SITS CH62

Chapter 62: Clearing the Stage

Luo Zhile said, “Never mind that… Shen-ge, why do I feel like the ceiling above our heads is getting lower and lower?”

Glancing upward, Shen Man saw it really was: “Solve the puzzle fast.”

Luo Zhile gasped: “Oh my god!”

Smart and quick on his feet, Luo Zhile teamed up with Shen Man to piece most of the puzzle together rapidly. Yet even after finishing, the ceiling continued descending without showing any sign of stopping.

“What do we do now?” Watching their standing headroom shrink rapidly, Luo Zhile panicked.

Glancing at the wall, something clicked in Shen Man’s mind: “Just wait.”

Having no idea what Shen Man was waiting for, Luo Zhile stood tense for a few moments before the ceiling unexpectedly ground to a halt.

Luo Zhile blinked: “Hey, it really stopped!”

Shen Man said, “Look at what the puzzle depicts.”

Joined together across the entire corridor wall, the tiles formed a continuous mural telling the story of a woman’s life in clear, vivid strokes.

From her birth and gradual growth, to finally being selected by the village as the Rain Maiden… The woman had a beloved sweetheart, and the two shared deep affection.

Throughout the first half of the mural, she wore a bright smile. Only after being separated from her lover did her expression turn into boundless sorrow, right up until the final panel.

Holding a broom, the woman stood amidst a torrential downpour, surrounded by devoutly kneeling villagers—everyone except her.

In this final image, her face was entirely devoid of expression. A crimson serpent dangled from her left ear and a green serpent from her right, her feet hovering above the ground as if she had transformed into the deity revered by the villagers, stripped of every trace of humanity.

The mural ended there.

“Was the woman sacrificed?” Luo Zhile asked. “This village definitely has some backward traditions.”

Thinking quietly for a moment, Shen Man reasoned: “Following the most cliché storyline logic, the woman was betrayed by her beloved, sacrificed by the villagers as the Rain Maiden to summon rainfall, and afterward her lingering resentment caused endless torrential rain.”

“That makes sense,” Luo Zhile agreed.

Pulling the padlock from his pocket, Shen Man rubbed his thumb across the engraved character 一 (One): “Except there’s one problem.”

Luo Zhile asked: “What?”

“The woman we saw outside earlier was holding an umbrella,” Shen Man pointed out. “Why is she holding a broom in the final mural?”

Luo Zhile: “…” He hadn’t noticed that detail at all.

Shen Man continued: “A broom looks completely out of place here.”

The final panel carried the greatest significance, yet in the most crucial scene, an object they had never seen before appeared.

Pondering deeply, Luo Zhile noted: “The door ahead seems to have opened. Keep going?”

Shen Man: “Let’s move.”

Meanwhile, Xu Zhouye’s group had unlocked the doors leading into another passageway.

Unlike the unhurried atmosphere on Shen Man’s side, Xu Zhouye’s group was wound tight with tension. They had abruptly realized that every puzzle they solved was directly saving Shen Man and Luo Zhile’s lives.

“Isn’t that Shen Man and Luo Zhile?” Through a sheet of one-way glass, the four spotted the duo solving puzzles on the other side of the mirror.

“It really is! Shen Man, Shen Man!” Zhao Rui slapped his palms against the glass, though the pair opposite showed zero reaction.

“They obviously can’t hear us. Why is there another hourglass here?” Zhou Yao frowned.

Not only was there an hourglass, it undoubtedly signified a countdown.

“Is this a sliding puzzle?” Zhao Rui asked. “Do we have to solve it? Are they doing the exact same puzzle over there?”

Indeed they were.

“Hey, is their ceiling moving downward?” Qin Yixing blurted out suddenly. “Or am I seeing things?”

“Fuck!” Zhou Yao finally lost patience and cursed aloud. “Stop fucking staring and solve the puzzle!”

The ceiling above Shen Man and Luo Zhile truly was descending.

