"alright."
The handcuffs were opened successfully. Zhou Ziheng, having accomplished his mission, raised his eyes and met Xia Xiqing's straightforward gaze without any defense. He subconsciously frowned, turned his eyes away and coughed, then used force of his wrist to throw away the loose handcuffs, held them in the palm of one hand, and placed them on the wooden cabinet on the side with a snap.
Xia Xiqing smiled, touched his wrist and whispered thank you, thinking of Zhou Ziheng's expression when he just solved it, "You also found out it's Morse code, right?"
Zhou Ziheng nodded, reached into his pocket and checked the time. "But I can't remember the exact correspondence of the Morse code. It's a bit difficult to decipher. I can only make do with it."
Xia Xiqing played the music he had paused before again, and explained along with the music: "At the beginning, there was a long pause, then three short pauses, and then the music resumed. [Long, short, short, short] corresponds to the letter b, followed by another [short, long, short], which is the letter r." The music continued to play with the inserted pauses, "[Short] - letter e... [Short, long] - letter a... [Long, short, long] - letter k..."
break—break
"break the mirror." Before Xia Xiqing finished explaining the next two words, Zhou Ziheng had already given the answer.
"That's right." Xia Xiqing laughed. This laugh seemed different from the previous ones. It had a hearty feeling.
Maybe it’s an illusion, Zhou Ziheng thought.
"Why are you so familiar with Morse code?" Zhou Ziheng walked over and turned off the music, picked up the vinyl record that he had not looked at carefully before, and narrowed his eyes slightly.
"My math teacher taught me about this when I was in middle school. I thought it was very interesting. I even used it to pass on answers to other people during exams. I haven't used it since I went to the liberal arts class in high school. It took me a while to remember it just now." Xia Xiqing tapped the ground with the tip of his leather shoes. "But the program team made it too difficult. If I didn't happen to know the knowledge in this area, I wouldn't be able to solve it at all."
"In fact, they thought very carefully." Zhou Ziheng handed Xia Xiqing a vinyl record with the name of the suite "Mirror" written on it. "Just now, when I was putting together the notes, you played this piano piece. If you are familiar with classical music like you, you can directly hear that this is the mirror suite and then associate it with the mirror next to the phonograph. If you don't know it, you can find it by looking at the vinyl record, so it is inevitable to associate it with the mirror."
"If you want to associate it with breaking a mirror..." Xia Xiqing thought of the bookmark in the previous book, "Whatever I touch, it breaks."
Zhou Ziheng nodded. "I guess the fragments of the note are also a clue. So the program team arranged several ideas, and you chose the most direct one."
"But the intellectual cost is the highest." Xia Xiqing shrugged slightly, "However, compared to the efficiency of the associative effect, mathematics is much more precise and fast."
Zhou Ziheng wondered how a student of art could be so good at math. Xia Xiqing, however, had already focused on the note he had put together earlier. "That garbled code should also be a password, but there may be another solution." He walked over and picked up the paper. "Maybe the password to our door is hidden here."
This idea coincided with Zhou Ziheng's, but in addition to this note, he always felt that there was a lot of other information in the room. It was just that he could not find a good way to distinguish which was valid information and which was interference information.
The two people once again faced the convenience sign that was broken and then restored.
Xia Xiqing turned the sticky note over to the side with the words on it, looked at it carefully, took out the bookmark from the book, and suddenly said something that didn't sound very effective at the moment.
"Don't you think the handwriting on these two pieces of paper is different?"
Zhou Ziheng also noticed this. The words on the bookmark looked more majestic, like a man's handwriting, while the words on the sticky note were much more delicate. Although the difference was not huge, judging from the degree of control of the pen tip, they were indeed not the handwriting of the same person.
He pointed to the bookmark and said, "I think this is the handwriting of the owner of the study."
In fact, Xia Xiqing agreed with this view, but for the sake of program effect and audience acceptance, he still asked conscientiously: "What if this book was borrowed by the owner of the room? The bookmark inside is very likely not his."
Zhou Ziheng shook his head and pointed to a row of bookshelves next to him. "Counting from left to right in the third row, the first six books are from the same series as this novel, and this one is the final one. In addition to this series, there are many other series on the bookshelf. I don't think a collector would borrow books to read, let alone the final one."
Xia Xiqing made a very supportive fan expression, "Wow, it's a waste of talent for our Hengheng not to act in a criminal investigation drama."
