[The Truth of the Castle]
The difficulty of this escape room was its three-dimensional space. There were many rooms, with numerous clues scattered throughout the upper and lower floors, plus an unstable circuit breaker and NPCs chasing everywhere, making it extremely challenging to gather all the clues.
If the guests weren’t careful and calm, failed to find the location of the electrical panel, or panicked and screamed in the darkness, their chances of being eliminated would be very high.
Fortunately, they made the right decisions at critical moments.
Mo Xun wedged the mop to keep the trap door slightly open, allowing constant communication between upstairs and underground, which greatly saved time.
With the second-floor rooms searched completely, Fang Yinnian saw the staircase and said: “There’s still the third floor. Shall we go up and check?”
Mo Xun nodded, and the two headed up to the third floor, but the door to the third-floor terrace was locked. There was no password, and it was locked from the outside.
On the door was written “The Cursed Truth.”
Fang Yinnian quickly realized: “This must be the final password?”
Mo Xun speculated: “We need to identify the real murderer and send the name through this small hole to unlock the truth?”
Fang Yinnian agreed: “That seems to be the idea.”
The two returned to the first floor, just in time to hear Tang Che’s voice from below: “We’ve found the mechanism to get back up. It leads to the kitchen. We need someone to help.”
Fu Fei eagerly ran over: “How can I help?”
Tan Junwen said: “I’ll put up the ladder, you hold it steady.”
A “click” sound of a mechanism turning came from below, and a section of the kitchen floor suddenly opened—this was where Tang Che had fallen earlier.
Tan Junwen lifted a rusty ladder upward. Xiao Fei quickly held it steady as Tang Che climbed up first, followed closely by Tan Junwen.
Everyone gathered in the living room.
Seeing their dust-covered teammates, they all breathed a collective sigh of relief.
This escape room variety show was truly intense!
Mo Xun smiled and said: “Come on, let’s put all the clues we found on the living room table and discuss them one by one.”
Fang Yinnian’s plastic bag was full of items. Tang Che brought a thick stack of papers, and Tan Junwen also turned back to the study to retrieve the materials he had found earlier.
The study contained an important clue—the birthday party guest list.
Fang Yinnian said: “Let’s first verify the victims’ identities.”
Everyone began organizing the victim information, with Mo Xun quickly taking notes on paper.
Tan Junwen took out the guest list and said: “Eight bodies—five male, three female. We found some information on the computer downstairs.”
Tang Che handed Fang Yinnian a paper filled with notes. Fang Yinnian cross-referenced the gender, height, and body characteristics of the six guests one by one.
Diane Fen, a blonde, blue-eyed rock singer, 173cm female, cause of death was a sharp weapon piercing the heart, body found in the basement wardrobe.
Singer Rock, Andre, and publisher Leo, three males all 180cm tall, all died from a sharp weapon piercing the heart, bodies found in the underground storage room.
Music producer Borini, 176cm male, cause of death was a sharp weapon piercing the heart, body found in the first-floor hall.
Singer Stephanie, 166cm female, cause of death was mechanical asphyxiation, body found in the second-floor wardrobe.
The remaining male and female bodies were found in the second-floor secondary bedroom, both killed by a sharp weapon piercing the heart.
Looking at the organized information, Fang Yinnian thoughtfully said: “The two bodies in the second-floor bedroom must be the male and female owners of the villa?”
Tang Che said: “We found a wedding invitation on the computer in the basement. The groom is the musician Allen mentioned at the beginning, and the bride is named Nina.”
Mo Xun recalled the wedding photos with faces smeared with blood in the second-floor master bedroom and said: “The bride and groom in the wedding photos whose faces were smeared—that must be Allen and Nina?”
Fang Yinnian said: “The crime of passion hypothesis seems correct.”
Besides antisocial personalities committing random murders, the causes of most homicides fall into three categories—for love, for money, or for revenge.
In this villa, whether it was the piano piece “Liebestraum” or the defaced wedding photos, the clues clearly pointed to a crime of passion.
So either Allen or Nina, one of the couple, must have had a lover. Perhaps they betrayed someone who resented their marriage, and that person killed everyone at Allen’s birthday party in revenge.
