It was Zhou Ziheng's voice. Xia Xiqing wiped his face after leaving his memories, walked to the carpet and sat cross-legged. Just as he expected, the blue button he saw before really represented Zhou Ziheng.
"I can hear you." The moment he responded, Xia Xiqing had an idea in his mind, and he immediately asked, "Did you also turn the blue knob just now?"
"Yes." Zhou Ziheng replied affirmatively, "Does your radio also have three knobs? Two red and one blue?"
"Yes." Xia Xiqing stared at the knob, and his thoughts were confirmed. "I know, this radio actually has the function of a walkie-talkie, but the condition is that two people have to rotate the knob representing each other at the same time to connect the signal." Xia Xiqing sighed, propped his elbow on the small round table, and said lazily to Zhou Ziheng on the other end of the walkie-talkie, "I've been waiting for you for a long time."
Zhou Ziheng's heart pounded when he heard this, but before he could think of what to say, Xia Xiqing changed the subject again, "What does your room look like? This side seems to be a bedroom, probably a boy's bedroom."
"This seems to be the bedroom as well." Zhou Ziheng turned around and looked around.
They're all bedrooms? What a coincidence.
While fiddling with the knobs on the radio, Xia Xiqing asked, "Are there letters underneath the red knobs on your radio?"
"That's right, one is marked with 0, and the other is not."
Do all people have the same settings? Xia Xiqing glanced at the row of knobs, reached out and tried to turn the red one next to him. As soon as he turned it, the sound of the radio became blurred again, turning into a noise without a human voice.
The signal is cut off
He immediately turned on the blue knob and closed the red one, and Zhou Ziheng's voice reappeared: "What happened just now? There was no sound all of a sudden."
"I just turned on another knob. It seems that this radio can only connect to two rooms at a time. If one of the people selects the knob of another room, the signal will be interrupted."
"The threshold is really high." Zhou Ziheng joked.
Xia Xiqing almost without thinking gave an inappropriate metaphor, "It's just like falling in love, it has to be mutual." As soon as he said this, he regretted it a little.
Zhou Ziheng remained silent for a long time, and Xia Xiqing didn't know if he was thinking about the same nonsense he said when he forcefully kissed him that day, just like himself.
But he didn't expect that Zhou Ziheng didn't think the same as him. He was happy for a while about the word "mutual love", but still felt a little embarrassed, so he didn't say anything.
The atmosphere suddenly became a little awkward. Xia Xiqing stood up and walked around the room, trying to give each other some space.
Strangely, this room has no door lock. There is a square area on the door with only a small puzzle piece embedded in it. The rest is blank. Xia Xiqing tried to remove the puzzle piece by hand and found that it was fixed on the door. But strangely, the edge of the fixed puzzle piece also has a circle of grooves that fit the shape of the puzzle perfectly, just like many items in this room.
"There should be other puzzles in this room. Could it be that I need to collect all the puzzles to open the room..." Xia Xiqing muttered to herself, but Zhou Ziheng spoke up, "You mean the puzzle? There is a puzzle in my room, too."
"Really?" Xia Xiqing was a little surprised. According to the last time the program set up the secret room, this was not very reasonable, because each secret room in the last episode had a completely different decryption method, and the props were also very diverse. But this time it was different, there were so many similarities.
"Well, I just found a puzzle piece in the book on the desk, but there was only one piece. I searched for a long time at first but couldn't find a suitable place to put the puzzle piece."
The more Xia Xiqing listened, the more strange it seemed to him. He followed Zhou Ziheng's instructions and walked to the desk in his room. "And then?"
"Then I found a square blank area on the door of the room. Since the puzzle has two vertical sides, I tried to put it in and found that it fit perfectly. It seemed to be magnetic, so I put it there."
Door
There was a puzzle piece placed on his door in advance, but Zhou Ziheng had to put the puzzle piece on it himself.
How is this going
"Where did you put the puzzle? Top left?"
"Yes, the upper left corner is perfect for it."
"Is there a groove around your puzzle too?"
"Yes, how did you know?"
"Mine has it, too, and a lot of things in this room have grooves."
Xia Xiqing stopped asking questions. He felt that things were starting to get a little clear, but only a little. He knew that he must not panic now. He had to accumulate clues layer by layer to figure it out. Zhou Ziheng just mentioned the desk. Xia Xiqing felt that there must be other clues on his desk. Strangely, when he walked over to the desk, he found that there was also a butterfly specimen in the drawer of the desk.
The butterfly appeared a second time, which meant it was definitely not a coincidence.
“Are there butterflies in your room?”
"Butterfly?" Zhou Ziheng's voice was clearly puzzled. "There is no butterfly."
Xia Xiqing was puzzled. "Does your desk have a drawer? Are there any butterflies on or near the drawer?"
