SWBG - Chapter 24

At almost the moment Wei Jia Shi pressed send, a tremendous crash of elevator doors being smashed open echoed from outside.

[From: Happy Board Game

 It is now the participants' [second round]. Please hurry up.]

Gu Jing Sheng continued searching for clues without pause, merely pricking up her ears subtly. Only when she heard the native entering the next room and beginning to noisily smash the furniture inside did she quietly let out a sigh of relief.

—The noises from next door were chaotic, as if more than one "person" was present.

Xiao Luo walked over to Gu Jing Sheng, his voice so low it was nearly a whisper: "Are you sure the password you just sent wasn’t wrong?"

His concern for Huo Wen was limited, but as a formal participant of Happy Board Game, she had managed to collect a few items. It would be a pity to lose them.

Gu Jing Sheng hadn’t been a model student during her school years, but after graduation, she unexpectedly found herself understanding the exhaustion of a homeroom teacher: "If it were only 1, 2, 5, I wouldn’t be sure, but adding Mendeleev, it definitely refers to the first, second, and fifth elements in the periodic table—H, He, B. Their order in the alphabet is 8852, exactly four digits."

Wei Jia Shi was inwardly shocked, looking at Gu Jing Sheng as if she were a chemistry genius who died too young: "Damn... so this is the power of knowledge?"

Gu Jing Sheng said calmly: "It’s the power of compulsory education—the periodic table is middle school content."

The second room was noticeably more difficult to search than the first—the space was so simple it could be taken in at a glance, and it was unclear how long it had been since anyone cleaned. Every surface was covered in a layer of dust, the yellowed walls already moldy. Two iron-framed beds stood in the middle, without pillows, sheets, or even mattresses. The one closer to the door had completely collapsed. Where the headboards should have been, there were originally two cabinets, but judging by the scattered wooden fragments on the floor, they had been completely smashed long before the participants arrived.

The walls were covered with many posters. Their colors clashed, and their dense number didn’t add a living atmosphere to the room—instead, it felt especially eerie.

Though he privately acknowledged his mind wasn’t as sharp as hers, there were too many posters for Gu Jing Sheng to examine alone—Xiao Luo and Brother Fang, forced onto the same rickety boat, took up the oars of cooperation, periodically pooling together information they found useful.

Xiao Luo: "‘Mrs. Egret’s Parenting Tips’ is now on hot sale. Interested parties can order by phone."

Brother Fang: "The Never-Closing Frog Supermarket is about to hold a year-end lottery with a 100% winning rate."

Wei Jia Shi: "Uh, what I have here seems to be a schedule..."

Currently uninterested in buying books or shopping, Gu Jing Sheng walked directly to Wei Jia Shi’s side to examine the blurred writing on the schedule posted on the wall.

Wei Jia Shi looked at his roommate’s slightly furrowed brow and whispered: "Do these schedule times hide some clue?"

Though deciphering puzzles wasn’t his forte, he vaguely knew many mysteries were built around numeric times—

Gu Jing Sheng said inexplicably: "I just think this paper isn’t stuck on very firmly. We can peel it off and see."

Wei Jia Shi: "..."

As an involuntary formal participant, Gu Jing Sheng had no mood to preserve the dungeon environment. Even if the schedule had been firmly attached, it wouldn’t have stopped her from scraping three layers off the wall to search for clues.

"—!"

Under the schedule was indeed a hidden side quest, but its presentation was so bloody that Wei Jia Shi could hardly accept it.

There was a hole in the wall, plugged with a bloody eyeball that was staring at them unblinkingly.

Dried blood had seeped out around the hole, and beside it, a line of words was scrawled madly in blood—

 "We have been pushed into hell by devils. Until we complete our revenge, we can never ascend to heaven."

Wei Jia Shi instinctively stepped back, but Gu Jing Sheng leaned in closer. After observing for a moment, she used a wooden fragment as a tool to dig the eyeball out of the hole.

The rotting eyeball emitted a nauseating stench.

The crashing sounds from next door, the bleeding eyeball in the wall—everything felt like heavy shackles pressing on Wei Jia Shi’s heart. He was nearly losing his composure, but seeing Gu Jing Sheng’s calm expression made him feel less afraid.

Wei Jia Shi whispered: "Aren’t you scared, Ms. Y?"

Gu Jing Sheng said lightly: "There’s nothing scary about dead things. If this eyeball were alive, then I’d be wary."

There was indeed something behind the eyeball—a rusty pull ring.

Gu Jing Sheng pulled the ring hard, which triggered a hidden mechanism. Along with it, four circular number dials with pointers emerged from the wall, all currently set to zero.

Xiao Luo: "Is this the new password?"

Brother Fang: "Can you solve it?"

Gu Jing Sheng shrugged helplessly: "Solving a puzzle requires having the question first. Right now, all I have is a blank answer sheet."

Xiao Luo and Brother Fang were also at a loss, so they could only continue examining the assorted posters and advertisements on the wall.

