Escape Guide – Wu Peng, Zhai Yiying, He Yutong

Lin Yangfei is a senior high school student. These days, he has been having nightmares, and it's always the same nightmare. He dreams of himself in a desolate forest, and a pale-faced female ghost suddenly appears in front of him. After the ghost disappears, he sees a coffin. He approaches to take a look, and suddenly a female ghost sits up from the coffin. Every time this happens, he wakes up in fright.

Because he has been having this dream for a long time, Lin Yangfei realizes that something is bound to happen. His guess is indeed correct. It is this morning, just as the alarm clock is about to go off, that he hears a sound in his ear, a sound like a monstrous creature in the World of Warcraft. The voice welcomes him to the game world and tells him that the game has already begun. The voice awaits them at the center of this world because the person said "them," and the male protagonist realizes that there should be others participating in this game.

On Lin Yangfei's desk is a survival guidebook with some instructions. Lin Yangfei picks it up and takes a look. Meanwhile, in two other rooms, there is a strong man and a beautiful woman. They are also participants in this escape room challenge. After reading the survival guidebook, Lin Yangfei prepares to go out and take a look, but he discovers that the doors in the room are all locked. At this moment, he sees a card on the table. He picks it up and lightly swipes it across the door crack, and the door unexpectedly opens.

Lin Yangfei opened the door to the kitchen, but the other doors remained tightly locked. He tried pulling on each lock, confirming that they couldn't be opened. Then he shouted loudly outside the door, asking who was so bored as to trap him here and not let him out. He threatened to report them for illegal detention. However, despite shouting for a long time, no one responded. So he thought, "Isn't this just an escape room? I've played it before. Today, I'll show them how I can escape." With this in mind, he grabbed a backpack and stuffed all the food from the refrigerator into it. Just at that moment, he heard a noise from the next room, and he quickly picked up a kitchen knife.

The noise from the next room grew louder and louder. Before long, an axe split open the wooden door of the kitchen, revealing the face of a burly man. That man was Chen Donghui. Lin Yangfei immediately recognized him and happily shouted, "Brother Hui!" He also complained that Brother Hui almost scared him to death. Chen Donghui told Lin Yangfei that after he had finished drinking, he lay down to sleep at home. Unexpectedly, when he woke up, he was here, and there was only an axe next to him. Lin Yangfei suspected that the axe might be a key.

Both Lin Yangfei and Chen Donghui were hungry, and they saw ready-to-eat food on the table. So they started eating. Chen Donghui found something strange about the potatoes on the plate. Just as he was picking up a potato, someone suddenly snatched it away.

The woman who snatched the potato is called Xinyue. While eating the potato, she asked Lin Yangfei and Chen Donghui if they were also here to participate in the escape room challenge. Lin Yangfei learned that she voluntarily joined and asked her about the situation. Xinyue told Lin Yangfei that as long as someone obtains his hair and blood, others can help him sign up. If they manage to win in the end, they can receive a prize of 1 million dollars. If they form a team, the participants can share the prize money equally.

While Xinyue was talking and eating, she suddenly felt something pricking her, almost breaking her teeth. When she looked at it, she realized that there was a key hidden inside the potato. With the appearance of the key, the escape operation of the three people began.

They were taken to a library. Lin Yangfei saw a musical score on the table, while Xinyue saw a star chart on the wall. Xinyue wondered if the musical score could unlock the code of the star chart, but Chen Donghui took the axe and struck the star chart. After the star chart was split open, another concealed star chart was revealed. Xinyue noticed several black dots on that star chart. She connected the black dots with a pen, and a set of numbers appeared on the star chart: 188711.

As Lin Yangfei and Xinyue were puzzled by the set of numbers, Chen Donghui, who was standing under the bookshelf, suddenly got hit on the head by something. He looked up and discovered a small box on the bookshelf. After taking the box down, Chen Donghui picked up the axe and was about to split it open, but Xinyue walked over and stopped him.

Lin Yangfei placed the small box on the table and noticed a lock on it. He remembered the key that Xinyue found earlier and asked her to bring it over. Indeed, the box opened with the key. Chen Donghui watched on and praised Lin Yangfei for being clever.