Zhou Ziheng lowered his head and checked. "There is a drawer, but no butterfly. But there is a four-digit combination lock."
Combination lock? Xia Xiqing checked his drawer again and found no combination lock. He tried to open it and found that the drawer was indeed locked, but there was no keyhole or lock. He looked at the butterfly specimen on the drawer, wondering if the specimen was hiding the keyhole, so he took the butterfly down and found that there was no keyhole, but there were a few small words written on it.
[the last one]
Xia Xiqing looked down at his dark blue shirt and thought of the idea he had rejected before. Perhaps he and Zhou Ziheng were really grouped together by the program team, so their rooms had very similar layouts, but not exactly the same. In this case, the two might need to cooperate with each other to unlock some of the codes in the room.
He tried to verify his guess.
"Are there any books on your desk?"
Zhou Ziheng's answer came quickly, "Yes, there are three."
Xia Xiqing counted his books and found that there were indeed three of them. This seemed to be closer to his idea. "What is the name of the first one?"
"Chaos Theory." Zhou Ziheng also realized something, "Yours too?"
"Yes, that's right." This book, Chaos Theory, was the one Xia Xiqing flipped through to find the first butterfly. Fortunately, when he took out the bookmark, he turned the book upside down on the table, so that the page with the butterfly specimen was preserved. "I also have this book on my desk, and there is a butterfly bookmark inside. I just took it out."
"Bookmark?" Zhou Ziheng flipped through the book "Chaos Theory" in his hand, but did not find any bookmarks from beginning to end. "There is no bookmark in my book. Which page did you see it on?"
Xia Xiqing turned the book over and looked at the page number. "Page 377."
"Page 377..." Zhou Ziheng muttered to himself and repeated the page number Xia Xiqing had mentioned. He found that this chapter was about the butterfly effect. "Butterfly effect?"
"Yes, it's about the butterfly effect. It seems that our books are exactly the same." Xia Xiqing felt a little strange. "Does chaos belong to physics? I don't know much about this."
Zhou Ziheng gave an affirmative answer, "Well, to be more precise, it belongs to deterministic dynamics. The concept of chaos means that the overall evolution of a system is largely determined by the initial state, or is sensitive to the initial state."
Although Xia Xiqing was good at math, he was an arts student majoring in liberal arts. He leaned back in his chair, flipping through a book while laughing and joking, "Speak human language."
Zhou Ziheng chuckled softly, then patiently explained, "The 'system' we are talking about here has a wide range, such as continuous events in time. For example, when you went out this morning, you were struggling to decide whether to wear a white shirt or a black shirt, and then you chose the white one you like. Normally, you would buy a cup of coffee before going to work, but today you were afraid that your clothes would get dirty, so you gave up the coffee and drove directly to work as soon as you left the house."
Zhou Ziheng tried to explain this complex and mysterious concept in the simplest language. "Usually, the time you buy coffee will cause you to miss the best time to avoid the morning rush hour, so you often encounter traffic jams. But today, you didn't buy coffee and happened to avoid it. You drove to the downstairs of the company with green lights. You became the first person to go to work in the company. It happened that the boss had an urgent meeting and had to bring an assistant. He chose you, so you took a plane to Brazil with the boss. As a result, an accident occurred during the landing, and you became one of the passengers who died."
Xia Xiqing, who had been listening to the story carefully, heard the mysterious ending and laughed out of anger, "What about passengers who died? You are really good at making it up."
Zhou Ziheng on the other end also laughed. His slightly low laughter sounded particularly pleasant amid the crackling electrical signals. "It's just an analogy because I'm too lazy to make it up." He then asked, "So, have you ever thought about what the outcome would be if you had chosen a black shirt that morning?"
If I had chosen a black shirt...
"I will still go to the coffee shop as usual, get stuck in traffic as usual, be late for work, and my boss will not promote me to a meeting, so I won't take that flight." Xia Xiqing followed Zhou Ziheng's train of thought.
"It is very likely to be the case. This is what I mean. In chaos theory, the evolution of a system is very sensitive to its initial state. You can regard 'wearing a white shirt' and 'wearing a black shirt' as two different initial states. They may affect the development of a series of subsequent events." Zhou Ziheng added, "The butterfly effect is an important part of chaos theory."
Unprepared, the two people blurted out and quoted the most classic saying about the butterfly effect at the same time, "The occasional flutter of a butterfly's wings in the Amazon rainforest may cause a tornado in Texas, USA two weeks later."
After saying this, both of them were stunned for a moment, and then started laughing again.
Zhou Ziheng sighed and said, "So, we never know when a choice will cause irreversible changes in our lives."
