The Scorching Sun - 30

 Shen Musi was pinned to the wall. Yan Lie hadn't actually used much force, but his face still knocked against it.

More importantly, Yan Lie didn't let go right away. He just stood there, spaced out, still pinning Shen Musi's arm behind his back.

After waiting a moment, Shen Musi struggled and protested, "Lie Lie, what are you doing? Are you trying to silence me for good back here?"

Only then did Yan Lie seem to snapped out of it.

He released him immediately and stepped back.

Something was clearly off.

He didn't even ask if Shen Musi was okay like he usually would. He simply stood there stiffly, head lowered, his expression hidden in shadow.

Zhao Jiayou and the others finally caught up, all of them breathing hard and still shaken.

Behind them, the pathetic coffin mechanism was still wobbling.

The eerie background music repeated twice before finally stopping, and much of the horror atmosphere vanished with it.

Wei Xi snapped, "Mousse Cake, I wasn't scared by the coffin! I was scared by your screaming! My soul had to chase after my body, how are you this useless?!"

Hugging his arms, Shen Musi said pitifully, "But I was the one who found the key! Isn't the whole point of escape rooms having a vivid imagination?"

He immediately redirected the blame elsewhere.

"And those two!" he accused loudly. "Dressed like that! People who know you would call it matching outfits. People who don't would think you're guarding the gates of hell! They scared the soul out of me too!"

"Seriously, what were you two doing back there?" Wei Xi finally turned toward them and waved. "We called you so many times. Were you that scared to move? Don't worry, Fang Zhuo, you stick with me. As long as you stay away from Cake, you'll be perfectly safe."

The instant Wei Xi stepped forward to pull Fang Zhuo away, Yan Lie immediately tensed up beside her. He reached out from behind and grabbed Fang Zhuo's wrist.

His fingers were ice cold. And he was holding on surprisingly tightly.

Fang Zhuo turned around and met his gaze.

There was so much helplessness and vulnerability in his eyes that calling him pitiful wouldn't have been an exaggeration.

Fang Zhuo's thought process might be a bit unconventional, but in that moment, she suddenly understood why Yan Lie liked Baldie so much.

Who could possibly refuse a plea like that from a frightened little weakling?

She pulled her hand free from Wei Xi's grasp and stepped in front of Yan Lie, shielding him. She explained, "I'm not afraid of ghosts. Yan Lie was teaching me how escape rooms work. We were also checking for clues everyone might've missed."

Her voice sounded calm and steady.

Nobody had much reason to doubt her.

Zhao Jiayou said, "Checking for missed clues is way too broad. I say we find the keys, open all the rooms, and figure out where the exit is."

"Okay," Fang Zhuo agreed, following them back to the previous room.

The room was cramped, less than ten square meters, and with the furniture inside, the eight of them found it quite crowded.

Shen Musi pointed at the coffin in the center, and confidently announced, "There's definitely a tool inside. Either a key for a safe or a key for a secret passage."

Pressed tightly against the wall, Wei Xi twisted her face in horror. "Who's getting it? Zhao Jiayou!"

After a moment's hesitation, Zhao Jiayou bravely volunteered.

Using the same method as before, he opened the coffin.

The moment he pushed the wooden lid aside, a white mannequin on a spring shot out.

Shen Musi, predictably, led another round of screaming. He buried his forehead against the wall and refused to look. His piercing voice scraped directly across everyone's nerves.

Fang Zhuo clearly felt Yan Lie jolt beside her.

Then he stumbled backward into the wall, as though tremendous self-control was the only thing preventing him from passing out on the spot.

She truly could not understand the hobbies of modern youth. Shen Musi's fear might have been tinged with a certain amount of excitement, but Yan Lie's clearly did not.

So why had he agreed to play this game in the first place?

The emotional turmoil Yan Lie stirred within her was far more profound than any fear this escape room itself could generate.

She couldn't just stand by and watch any longer.

Walking forward alone, she searched the prop thoroughly and soon discovered an old key hidden inside the bandages wrapped around its chest.

The music quickly stopped, but the lingering dread clung to their bodies. Everyone still felt goosebumps prickling along their skin.

The girls collectively exhaled in relief. "Fang Zhuo, you're amazing!"

"It was nothing. No big deal." She handed the key to Zhao Jiayou, telling them to find something to unlock.

The group rallied again and gathered around a nearby safe.

Illuminating the keyhole with flashlights, they fiddled with the lock.

Before they could figure anything out, a cabinet door in the corner of the room wobbled twice and then swung open from the inside.

First, a pair of withered, decaying hands emerged, and then an NPC with disheveled hair crawled out.

