Chapter 62: Rain Watering Plum Blossoms

The atmosphere inside the Secret Room was tense.

However, this tension was fleeting. They knew full well that if they could not escape the Secret Room, everything else would be pointless.

Having been solely focused on Infighting just moments ago, they finally began to carefully inspect the Secret Room.

A single sofa, offering no clues.

A single coffee table, offering no clues.

Ten books, offering no clues.

A mirror, offering no clues.

Ten chairs. There was a problem here.

Previously, while caught in the loop, each Secret Room had possessed one and only one chair.

Logically speaking, since the loop had ended, the electroshock memory recovery method should have also concluded, rendering the chairs meaningless.

The fact that the chairs had not vanished, but instead multiplied by nine, was completely unreasonable.

Click! Clack!

The four people, immersed in their thoughts, were jolted awake by the sound of two Glass Beads dropping.

Looking toward the noise, they saw two Glass Beads on the floor in front of the beanbag sofa. The beads rolled forward a short distance before coming to a halt.

The numbers on the two Glass Beads were...

Number 1 and Number 2!

'These belong to Chen Ran and Qiu Yinong!'

Realizing something, the four hurriedly searched the room for the two of them, but unfortunately, it was too late.

Chen Ran and Qiu Yinong were nowhere to be found in the Secret Room. It was as if they had vanished into thin air.

'Shameless!'

'Those two must have deduced the method to escape the Secret Room and quietly slipped away while we were distracted...'

'The Glass Beads must have fallen from the beanbag sofa.'

At this thought.

The four of them approached the beanbag sofa. The Middle-aged Uncle took the initiative and sat down on it, but after a long while, he was not teleported away. He fell into deep thought.

'Could it be because of the Glass Beads?'

The Middle-aged Uncle took out his own Glass Bead, placed it on the sofa, and waited quietly.

When he still was not teleported, he carefully pocketed the Glass Bead again.

'There is another possibility.'

'Those two Shameless bastards threw their Glass Beads at the sofa from a distance when we were not looking, deliberately catching our attention so we would waste all our time trying to figure out the sofa.'

'Because the Glass Beads rolled off the sofa, it is very hard for us to determine which direction they were thrown from. Truly Shameless!'

"Everyone, what are your thoughts?"

The Gold-Rimmed Glasses Captain pondered for a moment before replying, "The Infighting had just ended, and while we were still taking in our surroundings, they already managed to escape the Secret Room."

"This implies that everything we needed to accomplish in this Secret Room has already been done. We are only missing the final step: finding the exit!"

"There are not many items in the Secret Room. A beanbag sofa, a coffee table, chairs, a mirror, and ten books. We need to investigate them one by one."

"First, the sofa, coffee table, and books can be ruled out. That leaves the chairs and the mirror. One of these two has to be the exit."

"The chairs can also be ruled out, as they lost their purpose once the loop ended. However, there is another possibility regarding the chairs..."

"What is it?" The three of them stared at him eagerly. They had the distinct illusion that ever since Chen Ran and Qiu Yinong vanished, this four-eyed fellow had suddenly become much more formidable.

"First, we need to clarify the entire process of how the Old Man was abused."

"The Successor initially used the books to help the amnesiac Old Man recover his memory."

"That attempt failed."

"Losing patience, the Successor beat the Old Man, but that still failed to help him regain his memory."

"Consequently, the Successor went completely insane. He dragged the Old Man into the Basement, tied him to a chair, and administered electric shocks to his head."

"In the first Secret Room, the information we gathered indicated that the Old Man suffered Wet Paper Face Covering and suffocated to death..."

"The fact that the Successor killed the Old Man suggests he successfully obtained the information he wanted. That information was the message written in the Second-round Simplified Characters from the first Secret Room: My fortune is buried beside my Wife's grave."

"Can any of you guess where the Old Man ultimately died?"

Liu Xing looked toward the chairs.

'Wet Paper Face Covering was a torture method invented by the Eastern Depot during the Ming Dynasty. First, the prisoner's limbs would be secured to a restraining bed, and then wet paper would be layered over their face, sheet by sheet.'

