The story card is essentially a God-like reenactment of the story. It's a reward that players can only get by collecting all the clues and achieving a "perfect completion." The filming of this story was so immersive that Zou Xiaomei's screams still echo in my ears.
Although Xiao Lou enjoys detective and mystery novels, seeing such a brutal murder scene still sent chills down his spine.
Zou Xiaomei and He Yongqiang were indeed wrong to cheat, but Zhao Sen's methods were just too perverse!
He ripped out his cousin's heart, stabbed his wife to death, and took his cousin's body away... Moreover, he deliberately left He Yongqiang's fingerprints on the Fruit Knife and He Yongqiang's bloodstains on the deceased. Was he trying to frame someone?
If there's a sequel to this story, Zou Xiaomei's body is discovered, the police find the murder weapon during their investigation, He Yongqiang's fingerprints are on the Fruit Knife, and analysis of the victim's blood reveals He Yongqiang's genes, making He Yongqiang the prime suspect!
However, He Yongqiang was already dead, and Zhao Sen had hidden his body somewhere.
With no one left to testify, the case will become an unsolved mystery.
Zhao Sen might have fabricated evidence that he was away on a business trip, so that if Zou Xiaomei died in an accident, he could get up to 2 million in compensation from the insurance company...
The twisted psychology and deep thoughts of Zhao Sen are truly chilling.
Xiao Lou steadied his racing heart and called out, "Is the system spirit here?"
This time, instead of the cold, mechanical male voice that had answered him before, a gentle female voice appeared before him—a beautiful adult woman with a long red dress, a slender figure, and waist-length curly hair suddenly appeared in front of him.
The beautiful woman looked at him with a smile and said, " Hello Xiao Lou, I'm Guardian from Hearts. You can ask me any questions you may have."
hearts Guardian?
Xiao Lou glanced at the neatly arranged Red Hearts 2 -K on the card wall and couldn't help but wonder, " Why isn't there a Red Heart A on the card wall?"
The woman in red smiled and said, "I am Red Heart A. "
Xiao Lou paused for a moment, then asked, "Could you explain?"
"Of course." The beautiful woman's voice was very friendly. "You should know that there are 54 cards in a deck of cards. In this Card World, Red Heart Ace, Diamond Ace, Ace of Spades, and Plum Blossom Ace are the Guardians of the four types of escape rooms. The other cards are different escape room mini-worlds that you need to challenge."
Xiao Lou nodded: "Since Red Heart A is the Guardian, I 'll start from Red Heart 2. The hardest part of the Hearts level is the King of Hearts, right? Above the King are the Two Kings, which is what the system told me about before... the final level, the S -level secret chamber?"
The beautiful woman looked at him approvingly and said, "That's right."
Xiao Lou doesn't know much about playing cards, but he knows that J stands for Jack, Q for Queen, K for King, and A for Ace. Above that, there are colored Jokers and black and white Jokers, which are commonly known as the Big Joker and Little Joker, and in some regions they are also called the Big Joker and Little Joker.
In this Card World, A stands for Guardian, and 2 through K represent various escape rooms. The difficulty levels, from lowest to highest, are D, C, B, A, and S-level secret chamber. The K level, with its four different suits, should be the most difficult S-level secret chamber. The final level is the S -level secret chamber, guarded by the King and Queen.
The Red Heart 2 Secret Room he just passed was the simplest D-class secret room.
As a single-player escape room, simply throwing someone into a room with a corpse is scary enough, and then having to solve the murder case within 30 minutes, most people will be scared half to death by the female corpse on the bed. Even if the brave ones can calm down and look for clues, in the end, more than 90% of people will not be able to crack the phone password and can only guess the murderer. The probability of a perfect completion is less than 1%.
No wonder his completion score is higher than 99% of Challenger.
If the D-class secret room is this difficult, you can imagine how terrifying the later secret rooms will be.
Xiao Lou frowned slightly and continued to ask, "You can only get the story card by completing the game perfectly, right? If you don't collect all the clues, for example, if you can't unlock the phone at the end, but you still identify the culprit correctly, it still counts as completing the game, but the reward will be less?"
