I see that you, Fang Juexia, are the hardest person in the world
--
Fang Juexia was left stunned for a second.
Clearly, he had been brainstorming just now, calculating the roles the two men in front of him would have, and his own chances of winning, but as soon as he heard Pei Tingsong's words, his high-speed brain ran into a break.
Everytime he malfunctioned, it was because of Pei Tingsong.
"Pa—pa—" The sound of clapping interrupted Fang Juexia's thoughts.
Xia Xiqing, who was standing to the side, put his hands down and exclaimed, "Are all you boyband people this good at playing?"
Pei Tingsong replied bluntly, "We're still inferior to the way you play."
His words made Fang Juexia's thinking system restart again. That was right, Pei Tingsong was just playing games here. Even though his words resulted in complete confusion for Fang Juexia, in fact, he was no different from Xia Xiqing.
No, he may also be gearing for some fanservice aspect here.
He seemed sincere, but in fact, not even half of just one of his words was credible.
"My knight…" Fang Juexia turned his face away, lowered his head, and picked up the appointment form he had deliberately left lying on the table. The corners of his mouth rose, and he said, "You say this as if I am the killer who needs the protection of the black knight."
At the end of his sentence, he raised his head and covered up the short-term panic with his facial expression management skill, which was a basic skill that all idols were required to be very good at. His eyes were both doubtful and calculating as he stared at Pei Tingsong and said, "Just like Xiqing Ge, I don't quite believe in your identity as a knight. And despite his reasoning, I also can't just casually believe him either."
"It's quite obvious that even if I let you guys continue through with your logical persuasions, you still won't tell me any of the whys or wherefores, and there's no action you can take or words you can use that will help me verify your reasoning. So, unless you report your own camp to me, no other argument else will hold water."
Obviously, Xia Xiqing did not choose to directly report his camp.
After listening to Fang Juexia's words, Pei Tingsong did not continue with any of his boyish retorts, nor did he start fighting him; instead, he took Fang Juexia's sudden interrogation quite calmly and replied, "It doesn't matter if you don't believe me. Anyway, at this time, no one can tell if anyone's words are true or false, but everything has its own order."
Fang Juexia's face still maintained a faint smile, and his tone was calm as he said, "It was you who took the initiative first."
Whether it was Xia Xiqing or Pei Tingsong, even though it seemed that the two fake knights were fighting with each other, in fact, they were more attacking Fang Juexia through subtle insinuations.
After saying his piece, Fang Juexia looked down at the appointment form, and found 'Zaozao' written on the second line of it. "There have been only two escape rooms, and two knights have already appeared. No one can be sure whether there really is a killer in our midst, who is stirring up the waters. It seems that both of you want to win my support, but all this does is make me more convinced that I shouldn't act rashly."
Fang Juexia had made his position clear. Contrary to his expectations, Xia Xiqing laughed after hearing this, making it seem as if the destruction of the alliance between the two boy-band members was already a great harvest for him. "What you said is reasonable." He put his hands in his pockets, and his face was relaxed as he continued, "Either way, we first need to understand the plot, or we need to make our escape a priority, so it's unnecessary for the three of us to fight like this right now. There should still be some time before the first round of voting, and we can all slowly chat about it when it comes to that."
Pei Tingsong's eyes narrowed slightly. "Then Xiqing Ge, when you were in that escape room just now, you should have found some clues about the plot ba."
At this point, everyone basically knew that no one was a slouch here, and hiding things now would just serve to make everyone else suspicious. Xia Xiqing generously pulled out a pamphlet that he had stuffed into the pocket of his school uniform pants. "Actually, I wanted to show you guys this before," he gave Pei Tingsong a look before continuing, "but after seeing him put all his attention on solving those puzzles in order to save you, I forgot."
He handed out the pamphlet in his hand. "It's a medical record. The name on it is the same as the nametag on my chest, with only Zaozao written on it. It sounds like it's a nickname or a pseudonym."
Fang Juexia took a hold of the medical record and opened it. Recorded inside were the symptoms of mental illness—
[Name: Zaozao, Gender: Female, Age: 17]
Pei Tingsong was the first to find a bright spot, and exclaimed, "Hey, the gender written here is of a girl."
Xia Xiqing took a look and commented, "Is it? I didn't notice. Probably because they felt I'm not bad-looking, so they gave me a flipped role? Maybe it's a lousy idea that came from the scriptwriter."
