Chapter 24: A Deal with the Devil
Xi Leng, the winner at chasing stars, was quite calm.
His only unease came from the physical contact.
The last time he held hands with someone was before he was six years old.
His mother would occasionally hold his hand when they were out in crowded places or crossing the street, to prevent him from getting lost.
But he was naturally quiet and well-behaved, mature for his age, so his mother felt at ease with him, mostly letting him walk on his own.
And most of the physical contact he remembered was violent beatings.
The intense discomfort, the unfamiliarity, and the aversion to physical contact made his palms sweat, beyond his control. He didn’t know if Min Zhi noticed.
The path to the bookshelf seemed to stretch endlessly, becoming incredibly long.
“Found it!”
Qiaoqiao’s excited voice finally broke the strangely slow flow of time.
The intertwined hands naturally separated. Xi Leng breathed a sigh of relief and went to look for the fluorescent words on the bookshelf.
This time, it was also three words: Will, Pass, Go.
“Will pass, go.” Xi Leng rearranged the words, tilting his head slightly upwards. “The answer is… Black night will always pass.”
As his voice fell, a click sounded—
Their vision suddenly returned to light, and the three of them instinctively squinted.
“Darkness will always pass?” Qiaoqiao frowned, shielding her eyes with her hands. “What does that mean? It shouldn’t mean turning on the lights, right? That’s too simple. And there are no new clues.”
“Mm-hmm.” Xi Leng nodded in agreement. “The auntie complained earlier about ‘another power outage’, it seems power outages happen frequently here. Even though the power is back on now, it’s only temporary, the night hasn’t truly passed.”
Min Zhi thought of something and asked: “Today’s escape room should be related to the piano staircase last night, right? The night passes, finding hope, similar meaning.”
Xi Leng avoided his gaze, slowly humming in agreement. As he looked around, he suddenly froze.
Qiaoqiao followed his gaze to a painting hanging on the wall. The painting was so famous that even she, a science student, could easily recognize it: “Isn’t that Van Gogh’s… ‘The Starry Night’? Is ‘night’ a metaphor, referring to paintings related to the night?”
“But shouldn’t ‘night’ represent something bad?” Qiaoqiao then refuted her own guess, muttering, “I think this painting is beautiful.”
But there was nothing else related to “night” in the activity room, so the three could only examine the painting first.
Xi Leng believed that the clue most likely pointed to this painting, just like the top of the piano staircase, where hope was located, yet ironically displaying “The Garden of Earthly Delights.”
“The Starry Night” was one of Van Gogh’s most famous works, its exaggerated style, bold colors, and swirling lines full of dynamic movement, appearing almost hallucinatory at first glance.
“This painting is indeed beautiful, which is why it’s been made into all sorts of merchandise, people take photos with it, analyze and appreciate it.” Xi Leng looked at the painting and said calmly, “But this painting was actually created by Van Gogh during his worst mental state, in a mental hospital. A year later, he committed suicide.”
Xi Leng continued slowly: “This is the embodiment of his pain.”
Qiaoqiao was stunned: “That’s right, this is your area of expertise!”
Xi Leng carefully examined the painting, confirming that it wasn’t a replica, but a high-definition print of the original, with nothing unusual about it. He then touched the surface, finally noticing something strange.
“This is ordinary printing paper. Famous paintings hanging on the wall usually wouldn’t be printed on this kind of paper, it’s too thin and very reflective, it looks fake.”
Qiaoqiao nodded repeatedly: “Indeed.”
“Black night will always pass…” Xi Leng muttered, his hand reaching for the frame of the painting.
Min Zhi, seeing his intention, said first: “The frame is glued on, it can’t be removed.”
Xi Leng frowned and thought for a moment, then gently pressed the paper. It didn’t touch the wall, there was a gap of a few centimeters, probably the thickness of the frame. This gap was enough to hide many things.
Since the frame couldn’t be removed, Xi Leng said: “Then shall we try breaking it?”
“I-is that really okay?”
Qiaoqiao, clearly a child raised with mainstream values and a strong sense of morality, asked worriedly.
Xi Leng, decisive, punched a hole in the painting, turning to her with a slight smile: “Isn’t this what a madman would do?”
With a few rips, and with Min Zhi’s help, the painting was torn open, revealing the hidden space within.
In the top right corner, a key was taped there. Xi Leng stood on tiptoe and took it, seeing a small label attached to it: “Spare key for the Director’s Office (4F).”
This seemed to be a signal. The activity room became noisy again, everyone complaining about the frequent power outages.
Footsteps came from the staircase, and the elevator dinged open.
