The emergency light in the air raid shelter flickered. Qin Feng used a tactical dagger to pry open the file bag. The handwriting on the yellowed paper suddenly turned red in the light: "Q's Rule Five: Truth is the greatest poison." Tang Ren grabbed the document and fanned it. The friction between the pages actually released a bitter almond smell.
"Cyanide...potassium cyanide coating!" Qin Feng pulled off Tang Ren's scarf and covered his mouth and nose, "Quickly find the vent!"
Su Chen pasted the glucose on the wall, and the direction of crystallization indicated the source of the airflow. When the scalpel pierced the plasterboard, the old-fashioned projector in the secret compartment started automatically - in the surveillance footage from 1998, Qin Feng was personally putting the police badge into the groove of the Q totem.
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Passing through the ventilation duct and into the sewer, a fluorescent chessboard floated on the water. As soon as Tang Ren's climbing stick touched the water, green algae suddenly gathered into words: "Rule Six: Dropping a piece is a corpse, picking up a piece is life." Qin Feng used a flashlight to illuminate the water surface and found that the chess pieces were actually micro-capsules that released hallucinogenic gas when heated.
"This... this is using bacteria as chess pieces!" Su Chen took samples for testing. "Green algae will glow when it encounters methane. Each... each capsule contains different toxins."
Tang Ren suddenly pointed at the stone wall and said, "Look how much this moss looks like a horse moving around!" He inadvertently revealed the secret of the chess game - move the light source according to the rules of chess, and the bacteria will decompose the toxins along the light path. When the last step, "checkmate", is completed, the gate opens to reveal a secret room full of gas masks.
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Wearing a mask and entering the secret room, a mechanical voice sounded on the radio: "Rule: Silence is golden." Tang Ren was about to curse when the sonic sensor suddenly lit up red - a steel cable was lowered from the roof, with a recorder tied to the end that played their voices in a loop.
"He... they are collecting the voiceprint lock key!" Qin Feng tore off the tape to seal Tang Ren's mouth, "Every... every time you speak, the voiceprint model will be improved."
Su Chen used a scalpel to dismantle the recorder. Morse code was engraved on the tape. After decoding, a frequency map was obtained, which corresponded to the resonance nodes of the ventilation duct. When Tang Ren whistled a specific frequency, the steel cable broke with a sound - the fingerprint information of Q members was mixed in the debris.
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After breaking out of the secret room and arriving at the boiler room, the two iron doors were engraved with mirrored words: "Rule 8: Choice is error." Qin Feng noticed that the left door handle was more worn: "This... this is a psychological trap. Most people will choose the side they usually use."
Su Chen put the stethoscope on the door panel and said, "There is a sound of running water on the right side, which means... it is close to the drainage system."
The moment the door was broken, a maze composed of twenty mirrors suddenly appeared. Tang Ren's AR glasses suddenly went black, but the virtual image reflected in the mirror continued to move - it turned out that each mirror was a display screen, and the real maze was constantly reorganized.
"Follow... follow the cold wind!" Qin Feng tore up the documents and threw them into the air. The paper trail revealed the hidden vent. When the people climbed out, they were covered in coal dust, but in front of them was the back alley of the police station - they actually circled back to the starting point in the maze of Q.
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The police evidence room was transformed into the ultimate examination room, and the electronic screen displayed: "Final rule: rescue means destruction." The central explosion-proof box was connected to a heart rate monitor, and Tang Ren's pulse data was being synchronized to the entire traffic signal system.
"Heart... heart rate over 120 beats per minute will trigger a chain reaction at the intersection!" Qin Feng smashed open the monitor's casing, "Must... must maintain a stable heart rate of 60-80."
While Su Chen was injecting sedatives, Tang Ren stared at the flashing Q totem in the box: "I've seen this pattern before! The cover of the disc collected during the last prostitution raid..." He suddenly hummed a tune, and the rhythm made the totem stop flashing. The moment the explosion-proof box popped open, thousands of mechanical locusts swarmed out, each with a new coordinate engraved on its wing.
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The locust swarm formed a dynamic QR code in the night sky, and after scanning, it showed the three-dimensional structure of the air-raid shelter below. Qin Feng found that a certain passage was marked with "1998", which was the year when he joined Q. Tang Ren burned the drawing paper with a printer, and the invisible ink showed bleeding words: "Rule Zero: The game never ends."
When they entered the core area, the entire wall of displays lit up at the same time. The opera mask man raised his glass across the screen and said, "You have proven your value. The door of Q will soon be opened."
Before he finished speaking, Su Chen's scalpel pierced the console, and the reverse current burned all the monitors. The last scene that flashed on the charred remains of the screen was the living room of Qin Feng's house - a teacup with a Q totem on the coffee table.
(A new nightmare takes root in daily life)