Ziyan disappeared after that escape room game.
We entered the escape room together, but didn’t come out together.
01
Ziyan was my college roommate. In the two years since graduation, we had both been struggling for our lives and hadn’t greeted each other for a long time. So when she came to play with me this time, I was extremely surprised.
Back in college, Ziyan liked those games related to the supernatural. Sure enough, once we started chatting, it was as if we were back in our college days.
“There’s a very famous escape room game hall here. I’ve wanted to come and play for a long time,” Ziyan said excitedly. “They have a haunted – themed escape room, and the puzzles in the room are all related to ‘urban legends’ – Bixian, Fox Fairy, the Four – Corner Game…”
“The Four – Corner Game?” I interrupted her. “I seem to have heard of it somewhere.”
Ziyan smiled and bit the straw of her milk tea. “Yes, I’ve told you about it. It’s like this. In a pitch – black room, four people stand in the four corners of the room respectively. Then the first player walks along the wall towards another corner. When they touch the next player, they pat him on the shoulder and stand still in his position. The second player then continues to walk towards the next corner of the room, and so on.”
I suddenly understood. “Is it that when you reach a certain corner and there’s no one there, you clap your hands first and then continue walking?”
Ziyan snapped her fingers. “Right!”
“But this game, isn’t it not supposed to be played?!”
When I was in school, I had heard Ziyan talk about this taboo game and was so scared that I couldn’t sleep well all night.
It was said that there was a netizen named ‘Zuo X’ on Tianya website back then. He put down harsh words to challenge all kinds of supernatural games. He, who didn’t believe in evil, encountered something when playing this ‘Four – Corner Game’. He directly stopped all challenges and gradually faded out of the internet.
In those disturbing stories, during the process of the ‘Four – Corner Game’, there would always be a’silent extra person’.
Because when a player gropes forward, the other three players are standing in the corners respectively, and there must be an empty corner. So there will be a clapping sound in each round. However, during the game, the clapping sound that should be heard often disappears inadvertently… Because the ‘fifth person’ appears quietly…
I didn’t want to let Ziyan’s expectations down, so I could only go to play the escape room game with her full of trepidation.
Unexpectedly, when it came to the ‘Four – Corner Game’ session, something strange really happened.
There was no ‘fifth person’ appearing.
When the lights came on again, there were only three people left in the room.
Ziyan was gone.
I screamed and stopped the game, rushed out of the escape room and called Ziyan’s phone, but it was turned off.
I didn’t know if this was a joke Ziyan played on me. There was no surveillance at the scene, and I got nothing. The other two players knew Ziyan. They should also be escape room game enthusiasts, but I couldn’t call out their names. After we finished taking notes at the police station, we separated. I went home in a daze, as if immersed in a nightmare.
What was even more bizarre was that even my life was affected by this game. It became more and more strange, and I could never go back to the past.
02
After Ziyan disappeared, I began to suspect everything around me.
How could a big living person suddenly disappear from my side?
Just as I closed my eyes and pondered, the computer that had been on standby and turned black suddenly lit up. The cold white light unexpectedly lit up the dark room.
This made me a little uneasy. The slight sounds in the room and the fleeting shadows at the corner of my eyes would make me uneasy, especially at this moment.
I sat up and stared at the dark camera of the computer, as if looking into an indifferent eye. “There’s someone watching me in the dark.” When this thought came to my mind, I suddenly felt a chill down my back.
I knew very well that all this was not my imagination.
In life, perhaps there really was a ‘fifth person’.
The clothes in the drawer that had been neatly arranged, without being touched, had their order messed up.
I had never stepped on the mud, but somehow, dirty mud particles got on the floor of the room.
…
Could that person be hiding in my room, spying on my life every day?
Half – asleep and half – awake, I was so scared by my own thoughts that I couldn’t sleep anymore.
When I went out to work during the day and locked the door, I deliberately stuck a hair in the door lock. If anyone broke in, the hair would surely fall to the ground.
As expected, when I got home at night, the hair had disappeared without a trace.
Someone must have invaded my room!
Tears came out of my eyes, and I rummaged through the house like crazy, not letting go of any corner.
I even found that the water in the cup on the table seemed to be more turbid than when I left home in the morning.
I rushed out of the room, poured the water into the bathroom all at once, and rinsed the cup frantically with the faucet in the washroom.