Red Heart A nodded: "Yes. You can identify the murderer when you have collected 50% of the clues. If you identify the murderer correctly, you will pass the Heart Room. If you collect 100% of the clues, you will pass the Heart Room perfectly and get a story card, as well as an extra chance to win a prize. With the story card, you will have a more comprehensive understanding of this locked room. If you encounter the characters in the locked room again in the future, this story card may be helpful to you."
In the plot of Red Heart 2: Secret Room, Zou Xiaomei and He Yongqiang are both killed, her best friend Liu Yun has not appeared, and there is another person, Zhao Sen, who took her cousin's body away in a suitcase —could we possibly encounter this deranged killer again?!
Thinking of Zhao Sen's eerie smile at the camera, Xiao Lou felt a chill run down his spine. He took a deep breath to calm himself down and changed the subject, asking, "Where can I claim the reward?"
Red Heart A said gently, "You can look for your card holder in your pocket."
Xiao Lou reached into his pocket and pulled out a small card holder, a common sight in real life.
The black card holder is only about half the size of a palm, with the words " Card Chamber" written on its surface. When opened, the card holder will quickly unfold in front of you like folded pages of a book, revealing more than a dozen compartments for cards.
At this moment, the first three slots contain the cards you just acquired.
[Story Card]
Rose Funeral
Rarity: S
Description: Perfect completion of Red Heart 2 Secret Room Obtained after Rose Funeral. Less than 1% of players get the story card, making it very rare and worth treasuring. You can play it anytime to enjoy the exciting scene of Dr. Zhao Sen killing two people in a row.
[ Tool card: Fruit Knife ]
Rarity: C
Description: The murder weapon used to kill Zou Xiaomei. 20cm long, 5cm wide, and extremely sharp. A standard reward for completing Red Heart 2: Secret Room; almost everyone gets one, as the common Fruit Knife isn't worth much.
Note: This knife is yours; use it however you like. You can even use it to kill someone, if you're brave enough.
Usable times: 10/10.
[ tool card : Rose Perfume ]
Rarity: C
Description: A birthday gift from Liu Yun to Zou Xiaomei. Upon opening, you can smell a strong rose fragrance.
Note: If necessary, you can spray it on yourself to attract all targets within a 30-meter radius to approach you by smelling the fragrance—making your death even quicker.
Remaining capacity: 100ml.
Xiao Lou: "…"
As Xiao Lou looked at the description on the card, his face gradually stiffened.
The game starts with a D-level difficulty escape room that teleports him directly to a murder scene. After finally clearing it, the reward card even mocks him... What does "let you die even more quickly" mean? This Card World is truly full of malice.
He's a forensic doctor, and even he finds it hard to bear such a scene. What would an ordinary person do?
If all those who died unexpectedly were forcibly dragged into this Card World, what would be the reaction of minors under 18, timid girls, or elderly people with slowed thinking, upon entering the Red Heart 2 Secret Room and suddenly seeing a corpse on the bed? They'd probably be terrified!
Can they complete the level within 30 minutes? If they fail and are punished by being sent to the Nightmare Secret Room, will their fate be even worse?
Thinking of this, Xiao Lou looked at the beautiful woman in red in front of him and asked in a low voice, " How many Challengers are there in this Card World? What is the survival rate of those who fail and are thrown into the Nightmare Secret Room?"
Red Heart A replied, " There are currently over 80 million players in Card World, and the number is increasing every minute. The survival rate of those who fail and enter the Nightmare Secret Room is less than 1%. So, try your best not to fail. The Nightmare Secret Room is definitely a place you don't want to experience."
She paused, then smiled and said, "You are the calmest human I have ever met. Most people who come out of the heart room are trembling with fear because of the corpses. Don't you have any aversion to corpses? You can calmly scan the face of a corpse with your phone."
Xiao Lou: "..."
It seems that everything he did in the secret room was being monitored by the Guardian.
For someone like him, a professional forensic doctor, let alone a corpse, even if the heart room becomes a serial murder case and Morgue's corpse is presented to him, he wouldn't be afraid.
