Shi Xin and Qin Xue stared at Ming Qiao who was "falling from the sky" with wide eyes. They opened and closed their mouths, having many questions they wanted to ask but didn't know how to start.

"Don't just stand there, come here." Mingqiao picked up the stool next to him and threw it at the thing next to him that was about to bite him, and waved to the two of them hurriedly.

Only then did they see clearly what had been bothering them.

They are like miniature versions of humans, only about one meter tall, naked, with chaotic facial features mixed together, and a mouth drooling in the middle, ugly and disgusting.

Qin Xue shuddered. He was already nauseated when he couldn't see clearly just now, and now that he saw the entity, he retched as if he wanted to vomit out all his internal organs.

Shi Xin could only pull Qin Xue towards Mingqiao.

The monster moved slowly and had no strength to catch people, so it could only watch the two people pass by its mouth. Their eyes were full of malice and resentment, which inevitably made people feel cold.

Ming Qiao saw the two approaching, and without saying a word, he turned back and took them back to the room where they played mahjong. As the door slammed shut, they finally felt that they had survived the mouths of those monsters.

Shi Xin slowly moved closer to Ming Bridge.

He had a lot to ask and a lot to say.

For example, why are you here, where are the other teachers and students...

But when the two of them finally faced each other, he naturally raised his hand and touched Mingqiao's forehead: "Are you still feeling uncomfortable? Will you feel better after taking a rest?"

Mingqiao closed his eyes, his eyelashes trembling slightly, and shook his head: "It still hurts."

Shi Xin suddenly felt a little guilty. If he and Qin Xue could find the clue quickly, Ming Qiao wouldn't have to come to save them despite being sick. He lowered his head and tugged at the corner of his clothes a little awkwardly, like a primary school student who had done something wrong and was waiting to be scolded by the teacher: "I'm sorry, we made you worry."

"It's okay," Mingqiao patted Shi Xin's shoulder to comfort him: "I came here to talk to you about what's happening outside."

"What's going on outside?" Shi Xin became nervous.

"It's raining outside." Mingqiao said, "It's raining heavily, which is very abnormal, so I have some guesses and I want to discuss them with you."

"I know." Qin Xue finally suppressed his nausea, took a deep breath and said, "Teacher, you said before that the acid water on the playground was because it was raining somewhere, and it's raining now, so the source of the acid water has a reasonable explanation."

"That's not all." Ming Qiao said, "I encountered this monster before in the office. It was raining at that time."

Shi Xin looked at him: "So you think that the rain and the monster appeared at the same time."

"Yes, I think these two things can be summed up in one word, that is, 'punishment'." Ming Qiao said: "This is also what I want to verify with you, whether you have done anything to attract these things."

Qin Xue immediately replied: "We pissed off the casino owner and got a real casino notice in return."

"Okay. Next question, why did you think of angering the boss?"

Qin Xue looked at Shi Xin, and Ming Qiao also looked over there.

Shi Xin pursed her lips and explained to Ming Qiao again what she had said to Qin Xue before.

Ming Qiao nodded to himself, and finally came up with a relatively clear idea: "You are right. Forcing the NPC to give a real task can push this escape game forward step by step. This idea is completely correct."

After receiving the praise, Shi Xin finally perked up, straightened his back and continued to listen to Mingqiao.

"Let's sort it out together now." Mingqiao said, "Suppose we are in a huge escape room game, and our ultimate goal is to escape."

"The essence of escape room in my understanding is 'decryption', that is, we need to search and collect clues related to escape, and then escape step by step according to the clues. The clues must be given by the game designer, and we as players cannot create clues ourselves. Therefore, when we can't get clues, we must take some special measures to force important NPCs to give clues. However, this step will have certain risks, or to put it bluntly, there will be penalties, such as the possibility of summoning biting monsters and heavy rain."

"Yes." Shi Xin echoed.

"The most specific way to describe special measures is that if we violate the rules, we cannot avoid punishment. This is a necessary and sufficient proposition."

Qin Xue was confused: "Teacher, what is a necessary and sufficient proposition?"

"That is, if we break the rules, we will inevitably be punished. The reason we are punished must be that we broke the rules."

"I understand." Qin Xue nodded: "Teacher, please continue."

"In the end, after many twists and turns, we came back to the rules. We need to judge for ourselves which rules must be followed and which rules must be broken. My initial understanding was that the rules must be followed, because through practice, following the rules will never go wrong, but following the rules will not help us obtain more clues. So when necessary, we must selectively break the rules to maximize the probability of ensuring our own safety while finding clues."

Shi Xin listened to him patiently and said, "I agree with this point of view. When we were in the restaurant, it was not easy to escape even if we followed the rules. We might as well give it a try now."

"Yeah." Mingqiao handed the water that had been placed by the wall to the two of them: "Take a break first, we will go to the casino together later."

Shi Xin took a sip of the water and said, "Teacher Ming, I haven't had time to ask, where are the others? How are they?"

"The students who were rescued have woken up, but they still need to recover their strength. Teacher Zhang has taken them to find a awning to shelter from the rain. They are safe for the time being. But as Qin Xue said just now, the acid water in the playground will be produced by rain, so if the rain continues, it may cause the water to fill up, and they will definitely be in danger."

"What about the time?" Shi Xin asked again.

Ming Qiao is used to this: "Outside, the time has gone backwards. Some students wore watches and saw with their own eyes that the time went back from 7pm to 3pm."

"Do you have any special feelings?" Shi Xin recalled some scenes he had seen in movies before: "Like a tearing feeling? A pulling feeling?"

"No." Ming Qiao shook his head. "I didn't feel anything. If that student hadn't looked at his watch and found that the hands were moving counterclockwise, we wouldn't have noticed that time was going backwards. Plus, the weather was bad, so we couldn't have noticed this anomaly."

“How did you explain this to those students?”

"I said it might be the magnetic field that caused his watch to break," Ming Qiao said with a wry smile. "It was so amazing that I didn't even believe what I said. But maybe they were tired and didn't think carefully about what I said. They just listened to it vaguely, and at least they didn't have any extreme emotions."

"Extreme emotions?"

"For example, to be honest, we are trapped in the school and may die at any time. We cannot rule out the possibility that some students will take some measures to commit suicide in advance." Mingqiao inevitably thought of what happened in the office at the beginning and spoke as carefully as possible.

Most of the students he faced were teenagers whose psychological endurance was not very strong.

He couldn't take any chances.

The two had a conversation and the atmosphere became much more relaxed. Shi Xin and Qin Xue also took a good rest and mustered up their energy to go to the casino again.

"Don't be impulsive, look more and think more." Mingqiao reminded before entering.

"Know."