My roommate was frightened by my abnormal behavior and asked me what happened. After listening, her face turned pale, and she ran into her room, then came out with a puzzled look.
“The water in the cup shouldn’t have been poured out. It could be saved and taken for testing,” the roommate said.
I nodded while wiping my tears, hoping to get some comfort from her. “I…”
The roommate changed the subject and continued, “I understand your experience and feelings, but we always have to look forward, right? I know a psychologist. Do you want to talk to him? Your performance at home these two days has made me a little nervous…”
I felt as if I had suddenly fallen into an ice cellar, and my heart was extremely cold. I understood that my roommate must have thought that I was a little mentally abnormal after being stimulated and wanted to stay away from me.
I fulfilled her wish. Early the next morning, I went to find another friend.
My friend lived alone, and his house was quite big. He should be able to spare two sofas for me.
After listening to my experience, my friend agreed to let me stay at his place. He directly threw the key to his house to me and said that he was going to find another playmate to live with.
“Aren’t you going home to live?” I asked.
“It’s not very appropriate for us, a man and a woman, to live in the same room, is it?” He scratched his head, looking embarrassed.
I was a little down. I didn’t know what he was thinking.
But it was okay. It was rare to have two days of peace. Even if I owed him a favor, it was worth it.
I spent the whole day full of worry, and the way back ‘home’ after work was no longer familiar. All these were the changes brought about by that ‘Four – Corner Game’.
I found that I hadn’t smiled for a long time.
After having dinner like chewing wax, I turned off the lights, lay on the sofa, and looked at the dark ceiling in the sound of the flowing traffic outside. I reflected on the strange things that had happened to me these days.
All the strange experiences started from that ‘Four – Corner Game’. Could it be that Ziyan and I really provoked something? Were the other two players okay now?
The room was very dark, and I was alone. I didn’t dare to think too much, so I had to play with my phone.
I found that Ziyan’s WeChat Moments hadn’t been updated since the end of last year. No, this was not consistent with the lively and cheerful Ziyan in my impression…
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The heavy knocking on the door brought me back to reality.
This didn’t seem like my friend’s strength, and he hadn’t told me that there would be other guests coming.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The knocking on the door didn’t stop. Instead, it became more and more intense.
03
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The knocking on the door was like a trembling thunder in the dark. I was so scared that I rolled from the sofa to the floor.
The room was not lit, and it was pitch – black. Why was the person outside still knocking on the door?
Moreover, the person outside the door didn’t say a word except knocking heavily. This made me feel even more strange.
I quietly walked to the door, and the knocking on the door suddenly stopped. I held my breath, not daring to make any sound, and could only lie on the door and peek through the cat – eye.
The corridor was pitch – black, and I couldn’t see anything clearly.
Did the person outside leave? As if answering my question, the anti – theft door lock made a “shua – la – la” sound of inserting a key.
My breath stopped in an instant. The sound of the key slowly turning was like a blunt knife, scratching my brain hard.
I endured the fear, dialed the 110 emergency number, and turned on the lights in the room in an instant.
Taking a deep breath and holding back my tears, I roared towards the door with all my strength, “Who?!”
I couldn’t see anything through the cat – eye. I locked the door with the anti – theft chain and slowly opened the door a small crack to look outside.
The corridor was dark. With the lights on in the room, I could only roughly make out that there was a man in black standing outside.
I was separated from him by two doors, but I always felt that that pitch – black shadow would suddenly pass through the two doors and strangle my throat.
We stared at each other in silence for a full ten seconds. “Don’t back down, don’t back down!” I forced myself to stare at the man in black in my heart. I couldn’t see his face or his expression clearly.
For a moment, I asked myself in my heart: Does this person really exist?
“…Wrong door.”
The man in black scratched his head, turned around, and after looking at me slowly again, he walked away.
Listening to his footsteps gradually fading away, the moment I closed the door, I felt as if my whole body was about to fall apart. I knelt down on the ground and cried loudly, for my courage and despair.
…No, wait a minute.
If the other person really went to the wrong door, why did he knock on the door first? Didn’t the act of knocking mean to test whether there was someone in the room?
The chill once again climbed up my back like a snake and tightened around me.
Who was he? Who was he looking for? I…
The phone rang suddenly in my hand, scaring me so much that I almost dropped the phone.
