xia Xiqing nodded, then gave his opinion, “Well founded, and irrefutable. But I would like to ask, if the program group really needed to create such a twist, why did they connect the seemingly vulnerable female high school student with almost everyone else? Doesn’t this make everyone very suspicious of that particular character?”

Zhou Ziheng laughed and used Xia Xiqing’s logic to counterattack, “Maybe it’s because the program group knows that you are the one who is going to perform that character’s role. If they hadn’t made the role a bit dazzling, it wouldn’t match your playing style.”

The others all laughed.

Pei Tingsong, who was bored, was half lying on the table and flipping the pages of the book on the desk. “I want to see your room.”

Shang Sirui nodded. “Go bei.” Then he added, “Do you want me to accompany you?”

Pei Tingsong glanced at Fang Juexia, who, coincidentally, was also looking back at him. However, he wasn’t sure whether Fang Juexia could actually see him or not.

“Whatever you want,” said Pei Tingsong.

Fang Juexia turned his face away.

Oh, so it turned out that he could see. 

“I won’t go,” said Shang Sirui as he hugged Fang Juexia’s shoulder. “I’ve seen enough, I had to stay there so long that I’ve become traumatized by it now. Go look around yourself, and I’ll stay here. Maybe there are more clues in this room. Right, Juexia?”

“En.” Fang Juexia didn’t look at Pei Tingsong again. 

“Alright.” Pei Tingsong stopped flipping through the book with his hand, and threw it upside down on the table. “Is there anyone else who wants to go with me?”

Zhou Ziheng turned around and said, “I want to see the clinic.” While he said that, his hand rubbed the back of Xia Xiqing’s neck. Xia Xiqing turned around and said, “You go ba, I’ll stay here.”

Pei Tingsong tilted his head at Zhou Ziheng in a gesture that indicated they should go, and the two people left together.

Xia Xiqing, who had been left behind, carefully sorted through the whole relationship diagram, and then turned over any part of the room that might still contain plot clues, including the mattress in the detective room.

Fang Juexia couldn’t see clearly, and thus lost the advantage of investigating this room.

However, he had a keen sense of hearing. In the midst of the noisy discussion and sounds of rummaging that echoed through the room, he heard a very small sound. It was the sound of music playing, but it was very, very light—almost playing at the minimum possible volume—and was completely submerged by the loud sounds of the room. If it wasn’t because he couldn’t see at all and could only rely on his hearing right now, he would have definitely missed it as well. 

It was like an auditory hallucination, and he had pretty much no way to ensure whether the music was real or not, but the darkness allowed him the initiative to grope around somewhat. Guided by his hearing, he followed the sound bit by bit. 

The edge of the table, the cold wall, the wooden shelf, the single sofa, the soft cushion. The changing feel guided his steps.

Once he sat on the sofa, Fang Juexia took a deep breath.

He kept getting closer and closer to the sound of the music, drawing closer and closer to the real source. He reached into the gap in the sofa cushion behind him.

All of a sudden—

“What’s the matter with you, Juexia?”

Upon hearing Xia Xiqing’s voice, Fang Juexia composedly withdrew his hand from the cushion and shook his head with a smile. “My waist hasn’t been very good recently. I’ve been practicing dancing to the point where I can’t quite… I can’t quite stand for very long. I wanted to sit down.”

He struggled within his heart for a long time before finally giving a tentative invitation, “You… Would you like to come and have a seat?”

After waiting for a few seconds, he heard Xia Xiqing’s reply, “Forget it, I’m getting uncomfortable being shut up in here, so I’m going out.”

Xia Xiqing left the dark room, and when he was supporting himself against the hidden door, he suddenly noticed that this wall also had a bunch of paintings hanging on it. These paintings seemed to belong to a collection of a series of paintings, all of which are acclaimed masterpieces of the school of abstract art. One of them caught his attention, and it was ‘The Death of Marat’.

He gazed at this world-famous painting, only to discover that something was not quite right with it. He reached out and took it down.

Shang Sirui and Zhai Ying were still looking for clues within the room. Zhai Ying seemed to be a person of few words and didn’t respond much to Shang Sirui. Or maybe it was to avoid arousing any sort of suspicion about a relationship between idols of the opposite sex, but in any case, the two of them didn’t communicate very much. As he sat in the darkness, Fang Juexia pondered for a while, then took out his hand from under the sofa cushion, and gripped the item he had extracted from it tightly. His whole person then leaned on the sofa with his hands on his forehead.

