Upon seeing Gui Yuanzhang's letter, Lu Jiuchuan's expression immediately turned serious. He frowned and read the letter three times from beginning to end. The words on the letter were indeed written by Old Gui himself—could it be that Old Gui became Hunter to infiltrate the undercover operation?
Just as he was pondering this, the pitiful howls of wolves suddenly came from outside.
Lu Jiuchuan cautiously approached Lao Mo: "The wolves outside are suddenly howling so fiercely, has something happened?"
Old Mo looked nervous: "I don't know, could it be that they're planning a full-scale attack on us?"
Lu Jiuchuan gripped his sword tightly, his eyes darting around rapidly. Fortunately, Old Mo had a quick wit; the model room had no windows, and all four walls were sealed off. He breathed a sigh of relief: "Luckily, all four walls are concrete; the wolves can't break in for now."
Outside, the sound of a large number of wolves running could be heard, as powerful as a thousand horses galloping. However, the wolves were running in the opposite direction, and their howls gradually faded into the distance, from being deafening at first to disappearing completely.
Soon, the surroundings became completely quiet.
Lu Jiuchuan pricked up his ears in confusion, and when he noticed the wolves had stopped howling, he wondered, "Are they gone?"
Old Mo looked bewildered: "It seems they've left."
Just as the two were about to peer through the peephole, someone suddenly knocked on the door: "Is Old Mo inside?"
It's Xiao Lou's voice.
Lu Jiuchuan's heart leaped with joy: " Xiao Lou?"
Those outside seemed surprised upon hearing the voice: "Ninth Brother? What are you doing here?"
Lu Jiuchuan said, "Let's meet first and then talk."
Xiao Lou said, "Old Mo, open the door. We've lured the wolves away."
Just now, Xiao Lou, Yu Hanjiang, and Qu Wanyue happened to pass by. The wolf pack spotted them and howled wildly, surrounding them in an instant. Yu Hanjiang couldn't possibly handle thousands of wolves by himself. Xiao Lou, left with no other choice, simply tied the braised pork to a white silk card and threw it far away with the help of the wind. The wolf pack, affected by the braised pork's skill, quickly chased after it.
Then they discovered a house there, which was clearly Old Mo's model room.
The model room had no windows, but Lao Mo had left a door for escape. It was a very thick security door, which most wild animals couldn't force open. Lao Mo walked to the door and looked through the peephole. He saw not only Xiao Lou, but also Yu Hanjiang and Qu Wanyue.
Old Mo asked warily, " Professor Xiao, do you often play escape room games, and are you also the administrator of Jiangzhou's largest escape room forum, with the forum ID 'Listening to Spring Rain All Night in a Small Building'?"
Xiao Lou said, "I'm not an administrator, I'm a moderator, my ID is Xiao Lou Ting Yu."
Old Mo breathed a slight sigh of relief; this Professor Xiao was real!
Suddenly, Lu Jiuchuan said, " Hanjiang is here too? I remember when you were 7 years old, you were locked at home doing your homework. You didn't want to do it, so you secretly jumped out the window to play and ended up breaking your leg. I was the one who took you to the hospital."
Yu Hanjiang: "..."
Xiao Lou glanced at Yu Hanjiang, as if to say, "Were you this naughty when you were little?"
Yu Hanjiang knocked on the iron gate expressionlessly: "Open the door."
It's understandable that people are suspicious; "fake teammates" often appear in escape rooms, making it difficult to guard against them.
What we just talked about wasn't a pre-arranged code, but rather something we mentioned in casual conversation. What Lu Jiuchuan said was a secret known only to Yu Hanjiang, and it all fits together perfectly.
Lu Jiuchuan gestured for the door to open, and Lao Mo confidently turned on the deadbolt.
After the three entered the model room, Lao Mo immediately locked the door. Yu Hanjiang walked up to Ninth Brother and asked in a low voice, "How did you get eliminated too? Who did it?"
Old Mo volunteered, "It's Mr. Old Gui! We never dreamed that Old Gui would be the mole within the team!"
Qu Wanyue looked surprised: "What? The mole planted among us, isn't it Liu Qiao's sister? Old Gui, he..."
Xiao Lou couldn't process all this information at once and looked at Lu Jiuchuan with a puzzled expression.
Lu Jiuchuan didn't explain, and simply handed Xiao Lou the letter that Old Gui had left for him.
Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang huddled together and looked at it. They exchanged a glance, and Xiao Lou asked, "Ninth Brother, do you believe him?"