Since the light was dim and they were all deeply engrossed in their discussion, no one noticed this development except Fang Zhuo.

She glanced at the NPC, then calmly looked away.

The NPC circled behind the group, made several eerie noises in succession, but failed to elicit any reaction.

Apparently unwilling to accept defeat, he persisted.

To ensure the game's intended effect, the overhead speakers began playing ominous music.

Shen Musi and the others, possessing both poor observation skills and questionable eyesight, merely glanced up at the ceiling.

Finding nothing, they resumed their discussion.

The NPC's professional dignity appeared to have suffered a serious blow. Abandoning sophisticated acting techniques altogether, he resorted to the simplest method available.

He let out a raw, guttural roar that made everyone whip their heads around.

Shen Musi's perfectly executed panic response triggered a second wave of chaos. The group shoved each other, fleeing blindly out the door.

Yan Lie had been standing against the wall the entire time, but in that instant, he bolted straight for Fang Zhuo.

Fang Zhuo was genuinely touched.

Unfortunately, Yan Lie never actually checked who he had grabbed before he spun around and charged back out again.

Seconds later, only Fang Zhuo and the employee were left in the room.

The two stared at each other.

The guy adjusted his wig, revealing his face, and asked hesitantly, "So are you, like, scared stiff, or...?"

"Not really," Fang Zhuo said. "It's kind of boring."

The employee: "..."

That was a direct insult to their professional standards!

Fang Zhuo rephrased more tactfully: "It's not especially interesting."

She walked over to the safe, looked at it for a second, and couldn't help asking, "So was that magnet we found earlier actually useful?"

The guy was about to leave and chase the others, but stopped at this. "Of course it was. You think we just put a prop there for no reason? Players have practically dug a hole into that wall trying to find it."

Fang Zhuo asked again, "What about the picture frame?"

The employee struggled visibly. "We can't give away too many hints. That would ruin the fun."

Fang Zhuo asked sincerely, "What fun?"

The employee fell silent.

Somewhere in the silence, Fang Zhuo thought she heard the faint sound of teeth grinding.

Realizing she shouldn't twist the knife too hard, she shrugged at him and decided to go find Lie Lie the lost child.

A little while later, the guy had composed himself and caught up with her from behind. "My boss wants to know if you'd like to join us, to make things a little more fun for your friends?"

"Join you?" Fang Zhuo asked. "Does it pay?"

The guy choked on his words. After communicating with his boss, he said, "We could give you half off your ticket. Everybody earns a little money that way."

Fang Zhuo accepted immediately. "Alright, that works."

"Great. Let's go intercept them in the next room." The employee said, "Just don't overdo it, and no grabbing or pulling. We don't want any conflicts."

The escape room had several hidden little access doors. The employee produced a bloodstained white robe for her and led Fang Zhuo through the staff passageways.

This area was darker, more oppressive, and much more cramped than the actual game rooms.

Honestly, it was far more atmospheric.

The more Fang Zhuo thought about it, the less sense everything made.

Room construction costs. Utilities. Employee wages. No matter how she calculated it, a theme room should cost more than two hundred yuan to operate.

Charging more than two hundred yuan per person also seemed absurd.

Halfway through the crawlspace, Fang Zhuo suppressed the unease bubbling in her chest and asked tentatively, "How much does this game cost?"

The guy tried to glance back at her, but the passage was so cramped that when he turned his head, he nearly smacked it against the wall.

"You didn't know?" he asked. "There's a group promotion right now. Seven people for twelve hundred."

It was the most horrifying story Fang Zhuo had heard all day. The sentence alone seemed to deal critical damage to half her life force.

She stayed silent for a long moment. When she spoke again, her voice was a little hoarse. "How long have you been working in this industry?"

The guy, oblivious to her shift in mood, recalled, "This shop's been open over two years, I think. But this specific theme just launched last month."

"Are you happy?"

"Of course!" the employee replied. "Our shop is famous throughout A City. We designed many of these scenarios ourselves. Some places are shameless enough to send people over just to copy our rooms."

A wave of complex, indescribable emotion washed over Fang Zhuo. "If I were you, I'd be happy too."

Who wouldn't be happy robbing people blind?

"It's too expensive." Fang Zhuo's heart was bleeding, and she kept muttering under her breath. "It's way too expensive."

"Shh," the guy warned. "There's someone up ahead."

Fang Zhuo was still mourning the tragedy of twelve hundred yuan.

Only when she listened carefully did she realize the voice belonged to Yan Lie.

He was calling her name.

"Looks like there's only one person here," the employee whispered. "Must've gotten separated from the others. I'll leave this one to you and go on ahead."

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