The study has yielded the most clues of all the rooms so far.
The invitation contained the names of those invited to the Christmas Eve party, and the murderer was likely among them.
In addition, a Christmas gift box from the husband to his wife and a performance schedule from the wife were also found. By matching the locations on the schedule with the latitude and longitude of the globe, the gift box was unlocked, and a Christmas card written by the husband was revealed.
However, the study door remained closed.
Xiao Lou looked around, then at a wall of bookshelves, and said, "There must still be clues we've missed. Everyone hurry up, each of you look at one row of bookshelves and go through them as quickly as possible."
The desk and drawers had been thoroughly searched, but no other clues were found; only the bookshelves on one wall remained unchecked.
Qu Wanyue checked the leftmost cabinet and saw many professional books on music.
On the far right of Old Mocha, he saw some architecture books. He quickly flipped through them and said to Xiao Lou, "The host, Wells, is an architect. He runs a design company. There's a company profile tucked inside this book."
Xiao Lou took the clue and put it in his pocket to keep it safe.
Judging from the introduction, Wells ' architectural design company is quite large, and his income must be considerable. Combined with the money his wife earns from performing around the world, this family is clearly wealthy to be able to afford a five-story detached villa. Therefore, the possibility that the servant killed the master for money cannot be completely ruled out.
Long Sen rummaged through the bookshelf in the middle and said, "There are a lot of CD cases here, Xiao Ye, come and take a look."
Ye Qi strode forward, took a closer look, and immediately said, "These are all high-fidelity CDs of Richard Clayderman's piano pieces. It seems that the hostess, Shirley, is a big fan of Richard Clayderman."
Richard Clayderman, a world-renowned piano master, was born in France. He is famous for many of his piano masterpieces. The CDs on the bookshelf are all very famous singles. Ye Qi said: "These five CDs are 'Destiny','Starry Night', 'Autumn Whispers', ' Marriage Damour ' and 'Don't Cry for Me Argentina'."
Ye Qi took the five CD cases and handed them to Xiao Lou: "Could these CDs be related to the room's password?"
The tape recorder we found in the music room could only play cassettes, not these CDs. Clearly, this room isn't the voice-activated mechanism for unlocking CDs. What's the purpose of these CDs—are they clues to a case or a password?
Xiao Lou lowered his head and pondered for a moment, then opened all the CD cases and was surprised to find—
Four of the CD cases were empty, seemingly taken by the woman of the house. Only the case containing "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" had a brand new CD with a picture of Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina, printed on the front.
The teammates looked at each other in bewilderment.
There's only one CD case with a disc inside, and the disc has a thumbnail of the capital city printed on it. What does this mean?
Xiao Lou immediately reacted and said, " Liu Qiao, look up the latitude and longitude of 'Buenos Aires,' the capital of Argentina, on the globe."
Upon hearing this, Liu Qiao hurriedly spun the globe, located the capital of Argentina, and reported the result: "34 degrees south latitude, 58 degrees west longitude."
Xiao Lou walked to a bookshelf against one wall.
North is at the top, south at the bottom, west on the left, and east on the right. If latitude and longitude correspond to the coordinates of the bookshelf, then the coordinates of this book are 58 books from the left (west) and 34 books from the bottom (south).
The bookcase only has four shelves, and it's impossible to fit 34 shelves of books from bottom to top. But Xiao Lou discovered that after aligning the books with the longitude coordinates of 58, the books in this row are stacked horizontally.
When the books are laid flat and stacked, each layer can hold nearly 20 books.
Xiao Lou counted 34 books from bottom to top according to the coordinates of 34 degrees south latitude, and finally locked the corresponding cross coordinates of latitude and longitude.
This is a world-famous book.
—The Lover.
The moment Xiao Lou pulled out the book, the bookshelf in front of him suddenly made a loud "boom" sound, and then quickly rotated 90 degrees, opening a narrow passage in front of everyone!
The teammates looked at each other in bewilderment.
While everyone was still wondering what Argentina meant, it turned out that the latitude and longitude of the globe corresponded to the horizontal and vertical coordinates of the bookshelf. After pulling out a key book, the bookshelf would automatically rotate and open the passage—it was a pull-out mechanism!