Xi Leng quickly pocketed the key and led the two away from the torn pieces of the painting, pretending nothing had happened.
“Don’t panic, don’t worry.” The nurse in charge first calmed the agitated crowd. “It’s summer, electricity consumption is high, power outages and tripped circuits are normal, maintenance personnel are already on their way, don’t worry…”
The nurse’s smile was warm, her tone gentle, however, a group of tall and sturdy male nurses lined up behind her, firmly guarding the staircase entrance and the elevator, all the paths leading upstairs and downstairs.
The three peeked out from behind the bookshelf, the situation clear at a glance. The nurses’ strict guard indicated their next destination.
“Jiayan and Jiang Songnan were taken to the special treatment room in the basement.” Xi Leng brought up the difficult choice. “The Director’s Office and the special ward are both upstairs.”
Regardless, they had to break through the nurses’ line of defense and choose between rescuing their companions and going upstairs to solve the puzzles.
“We’re going upstairs.” Min Zhi said without hesitation. “Don’t worry about them, they must have a different plotline, we should split up.”
Xi Leng was silent for a moment, looking at him with a complicated expression.
One was your destined partner, the other your most hated rival, and you’re not worried about either of them?
Min Zhi, unaware of his thoughts, raised an eyebrow: “What?”
“…Nothing.” Xi Leng looked away. “I’m thinking about how we can avoid the nurses and go upstairs. If we’re caught, we might also be taken to the basement.”
And there was also the chain hindering them.
“Right!” Qiaoqiao broke the silence, a hint of excitement in her voice. She looked around and lowered her voice, “The electrical room! My room with Jiayan-ge was next to Jiang-ge’s. When I came out, I heard a sound, I looked over and saw another room at the end of the corridor.”
“There was a sign on the door with three very large characters—Electrical Room.” Qiaoqiao gestured. “I was wondering, why write it so big, wasn’t it meant to be a clue for us?”
Min Zhi continued her thought: “When the power went out earlier, those nurses didn’t seem to be there either.”
“Mm-hmm.” Xi Leng nodded. “The power outage doesn’t affect the elevator, I saw the elevator lights were still on when I was looking for the bookshelf earlier… so, we can split up, one of us goes to the electrical room, the other goes upstairs.”
“There might be other ways on the fourth floor to distract the nurses downstairs, like another circuit breaker, or an alarm, a PA system, an intercom… The Director’s Office should have these things.”
Now the problem arose, and Qiaoqiao asked: “Then how do we…”
Xi Leng and Min Zhi had to move together, Qiaoqiao would have to be separated from them.
Xi Leng wasn’t used to giving orders, but he took the initiative and arranged: “Qiaoqiao, you go upstairs, okay? I’ll give you the key.”
Qiaoqiao, although young, adapted quickly, readily nodding: “Don’t worry, leave it to me.”
Min Zhi looked at Xi Leng, then at the elevator not far away, deep in thought.
“Then we’ll go to the electrical room.” Xi Leng turned his head, bringing Min Zhi back to his senses.
Qiaoqiao found a convenient location to wait for the elevator, while the two headed towards the corridor where their ward was located. The nurses wouldn’t stop them from going back to their rooms to rest.
They passed by their own ward but continued walking without stopping.
Inside the electrical room at the end of the corridor, professional electrical equipment and messy wires were everywhere. They went straight to the circuit breaker on the wall and flipped the main switch.
More complaints arose outside.
The two silently counted in their minds, giving Qiaoqiao enough time to take the elevator to the fourth floor.
However, after only a minute or two, a clear voice came from outside: “Zhu shifu! What’s going on? Another power outage!”
The voice was very close.
The two were startled in the darkness.
Just as Xi Leng was about to flip the switch back on, his outstretched hand touched something slightly rough, soft, and warm, clearly human skin.
But Min Zhi was clearly behind him.
Whose skin was this?
His blood rushed to his head.
If Qiaoqiao was the one who came to the electrical room, in this unknown darkness, she would probably be screaming by now.
Click!
Xi Leng stopped midway. The switch was still flipped back on, and a middle-aged man’s face appeared before them.
The man was thin, his back slightly hunched, his face weathered. His eyelids drooped low, his eyes moving slowly.
Until his gaze locked onto the two uninvited guests.
“It’s nothing.” The man’s voice was low and hoarse. He answered the nurse outside, his eyes fixed on the two. “I’ll fix it soon, you don’t need to come over.”
Xi Leng’s body tensed under his gaze.
“Alright! That’s good, Zhu shifu, hurry up!”
