Hu Xiu had clearly felt her physical strength declining over the past half month.
The administrative department was swamped with miscellaneous tasks. She and Chen Yang worked in separate offices—one in the administrative office and the other in the vice president's office—carrying files between three buildings every day. Additionally, she had been borrowed by Doctor Jin for the reproductive genetics department. Two consecutive weeks of conferences—"The Lancet vs. Small Pills: Endometriosis Case Treatment Seminar" and "Ovarian Cyst Surgery Summit"—left thick stacks of materials covering her desk. The PowerPoint slides were filled with tables, symbols, ultrasound images, and chromosome screenshots, straining her eyes to the point of blindness.
When you don't understand something, you have to learn. Following Doctor Jin in the office to study, the meticulous man wore a white coat over a black sweater covered in cat hair, occasionally sneezing. This man had one excellent quality: he didn't like meddling in others' affairs. Since drinking with her at the farewell party, he never mentioned Pei Zhen again.
Considering Pei Zhen's meeting with his ex-girlfriend in the U.S., and Doctor Jin's return from studying abroad there, he probably had an idea about the situation. Bringing up Pei Zhen to Hu Xiu would only cause trouble for his friend.
If covering up a crime were punishable, grown men would go to prison for their brothers, starting with five-year sentences.
Every night, Diao Zhiyu waited at the convenience store in front of the hospital, sitting by the window with his laptop. Carrying his backpack, he followed Hu Xiu home, sat on the balcony sofa to write Escape Room scripts, buy props, contact renovations, and occasionally sneak photos with his phone. He would leave only after she fell asleep.
After several nights in a row, Diao Zhiyu dozed off on the sofa. Hu Xiu couldn't bear to send him home, so she told him to take a shower and sleep in the bed. Crouching by the sofa watching him, he woke up groggily and within sixty seconds shifted from innocent to seductive, all through his eyebrows and eyes.
Staring at him, Hu Xiu felt playful and lifted his shirt to burrow her head inside... licking his chest.
"Damn it..." Diao Zhiyu cursed, scooping her up horizontally and tossing her onto the bed.
Young boys couldn't resist teasing—she should have known. Before the flame completely died out, he would tease her until she begged for mercy.
Back and forth... Hu Xiu's toothbrush holder gained an extra toothbrush, the bathroom an extra towel, and the drying rack two pairs of boxer briefs.
Her mind full of spiraling chromosomes, she opened her eyes in the morning to see Luotuo firmly gripping her arm. Hu Xiu gently scratched his eyelashes with her fingers; tickled, Luotuo reached out to cup her face.
Burrowing into Luotuo's embrace, she would inevitably be poked by something hard every time, and she couldn't pretend not to feel it.
After all, though Luotuo's eyelashes fluttered innocently, his dark pupils gleamed with mischief. Ah, too young—so young that happiness came almost too overwhelming.
He particularly liked licking people—lips, ears, neck, wherever was sensitive—and grew excited whenever he found a ticklish spot. Was he part cat?
Moving together while embracing, she buried her head in his warm chest, not wanting to hear the alarm clock.
His eyes held a magical power; every time she looked into them, she felt her twenty-seven years of instability, loneliness, helplessness, fear, and rootlessness were all meant to lead to this day, holding him.
The Escape Room progress was rapid. Zhao Xiaorou left it to Diao Zhiyu, who designed a mildly horror-themed exploration series—three immersive theater Escape Rooms with interconnected plots. They could be played individually or all three simultaneously, with twelve Non-Player Characters accompanying players throughout, performing storylines. The actor ratio was eight males to four females, tightly controlling player psychology—Escape rooms emphasize mechanics and narrative, with NPCs guiding players while also creating opposition between them. Players can replay for different endings, and even if the plot is dull, female players will return to meet handsome boys while male players become infatuated with actresses.
Diao Zhiyu had already figured out all the profit-driven strategies, which perfectly aligned with Zhao Xiaorou's intentions.
After the New Year, she planned to personally visit the Shanghai Theatre Academy to select actors, boldly declaring she would recruit the most attractive male and female students as NPCs - if they were going to do this, they would do it right.
To observe escape room decoration and operations, the four of them often attended midnight sessions.
Li Ai's condition had significantly improved after surgery. He helped Zhao Xiaorou open the car door with his bamboo cane, pretending it was casual.
During midnight escape room sessions, they often encountered groups of night-owl youngsters dressed flamboyantly, who would head straight to bars after finishing the rooms.
During a late February session at "Desolate Country Hospital," Zhao Xiaorou smoked outside before entering and announced, "The group that just left included Jackson Wang."
"What?" Hu Xiu's jaw dropped in surprise.
