Chapter 133

Chapter 133

Judging by the state of the dorm room, it had likely been abandoned for years. There was a good chance the MP3 Player left here was already dead.

Even so, Qin Weiyi still tried turning it on.

As the MP3 Player powered up, Qin Weiyi did not look surprised. A flicker of understanding passed through his eyes.

There was only one audio file on the MP3 Player.

Without hesitation, Qin Weiyi pressed play.

At first, there was only a burst of static. Several seconds passed before a woman’s voice finally came from the MP3 Player.

“One, two, three… twelve. Hahahaha, all here. You-you are all going to die.”

The woman’s voice in the MP3 Player was soft and sweet. She seemed delighted, counting something in a bright, excited tone, but the moment she reached twelve, her voice abruptly changed. It turned cold and sinister, followed by a burst of laughter that made their skin crawl.

Then Qin Weiyi and the others heard the woman grit out the word die.

Jian Fan and Qin Nan had naturally heard the sound outside.

The two of them quickly came out of the bathroom.

Qin Weiyi had not stopped the playback, and the audio on the MP3 Player soon began looping. Only then did Qin Weiyi seem to snap back to his senses, hurriedly turning off the MP3 Player.

“What’s going on?” Qin Nan asked.

Qin Weiyi looked over at Qin Nan through the crowd. “Found an MP3 Player in the drawer.” As he spoke, Qin Weiyi shrugged. “Looks like the theme of this escape room is related to death again.”

“Isn’t that just how the Realm of Death works?” Qin Nan was not surprised.

None of them were surprised. Still, after hearing that eerie laugh, everyone felt at least a little unnerved.

Especially the woman’s counting. Twelve. Weren’t there exactly twelve of them?

“Did you find anything on your end?” Qin Weiyi asked Qin Nan.

Qin Nan nodded. “We found some bloodstains and something that might be blood. You can take a look in the bathroom. Nothing related to the key, though.”

Qin Weiyi did not move. His gaze swept over the dorm room one item at a time.

“Strange. Where else could something be hidden?” Qin Weiyi muttered, though it was unclear whether he was asking them or talking to himself.

There were only so many things in the dorm room, and the desks and cabinets were all empty. Yet somehow, they still had not found any key. Where could it be hidden?

Right now, not only could they not find the key, they had no relevant clues either.

As for the bloodstains Qin Nan had discovered, and this MP3 Player, they were probably both part of the escape room’s background story. That information would surely be useful for the path ahead, but for now, Qin Weiyi felt it should not have much of an immediate impact.

The urgent task was to find the key and leave this dorm room.

Where could the key be?

Qin Weiyi was not the only one pondering that question. Everyone was asking themselves the same thing.

“Could it have fallen under a desk?” Lin Junruo suddenly said.

Everyone immediately looked toward her.

“We’ve basically searched everywhere we can. The only places left should be the spots blocked by the beds and desks, right?” Lin Junruo said cautiously.

Qin Weiyi immediately nodded. “That makes sense. Lu Jing, you do it.”

As he spoke, Qin Weiyi stepped aside.

Lu Jing listened to Qin Weiyi readily. By then, he had already walked over to one of the beds. Seeing this, Yellow Hair quickly went up as well. “I’ll help.”

No matter how strong Lu Jing was, there was still a difference between having someone help and doing it alone.

Only after Yellow Hair spoke did Liu Ji and the others react. They also came over, wanting to help.
Lu Jing waved a hand and said, “You guys move the ones over there. Yellow Hair and I can handle this one.”

Liu Ji and the other two didn’t object. Qin Nan glanced over, then took the initiative to join the three of them.

All the beds were loft beds with desks underneath. The beds were fixed in place and couldn’t be moved, so what they needed to move were the desks.

But the desks were no lightweight matter either.

Working together, it took them a while before they finally moved all the desks aside.

There was quite a bit of dust under the desks, along with a few things that had probably been dropped by the previous occupants by accident.

Yellow Hair picked up the items on the floor one by one, then placed them on the desk.

There were three items in total.

A strawberry hair clip, a hair ribbon, and a very small key.

Qin Weiyi stepped forward and picked up the key. He studied it for a few moments before his gaze finally landed on the drawer Lu Jing had violently pried open earlier.

The key was so small that it clearly wasn’t for a door. It looked more like a drawer key. And in this dorm room, the only thing that had been locked and required a key seemed to be the drawer where they had found the MP3 Player.

When the others saw where Qin Weiyi was looking, they all followed his gaze, then immediately realized what he was thinking.

Qin Weiyi walked straight over, inserted the key into the drawer’s keyhole, and turned it clockwise. The latch turned with a click.

They had already guessed as much, but now that it was confirmed to be the drawer key, Qin Weiyi still found the situation hard to put into words.

He turned to look at Lu Jing and gave him a thumbs-up. “Impressive.”

According to the normal process, they should have found this small key under the bed, used it to open the drawer, and then discovered the MP3 Player. But because of Lu Jing’s violent dismantling, they had skipped the first step entirely, found the MP3 Player first, and only afterward found the key.

In that case, the key was basically useless.

Qin Weiyi didn’t pull the key out. He simply stood up, looked at Lu Jing, and said, “How about you go try and see if that door can be dismantled by force too?”

Lu Jing paused, then asked hesitantly, “Are you sure?”

“Not sure,” Qin Weiyi replied. He glanced around and said, “Let’s think it through first. See if there’s anywhere else we’ve missed.”

Violent dismantling was one possible method, but if it didn’t work-or if they ended up breaking the lock entirely-then even if they found the key, they still wouldn’t be able to leave this place.

Unless they had absolutely no other choice, it was better not to use such a risky method.

Lu Jing shrugged. “Your call.”

“But haven’t we already searched everywhere we can?” Lin Junruo frowned.

“The bathroom,” Jian Fan suddenly said.

After saying that, he didn’t wait for anyone else to react and headed straight toward the bathroom. Qin Nan quickly followed him, and after a brief pause, Qin Weiyi immediately headed that way as well.

All twelve of them soon gathered around the bathroom door.

The bathroom was too small to fit that many people.

Jian Fan was the first to enter. Qin Nan had already searched it before, so he simply stayed outside and made way for Qin Weiyi behind him.

Aside from Jian Fan and Qin Weiyi, Wen Xi and Shi Chen also entered the bathroom. As for the others, they all remained outside.

Qin Weiyi soon noticed the liquid in the toilet tank that looked suspiciously like blood.

He smelled a very strong metallic stench of blood, but-

Qin Weiyi frowned and said, “This dorm’s been abandoned for so long. Could blood really stay like this for that long?”

The answer was obviously no. But looking at the blood-red liquid, Qin Weiyi still felt that it did indeed look like blood.

He turned to Jian Fan and asked, “What do you think?”