Rebirth
"Zheng Tong, a 23-year-old female university student at Qu'an Normal University, had made an appointment with a friend to go to the largest local escape room facility on the night of the incident. The facility runs from 10 PM to 3 AM." Cheng Xiaoxiang pointed to a picture of the facility on the projector. "This facility is quite well-known in the community. It's located on a remote grassland, has a large venue, and incorporates script-killing elements. It's very appealing to young people who enjoy suspenseful detective and thriller games. Their target customers have always been wealthy young people."
Lu Yuyao tilted his head and dropped his pen onto the table. "Rich young man?"
"Yeah." Cheng Xiaoxiang turned the page and said in an exaggerated tone, "You'll never imagine how much it costs to play this escape room!"
Lu Yuyao asked, "How much can a secret room cost? Thousands?"
"More than that!" Cheng Xiaoxiang showed a price list of escape room projects. "List them from high to low. The cheapest one costs 12,000!"
"Twelve thousand?!"
Everyone was stunned. "Just a five-hour game? And twelve thousand?! That's outrageous!" Lu Yuyao fainted, holding his forehead. "I can't keep up with these young people."
Bai Shuo also complained, "If you ask me, just buy a novel and read it."
Chen An tapped the table with the end of his pen to bring the subject back to the topic. "What game was Zheng Tong playing at the time?"
Cheng Xiaoxiang said, "It seems to be a marriage script, and the role Zheng Tong drew is the daughter of a wealthy family."
Lu Yuyao said, "So, this game still has some randomness."
Cheng Xiaoxiang nodded, "Yes."
Zhou Qiong buried his head in his notes, then looked up and asked a question, "I don't think so. The people who went with Zheng Tong were all her friends, acquaintances. Even if you draw someone you don't like, you can always change it."
Both sides make sense, Cheng Xiaoxiang confirmed this possibility, "But when the police questioned everyone, they all said they drew it." He then continued, "There's a scene where the character played by Zheng Tong is trapped in a sealed water tank that slowly fills up. If the other players fail to rescue Zheng Tong within the specified time, the water will fill the entire tank and the players will drown."
"But this device is supervised by a dedicated person. The staff will monitor the progress of the players in real time and adjust the water flow rate and volume accordingly. This is the surveillance footage from the day of the incident."
Then he pulled up a video.
The dark room only had a huge glass water tank in the middle. Zheng Tong, dressed in red, was escorted in by NPCs. At first, she shouted to the outsiders in a relaxed manner, "Don't just play around, remember to save me!"
When the NPC closed the lid of the water tank, she realized that she was locked and became a little scared. "Hey, don't go!" The NPC opened the door and went out as if he didn't hear her. After a while, water began to flow into the pipe at the other end. She stood up and found that the entire water tank was rising.
She looked down at the tiny pipes constantly pouring water in, and urged the people outside, "Hurry up! Peng Yue!"
No one responded in the empty room, and her inner fear was magnified. Soon the water reached her calves. She panicked and slapped the glass, "Is there anyone here? Peng Yue!"
No one paid any attention to her no matter what she shouted. Suddenly, the water flowed faster. She watched the water soon reach her waistline, and she hit the glass even harder. She even took off the hairpin on her head and poked the glass hard.
The fear on her face was evident as the water rose to her chest and threatened to drown her.
Zheng Tong cried helplessly, and in a trance she even said her lines, "I am not the daughter of a guilty minister! I am not! I don't want to be executed! Liu Lang, save me! I..."
"I... no, save me..."
Zheng Tong struggled violently, and her survival instinct caused the water tank to shake violently in the air. Soon, all her sounds were drowned out by the water.
The red dress floated on the water like a gauze. When the staff realized something was wrong, the person who came in again was unconscious.
The whole process took no more than ten minutes. The device was placed on the ground. The staff tremblingly unlocked it and pulled the person out, but he was already dead.
"That's what the surveillance looked like at the time." Cheng Xiaoxiang clicked pause.
Lu Yuyao bit the end of her pen and asked, "Is this a work accident? What did the staff say?"
"After inspection, it turns out that this device is indeed outdated, and many of the operating buttons are not sensitive. Moreover, it seems that other people besides Zheng Tong have also experienced similar incidents before, but the circumstances were less serious."
"As for the staff member at the time..." Cheng Xiaoxiang paused deliberately for a moment, "It was Anna that Yu Xiaowei has been accusing."
Lu Yuyao was shocked: "Anna?"
"No wonder Yu Xiaowei wouldn't let go of her. I would be suspicious too."