Whether it was the man who caused the romantic debt or the woman’s lover seeking revenge still required more clues and deduction.
Fang Yinnian quickly identified a key point: “Just for you—Tang Che, you found this folder in the basement computer, right?”
Tang Che said: “Yes, the folder contained only one recorded song demo, sung by a woman.”
Fang Yinnian asked: “Were there lyrics?”
Tang Che said: “English lyrics. The general translation is—’My gaze stops only for you, my heartbeat accelerates only for you, my love exists only for you.'”
They all exchanged glances.
Fu Fei scratched his head and said: “Such sappy lyrics! It seems the songwriter really loved the other person, huh?”
Tang Che said: “This song’s melody is sorrowful and grief-stricken, yet also unwavering. I also believe the songwriter deeply loved the other person.”
Just for you—a song written only for you.
Fang Yinnian theorized: “The melody is sorrowful, suggesting they weren’t together. If a couple in the honeymoon phase wrote a song for each other, it should be sweet and happy.”
Tan Junwen suddenly interjected: “If I may add something—I saw many strange patterns on the basement walls, like stick figures depicting a story. There was a couple about to get married, but a third person interfered and disrupted it.”
“From the images, the three characters were one man and two women. Since two women appeared, I’m guessing the male owner of this villa betrayed his ex-girlfriend, changing his heart to marry a third person, and the ex-girlfriend returned to kill everyone?”
Tang Che agreed: “I saw that mural too. I agree with Junwen’s speculation—the ex-girlfriend is the most suspicious.”
From the current clues, it seemed the man—the male protagonist of this story, famous musician Allen—hadn’t properly handled his previous relationship, leading to the birthday party tragedy.
All the clues matched this theory.
Mo Xun said: “So we just need to find information about Allen’s ex-girlfriend to identify the murderer, right?”
Fang Yinnian felt something wasn’t quite right.
But given the current clues, this conclusion was indeed the easiest to reach.
Tang Che suddenly said: “Oh right, I found many music score drafts in the room downstairs. Yinnian, can you take a look? Could these scores be useful?”
Fang Yinnian took the stack of drafts. The scores were handwritten with extensive revision marks. Some scores had lyrics attached, and these songs seemed to connect with the albums he had found on the second floor.
Fang Yinnian said: “Mo Xun, hand me Andre’s album.”
Mo Xun immediately found it among the stack of albums. Fang Yinnian flipped to the back of the CD to check the song list, then selected and organized the corresponding music scores.
All eight songs from the album perfectly matched.
Fang Yinnian: “Rock’s album.”
Mo Xun found it and handed it to him, and Fang Yinnian continued cross-referencing.
Tang Che said: “It seems all these albums were personally produced by Allen. We can find the original drafts for all the songs.”
Fang Yinnian: “Let’s look for others.”
They quickly cross-referenced the album tracks with the draft scores. About 50% of the thick stack of drafts matched the albums from the second floor, while the other 50% had no matches.
No wonder these singers all signed their albums and graciously attended Allen’s birthday party. This music producer was truly impressive, having created several hit albums for multiple singers.
Fang Yinnian always admired talented producers. Even though this was just a fictional character in an escape room plot, he wanted to uncover the truth even more.
Was it really Allen’s ex-girlfriend who killed him for revenge?
Fang Yinnian carefully scanned all the clues on the table. His gaze fixed on a teddy bear: “I remember this doll was found in the second-floor secondary bedroom?”
Mo Xun said: “That’s right, found in the wardrobe there.”
Fang Yinnian looked at the teddy bear’s stomach, and in the next moment, he suddenly grabbed it and began manually tearing at the stitching.
He bit open the seam on the back of the stuffed toy, and his nimble hands quickly unraveled the thread. In less than half a minute, he had completely “gutted” the teddy bear.
Inside the bear’s stomach were a photograph and two rings.
Tan Junwen’s face showed surprise. Yinnian’s observation was so meticulous—he hadn’t imagined there would be clues inside the teddy bear’s stomach.
The photo showed a young man and woman around 20 years old, smiling brightly, each wearing a simple silver ring.
Behind them was the gate of the “Royal Academy of Music”—this must be their graduation photo, as both were wearing academic gowns.
