A group of six people entered the maze.

According to Bai Youwei’s vision, improving physical fitness was something that should benefit everyone—the more the merrier. Ideally, Tan Xiao, Pan Xiaoxin, and Teacher Cheng would all come in.

But given the danger involved, she could only leave them in the Dollhouse, and wait until she had gauged the maze’s conditions before considering whether to involve them.

Bai Youwei, Shen Mo, Ashalina, Du Lai, Chen Hui, and Leonid walked together through the maze gate the inspector had opened—

At first it was just like every other time they’d entered a maze—nothing but a vast expanse of white mist.

The people around her all vanished.

As she continued forward, the white mist grew darker and darker, until finally it became pitch black.

She touched the stone walls on both sides—cold, wet, and slick, as if they were layered in stagnant, sunless moss.

The sensation made Bai Youwei deeply uncomfortable. She withdrew her hand and took a flashlight from her backpack, shining it around.

Whether it was the oppressively gloomy environment or something else, the flashlight beam cast inside the corridor still felt eerie—there wasn’t even a hint of light or warmth.

At the end of the corridor was a wooden door—rotten and ancient, its corners banded with rust-pitted iron strips, and unlocked.

Bai Youwei pushed it hard and it opened.

Such a heavy door, and yet it made no sound at all when it swung open.

She stepped inside to find a room of roughly two hundred square meters. Four wooden doors were set into each of the four walls, with no windows. At the very center of the room stood a rectangular column that stretched from floor to ceiling.

Small oil lamps burned at each of the column’s four corners, barely managing to illuminate it.

Bai Youwei’s companions gradually appeared inside the stone chamber.

They had not entered by opening a door—they materialized from the shadows around the stone chamber, and then each began observing the surroundings.

—Apart from a single column, there was nothing.

Even though there were doors on all four sides, everyone was alert and refrained from opening them. No one knew what might be on the other side.

They eventually gathered around the stone column.

One face of the column had a locked iron door; the other three faces were covered in murals.

The murals appeared to be the clues for this maze. They shone their flashlights over them, examining every detail little by little.

The first mural depicted a bull-headed, human-bodied monster chasing a crowd of small figures—the small figures were drawn very abstractly, reaching only to the bull-headed creature’s knees.

The second mural showed the bull-headed monster feeding. Its massive claws gripped a small figure and bit it through the waist; dismembered limbs and remains were scattered at its feet, while the other small figures huddled together, clearly terrified.

The third mural showed the bull-headed monster lying on the ground, a somewhat taller figure driving a sword through its chest, while several small figures beside them made gestures of jubilation.

Turning to the column’s fourth face, there were no more murals—only an iron door, with exactly 12 locks hanging on it.

Bai Youwei reached out and lightly ran her fingers over those metal locks from top to bottom. Cold, hard, heavy.

“Looks like there’s something critically important behind this door,” Du Lai said, glancing around at everyone. “Should I give it a try?”

As someone in a specialized profession, Du Lai was an expert lockpick.

Hearing this, Bai Youwei gave a small nod. The others stepped back to give Du Lai room to work.

Du Lai pulled out a piece of wire, bent it by hand into the curve he wanted, then inserted it into the keyhole and pressed his ear close. Through the faint sounds of the wire meeting the inner mechanism, he worked to determine the lock’s internal structure.

He furrowed his brow and tried for a while before straightening up and shaking his head at everyone. “No good. I can’t hear a thing.”

Bai Youwei thought for a moment, then looked up at Shen Mo. “Try too—try both the lock and the door.”

Shen Mo’s paper-doll figurine was incomparably sharp—reportedly capable of piercing through anything.

But this time, even it was completely powerless. The short blade the paper doll transformed into struck hard against the lock, yet not even a single spark flew. The iron door was equally impregnable.

Bai Youwei let out a soft sigh. “It seems like… unless all 12 keys are found, there’s no way to open this door.”

—