Cheng Xiaoxiang said, "Anna was called away by the foreman for deserting her post. It seems there weren't enough NPCs that day, so she was taken in to act as one while working in the secret room. After pulling the lever, she stopped watching the room. This means the device was uncontrolled. And since similar incidents have happened before, it's easy to call it an accident."
Lu Yuyao asked, "Boss, is the conclusion of Team Two an accident?"
Chen An nodded. "The secret room has been notified for rectification, and compensation to Zheng Tong's parents will be recovered through legal means. This is the current outcome of this case."
There were several autopsy reports lying around on the table, saying that Zheng Tong had indeed drowned and there were no other wounds on his body.
Lu Yuyao scratched his head and frowned, "It seems like there's nothing wrong."
A female college student had invited her friends to play an escape room after class, and an accidental death occurred due to a prop malfunction. This might not seem like a big deal, considering how many people die in accidents across the country in a single day. However, Yu Xiaowei's insistence that Anna was the murderer piqued his curiosity.
Yu Xiaowei said that she thought Zheng Tong was not a child of the Zheng family, and her unintentional words were tacitly acknowledged by Anna during the conflict between Yu Xiaowei and Anna. If Yu Xiaowei's intuition was correct, does it mean that Anna had known her life experience for a long time?
"Boss?"
Lu Yuyao woke up the distracted person and asked, "What should we do next?"
"Lu Yuyao, find a reliable agency to compare Zheng Tong's DNA with her parents'. Yu Xiaowei's statement needs to be verified." Chen An turned around and said, "Don't let her parents know the results yet."
This was Yu Xiaowei's request. She didn't want Zheng Tong's parents to find out the truth, especially Aunt Zheng.
"Others will proceed according to last night's arrangements."
Cheng Xiaoxiang said, "Where are you going, Boss?"
In order to find out the truth, he needs to understand Zheng Tong.
"I'm going to the university town."
The midday sun shines on the red words on the white wall, and the big words "Qu'an Normal College" come into view.
He greeted the person who greeted him, and it was Zheng Tong's counselor, Xu Fuchun. A young man in black glasses and a white shirt, he bent down, eagerly greeting Chen An like a leader.
"Zheng Tong has a cheerful personality, excellent grades in school, and good performance in all aspects. She has no conflicts with classmates and has never violated discipline..." He recited the words describing Zheng Tong in one go as if he was reciting lines, making it impossible to find a bad word.
Chen An interrupted him, and under the scorching sun, he saw a drop of sweat sliding down his forehead. "I'm not here to hear this. I just want to know the real Zheng Tong."
"Real..." Xu Fuchun adjusted the frame of his glasses and repeated these two words in a low voice.
Chen An had some understanding of Zheng Tong. Just in the secret room of the amusement park, he intuitively felt that Zheng Tong was definitely not a good girl in the traditional sense.
Xu Fuchun thought for a moment and said helplessly, "This... There are five classes in one grade, hundreds of students. I definitely can't understand them all one by one. As for what you said about the truth, after thinking about it carefully, I really don't know what the real Zheng Tong is like."
"Then tell me about Zheng Tong in your eyes."
"I told you, her grades..."
"It's not these, it's the feeling Zheng Tong gives you."
Xu Fuchun looked up slightly. In front of him were students going back and forth between the teaching building and the dormitory. Then, as if remembering something, he said, "She's often alone."
"Always alone?"
This surprised Chen An. He thought that Zheng Tong, with her lively personality, would have many friends.
"Yeah," Xu Fuchun said, "From my impression, she seems to have always been alone. She didn't have a good relationship with her roommates and didn't hang out with them much. Apart from Yu Xiaowei from the medical school next door, she had very few friends and was always very well behaved in school."
"Did you know she has a boyfriend?"
Xu Fuchun smiled and said, "I really don't know. This is student privacy."
After saying goodbye to the counselor, Chen An decided to visit Zheng Tong's dormitory.
Complaints from freshmen could be heard from time to time in the old building. Xu Fuchun said that this building was for both new and old students to live together. The fourth floor and below were six-person rooms, and the fourth floor and above were eight-person rooms. The enrollment had been expanded in recent years, and the dormitories had not been built yet, so almost every student who was admitted had to live in an eight-person room.
When the door of Room 202 was knocked, the girls playing inside quieted down and started to tidy up their hair at the same time.
It should be said that appearance is simply a passport to this world. Five people came up to him and asked, "Handsome man, who are you looking for?"
Chen An took out his ID and said with a smile, "Looking for you."
The girls' smiles all froze in tacit understanding.
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