Lu Jiuchuan frowned deeply: "I hope it's true. I've only known Old Gui for a year, but he doesn't seem like someone who's afraid of death. He's lived a long life and has a very open mind about many things. Besides, in reality, I remember Old Gui is quite Buddhist. Generally, Buddhists wouldn't kill innocent people indiscriminately, would they?"
Xiao Lou recalled encountering the "six paths of reincarnation" mechanism during the Weekly Routine; Old Gui certainly knew a lot about these things.
Lu Jiuchuan said, "He killed me very decisively; I didn't even have time to react. It's possible that it was an act for the other side, because Hunter's leader, Xu Muran, appeared. This Xu Muran was actually our former captain, what a fucking bastard! He died in the Nightmare Secret Room, and he actually chose to become a Hunter!"
Yu Hanjiang quickly tore the letter into pieces and whispered, "Brother, think about it carefully. When you came out of the Nightmare Secret Room in Plum Blossom J and then met your three teammates in the main city, was there anything wrong with that?"
Lu Jiuchuan carefully recalled his experience and said, " In the Nightmare Secret Room of Plum Blossom J, the eliminated people did not reunite. I was alone in a secret room, as were Tang Ci and the others. After I came out, I went to our base's underground factory. When I arrived at the underground factory, I found Old Gui waiting for us there, followed by Hua Ying and Tang Ci."
Xiao Lou raised a question: " Old Gui's strength is not that of a team."
" He's the strongest in the team, and he was the first to walk out of the Nightmare Secret Room. Didn't you have any doubts?"
Lu Jiuchuan paused for a moment, then smiled bitterly and said, "At the time, I was seriously injured, Tang Ci had a broken leg, and Old Gui and Hua Ying were covered in blood. We were too busy with treatment to think about these details."
Xiao Lou asked pointedly, " What about the contract book? Didn't you check it?"
Lu Jiuchuan said helplessly, " The contract book was on me. I really didn't think about these things at the time. When I woke up and checked again, I found that only my name, Tang Ci's name, Old Gui's name, and Hua Ying's name were left on the contract book. The names of the other teammates had been erased."
Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang exchanged a glance.
If it were them, having narrowly escaped death but severely injured and on the verge of death, their priority would definitely be treatment. They probably never imagined that Old Gui had become the Hunter.
Yu Hanjiang said, "It seems that the names of people who die in ordinary secret rooms disappear from the contract book, but if they survive in the Nightmare Secret Room, they will reappear in the book. Old Gui took the contract book while Ninth Brother was unconscious, signed his name, and pretended that he survived from the Nightmare Secret Room."
Xiao Lou wondered, "But if he didn't survive and chose to become a Hunter, why was he able to sign the contract book? I remember that the contract book must be signed by a Challenger, and once signed, it would bind the team and teleport them to the same secret room."
A thought suddenly flashed through Lu Jiuchuan's mind: "A pen, he has a pen!"
Xiao Lou paused for a moment, then quickly realized: "You mean, Old Gui's pen can be used to sign the contract book?"
Lu Jiuchuan nodded: "His pen can write on any surface and change color. He wrote ' Gui Yuanzhang ' in red on the contract book with his own pen. On the surface, it looks like he signed it, but in reality, the contract book doesn't recognize him, and he's not actually a teammate of ours! His name just appears on the surface of the paper, and he won't be pulled in when we teleport to the Challenger in the secret room. He was able to go to the Q and K team secret rooms with us, perhaps he used the Hunter's portal?"
Following this line of thought, Xiao Lou quickly analyzed: " Hunter can also enter the team's secret room. In the Q Secret Room, Old Gui stayed in the Mermaid Royal Palace as the Hunter, aiming to assassinate Liu Qiao and Old Mo; in the K Secret Chamber, everyone was born in Mass Grave, but don't forget, the big boss of the K Secret Chamber, Qi Ran, is the master of Mass Grave, so Old Gui can also enter Mass Grave through the Hunter's passage!"
On the surface, it seemed that Old Gui had been transported to the secret chamber with them, and his name was even on the contract book. But in reality, it was all a facade, a flawless facade!
Yu Hanjiang said, "In other words, the contract book is the only way to verify whether someone is a Challenger, but Gui Yuanzhang, as a Hunter, happens to have an all-powerful pen that can forge signatures on contract books, making people mistakenly believe that he is a Challenger?"