"Yeah, he often plays late sessions with staff members. That down-to-earth man grabs stuffed animals at midnight, dances at bars, buys merchandise at the Giant Panda Memorial, and is especially crazy about escape rooms."
"I hope he'll visit after my escape room opens, so I can promote it everywhere as Jackson Wang's favorite escape room spot. Diao Zhiyu, have you ever encountered celebrities before?"
"Yeah, I've met both celebrities and internet celebrities."
"Do you get excited?"
"No..." Diao Zhiyu remained completely calm. "Isn't Shanghai full of wealthy people and celebrities everywhere?"
"You're really strange." Zhao Xiaorou poked his back. "You seem young, yet you've experienced major storms; you appear mature beyond your years, yet without any trace of that greasy quality."
Diao Zhiyu walked away awkwardly. Zhao Xiaorou had been quietly laughing when suddenly her eyes narrowed. "Damn, you two have slept together."
Hu Xiu stared stiffly at Diao Zhiyu, who pretended not to hear while taking notes on his phone.
Zhao Xiaorou pointed at Diao Zhiyu's neck: "These two scratch marks, what's this, Rurouni Kenshin?"
Seeing Diao Zhiyu leave, Zhao Xiaorou moved closer to Hu Xiu: "Why has Li Ai been acting strange lately? Did you ask him?"
"No. Haven't you been with him recently?" Though they worked in the same office, the two were still having issues.
"He's been going to court frequently lately, and I heard from the barista that when he went to the coffee shop a few days ago, Li Ai was inside crying - the kind of crying that turns into sobs."
This was unheard of. Hu Xiu looked at Li Ai chatting with staff in the distance: "I've never seen Li Ai cry before."
"So... could you ask him for me?"
Nearby, Li Ai looked around while tapping his cane on the ground - his way of thinking.
His hands moved seemingly aimlessly, but he was actually drawing diagrams. Hu Xiu let out a big yawn as the time arrived, and the DM invited them inside.
Three other players joined their session. One girl's eyes seemed glued to Diao Zhiyu as he pointed things out in the dim light.
Hu Xiu thought this was exactly the downside of handsome guys drawing attention everywhere. Maybe she should make him wear full protective gear and a mask when going out to reduce exposure, or draw thick eyebrows to make him look ugly!Once inside the game, you must keep a close watch. On the Snowpiercer, she kept finding opportunities to get close to him, not to mention the female players in the dark.
The thought had barely crossed his mind when Diao Zhiyu abruptly pulled Hu Xiu into his embrace, completely disregarding the surrounding gazes.
The atmosphere began to grow eerie, and Hu Xiu secretly rejoiced. See? This handsome guy is already taken.
She even straightened her posture with pride.
The Desolate Asylum was a modern-themed setting composed of an abandoned hospital. The story revolved around M City, where a bizarre series of murders occurred, and the perpetrator fled into the hospital, evading the police.
Over the following year, people in the hospital died one after another. Patients became too afraid to seek treatment, and eventually, the government abandoned the facility. However, the misfortune did not end—the entire city seemed infected by the curse, with people disappearing continuously. In the end, the city fell into desolation, and those with the means struggled to escape.
Players entered as urban explorers, tasked with uncovering the truth within the asylum and escaping within two hours.
According to the Dungeon Master’s introduction, the plot was mildly terrifying, and the Non-Player Characters could be adjusted—either toned down or made extra spicy. After a group discussion, everyone agreed: if they were going to play, they might as well go all out.
Zhao Xiaorou quietly asked the staff which level of spiciness Wang Jiaer had chosen. The staff member waved her off, unwilling to say much, but subtly gave a thumbs-up—extra spicy. Of course, those daring enough to play Desolate Asylum were anything but timid.
Right at the entrance were a decapitated female corpse and a skeleton. Each person held only a small candle, which would go out with the slightest tremble.
Hu Xiu’s legs immediately went weak. A chilling breeze swept past her calves, and she sneezed—her candle went out.
Diao Zhiyu turned back, relit her candle with his own, and continued forward.
A girl behind them exclaimed, “Oh my god, that guy is so handsome! Handsome enough to make me want to steal him away.”
Hu Xiu rolled her eyes in the darkness. She pulled open a drawer to find a severed prosthetic limb, stained with blood, missing its ring finger.
Li Ai leaned in, “This might be a clue. Are there any fingers in this room?”
After searching around, they indeed found the severed finger in a corner, bearing a ring mark and clear fingerprints.
Using the fingerprint, they unlocked a hidden door at the end of the corridor. Hu Xiu thought to herself, “Thank goodness I’m an Escape Room veteran. If a clumsy player had picked up this finger, it would’ve been game over.”
The three girls followed closely behind Diao Zhiyu. In the morgue lay three corpses. The first was a child, with a clue on its body: “Daddy, please take me away from here.”
