Chapter 4: The Perilous Puzzles of the Twisted Carousel

“Calm down, calm down,” she took a long breath, closed her eyes, and quickly thought. 

Soon, Su Yan opened her eyes and swiftly walked to the nearest picture frame, prying off the glass.

Glass was an insulator, and it was perfectly suited for the task at hand.

“Everyone, step back! I’m coming to save her!” 

Su Yan held the glass and stepped forward, making a dramatic move (not really), quickly separating Wu Xiaoxiao’s hand from the electrical box. 

Without the current’s support, Wu Xiaoxiao’s eyes rolled back, and she collapsed.

“What’s going on? Xiaoxiao! Xiaoxiao, are you okay?” 

Feng Di finally reacted, rushing over to squat in front of Wu Xiaoxiao, wanting to touch her but not daring to.

Su Yan took a deep breath and said in a deep voice, “She just got an electric shock. It looks like her life isn’t in danger right now.” 

She had underestimated this ghost; she had thought it was just for scaring people, but she hadn’t expected something like this to happen.

He Yuxin covered her mouth, somewhat disbelieving, “No way? This escape room is playing so big? They even dare to electrocute people? Aren’t they afraid we’ll go out and report them?”

Feng Di looked up, utterly puzzled, “I saw reviews that clearly said this escape room was fun and gentle! How could there be such a level?”

Su Yan licked her lips and said calmly, “Let’s continue looking for clues first. We’ll confront them after we get out. Xiaoxiao probably won’t wake up anytime soon, so it’s up to us now.”

Saying this, she forcefully picked Wu Xiaoxiao up in a bridal carry and placed her in a corner, “Let her stay here for now.” 

Feng Di frowned, stood up, and tried to grab the communicator, “I’ll go find the staff and have them send Xiaoxiao out first.”

Su Yan put Xiaoxiao down and rushed over to pull Feng Di back, “Something like this has happened, there’s no way the staff outside don’t know. Since they haven’t come in yet, there’s no point in you going to find them.”


“But…” 

Feng Di pushed her away with an angry expression, “Are we just supposed to wait here? Xiaoxiao is unconscious, and her life hangs in the balance!”

Su Yan closed her eyes, forcing herself to calm down, “Calm down! We can only solve the problem if we get out, do you understand? Being uselessly angry here is pointless!”

“We need to get out!”

He Yuxin, seeing the two at loggerheads, immediately stepped in to mediate, “Yan Yan is right. Once we’re out, whether it’s calling the police or demanding compensation, isn’t it all just a matter of our word?”

Feng Di ran her hands through her hair, “Then tell me, where are the clues? How do we connect these broken wires? They clearly put the answers right in front of us, but in the end, it was wrong. Isn’t this just a trap?”

This was a problem. 

Su Yan pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth to clear her mind. 

Indeed, her earlier guess was correct: such an obvious answer was just a diversion.

But the answer must still be between the wooden horses and the wall murals; there must be some hidden internal connection. 

Su Yan’s gaze scanned the entire room, and when it landed on the mirror, her eyebrows suddenly arched.

A flash of inspiration struck her mind, remembering a small detail she had discovered earlier.

“Stop bickering, I think I’ve got a lead!” 

Su Yan quickly picked up the mirror and walked to the purple light spot. 

She repeated the previous step of using the mirror to reflect the UV light, but this time the destination wasn’t the wall, but the carousel.

Seeing the purple light spot being reflected from the wooden horse onto the ground, He Yuxin asked in confusion, “What are you doing? Isn’t that a prop to solve the previous clue?”

Su Yan shook her head, trying to adjust the angle, “When I was looking for the fluorescent writing earlier, there was one angle where I saw another reflection. That reflection bounced directly onto the mural.”


Feng Di and He Yuxin immediately crowded over. 

Feng Di coughed, a bit embarrassed, and said, “Try shining it on the horse’s eyes. I feel like those eyes should reflect light.”

***

Su Yan’s eyes lit up, and she did as told. 

Sure enough, when the UV light fell on the wooden horse’s eye, a purple light spot appeared on the wooden horse graffiti on the wall.

It was reflected by the horse’s eye!

“Excellent! Feng Di, you’re so smart!” 

Su Yan said with a smile, “I’ll do the reflecting; you two record the corresponding colors.”

She wasn’t angry about what happened before; Feng Di didn’t understand the situation, so her actions were understandable.

Their four-person friendship had always been strong.

When one person suddenly fainted, she was anxious and a bit flustered, which Su Yan could understand.

During that time, Feng Di had also realized that she had lost her composure a bit.

Now, seeing that Su Yan wasn’t blaming her at all, she breathed a sigh of relief, coughed, and deliberately said loudly, “I think I get angry too easily. I should go buy balloons at the kindergarten gate.”

Su Yan couldn’t help but laugh, “Then the children will be scared to tears by you. Hurry up and record.” With that, she began her task.