Fortunately, Xiao Lou reacted quickly enough, otherwise everyone would have been trapped in this locked room for more than ten minutes.
At this point, the countdown had reached 30 minutes, half of the time had been used up. They had successively solved four secret rooms: Little Girl's dream, Little Girl's bedroom, the lady of the house's music room, and the master of the house's study, and found two corpses. The speed was already quite fast.
But as the puzzles became increasingly difficult, Xiao Lou also felt a sense of tension.
The male homeowner's body has not yet been found, and there's still no clue as to the killer. He carried a large pile of clues he had collected earlier, quickly organizing his thoughts as he walked.
After the bookcase rotates, there is a staircase leading up to it.
As everyone walked up the stairs, Xiao Lou briefly explained, "The famous novel * The Lover * tells the love story of a poor French girl and a wealthy Chinese man. They love each other, but due to religious beliefs and cultural differences..."
The differences in their ethnic cultures ultimately prevented them from being together. The female protagonist couldn't overcome racial barriers, returned to Paris, and married a white man; the male protagonist, adhering to Chinese tradition of arranging marriages according to his parents' wishes, married a Chinese woman he had never met. Years later, the male protagonist returned to Paris with his wife and called the female protagonist, saying that he still loved her deeply and would love her forever, until his death.
Many people haven't read this classic novel, but Xiao Lou has. Even if he hasn't, the title itself is very telling. Yu Hanjiang frowned and said, "It seems this is a crime of passion? Several clues are related to relationships."
Whether it's the piano piece " Marriage Damour " or the bookcase-opening piece " The Lover," both tell tragic love stories.
It's impossible for such a coincidence to happen repeatedly.
Yu Hanjiang said, "The current suspects include the five friends who were invited to the house on Christmas Eve, as well as Little Girl's private doctor, nanny, and driver. The motive is a crime of passion. It is very likely that they were unable to have the male or female protagonist and gradually became psychologically abnormal, so they simply looked for an opportunity to kill this family."
Xiao Lou had initially thought the maid might have killed him for money, but the continuous "love story" clues made him dismiss his guess. Yu Hanjiang's analysis was more reasonable; this case was more likely a crime of passion.
Just then, everyone went up the stairs to the first floor.
There are two rooms on this floor, with a door on each side. Xiao Lou said, "We don't have much time left, let's split up. Four people in a group, go into each room, otherwise the remaining 30 minutes might not be enough."
The most difficult part is the one-hour time limit in the escape room.
In a real-life escape room game, with so many rooms, it would take at least 5 hours for the player to complete the game!
Yu Hanjiang coughed lightly and said, "Grouping... do you think it's feasible?"
Xiao Lou looked at him and said, "Let's open the Telepathic Connection channel. If we can't solve the puzzle, we can discuss it."
Yu Hanjiang was finally relieved. With Xiao Lou providing "off-site assistance," he didn't need to worry about even the most difficult mechanisms.
Xiao Lou summoned Qin Guan, who then established a Telepathic Connection with Yu Hanjiang.
Yu Hanjiang quickly made a decision: " Liu Qiao, Xiao Ye, CEO Shao, come with me to the room on the left."
Xiao Lou said, "The remaining three of you come with me to the right. Keep in touch."
The eight people split into two groups and entered two rooms to continue collecting clues.
After Yu Hanjiang led his teammates into the room on the left, they found it to be a whimsical toy room, clearly belonging to Little Girl. Lucia.
The room was filled with all kinds of stuffed animals, and the walls were covered with colorful paintbrushes, depicting blue skies, white clouds, green trees, and various cartoon cows, sheep, and rabbits. Lucia had made a mess of the large room, and the walls were almost destroyed. The couple clearly doted on their only daughter, leaving such a large room specifically for her to DIY and scribble.
Yu Hanjiang looked at the room full of toys and felt a splitting headache.
Xiao Lou noticed his thoughts and said through the Telepathic Connection channel, "Look for any pattern among these rag dolls."
Yu Hanjiang said, "These rag dolls are too messy. Let's sort them out first."
Ye Qi and Liu Qiao immediately split up to look for patterns, while Shao Qingge stood in the middle of the room, carefully studying the walls that Little Girl had scribbled on.