This small recording pen had a button on it, and when Fang Juexia pressed it, the subtle music stopped suddenly. After three seconds of silence, the small, broken and static crackling sound grew clear. 

It was a girl’s voice—

“I’m calling in the hope that we can work together. You guys also don’t want to be like this, do you…”

“Only by getting rid of him, only by getting rid of him…”

Zhou Ziheng first took Pei Tingsong to see Shang Sirui’s room, and it really was very simple. Pei Tingsong sat on the sofa, picked up the guitar, and played it. “The sound isn’t bad.”

“I don’t know much about music.” Zhou Ziheng asked, “What kind of guitar is this?”

“Hollow body guitar.” Pei Tingsong put the guitar back. As he chatted with Zhou Ziheng about music, they arrived at the psychologist’s room. Zhou Ziheng’s attention was attracted by the big table placed in the middle. “This should have been where all your clues were concentrated ba.”

Pei Tingsong had just come out of the waiting room and now stood in front of the big bookcase, staring at the various books placed in it. He let out an “en” and added, “It was pretty difficult. At that time, both of us were wearing hoods, so we couldn’t see, and our hands and feet were all tied up.”

“We were also wearing hoods. The square ones were especially funny,” said Zhou Ziheng as he sat down on the chair that Pei Tingsong had started in. While checking whether there was any mechanism on his chair, Zhou Ziheng chatted enthusiastically, “The audience will probably be very amused when they watch it, we’ve all got square heads.”

He heard the sound of a guitar, and looked up to see Pei Tingsong holding a pocket-sized ukulele, strumming its strings and playing a tune.

Zhou Ziheng raised his eyebrows and expressed his admiration, “The theme song of our film.”

“The program group is really meticulous, they’re all good instruments.” Pei Tingsong turned around and returned it back to its original place. 

Just then, they heard the program’s announcement sound out—

“Players, please note that there is still half an hour before the first public vote for who to execute takes place. Please brainstorm together and discuss the person you suspect most likely to be the killer in the remaining amount of time.”

So fast? Fang Juexia calculated the time. Quite a long period of time had passed, but the program group hadn’t yet made the information about the knight’s camp public. It seemed that they wanted everyone to execute a player first, after which they would announce it.

The six people came out of the rooms and sat down in the reception hall after this announcement.

“How do we discuss it?” Pei Tingsong bent over and flipped through some of the clues lying on the coffee table, “It seems that we haven’t sorted through too many leads yet, so we can’t just blindly throw someone out now.”

Unexpectedly, his words immediately drew Xia Xiqing’s attack. “Xiao Pei, don’t you want to tell everyone that you jumped out and announced your role of being the knight along with me in the clinic?”

In fact, Fang Juexia had wanted to tell everyone about this matter early on itself, so as to allow them to lock the role of the knight onto these two people. However, he never managed to find a suitable time to disclose it, and found it risky because he had even less of a position to stand on; if he wasn’t careful, he could end up drawing fire upon himself. 

He hadn’t expected Xia Xiqing to be the one who mentioned it first.

Pei Tingsong kept calm in the face of this emergency. “Yes ah, I almost forgot.” He then gave everyone a brief account of what had happened, which was, of course, based on his own standpoint and logic. “Xiqing Ge wanted to pull Juexia Ge into being a part of his team, and so explosively revealed that he was the knight. Coincidentally, he kicked my iron plate, so I jumped out on the spot to expose him and said that I was the real knight instead.”

Xia Xiqing laughed. “To be honest with you ba, I can’t directly be sure that you aren’t the killer wearing knightly clothes, but if you honestly admit that you are not the knight right now, I will continue to believe that you are taking the bullet for the real knight. You choose yourself.”

Pei Tingsong didn’t fear his words at all, instead raising his eyebrows. “Are you implying something about me? Sorry, I don’t understand. True knights never retreat.”

Such a big and wonderful play was being acted out right from the start in front of everyone. Shang Sirui was dazzled by all this and said, “Did the program group get something wrong? This isn’t a double-faced knight, but rather a true and false knight ba.”