It was my roommate calling.
“Come back quickly, right now! Immediately!”
04
My roommate received a small package.
The sender was anonymous. The package was almost an empty box. Inside, there was only a photo and a small memory card.
The photo was a half – body photo of me, but I had no impression of the photo. It should have been secretly taken by someone in the dark.
There must be an important secret hidden in the memory card.
“Don’t leave me living alone. I’m a little scared,” my roommate almost pleaded, hugging me. “Is there really someone watching us?”
I understood that even if there were malicious eyes around, they were aimed at me, and it might also be related to Ziyan’s disappearance. I couldn’t implicate my roommate and friends anymore.
So, I didn’t urgently read the memory card, nor did I tell my roommate about my encounter just now. Instead, I stayed at home for one night. Early the next morning, I went out and rented a cheap basement in a hurry.
I didn’t trust my own computer, so I borrowed my friend’s. He was skeptical about the man in black, but seeing my serious face, he made a worried expression. “I shouldn’t have left you alone. If I were there, I could protect…”
I was worried about him and kept reminding him, “What if that person is not following me but intends to break into your house? You must pay attention to safety.”
“Okay, don’t worry.”
Although he agreed verbally, there was still a hint of carelessness in his expression, which made me a little worried.
The newly rented basement was a bit damp and not very comfortable. But I didn’t plan to live there for a long time. I just wanted to find a secret base that no one knew about.
Since that ‘Four – Corner Game’, there had been too many things around me that I couldn’t understand. I had a hunch that the memory card my roommate received might be the key to unlocking everything.
I turned off the lights in the room, confirmed that the door was locked twice, and then carefully inserted the card reader into the computer.
Holding my breath, my heart almost stopped, because I had heard that some programs would automatically pop up strange things. Fortunately, nothing happened. There was only a website address in the memory card.
After opening the website, there was only a landscape picture on the whole website, and there were no other links. I didn’t believe it. I scrolled up and down with the mouse wheel for a long time before I found that there was a link hidden at the bottom of the web page. However, the color of the link was adjusted to be the same as the background color of the web page. You had to select all the content of the web page to see it.
Who would go to such lengths to hide a website?
I clicked on the link, and the picture that popped up at the beginning scared me out of my wits: it was actually a horror comic.
Since the day Ziyan disappeared, my heart had been in a state of tension. This terrifying image that suddenly struck me almost made me fall.
So, I was alone in the rented basement room in the middle of the night, carefully reading a strange horror comic, for fear of missing any clues. Whenever I found myself too immersed, I had to think of some happy things to force myself back to reality.
Moreover, I didn’t dare to relax my vigilance and had to always pay attention to whether there were other people’s footsteps outside…
The comic told the story of a man who was cursed because of trivial matters. He must never look in the mirror. If he saw his own face in the mirror, something strange would definitely happen.
Therefore, he tried his best to avoid mirrors.
However, just when he thought he had avoided all the mirrors and was chatting with his friends online, the computer suddenly shut down. The black – screen computer reflected his own face.
The him in the “mirror” gradually changed into another person: his face was distorted, and his eyes were bleeding.
Then, that picture suddenly moved. The bloody face got closer and closer and flew out directly from the computer screen!
05
Unexpectedly, the last picture of the horror comic was an animated GIF.
I lay on the bed for a full half – hour before I completely calmed down my emotions.
I noticed that in the last animated picture, when the “person” flying out of the computer opened his mouth, there was a line of website address marked in his mouth.
Should I really continue? I asked myself. If I didn’t finish reading the comic, I definitely couldn’t see the last website address. It was like this, one link after another. What on earth were they trying to hide?
No, I couldn’t stop. It was better to say that I had no choice at all.
The new website looked ordinary, like an ordinary lending website. Only when registering, you needed to pay a “sponsorship fee” to the website.
After transferring the money, I began to regret it. What if the website used my money to do illegal things? Wouldn’t I become an accomplice?
But life is like a roller – coaster, only constantly rolling and screaming forward, but there is no possibility of stopping at all.
I entered the “inner site” of the website – I saw those sections that I didn’t have permission to view if I didn’t log in.
It turned out that this website was an online escape room puzzle – solving game website.
I had played some simple flash escape room games before, but the one in front of me was much more bloody than what I had come into contact with.