Drawing from their earlier experience, all four understood that their speed determined whether Luo Zhile and Shen Man survived. Fortunately, this stage tested intellect rather than courage; dividing the tiles efficiently, the four completed the mural swiftly and halted the ceiling’s descent.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Zhao Rui frowned in bewilderment: “Isn’t the bar set way too high for us? What if we had failed? Would Shen Man and Luo Zhile just be dead?”

Ever the armchair critic unaffected by the strain, Qin Yixing scoffed: “High? Seems fine to me, the puzzles are super easy!”

All three shot him a synchronized glare, silently thinking the exact same thing: Talking so big right now, as if the guy screaming like a slaughtered pig two minutes ago wasn’t you.

The puzzles pressed onward.

Xu Zhouye’s group rescued Shen Man several more times as the challenges grew progressively harder and the time limits tighter. Yet the four synced up with growing chemistry, pulling Shen Man and Luo Zhile back from the brink time and again.

The most absurd trial involved Shen Man and Luo Zhile strapping into safety harnesses to descend from a high platform. The moment they clipped in, instead of lowering them, the winch began hoisting them straight upward toward a ceiling bristling with dense rows of spikes. Dangling helplessly mid-air, Shen Man couldn’t move, while Luo Zhile paced frantically below like a headless fly with no clue how to intervene.

Growing irritated, Shen Man shouted: “Xu Zhouye, hurry it up!”

Luo Zhile blinked: “Huh? Xu Zhouye? Where is Xu Zhouye?”

Shen Man said, “No idea where, but our lives are in their hands.”

Stunned for a beat, Luo Zhile connected Shen Man’s hint with everything that had transpired so far, realizing every near-death trap was linked to Xu Zhouye’s side. His eyes went wide: “How does that even work?!”

Shen Man called down: “If you guys don’t hurry up, I’m actually going to die.”

With no way of knowing if Xu Zhouye could hear him, Shen Man tilted his head upward, his gaze landing on the ceiling. Painted across the upper rafters were faint illustrations… At first glance they resembled a hanged woman, except the woman gripped a broom in her hand.

Instantly, Shen Man recalled seeing the woman earlier in the boudoir clutching that exact broom.

Xu Zhouye had heard him—not only heard him, but heard him crystal clear, as Shen Man was suspended directly beneath their floorboards.

Standing before the four was a claw machine containing two red-dressed dolls. To operate the claw, they needed tokens dispensed by a stationary exercise bike beside it: one token per five hundred meters pedaled.

Xu Zhouye was pedaling furiously enough to strike sparks beneath his boots, yet Zhao Rui and the others still hadn’t managed to grab a single doll.

Watching Shen Man get hoisted dangerously close to the spiked ceiling, Xu Zhouye snapped. Wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, he barked: “Move aside, I’ll do it!”

The other three stepped back silently.

Sinking a single token with surgical precision, Xu Zhouye finally snagged the doll and rescued Shen Man, watching him lower safely back to the floor.

Before anyone could even catch their breath, they saw Luo Zhile clipping himself into the harness next.

Xu Zhouye deadpanned: “What are you staring at me for? My legs are exhausted, your turn.” He looked directly at Zhou Yao.

Wearing a helpless expression and glancing down at Luo Zhile, Zhou Yao gritted his teeth and climbed onto the stationary bike.

Pedaling two full kilometers in a single sprint, he looked over to see the others casually bantering around the claw machine: “Left, left! Ai, that angle won’t work, the claw has an RNG grip rate—let me try, let me try!”

Zhou Yao: “…” Instantly, he felt profound empathy for Xu Zhouye’s earlier fury.

Zhou Yao roared: “Are you guys fucking throwing my blood-and-sweat tokens down the drain?!”

“Move aside! Let me do it!!” Shouting the exact same line, Zhou Yao charged at the claw machine.

When Luo Zhile was finally lowered from the ceiling, he wondered briefly if he was hallucinating, having sworn he felt the ceiling rafters vibrating slightly…

Well, that’s definitely just escape room paranoia.

Both puzzle tracks progressed simultaneously.

Entering a study, Shen Man and Luo Zhile found several ancient tomes that needed to be arranged in proper sequence.