Fang Juexia's attention was focused on the medical record, and he said in a soft voice, "The patient was diagnosed with depression on February 10 after displaying symptoms such as a down-cast mood, long-term insomnia and anxiety, mental weakness, fear of social contact and physical contact, and is currently taking…"
Just after hearing the beginning, Pei Tingsong's mouth curled and he remarked, "The character and the person playing her are not alike at all."
Xia Xiqing said with a smile, "I'm actually especially suitable for this kind of miserable character."
"The time on this appointment form is March 2, so that is to say, Zaozao probably came to find…" Fang Juexia looked at Pei Tingsong, who tacitly supplied the name of his identity, "Dr. Tian."
"Yes, she came to see Dr. Tian for a follow-up visit, or for some other psychotherapy." Fang Juexia looked at Xia Xiqing again and asked, "Xiqing Ge, can we go to your room and take a look?"
"Of course. This room may provide some plot clues about Zaozao." Xia Xiqing turned to lead them over. "I thought it was very strange at the beginning. There are very few decorations in this room, which is quite different from the games in the first season. It looks a little bit shoddy."
Indeed, as Xia Xiqing had said, the room was unexpectedly simple; the only things that could be called furnishings were a sofa and a small coffee table. On the coffee table was a landline phone, a handbook on mental health, and then there was an oil painting that had been taken down and set on the sofa.
Seeing Fang Juexia look down at the painting, Xia Xiqing said, "This is Van Gogh's 'Flowering Garden'. I took it down to understand the mystery."
"Van Gogh…" Pei Tingsong sat on the sofa and glanced at the room's wallpaper. It was different from the blue wallpaper in their escape room; it was all pink in here.
Fang Juexia carefully examined the room and kept feeling that something was off. "In the beginning, I thought that, like the first season, each room would be designed according to the player's character persona, to show that it was the room where they stayed and lived in. However, now it doesn't look like that applies here."
Hearing what he said, Xia Xiqing lifted a schoolbag from the sofa and shook out its contents onto the coffee table. "If you want to find out the player's persona, there should be the props prepared by the program group for that purpose."
Spread on the coffee table were two or three brushes, a box of newly bought paint that hadn't been opened yet, high school textbooks, and a leaflet from an art school. Fang Juexia squatted beside the coffee table, subconsciously sorting out these props into a proper order, and then checking them one by one.
Pei Tingong leafed through everything for a bit and guessed, "So this character is a 17-year-old female high school student who is currently studying fine arts. She suffers from depression and came to the Dr. Tian's clinic for medical treatment."
"Not only that, look at this." Xia Xiqing opened the textbook, and there was a torn-up note that had been pasted back together inside it.
Fang Juexia took a look at it. It really had been written in a girl's handwriting, elegant and clean, but it had then been torn to pieces.
Xia Xiqing picked up the posthumous note and read, "By the time you all see this note, I may have already passed away forever. I tried to love the world in the past, but this world didn't even give me a trace of warmth. I know that those who have hurt me will not change because of my absence; they will still continue hurting more children. They will violently tear up our bodies and crush our childhood with the authority they wield. But, at the very least, in this last moment, I have to stand up and expose…"
His voice suddenly stopped. Pei Tingsong, who had still been reading the art school pamphlet, looked up and asked, "What's the matter?"
"There's no more." Xia Xiqing put the suicide note down and replied, "She didn't continue writing after that. When I saw it, it had already become a big pile of fragments, and after I pieced it together, it came out as a complete piece of paper, but the suicide note itself is incomplete."
Pei Tingsong confirmed this in a glance; it really hadn't been written completely. "Could it be like this? The girl wanted to commit suicide before, so she wrote a suicide note in advance, but later on, she had other ideas and regretted her decision, so she tore up the suicide note."
"This logic works." Xia Xiqing put down her suicide note. "I was thinking that in her suicide note, she mentioned 'people who hurt her', as well as 'tearing up bodies' and 'crushing childhood'. These words probably imply that she has been hurt in her childhood. Will there be anyone playing the role of the person who hurt her?"
Xia Xiqing's idea also prompted Fang Juexia to think of something. In the previous season of 'Escape For Your Life', the identity of the killers often corresponded with that of the murderers or perpetrators in the episode plotline. By following this train of thought, they may be able to find the real killer.
They had found the prop that indicated the identity of the character, but what about this escape room? Was there any metaphor hidden here?
Fang Juexia looked around and found that the room didn't even have a bed.
