Secret room escape: Murder case in an ancient house

This day is the fourteenth day of the seventh lunar month, commonly known as the Ghost Festival, and the weather that day was also gloomy.

My twelve-year-old little brother was about to start school, so I drove him out to play. I also called my eldest brother. The eldest brother was twenty-five years old, and he brought a new partner with him.

I booked a session of the escape room game "Butterfly and Soul", and we met at the front desk of the escape room.

"Butterfly and Soul" takes place during the Yongle period of the Ming Dynasty. The Wang family, a long-established medical institution in Yangzhou, was all killed overnight. The four of us dressed up as ancient detectives and entered the house where the incident occurred to investigate the truth.

(1) Courtyard

The first scene when entering the secret room is the courtyard of a large house. There is a door leading to the hall. There is an elegiac couplet in front of the door and the word "Dian" written on it. The white paper lantern has a double-open door with a metal combination lock hanging on it. The lock has five small squares strung together side by side. Each square has four different Chinese characters on it. These characters must be arranged in the correct order to unlock the lock. There is also a wing door and a shrine in the yard.

I looked around and found that the only things with Chinese characters around were elegiac couplets. I compared the Chinese characters in the code lock with the elegiac couplets one by one, unlocked the lock, and entered the hall.

(2) Hall

On the right side of the hall are several rows of medicine cabinet drawers. Each drawer is marked with what medicinal materials it is. Some drawers cannot be opened, and some drawers can. Pull it out directly. After opening some drawers, you will find that there is a rope tied inside and cannot be removed. This must be some kind of mechanism.

On the left side of the hall are two Taishi chairs and a wooden tea table. On the table are candles, fire folds, and a piece of reminder paper; at the end of the hall is a table with nothing on it. There is a long table, and there is a candle on the right side of the long table.

On the tea table, the long table, and the foot of the wall next to the entrance, there are also white pink lines outlining the deceased's location before death and the location of fatal injuries.

We were groping around randomly and couldn't figure it out. The background reminded us to look carefully at the slip of paper. It said: "On a thunderstorm night, the candlelight is swaying; close the door and search carefully" (probably) , meaning to light the candle.

I followed the instructions, pulled out the fire stick, and lit two candles with the fire tip. Then there was a "bang" sound, and the target of the elder brother was startled. It turned out that the mechanism of the long table opened and a candle fell out. A page of paper.

The paper has simple human body veins and eight acupuncture points drawn on it. It also contains the toxicity of several medicinal materials, the acupuncture points that can be opened according to the medicinal materials, and a monologue written by Mr. Wang: He is studying a method of fighting poison with poison. For drugs, all acupuncture points indicated on the paper must be taken into account, and the toxicity cannot exceed 10 points.

This is to ask us to open the drawers tied with strings in the correct way. My elder brother and I researched for a long time, and finally selected three medicines: Duyi Yin (I can’t remember clearly), Hedinghong, and Amethyst Quartz. Their toxicity is exactly 10 points, and they also take into account all acupuncture points.

At this time, there was lightning and thunder outside the house, and a broadcast in the background warned that the murderer was coming. He quickly blew out the lamp, pulled out the wax, and found a hidden place to hide. The four of us hid in the innermost corner of the hall, only to hear the sound of thunder gradually receding along with a burst of strange footsteps. Both the eldest brother and the younger brother are afraid and nervous. The eldest brother and I have seen each other a lot.

In fact, it was later discovered that the murderer was only one person, and he was not a martial arts master. The plot of the four detectives actually wanted to hide when they encountered him. This plot is really unreasonable.

(3) Bedroom

The door into the wing room is the women’s dormitory, which is narrow in area. There is a boudoir bed painted on the wall, and a layer of red curtains are hung for decoration. Blocking; there is also an outline of a person drawn with white lines in the lower right corner of the boudoir bed, which means that a person has died here. A specially built wooden board is built under the boudoir bed, with a bowl and a pair of shoes placed on it.