The second was an elderly person, though not very old, with all organs removed and a sunken abdomen.
Comparing the names in the morgue’s cold storage with the list, Hu Xiu noticed several bodies were missing. “Maybe they were stolen for organ transplants?” she speculated.
Before she could finish, Zhao Xiaorou lifted the sheet off the third corpse—it was alive! The background music instantly changed, and the group scrambled to escape. Li Ai, the last one out, wedged a crutch through the door handle.
The Non-Player Character in the morgue roared, “Give my family back, you heartless doctors…” Hu Xiu, terrified out of her wits, asked Diao Zhiyu, “What kind of twist is this?”
“We’ll find out when we check the surveillance footage. It’s all for the thrill.”
“But that was so sudden! It’s the morgue, after all!”"Isn't this just the normal progression?" Diao Zhiyu held the hospital room door shut, then opened it a crack upon hearing Li Ai's voice to let him in. With seven people crammed into the ward, Zhao Xiaorou took Li Ai's crutch to bolster her courage: "I'll check under the bed—there might be something else scary down there."
This naturally led to a thaw in relations with Li Ai. Real-world conflicts resolved in extreme environments, using the suspension bridge effect to reconcile—one of the benefits of Escape Rooms.
Under the bed was a locked box, its combination hidden on the main hall's ceiling, requiring someone to go alone.
The controller's voice came through the walkie-talkie: "The long-haired girl, you go."
Hu Xiu was incredulous: "Me?"
Of course they'd pick the most timid one for the solo task. The candle had long been extinguished during the frantic running, and not a single light remained in the area.
Clutching the candle, Hu Xiu searched for any flame to relight it—there was none.
She threw the candle to the ground—what kind of puzzle-solving prop was this? It seemed designed purely to frustrate.
On the hall's ceiling was a painting left by the director before retirement. His daughter adored deer, so the ceiling featured an oil painting titled "The Yearling."
Memorizing the code in green-yellow-blue-white order, before she could firmly recall the numbers, the door behind her burst open—another man seeking vengeance for his family.
She raced frantically through the hospital, getting lost and fumbling in the dark, until Hu Xiu began to suspect this wasn't about completing tasks but purely about terrifying players.
Returning to the ward, she recited the numbers and unlocked a family letter: the director's biological daughter had been kidnapped. To save her, he had to harvest healthy organs from hospital patients and send them for transplantation to high-ranking officials in other cities. Zhao Xiaorou laughed: "This script might as well be adapted from real-life events."
Two people had to remain in the room for the game to continue. Once the external plot was triggered, live NPCs would likely emerge—perhaps from the wardrobe or under the bed covers.
Hu Xiu, her legs weak from running, waved a hand: "You all go. Li Ai and I will stay here—neither of us can run anymore."
"What if there are more scary scenes?" Diao Zhiyu glanced back.
"Then I'll protect Li Ai." Hu Xiu struck a Popeye pose. "Nothing will happen."
The room plunged into total darkness. The two sat against the ward wall, Hu Xiu edging closer to Li Ai. His arm felt warm, and her fear subsided slightly.
She'd stayed behind specifically to clarify things. Hu Xiu began: "I heard you haven't been speaking to Zhao Xiaorou lately?"
"I've reached a settlement..."
Hu Xiu froze in surprise, unable to see Li Ai's face or discern his expression in the dark.
"After the verdict, I might receive two million in settlement money—about the same as Zhao Xiaorou's breakup fee.
Once I return her six hundred thousand, we can officially become partners."
"A settlement—are you sure?"
"A few days ago, the family came to my café again. They knelt, genuinely pleading for a settlement—their son was already dead, they need the money to support their other two children.
Another family smashed my shop, didn't kneel, and clearly resent me.
After all, I'm the one who always refused to settle, hindering their fresh start.
I never agreed to settle because I felt my wife deserved an apology—"At the scene of the car accident, the moment he stepped out of the car he asked how much money it would take to settle the disaster. I can never forgive such words—a spoiled young master, drunk, took two lives in the crash, and the hospital staff haven’t woken up yet. From start to finish, he showed nothing but contempt for life. But after being knelt to like that a few days ago, I realized—”
Li Ai sighed with a bitter smile. “They still need the money from the deceased to save the lives of the survivors. Someone like me, who values justice more than money, probably has only this one insurmountable hurdle in life.
And as they reach the middle to later stages of their lives, their pain may not be less than mine, and they have even more obstacles that require money to overcome. I think it’s time to let go.”
That’s why he was sitting in the coffee shop, crying. Hu Xiu patted Li Ai’s leg. “Letting go doesn’t mean you’ll forget her.”
