The Anarchic Consort

Neither of the two boys had a pleasant look on their faces.

Helian Weiwei didn’t care about what they thought and looked at Guo Tingting. “That’s all you saw?”

“Yes.” When Guo Tingting answered her, she didn’t look into Helian Weiwei’s eyes.

Helian Weiwei paused. “If I were you, I would choose to tell the truth now.”

Guo Tingting was a bit uneasy. “Can you guarantee that the murderer won’t kill me?”

“Of course.” Helian Weiwei smiled. “And I will know who he is very soon.”

Guo Tingting hesitated, then she said, “I had really fallen asleep, but because I didn’t close the window, I woke up from being bitten by mosquitoes. I was about to get up to get mosquito repellent when I heard the sound of something heavy falling from across the room. I looked up and saw a figure standing on the rooftop and this person seemed to be looking downwards.”

“In other words, you saw Dong Sichun’s murderer?” Helian Weiwei’s eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you tell the police about such an important matter?”

Guo Tingting hurriedly explained, “They didn’t ask me about these things at all. Moreover, the school clearly wanted to suppress this matter. I wasn’t sure if Dong Sichun had committed suicide or if she had been killed either. Surely I couldn’t simply say such things, right?”

“None of these things are the main point, right?” Helian Weiwei’s voice was very indifferent. “You didn’t say it because you didn’t like Dong Sichun in the first place. In addition, there was only half a year before you would graduate. You didn’t want to get into any trouble because of this matter.”

Guo Tingting paused for a moment and her entire face flushed red. “I really didn’t like her. She was just a slut, so why should I take the risk to speak up for her?”

“Alright, then let me ask you another question. Since you didn’t tell the police about this matter, who did you tell?” Helian Weiwei hit the nail on the head. After all, this was the key to determining the murderer this time.

Guo Tingting shook her head and her face was filled with confusion. “I’m the only one who knows about this.”

“Think about it carefully, have you unintentionally revealed it before?” Helian Weiwei tried to jolt Guo Tingting’s memory. “Particularly during the recent months?”

Guo Tingting shook her head again, but then she suddenly seemed to have thought of something. “I have a habit of writing short stories, so I wrote this as part of a short story and posted it on my social media. Only my friends can see these stories. Is there a problem? I changed all the names and I didn’t even mention the time nor place.”

“If the killer saw it, then there’s a problem.” Helian Weiwei’s voice remained quiet. “If I’m not wrong, the police must have asked you many times if you saw anything on the rooftop that night. After all, your hostel block is very near to the building she jumped down from, and your curtains were drawn. If you weren’t in deep sleep, you would definitely have seen something. The police asked you these questions, and then you posted this short story, so the murderer would be able to draw the link and conclude that you must have lied back then. Perhaps this killer is very stupid when it comes to judging a woman’s character, but he’s very clever in other aspects. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to use this escape room to murder someone.”

Guo Tingting’s eyes trembled. Once she thought of how all her actions had been observed by the murderer, she couldn’t help but feel a chill in her heart.

Helian Weiwei continued, “That’s why he mistakenly thought that Zhang Heng was the murderer who killed Dong Sichun. It’s because of this short story you posted. To him, the only other person on the rooftop that night was Zhang Heng, so the person who pushed Dong Sichun down had to be Zhang Heng.”

“It wasn’t Zhang Heng!” Guo Tingting vehemently denied it. “I never said that the figure I saw was Zhang Heng.”

Helian Weiwei’s gaze calmly focused on her. “It’s true that you never said that the figure you saw was Zhang Heng, but you also didn’t tell the murderer if that figure you saw was tall or thin, or fat or skinny, and that’s how he ended up killing the wrong person.”

By now, Guo Tingting no longer spoke and only lowered her head.

“What I want to investigate isn’t the previous case, but this one.” After Helian Weiwei got to this point, she lifted her eyelids and glanced at Chen Feiyang. “Mr. Chen, now that things have come to this, are you still going to say that all of this is irrelevant and absurd?”

Chen Feiyang did not speak but his fists were tightly clenched. “I know you suspect me, but I can tell you that I have never killed anyone. Since it is a murder case within an escape room, then it must have been planned right from the designing of this room. But I don’t own this escape room, so no matter how much research on mechanisms I’ve done, it’s impossible for me to install and trigger mechanisms within a room that I’m not familiar with.”

“Regarding this escape room, I believe there are strategies posted online about how to get through the various stages. Since all of you already know the backstory of this escape room, it’s not impossible to run a search on all the mechanisms it contains,” Helian Weiwei slowly explained. “Besides, you were the one leading the whole way, and you were the fastest at solving clues. Even though you guys never made it to the last lock, it’s very obvious that the thought process of the killer would be the fastest. This particular escape room fulfils all the things he’s been thinking about, and that’s why he chose to kill here, isn’t it so?”

Chen Feiyang wasn’t sure how to refute Helian Weiwei when she explained things like this, but he was a top student after all and his thought processes moved quickly. “You’ve said so much, but where’s the evidence? Without finding any evidence, you’ve already concluded that I’m the murderer?”

“I didn’t conclude that you’re the murderer.” Helian Weiwei unexpectedly dropped this bombshell.

Chen Feiyang was stunned.

The other three also thought that Helian Weiwei had determined that Chen Feiyang was the murderer. After all, he seemed the most suspicious so far. Also, it was obvious that Helian Weiwei suspected him right from the beginning. Why was she saying that she didn’t suspect him now?

“I need to ask the shopkeeper of this place some things before I can organize my thoughts. So for now, let’s go out first.” Helian Weiwei’s fingers stroked the steel pipes and looked at the red words on the wall. Each word represented a kind of original sin.

Jealousy, arrogance, indifference..

Once she matched those sins with the right colors, she soon found a pattern.

With this six-digit password, Helian Weiwei once again successfully opened the last safe.

A letter lay inside.

Only one sentence was written: I’ve brought them here.

That one line was typed out, so it was impossible to tell who wrote it, and it was just another prop in this escape room.

Other than the letter, there was only one key. It seemed to symbolize the end of the story, and only one person could walk out.

Helian Weiwei curved her thin lips, picked up the key and walked to the side.

The wooden door opened with a click. The shopkeeper was already standing worriedly outside the door as he waited for them in the courtyard. He seemed surprised that the six of them made it out so quickly and he peered at his watch. “You’ve made it out in just 40 minutes?” They didn’t even ask for a clue! That was insane! He’d never run into such genius players before.

Helian Weiwei faintly acknowledged his compliment and turned her body. The sunlight from the courtyard shone into the last room they came out of.

When the shopkeeper saw those steel pipes protruding out from the walls, his head immediately spun!