Using broken limbs as conductors, cutting off one’s little finger as a key… If the puzzle was answered wrong, the player would also suffer cruel punishment: a red light flashed, and splattered blood dots instantly covered the entire screen.
To pass this escape room game, you had to endure nausea and fear, and also keep calm and sharp – eyed. The escape room was not very difficult, but normal people would definitely quit because of such twisted puzzles.
After breaking through the first escape room, under the prompt of the lending advertisement that popped up, I entered the second escape room.
It turned out that this escape room game was progressive. You could only enter the second one after escaping the first one, and there were a total of thirteen escape rooms.
It took me two days to completely break through all the escape rooms.
By this time, it was already the weekend, and it had been almost a week since Ziyan’s disappearance.
06
Pushing open the last door of the escape room, I got a download address of a software and two machine codes.
Binding the machine codes to the computer and mobile phone respectively, in this way, I could smoothly log in to the mysterious software.
But I didn’t expect what kind of hell on earth was waiting for me.
In the video software, different escape room games were being live – broadcasted online. Compared with the thirteen escape rooms I had just broken through, the puzzles in the live – broadcasted games were even more difficult.
The only difference was that all the bleeding events in the videos were really happening.
Players of different skin colors in the videos wailed and cursed in different languages. Distorted and complex expressions such as anger, fanaticism, and satisfaction appeared on their faces.
Rather than saying that they loved escape rooms, it was better to say that they were keen on even more brutal things.
Because in each game, the first player to pass through all the escape rooms could get extremely attractive prizes: a brand – new identity in any country, ten bitcoins, and “a girl”.
A trembling girl was tied up with colorful ribbons. When the “player” of the escape room passed through the last level and pushed open the door of the prize, they could see the girl who was blindfolded and had her hands and feet bound as the “prize”.
The winner could execute the girl at will, which was also the most brutal and eye – catching part of the entire “escape room game”.
If the “player”’s self – harm during the game was based on their own will, then the execution of the “prize” was a blatant act of violence against the weak.
I trembled as I clicked on the “Past Review” videos on the website.
The screams of the victims, the laughter of the “players”, and the various filthy words constantly scrolling on the screen.
I knew that those “viewers” must be the most despicable and vile people in the world, but I could do nothing about them.
I couldn’t stop them, just as I couldn’t stop the malice of the whole world.
Perhaps to increase the value of each “prize”, each victim would have a detailed exclusive introduction. I guessed that each “prize” had been secretly monitored for a while before being restricted of their personal freedom.
The girl’s background, her ideals, the person she liked the most… The victim’s privacy was exposed just to increase the value when she was destroyed.
What kind of people were behind this video software, playing with the lives of the innocent?
Just as I was filled with grief and indignation and clicked on the “prize” of the next game, my originally tightened heart began to beat violently. The sound of my heartbeat was like continuous explosions in my mind, and the aftershocks made my hands tremble.
– I saw Ziyan.
07
“Poor girl Ziyan, 25 years old, a young accountant who graduated from a key university, a senior viewer and player of this escape room website.
“Old player Ziyan owed a certain amount of loans to the lending department of this website. So we assigned Ziyan a simple task: as long as Ziyan introduced a beautiful female friend to us, all her debts could be written off.
“We set the place to take away Ziyan’s friend at the escape room game hall. For this, this website even bribed the store clerk to ensure that we could take away that girl in the dark during a specific part of the game.
“But at the critical moment, Ziyan had a change of heart. She walked to the position where her friend should have been and was taken away instead of her friend.
“Unfortunately, great friendship cannot be used to repay debts. Ziyan has become the prize of this period! It’s touching!”
After reading the “prize introduction”, I was dripping with cold sweat, and anger and fear welled up in my heart at the same time.
Perhaps I had been targeted by the masterminds behind this website a long time ago. I realized this only after Ziyan disappeared, being slow to react.
The so – called “fifth person” was not summoned by the “Four – Corner Game” but had been hiding at the scene for a long time.
The owner of the escape room game and the other two players had been bribed, so I couldn’t find any clues about Ziyan’s disappearance.
If Ziyan hadn’t had a change of heart at the last moment, and if I hadn’t shouted loudly at that time, the “prize” that appeared on the web page now would be me.
