Chapter 97: Good Luck

East: White Tiger.

West: Vermilion Bird.

South: Azure Dragon.

North: Black Tortoise.

Chen Ran and Liu Xing both looked at the Divine Beast Bronze Statues, which were clearly positioned incorrectly.

The correct orientation was: East for the Azure Dragon, West for the White Tiger, South for the Vermilion Bird, and North for the Black Tortoise.

Within the Secret Room, only the Black Tortoise was in its proper place. The other three were wrong.

'Three to one?'

'Wrong, wrong, wrong, right?'

'If I keep quiet, Chen Ran will likely try to kill me by tricking me into triggering a trap.'

'Judging by the statues heating up until they glowed red, this Escape Room Game has to be a timed Instance.'

'Since he is in no rush, neither am I.'

'Still, I need to think for myself. I cannot just sit around and wait for him to solve the puzzle.'

Liu Xing walked up to the iron door and carefully inspected the Copper Lock. To his surprise, he discovered two separate keyholes at its base.

Furthermore, there was a U-shaped ring on both the left and right sides, each connecting to a different link of the Iron Chains.

'That means there are two Keys.'

'And each Key can only open one of the U-shaped rings. But a design like this...'

'What is the point of it?'

He continued to study the chains and noticed something fishy about how they secured the door. The Iron Chains were fastened directly to the door handle, a very strange design that hinted at some hidden meaning.

Right at that moment.

He saw Chen Ran walk over to the first bookshelf, pull out the very first book, and compare it against a sheet of paper. Then, Chen Ran placed the book back in its original spot, shook his head with a bitter smile, and continued pulling out other books to examine.

'No way, is this guy seriously going to search through them book by book?'

But the very next second.

He watched in horror as Chen Ran retrieved a Key from inside one of the books. Noticing Liu Xing's gaze, Chen Ran flashed a bright, toothy grin.

"Good luck."

With that said, he walked straight to the iron door, inserted the Key into the Copper Lock, and gently pressed down on the handle. To Liu Xing's shock, the door opened.

Liu Xing, who had rushed over right behind him, went wide-eyed. However, Chen Ran was blocking the doorway, making it impossible for him to dash out.

Suddenly...

Chen Ran spun around and kicked hard at Liu Xing. Protected by his Liar-Slayer, Liu Xing's defenses instantly triggered, rebounding the force and sending Chen Ran...

Flying backward!

Crash!

Chen Ran flew out of the room. While in mid-air, he delivered a flying kick to the iron door. As the door slammed shut, the handle snapped against the Iron Chains, locking the heavy metal door tight once again.

It all happened in a flash. Liu Xing never even had a chance to react before the Secret Room...

Was left with him as its only occupant!

At the exact same time, the ceiling lit up, quickly turning the color of a glowing hot branding iron.

The temperature inside the room skyrocketed once more. Liu Xing felt as though he had been tossed into a massive oven.

Then, a sheet of A4 paper was slid through the gap beneath the iron door.

His face livid, Liu Xing bent down to pick up the paper. The contents written on it...

Were still in an incomprehensible script, and the characters were completely different from the ones on the previous page.

Already sweltering in the heat, seeing those chicken-scratch symbols made Liu Xing feel like ants were crawling all over his skin, fueling his immense irritation.

He forced himself to calm down.

But another unexpected change occurred in the Secret Room. The four Divine Beast Bronze Statues began rapidly moving clockwise along the walls. They circled an unknown number of times before finally coming to a halt.

Their new positions were:

East: Azure Dragon.

West: Black Tortoise.

South: Vermilion Bird.

North: White Tiger.

'This is very strange. If we follow the order of East, West, South, and North, the previous sequence was White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, Azure Dragon, and Black Tortoise.'

'But now, it is: Azure Dragon, Black Tortoise, Vermilion Bird, and White Tiger.'

'Moving continuously along the walls, the Vermilion Bird should definitely follow the White Tiger. But now, the Azure Dragon comes after the White Tiger instead of the Vermilion Bird.'