Fortunately, the man called “Zhu shifu” only looked at them for a while. Footsteps faded away outside, and Zhu shifu, as if he hadn’t seen them, turned around, squatted down, and continued checking the circuits with his back to them.
Xi Leng’s heartbeat gradually calmed down, replaced by intense confusion.
He naturally had a lot of questions for this Zhu shifu, but just as he was about to speak, Zhu shifu suddenly stood up and walked past them as if they weren’t there.
The two exchanged glances and silently followed.
Zhu shifu had a slight limp, his shuffling gait revealing a hint of loneliness and desolation, but his steps were firm, completely ignoring the people following him, walking all the way to the activity room to report to the nurses.
“It’s fixed, go and check.”
Zhu shifu’s words were exactly what they wanted to hear, but the number of nurses on guard was large. Even after a few left, most remained, and going upstairs was still impossible.
Even bound by the chain, he was with Min Zhi, the protagonist gong, after all. Xi Leng was confident he could break through and escape the nurses’ pursuit to reach the fourth floor. However, he didn’t know what the situation on the fourth floor was like. If there was nowhere to hide, they would become sitting ducks…
As he was thinking, Zhu shifu suddenly walked into the activity room, towards the chatting patients, then, like a hungry tiger pouncing on its prey, he lunged at a man!
“Ah!!!” The man, caught off guard, cried out in terror, “Help! Help!!”
Zhu shifu pinned the man to the ground and threw a punch. For a moment, only the man’s screams and whimpers could be heard.
Xi Leng froze, his eyes fixed, motionless.
“What’s wrong?” Min Zhi frowned. “It’s just acting, he’s not really hitting him.”
Xi Leng slowly came back to his senses.
“Stop! Stop it!” The people trying to stop the fight didn’t dare to approach, only calling for the nurses’ help. “Someone come quickly!”
“Go and check!”
“Hurry! Someone else, lend a hand…”
The nurses rushed over one after another.
In the chaos, Min Zhi’s calm voice reached Xi Leng’s ears: “Let’s go upstairs.”
Just two or three steps away from the elevator, Xi Leng stopped again.
He had been very proactive today, but at this crucial moment, he hesitated.
Xi Leng said hesitantly: “…Let’s take the stairs?”
He was trying to come up with a reason, like there might be other clues on the stairs…
Before he could speak, Min Zhi turned around decisively: “Let’s go.”
…Incredibly agreeable.
Xi Leng didn’t have time to think, his mind solely focused on going upstairs. Each of them lifted one end of the chain and entered the stairwell.
The staircase was wide, with a bright window at the landing.
And between the third and fourth floors, by the window, was a storage room with its door slightly ajar.
“Shall we take a look?” Xi Leng suggested.
Min Zhi hummed in agreement.
They pulled open the wooden door and entered the storage room, a thick cloud of dust hitting their faces. The lock was broken.
Min Zhi, a veteran of the entertainment industry, pointed to the corner: “There’s a camera here.”
Then there must be a clue, taking the stairs was the right choice.
There were no windows in the storage room. To avoid being seen by people on the stairs, they opened the wooden door a third of the way, letting in some light from the window, their attention heightened in the dim, narrow space as they carefully searched for clues.
The entrance to the storage room was narrow, but the inside was surprisingly spacious.
Xi Leng found the light switch on the wall. Like the stairwell in his rented apartment, a low-wattage light bulb flickered to life. However, the dim light here wasn’t romantic, only endlessly eerie and terrifying.
Looking around, the three walls were covered with various frightening electrical tools, blades, ropes, chains, and shackles.
Xi Leng said: “There might be a key for the shackles here.”
Min Zhi noticed a wooden chair in the corner, stained with blood. He frowned, touching the handle, feeling the jagged indentations, as if carved with fingernails—SOS.
Xi Leng also noticed it, a chill running down his spine.
“There’s something seriously wrong with this hospital.”
“Mm-hmm, abuse is definitely involved. So, Xiaoya’s injuries and her death, rather than being Feifei’s doing, it’s more likely these people, or perhaps she couldn’t bear the torture… and committed suicide?” Min Zhi speculated. “Besides abuse, there might be other things. When you said you didn’t have money for hospitalization…”
Xi Leng froze, thinking, could Min Zhi have seen through his intention to leave early? But Min Zhi’s expression was serious, not joking, as he continued: “The nurse who came for the ward round said you had sufficient value.”
A shiver ran down Xi Leng’s spine, and he guessed: “Organ trafficking?”
Min Zhi looked him up and down, saying seriously: “Or perhaps a deal with the devil?”
