Chapter 115: Drum monkeys, organs, one chance.

When Chi Xiaochi entered the room, the floor beneath his feet felt strange.

Indoor lights for a long time, in the hearts of all the people have doubts, all around the sudden at the same time hit the lights, the four bright brilliant, bright as the snowy plains.

Meng Qian sucks in a breath of cold air, covers her eyes and curses, "Holy shit!"

Chi Xiaochi, on the other hand, has adapted well.

The moment the lights came on, he saw a palm of a hand that was falsely in front of his eyes.

The hand blocked most of the light for him, thin and straight and slender, the light coming in from the edge of the palm reflecting the curve of his palm lines.

It's Gan Yu's hand.

He had been standing beside Chi Xiaochi, holding his hand up in the darkness for who knows how long, just to help shield him from the bright light that might suddenly come on.

When the human eye is almost able to adjust to the light, the hand is withdrawn from Chi Xiaochi's eyes, naturally picks up the gold spectacles clipped to the breast shirt pocket, and calmly puts them on, resuming its role as a gentleman of refined and flamboyant elegance.

The countdown has begun and there is no time for distraction. Chi Xiaochi cuts off all other thoughts and prepares to observe the situation.

At first glance, Chi Xiaochi frowned.

The eight people were in a huge, empty rectangular glass room of about a hundred square meters, with the walls, floor and ceiling made of transparent glass.

And Chi Xiaochi clearly remembers that the two waves of people went into the same corridor.

...... But they are not in the same room right now.

To be precise, there is a thick glass wall running east-west that bisects the complete room from its center position, the

Chi Xiaochi they're on the left, Meng Qian they're on the right.

Qiao Yun was stunned, "What's going on here?"

Chi Xiaochi remembers walking down a corridor into another dark corridor, surrounded by the laughter of a clown, in true silence, the air so foul that he held only a piece of Gan Yu's coat in his hand, and he was led by him to the end of the corridor and straight into a room.

Immediately, the thick door closed with a bang behind him.

Yuan Benshan said, "We went into the door at the end of the hallway."

Qiao Yun : "...... There's no door at the end of the corridor. We found the entrance on the right hand side at the end of the corridor."

At this point in the exchange of information, Chi Xiaochi's mind was clearer.

It seemed that the Joker had deliberately split them into two groups.

This is also one of the usual routines of the escape room, the players involved in the game will be divided into two groups, and set up certain obstacles, so that the two groups of players to search for clues, and through the exchange of information to find a way out of the room, into the next room.

As expected, upon observation, a hole of about 20 centimeters in length and 10 centimeters in width was opened at the east end of the glass curtain wall, presumably used by both sides to transmit messages.

Chi Xiaochi was a little weirded out.

In a typical escape room, the walls in the center are solid bunkers, which are designed to impede smooth communication between the two sides, thus dragging out the game.

The glass is fully transparent, so what is the point of pulling up this curtain wall?

He wanted to investigate the wall of glass a bit, yet just as he took a step, there was a small creaking sound under his feet.

He immediately realized what was wrong, the back of his neck tingled and he immediately leaned forward and slumped to the ground.

Meng Qian also sensed something unusual and yelled, "No, don't stand, get down!"

Gan Yu crouched down, reached out and touched the glass surface on the floor, then flexed his knuckles and tapped, his face not looking too good, "...... It's not tempered glass."

This was just the most ordinary glass, a little thicker than normal glass that is. If a grown man walked casually on it, one careless step would crack the floor.

"Remember what that clown just said?" Meng Qian droned, "We can't destroy anything here!"

The cost of destruction was something none of them wanted to try.

He did think of something quickly, though: "Men stay down and don't move. The women are in charge of finding clues."

Gan Tang moved as he was told, straightening up and moving as swiftly as a cat as he began to look for clues to get through.

Chi Xiaochi, meanwhile, was lying on all fours like a Wang Ba cover, his eyes darting around to gather as much information as he could.

