The weekend outing was to an escape room near the city centre, so Fang Zhuo couldn’t go in school uniform.

She didn’t have many casual clothes, so making a choice wasn’t too difficult. After a few seconds of deliberation, she pulled on a black hoodie. She headed out into the corridor with nothing in her hands, and a gust of morning air hit her — a little cold. She went back and added a white jacket.

Yan Lie also lived in the dormitories. They had arranged to meet at the foot of the dormitory building.

This time Fang Zhuo left ten minutes early. When she came down the stairs, he was already there. Yan Lie had one foot propped on the edge of a flower bed, his frame swaying idly back and forth, zoning out.

The two looked up and both paused.

Because Yan Lie was wearing a white hoodie with a black jacket — the styles were almost the same. Standing next to each other, the matching colours were eye-catchingly coordinated.

Fang Zhuo thought to herself that if they swapped one jacket and pulled up their hoods, they could go straight to cosplay as a pair of underworld gatekeepers.

Yan Lie must have had a similar thought, because his gaze rested on her for just a beat before pulling away — then, seemingly unable to help himself, drifted back, and with a smile said, “Fate.”

He jumped down from the flower bed and called out in a good mood, “Let’s go.”

The school on a holiday morning was silent and empty. The deserted walkways looked like a photograph suddenly frozen in place, with only these two figures moving through it — leaving a pair of black-and-white silhouettes in their wake.

The night before, the ginkgo leaves had rustled down in showers, swept by the wind to every corner. The leaves lying flat in the middle of the path had not yet accumulated too much dirt, and were still small golden fans. Fang Zhuo made a detour, stepping past them along the side.

Yan Lie slowed his pace and waited patiently for her to catch up.

As they left through the school gate, the guard on duty watched them for quite a long time, his direct, fixed gaze prickling at Fang Zhuo’s back — even after she’d walked some distance away, she felt as though it was still there, hovering.

Yan Lie followed the navigation on his phone and led the way. When the bus came, he gestured for Fang Zhuo to board first. They sat together at the back corner, in a spot out of the direct sun.

The scenery outside flashed by in a blur. Yan Lie’s profile was dappled by shifting light and shadow, alternately lit and dark.

After several stop announcements, he looked down and tapped out a message. By the time they got off the bus, Wei Xi and the others had arrived early at the stop to meet them.

Shen Musi, Zhao Jiayou, Wei Xi, and two of her dormitory friends — six people in total.

Seeing Fang Zhuo and Yan Lie arrive one after the other, Wei Xi looked surprised, tilted her head back and said, “Did you plan this?”

“We both live in the dorms — of course we arranged to come together,” Fang Zhuo said.

Wei Xi accepted this with something less than complete conviction.

Shen Musi had a flyer rolled up in his hand and urged everyone to walk and talk. Along the roughly ten minutes of walking, he deployed his not-entirely-polished powers of persuasion to enthusiastically recommend the castle-themed escape room. By the time they arrived at the shop he had been so keen on, everyone had been brought round, more or less.

The shop owner was a middle-aged man with a small tuft of beard on his chin. He was draped over the counter staring at his computer in a lazy sprawl. When he saw customers come in, he still only had his eyes half open — he just patted the promotional booklet on the counter and gestured for them to help themselves. A younger employee beside him ran over to give them an introduction.

While the others were talking and asking questions, Fang Zhuo let her eyes travel around the shop.

The walls were covered with various promotional boards, priced anywhere from around seventy or eighty to over two hundred yuan, depending on group size and configuration. Fang Zhuo worked out the per-person cost and decided she could live with it.

Then she thought again — for over two hundred yuan you could hire a couple of NPCs to accompany you for two hours, which seemed to say something unfortunate about how little human labour was worth.

The world of adults really was difficult.

What Shen Musi called the premium version turned out to be this shop’s newest offering: a fully immersive live-action escape room with two to three NPCs, recommended for six to eight players, with two hours to complete the challenge.

Essentially: haunted house plus puzzle room.

Fang Zhuo had played neither, but she at least had a general idea what a haunted house was, and her first instinct was to look at Yan Lie.

Would someone who was scared of ghosts really agree to this sort of game?

Shen Musi was in a state of high excitement and apparently had no idea his good friend had this particular weakness. Zhao Jiayou showed no reaction either and leaned over with him to learn more about it.

So Fang Zhuo let her gaze travel around, and looked at Yan Lie again, raising her eyebrows in a silent question.

Yan Lie gave a light laugh, clearly catching her meaning, and said, “I handle the puzzles. You handle protecting me. Deal?”