'It is impossible for them to just skip over each other, right? I never saw the statues hop over one another!'

'Calm down!'

'Calm down!'

He picked up the jacket he had taken off earlier and draped it over his head, shielding his face to prevent it from getting scorched as the temperature continued to rise.

He carefully tucked the newly delivered piece of paper into his shirt. Then, he recalled the exact sequence in which Chen Ran had pulled out the books earlier.

Walking over to the first bookshelf, he grabbed the very first book on the shelf and flipped it open.

Taking a single look at it.

Instantly made his blood boil. The contents of this book were actually...

A translation dictionary for converting the symbols from the first piece of paper into plain text.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!"

People were just like this; they were often deceived by their own ingrained Common Sense. When he saw Chen Ran pull out this book and shake his head while reading, he assumed Chen Ran had grabbed the wrong one. Furthermore, he simply refused to believe that Chen Ran could happen to pull the exact right book on his very first try.

Those two assumptions reinforced each other, causing him to miss his chance to check the book's contents in time.

'It is not too late to lock the barn door after the horse has bolted. As long as I figure out the pattern Chen Ran used to solve the puzzle, I can still escape this Secret Room.'

Thus, if he could just find the first piece of paper in the room and compare it against the dictionary, he could decipher its message.

However, it was obvious that Chen Ran would never give him such an opportunity. That piece of paper had long since been taken out by Chen Ran.

Failing to find it, Liu Xing realized it had been taken away. Unable to control his suppressed emotions any longer, he violently smashed the dictionary onto the floor and cursed in rage:

"Motherfucker, I was being so damn careful, how did I still fall for it?!"

But fury would not solve his problem. After venting his anger, he forcibly calmed himself down.

'What I can confirm is that the key to beating this Secret Room lies with the four Divine Beast Bronze Statues.'

'Based on their previous positions, three of the statues were oriented incorrectly. Only the Black Tortoise was in its correct spot.'

'3-1: The first book on the third bookshelf? But Chen Ran pulled from the first bookshelf.'

'That means the number Chen Ran derived from the statues was either 1-1.'

'Or it was 0-1.'

'But there are four statues here, so the resulting number should logically have four digits.'

'Therefore.'

'It is either 1111.'

'Or 0001.'

'Wait a minute!'

'0 and 1...'

'There is a specific meaning behind 0 and 1. In programming, 0 represents false, and 1 represents true.'

'The previous positions of the four statues, following the order of East, West, South, and North, were...'

'Wrong, wrong, wrong, right!'

'Wrong is 0, right is 1. Therefore, the number represented by the four statues was 0001.'

'The first book!'

'So that was it.'

Liu Xing looked at the current positions of the statues. Following the same East, West, South, North order: Azure Dragon, Black Tortoise, Vermilion Bird, and White Tiger.

Meaning: Right, wrong, wrong, wrong.

Meaning: 1000!

He hastily rushed back to the bookshelf, counting them one by one until he pulled out the 1000th book.

However, the moment he pulled it out, all the shelves glowed brightly before turning scalding hot like branding irons. The intense heat caused the shelves to start smoking.

With no time to overthink, he flipped open the book he had just pulled, only to find that it did not contain the text from the second piece of paper at all.

'I pulled the wrong one!'

'It must be that issue I failed to figure out earlier. As the statues moved along the walls, it should have been impossible for the order to become: Azure Dragon, Black Tortoise, Vermilion Bird, White Tiger.'

'The correct order should be: Azure Dragon, Black Tortoise, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird.'

'Meaning: Right, right, wrong, wrong.'

'Combining the two sets of instructions...'

'Right, wrong, wrong, wrong.'

'Right, right, wrong, wrong.'

'Therefore, the correct answer is...'

'Right, wrong, right, right!'

'1011.'

Realizing this, he quickly counted along the shelves and pulled out the 1011th book.

Sure enough, inside he found the symbols from the second piece of paper, along with their translated text.

He translated it word by word.

The resulting message was: The second Key is located within the second controversial ideology.

Liu Xing: "..."

'What controversial ideology?'