Although Ziyan had betrayed me, she finally chose to become the prey in the hands of others…
At this moment, I suddenly thought: Could it be Ziyan who sent the photo of me and the memory card to my roommate?
According to her original plan, if I disappeared and she was also controlled by the masterminds and lost her personal freedom, my roommate might be able to find me step by step according to the guidance. The secretly – taken photo was to make my roommate sense the crisis.
The innocent smiling face of Ziyan appeared in my mind again. I never thought that she had fallen so deep into the quagmire.
Holding back my tears, I clicked on the video below the text introduction.
Ziyan was locked in an iron cage like an animal. The person who delivered the meal casually threw the rice bowl on the ground, and the rice grains scattered all over the place. Although Ziyan looked haggard, she didn’t pounce on the food. Instead, she stared at the person delivering the meal with cold eyes.
I understood. Those masterminds behind the scenes wanted to crush Ziyan’s dignity. The colder her eyes were, the more excited the hundreds of viewers behind the screen would be when she screamed.
I bit my lips until they bled, vowing to save Ziyan.
If I didn’t save her, she would surely be brutally killed in front of the eyes of these lunatics!
I downloaded the online video to my computer by reading the web page code. By continuously reducing the noise of the audio, I could hear a sentence that the person who delivered the meal to Ziyan said:
“It’s meal time.”
I unconsciously moved closer to the speaker and played the same sentence three times.
Yes, this sentence was in our local dialect.
Ziyan might not have been transferred away. She was still imprisoned in our city… Thinking of this, a glimmer of hope rose in my heart.
I enlarged every corner of the video screen one by one, hoping to get some clues from their clothes and actions, but I failed.
However, when I enlarged the disposable paper bowl for holding the rice, I found something strange.
I was a bit familiar with the pattern of the paper bowl.
This was the disposable paper bowl of our local supermarket’s own brand!
In other words, Ziyan was very likely to be imprisoned in a place very close to our local supermarket.
If I was given more time, I was sure I could lock down the location where Ziyan was.
However, today was the weekend, and the flashing red light on the website reminded me that this escape room game was about to start.
Twenty escape rooms around the world would be opened for challenge at the same time. Ziyan, as the “prize” of one of the escape rooms, would be in great danger once a player passed the escape room game.
08
“Call the police first,” I said in a low voice.
After thinking it over, I still called my friend to help me. It was really too difficult for me to do it alone.
“Calling the police means we have to stay and make a statement. Do you think there’s still time?” my friend asked worriedly.
No, there wasn’t enough time. I grabbed my hair in regret. If I could have solved those escape room games earlier, would I have been able to see Ziyan earlier?
Perhaps seeing me crying, my friend leaned over and grabbed my wrist. “Don’t cry. There’s not much time left. Don’t give up the last chance.”
I looked up and saw his melancholy and delicate face.
The air – conditioner in the coffee shop was set at a very low temperature. I was shivering all over, and only my wrist felt a bit warm.
After a while, he asked softly, “Can we go over the clues again?”
I sobbed and put the phone with the live – broadcast on the table between us.
“The game is about to start. Ziyan has been moved to a new room. There’s only one door in the new room, so I infer that Ziyan is the final prize. The first ‘player’ to pass the game can execute Ziyan in the room.”
My friend looked at the phone worriedly and then at me.
I continued, “Remember what I analyzed with you before? The place that can detain Ziyan and arrange the escape room is unlikely to be in a noisy hotel or inn. So I’ve narrowed the scope to relatively remote places, those residential areas about to be demolished and idle buildings.”
As I spoke, I took out the map of the city and unfolded it. The map was already scribbled all over by me.
“I remember you said it should be near that supermarket…” my friend pointed at the map hesitantly.
“Yes, in this way, the scope is narrowed down to only two buildings,” I said.
I circled two landmarks on the map with a pen. One was an office building that had stopped construction, and the other was a commercial supermarket building that had been abandoned for several years.
Only these two buildings met the conditions of being local, having enough space, being near a specific supermarket, and attracting less attention.
My friend hesitated, “But we still have to choose one of the two, and one is in the northeast, and the other is in the southwest. We simply can’t make it in time…”
“There’s one thing I just noticed while talking to you. Because Ziyan moved, there are new clues,” I tapped the phone screen. “Look at the position where Ziyan is being detained now, look at the window!”