On the left side of the door is a dressing table. There is a black wooden box on the table. The box has a Chinese character code lock similar to the one in the first level. We are asked to find clues again.

There is also an abacus, a tea bowl, and a letter on the table, which was written by the woman’s husband. It turns out that he has been away from home for a long time. The letter tells how he misses his family. Some of the handwriting is painted in red ink. , indicating that they are clues: gold hairpin, account book, tea, decoction (can’t remember clearly).

Open the desk drawer, there is a gold hairpin inside, and a dozen small cups with lids of different colors. The small cups cannot be moved. When you open the lid, there is a word inside, The clue is here.

After thinking about it, it is not difficult to figure out: according to the color of the items prompted in the letter, find the corresponding small cups. The words in these small cups are the unlocking passwords.

The gold hairpin is not difficult to find, corresponding to yellow and black; the ledger corresponds to the abacus, brown; the tea corresponds to the tea bowl, blue and white porcelain color; the decoction corresponds to the medicine bowl in front of the bed.

Opening the lock of the wooden box, there was another letter and an ashtray inside. The letter writes about the wife's longing for her husband. Although there is no hint of red ink outline, it repeatedly mentions worshiping gods and praying for blessings, which must be referring to the shrine in the yard.

We came to the shrine and took a closer look this time. There were three ashtrays on it, all filled with incense ash, and there were one, three, and four pillars of green incense inside. We got them in the dormitory. is empty. Four circles were specially drawn on the table, and inside the circles were different paintings of flowers and plants. It seems that the ashtrays need to be placed in the circle in the correct order.

As expected, the eldest brother was brought out by me. He quickly realized what he had written in the letter: The old lady worshiped God alone in the twelfth lunar month, corresponding to one stick of incense; three months later, the whole family worshiped God together, corresponding to There are four sticks of incense at the most; after the Dragon Boat Festival, when the woman’s brother goes out, there are only three people left to worship God, which corresponds to three sticks of incense; when the woman is looking forward to her husband’s return, they will worship God together, which corresponds to the empty vat.

The flower and plant paintings include: wintersweet, representing winter; lotus, representing summer; chrysanthemum, representing autumn; and there is another painting that is difficult to distinguish, but it must be spring.

In this way, the code lock is unlocked and the door inside the bedroom is opened. It was also learned here that the Wang family adopted a pair of twin brothers and sisters and raised them as their own children.

(4) Study

This room seems to be the study of the Wang family. Because the mechanism is relatively simple, I don’t have much impression of it. As soon as I entered, I found a piece of paper on the table with prompt information: Shui Ling, the Universe is Reversed, and a Time Node. The time node found clues in the room was Chenshi (can’t remember the details).

We noticed the disk hanging on the wall, which is divided into three rings and can be rotated separately; the middle ring is divided into four parts to depict the four spiritual beasts: Qinglong, White Tiger, Xuanwu and Suzaku. ; The second ring writes the twelve earthly branches; the third ring is the Qiankun Bagua.

My little brother and I will spin the disk. Among them, the water beast corresponds to Xuanwu; Chen Shi has been solved; and there is still "the inversion of heaven and earth". I found a hexagram sticker on the top of the disk, which means the upper stem and the lower kun, so I turned the disc to upper kun and lower qian.

After aligning the three rings, the entrance to the next room will open.

(5) Mourning Hall

We stepped on a two-level wooden step and entered the mourning hall through a window. There is a coffin in each of the four corners here, and an offering table with paper sheets and four rattles on it.

When I first saw this scene, I vaguely felt something was wrong, but I was too anxious to find clues and didn’t think about it in detail. Following the prompts, we shouted: "I will die with my eyes in peace." A coffin opened automatically, with a model of the bones inside.

At the same time, the words of the deceased rang out all around: how he missed his family, and even though he was in an unexpected situation, he still wanted to be reincarnated and reconnect with his wife. It was that husband.

Find out the jade pendant from the coffin. You can see a small square groove on the side of the nearby coffin. Insert the jade pendant into the groove. The coffin lid slides half open. There is also a model of the corpse and an incense stick inside. A bag containing a letter.