Zhou Ziheng observed the two people’s condition and inquired, “What? Is everyone getting ready to get rid of the knight in this round? But right now, the knight’s camp hasn’t been made public yet.”

Zhai Ying had her arms wrapped around her chest as she watched this fun play. “Since the two of them dare to openly take up the gauntlet, their camp is very obvious; they both will state that they are white knights ba.”

Fang Juexia knew that he couldn’t not say anything right now, but he also couldn’t speak casually. The conflict in this round was centered around and between Xia Xiqing and Pei Tingsong, but if he wasn’t careful with his words, things would become more complicated.

The best route for him to take right now was to just pretend to be a regular player.

He tried to think from a different angle. If he actually was an ordinary player right now, what would be his highest priority?

It would still be finding the killer’s identity, that’s right.

“I don’t think this round should be concerned with the knight’s identity yet. Our opportunity to vote is very precious and is the only method we have by which we can get ahead of the killer, because the killer also has the right to kill a player. Everyone, don’t forget that.”

Xia Xiqing looked at him, and the corners of his mouth carried a smile. “That’s right. But in my opinion, someone who would fight about being the knight with me definitely can’t be holding a good person card.”

You’re the one who’s directly leaping out to fight about being the knight ba, Gege—complained Fang Juexia in his heart. 

Pei Tingsong counterattacked, “In my opinion, you’re the same. If it wasn’t for you taking the initiative to reveal your role, I might still be hiding and supporting my camp, not daring to reveal my face yet, but I can’t just stand and watch the killer wear the white knight’s clothes. So I have to stand up and show myself.”

Fang Juexia blinked.

Pei Tingsong could really talk ah. If he wasn’t the real knight, he would have ended up believing his words. 

The situation was at an impasse for a moment, and everyone remained silent for the next few moments.

Zhou Ziheng turned it over in his mind and thought that things were not so simple. “I guess the program group won’t expose the knight’s camp at this time. To tell you the truth, I agree with what Juexia said just now, that this round does not concern the knight, but is for voting to oust the killer. However,” he shifted to another subject, “I also don’t really believe you two when you say that one is real while the other is fake. Maybe both are fake, and the real knight is still hidden in the darkness.”

Fang Juexia secretly gripped his fingers as he heard Shang Sirui open his mouth and analyze further, “Just now, Xiqing told us that he was the white knight, and then he also told Xiao Pei that ‘if you are the fake trying to take a bullet for me, you should back down immediately, and I will believe you are a good person. If you don’t, then you are the killer.’ At first glance, this logic makes a lot of sense and seems a lot like how the white knight should think.

“But do you guys remember what Xiao Pei also mentioned just now? Xiqing revealed his identity specifically to cozy up to Juexia, and that’s a bit strange. The white knight revealing himself at the start itself, wouldn’t that lead to a fatal disaster soon enough? In order for the good people to win, you shouldn’t be using your own role of being the knight in exchange for an alliance ba.”

Shang Sirui’s logic was quite clear, and this was also the point Fang Juexia had thought Xia Xiqing hadn’t gotten right. However, it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to say that, so he felt that Shang Sirui’s statement was very appropriate.

Zhai Ying continued to add, “There’s another point. Xiqing Ge revealed his identity such a long time ago, and the killer still hasn’t killed him. Isn’t that also very strange? But there’s another even stranger point; if Xiqing Ge belongs to the dark camp, when he pretended to take a shot at Pei Tingsong’s identity, shouldn’t he also have taken action then? No, because up until now, nothing has happened.”

After listening to her, Fang Juexia thought for a moment before inserting his opinion, “The killer might be one of these two people, but I fear we can’t judge whether a player is the killer or not from their performance in the game. Let’s not forget that the killer in ‘Escape For Your Life’ is always linked to the plotline.” Saying that, he paused again and then, according to the manner of thinking of ordinary players, continued, “Of course, the purpose of our vote is to do our utmost to get rid of the killer, so even if I can’t see the entire situation right now, I can choose to vote someone out to ensure that the votes of the people belonging to the good camp will not be wasted.”

His words seemed to gain the approval of all the players there, for everyone nodded.

