Chapter 52: Chapter 52
The electronic sound disappeared, and everyone crowded together, glancing at each other in the ever-dimming light.
"This room," Wei Yaoyao’s voice was a bit shaky, "has no lights? How are we supposed to film without lights?"
"You’ve got a point, so there must be lights," Song Xi chimed in enthusiastically.
"Then let’s find the lights," Shu Ran said, "the switch should be on the wall."
"Again, we have to feel the wall?"
This place was unlike the first room, pitch dark, reaching into the darkness was truly a test of courage.
If you happened to shake hands with something in the dark... dear heavens, wouldn’t that scare your hair upright?
Everyone was a bit hesitant, but just then, the room lit up with a red light.
Another countdown, this time it was twenty minutes.
The scarlet countdown appeared, and the tension immediately flooded the mind.
Yu Xia disregarded everything, with a fierce expression, she pounded the wall like wielding a cleaver.
As if the wall was a standing chopping board, and she was chopping up dumpling filling.
Such madness left Wei Yaoyao dumbfounded, then she started swinging her arms to pat the wall too.
Pei Lu reacted quickly, employing a different method.
"Xia, I’m helping you!"
Then he closed his eyes and threw himself against the wall, rolling and crushing across the entire wall from back to front.
Finally, he rolled over to the light switch, "click," and the room lit up with a dim yellow light.
Yu Xia looked at her palm, reddened from smacking, feeling she hadn’t exerted enough effort.
This was taking the risk of "rolling into the arms of an unknown creature" to help her... uh, what does ’help her’ mean?
She glanced again at Pei Lu, meeting his gaze, offering a half-smiling expression.
She had no intention of watching his reaction further, quickly shifting her attention to the room.
It was a rundown office.
The walls were mottled, with only a desk, two chairs, a bookshelf, and a plain filing cabinet. Not much there.
Yet under the low-wattage yellow light, the whole room looked like a crime scene from ten years ago.
Everyone huddled together, slowly approaching the desk in the center.
"This time, there’s no need to find the door." The door on the wall behind the desk was strikingly evident.
Yu Xia was skeptical: "Better check if it’s a real door, if not, we still need to search."
"Then two people should check the door, while the others split up to search for clues and keys," Shu Ran suggested.
Yu Xia went to the desk, with Wei Yaoyao happily following her.
The items on the desk were clear at a glance, two folders, an old desktop computer, and some dried succulent plants.
There was some dust, the folders were messy, with pages sticking out halfway.
Anything unusual is suspicious, Yu Xia opened the folder, finding a property transfer statement and a plastic bag containing a key.
"Did we find it so quickly?" Wei Yaoyao asked in surprise.
Everyone turned to look at her.
"Found a key? So we don’t have to keep looking?"
"It’s only been three minutes."
Yu Xia shook her head: "I feel there’s more to it, let’s go try it out."
This time Pei Lu was in charge of unlocking, but the key didn’t work.
"So the challenge this time is distinguishing the real key from the fake ones?"
She muttered while glancing at the transfer statement.
"... Helian Bo Bo Chicken transferred to Anna?" Thɪs chapter is updatᴇd by novel⸺fire.net
Wei Yaoyao had already sat on a chair, intending to stretch his neck for a look, but the chair collapsed with a crash, and he hit the ground with a thud.
Yu Xia hurried over to help, but missed, almost pulling herself down too.
"Hey, Medicine Classmate, you fell so hard even the container made a muffled sound, seems like..."
Before finishing, Wei Yaoyao flipped over the broken seat cushion, revealing a key taped underneath.
"... This is quite the hiding spot."
Just as she was about to suggest trying it, Song Xi and Yu Kuang shouted excitedly nearby:
Yu Xia added, "We found a key too. Song Xi, what was in that cabinet?"
The lighting was poor, she could only see a vague pile of things.
Song Xi: "Oh, it’s an eagle with spread wings ornament; the key was hidden in its wing."
The conversation seemed normal enough, but something Song Xi touched on the ornament caused it to emit a high-pitched eagle cry.
Then followed by a series of sleazy "hehehe" laughs.
Song Xi let out a short scream, covering his heart, breathing heavily: "......"
Everyone was startled by the noise, their necks retracting.
Still seated on the ground, Wei Yaoyao couldn’t help but laugh at the sleazy laughter, becoming more pronounced.
"Hahaha, why does this eagle laugh like that?"
Yu Xia maintained a straight face: "It probably wants to ask you why you laugh like that."
"... Ahem, let’s find the keys."
But this laughter dissipated a bit of the oppressive fear.
More keys were found one after another, handed to Pei Lu for testing, one by one.
Unfortunately, none were correct.
The countdown was now at six minutes.
Everyone grew tense; Pei Lu’s hands were shaking when trying the keys, making Wei Yaoyao anxious.
The latest key tested was also wrong, so Wei Yaoyao ran back to the desk.
"Where haven’t we searched? Why isn’t it right?"
Yu Xia had searched the desk thoroughly, even dismantled the other chair, nothing.
She didn’t seem too anxious, squatting by the computer, ready to boot it for clues.
But then she noticed the wires were all cut; the computer was just a decoration.
Both of them looked over the computer, finding nothing.
Everyone was getting a bit restless.
Yu Kuang and team found some frightening things in the filing cabinet, but kept looking for keys, bravely enduring.
This undaunted spirit was truly touching.
Seeing no other options, Yu Xia scanned the room and zeroed in on the small succulent pot.
She pinched the withered succulent.
Sure enough, something was wrong; it was actually plastic!
He Ci had a pot of beautiful succulents on her desk that never dried out despite not watering it for a month. For it to be so withered, she thought the show’s props were quite realistic, resembling an office unused for decades.
Pulling on the plastic succulent, it revealed a key tied to a string underneath.
It looked just like a keychain.
"I feel this is the one."
She took the key over, with Wei Yaoyao eagerly following, handing it to Pei Lu to unlock.
"Only three minutes left, hope this is the right one."
As soon as she finished speaking, there was a "click," and the lock opened.
Pei Lu, almost instinctively, looked at her with ecstatic joy.
Yu Xia didn’t look at him, she clapped and screamed with Wei Yaoyao beside her.
"It’s open, it’s open!"