When Xia Xiqing heard him say this, a thought suddenly popped up in his mind: if Xu Qichen had not given him the VIP ticket to the movie launch conference at that time, and he had not actually gone to the scene, would everything have started
No, why should I feel emotional
"What’s wrong with you?"
Xia Xiqing came back to his senses, "Nothing, I just don't think there's any need to think about this kind of thing."
"Of course there is." Zhou Ziheng's tone clearly showed his opposition to this conclusion, although he didn't know that Xia Xiqing's words were just to cover up his distraction. "Chaos theory is the third revolution in physics after relativity and quantum mechanics. These three can be called the three major sciences of the 20th century. The emergence of chaos theory has also overturned people's relatively narrow linear concepts in the past. After all, countless things in this world cannot be explained by linear correlation, right?"
After hearing what he said, the corners of Xia Xiqing's mouth couldn't help but curl up slightly. For some reason, he suddenly felt that Zhou Ziheng was particularly charming at this moment. Whether he was explaining abstract concepts with easy-to-understand examples, or arguing for science at this moment, he seemed so charming.
smartthe new sexy. This phrase, which has been popular for so long, was best demonstrated by Zhou Ziheng at this moment.
"You're right." There was a soft smile in Xia Xiqing's voice.
Such emotions were clearly weakened by the signal, but they still fell heavily into Zhou Ziheng's ears.
Being affirmed at any time is always a happy thing. Zhou Ziheng tried to use this argument to persuade his increasingly happy mood.
"We seem to be going too far." Xia Xiqing couldn't help laughing at himself. It was clearly an escape room game, but why did it feel like he was on the phone with Zhou Ziheng? He couldn't get back on topic. He lowered his head and took the other two books from the corner of the table, carefully turning the pages with his fingers.
Sure enough, there was also a small butterfly specimen in this book.
"I found another butterfly specimen in the second book."
After a while, Zhou Ziheng's voice came from the other side, "I still don't see any butterflies in my book. What is the page number of the second book, and what is the content of the book?"
Xia Xiqing took a look and said, "Page number is 610. It talks about the Big Bang theory." After saying that, he put the butterfly in again and picked up the last and thickest book. Sure enough, there was a butterfly in this book as well.
"There is also a butterfly bookmark in the third book, on page 987. The content of the book is... Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome? Strange, this person's reading range is really wide, from chaos to the universe, from the universe to human pathology."
Zhou Ziheng's intuition told him that it should be related to numbers. "These page numbers may be related. The first book is page 377, the second book is page 610, and the third book is page 987. Are there other places with butterfly specimens?"
Xia Xiqing rummaged through the desk, but found no other books on it except these few, and there was no bookcase in the room either.
"Butterfly... Butterfly..."
He suddenly thought of the butterfly specimen he had just seen in the drawer.
"The last butterfly specimen is right above the desk drawer." Xia Xiqing had a bold guess in his mind, "Is the combination lock of your desk also right above the drawer?"
"That's right."
That's right.
The first butterfly corresponds to the first book, the second butterfly corresponds to the second book, and the third butterfly corresponds to the third book, so the place where the last butterfly is attached has "Last One" written on it. Does this mean that this butterfly represents the four-digit code that Zhou Ziheng needs to find
"So, the four-digit combination to your drawer may need to be deduced from the clues provided by the three butterflies in my room."
If their signals are not connected, then wouldn't it be impossible to crack the code
This is probably the director's new method to hype up the couple. As long as they choose each other, they will have the opportunity to unlock the code, which forces the two to cooperate even in different rooms.
This program crew is as perverted as ever.
The author has something to say: Program director: Two handsome guys, we invited you to record the program to reveal secrets, not to chat on the phone about love, ok? There is no tense atmosphere at all.
It's exam week soon, and I've started to get busy (yes, graduate students can't escape final exams either, even though they're all working on projects and pre-semester exams). Old readers should all know that I update without any preparation. I've been under a lot of pressure these past two days, but I'm trying my best to adjust, so the number of words may be reduced (only temporarily).
As for Xia Xiqing's personality: I don't want to whitewash the fact that he was a playboy in his previous life style, but this does not prevent the little cuties in the comment area from feeling sorry for him. I don't think the two are contradictory. Of course, if some little cuties really can't stand his previous love history, they can abandon the article. It's okay.
Also, no matter whether it is Zhou Ziheng or Xia Xiqing, I feel sorry for them because they are my sons, and so do everyone else. Feel sorry for whoever you want. I often play a misery contest with readers in the reader group to see who is the most miserable among the four sons.
My consistent character setting style is to prefer flawed characters, Xia Xiqing and Xu Qichen are typical representatives. And to be honest, Xia Xiqing did not really hurt Zhou Ziheng, and he stopped gracefully when he was rejected. If he did not force himself on Zhou Ziheng, he would definitely fail.