At this point in time, if they chose not to vote, then the biggest beneficiary would be the killer, because that person’s chance of getting executed would thus be greatly reduced. So even if you killed a good person by mistake, you had to fight and vote, just for the possibility of actually managing to oust the killer.

Soon, a voting prompt sounded from the room’s speakers.

“Players have a total of 30 seconds to vote. Please fill in the name of the player you suspect to be the killer. The countdown starts now.”

Everyone scattered a little farther away from each other and took out the cellphone that the program group had given them to vote with. Fang Juexia walked to the showcase wall with the hidden door and lowered his head as he took out his cellphone. A premonition lingered in his mind, one that had been in the forefront ever since he had come out of that dark room behind the hidden door.

“Five—”

“Four—”

“Three—”

Fang Juexia typed in a name. 

“Two—”

“One.”

And sent it.

As he locked the screen, Fang Juexia’s heart was beating really fast. He stuffed his cellphone into his pocket and waited nervously for the program group’s evaluation. The words exchanged between Xia Xiqing and Pei Tingsong when they were fighting to reach the finish were still ringing in their ears, and he couldn’t accurately judge whether his decision was critical or correct.

“Players, please note that the result of this vote is…”

Just as the program group’s announcement rang out again, Fang Juexia’s heart lifted.

“A tie. We will not execute any of the players, and the game will continue. There is half an hour until the next round of voting, so everyone should seize this time to uncover the identity of the members of the dark camp hidden amongst you, part through the clouds, and successfully escape for your life.”

He let out a breath of relief.

Raising his head, he internally analyzed the likelihood of who voted for who. As he was thinking about it, Fang Juexia accidentally realized that there seemed to be a picture missing from this wall. The piece of wall revealed by this lacking painting was completely empty, with only an imprint left, which made for a really unfriendly gesture towards obsessive-compulsive patients like him.

Looking around, he saw that the missing painting was actually placed next to a cabinet near the gate, inside which was a tea set. Fang Juexia went over and picked up the painting. The man painted on it had died in a bathtub, whilst holding a letter and a pen in his hand.

His obsessive-compulsive disorder forced him to hang the painting back onto its blank position on the wall, while making sure it was straight. Fang Juexia looked at his achievement with satisfaction, but found that the painting deviated a little from its inner frame, showing a little white edge there.

Too uncomfortable. No matter how he looked at it, he found it uncomfortable. 

“What’s the matter?” Xia Xiqing appeared from behind him and placed his hand on his shoulder. “Are you interested in this painting?”

Fang Juexia looked back and smiled at him. He wanted to say that he had just wanted to hang up the painting, but upon seeing Xia Xiqing, he suddenly thought of something.

The hand that was holding onto the frame began to sweat, and Fang Juexia adjusted his breathing before speaking, “En, although I don’t understand it in particular, I feel that there should be some story behind this painting.”

Xia Xiqing nodded. “You guessed right, you really do possess an artistic sensitivity. This painting shows Marat, an assassinated leader during the French Revolution.” He shrugged and complained, “But this is not a very good imitation.”

“Really?” Fang Juexia laughed. “I can’t tell.”

Marat…

A leader.

He gazed at the picture on the wall and kept feeling that something was off. 

Zhou Ziheng came up and asked, “What are you guys talking about?”

“Art.” Xia Xiqing smiled at him.

Looking at how the two people were drawing closer, Fang Juexia automatically turned away and moved out of that space a little bit, trying not to disturb them. However, as soon as he turned his head, he realized Zhai Ying was standing at his side. 

“Juexia Ge, I heard you studied mathematics.”

Fang Juexia nodded. “What’s the matter?”

“I found this in the psychologist’s room; it seems to be scratch paper.” Zhai Ying handed him the paper in her hand. “Are these formulas meaningful?”

Fang Juexia looked at it carefully. “These formulas are part of a calculus problem. If we have to say that there’s a meaning, then there is probably no other meaning, it’s just an ordinary double integral.” Some other sets were also written on one side of the equation.

“Then is the answer to this question right?” Zhai Ying asked.

Fang Juexia’s attention was drawn back to the calculus problem. “I’ll calculate it.” So he took the paper and the pen Zhai Ying handed him as he bent over and used the cabinet where he had just found the painting as a writing desk.

