"Apart from the butterfly bookmark, are there any other clues?" Zhou Ziheng's voice came from the other side. "Number sequences are not necessarily correct if they are calculated with only three known numbers."
That's right. Xia Xiqing looked around and found an exquisite and beautiful conch next to the books. There were several pictures on the wall above the desk. One was a close-up of a sunflower, and the other was Leonardo da Vinci's famous painting "Vitruvian Man", which Xia Xiqing was very familiar with.
These seemingly unrelated things caught Xia Xiqing's attention. He stared at the wall and suddenly heard Zhou Ziheng's voice.
"Why are you silent? What are you doing?"
"Look at a nude painting of a man," Xia Xiqing answered his question seriously, his eyes still fixed on the portrait on the wall. Zhou Ziheng seemed to be choked and kept coughing. After a while, he stammered, "Oh, there is one on my wall too?"
Xia Xiqing was surprised. He tried to describe it to Zhou Ziheng, "A man with long curly hair stands with his legs together, his hands and feet are exactly on a circumscribed square, and he stands with his legs and arms spread out, which is exactly on a circumscribed circle. Is this the painting?"
"right."
This is definitely not a coincidence, the similarity between their rooms is too great.
"What is the meaning of this painting?" Although Zhou Ziheng had seen this painting many times, he did not have much knowledge of art and could only ask experts in the field.
Xia Xiqing touched the tip of his chin. "It's very meaningful. This painting is a sketch illustration drawn by Leonardo da Vinci for the Ten Books on Architecture by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius. Vitruvius once praised the golden ratio in his book, which also inspired Leonardo da Vinci to draw this human proportion sketch. The man in it is also considered by the world to be synonymous with perfect proportions..."
As he was talking, Xia Xiqing suddenly stopped talking, feeling that an important thought flashed through his mind, and said, "Wait a moment."
He picked up the conch on the table, then turned his head to look at the close-up photo of the sunflower, looking at the distribution and arrangement of the plump seed grains inside.
There is also the famous "Vitruvian Man".
I see.
"I know. It's the golden ratio sequence." Xia Xiqing calmly sat back in his chair. "The spiral of the conch, the arrangement of sunflower seeds, and this painting are all golden ratios."
Now the fourth number Zhou Ziheng calculated was also verified. "The golden ratio sequence is the Fibonacci sequence, right? It seems I got it right. I just found out that 987 is exactly equal to 377 plus 610, so I guessed that the last one would be 610 plus 987, which equals 1597. I didn't expect it to be true."
"So the other clues are just hints." Xia Xiqing put the conch down and said, "Try to enter the password."
Zhou Ziheng hummed, and from Xia Xiqing's room came the sound of him entering a four-digit password. Less than two seconds later, a mechanical voice said, "Password successful."
After struggling for a long time, he finally unlocked one, although it was not the one in his room. Xia Xiqing was waiting for the good news of success, but Zhou Ziheng replied, "The password is correct, but I can't open the drawer."
"How is it possible..." Although Xia Xiqing knew that they were not in the same room and he did not have any combination lock, he subconsciously pulled the drawer on his side when he heard Zhou Ziheng say that it could not be opened.
I didn't expect it to actually open...
This is too weird. Xia Xiqing's tone was full of disbelief. "It's so strange. After you entered the correct password on your side, the drawer on my side could actually be opened."
Who knew the reversal would not end there.
Zhou Ziheng immediately replied, "Now my drawers can also be opened. Weird."
Hearing Zhou Ziheng mumbling to himself, Xia Xiqing thought of his expression of frowning and wondering about something, and couldn't help laughing, "Maybe you didn't use enough strength just now."
"Impossible, I really couldn't open it just now."
Maybe it's the program team's problem. They are all artificial props, so it's understandable that they have some flaws.
"Never mind, let's see what's inside first."
When Xia Xiqing looked down at the drawer, the first thing he saw was a photo. It was a photo of a couple holding hands on the beach. The photo was carefully placed in a beautiful frame.
Judging from this photo, the owner of the bedroom has a girlfriend.
But why would such a photo be stuffed in a drawer? Xia Xiqing felt that this was not very reasonable, but he also knew that he could not think too much at this time, so he put the photo frame casually on the table and continued to look through the other things in the drawer.
"What did you find?" Zhou Ziheng asked on the other end.