Shen Musi, afraid they might refuse, rushed to weigh in. “I’ll protect you! Lielie, just stick close to me! Zhuo-jie, you go with Jiayou!”

“Your Zhuo-jie isn’t afraid of ghosts,” Yan Lie said. Shen Musi swung around to rally his other allies. “Then Lielie, you stick with Zhuo-jie! Wei Xi, you lot follow me!”

Wei Xi wasn’t particularly confident in him. This kid might as well have stamped “all ambition, no skill” right across his forehead.

Yan Lie took out his phone and went to scan the code and pay. The owner held out a walkie-talkie, which he didn’t take — he nodded toward the person beside him to pick it up instead.

Shen Musi reached for it, but Wei Xi was faster, claiming it. “I’ll hold it,” she said. “It makes me feel safer. If we get separated, the owner can come and get us out.”

Shen Musi wasn’t bothered — he figured he wouldn’t need it anyway. “If we win the challenge, can the prize go to me?”

“I’m not competing with you for it,” Yan Lie said easily.

The employee confirmed the room assignment and came back to lead them in. Shen Musi and Zhao Jiayou shot forward like a pair of horses let off a lead.

Yan Lie took his place naturally at the back of the group, and when Fang Zhuo came up, he fell into step beside her.

Fang Zhuo wondered privately what to do — she hadn’t brought a bag today, so there was no strap for him to grab. And Yan Lie did look a little tense, staying almost right behind her.

The group made their way through a narrow winding corridor amid raised voices and arrived at the entrance to the escape room.

The soundproofing was very good in here — Fang Zhuo could no longer hear any noise from the busy streets outside. Instead there was a low, dull hum, like static electricity. When the conversation stopped, the sound of footsteps became sharp and conspicuous.

The fully enclosed space and the suddenly dim lighting pressed the atmosphere down — heavy and thick. Even Fang Zhuo felt something a little uncanny about it. She moved to stand against the wall, pulling Yan Lie beside her.

The employee waved goodbye to them with a smile, swiftly pulled the wooden door shut, and announced that the clock had started.

Shen Musi’s brain was still running hot and had not cooled down. He blazed ahead with a torch. They immediately encountered a firmly closed door. He spun around and shouted, “Find the key!”

Fang Zhuo was entirely outside the logic of the game and had no idea what pleasure people found in voluntarily imprisoning themselves.

Yan Lie explained patiently as they explored together, eventually fishing out a small magnet from a little recess in the wall, which they would then use to find other tools.

“The logic isn’t always obvious,” Fang Zhuo said, puzzled.

“That’s what makes it fun — it’s about a certain kind of thrill,” Yan Lie said with a laugh, though his voice had a faint tremor to it. “Once you’ve played a few times and picked up the patterns, it gets a lot easier. A lot of the hiding spots are similar.”

Fang Zhuo thought privately that the thrill this kind of game offered had its limits for the two of them.

One was too frightened; the other was too unbothered.

Yan Lie was still holding it together for now and took the initiative to say, “I’ll show you how it’s done.”

Shen Musi and the others had long since moved on to search elsewhere.

Teacher Yan led Fang Zhuo in an extended exploration of the area but could not find anywhere to use the magnet.

Before long, Shen Musi’s group somehow discovered a clue on their end and opened the door, calling out for them to join.

Teacher Yan weighed the magnet in his hand and laughed dryly. “Ha. That said, there’s something to it.”

Fang Zhuo: “…”

Why play the game at all? Watching Yan Lie alone was entertainment enough.

Clearly not satisfied to let it end there, Yan Lie grew bolder in his resolve to recover ground, willing now to move three steps away from Fang Zhuo and even take the lead.

Determined to find overlooked clues, he didn’t follow the others, but instead retraced his steps through the passages nearby.

Along the unpainted wall hung a row of darkly styled paintings in varying frames, arranged at different heights in a deliberately haphazard pattern.

Yan Lie stared at the paintings with a furrowed brow. Fang Zhuo stood there, chin in hand, watching him perform.

While their side of things was quiet, Shen Musi and the others were making quite a racket.

They crashed their way into a small room and inside found a coffin.

Zhao Jiayou’s idle hands accidentally triggered a mechanism. From the coffin sprang a skeleton prop with its own soundtrack, sending the group shrieking and fleeing in all directions.

Running back into the corridor, they were met with the sight of two figures standing near the back like a pair of guardians blocking the gates of the underworld — which produced another wave of terrified screaming.

In his panic, Shen Musi didn’t register who these people were. He threw his arms wide and launched himself straight at them. Just before he reached Fang Zhuo, Yan Lie shot an arm out and caught him, shoving him up against the wall.