“Alright, I’ll come back later.” Zhai Ying left directly, leaving Fang Juexia alone. He was absorbed in the calculations, and quickly arrived at the same result as on the original scratch paper. Fang Juexia turned to look for Zhai Ying, but almost bumped into another person who had drawn close to him now. 

“Are you stumbling around outside too now?”

His arm was grasped by someone, and Fang Juexia, holding the calculus paper in his hand, looked up, only to see Pei Tingsong’s face.

His speech had always been filled with multiple hints, one after another, in riddles only the two of them understood.

Pet, one-sixth, little master…

He was too good at playing word games.

“It’s fine as long as it doesn’t happen when I dance.” Fang Juexia’s tone was calm as he pulled his arm out of his grasp and came to a steady stand. He folded both the  scratch paper and the paper he had calculated on and stuffed them into his pants pocket. However, Pei Tingsong didn’t seem to give up. “You didn’t run into something in there ba?” he asked, before putting his hands on his shoulder, turning him over and over again, almost touching him all over his body. “I’ll check.”

Fang Juexia felt that it wasn’t good to be like this in front of the camera, it was a bit too intimate, so he tried to push Pei Tingsong away. As they went back and forth like this, the two of them started to look like two cats entangled together and fighting each other. However, Fang Juexia finally failed to twist around as much as Pei Tingsong, so he stopped struggling and was forced to accept this “inspection”.

“You seem to still have a lot of energy. I heard from Senior Brother that your waist was hurting.” Pei Tingsong patted Fang Juexia’s chest. “You’re very lively, I’m relieved.” 

With this move, Fang Juexia froze. 

The instigator of this whole thing left the scene and walked towards Shang Sirui. When the two of them got together, it was all jokes and banter again, while Fang Juexia stood still at that spot, not moving at all, as he kept looking at Pei Tingsong’s back.

He adjusted his breathing, turned around to face this cabinet, which came up to the height of half a person, and then stood there in silence for a very long time. 

Sensing the camera in front of the cabinet twisting and turning to his side, Fang Juexia regained his senses and focused his gaze on the contents of the cabinet. There was an exquisite tea set in it, with a beautiful European style white glazed teapot, and several tea cups, which were arranged in a straight line along the edge of the cabinet.

But this line… it wasn’t straight enough.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder made him reach out and adjust the position of the cups until they were all in a straight horizontal line.

“Alright,” Fang Juexia whispered to himself.

However, the very next moment, he suddenly heard a click, and the drawer that had been locked until now automatically unlocked and opened a bit. 

So this was the way to actually open it?

Fang Juexia felt a little surprised and drew closer to the tea set to see what was going on with the mechanism here. He found that an X had been drawn on the teapot with a silver pen.

So that’s how it was. Fang Juexia put the teapot away and opened the drawer.

Zhou Ziheng and Xia Xiqing, who weren’t far away, also noticed this sound, and turned their heads to look over. They watched Fang Juexia take out a white plaid handkerchief from the inside of the cabinet.

“Is that a new clue?” Zhou Ziheng asked.

Fang Juexia nodded. “It should be related to the answer required for the display screen on the main escape gate. It’s all a grid.” He looked down at the handkerchief in his hands, which was embroidered with a few lines of numbers.

15.41.23.14.33

14.24.12

34.23.14.32.15

51.24.43.22.55.54

“Is this the password…”

Zhou Ziheng went over and touched the inside of the handkerchief. He felt something, so he picked up the teapot and shook it. There was water in it, which he then poured onto the handkerchief before flattening it out. 

The white plaid handkerchief turned translucent after getting wet, thus revealing a hidden laminated piece of paper inside, and the words on it gradually grew clear.

___1__2__3__4__5

1__q__w__e__r__t

2__y__u_i/j_o__p

3__a__s__d__f__g

4__h__k__l__z__x

5__c__v__b__n__m

“This is…” Fang Juexia thought it felt familiar, thought about it a bit more, and soon, he had the answer. 

“I understand.” Zhou Ziheng subconsciously took out his cellphone and wanted to confirm whether he had gotten it right or not. However, it was only after unlocking the phone that he remembered something, and he laughed as he said, “I forgot. This is the program group’s cellphone.”

Fang Juexia also laughed.

All of a sudden, the program group made an announcement—

“Attention, everyone,”

“Player Pei Tingsong has died.”