"Xiqing Ge…"
Pei Tingsong, who was sitting to the side, heard Fang Juexia subconsciously call out Xia Xiqing's name. He even went to the extent of affectionately calling this person Gege, which was completely unlike the cold appearance Fang Juexia donned when dealing with himself. Pei Tingsong felt a bit of a bad taste rise up in his heart. Obviously, these matters could also be discussed with him, but Fang Juexia just kept skipping over him.
He also couldn't describe what this feeling was, all he knew was that he felt a little agitated.
Fang Juexia still continued asking Xia Xiqing, "Many rooms in the first season of Escape were bedrooms or studies. What do you think this room looks like?"
Xia Xiqing listened to his tone and soon noticed something. He looked around carefully before glancing over at the door connecting the room to the clinic. Suddenly, he thought of something. "Do you want to say that this might be a waiting room?"
"Yes." Fang Juexia repeatedly nodded. "It's just a guess." He held the appointment form in his hand and pointed to Pei Tingsong. "Xiao Pei is the psychologist, Dr. Tian. You are the patient, Zaozao, who came to the clinic after deciding to give up on the idea of suicide. As for why you are in the waiting room…"
Pei Tingsong took over this explanation, "Because the person who is consulting with the doctor right now is you." He then read out the name of the first person on the reservation form, "Teacher Yan."
Fang Juexia nodded. That was the reason why, when they had just clicked on the screen of the gate door, it had prompted a notification saying that their treatment time wasn't over yet, so they couldn't leave.
"I see." Xia Xiqing laughed. "So, in that case, the rest of the players should also be listed here." He read out everyone's names in turn, "Teacher Yan, Zaozao, Xiao Xi, Zoe. That is to say, there are five players in total this time. One psychologist, and four patients. The teacher and the psychologist were trapped in the clinic together, and the remaining three players have been separated into different waiting rooms."
"It should be that way, that's right." Fang Juexia stood up.
Pei Tingsong, however, leaned back on the sofa as he said, "But right now, we are trapped here, and even if we manage to fumble our way into gaining some clarity on these matters, it'll be of no use. We should first think about how to get out ba."
"How about this? Xiao Pei will have a rest on the sofa first," Xia Xiqing winked at Fang Juexia. "While me and Little Serious here will go look around for the way to unlock the door?"
Pei Tingsong immediately sat up straight, just like a little dog bristling up. "That's no good. What if you guys go out and lock me in, then what will I do?"
Xia Xiqing smiled. "How could we do such a thing?"
"Come on ba, Xiqing Ge." Pei Tingsong pulled up the corners of his mouth. "You guys have done such a thing before, in the first season, and it was even to our senior brother."
Fang Juexia didn't have any attention to spare on these two people who were fighting each other, because his mind was completely occupied with what Xia Xiqing had just said. He kept muttering to himself in a low voice; every time he was thinking seriously, he would be like this. "There is no lock on that door, and just now, the door prompt announced that my consultation time wasn't over yet, so I can't leave…"
Wait a minute.
Only after the previous patient's consultation time was over would the next patient be allowed into the clinic, and they would have to wait in this waiting room till then.
He suddenly thought of something. He then raised himself to stand up, but his legs were numb, and all of a sudden, his legs felt a little soft. He uncontrollably started tilting towards the sofa, almost ending up falling on Pei Tingsong's body. Pei Tingsong hurried to help him, and pulled him to his side before making him sit him down. He said mercilessly, "Your legs get soft too easily."
Xia Xiqing suddenly laughed, and unexpectedly followed up on Pei Tingsong's words with, "Yes ah, you haven't even done anything yet, and your legs have gone soft."
Pei Tingsong abruptly changed the topic, "By the way, what did you want to say just now that you went and suddenly stood up?"
Fang Juexia didn't notice any problem with the direction of the conversation; his whole person was concentrated on the numbing torture he could feel coming from his legs, and he couldn't think at all. On the contrary, Pei Tingsong immediately released Fang Juexia's hand and moved to the other side of the sofa.
Fang Juexia rubbed his legs, leaned over, and asked, "Xiqing Ge, you said your escape room was relatively simple, so could it be that it has been intentionally set this way by the screenwriter?"
Xia Xiqing squinted, thought for a few seconds, and suddenly got Fang Juexia's meaning. "You mean to say, they gave me a simple escape room, in the hopes that I will enter your guys' room early."
Pei Tingsong also saw the light. "The general logic should be to allocate the players, according to their ability, into rooms with corresponding difficulty. Giving you, such a high-level player, a simple escape room, while completely tying up us newbies, was to ensure that you would definitely enter our room before we left it. Specifically, that you would enter the clinic."
