Rose Manor (17): The Three-Door Problem

"Lin Chen, are you in there? Ye Zi is dead, I'm so scared... Won't you please let me in?"

Lin Chen curled up on the bed, listening to the female voice outside the door, his grip tightening on the room key in his hand.

The voice was muffled and distorted by the door panel and what sounded like tremors born of terror, but he could still identify it as Zou Yan.

Lin Chen didn't have a deep impression of Zou Yan; he only remembered her as a psychologist who had spoken a few words about unity, wearing a calm and gentle expression that made others feel as if they were bathed in a spring breeze.

To see her lose her composure like this was a first...

Lin Chen subconsciously climbed off the bed and reached for the doorknob.

The moment before he could turn it, he hesitated, a scene from his memory surfacing unbidden.

An hour ago, as Qi Si was leaving, he had placed the room key into Lin Chen's hand, his expression more serious and earnest than ever: "We are all adults, but I still want to give you one piece of advice: do not open the door for anyone but me."

At the time, he hadn't understood the meaning and asked "Why?"

Qi Si had looked at him and smiled coldly, his expression laced with sarcasm: "In this zero-sum game, other than me—who shares your interests—you cannot trust anyone. You only need to know that once you open that door, it won't just be you who is harmed, but me as well."

The memory was so vivid that Lin Chen took a step back the moment it surfaced, staring at the door with vigilance.

Outside, Zou Yan's voice grew more frantic: "Lin Chen, please, save me! ...It's here! I'm going to die!"

The fear and despair in her voice sounded genuine, not feigned, and Lin Chen felt a secret chill as he listened.

Although the other players couldn't be trusted, they were ultimately just suspects, not proven villains. What if Qi Si's suspicions were wrong?

If he didn't open the door, Zou Yan might really die...

But whether or not to open the door involved not just his own safety, but Qi Si's as well...

Sweat beaded on Lin Chen's forehead. He began to waver, the key in his hand digging into his palm as he gripped it tighter and tighter.

On the third floor, Qi Si stepped out of the room filled with skeletons and instantly heard the sound of rain.

The castle corridors had no windows, and the thick, ancient stone walls isolated the world outside. Without visual confirmation, his sense of hearing had faded into the silence, making the sound he had just heard feel like an illusion.

Yet, Qi Si felt that it really should be raining.

After all, in third-rate dramas, when a tragic plot reaches its climax, there always has to be a heavy downpour to set the mood, doesn't there?

The first room had been thoroughly explored; wasting more time wouldn't yield any more clues. Qi Si walked toward the room numbered "2," took out a thin wire, and picked the lock just as he had before.

As usual, he let Chang Xu take the lead. Only after the latter had walked a circle and encountered no issues did Qi Si saunter into the room.

A massive floor-to-ceiling window came into view, occupying almost the entire wall. The grayish-purple sky reflected into the room, casting a hazy gray tint over the floor and walls.

Through the spiderweb-covered glass, one could see curtains of rain weaving from top to bottom. The crisscrossing threads of rain were layered and dense, tangled like cobwebs, making it difficult to distinguish one from another.

A soft "plop" sounded behind his ears as something fell to the ground.

Qi Si looked down in response and saw a tattered Rag Doll lying beside his heel.

It was a little girl in red with braided hair. Her eyes were replaced by two "X" marks, and her mouth, pulled into a single line, opened and closed as she sang a bizarre nursery rhyme:

"She's coming, she's coming, she's in the pouring rain..."

"Don't look at me, don't look at me, I'm in the wardrobe..."

The door slammed shut behind him with a loud bang, and the surrounding light dimmed rapidly, taking on the dark, yellowed hue of a flashback.

[Side quest triggered]

[Side quest (Mandatory): Play hide-and-seek with Anna and Annie]

Two lines of text refreshed on the system interface, and Qi Si narrowed his eyes slightly.

To think there would be a side quest, and one specifically marked "Mandatory"—could there be "Optional" quests in the future?

He looked thoughtfully at the three identical wardrobes that had appeared out of thin air against the wall. They were all half a person's height and two people's width, casting a circle of dusty shadows on the floor.

A little girl in a black dress slowly materialized in the shadows and said in a sweet voice, "My sister is hiding in one of the wardrobes. Can you help me find her? Each person opens one wardrobe; whoever opens an empty one will die."

A blind box problem?

Qi Si recalled the example he had given Lin Chen not long ago and raised an eyebrow: "Can we use methods like knocking on the wardrobe doors to help us judge?"

"No, you can't. Before making a choice, you can only look, not touch."