The theme of the level, written in colored paint on top of a wooden plaque, hung above the doorway of the gate they had just entered.

The theme was called "The Man in the Stitch," and underneath it was a crooked copy of the "Mother Goose Rhyme" in a child's round font:

A twisted man on a twisted path.

Step up the twisted steps with a twisted sixpence in your hand.

Buy a crooked cat that catches crooked mice.

They lived together in a crooked shack.

And echoing the song are the countless silhouettes of little people set into the clear glass walls.

The little people look like a kindergartener's craft project, folding stiff paper and cutting out huge heads and slender bodies, one after the other, holding little hands.

It was as if ...... would approach at any moment with a song.

Chi Xiaochi tries to figure out the pattern of the numbers from the rows of little people, but after years of graduation, his little knowledge of math has been given back to his teachers hundreds of years ago.

He turned his face to Yuan Benshan for help, "Lao Yuan, look at these people ......"

"There is no pattern." Gan Yu, who was on the side, took over, "All the villains don't follow any kind of numerical sequence, nor do they have any special colors. The number of connected villains is partly more than ten, and ignoring the possibility that it's a coded number, I'm inclined to think that it's more like a hint of some kind."

Chi Xiaochi looked over at him, "Or some kind of warning of danger."

The two looked at each other and nodded slightly.

This inexplicable sense of tacit understanding made Yuan Benshan, who had watched the whole thing, feel stifled.

He interrupted the duo and said forcefully, "Don't focus on studying the villain, the chances of it being a distraction are high."

Gan Yu echoed Yuan Benshan's statement, "There's a wooden cabinet in the corner. Tangtang, open it."

As Gan Tang reached out to pull open the cabinet, a shrill whine exploded from within, startling Jia Siyuan, who was a wall away from them, so much so that she nearly dropped the wall clock she had removed from her hand.

What jumped out was a drumming, weird-faced monkey toy.

The drums under its hands were already broken, its eyes shot out mechanical purple light from time to time, half of its face had lost its paint, revealing white wood ballast, and the whole face looked like a rotting monkey corpse, a glance at it really made people feel uncomfortable.

Every few drum beats, it makes a distorted, shrill sound, "Only - once oh, only - one chance oh."

With the silence of the faceless paper people ringing around him, Meng Qian's brain grew sweaty, and now he added to his impatience as he heard the toy's guttural, ear-piercing, strange noises ringing through the room.

"Turn that thing off now!"

Gan Tang replied good-naturedly, "Couldn't find its clockwork."

But she didn't abandon the toy that was obviously meant for bluffing.

As time passed by, Meng Qian saw her focusing on a prop monkey and couldn't help but accuse her in a mean voice: "That woman over there," she said! ...... Yes, that's you, don't look at the monkey, look somewhere else! You have so many little people on the wall there, counting the law ah, catching an interference item blindly make what strength? Will not play ah rookie chicken?!"

Gan Tang walked briskly to the glass wall and showed him the toy in his hand.

Meng Qian Meng Qian Fixed his eyes and his face immediately burned as if he had been slapped.

On the inside of the monkey's broken drum was set a small, extremely well-made mechanical dial with hour and minute hands, all now pointing exactly in the direction of twelve o'clock.

The monkey faced away from him and let out a sly squeal, "Only - one time oh, only - one chance oh."

Gan Tang didn't talk nonsense with Meng Qian, and turned to ask Qiao Yun and Jia Siyuan who were searching over there, "What have you found over there?"

Jia Siyuan raised the clock in her hand.

Half the wall on their side was covered with clocks, both broken and those that walked normally, and the two of them were removing the clocks one by one in order to see if there was any information hidden inside the dials and faces.

...... But the way they are searching with this dog and pony, they are going to be drowning in this room for at least 20 minutes or more.

Chi Xiaochi looked sideways at the clocks on that wall that hadn't been taken down, observed them one by one, and reached out to one of them, "That one."

Jia Siyuan doesn't have a lot of opinions, but she does what she's told.