Our Hengheng??? Although Zhou Ziheng is used to such expressions on his fan-filled Weibo, his excellent expression management almost went out of control when it came out of this person's mouth.
Seeing the genuine admiration on Xia Xiqing's face, Zhou Ziheng couldn't help but retort in his heart.
[It would be a waste of your talent if you didn't go into acting.]
After all, it was a show, and it was not good to be too cold to the enthusiastic face of the "fan" in front of him. Zhou Ziheng coughed and said sullenly, "It doesn't necessarily mean that I won't act."
It’s hard to say why, but Xia Xiqing actually felt that Zhou Ziheng was a little cute at this moment.
He shook his head in his heart, thinking that he must have lost his mind.
Seeing that Xia Xiqing's foot was about to step on the broken pieces of the vase that he had broken at the beginning, Zhou Ziheng couldn't help but reach out and pull his arm, "Be careful."
Xia Xiqing also reacted and looked down, "Ha, so the vase was broken at the beginning. I almost forgot that the theme of our room is probably [fragments]."
Xia Xiqing said this casually, but he felt something was wrong. If Zhou Ziheng's associative theory about "brokenness" was really a series of clues designed in advance by the program team, then shouldn't the vase, which is also a fragile item, also have clues that can be obtained after being broken
Zhou Ziheng seemed to have gotten some inspiration from Xia Xiqing's words. The two of them squatted down almost at the same time, with perfect understanding.
There were broken pieces of porcelain vases and a bunch of white chrysanthemums scattered on the ground. Xia Xiqing used the chrysanthemum branches to poke the broken objects on the ground and found a piece of paper rolled into a thin tube. "Sure enough, there is a clue."
He couldn't help but complain in his heart that the scriptwriter of this escape room was really meticulous, with so many clues hidden in every corner. If he hadn't thought of the theme of "fragments", the vase would most likely not have been broken.
No, that's not right. He quickly denied himself in his heart.
Zhou Ziheng suddenly spoke up, "So the production team tied us up with ropes, but didn't set up any sharp weapons. There was only a vase as a decoration, and it was placed next to me, just to let us smash it."
His thoughts were actually synchronized with his own. Xia Xiqing was a little surprised, but still responded quickly, "Well, that should be it, but our attention was diverted at the beginning, and we didn't find the clue in the vase."
It's like the game of Snake. No matter where you start eating or what your movement route is, you have to eat all the fruits that exist when the game is initialized, otherwise it's game over.
He suddenly admired the screenwriter a little. He was a smart man. He didn't frame the program into a game that had to be played step by step. Otherwise, the playability would be greatly reduced. The steps were not important, the order was not important, and even the solution ideas were set in multiple ways. In addition, a dark character like the killer was added to the escape room, which suddenly turned a pure puzzle game into an IQ battle and psychological warfare mode.
interesting.
The two opened the note and found a short poem written on it.
We were one.
Fate tore you from my body, from my bones, my flesh, and my heart, and crudely put these meaningless organs together.
I was buried together with you, who was torn apart and reconstructed together.
Buried beneath this fence where lush roses grow.
Only by disassembling it again,
Give you back to me and give me back to you.
From top to bottom, connected to each other.
Everything will have meaning again.]
It looked like a Gothic-style poem, but Xia Xiqing always felt something was wrong. He turned the paper over and found something written on it.
[2 you.]
"He wrote to as 2. There must be a reason." Xia Xiqing couldn't be sure of other things, but he was certain of this: after playing this game so far, the only rule that could be found was not to miss any unreasonable details.
Zhou Ziheng's brows were fixed on the poem, as if he was thinking seriously about it.
The cell phone suddenly rang.
Their train of thought was interrupted, and they pulled out their phones, a new message appearing on the screen.
[Note that the first player escapes the original room and enters the other player's room.]
"So fast." Xia Xiqing looked around and put the phone back with a smile, his face innocent and relieved, "But it seems that he didn't enter our room. If this person is a killer, entering a room randomly... This show is so scary."
Zhou Ziheng asked in return, "What if he is an ordinary player and enters the killer's room?"
Xia Xiqing turned his head to face him, choosing an angle that could avoid the closest close-up shot. He raised his hand, pretending to adjust his collar to cover the microphone, and lazily raised the corners of his mouth, revealing a smile that completely restored his bad nature, and teased with his mouth shape.
"Isn't it more exciting for a sheep to fall into the tiger's mouth?"