Inside the small box was a letter with the heading "For Mr. Song." Lin Yangfei opened the envelope, took out the letter, and began to read it. The letter was dated February 1887. Seeing the date, Lin Yangfei immediately thought of the set of numbers.

While Lin Yangfei and Xinyue were studying the letter together, Chen Donghui found a concealed safe in the corner of the wall. At that moment, Lin Yangfei recalled the set of numbers and proceeded to dial the combination lock on the safe in the order of the numbers. Unexpectedly, the safe opened, revealing a card inside. The card read, "There will be a moment when darkness descends."

As Lin Yangfei looked at the words on the card, he suddenly remembered what the escape guidebook mentioned: after 9 PM, it would become dark here until 7 AM the next morning when it would become light again. He glanced at the wall clock, and the hour and minute hands were pointing precisely at 9 o'clock. Xinyue and Chen Donghui, upon hearing Lin Yangfei mention the escape guidebook, curiously asked him what it was. Lin Yangfei then realized that they didn't have it with them, so he opened the backpack, intending to show it to them. However, to his surprise, he realized that the escape guidebook he distinctly remembered putting in the backpack was nowhere to be found.

The three of them observed their surroundings, and Xinyue noticed a notebook on a round table. The notebook was written by Mrs. Song's maid and clearly recorded when she was hired by Mrs. Song and what she had done in the Song family. Because both the notebook and the letter mentioned Mrs. Song, Lin Yangfei suspected that the place they were in should be where Mrs. Song used to live, and since Mrs. Song had already passed away, this place could possibly be a haunted house.

In the maid's diary, it was also written that the house had a total of five floors, and the housekeeper lived at the end of the second-floor corridor. However, they had no idea how to get there. Xinyue speculated that even if they could go upstairs, they might not necessarily find the housekeeper's room because all the rooms here had been ransacked. At that moment, Chen Donghui muttered that the flashlight seemed to be running out of battery.

Lin Yangfei noticed candles on the table and lit one for himself, while Xinyue and Chen Donghui each held one. At that moment, Lin Yangfei felt a chill, and upon seeing that Xinyue was still wearing a sleeveless top that exposed her shoulders, he led her to the bedroom and found a piece of clothing for her. Chen Donghui, sensing an eerie silence around him, hurriedly followed suit, and Lin Yangfei also provided him with clothing. However, Chen Donghui refused to wear it.

Xinyue noticed that Lin Yangfei seemed somewhat familiar with the house and asked him about it. Lin Yangfei explained that he felt the room layout was similar to his own home. While they were talking, Chen Donghui suddenly caught a foul smell and quickly realized that it was coming from Lin Yangfei. Lin Yangfei first sniffed his own clothes and finally discovered that the odor was emanating from the backpack. It seemed like he remembered something and hastily ran towards the kitchen. However, before they could reach the kitchen, they heard a horrifying girl's cry coming from ahead.

Chen Donghui nervously raised the axe and was about to rush over to investigate, but Xinyue held him back and suggested they take another corridor. However, as soon as they entered that corridor, they felt dizzy, and their ears seemed to lose the ability to hear sound. Lin Yangfei saw a painting on the corridor, and the image of a little girl on the painting seemed to come alive, constantly changing expressions.

Lin Yangfei focused his gaze on the painting and realized that the girl in it hadn't moved. What he saw earlier was just his illusion. He wanted to tell Xinyue and Chen Donghui about this, but they couldn't hear him speak. Similarly, Lin Yangfei couldn't hear them either. So he took out a pen and wrote a few words on his palm, signaling them to continue forward. As they moved on, a skeleton suddenly appeared behind them, emitting a sinister laugh.

After passing through the corridor, the three of them arrived in the kitchen. Surprisingly, Xinyue could now hear Lin Yangfei speaking. Lin Yangfei and Chen Donghui also realized that their hearing had been restored. Chen Donghui noticed the mess in the kitchen, and all the leftover food they had just eaten had turned rancid. As he wondered about this, he accidentally bumped into something on the chair and placed it on the table.

Xinyue recognized the object as a tangram puzzle that children play with. She had played with this type of puzzle a lot when she was younger. She held the tangram in her hands and effortlessly solved the puzzle. Once the puzzle was complete, a box beneath the image opened, revealing another picture. The picture had a message written on it: "Congratulations, Lulu, for getting the first piece of candy. Look for the next clue in the guest bedroom on the fourth floor."