She complied and removed the clock, which was set at 3:20, and said in confusion, "What's so special about this clock?"

Chi Xiaochi prompted her slightly helplessly, "...... monkeys."

...... That clock is the only one with a cartoon of a monkey picking a peach on the dial.

Jia Siyuan spat out her tongue in embarrassment, "Sorry. I ...... am not very good at this."

She held the watch near the glass wall so Gan Tang and the others could get a better look at the numbers on the surface.

Three-twenty, no mistake.

Meng Qian, who saw Jia Siyuan's clumsy movements in full view, felt that he had lost face as the "captain", and his subordinates didn't give him much face either, so he said coolly, "It looks like the puzzles aren't too difficult."

Gan Tang removes a hair pin from his temples and carefully probes through a rupture in the drum's surface, ready to adjust the hidden pointer inside the drum to 3:20.

The monkey shrilled, his voice as harsh as if he'd scraped across a chalkboard with his long fingernails, "Only - one time oh, only - one chance oh."

Gan Yu suddenly said, "Wait."

Gan Tang also stopped moving at the same time.

The two of them look at each other, Gan Tang nods knowingly and turns to Chi Xiaochi.

I don't know if it's because they've been working together for the past half month, but Chi Xiaochi already understands what the siblings are thinking without saying too much.

He pulled a hundred dollar bill out of his pocket.

Before coming in, the Joker had asked them to leave all communication tools and tools that could be violently broken outside, but the Joker hadn't bothered much with some of the small odds and ends.

He hands the money to Gan Tang, who aims at the coin with the monkey's violet eyes.

Sure enough, a faint watermark emerged on the coin.

...... Sure enough there are traps.

Gan Tang walked over to the medium-sized envelope-sized communications port at the east end of the glass curtain wall and said to Jia Siyuan, "Please put the watch over here, with the face pointed at me."

Jia Siyuan did so in a daze.

And just as the beady purple light cast from the monkey's eyes shone through the comm port and onto the dial across the room, Jia Siyuan hissed and drew a cold breath.

In a vastly different direction than the pointer, two fresh, bloody pointers with flecks of crushed flesh floated out of the dial.

The blood pointer points to 4:44 a.m. without missing a beat.

And that's the real time.

One never knows what will happen if one dials the wrong clock time.

Of course, no one wants to test that consequence first hand.

Gan Tang's hand didn't shake a bit, and when he accurately picked the minute hand to 44 minutes, all eight heard a faint mechanical roar.

"What's that sound?" Meng Qian half rose from the ground in delight and said, "Is it the door opening?"

"...... is not."

Xu Jiayi, who has rarely commented since he came in, says, "It's the walls that are moving."

He spoke in a flat tone that carried its own creepy flavor.

And he was indeed right.

The glass wall in the center automatically split in two and began to move slowly to both sides.

Meng Qian's face changed drastically, "Back off! Quickly back off!!!"

His emotions succeeded in driving the timid Jia Siyuan, who backed away in a panic with the clock in her arms, almost falling into Xu Jiayi's arms.

Xu Jiayi caught a handful of her and frowned, "Retreat from what?"

He pointed to the glass wall and said, "I thought it had stopped."

The huge glass curtain wall was originally two walls that fit together like magnets, and now that they had turned on the mechanism inside the monkey, each of the two walls moved about ten centimeters to either side, extending a pathway inside that could be used by one person.

A small door opened in each of the western curtain walls opposite the communication ports, successfully opening up both rooms and giving the crowd a chance to explore the corridor.

Before the crowd could be happy, they realized that they had only taken a small step forward, and how they were going to leave the room was still unknown.

With the few clues outside, and having been pretty much explored, it was imperative to enter this newly opened glass corridor.

Meng Qian realized that he had just lost face, but did not dare to move easily, so he asked Jia Siyuan to say, "You, go in and take a look."

Jia Siyuan let out an "ah" and cringed a little, "I ......"