“Right. She is my family and my lover. After the reconciliation, I also need time to return to my life—taking on design projects, opening a shop, so Zhao Xiaorou doesn’t have to work so hard.”
“Is there still a chance with her?”
“Let’s wait a bit longer. I’ll bring it up after repaying the six hundred thousand to her. I don’t want to pressure her with the reconciliation. Emotions that are too heavy can feel oppressive, and I’ve already made her unhappy enough.”
An alarm sounded, and sure enough, there was noise from under the bed behind them. Outside, people were running and screaming. Zhao Xiaorou shouted, “Li Ai, Hu Xiu, get out quickly! The freezer in that room is full of living people!”
All twelve drawers of the freezer were opening, and people were climbing out from inside.
Hu Xiu pulled Li Ai up, and they scrambled to open the door, rolling and stumbling as the Non-Player Character behind them landed on the ground, ready to give chase—this was probably what they called extra spicy.
Having been a Non-Player Character for a long time, Diao Zhiyu now shielded everyone behind him. “Be careful, follow me. Once we’re up the stairs, hide in the operating room. There are no hidden compartments there. Barricade the door and look for a chance to escape.”
His protective demeanor was reminiscent of Snowpiercer, back when Minister Qin led the team.
The ward was bathed in a crimson light. Zhao Xiaorou had run back to the ward for Li Ai, pulling him to escape as quickly as possible.
Diao Zhiyu was still covering the three female players, while Li Ai stood in front of Hu Xiu and Zhao Xiaorou, not planning to run.
A man with talismans stuck to his face approached them, emitting terrifying growls from his mouth.
As he drew closer, Zhao Xiaorou suddenly reached out. “Damn, what kind of creepy stuff is this!”
After peeling it off, a handsome face was revealed. The boy froze, and so did Zhao Xiaorou.
Without waiting two seconds, Zhao Xiaorou laughed. “Oh my god, you’re so good-looking. Why didn’t you come out earlier to scare people? Come catch me, catch me!”
The handsome guy bore a resemblance to Ryosuke Yamada. Zhao Xiaorou cornered him toward the mortuary cabinet and accidentally tripped him, causing him to fall inside.
Zhao Xiaorou crouched down, patting his chest and taking the opportunity to feel it a couple of times. “Why play a ghost when you’re such a fine person? You’re way too handsome. How is the game about to end already? I haven’t even had a chance to chat with you.”
Hu Xiu nearly burst out laughing beside them. Zhao Xiaorou’s hand was still on the boy’s chest. “Why are you wearing so little? Aren’t you cold lying in there? Ah, are all the handsome guys in Shanghai in this Escape Room?
Can I come play again? Next time, show up earlier so I can recognize you from the start, I promise. Will you still be here if I come again?”
“I won’t be…” The man, who looked so much like Ryosuke Yamada, was caught between laughter and tears. “I’m still wearing an earpiece. The boss is going to dock my pay…”"Then catch me, come catch me. I'm here to investigate the truth. If you catch me, evil will triumph over justice. Chase me!"
The game naturally wasn't completed, after all, Zhao Xiaorou spent the final five minutes vigorously rubbing the Non-Player Character's chest.
The plot aligned largely with their guesses - it was indeed a dark theme with social relevance. Among the players, Diao Zhiyu and one girl had Role missions. Their name tags identified them as family members of victims who came seeking justice for their relatives. This hospital was involved in organ trafficking, with the masterminds being the former director and local officials -
Escape Rooms these days really tackle contemporary issues. It was too dark to see the scenes clearly. When they emerged, everyone was exhausted except for three girls who were still enthusiastic about exchanging WeChat contacts. Diao Zhiyu pointed at Hu Xiu: "Sorry, I have a girlfriend."
"We just want to make friends..."
"Sorry, I really do have a girlfriend, and my family is quite strict - truly apologize."
The professional smile on Diao Zhiyu's face was instantly recognizable, using his habitual line from Snowpiercer: "These matters should be discussed outside Rong City." In reality, actors only remain within Rong City.
The three girls looked at Hu Xiu, then at Diao Zhiyu, unable to conceal their disappointment as they waved goodbye.
Zhao Xiaorou held her phone: "Damn, the game ended just like that. I still haven't gotten that boy's WeChat. He absolutely refused to give it."
"Do I look like some unsatisfied female player? I just wanted to recruit him to work at my Escape Room!"
"Your approach was too obvious... No wonder he was scared."
"Fuck, if I wanted to hit on him, I definitely wouldn't use such direct tactics."
"Besides, I saw how he firmly resisted inside, thought he was very professional and kind of cute - just joking."Someone who's so serious at work, would rather die than yield, shouldn't he be the perfect employee for my Escape Room.".."
Li Ai stood quietly smoking in the distance.
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