Xia Xiqing casually replied with a photo frame, and then saw a clue that seemed to be more effective. "I found a notebook, it seems to be..." He flipped through it and found the date and some brief notes on it. "Diary?"
"I also saw a diary, but no photo album." Zhou Ziheng continued to exchange the information he had, "There was also a birthday card with a sentence written on it."
Just as Zhou Ziheng was listing the clues he had obtained, Xia Xiqing had already opened the birthday card and read out the words on it.
"The moment I met you was the beginning of the Big Bang. Every particle left me and rushed towards you. After that smallest moment, the universe was truly born."
After reading it all in one breath, Xia Xiqing suddenly realized that this was a love letter between lovers. The atmosphere became a little awkward, and Xia Xiqing didn't know what to say. Since it was like this, he could only blame himself for speaking too quickly, not others.
"Well, um, are all you science students so good at flirting?" In order to ease the embarrassment, Xia Xiqing asked a counter-question.
The more panicked a person is, the more likely they are to say the wrong thing. This is really a wise saying. Xia Xiqing, who had just asked the question, immediately thought of the photo of "Tyndall Effect" that Zhou Ziheng had taken on the plane.
Oh no, Zhou Ziheng must have misunderstood that he was teasing him. In fact, he didn't want to bring the topic up in this direction at all.
I originally thought Zhou Ziheng wouldn't speak, but who knew he actually answered.
"That depends on who you're dealing with."
Zhou Ziheng's voice didn't sound awkward at all, but rather quite calm, which made Xia Xiqing feel embarrassed. It turned out that he was the only one who felt awkward from beginning to end. Xia Xiqing, who was only concerned about the embarrassment, completely ignored Zhou Ziheng's hidden meaning and didn't realize that he was the "who" Zhou Ziheng was talking about.
"Ah, the birthday on this greeting card is October 23rd. I think this clue may be useful later." In order to preserve his "invincible" dignity in front of this innocent little wolfdog, Xia Xiqing changed the subject very abruptly. Zhou Ziheng also noticed his unnaturalness, but he could not get along with Xia Xiqing. He just felt that it was his words with ulterior motives that made Xia Xiqing feel pressured, and changing the subject was a disguised refusal.
Both of them were going around in circles without realizing it.
While putting down the birthday card, Xia Xiqing once again focused on the notebook. This was a slightly old diary, the edges of the diary were worn, and the corners were curled up. It seemed that it had been used for a long time. Thinking of this, Xia Xiqing opened the first page.
"Let me take a look at this diary." Xia Xiqing said to Zhou Ziheng through the radio, and then focused all his attention on the diary.
[November 11, 2014, sunny]
[I originally thought this was the most miserable day of my life. A young man with a broken leg spent Singles' Day alone in a hospital ward. Unexpectedly, a new tenant came to this double ward, and she was a super cute girl. When she smiled, she had a pair of rabbit teeth, like a little rabbit, so cute.]
It’s this boy’s diary... Xia Xiqing flipped through it quickly and stopped at a certain page.
"Tsk, it took more than six months to get her..." He looked at the page with the date [May 20, 2015] and couldn't help but mutter to himself.
"Did you catch him?"
Xia Xiqing heard Zhou Ziheng's question and heard the sound of pages turning from the other end. He thought that he must not have read the rest. "You read too slowly." He flipped through the pages hastily and saw a page that read "She is in the hospital again. I hope the operation goes smoothly and there are no more problems."
This girl has been hospitalized repeatedly, so she must be suffering from a serious illness.
He suddenly thought of the book on the desk.
"The disease his girlfriend suffers from should be the one in the third book... Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. This disease seems to be a congenital heart disease." Xia Xiqing flipped through the previous book, trying to find some useful information from it.
"This radio is a gift from a girl to him." Zhou Ziheng suddenly said, "Did you see it?"
"Let me see." Xia Xiqing flipped through the pages and found the page Zhou Ziheng mentioned.
[May 20, 2016, sunny]
[Today she gave me an antique, a radio! She said that her grandfather saved a lot of money when he was young and bought it for her grandmother to propose marriage. When she was a child, she would lie down beside the radio and listen to stories every day. I can now imagine what that little bunny looks like. Oh, if only I could travel through time, I want to go back and see what she looked like when she was a child.]