Meng Qian Qian said impatiently, "You're the skinniest here. Hurry up and go inside."

This is not a bad point, Jia Siyuan is indeed too skinny, like a fish, but can swim with ease, if Gan Tang goes in, in that narrow gap will be afraid of stuck chest.

Jia Siyuan, docile as ever, stepped through the small, newly-opened door into the extremely narrow glass corridor.

She held onto the walls on either side, taking one tentative step at a time, her palms imprinting cloud after cloud of dense sweat on the glass.

Meng Qian called, "Did you see anything?"

Jia Siyuan shook his head, "No."

The hallway was empty, the light snowing at the top, illuminating everything clearly.

There are neither any special markings nor items dropped here.

She walked the few short steps with trepidation, looking back often for fear that a little paper figure would emerge from nowhere with teeth and claws and tear her to shreds in this cramped place.

If she was attacked here, she would not even be able to escape.

She took one step from the west end to the east end, fearful but secure to the core.

Just as she stepped under the comms window, there was a very soft electronic tone in her ear.

"Drip-"

A strange circular fluorescent device was automatically triggered at her feet.

Just as she stepped on this mechanism, two square, fluorescent-colored apertures similarly appeared on either side of the glass wall parallel to the window.

Jia Siyuan took a step backwards, and the circle of light disappeared.

It is a body heat sensing device!

She exclaimed, "Yay!" and looked at Qiao Yun and the others in surprise: "I, I found it!"

Yuan Benshan's eyes lit up and he immediately thought of the answer, "It's the villain!"

As much as he hated to admit it, Gan Yu had been right.

The little man on the wall is some kind of hint.

It requires a person to enter within the glass passageway to trigger the mechanism, and those in the two divided rooms, as long as they follow the mechanism prompts, stand into that aperture, through the communication port on the wall, mimicking the posture of the little hand-holding person on the wall, they should be able to trigger the next mechanism, or even ......

Open the next door!

What he thought of, everyone else thought of too.

With time running out, Qiao Yun could hardly wait to get into the right-hand circle and signal Gan Tang to come over.

Gan Tang stood up as he was told, who thought that an electronic voice prompt rang out, "Underweight 55 kilograms, underweight 55 kilograms. Please change, please change."

...... Qiao Yun looked dishwatery and was tempted to kill the system.

Gan Tang could only leave with a slight apology, replacing him with Yuan Benshan, who was closest to the communication window.

Yuan Benshan moved gingerly to the center of the circle, spreading his weight as much as he could for fear of crushing the floor.

On their first attempt, they did not hold hands, but simply stood each into the circle of light and waited to see if anything would change.

Unfortunately, there wasn't much movement.

Jia Siyuan in the glass corridor then offers her hand to the people on either side of her.

The three of them were like little men on a wall, arms crossed.

And just a few moments after the trio stood still, they heard, as they had hoped, the roar of machinery.

Jia Siyuan looks up.

The hallway divided the room evenly into left and right, and she was at the east end of the hallway, holding hands with her partner.

And at the western end of the corridor, a gap was splitting from the center of the corridor proper, moving to either side like two slowly opening glass lips.

Jia Siyuan weeps with joy, "We did it! We did it -- huh?"

Her words came to an abrupt end.

And the next second, her voice was so panicked that it went out of tune, "The corridor ...... corridor, is it getting narrower?"

The corridor, which had been somewhat spacious for her earthly form, actually shrunk against her shoulders as the glass doors across the room opened!

The ominous development called her face white and she instinctively sprang to run.

But as soon as her feet left the sensing aperture, the door, which had already opened a little, unexpectedly closed back inward with a bang!

It happened so suddenly that Chi Xiaochi's jaw dropped as he lay on the ground, his heart instantly brightened and went cold.

...... deadlock!

...... It's a total dead end!

Seeing that hope is at hand and the door to life is closing, Qiao Yun is so desperate that he fails to let go of Jia Siyuan's hand at the first opportunity.

