Shen Musi was pressed against the wall. The person behind him hadn’t used much force, but his face still bumped against the surface. More to the point, Yan Lie didn’t let go of him right away — he seemed lost in some kind of daze, keeping his arm pinned.

Shen Musi waited, then squirmed. “Lielie, what are you doing? Are you going to finish me off right here?”

Only then did Yan Lie seem to snap out of it. He released his hold and stepped back.

He was clearly not himself. He didn’t say the usual concerned word, just stood there stiffly, head bowed, expression unreadable.

Zhao Jiayou and the others had caught up, breathing hard, their nerves still jangling.

Behind them, the clumsy coffin mechanism was still rocking. The eerie music looped twice and finally went quiet, and with it most of the ominous atmosphere lifted.

Wei Xi snapped, “Musi, I wasn’t scared of the coffin — I was scared by your screaming! I practically lost my soul chasing after you. How can you be so useless?!”

Shen Musi crossed his arms, aggrieved. “But I found the key, didn’t I? Escape rooms are supposed to require bold thinking!”

Quickly pivoting to deflect blame, he jabbed a finger at the two of them and announced loudly, “And those two — dressed like that, knowing people who know would call that couples’ matching outfits, and people who don’t would think they’re standing guard at the gates of the underworld — I lost my soul over that too!”

“Right, what were you two doing by the door?” Wei Xi turned to look at them then, waving her hand. “Were you too scared to move? Never mind, Fang Zhuo, come with me. Stay away from Musi and you’re pretty much safe.”

Wei Xi stepped forward to take Fang Zhuo away, and in that instant Yan Lie’s whole body tensed beside her. He reached out urgently from behind and caught her by the wrist, fingers ice cold, grip tight.

Fang Zhuo turned around, and their eyes met.

What she found there was something altogether unguarded — helpless and fragile. One might even call it pitiable.

Fang Zhuo’s mind made one of its characteristically oblique leaps, and in that moment she suddenly understood why Yan Lie was so fond of his little bald chicken.

Who could say no to a lost creature looking at you like that?

She slipped her hand back from Wei Xi’s and stepped in front of Yan Lie. “I’m not scared of ghosts,” she told the others. “Yan Lie’s been teaching me how to play — and we’re checking for any clues we might have missed.”

The way she said it sounded steady enough that no one was particularly suspicious.

Zhao Jiayou said, “Looking for missed clues is a bit too open-ended. I think we should find the key first and get all the doors open, then work out how to get out.”

Fang Zhuo agreed and went with the others to the earlier room.

The room was tiny, barely ten square metres, and with the furniture inside, eight people standing in it felt somewhat cramped.

Shen Musi pointed at the coffin in the middle, drawing on his considerable experience. “There’ll definitely be something useful in there. Either the key to the safe or the key to the passage.”

Wei Xi was flattened against the wall, features tense. “Then who goes to get it? Zhao Jiayou!”

Zhao Jiayou hesitated a moment, then steeled himself and stepped up.

He used the same method as before to open the lid. As the panel swung back, a white human-shaped prop launched itself out.

Shen Musi led the screaming for the second time, burying his face against the wall and refusing to look, his sharp voice grating on everyone’s nerves.

Fang Zhuo distinctly felt Yan Lie shudder from head to foot, and then stagger back a step against the wall, as though only by an enormous effort of will did he stop himself from collapsing on the spot.

She genuinely couldn’t understand the tastes of modern young people. Shen Musi’s fear might still have some excitement mixed in; Yan Lie clearly did not.

So why had he agreed to play this sort of game?

Whatever psychological ripples Yan Lie was creating in her far exceeded anything this escape room had managed to produce.

She couldn’t stand watching anymore. She went forward on her own and rummaged around the prop’s body for a moment, then successfully retrieved an old-looking key from inside the bandages wrapped around its chest.

The music stopped. The sense of dread lingered in their bodies still — goosebumps rising, the hairs on their arms still standing on end.

Several of the girls let out a long breath. “Fang Zhuo, you’re incredible!”

“It’s fine,” she said. “Pretty ordinary.” She passed the key to Zhao Jiayou and let the others go look for a lock to open.

The group rallied again with renewed purpose, key in hand, making their way to the safe. They were hunched over examining the keyhole with their torches — and had not yet figured it out — when a cabinet in the corner of the room rattled, its door pushed open from within.

First came a pair of withered hands. Then an NPC in dishevelled costume crawled out.

With the light dim and the others deep in discussion, no one noticed this development except Fang Zhuo.

She glanced at the NPC and quietly looked away.