Flipping through the pages while sorting them, they discovered the books recorded bizarre folk rituals, including how to summon rain:

On a couple’s wedding day, the bride had to be abducted, her blood drained as an offering to the deity.

Then, imprisoned alive inside a deep well, she would transform into the Rain Maiden.

The Rain Maiden could summon rainfall to relieve droughts.

Other rituals followed, detailing how to halt the rain if floods struck…

Utterly barbaric and cruel, the text made both of them frown deeply. Several pages at the back had been torn out, obscuring the rest of the text.

While Shen Man pondered what those missing pages might have contained, the study door clicked open.

“Let’s go,” Luo Zhile said.

Not wanting to delay their teammates, Shen Man nodded.

Over on Xu Zhouye’s side, they had collected two more padlocks, bringing their total to three, engraved with the characters: 矢 (Arrow), 禾 (Grain), and 光 (Light).

With no clear meaning, the characters appeared completely unrelated at first glance.

“We probably need to combine them with the locks from Shen Man’s side,” Xu Zhouye guessed. “They must have found locks over there too.”

Indeed they had; Shen Man and Luo Zhile currently held two padlocks of their own.

Clearing the final mechanism, the six players—separated for so long—finally reunited in the courtyard. Rain continued falling steadily, leaving everyone in their raincoats looking thoroughly battered.

Having plunged half his body into the water vats earlier, Zhao Rui was soaked nearly from head to toe. Spotting Shen Man emerge through the opposite doorway, he nearly wept with joy, wailing: “Captain, oh my Captain, you finally made it! If you’d taken another minute, I truly wouldn’t have had any strength left to save you!”

Listening to him whine, Shen Man silently marveled at how wise his earlier decision had been.

Having survived so many stages, everyone had gathered substantial pieces of the puzzle. Exchanging notes, they roughly pieced together what had transpired.

They had walked two separate paths, experiencing two different perspectives.

Shen Man’s duo saw the story through the Rain Maiden’s eyes, while Xu Zhouye’s group witnessed the perspective of the Rain Maiden’s lover.

“Because the village suffered a prolonged drought, a woman was chosen as the Rain Maiden,” Shen Man analyzed the lore. “She was locked away and dressed in ceremonial finery to pray for rain. Forbidden from contacting outsiders or marrying, she was forcibly separated from her lover.”

“Heartbroken, her lover tried desperately to rescue her,” Xu Zhouye continued, “but failed.”

Trapped inside the relentless rain like that flickering oil lamp, all he could do was shield her flame with everything he had.

Yet against a storm that fierce, could he truly protect her?

“That wasn’t the end of the tragedy; it was only the beginning,” Shen Man said. “Later, for unknown reasons, rain poured over the village for three straight months without stopping, and the villagers vented their rage on the Rain Maiden…”

“What did they do?” Xu Zhouye asked.

Shen Man explained: “When she approached us earlier, she wasn’t holding an umbrella, she was holding a broom. We wondered why at first, until we were hoisted toward the ceiling and saw murals painted across the rafters.” Combined with the records in the study, every thread connected cleanly.

Listening with rapt attention, Zhao Rui chimed in enthusiastically: “What was in the painting?”

Shen Man said, “It showed a hanged woman holding a broom. Later in the study, I read about her story.”

Dating back to the Yuan Dynasty, poems existed about the Saoqing Niang—the Fair-Weather Maiden: “Rolling up sleeves and lifting skirts, holding a broom aloft; hung toward the overcast sky, waving her hands.” It referred to the traditional folk custom of the Fair-Weather Maiden.

In Chinese folklore, unmarried young women cut paper figures holding brooms and hung them beneath the eaves. When a breeze blew, the paper maiden waved her broom in the wind, sweeping away gloomy clouds.

What Shen Man had seen was a human Fair-Weather Maiden.

The very woman meant to serve as their Rain Deity had been hanged alive to serve as a Fair-Weather Maiden.

Hearing Shen Man’s explanation, everyone nodded in grim understanding.

