When Xiao Lou and Yu Hanjiang first entered the Nightmare Secret Room, they were in a maze filled with mirrors.
The maze had eight corners, and each corridor had nine mirrors on the left and right sides, reflecting their relatives. However, these relatives were like emotionless killing machines, chasing and beating them. Xiao Lou was almost traumatized by the relentless pursuit.
Fortunately, he remained calm and quickly analyzed that the maze's structure was based on the Bagua diagram of Qimen Dunjia, with the eight directions representing the eight gates. He found the Gate of Life based on his memory.
Now that the mirror maze was mentioned again, images of being chased by his parents flashed through Yu Hanjiang's mind. He frowned and whispered, "Mirror maze? Are you sure the exit is there?"
Xiao Lou said, "I can't be 100% sure, I'm just speculating."
Lu Jiuchuan said decisively, "No matter what your reasoning is, having a direction is better than wandering around aimlessly. We're short on time, so let's head towards the mirror maze first, and I'll explain along the way."
The other two also agreed with the decision.
Chu Huaying asked, " Professor Xiao, do you remember the location of that maze?"
Xiao Lou said, " When Hanjiang and I came out, we went northeast through the Gate of Life and kept moving away from the maze. If we wanted to go back, we should have gone southwest. Luckily, there was a north star in the sky where the moon was high up, which we could use for navigation."
He looked up carefully to find the North Star, then determined the southwest direction and said, "This way."
The three of them immediately followed him.
After walking a few steps, Lu Jiuchuan asked, "How did you come up with the idea that the exit is in the mirror maze?"
Xiao Lou said, " After being eliminated, Challengers either choose to die completely, or, if they are unwilling, they can join the Hunter camp to gain survival time. Based on the elimination rate of previous escape rooms, the elimination rate of the Weekly Secret Chamber alone is 80%, and even more are eliminated in the novice stage. In the end, the number of people who choose to become Hunters is several times that of Challengers. Just looking at the number of people, there is no fairness at all."
Xiao Lou looked up at the sky, where the sun and moon each occupied half, and whispered, "But look at the sky now. When the sun and moon shine together, the daytime represented by the sun is not completely swallowed up by the nighttime represented by the moon. Instead, they present a scene of equal strength. That means that even though the king and the king are on different sides, the king will not allow the king to completely suppress the king."
He paused, then did some calculations: "Suppose that out of the 80 million Challengers in Card World, 20 million eventually choose to die, 50 million become Hunters, and 10 million become Challengers. With such a terrifying disparity in numbers, Challenger should have collapsed long ago. However, there are still Challengers living well in the main city, and some, like us, have even made it to the Twin Kings' secret room."
Yu Hanjiang quickly understood his meaning: "So, no matter how strong the Hunters are, the King's side still has some rules to restrain them. And no matter how few Challengers there are, the King's side will still leave a way out for the Challengers?"
Xiao Lou nodded: "That's what balance is all about. Otherwise, Card World's balance would completely tilt towards one side. If I'm not mistaken, we might have already met the two kings in the main city."
Lu Jiuchuan was slightly taken aback: "Seen it before? When?"
Xiao Lou said, "Do you remember those masked twins? The older brother owns a bar in Sun City, and the younger brother used to be in Liuxi Village a long time ago."
Yu Hanjiang suddenly realized something: "The brothers' behavior was strange. They both wore Hunter masks. We suspected they were connected to the Hunter Organization, but after a long investigation, we found nothing. All we knew was that the two brothers seemed to have a conflict. When we broke into the bar that time, we happened to see the older brother locking the younger brother up."
Xiao Lou said, "The older brother is Bai Jinyu, the White Fox on the forum. He has been encouraging Challenger to work hard to complete the game and return to the original world. The younger brother's whereabouts are mysterious, and we can't find any information about him. What's even stranger is that the older brother opened a bar by the sea half a year ago, but the younger brother met us in the beginner's escape room Liuxi Village two months ago. Assuming that the two brothers were accidentally caught up in the card escape room together, it's impossible that the older brother went to the main city half a year ago, while the younger brother was still in the beginner's village two months ago."
Lu Jiuchuan frowned and pondered for a moment, then suddenly slapped his thigh: "You mean, these two brothers might be the incarnations of the King and Queen in Card World?!"
"If that's the case, then all the strange things can be explained." Xiao Lou paused, looked at the strange sky, and analyzed seriously: "The sun and moon shine together, half day and half night, a contradiction that coexists."