On the screen, Ziyan was sitting on a chair in the middle of the room, tied up as the “prize”. There was only one closed door and one window with the curtains tightly drawn in the room where she was.
Outside the window, colorful lights kept shining, even illuminating half of Ziyan’s cheek.
“With the location of the commercial supermarket building, there won’t be too much traffic flow nearby at this time. The light outside the window can’t be this strong,” I said. “Across the street from the office building, there is another office building, and the building body of that building is a huge LED screen. The light reflected outside Ziyan’s window should be the light from the advertisement on the LED screen, not the light from the traffic flow! The light from the traffic flow shouldn’t be this colorful.”
My friend thought for a moment and nodded, understanding what I meant. He grabbed me and rushed out of the coffee shop, then started the car.
The only problem I couldn’t figure out was which floor Ziyan was on now. I couldn’t directly rush to the floor where Ziyan was. Moreover, other passages might be blocked. The only way…
I sat in the car, took out scissors from my pocket, cut off my long hair, and even shaved off half of my eyebrows.
“Are you crazy?” my friend asked eagerly, trying to turn his head.
“I’m going to save Ziyan. Maybe the only way to save her is for me to also participate in the escape room game,” I said hatefully. “These bastards treat girls as prey. Even if I’m caught, I will never yield to them.”
My friend sighed and nodded.
“Am I ugly?” I rubbed my cut hair and asked.
He smiled softly, “You’re both sweet and cool.”
09
After my friend sent me to the place, I found that the office building that had stopped construction for a long time was actually surrounded by baffles, and there seemed to be someone guarding it.
This was unusual. My heart became heavier and heavier. Ziyan should be in that building.
“I’m going to break through the levels and save Ziyan,” I commanded my friend. “You go and call the police immediately and bring them here quickly.”
He got out of the car with a distressed look on his face and grabbed my arm.
“Let me go instead. It’s too dangerous. You go and call the police,” he said hesitantly.
I chuckled, “But you don’t know how to play escape room games, do you?”
The puzzles in the escape room were simple, but not everyone could solve them easily. What’s more, the puzzles of this real – person game were full of cruel traps. One careless move could even cost one’s life.
“Don’t be brave. Don’t waste my time. Go!” I pushed him hard towards the car.
“The matter of Ziyan is not your responsibility. Don’t push yourself so hard…”
I put my right index finger to my lips to make him shut up and pushed him again, telling him to leave quickly.
“Be careful and keep in touch with me at any time,” my friend said.
I hugged him as if it was a farewell.
Just as Ziyan dragged me into this out – of – control life, I also brought him an excessive burden.
Watching his car gradually drive away, I silently wiped the tears from the corners of my eyes again.
I had to rely on my own strength to save Ziyan and reverse everything.
I rushed towards the office building. Sure enough, two ill – intentioned security guards came up to stop me. I showed them my phone that was in the middle of a live – broadcast and clearly told them that I was also a “player”.
Although I was a late – comer, they had no reason to refuse.
In this escape room game, even the “players” were just sacrifices to please the audience outside the screen. One more was of course okay.
Sure enough, after looking at my ID, I was allowed to enter the office building.
The elevator had stopped running. The ground without floor tiles was bumpy, covered with thick dust and gravel particles. After going up to the fourth floor by stairs, I found that the corridor had indeed been renovated.
This building had become the scene of a bloody real – person escape room game, and I couldn’t turn back.
I looked down at my phone, and the video was locked on the room of the “prize” Ziyan.
Poor Ziyan was still trying to break free from the bindings.
Ziyan, hold on. For you, I will do my best.
No one can stop me.
After the first escape room door opened, I also encountered the first puzzle: I had to make out the opening password whispered by a man among the screams of more than a dozen speakers;
The puzzle of the second escape room was to find the broken limbs of the blood – stained little girl doll in the paint pool and piece them together on the mechanism like a jigsaw puzzle. As a result, my arms were dyed bright red;
In the third escape room, I saw the body of the previous player. I picked him up and connected his arms to the two poles of the power supply to open the door…
None of these thirteen escape rooms was not terrifying, and yet I solved them one by one.
I could feel that I was becoming different from myself…
However, it was all over. Behind the thirteen doors was the final “prize”.
During the process of solving the puzzles, I stepped over the bodies of three “players” in total. If I wasn’t mistaken, I should be the first “player” to solve all the puzzles of this escape room.