“Red to blue, white to pink…” 

In less than two minutes, all the corresponding colors had been found, and the three of them returned to the electrical box.

***

Even though they had found the corresponding colors, everyone was hesitant, no one dared to step forward and connect.

After all, they had all seen the result of failure: a painful electric shock.

Once they failed, none of them wanted to bear the consequences.

Su Yan sighed, “I…”

Feng Di immediately interrupted her, volunteering, “I’ll do it!”

Su Yan raised an eyebrow, “You’ll get electrocuted if you connect it wrong, can you handle it?”

Feng Di shivered, “To be honest, no, I can’t. But we can’t let you, our brain, go! If you pass out too, then we’ll really be stuck.”

Since knowing that there might be ghosts at work in this place, Su Yan hadn’t truly relaxed.

At this moment, she finally showed a genuine smile, “Then don’t worry, I’ll make sure to have the glass ready beside you, striving not to let you suffer too much.”

“No way! We haven’t even started, and you’re already preparing for my funeral?”

Feng Di wailed, then started connecting the wires.

All of them were talented students from prestigious universities, so remembering a few colors was no problem. In no time, they reached the last clip.

It was after connecting this last one that Wu Xiaoxiao had been shocked unconscious.

Sweat had beaded on Feng Di’s forehead.

She licked her lips, closed her eyes, and was about to grit her teeth and connect the clip.

Suddenly, He Yuxin, who had been quietly watching from the side, pushed her aside, picked up the clip herself, and connected it.

“Huh?”

Before Feng Di could say anything, she saw the light bulb on the electrical box turn green.

They had succeeded!

“We succeeded!”

Feng Di burst out laughing joyfully. He Yuxin also instantly let out a sigh of relief, collapsing as if all strength had left her body, her chest heaving as she gasped for breath.

Su Yan took a long breath, raised an eyebrow, and teased He Yuxin with a smile, “Oh, with your delicate frame, you’re trying to play hero saving the damsel in distress?”

Feng Di gave He Yuxin a bear hug, “My benefactor~ This humble maid is willing to offer herself to you!”

He Yuxin pushed her away, “Don’t sully me! This is more like beauty saving the hero… no, beauty saving the bear!”

Su Yan, “Alright, I’m Sherlock Su Yan, you’re the brave Princess, and this is our bear friend from the primeval forest!”

“Get outta here!”

All three broke into long-awaited smiles. 

The gloomy atmosphere caused by Wu Xiaoxiao’s unconsciousness finally lifted a bit, adding some vitality to the otherwise lifeless room.

***

“Alright, alright!”

Su Yan clapped her hands, “We now have one more obvious, unsolved clue, which is this number combination lock. Let’s continue looking for the password, unlock it, and this carousel should be able to move.”

The few of them spread out, continuing to search the room for clues.

Su Yan looked up.

Everything in this room seemed to have been used, whether it was the wall graffiti, the pillow, the paintings, or even the central carousel.

…No, there was one place they hadn’t paid attention to.

Su Yan’s gaze fell on the table by the door; no one had explored this table yet!

Although called a table, it was actually a square wooden stump.

Su Yan walked over, looking left and right, but found nothing special.

She raised an eyebrow, shrewdly knocking on the wood.

“Knock, knock, knock”

“Come quickly!”

Su Yan called out, “This wooden stump is hollow inside! There should be a clue!”

Yes, the knocking sound just now confirmed this for Su Yan.

A solid piece of wood would produce a much duller sound, definitely not like that.

But when the three of them came over and gathered around the box, they were stumped again.

Feng Di sat in front of the box and said helplessly, “Isn’t asking us to dismantle wood with our bare hands a bit unrealistic?”

Su Yan tapped her on the head, saying with both exasperation and amusement, “I misspoke just now. You’re not a bear friend from the primeval forest; you’re from the demolition crew.”

She stood up and tried to move the table.

It could indeed be moved!

When the table was moved to an open space, the three of them realized that the side of the table that had been against the wall actually had two drawers.

This was the front!

So the box was actually placed backward, intentionally to mislead them.

“How did you know?”

He Yuxin looked at Su Yan in surprise, “I thought this thing was just a hollow wooden stump, I never expected the back to have a hidden surprise!”

Su Yan shrugged, “There’s no way they’d actually make us dismantle this wooden stump, right? And looking at this room…”

Su Yan looked around, “There shouldn’t be anything completely out of place like an axe, right?”

“Indeed…”

He Yuxin nodded in sudden realization.

In this pink and dreamy fairytale room, if something like an axe appeared, it would truly be out of place.

“So that’s it! Since we can’t dismantle it with our bare hands and they didn’t provide tools, there must be an easy way to open this thing. And then, seeing that one side of this stump was against the wall, I knew what was up.”

Although the explanation was very clear, He Yuxin and Feng Di still looked at Su Yan admiringly, “No wonder you’re the smartest. Even if I had thought of all the previous steps, I doubt I would have thought that there would be something on the side against the wall.”