Xiao Lou pondered, "Perhaps that's why he went undercover. Only he drew the [Pen] card, so no one would suspect him while he was undercover with Challenger. The other Hunters wouldn't be able to sign their names, right?"
Everyone: "..."
Xiao Lou grew increasingly alarmed. If that were the case, the depth of Old Gui's cunning was truly admirable!
I remember when we handed the new contract book to Brother Jiu and the other three to sign, Old Gui was the last one to sign. Xiao Lou never suspected him, and naturally didn't notice whether he used the quill pen that came with the contract book or his own pen when he signed.
The pen, a simple card, was used to its fullest potential by Old Gui, who actually turned it into a "Mission: Impossible" drama.
Lu Jiuchuan took a deep breath, his expression serious: "I'm willing to believe him now. If he's on Hunter's side, he has countless opportunities to attack us. Back in the Tomb of the Headless General, when we were being tracked by Hunter and the underground tomb was about to collapse, he only needed to block the exit to bury us all alive."
Xiao Lou said, "And there's Mass Grave of the K Secret Chamber. Ninth Brother, your clues were transmitted across time thanks to his letters. If he had tampered with the clues, Hanjiang and I wouldn't have been able to solve the mystery."
Old Mo and Qu Wanyue were completely bewildered, but they finally understood by this point.
Qu Wanyue said in a trembling voice, "I can understand why he didn't tell us, after all, the more people who know, the easier it is to expose him. But you also said that he had many opportunities in the Q Secret Room and the K Secret Chamber, so why did he keep dragging it out until the Twin Kings Secret Room?"
Yu Hanjiang said, "I guess it's because if we successfully clear the Twin Kings Secret Room, we can go back, and Hunter might also get the highest reward—this secret room is the final battle, so the ultimate move should be saved for last."
Xiao Lou nodded, agreeing with Yu Hanjiang's statement: "Perhaps Old Gui, leveraging Card World's unique advantage of being able to sign the contract book with his own pen, made some deals with the Hunter's higher-ups, deliberately dragging things out until the Twin Kings' secret room. That's why, despite encountering Hunter's pursuit several times before, we survived. Precisely because of this, Hunter doesn't fully trust him, which is why he decisively killed Ninth Brother and Old Mo to prove his loyalty."
Old Mo suddenly said, "Wait a minute, he also killed Mr. Tang? Why didn't we see Mr. Tang?"
Lu Jiuchuan's expression changed: "What did you say?! Tang Ci too..."
He was the first to be stabbed to death; Tang Ci was still alive when he closed his eyes. But Old Mo was the last to die. Old Mo said, "I saw with my own eyes Old Gui throw Mr. Tang into the fire, and Mr. Tang was burned to death!"
Xiao Lou said with certainty, " Tang Ci will not die."
Lu Jiuchuan's eyes lit up: "Really?"
Xiao Lou said, "His defensive mech isn't even afraid of hellfire, let alone fire set by Hunter. Old Gui intentionally saved Tang Ci, which is why he..."
"Throw it into the fire. Hunter probably thought Tang Ci's defensive mech was already used up, but I know that when they dismantled the mech to make a furnace, Mr. Tang actually kept one as a precaution."
Lu Jiuchuan smiled and breathed a sigh of relief: "That's good. Killing me and leaving Tang Ci alive, I guess Old Gui thinks Tang Ci is smarter than me?"
Yu Hanjiang glanced at his elder brother, as if to say: You're quite self-aware.
Xiao Lou felt much relieved. In fact, throughout this journey, he had often wondered if they had any way to clear the Card World room. The Hunters were so strong, outnumbered them many times over, and could even impersonate Card World natives or their teammates. How could they find a way out of such a terrible disadvantage?
Now, he has found it.
Thanks to Old Gui for his foresight in personally becoming the Hunter and figuring out the enemy forces' true strength.
As the predecessor said, Time Reversal, which allows a person to return to the past with their memories, change everything that is about to happen, and eliminate the Hunter in advance, is the only way to break the deadlock.
Xiao Lou looked at his teammates and said, "Mr. Tang is very smart. Old Gui let him off the hook, so he must have realized that Old Gui is a double agent. Next, they should try to find out Hunter's background, get enough information, and then find a suitable time to start Time Reversal."
Yu Hanjiang asked, "What do you think is the right time?"
Xiao Lou said, "The best way is to wait for us to go back. So, we need to find the exit of the Nightmare Secret Room as soon as possible."
******