After arriving at this conclusion, the three people stood up at the same time, with Pei Tingsong instinctively helping Fang Juexia a bit. Fang Juexia raised his head and whispered, "My legs aren't soft anymore." And then, he walked faster than anyone else.
Already feeling not soft so quickly, he was so freaking strong.
I see that you, Fang Juexia, are the hardest person in the world; your legs are hard, and your heart is also hard.
Pei Tingsong rolled his eyes behind him, but he still followed Fang Juexia. Going through the door connecting the two chambers, they returned to the psychiatrist's office and stood in front of the black door in that room.
"I hope we thought right." Fang Juexia clicked on the dark screen. This time, there was no Greek letter flashing on it, and neither did any sound come out of it, indicating that the treatment time wasn't over yet.
But at the same time, no new Greek letter or puzzle appeared on it, which was contrary to what the three of them had imagined would be.
Just when Fang Juexia was feeling confused, a new tone sounded out—
"Hello, your consultation time is over. Please follow the instructions to find the right exit and leave the clinic."
Sure enough, it wasn't that simple.
Only Pei Tingsong grabbed at the word, "The right exit…"
All of a sudden, the speaker in the room let out some noise. It was the signal that cued the narrator's announcement—
"Please note that two players have already left their initialization rooms and entered the public area."
This kind of announcement would undoubtedly increase the other players' psychological burden. However, Fang Juexia didn't feel any such thing; in general, the most difficult tasks in the whole game were either to break out of the public area or to restore the plot.
Xia Xiqing joked, "This room is really difficult, there are a lot of checkpoints, and they're all scattered around. You guys are very unlucky, you're fast catching up on my hell dungeon from the second episode of the first season."
Fang Juexia knew the score in his heart. This room was the psychiatrist's office, so naturally, its difficulty level would be high. As idols, they were used to being used as fringe decoration in many variety shows. Now it seemed that Escape For Your Life's program group liked to do just the opposite of that. By giving the two of them the hardest room at the beginning itself, if they solved it, it would make the audience feel like this was a twist; and if they couldn't solve it, there was still Xia Xiqing who would eventually enter the room to help them.
While he was thinking that, he saw Xia Xiqing's eyes being drawn to the painting by the door.
"Based on past experience, all paintings have puzzles in them." Xia Xiqing tried to take down the painting on the wall, but found it was very much fixed in its place. "The people in the props group have really worked hard."
Fang Juexia wouldn't usually pay much attention to the contents of a painting, while on the contrary, Pei Tingsong opened his mouth. "I just wanted to say that the painting technique used in this painting is a little special. There are no outlines of anything, it's all made up of squares." He consulted Xia Xiqing, "Xiqing Ge, I have to trouble you for a layman's explanation."
Xia Xiqing laughed and commented, "You are actually the first person who has taken the initiative to ask me to give a layman's explanation of a painting on this program."
Pei Tingsong shrugged. "Philosophy and the Arts can also count as having come from the same place."
"You're very good at talking." Xia Xiqing looked at the painting and explained, "This is actually a world-famous painting, Peter Mondrian's 'Composition with Red Blue and Yellow', and you're not wrong in saying that the painting is made out of squares. What you just mentioned, the missing outline of things, is a characteristic of the classical style, that is, a style inspired by nature. Artists know that nature is beautiful, so they paint nature and people to show beauty. Mondrian's use of squares in painting is another innovation, that of abstractionism. He tried to explore whether beauty would still exist after all external forms are abandoned."
Fang Juexia looked at the painting in front of him. Countless horizontal and vertical black lines formed large and small squares, which were filled with colors. He didn't know if it was because he had been born liking precision and clarity, but such a strict lattice-style painting filled with artistic color was indeed beautiful to his eyes.
Pei Tingsong nodded. "That is to say, his lattice-style actually deconstructed the world, making horizontal and vertical lines stand in as the essence of the world."
"It could be understood in that way." Xia Xiqing was a little surprised, not having thought that a boy who had just recently turned 20 would have such a high understanding of art. "This is a kind of artistic pursuit into the essence of the world."
Strangely, these words happened to touch both Fang Juexia and Pei Tingsong. In common perceptions, philosophy and mathematics were both disciplines that explored the essence of the world. Although they often couldn't intersect, at this moment, the purpose of their search could actually be represented in a form of artistic expression; it was really too interesting.
"They're quite good at choosing paintings. This painting is what Mondrian created while seeking inner peace, which fits with the setting of it being a decoration in a psychiatrist's office."
Fang Juexia couldn't help saying, "Although I have never studied paintings, seeing this reminds me of Pythagoras."