Tang Che said: “A graduation photo. They look very happy.”
Fang Yinnian turned the photo over. On the back was written: “June 14, 2000, Allen formally proposed to Catherine, and Catherine said yes ^^”
Catherine—an unfamiliar name.
And the name they had been searching for all along.
Fu Fei excitedly said: “The ex-girlfriend! She must be the murderer, right?”
Mo Xun analyzed: “It seems Allen was unfaithful. He met and fell in love with Catherine at university, successfully proposed to her at graduation, but ultimately married someone named Nina in this villa.”
Tan Junwen continued: “Based on the wedding dress order found in the study, Nina appears to be from a wealthy family. Her wedding dress alone cost over a million, a high-end custom gown from a famous brand, and she wore a diamond-encrusted crown.”
Tang Che said: “So the cheater met a rich young lady, abandoned the girlfriend he had promised to marry, and lived a wealthy life? Then on his 30th birthday, the ex-girlfriend suddenly appeared and killed everyone for revenge?”
Everyone exchanged glances and nodded in agreement. The logic sounded reasonable, and it was the only conclusion they could deduce from the available evidence.
But Fang Yinnian still felt something was off.
What exactly was the problem?
Fang Yinnian gently touched his head and asked: “Do you all think the murderer is Allen’s ex-girlfriend Catherine?”
Tang Che said: “All eight people attending the birthday party died, and the only person with a motive is this ex-girlfriend.”
Fang Yinnian said: “But how could she alone infiltrate the villa and kill eight people? Among the guests were three men who were 1.8 meters tall.”
From the photo, Catherine appeared slender. How could she kill so many people and even drag the bodies to the underground storage room?
Fu Fei scratched his head hard, feeling his intelligence was being stretched to its limits.
Never mind, his intelligence was already insufficient. Deduction work should be left to the two scholars, Tang Che and Fang Yinnian.
Silence fell over the hall for a moment.
Mo Xun looked at Fang Yinnian: “You suspect it’s someone else?”
Fang Yinnian wasn’t certain either. He just questioned if the murderer was Catherine, then while her motive made sense, wouldn’t it be too difficult for her to kill 8 people alone? Unless she had infiltrated the villa beforehand and drugged them all?
Tang Che had also thought of this and said: “It’s possible she infiltrated the villa and drugged the birthday party food? After all, she and Allen were once a couple. Using the excuse of privately meeting Allen to catch up, she could have tampered with the food.”
Fang Yinnian nodded, agreeing with this inference.
Mo Xun said: “Then shall we go to the third floor to submit our answer?”
The five got up and went to the third floor. The door was labeled “The Cursed Truth” with a small opening that could be pushed aside, revealing paper and pen inside.
This was clearly where they needed to submit their answer. If correct, they could leave this “cursed castle.”
Mo Xun wrote down the answer “Catherine” and was about to insert it…
Fang Yinnian suddenly said: “Wait!”
Mo Xun quickly withdrew his hand and turned to look at Fang Yinnian.
Fang Yinnian said: “Our deduction has a major flaw! Let’s start over.”
His teammates all looked bewildered.
In the livestream, viewers also began to feel confused.
[Huh? This isn’t right?!]
[Cheating boyfriend, ex-girlfriend seeking revenge—the logic seems sound?]
[My scalp is tingling like my brain is growing~]
[Watching their analysis, I’m completely confused!]
Although his teammates were puzzled, Fang Yinnian was the most perceptive member of their group, so everyone was willing to hear him out.
They all returned to the living room.
Fang Yinnian said: “Junwen, let’s draw a three-dimensional structural diagram of this villa.”
Teammates: “…”
Damn, draw that?
Mo Xun quickly realized the issue: “You suspect there’s another hidden room in the villa?”
Fang Yinnian nodded: “After thinking it through, several points in our logic just don’t add up. Let’s start by drawing from the basement.”
Tan Junwen had a poor sense of direction, but Tang Che’s memory was very clear.
Tang Che began describing the basement structure: “The room directly below the kitchen is 5 meters long by 4 meters wide; coming out is a corridor, 20 meters long, 1.2 meters wide, leading to a crossroads…”
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