'During the loop, the moment we sat in the chairs, our limbs would immediately be restrained...'

"On the chair?"

"Exactly," the Gold-Rimmed Glasses Captain said, pointing at the chairs. "The appearance of ten chairs here means their significance hasn't ended. What other purpose could they serve? For the Old Man, the electrocution was followed by torture. Since we were also electrocuted, don't you think there might be a torture waiting for us too?"

Pausing here, he spoke with solemn gravity. "If we are even slightly careless, we might very well experience Rain Watering Plum Blossoms."

"Rain Watering Plum Blossoms?" Surprised by the sudden appearance of this novel term, the Middle-aged Woman asked in confusion.

"It's the elegant, ancient euphemism for the torture of Wet Paper Face Covering."

Interrupted by her question, Gold-Rimmed Glasses completely lost his rhythm of deduction. He shot the Middle-aged Woman a look of displeasure.

"As I was saying, the remaining significance of the chairs is Rain Watering Plum Blossoms. Therefore, from this moment on, we cannot afford to make a single mistake."

"If the chairs represent punishment, then there is only one possible exit left: the mirror!"

"In the Compendium of Materia Medica, there is a passage that reads: A mirror is the essence of metal and water, bright on the inside and dark on the outside. The inside of the mirror is light, while the outside is dark. Us being trapped in the Secret Room is the darkness, and escaping the Secret Room is the light."

Hearing this, the three of them frowned. They had to admit that the Gold-Rimmed Glasses Captain had incredibly strong deductive reasoning skills, far surpassing their own.

But it still felt a bit far-fetched...

Liu Xing carefully organized his words. "First of all, I agree with your earlier deductions. However, I can't quite get behind your logic regarding the mirror. 'A mirror is the essence of metal and water, bright on the inside and dark on the outside'—there are plenty of classical texts with similar quotes. What makes you so certain that the mirror in this Secret Room specifically corresponds to the Compendium of Materia Medica?"

The Gold-Rimmed Glasses Captain looked at Liu Xing as if he were staring at an idiot. "Do you even hear yourself? Haven't you noticed that, based on Common Sense, there is no 'rain' in this Secret Room for the Rain Watering Plum Blossoms?"

Liu Xing frowned.

'In Rain Watering Plum Blossoms, the rain refers to the water used to soak the paper. There really is no water in this Secret Room...'

'Wait!'

'A mirror is the essence of metal and water: meaning a mirror is formed from the condensation of metallic and aquatic essences.'

'In other words...'

'If we trigger the punishment of Rain Watering Plum Blossoms, the mirror will turn into water?'

'But that defies science!'

'No!'

'That's not right!'

'In the first Secret Room, the books on the three bookshelves were almost entirely works of literature.'

'In other words, this Instance doesn't have to obey the laws of science, but it absolutely must adhere to the literature associated with the Secret Room!'

'What the hell!'

'Just listening to someone else's deductions makes it feel like my brain is frying. How on earth did Chen Ran and Qiu Yinong deduce the answer in an instant?'

"Are you suggesting that the side plot of this Secret Room has two possible endings?"

"One is to suffer Rain Watering Plum Blossoms, and the other is a safe escape?" Liu Xing asked uncertainly.

"Exactly."

"The evidence?" the Middle-aged Uncle asked.

The Gold-Rimmed Glasses Captain sighed. "Are you kidding me? Do you guys never summarize the clues we find?"

"In the first Secret Room, the Old Man placed three layers of encryption on his will: Second-round Simplified Characters, typewriting, and scrambling the order. Tell me, who was the Old Man trying to guard against, and who did he actually want to read the will?"

"From the very beginning, this Instance has featured two Successors!"

"Which means there are actually three people in this Basement: an evil Successor, the Old Man, and the second Successor."

"The Old Man suffered Rain Watering Plum Blossoms, which led to him suffocating to death. That was the Old Man's ending."

"This is only the second Secret Room, indicating that the story isn't over yet. Therefore, the second Successor's ending is most likely a safe escape."

"Thus, we have two endings to choose from: either the Old Man's ending, or the second Successor's ending!"