But not being afraid doesn't mean he'll like it.
He's a normal person, not a pervert; he doesn't want to see corpses every day.
Xiao Lou frowned and calmly continued to ask, "I remember the system spirit telling me that successfully clearing the S -level secret chamber would allow me to return to the human world. So, how many people have successfully cleared it?"
Red Heart A shrugged regretfully: "No one has successfully completed the game yet."
This answer greatly surprised Xiao Lou —out of over 80 million Challengers, there must be some skilled deductionists, yet not a single one made it to the end, which was abnormal. Either the world was deliberately making things difficult for humanity, with no intention of letting them successfully complete the challenge and return, or the later escape rooms were simply too incredibly difficult, even for skilled deductionists.
If it's the former, asking won't help; Red Heart A wouldn't tell him, "We're deliberately making things difficult for you." If it's the latter, there might still be hope. No matter how difficult the escape room puzzle is, as long as it's not unsolvable, there's always a way to get the answer.
Xiao Lou thought of a question and asked, "Were the dead and the murderer in the locked room humans like me from Earth, or were they...highly intelligent beings created by you?"
Red Heart A laughed and countered, "This question is beyond my scope of answering. What do you think?"
Xiao Lou suddenly had a bold conjecture in his mind—the cold system at the beginning had told him, "You can't see me, but I can see you," meaning it could see the situation of all the humans who entered this world, and must be a very high-ranking being in this world.
The beautiful woman in red in front of me calls herself Red Heart A, and she is only in charge of the Hearts level. The other levels also have their own responsible persons.
Perhaps this world can be understood as a massively multiplayer online game.
The challengers are humans who died unexpectedly and were forcibly pulled into Card World. The people in the secret room, such as Zou Xiaomei, Zhao Sen, Red Heart A who is not in the secret room, and the system spirit whose appearance has never been seen but whose voice has been heard, do not need to challenge. They are the original inhabitants of Card World - similar to NPCs in a game.
But unlike other games, the NPCs in this world are much more powerful than the players.
They can eliminate players who fail to complete a level. These killers possess emotions and intelligence, and are capable of murder with ruthless methods. A psychopath like Zhao Sen, if encountered in another escape room, could easily rip out a player's heart without warning.
Other games are about playing games, this game is about risking your life!
Red Heart A's failure to answer his question indicates that he has touched upon the core rules of this world. The lifelike "humans" in the locked room, and his...
Humans are fundamentally different.
Xiao Lou temporarily suppressed the turmoil in his mind and changed the subject, saying, "Do I have one more chance to win a prize?"
As mentioned when we teleported out of the secret room, a perfect completion will grant an extra chance to win a prize. Please return to Personal Space to claim your reward—this should be his Personal Space, with thick white fog, a huge card wall, and a Guardian corresponding to the current level.
Sure enough, Red Heart A smiled and said, "Yes, a perfect clear of the secret room will grant you an S-rank rarity card with a drop rate of 0.01%. Now, please try your luck with the lottery."
The next moment, a golden treasure chest appeared in front of him.
This was probably the best news Xiao Lou had heard since arriving in the strange Card World.
The fixed rewards, " Fruit Knife " and " Rose Perfume," are both C-tier cards with limited uses. Fruit Knife has a usage limit, and the 100ml Rose Perfume is easily used up. Hopefully, the extra reward S-tier card will be a stronger piece of equipment that can help him clear survival-type Spade Secret Room dungeons.
Unfortunately, the most he's ever won in the lottery is five yuan; his luck in the lottery has never been very good.
Xiao Lou stepped forward and put her hand into the treasure chest.
The treasure chest contained many cards; the brand-new cards felt great to the touch, suggesting they were made of high-quality materials. Xiao Lou tried it out and discovered that he could only take one card at a time; taking more would automatically return the other card to the treasure chest.
He wasn't greedy; he just randomly picked out a card.
—Congratulations on obtaining the S-rarity card [Summoning Card: Tao Yuanming ]
Xiao Lou: "???"
Shouldn't they get a knife that can kill instantly, or a gun that can spray bullets in a wide area?
What the heck is Tao Yuanming?