"My brother wears the Hunter mask, but he always helps Challenger. Even after the stampede at the concert, he gathered a large number of Challenger team leaders to encourage them to persevere and clear the card room."
"As the leader of the Hunters, my brother can naturally ignore time differences and freely enter and exit any secret room. His whereabouts are mysterious, and no information can be found about him. Perhaps, he went to Liuxi Village incognito to observe us."
Yu Hanjiang said, "Did he notice us because we broke world records?"
Xiao Lou said, "That's possible. A Challenger team that breaks world records will naturally grow into a powerful team capable of clearing the game later on. He probably..."
" Out of curiosity, why not go check out Liuxi Village? I remember he used telekinesis to take away the cat's eye stone we'd worked so hard to get, but Mr. Tang couldn't find the [telekinesis] amulet at all."
As Chu Huaying listened to Xiao Lou's speculation, the more she listened, the more reasonable it seemed.
She frowned and said, "Given Tang Ci's methods, the fact that he couldn't trace the younger brother's background at all means that the person's background itself is problematic. The older brother, who runs a bar in Sun City, has a registered ID called [White Fox] on the Challenger forum, but he didn't leave any information about his team. Without a team, where did he get so many walkthroughs to help Challenger clear low-level escape rooms?"
The mysterious twin brothers, behaving strangely, had everyone wondering about their true allegiance. Were they helping Challenger or Hunter? Now, after Xiao Lou's explanation, the three teammates felt a sudden sense of clarity.
The older brother is helping Challenger, and the younger brother is helping Hunter!
The twins, the incarnations of the two kings, had actually met them in the main city long ago, but they were completely unaware.
Whether Xiao Lou's deduction was correct or not, a gust of wind suddenly blew from afar, and the sun and moon in the sky were simultaneously obscured by dark clouds. Fortunately, the dark clouds quickly dissipated. Xiao Lou continued walking in the southwest direction, saying in a low voice, "By the same logic, we can deduce that the four Guardians are actually divided into two camps."
Yu Hanjiang followed up by saying, " Do 'hearts ' and 'diamonds' favor the King, while'spade ' and 'plum blossom' favor the Queen?"
Lu Jiuchuan pondered for a moment and nodded, saying, "It seems that's indeed the case. Both the Hearts and Diamonds worlds are orderly worlds. Especially in Hearts, although the murderer is terrifying, he still abides by the basic rule of 'an eye for an eye,' so we can't act recklessly. We need to play the role of the police to catch the criminals. In Diamonds, as long as we solve the puzzles, we can also find the exit."
Chu Huaying followed up, "On the contrary, Spade and Plum Blossom have absolutely no rules. In Plum Blossom's challenge game, losing means death; Spade's survival mode is full of traps. These two types of escape rooms are also the hardest hit areas for Hunters. We encountered ten times our number of Hunters in Plum Blossom J!"
The four Guardians and the two kings split into two major camps, Hearts Diamonds and the King stood on one side, Spade Plum Blossom and Little Joker stood on one side, and all the cards in the deck were also divided into red and black.
The red team, the Challenger faction, abides by the rules of the human world, and their ultimate reward is returning to the human world.
The Hunter faction, ruled by the Black faction, operates on a principle of survival of the fittest, where there are no rules, no consequences for killing, and any means necessary to survive. Therefore, the ultimate reward is immortality in the Card World.
The Hunter mystery that had puzzled them for so long could actually be explained in this way.
Lu Jiuchuan gave Xiao Lou a thumbs up with immense admiration: "As expected of Professor Xiao, you were able to deduce the core secret of Card World! So that's what the sun and moon shining together means!"
Chu Huaying said, "You said the exit of the Nightmare Secret Room is in the mirror maze, is that based on that reasoning?"
Xiao Lou nodded: "I guess the large number of relatives appearing in the mirror maze, although they will attack us frantically, if we think about it the other way around, our initial obsession to return to the real world was for our relatives, wasn't it?"
Yu Hanjiang agreed, "That's right, it's a double-edged sword, which perfectly reflects the contradictory nature of the Great King and the Little King. Our loved ones will attack us, but our intention in leaving Card World is also for their sake. Therefore, the exit must be in the mirror maze. We need to personally slay these illusions of our loved ones and escape the maze to achieve true 'rebirth'!"
Xiao Lou concluded, " The real exit of the Nightmare Secret Room is not the Gate of Life, but more likely the Gate of Death."
No destruction, no construction.
Only by putting yourself in a desperate situation can you survive.