When Ruan Ning heard them explain it like that, she became quite curious about this club. After all, she had never been to a place like this before. So when she saw that they were going inside to look for people, she got out of the car and followed them in.
The club’s overall design leaned toward a dark, gloomy style, and it was obvious that a lot of effort had been put into it. The decorations, wallpaper, and all the things used to build the atmosphere were clearly not the kind of mass-produced items one could find everywhere outside. Even Ruan Ning, an outsider, could tell that there was something unusual about the place. It seemed that the owner who opened this escape room club truly loved this sort of thing.
From the promotional images placed at the front desk, they learned that this escape room club had a total of five themes.
To save time, they decided to split up.
As Gu Yicheng’s younger sister, Ruan Ning was naturally assigned to his group.
And it was just the two of them.
The theme they went to was called “The Doll House.”
Ruan Ning had chosen it, because the other four themes all had names like “Horror xxx” or “xx Ghost.” Just from the names, they did not sound like interesting themes at all.
This one looked the most normal.
But the moment she entered, Ruan Ning discovered that this was also a horror-themed room.
At the entrance, there was a pile of cloth dolls. Their mouths were split wide open, stitched up several times with needle and thread, deliberately made to look old and worn. They stared at them with eerie expressions. There were also bloody child-sized handprints on the wall. She did not know what the club had used as a substitute for blood, but all the props looked far too realistic.
Even though she knew everything in front of her was fake, Ruan Ning still could not help swallowing. Her walking speed unconsciously slowed down.
This club was really something. The theme name had sounded so ordinary, so why was the inside full of terrifying decorations? If she had known earlier, she would have chosen another theme, or simply stayed outside and not come in at all.
In this aspect, Ruan Ning was indeed not very brave. When she was little, she had not even dared to enter haunted houses. After growing up, she still did not dare. She had always been very cowardly. If there had not been someone beside her, she would have already run off without a trace.
“If you’re scared, you can stand closer to me,” Gu Yicheng’s low voice sounded in the darkness.
Ruan Ning could even faintly hear a trace of amusement in his words.
“…”
Ruan Ning said with her mouth that she was not scared, but in reality, after staying in this escape room theme for only a few minutes, she had already begun unconsciously leaning toward the person beside her. If she had not still remembered that she had just said she was not afraid, she would have wanted to reach out and tightly grab his sleeve.
The power here had long since stopped. There was no lighting equipment in the entire scene. Only the flashlights in their hands could provide light. But having flashlights was almost worse than not having them. When it was dark, she could not see clearly. But when the light suddenly shone over, she could see doll after doll with strange, eerie smiles.
This scene truly lived up to the name “The Doll House.”
The style here was a little terrifying, but the setting looked very grand. A complete scene contained four rooms, and Ruan Ning followed beside Gu Yicheng as they searched each one. They did not see anyone.
“Wait. There’s a hidden room here.” Just as Ruan Ning was thinking that they had finally finished searching and could leave, Gu Yicheng, standing to the side, knocked on the wall between two rooms and said this.
After hearing this, Ruan Ning froze. “Ah.”
From top to bottom, one could tell that a lot of thought had been put into this club. The most important part of an escape room was solving puzzles. After Gu Yicheng spent more than ten minutes finding the clues and finally unlocked the password for this door, Ruan Ning admired the design of this shop even more.
What Ruan Ning did not know was that the theme she had entered because its name sounded the most normal was actually the most difficult one in this escape room club. Even the most experienced escape room enthusiasts would need one or two hours to get out if they had never been here before.
After the door opened, the other side was not as dark as they had imagined. There were windows there, and sunlight streamed in through them, giving people the feeling of having escaped death.
Ruan Ning now understood. After entering that password on the door, it meant they had cleared this theme. Those who failed would be led out through the main entrance by staff, while those who passed could leave through this place behind the door.
Speaking of which, the door here was indeed as sturdy as Gu Yicheng had said.
What surprised her even more was that the two of them really did see survivors behind this door.
“Who is it?” Mother Jiang was still wondering who would come here at a time like this when she heard movement. Then she saw Gu Yicheng’s figure. First, she froze for quite a while. Then, with a look of surprise and joy, she said, “Xiao Gu, why are you here? What about our Jingchao? Did he come with you? Is he all right?”