Yu Hanjiang stood in the corner and asked Xiao Lou through the Telepathic Connection channel, "What's the situation on your end?"
Xiao Lou said, "It's the lady of the house's walk-in closet, with lots of clothes, bags, and shoes."
The walk-in closet, spanning several tens of square meters, is decorated in an extremely luxurious style.
The wardrobe on three walls is filled with all kinds of beautiful dresses, as well as many gowns for performances; one wall is made into a shoe cabinet, with countless high heels and flats; the central counter has many drawers, which are specially used to store exquisite jewelry.
Xiao Lou had his three teammates each search through a wall of wardrobes, focusing on the pockets of the clothes, while he searched the jewelry display case in the middle.
The bottom drawer of the jewelry stand is locked with a four-digit password.
In escape room games, anything with a lock definitely contains important clues.
Xiao Lou instructed his teammates to quickly search through the wardrobe.
Long Sen and Lao Mo were at a loss when they saw some of the clothes, but Qu Wanyue was the most efficient. She quickly found an old wallet in the inner pocket of a coat, inside which was a group photo.
The photo shows several young men and women, including the female protagonist Shirley and her husband Wells, as well as two other men and three other women.
The seven people stood in a row, laughing happily, but you couldn't tell they had a special relationship just by looking at their smiles.
Qu Wanyue took the photo and said, "The seven people in the photo are all wearing graduation gowns, so they must be classmates. The other five, two men and three women, could they be the five people invited to the Christmas Eve party?"
Xiao Lou said, "That's possible."
He turned the photo over; on the back was a row of numbers—
Group photo of the Class of '98 graduates on June 7.
The combination lock on the drawer has four digits. Could it be 9867?
Xiao Lou thought for a moment. He figured it wouldn't be that simple to just write down the password. Entering 9867... what if he got it wrong? Who knew what the punishment in this room would be...?
Xiao Lou paused for two seconds. In escape room games, passwords are rarely written out directly; the numbers behind the photo were most likely a distractor. He abandoned the simple option of 9867 and looked carefully at the jewelry display.
The jewelry display cases are arranged in a very orderly manner.
On the left hang five gemstone necklaces of varying lengths, the middle section features eight pairs of earrings, and on the right...
The other side has seven bracelets.
Eight pairs of earrings can be interpreted as the number 16.
The pattern of these jewelry pieces might just be the password to the bottom drawer.
Is the four-digit password 5167 from left to right and 7165 from right to left? Or is it neither?
***
At the same time, Ye Qi and Liu Qiao also discovered a pattern in the children's playroom next door.
The two sorted and organized all the stuffed animals in the room.
Ye Qi was sweating profusely. Pointing to the categorized plush toys at his feet, he said, "There are 5 Mickey Mouse toys, 6 teddy bear toys, 7 different colored Barbie dolls from Snow White, 3 big turtle toys, and 8 plush rabbits of different sizes."
Liu Qiao said, "There's a cabinet here with a combination lock on it. It's a five-digit combination."
There was nothing else in the room. Shao Qingge said thoughtfully, "It seems that the numbers after these dolls are categorized are the password to the cabinet. The key is the order."
How should the numbers 5, 6, 7, 3, and 8 be arranged in order?
If you randomly arrange the five numbers, there are many possibilities. If you enter the wrong number, you'll be buried by the doll again... Several adults don't want to experience such a punishment again.
The room full of dolls has been organized, but there must be clues in the room about their order.
Looking at the colorful graffiti on the wall, Yu Hanjiang asked, "What does this painting on the wall mean?"
Shao Qingge said with a headache, "I can't understand these things that kids draw."
Ye Qi pointed to the crooked graffiti on the left wall and said, "This wall seems to be the story of the tortoise and the hare. If it's arranged according to this story, the tortoise won against the hare and should be ranked before the hare. But I didn't find any animals like Mickey Mouse or bears on the wall."
Looking at the graffiti of a large tree on the wall, with a line of words written next to it, Liu Qiao read softly, "Trees live much longer than humans. How wonderful it would be to become a tree, where I could bask in the sun every day and be well-fed."
So... what exactly is the password to this children's graffiti room?