“He tried to save her,” Xu Zhouye murmured quietly. “He gave everything he had trying to lower her down from the gallows.”

He remembered watching Shen Man get hoisted inch by inch closer to the spiked ceiling, straining with every ounce of strength in helpless panic. The protagonist of this story must have felt a hundred times more desperate back then.

Watching the person he loved most swaying helplessly in the rain as life drained away—his heart wouldn’t merely ache with grief, it would burn with pure rage and hatred.

Whatever followed remained shrouded in mystery, yet this unstoppable downpour was undoubtedly tied to the two of them.

Still, none of them quite understood the meaning behind the five padlocks they had collected.

Engraved across the five locks were: 矢 (Arrow), 艹 (Grass), 禾 (Grain), 氵 (Water), and 光 (Light).

While they stood thinking, the vanished NPC abruptly reappeared, speaking softly: “Thank you all for your hard work. Please follow me this way.”

Everyone followed behind him.

Walking alongside, Xu Zhouye struck up a conversation with the male NPC: “Brother, how long have we been away studying?”

Gazing straight ahead without sparing Xu Zhouye a glance, the man replied quietly: “You left at age ten. Sixteen years have passed since then.”

“And we never came back once in between?” Xu Zhouye pressed.

The man said, “Never.”

Xu Zhouye asked: “Were the six of us the only ones who went away to study?”

The man smiled faintly: “Of course there were others besides the six of you.”

Lowering his voice, Xu Zhouye asked: “Then why didn’t any of the others come back?”

The question sounded distinctly eerie—what did he mean by none of the others came back?

The man replied: “Because the six of you possess something special, of course.”

Beside them, Zhao Rui muttered under his breath: Yeah, the six of us are super special—the Chosen Ones picked by the HCC. He couldn’t even bear to imagine what an embarrassing spectacle he would look like when the episode aired.

The man led them into an enclosed courtyard. Right in the center sat a stone well wrapped tightly in heavy iron chains.

“It is all the fault of those two rule-breakers,” the man said. “They shattered the village’s feng shui. Thank you for your assistance earlier, allowing me to seal their souls down inside this well.”

Standing amidst the rain beneath his umbrella, the man gazed down at the well. Yet his eyes held none of the resentment one might expect; instead, they brimmed with serene gentleness, like a savior on the verge of ending a calamity: “Hand those five locks over to me.”

Pulling out the padlocks, Xu Zhouye and Shen Man placed them into the man’s hands.

Brushing his fingers lightly across the metal locks, he said: “I apologize for dragging you all into this, though there was no other choice.”

A smile broke across his face—the very first expressive look he had shown since they entered the escape room. He then distributed the five locks to five members of the group, skipping only Shen Man standing right beside him.

“Why don’t I get one?” Shen Man asked.

The man replied: “Well, there happens to be one extra person.”

Pondering for a second, Shen Man pointed toward Xu Zhouye: “Can I take his place?”

The man glanced over at Xu Zhouye.

“That should be fine, right?” Shen Man asked.

The man nodded slowly.

“Let me handle it,” Shen Man smiled, extending a hand toward Xu Zhouye. “You’ve been running around nonstop, take a breather.”

True as that was, Xu Zhouye didn’t budge; something about Shen Man’s sudden overly accommodating attitude felt suspicious.

“Zhouye.” Calling his name softly, Shen Man suddenly leaned close to Xu Zhouye’s ear and whispered something. Moving too swiftly and speaking too quietly, nobody standing nearby caught a word.

Only Xu Zhouye heard clearly—Shen Man had just acted coy in front of everyone, asking him to indulge him.

Unable to hold out against that, Xu Zhouye handed his lock over to Shen Man: “What do the characters on these locks mean?”

Shen Man said, “I’m guessing they represent the Five Elements: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth.”

Xu Zhouye blinked: “That simple?”

Shen Man replied, “Yeah, I thought this puzzle was way too simple too.”

Too perfunctory—clearly lying through his teeth. Narrowing his eyes skeptically at him, Xu Zhouye watched Shen Man wear a face of pure innocence: “I’ll head over with them first, then.”