Ziyan was waiting for me behind the door.
I slapped the last door hard and shouted loudly, telling those masterminds behind the scenes to open the door quickly.
From the screen, the sound of slapping the door also came from Ziyan’s room.
Ziyan, wait for me.
Wait for me!
10
The moment the door opened, my heart was in my throat. The kidnapped girl was trembling behind the door, waiting for me. She was scared and was about to be free…
– But she wasn’t Ziyan.
The blindfolded girl sobbed, shrank back, and was afraid of my approaching.
However, I didn’t know her.
My brain “buzzed” and my mind went blank. It was as if all this was just a dream.
I looked down at the live – broadcasting phone. A person also broke into Ziyan’s room, but it wasn’t me. He didn’t seem like a good person either. He was more like another “player”.
Ziyan broke free from the bindings of her hands and took off the blindfold, but the “player” she faced suddenly took out a shiny blade and stabbed it into Ziyan’s abdomen.
Ziyan’s scream, accompanied by a ferocious laugh, burst out from the phone’s speaker, extremely ear – piercing.
…What went wrong? Where on earth did it go wrong?
I stared closely at the phone, tears streaming down my face. Scenes from these days flashed before my eyes quickly.
I remembered the man who tried to open the anti – theft door of my friend’s house that night.
Could it be that I had been under their surveillance all along…
I remembered the introduction about Ziyan when I saw her on the website.
Thinking about it now, that introduction was clearly aimed at me! Those words were to stimulate me, making me step deeper and deeper into this “game”.
That is to say, as soon as I logged into their video software, I had been identified by these masterminds behind the scenes… If I hadn’t downloaded the video software, Ziyan might have lived a little longer…
What else… What else did I overlook…
On the screen, Ziyan covered her abdomen and staggered away. She ran to the curtain. Was she going to jump out of the window?!
No, Ziyan, you’ll die!
Could it be that no matter what, she didn’t want to become a plaything in the hands of those ugly villains?
The window…
Only then did I figure it out. The key clue that led me to this escape room was – the window!
“Ah – ah – ah – ah – ah – ah – ah!”
I screamed non – stop. My shrill voice made the girl in front of me collapse to the ground in fear.
I didn’t care about her at all. Instead, I rushed towards the window like crazy…
Ziyan and I in the screen tore off the curtain at the same time.
Ziyan in the screen stood there in shock. The sense of fear that welled up also flew out of the screen and pierced through me.
Yes, I stood in front of the window, looking at the huge LED screen across the street that covered the building body. The bright light almost enveloped my whole body.
And on the phone screen, what Ziyan faced was a small screen embedded in the wall, emitting colorful light.
Ziyan’s room didn’t have a window at all.
The so – called “light outside the window” just came from the small screen behind the curtain.
I was fooled.
The screen faked the light of the window, tricking Ziyan and me.
I was fooled.
I had misjudged the location of Ziyan. Ziyan wasn’t in this building, so… where was I?
Ziyan’s sobbing scream came from the phone screen. My tears had blurred my vision. The phone fell to the ground and shattered. I couldn’t watch anymore.
I couldn’t anymore…
Just then, the huge LED screen outside the window suddenly showed colorful and dazzling subtitles:
Welcome
To
Trueman
Room
Escape
(Welcome to the Real – Person Escape Room)
Whose real – person escape room advertisement is this… Why at this time… in this place…
I was completely engulfed by the light, my vision turned white, my consciousness was lost, and I almost fell out of the window.
Just then, a soft voice calling me came from behind.
Although I was in a daze, I still recognized it. It was my friend. He finally finished calling the police and came to pick me up.
I wanted him to take me away quickly. This place was not suitable to stay any longer, and Ziyan was already…
I couldn’t stop crying and couldn’t say a word. I was completely exhausted. I really hoped someone could come and hold my hand, giving me a little warmth…
“You know, while this escape room was going on, another live – broadcast was also taking place,” my friend said, walking closer with his phone held up. “You’re very smart, but you still didn’t see everything.”
In the middle of the phone screen was my panicked face.
My tear – stained face was clearly captured by a camera hidden somewhere.
“Do you want to see Ziyan?” My friend took my hand. His palm was ice – cold. “I’ll take you to see her.”
– The End –