At the same time, a woman's voice rang out, that is, the wife. She was not killed, but died because of her frailty and serious illness, and she felt guilty that she could not give birth to children for her husband. .

Following the instructions in the letter, I patted the side of the third coffin, opened the coffin lid, and found the account book inside. The old lady’s voice also sounded: She paid off gambling debts for someone, but this person not only did not appreciate it. , and killed their entire family. The murderer is ready to come out.

For the fourth coffin, you need to place your palms on the marked position on the coffin. After opening it, the voice of the old man sounded: lamenting that the prescription of using poison to fight poison failed. A packet of medicine and a piece of paper with a spiritual spell written on it were found in the coffin.

According to what was written on the paper, we placed the four soul-inducing rattles in the house where there were candles. The four of us split up and drew a small circle on the table next to each candle. Just flip the rattle upside down.

Next, the last room opens.

(6) Solve the case

The room is only the abbot, and there is a painting on each of the three walls, which is the scene of the murderer killing Mr. Wang, Mrs. Wang and Mr. Wang. There is a window sash on another wall with a small cloth bag hanging on it. There is a table under the window sash. On the table there is a clapper, four circles and a message: Ask to find the flaw in the murderer's words, clinch immediately, and then put the evidence Put in the circle and expose the murderer's lies.

When I took off the small bag from the window, the shadow of the murderer's face appeared on the window, and his voice rang out from all around, threatening me and the police officers that we would never get out of the Wang family's mansion alive.

The next step is to refute the murderer. The plot is roughly as follows: The Wang family adopted a pair of wandering orphan brothers and sisters. When the adopted son grew up, he became the steward of the Wang family; the young master of the Wang family developed a secret love for his adopted daughter, a childhood sweetheart, and later got married and started a family. It was originally a happy life, but the story had to have conflicts, so the adopted daughter was frail and sick, and even if Mr. Wang was a famous doctor in Yangzhou, there was nothing he could do to save her.

This incident aroused the evil thoughts of the adopted son. He had seen the prescription prescribed by Mr. Wang and thought that the other party was using his sister for medical experiments, which led to his sister's untimely death. At the same time, the prince of the Wang family had been Outside, the adopted son suspected that he was a troublemaker and abandoned him; in addition, the old lady might have reprimanded him a lot. So he took advantage of the rainy night and killed all three members of the family.

But the fact is that Mr. Wang thought of the method of fighting poison with poison because he was helpless about his adopted daughter's condition. There are many hints in the previous plot, and the prescription is also evidence; Mr. Wang held the medicine given to him by his wife before he died. Jade pendant, the two have a very good relationship; the adopted son owed gambling debts outside, and the old lady secretly helped him pay off the debts, and everything was recorded in the account books.

In addition, the adopted daughter left a suicide note to her adopted son, which explained everything. However, the adopted son did not see the letter, so he made random guesses in private and killed his benefactor.

Actually, when I saw the four coffins in the mourning hall, I vaguely felt something was wrong. In the previous shrine plot, it was obvious that there were five members of the Wang family, and the number did not match.

Since four of them are dead, the remaining one alive is probably the murderer.

When all the evidence was revealed, the murderer felt extremely guilty and committed suicide. The last door opens and the game ends.

(7) Ending

Looking back at the entire plot, there are obvious loopholes:

First, we are clearly four people, and there is only one murderer, but we dare to shout for "give up" We can't get out alive, and we really have to hide from him, which is simply strange;

Secondly, this case is actually not difficult. The murderer is relatively easy to identify. In the plot, the local government in Yangzhou has nothing to do. "Elite" agents need to be brought in from out of town to solve the case.

To sum up, could it be that the Ming Dynasty officials raised a bunch of weak chickens and mentally retarded people?

Finally, the four of us and I took photos in front of the old house scene. This was my first time to escape from the room. I felt very comfortable. I wanted to do it again, and I asked for something a little scarier. I immediately complied with his request and fought in the secret room again.