Xia Xiqing laughed. "That's true, maybe they're all geometric monsters ba, but Pythagoras may prefer triangles. If you put a diagonal line down across it, it's more like…" He kept talking as he stretched out a finger and drew a line down the painting, but then, he suddenly looked like he had found something. "Huh?"
He put both his palms on the painting and felt the entire picture.
Pei Tingsong asked, "What's the matter? What's wrong?"
Xia Xiqing didn't look back, and instead asked them, "Is E the fifth letter in the Greek alphabet?"
Fang Juexia nodded, "That's right."
"The last clue is hidden in this lattice painting." Xia Xiqing grabbed Fang Juexia's hand and put it on the painting. "Touch it. Some of the horizontal and vertical lines on the painting stick out, and the protruding part forms the shape of an E."
Sure enough, the lines did.
"Really, this is pretty hard to find." Fang Juexia showed a surprised look and looked back at Pei Tingsong, but the expression on the other party's face didn't look so good.
What was going on with him?
Xia Xiqing tried to push the protruding line with his fingers, and unexpectedly, the lines creating the shape of the Greek letter ended up being twisted by him.
All of a sudden, the screen next to the door on their right lit up again, and a small ε appeared on it. At the same time, the picture in front of them suddenly moved!
Xia Xiqing and Fang Juexia let go and stepped back. He watched the painting split in the middle, just as if it had been cut in two, with one half moving up, while the other half moved down, both halves shifting in different directions. Their movement continued until the upper half of the painting exceeded the height of the right door and the lower half touched the ground, and it was only then that both these halves came to a stop.
"There's a rail in this wall." Pei Tingsong felt that such a thing was quite unbelievable, even though he had seen how skilled this show's props group was in the previous season.
Under the wallpaper was a sliding rail, and its width was exactly the same as the width of the painting. It seemed that the program group had been waiting for them to discover the riddle in the painting, after which they started the corresponding mechanism.
The sliding picture frame and guide rail had cut into the blue wallpaper, and as the torn wallpaper swayed, half of it scattered down, revealing a white part hidden under it. They originally thought that this was a wall, but when Xia Xiqing tore off the rest of the wallpaper covering the sliding rail, a brand-new white door was on display in front of them.
And in that spot, where the picture had just been hanging, was now the same display screen that was on the door to their right.
Who could believe that there were actually two doors in this escape room?!
Pei Tingsong understood. "It turns out that this is what that 'right door' meant."
The two screens lit up at the same time, and a new prompt was issued out simultaneously, "Hello patient, your consultation time is over, and you can leave now."
The AI lock on the white gate sounded out in an electronic voice, "We are the AI locks of these two gates. Under our specially designed program settings, what one of us says will always be true, and what the other one says will never be true."
The AI lock on the black door added, "If all of you are asked to directly choose a door, your success rate is only 50%, so you all have the right to ask a question, only one question, for which our answer will only be a yes or no. Please think carefully. Once the wrong choice is made, we will lock both the doors, and you can only try again after an hour passes."
Two doors, they could only ask one question, with one lock speaking only the truth and one speaking falsehood, and both of them could only answer with a yes or no.
This was a logic problem.
Fang Juexia tried to simplify and formalize the question, and quickly tried to deduce it in his mind, but he was a little late.
"I'll go?"
"So fast?" Xia Xiqing glanced at him. "If you're wrong, we'll have to wait for an hour."
Upon hearing Pei Tingsong's voice, Fang Juexia gave him a sideways glance. Seeing his expression radiating confidence, he surmised that this person must already have the answer. That made sense, Pei Tingsong was someone who had really studied systematic logic.
Fang Juexia nodded and chose to believe him.
Since he wanted to listen to Pei Tingsong's questions carefully, he observed Pei Tingsong cross his arms across his chest and get ready to open his mouth, but unexpectedly, this guy asked him, "Ge, which door do you like? White or black?"
Upon suddenly being faced with a question, Fang Juexia froze. He didn't know whether he had short-circuited because of this "Ge" or because of his inexplicable question.
"En…" Fang Juexia pointed with his finger. "White ba, the new door."
Xia Xiqing's eyes jumped back and forth between these two people, with an expression that showed how particularly interesting he found this duo's interactions. Sure enough, he preferred to observe people's hearts rather than grapple with such a tortuous problem belonging to the realm of cold logic.
"Alright." Pei Tingsong stood in front of the white door and raised this valuable question—
"Excuse me, you guys, will the other AI say that this door is the real exit?"