In the end, it was Wei Jia Shi who found the clue.

The new clue wasn't on the wall but on the ground—three yellowed pages torn from somewhere, neatly folded into small squares used to prop up the bed leg.

Gu Jing Sheng felt that Happy Board Game was probably trying to kill her ==.

"No one is willing to take responsibility for the accident at 'Rosemary' Sanatorium! Even the police only conducted a brief search before leaving. This beautiful place seems to have been forgotten by everyone."

"He called himself Andre Adams, a very handsome young man, just excessively pale, as if he hadn't seen sunlight for a long time... No no, Andre wasn't violent. On the contrary, he was hardworking and cheerful, and he loved talking to people. Everything seemed so normal; it's hard to believe he was a mental patient who killed his attending doctor and escaped."

"Sheriff ▇▇▇ stated that, as of now, a significant number of mental patients remain at large, but he is confident in capturing these dangerous individuals."

The first two pages contained excerpts of reports about the "Rosemary" Sanatorium accident, while the crucial third page had four lines of numbers and a sentence:

"1456, 369

 123, 367

 3214789654

 147, 12369, 456, 789"

"Mr. John's method inspired me to record passwords, and my friends praised me too, but only I know this is nowhere comparable to the passwords Mr. John created! It doesn't even require any calculation!"

Gu Jing Sheng put down the paper, closed her eyes, and pinched the bridge of her nose.

Though unspoken, everyone understood her exhaustion—the kind that comes from being dragged back into the exam hall after graduation, a fate worse than death.

Wei Jia Shi cautiously suggested: "How about we copy the clues and send them to Mr. X for everyone to ponder together?"

Gu Jing Sheng opened her eyes and shook her head slightly: "The hint is relatively clear this time. I think I've figured out the password."

Wei Jia Shi looked at Gu Jing Sheng's head with awe, as if it were a blessed, enlightened brain.

Gu Jing Sheng: "The password should be 4, 7, 6, 8."

Brother Fang glanced at her and asked: "Why?"

Figuring that herding one sheep or three made no difference, Gu Jing Sheng didn't mind sharing her reasoning: "The numbers in these passwords don't exceed nine, and since the last room used a fourth-order magic square (a 16-cell grid), this time it's likely a nine-cell grid."

Wei Jia Shi: "This time, do the rows and columns also need to add up to the same number?"

Gu Jing Sheng: "No. See, the password designer specifically wrote ‘It doesn't even require any calculation,' so we just arrange 1 to 9 left to right in the grid from smallest to largest, and then connect the dots."

Wei Jia Shi followed Gu Jing Sheng's explanation: using commas as separators, 1456 connected forms an "L" shape, 369 is a vertical line—connected, they look like a "4"?

Gu Jing Sheng adjusted the dial pointers to the corresponding positions one by one. With a soft "click," the wall smoothly split down the middle, revealing a gap wide enough for one person to pass through.

Letting out a soft sigh, Gu Jing Sheng said to Wei Jia Shi: "Send the clues we found to Mr. X."

Wei Jia Shi nodded: "I'll include the decryption method too!"

Gu Jing Sheng paid extra attention to the noises from the next room. She wasn't in a hurry to enter the third room immediately, but first took off her white coat and examined it carefully.

—Whether judged by practical value or aesthetics, this coat was destined for either the trash or the incinerator. It was stained with old bloodstains of various sizes and slashed by a sharp blade.

From the puncture marks, there should have been an ID badge on the left chest, but Gu Jing Sheng couldn't find it.

Seeing this, Wei Jia Shi swiftly took off his own white coat and placed it next to Gu Jing Sheng's for comparison.

Xiao Luo approached and tentatively asked: "What are you looking for?"

Gu Jing Sheng didn't hide it: "Checking for any clues—I'm concerned about the last column of the clearance conditions."

Xiao Luo: "Aren't you worried others might see it and figure out the clearance method first?"

Gu Jing Sheng glanced at him, without any intent on monopolizing intellectual property, and said indifferently: "If they can figure it out, that's their skill."

Xiao Luo: "..."

Confirming with a look: She's been a top player before.

Formal participants all know that in [Happy Board Game], the higher the difficulty, the richer the rewards. But this is a world full of dangers; even the lowest difficulty game can take a participant's life in an instant.

Luo Xiao Yuan had also once thought about challenging higher difficulties, but at some point, his only wish became simply to survive.

After finishing her inspection, Gu Jing Sheng put the ragged thing back on. Wei Jia Shi seemed quite disgusted by the bloodstains on the coat, but in the end, he maintained the uniform look with the others.

"Are the uniforms in this hospital one-size-fits-all?" Wei Jia Shi's clothes were a bit tight, in stark contrast to his roommate's—Gu Jing Sheng's sleeves were slightly long past her wrists and had to be rolled up for ease of movement.

"Buzz—"

Xia Xiao Yun's timing was perfect. Just five seconds before they decided to enter the third room, a new text message arrived.

Seeing other's POV is very intriguing.