The NPC moved around her and crept up behind the group, producing several eerie sounds in quick succession. Nothing registered. Apparently undeterred, he tried again.

To ensure the game’s effect, the overhead speaker began playing a piece of ominous music. Shen Musi and the others, who had all the situational awareness of a charging bull, simply looked up at the ceiling and, finding nothing, went back to their discussion.

The NPC’s professional dignity appeared to be under serious threat. He abandoned his more refined approach and resorted to the most direct technique at his disposal — he let out a full-throated shriek, which at last got everyone to spin around.

Shen Musi’s impeccably reliable reaction immediately set off a second wave of chaos. Everyone shoved and scrambled, stumbling over each other in a frantic rush for the door.

Yan Lie, who had been standing against the wall the whole time, bolted toward Fang Zhuo the moment it began.

Fang Zhuo was genuinely touched. The unfortunate thing was that Yan Lie hadn’t quite registered who he’d grabbed — he spun in the wrong direction and shot off through the door instead.

A few seconds later, only Fang Zhuo and the staff member remained in the room.

The two looked at each other in silence.

The young man tidied his wig, peeked out from underneath it, and asked uncertainly, “Are you frozen with fear, or…?”

“Not quite,” Fang Zhuo said. “It’s a bit tedious, honestly.”

The young man: “…” An outright insult to their profession.

Fang Zhuo adjusted her phrasing. “Not especially entertaining.”

She walked over to the safe, studied it for a moment, then couldn’t resist asking, “So that magnet we found earlier — does it actually do anything?”

The young man had been about to go chase after the others. He stopped. “Of course it does — otherwise why would we put a prop there? Players have nearly scratched through the wall trying to find a use for it.”

Fang Zhuo asked, “And the picture frames?”

The young man debated with himself. “We can’t give you too many hints — it’d ruin the fun.”

Fang Zhuo asked, with complete sincerity, “What fun?”

The young man went quiet.

But Fang Zhuo thought she could faintly hear the sound of someone gritting their teeth.

Feeling that she had perhaps been a little too brutal, Fang Zhuo shrugged at him and decided to go find her missing child, Lielie.

After a moment, the young man recovered his composure and came after her. “The boss wants to know — would you like to join us and have a little fun with your friends?”

“Join you?” Fang Zhuo asked. “Do I get paid?”

The young man was momentarily at a loss for words. He communicated with the boss and came back. “We can charge you half price. Everyone earns a bit for the effort.”

Fang Zhuo agreed readily. “Sure, that works.”

“Right, we’ll go to the room up ahead and intercept them,” the young man said. “Don’t go too far — no grabbing or physical contact, to avoid any disputes.”

The escape room had several concealed staff passages. The young man found her a white bloodstained cloak and led her crawling through the staff corridor.

It was dark and stuffy in here, and very cramped — far more atmospheric than the escape room itself had been.

Fang Zhuo crawled along and started feeling that something wasn’t adding up. The room setup, utilities, staff wages — however she calculated it, it should cost more than two hundred yuan. Yet a price of over two hundred per person seemed outrageous.

Halfway through the corridor, Fang Zhuo suppressed the unease building in her chest and asked cautiously, “How much does your game cost?”

The young man tried to turn and look at her, but the corridor was too narrow — the moment he shifted, his head nearly knocked against the wall.

“You don’t know?” he said. “There’s a group discount right now — seven people, twelve hundred yuan.”

That was by far the most terrifying thing Fang Zhuo had heard. It felt like the statement had delivered a critical blow that took out half her life force.

She was silent for a long time. When she finally spoke again, her voice had gone a little rough. “How long have you been in this business?”

The young man, unaware of anything unusual, thought back. “The shop’s been open about two years. But this particular theme is brand new — only opened last month.”

“Do you enjoy it?” Fang Zhuo asked.

“Very much!” the young man said. “Our shop is very well-known in City A — we come up with a lot of our own room concepts. Some shops are completely shameless about it and send people over to copy our rooms.”

Fang Zhuo said, with mixed feelings, “In your position, I’d enjoy it too.”

Who wouldn’t enjoy taking people’s money?

“Twelve hundred yuan,” Fang Zhuo muttered, her heart bleeding. “That’s way too much.”

“Shh —” the young man signalled her. “Someone’s ahead.”

Fang Zhuo was still sunk in the grief of twelve hundred yuan. She listened carefully, and made out the sound of Yan Lie calling her name.

“Looks like just one person — they’ve got separated,” the young man said in a low voice. “This spot is yours. I’ll go to the front.”