Chapter Eighteen: The Killing Game (Part Six)

Time ticked by, second after second, and the four of them, led by Luo Hanya, had been searching this place for nearly twenty minutes. Sweat beaded on Luo Hanya’s brow, but it was clear that urgency was of no use in this game; what could not be found remained just as elusive. Luo Hanya scratched his head in agitation. A voice in his heart kept urging him to stay calm, but when a person falls into restlessness, calm is never so easily achieved.

Luo Hanya was burning with anxiety. “How is it that we can't find any entrance to this secret room? Could it be that the old man was toying with us all along, leaving behind a false clue?” He even began to doubt the very existence of the secret room. “Secret room entrance, secret room entrance...” Who knows how many times he muttered those words, when suddenly, with a burst of delight, he cried out, “I know where the entrance is!”

After so long without success, Wang Hui had already sunk into a pit of despair. Her eyes were lifeless, her expression blank, like a corpse. If not for Liu Shanshan and Li Xin supporting her, she would have collapsed to the floor. Even when Luo Hanya exclaimed with excitement, she thought it must be a hallucination. In her heart, she had already accepted her fate—a mess of blood and flesh.

“Hey, Wang Hui, don’t give up! As long as there’s even a sliver of hope, you have to fight for it. The last mile is always the hardest; we’re at the final hurdle, how can you surrender now?” Suddenly, a voice sounded in Wang Hui’s mind. It was the will to survive, the instinct that resides in everyone.

A glimmer of light returned to Wang Hui’s eyes. She looked anxiously at Luo Hanya, waiting for him to reveal the entrance to the secret room.

“We’ve all fallen into a trap of our own making. We assumed the entrance to the secret room would be in the same place as the doors to the other rooms. But if the entrance were that obvious, would it still be called a secret room?” Luo Hanya’s words pierced through the confusion. Wang Hui, Li Xin, and Liu Shanshan all realized they had been caught in habitual thinking. So, where was the entrance?

“It’s clear the entrance isn’t on the adjoining wall of this room. It’s on the ceiling, directly above the room below.” Luo Hanya spoke with confidence, making his final deduction.

Having determined the location, the four wasted no time. They went straight to the adjacent room—Wang Hui’s own—and began their search. The wall was still made of the same black sandstone, adorned with four famous paintings: Van Gogh’s Starry Night, The Potato Eaters, Sunflowers, and Wheatfield with Crows. The paintings were impressive, but what did they mean in this context?

Luo Hanya gazed at the four paintings in silence, seemingly lost in thought. “Ah!” Suddenly, Li Xin cried out in surprise. She had discovered, while touching the frame of one painting, that it could be rotated! Liu Shanshan and Wang Hui tried the others and found that all four paintings could be turned.

“Do you think we have to turn the paintings in a certain order to open the secret room entrance?” Li Xin hesitated, voicing a possibility.

“But what order?” Liu Shanshan asked. “Could it be chronological?”

“We’ll just have to try. Who knows exactly when these were painted? I only know that Sunflowers was painted in 1888.” Luo Hanya wracked his brains but couldn’t think of a better approach. Time was nearly up—it was almost five o’clock. They had no choice but to gamble on luck.

“I’ve studied painting since I was young; I know when these works were created.” Unexpectedly, Wang Hui knew all the dates. Life, it seems, never forgets to leave a thread of hope.

“The Potato Eaters was painted in 1885, Sunflowers in 1888, Starry Night in 1889, and Wheatfield with Crows in 1890,” Wang Hui recited. “So, we should turn them in the order: The Potato Eaters, Sunflowers, Starry Night, Wheatfield with Crows.” Seeing the puzzle unravel, Liu Shanshan broke into a broad smile and hurried to turn the paintings.

With a series of clicks, the wall suddenly shuddered, revealing a sight beyond belief: a large section of the dividing wall sank inward, then slid to the left with a thunderous crash, exposing an entrance about one and a half meters high and two meters wide.

“Yeah!” From utter despair to rekindled hope, anyone would feel overwhelmed by such a turnaround—especially Wang Hui, who had experienced it multiple times in a single day. To see the door to the secret room open, hope finally within reach, how could she not be overjoyed?

Liu Shanshan and Li Xin smiled happily at Wang Hui. Luo Hanya was genuinely delighted as well. After all, they were so close to escaping death, and he was about to complete his task. A little celebration was only natural—a prelude to victory.

Luo Hanya took the lead, bending slightly to enter the secret room. Immediately, the heavy scent of chemicals hit his nose. He frowned, scanning the room in the dim light from outside, and saw that the space was filled with all manner of bottles and jars.

Wang Hui, Liu Shanshan, and Li Xin followed, equally surprised by the scene inside. A single dim lamp hung from the ceiling, shrouding the room in gloom. In the center stood a table with a lone narrow-necked flask, while the cabinets on either side were packed with chemical reagents of every kind. A sense of unease crept over them. They each took out their phones and turned on the flashlights, searching the room, but there was no sign of any large signal transmitter.

Disappointment crossed their faces—Wang Hui, in particular, seemed almost unhinged. “Impossible, impossible! It has to be here!” Like one possessed, Wang Hui rushed forward, desperate to keep searching.

“Stop! Be careful! Turn off your flashlights!” Li Xin’s urgent voice rang out, trying to warn Wang Hui, but she seemed oblivious, still moving forward with her phone.

“Hurry, stop her! Turn off the flashlight, or we’ll all die here!” Seeing Wang Hui unresponsive, Li Xin quickly turned off her own flashlight, then urged Luo Hanya and Liu Shanshan to restrain Wang Hui. Their faces grave, they sensed the seriousness and acted without hesitation, pulling Wang Hui back and switching off her flashlight.

Only when Luo Hanya and Liu Shanshan had pulled Wang Hui to safety did Li Xin let out a sigh of relief. She walked carefully to the table, staring intently at the yellow, oily liquid in the narrow-necked flask. She gasped and stepped back.

“What is it? What’s going on?” Luo Hanya and Liu Shanshan, still holding Wang Hui, asked anxiously. “What’s in that bottle?”

“Nitroglycerin,” Li Xin replied in a grave tone.

“Nitroglycerin? What’s that?” Luo Hanya and Liu Shanshan still couldn’t understand what could make Li Xin so serious, what substance could kill them all in an instant.