Xi Leng was silent for a moment, not bothering to say “I’m a man,” simply replying: “There are many elderly patients here, and… this show is 17+, that’s too much.”
Min Zhi couldn’t help but smile: “Hm, you seem to understand it quite well now?”
The two unexpectedly started chatting in this creepy storage room.
Looking for the key while analyzing the available clues.
Xi Leng spoke again: “I thought of something.”
Min Zhi stopped his movements and gestured for him to continue.
“Although the program team can design things however they want, if we follow real-world logic… who obtained the key to the Director’s Office and hid it behind the glued-on painting?” Xi Leng said. “The patients shouldn’t be able to do it, neither Feifei nor Xiaoya.”
“There are so many people here, each with distinct personalities and different motives, and Zhu shifu helped us. So, is there someone who will help us, someone trustworthy? After all, we can’t prove we’re normal, we can’t escape without outside help…”
The two moved quickly, searching the storage room for less than ten minutes, however, time was running out faster than expected.
“Hurry up, this way.”
“There’s no time…”
“Hurry to the special ward…”
“That girl… today… soon…”
Noisy commotion came from outside, overlapping voices accompanied by hurried footsteps, coming from downstairs.
Xi Leng was startled and quickly turned off the small light in the storage room.
The almost heart-stopping sound still came from outside.
“Is anyone in the storage room?”
The two of them, plus the two cameramen, almost completely filled the narrow space. There was nowhere to hide, let alone escape.
There seemed to be a crowd outside, they definitely couldn’t go back the way they came.
“Is anyone there?”
The voices came closer, the old wooden door creaking open.
Xi Leng, forcing himself to remain calm, looked around, then suddenly spotted the metal locker in the corner. He pulled Min Zhi and squeezed inside.
The poor locker was crammed with two grown men. Xi Leng had to pull in his arms to close the door. The two cameramen were naturally left outside.
According to the game rules, the actors would treat the cameramen as air.
Even so, Xi Leng wasn’t entirely at ease, peeking through the crack in the door, his heart pounding in his chest.
The two nurses came in and searched around.
One was very persistent, the other impatient.
“No one would come here, let’s go.”
“That girl’s surgery is about to start! Do you want to be punished by the director?”
“Let’s go! Don’t bother!”
Special ward… girl… surgery…
The nurses’ footsteps faded away, they had escaped, but they also sensed a more serious crisis from the nurses’ conversation.
The area outside the locker gradually became quiet.
The program team hadn’t installed a camera inside the locker, a major oversight.
Seeing Xi Leng let go of the locker door, the cameraman immediately tried to pull it open, but encountered a strong resistance. The cameraman froze for a moment, then saw an eye appear in the crack, dark and deep, startling him.
Cameraman: “…?”
Min Zhi closed the door with a blank expression.
Xi Leng’s heartbeat hadn’t calmed down yet, pounding in his ears, his chest rising and falling noticeably, his breathing a little rapid.
“…Are they gone?”
Min Zhi wasn’t sure either. They couldn’t see anything inside the locker, only able to rely on sound.
But they couldn’t hear the nurses’ voices anymore, only the deafening sound of their own heartbeats.
The narrow, dark space was filled with the presence of two grown men, the temperature rising rapidly, the air thick with their mingled breaths.
Their heartbeats and breathing remained erratic for a long time.
Min Zhi didn’t answer and forgot to hold the door. The old metal door naturally opened a crack, letting in a sliver of light, falling between them, tiny dust particles floating in the beam.
With the light, Xi Leng suddenly noticed something and froze. Then he leaned forward, the light falling across his face, his hazel eyes like beacons in the darkness, so bright that one couldn’t look away.
“…I’ve found something good.”
His voice was very low, almost a whisper. But the distance between them was too close, inescapable, his warm breath inevitably brushing against Min Zhi’s face.
Xi Leng continued leaning closer.
Suddenly, a hand reached past Min Zhi’s ear, the loose cuff of his half-sleeved shirt sliding down, revealing most of his pale arm.
Min Zhi’s eyes flickered.
Xi Leng, inches away, was staring at him intently, unblinking.
A long while passed.
“Got it.”
As his voice fell, Xi Leng retreated, the bitter scent of tobacco, the fresh scent of soap, the cool scent of mint on him, all suddenly receding.
Even his pounding heartbeat seemed to have calmed down.
In the sudden silence, Min Zhi slowly regained his breath, as if waking from a dream, looking at Xi Leng’s outstretched palm.
…A piece of wire lay there.
A faint smile appeared on Xi Leng’s lips: “No need to look for the key, this is enough.”