Mother Jiang had stayed in this place for more than half a month. She had always thought that Jiang Jingchao had been in the Imperial Capital before the apocalypse, and she had already prepared herself for the possibility that mother and son might never meet again in this lifetime. Now that she saw Gu Yicheng, she immediately thought of her Jingchao and could not help losing her composure, asking several questions in a row.
Seeing her like this, Father Jiang patted her shoulder and comforted her. “Don’t get too worked up first. Let Xiao Gu speak slowly.”
Father Jiang and Mother Jiang were both already over fifty this year. Originally, they had maintained themselves very well. Judging from their appearances, people often mistook them for being only in their early thirties. But perhaps because of the torment of this past month in the apocalypse, much of their hair at the temples had turned white, and they looked far older overall.
Toward Chaozi’s parents, Gu Yicheng’s attitude was fairly gentle. He patiently replied, “Uncle Jiang, Auntie Jiang, don’t worry. Jingchao and Jingyang are both here. They’re outside right now. Everyone is fine.”
“As long as they’re fine. As long as they’re fine.” Hearing that both Jiang Jingchao and Jiang Jingyang were all right, even Father Jiang, who had always been serious and old-fashioned, could not help having a bit more emotion in his voice.
Before the apocalypse, both Father Jiang and Mother Jiang had been university teachers. One taught physics, and the other taught Marxist philosophy. On the day the apocalypse broke out, neither of them had classes, and they had been resting at home, which was how they escaped disaster.
Otherwise, they would definitely have been trapped on the university campus like Jiang Jingyang. And unlike young people, they did not have strong physical strength, so surviving would have been even more difficult. For Father Jiang and Mother Jiang, both their children being alive and well was already the greatest comfort.
Inside this secret room, it was not only Father Jiang and Mother Jiang. There was also a middle-aged couple around their age, as well as a young woman with wavy curled hair.
These three people were all people Father Jiang and Mother Jiang had encountered on their way to the club. They were residents of the same residential compound. Seeing that they were also looking for another place to hide, Father Jiang and Mother Jiang had kindly brought them here together. These days, the five of them had taken care of one another here, and their lives had been fairly decent.
Humans were social animals. Even though staying in this place was safer than being outside, zombies could not break in, and if they rationed the food, it would last quite a long time, if a person stayed alone in this sealed-off place for too long, with no one to talk to, then even if there were no physical problems, psychological problems would easily arise.
This place, which was similar to a secret room, did not only have the entrance Gu Yicheng and Ruan Ning had come through. Father Jiang and Mother Jiang were eager to see their children, so they led them out through a closer door.
The scene of the Jiang family reunion made the atmosphere of the whole team much more relaxed.
In the apocalypse, still having a complete family was an extravagant and enviable thing. Among the people present, some had already lost all their family members, such as Su Yunjin. Some had not even seen their parents since the apocalypse began and did not know whether they were dead or alive, their fate unknown, such as Xu Chi.
Ruan Ning had no family in this world, but sometimes she felt fortunate because she did not have to endure the pain of parting from close relatives through life and death all over again.
The few attachments she had in this place now were probably only these teammates before her, whom she had spent more than a month with. Seeing everyone alive was her only wish.
This time, their group’s purpose in coming to B City had already been achieved. Jiang Jingchao had successfully found his parents and younger brother, and all of them were still alive and well.
For every one of them, this was something worth being happy about.
But when they walked out of the club’s main entrance and arrived on the street, before they even had time to get into the cars, they saw a huge crowd of zombies surging toward this street from all directions. Looking out, there was a dense mass of them, at least several hundred.
Now there was no need to worry because of a lack of evidence. Gu Yicheng was completely certain that there was a mental-type zombie somewhere nearby.
They had been very careful on the way here and had not made much noise at all. They also had not seen many zombies. From going up into the club to coming back down, at most, only a little over an hour had passed. For such a large-scale zombie horde to suddenly appear in such a short time—no one would believe there was nothing strange going on.
And the only possibility that could create a situation where several hundred zombies appeared all at once was that a mental-type mutated zombie was controlling them from behind the scenes.
It was just that from the day they parted ways with Base Three’s rescue team until today, this zombie had followed behind their team for a full two or three days before finally being unable to resist making a move. That alone showed that the level of its ability was probably not low. It had to be at least Tier Three or above to possess this degree of intelligence.
Leave a Reply