"It turns out that this radio is a prop with a story." Xia Xiqing smiled, "Is this old antique going to witness their wedding? It's a three-generation veteran."
"No." Zhou Ziheng calmly rejected Xia Xiqing's joke, "There's something wrong with their relationship."
"… What?"
"Turn back a few pages."
Xia Xiqing followed Zhou Ziheng's instructions and turned to the last few pictures.
[May 13, 2019, cloudy weather]
[I had a quarrel with her today. It feels like we haven’t had a good communication with each other for a long time. I really don’t understand why we have come to this point. Will time really make everything deteriorate?]
Upon seeing this, Xia Xiqing suddenly fell silent. Such stories of infatuated men and resentful women emerge every day. They are always beautiful in the beginning, but as time goes on, friction, conflict, jealousy, resentment, these negative emotions begin to breed and grow wildly until they swallow up all the feelings between the two people, and the faces that once loved each other become hateful.
So why start.
The most stable and harmless relationship in the world is no relationship.
This realistic love story brought Xia Xiqing to a low point. He flipped through the next few pages casually, trying to cover up his inner turmoil, until his finger stopped at the last page.
[Heavy rain on May 20, 2019]
[Why should I turn off my phone? Even if I was misunderstood and angry, I shouldn't have turned it off. If I didn't turn it off, she wouldn't have fainted from emotional excitement. Emergency contact... This card is so ironic. The only time I used it, I actually took the initiative to cut off contact. I should be the one who died.]
"The girl died..." Xia Xiqing didn't expect this to be the outcome. "She died of a sudden heart attack."
"Died of..." Zhou Ziheng seemed to have something to say, but he paused and asked after a while, "So he died because there was no time to save him?"
"Yeah." Xia Xiqing put the diary back on the table. He was no longer at the age where he would be moved by such a love story. What he was thinking about now was what the purpose of this diary was. According to the arrangement of the previous episode of the secret room script, every prop in the room was not there for no reason. Their functions can be roughly divided into two categories. One is the clue to the password. However, there are too many dates in the diary. If there is no other clue, it should be unlikely to deduce the password.
Another function is that it is related to the locked room plot, or to the killer, but this is even more unreasonable. So far, this story has been a love story no matter how you look at it, and has nothing in common with the suspenseful murder case in the previous issue.
So what should be the identity of the killer in this issue
Xia Xiqing, lost in thought, frowned. There was nothing else in the drawer, so he slowly closed it and his eyes fell on the photo frame he had taken out earlier and placed upside down on the table.
Only then did he realize that there was a sentence written on the back of the photo frame.
[Return it to its correct location.]
Right location
This coincides with Xia Xiqing's first thought when he saw the photo frame. Things like photo frames should be placed on the table, not in a drawer. If we connect it with the information about the male and female protagonists quarreling, it can be explained.
Xia Xiqing picked up the photo frame.
Where should it be placed
"You really don't have a photo frame? On the table? Or somewhere else." Without any prompt information, Xia Xiqing had to confirm with Zhou Ziheng again. After all, their rooms had so many similarities, and maybe the photo frame had been fixed somewhere in his room.
"No, I didn't find any photo frame." Zhou Ziheng's voice was very certain.
At this moment, Xia Xiqing suddenly discovered that there was a palm-sized rectangular groove on the right side of the laptop computer in the upper right corner of the desktop. He lowered his head to look at the edge of the photo frame in his hand, and suddenly a somewhat bizarre idea popped up in his mind.
Could it be that…
He tried to place the photo frame in the groove in the upper right corner, and as he expected, the frame and the stand fit in perfectly!
"I found the right position." Xia Xiqing breathed a sigh of relief. It turned out that these grooves were useful. Fortunately, he felt something was wrong as soon as he came in.
At this moment, the desk lamp suddenly lit up automatically without any warning.
However, this was not the strangest thing. What really frightened him was Zhou Ziheng's next sentence.
"The photo frame appeared." Zhou Ziheng's voice was full of surprise. He even couldn't believe it. "Do you know how it appeared? Just like a mechanism, a part of the desktop opened, and the photo frame was pushed up from inside and stood on the upper right corner of the desk."
"What did you say?"
The author has something to say: This time the escape room puzzles are not as difficult as the last time. The main difficulty lies in the plot.
It's time to stop replying to comments. Cover my mouth when I want to spoil the spoilers.