Lin Yangfei discovered that the candy was also spoiled, leading him to suspect that things in this place would deteriorate at night. Xinyue suggested going to the fourth floor to investigate, but Lin Yangfei asked her to wait and shifted his gaze towards the table.

Xinyue and Chen Donghui followed Lin Yangfei's gaze and quickly noticed the problem. The things on the table had changed again. Seeing their puzzled expressions, Lin Yangfei told them not to approach this escape room experience with a normal mindset. He suspected that they might have entered a different dimension, similar to The Matrix, and there might be other participants here.

Just then, Chen Donghui interrupted Lin Yangfei and asked him to look at the painting on the wall. Curiously, Lin Yangfei and Xinyue approached the painting. Lin Yangfei vividly remembered that the figures in the painting were originally sitting by the river fishing, but now they seemed to be standing up. Suddenly, Xinyue exclaimed that the person in the painting seemed to be looking at them. As the three of them were talking, the girl in the painting suddenly grew larger and reached out her hand towards them. With a loud snap, a metal key fell to the ground, and the girl in the painting returned to her original appearance. They thought they were experiencing an illusion.

Chen Donghui noticed a scar on Lin Yangfei's head, and Lin Yangfei explained that he got it two months ago from a collision. Then the three of them entered another room. Chen Donghui suspected it was the housekeeper's room, but Lin Yangfei told him that the housekeeper's room was on the second-floor corridor, and they were currently on the fifth floor. He felt that this room was likely the master's room. Suddenly, a strange voice echoed in the room, surprising Xinyue, who discovered that the voice was coming from the person in the painting.

Upon hearing the person in the painting speak, Lin Yangfei, Xinyue, and the others approached the painting with candles in hand. Suddenly, a middle-aged man emerged from the painting and told them that Lulu was not Mrs. Song's daughter but the kitchen maid's child. Lin Yangfei was astonished and asked the person in the painting how he could speak. After some thought, the person in the painting explained that ever since a guest arrived here, he gained awareness of this world. He also told Lin Yangfei that he overheard the maid saying that after the guest arrived, the entire villa underwent significant changes. When Lin Yangfei asked him where in the villa had been altered, the person in the painting replied that he was merely a painting and had no knowledge of such things.

Lin Yangfei asked the person in the painting which room they were currently in, and he was told it was the guest bedroom on the 4th floor. Upon hearing this, Lin Yangfei realized that the room layout had indeed been disrupted. He then asked the person in the painting if anyone had hidden candies or a wooden box here. After some consideration, the person in the painting informed Lin Yangfei that Meixue and Lulu did enjoy playing such games of hiding things. Finally, he helped Lin Yangfei find a small wooden box.

The mysterious person in the painting further convinced Lin Yangfei and the others that something strange must have occurred here. Lin Yangfei opened the small wooden box, revealing a piece of paper with a message that congratulated Lulu on finding the second candy, with the last one hidden in the utility room.

Lin Yangfei suspected that something unfortunate had happened here in 1887, resulting in everyone being trapped. The person in the painting informed Lin Yangfei that besides the maid, Bor, there were also male servants named Enkes and Song Zhen in this place. Chen Donghui asked the person in the painting about the corridor and why they couldn't hear any sound when they reached there.

The person in the painting glanced at the corridor, then turned around and asked Chen Donghui to lower his voice so that Mrs. Song wouldn't hear. Bor mentioned that Mrs. Song had poor mental health and a light sleep. She could hear even the slightest sound in the corridor. According to the person in the painting, everyone in the villa is still alive.

Lin Yangfei asked the person in the painting about the crying girl in the study. The person in the painting puzzledly touched his head and said that the study should be on the first floor, and where they had just been was definitely not the study. Chen Donghui picked up a picture frame beside him, and Lin Yangfei pointed to the woman in the photo and asked if she was Mrs. Song. The person in the painting nodded and told him that Bor had mentioned Mrs. Song's mental health issues.

Chen Donghui searched the room again and found a small box under the bed. Lin Yangfei took out a key with a winding mechanism from the box. The person in the painting told Lin Yangfei that it belonged to Lulu. Lin Yangfei wanted to know what had happened here back then, and the person in the painting said he knew about it.