At this precise moment, the monkey who was beating the drum once again pointed his voice and laughed playfully in a deformed child's voice, "Only--once oh, only--once chance oh."

Qiao Yun's face suddenly changed, and he subconsciously held Jia Siyuan's hand!

Jia Siyuan failed to break free, and when he turned around, his face was already ashen: "Xiao Yun! What are you doing! Let go!"

Yuan Benshan also failed to let go due to a sudden change of heart.

Qiao Yun exerted all his strength, dragged Jia Siyuan's hand to his death, and shouted to Yuan Benshan at the top of his lungs, "'There's only one chance'! Don't you understand? If she runs away, who will be willing to go in and step on the mechanism and open the door for us? You?"

Yuan Benshan's throat knots rolled violently up and down, and without further hesitation, he wedged Jia Siyuan's hand in a deadly grip, even dragging her twig-like arm right out of the communication port, folding it over, and pulling it downward with all his might!

Jia Siyuan was dragged back to his feet by the pain in his arm.

The machine started up again.

The corridor was no longer accessible, so Meng Qian rolled and crawled like a four-legged snake to the open doorway, shoving her arms and head as hard as she could into the tiny gap that had been created. Xu Jiayi, also startled by the sudden change, looked back and forth, and chose to go up with Meng Qian and try to wrench the door open.

"Not enough! It's not enough!"

Meng Qian tried to accelerate the opening of the door with brute force, yet the door stood firm, opening only at the rate of the corridor's compression.

The door to life opens for everyone, and with it the door to death for Jia Siyuan.

Inside the corridor, Jia Siyuan's body had been crushed to the point of deforming her shoulders, and she screamed and kicked in desperation, but she was too frightened and too limited in space to make any effort at all.

She wailed, "Let me go, please! Please!!!"

Seeing that the situation was about to get out of hand, Gan Tang jumped on Yuan Benshan and punched him in the face.

However, Yuan Benshan's adrenaline was surging and he was able to withstand the punch.

He spat the blood out of his mouth in one gulp and continued to nose-drag her arm in a death grip.

Gan Tang turned back and yelled, "Brother!!!"

Chi Xiaochi was already one step ahead of them, rolling several times, rolling over to the open door, and joining Meng Qian in wrenching the door in two directions.

Gan Yu also came behind him and pushed the door with him.

But none of them dared to exert too much force on their feet for fear of directly crushing the floor.

Chi Xiaochi's fingertips were white from grasping, and his forehead was sweating coldly, just looking for a tipping point.

Maybe it's still possible, maybe it can still be saved!

Jia Siyuan had been squeezed to the point of rolling his eyes, his bones were crunching and crunching, and blood was bubbling out of the corner of his mouth.

Gan Tang had been gritting his teeth and watching Chi Xiaochi over there, waiting for his judgment on the situation.

Chi Xiaochi turned back to her and shook her head at her.

The gap that opens is too small! Couldn't even get my head through!

Seeing that Jia Siyuan was about to perish, Gan Tang did not think twice and kicked the glass hard.

It should still be saved, it should--

The glass was indeed fragile, shattering in pieces with a single kick, but the wall of glass accelerated violently the instant it shattered and clung together!

After a scream, bright red pâté erupted from within the thoroughly closed glass corridor, and two bloody arms fell straight to the ground from the two men holding her.

She became a real "person in the middle".

The inside of the glass even had a full sweaty handprint left on it from when she had just imprinted on it.

And Gan Tang falls to the ground uncontrollably.

The moment she lifted her right leg to kick and shatter the glass, her right leg also dissolved into glass, clattering and shattering.

...... This is the penalty for sabotage.

Getting past that took them fifteen minutes, as well as a human life, and the leg of one of their team members.

Everyone lost their ability to speak for a short time in response to such a sudden change.

Only the monkey was still beating his little broken drum, gleefully playing an elegy for the dead Jia Siyuan: "Only - one time oh, only - one chance oh. "