Dust fibers floated and danced in the air. The little girl was shrouded in a faint halo of light, but her face was a blank slate, making her look like a phantom in a hallucination.

She folded her hands in front of her chest and urged them with innocent cruelty: "Hurry and choose. One of you has to choose first."

Qi Si looked down at the girl's featureless face and asked out of the blue, "Are you human?"

The little girl tilted her head up and said, "Yes, I have been human from beginning to end."

Qi Si smiled: "That's good. I'll have my teammate choose a wardrobe first, but not open it. You go and choose one of the other two to open, how about that? You said it yourself, 'Each person opens one wardrobe'."

In the dim, old-movie-like light, Qi Si waited with composure. The little girl tilted her head in silence, hesitating as she considered his proposal.

On the floor behind him, the doll continued to chant the nursery rhyme in a flat, eerie tone.

"She's coming, she's coming, she's in the pouring rain..."

"Don't look at me, don't look at me, I'm in... Screech!"

Without warning, the chanting came to an abrupt halt, replaced by the sound of a cricket being crushed underfoot.

The phantom image of the girl before them flickered twice and vanished, along with the two wardrobes beside it, leaving only the middle wardrobe standing in solitude.

[Side quest completed]

A cold, electronic voice rang out suddenly.

Qi Si turned at the sound to see Chang Xu's expressionless face and... the Rag Doll being crushed beneath his boot.

Chang Xu paused for a heartbeat, then looked down and said, "I didn't expect it to be this weak."

...Did you pay to win or are you hacking?

What do you even call this? If you can't solve the problem, you solve the person who brought it up?

Qi Si suddenly recalled the "blow up the trolley" answer he had heard during a past discussion on the Trolley Problem.

He felt relieved that he hadn't provoked Chang Xu earlier, and with a smile, he teased, "You seem quite adept at dealing with anomalies. Your identity probably isn't as simple as you claimed, is it?"

Chang Xu tugged at the brim of his hat and spat out three words: "Born with it."

"Impressive, truly."

Qi Si offered a compliment and pointed at the flattened Rag Doll on the ground, signaling for Chang Xu to pick it up.

Chang Xu complied in silence, turning the Rag Doll over in his hands to examine it before finally flipping up the hem of its clothing to show Qi Si.

There, embroidered in red thread, was an English word: "Anna."

"It's a doll belonging to Anna, the older sister. Based on the nursery rhyme, it's clear Anna was terrified of her younger sister, Annie. Annie's feelings of adoration were likely just a delusion." Qi Si repeated the deduction he had made earlier.

He scanned the room's layout to ensure there was nothing else to explore, then pointed toward the wardrobe in front of him.

Chang Xu understood, pulled open the wardrobe door, and reached into the dusty interior to retrieve a yellowed, vintage photograph.

The composition of the photo was sloppy; nine people sat stiffly and awkwardly at a long table laden with food, all facing the camera.

Four of the faces were clearly visible, while the other five were nothing but blurs.

Qi Si leaned in to examine it closely, and among the four distinct faces, one was a familiar one: Shen Ming!

Of the remaining three, he had seen one before—it was the first corpse Chang Xu had dug up from the dirt pit in the garden.

A hypothesis sprouted in his mind, only to be verified the next second.

Chang Xu's slender index finger tapped the three unfamiliar faces: "The bodies of these three were all in the garden. I dug them up myself."

Qi Si stared at the figure closest to the head of the table and whispered, "When a player dies, their face appears in the photo. There are five empty spots left, which perfectly matches the number of remaining players. Does this mean this instance never intended for any players to leave alive?"

The various inconsistencies he had felt earlier now clicked into place. The sensation of being on the brink of death was far too exhilarating; he had to force his lips to stay still to keep from laughing aloud: "Do you think it's possible that the time loop began the moment the instance started? Three days per cycle, three people die, and we are in the second cycle."

"Impossible." Chang Xu shook his head. "I wouldn't have left places with obvious, vital clues, like the garden and the third floor, for the second cycle."

Qi Si scoffed: "Perhaps we already explored them in the first cycle, but failed to break the deadlock. And so, everything reset."

The implication behind his words carried a bone-chilling coldness.

Exploring over and over, failing over and over, losing all memories, and being cast back into the cycle.

The reincarnation repeated itself, one peer after another dying, the people around him dwindling, the hope of breaking the cycle growing ever more faint...

To be trapped in despair without knowing it, struggling with the false hope of survival, only to be silently devoured by this eerie manor and turned into fertilizer for the roses...

Thoughts spread through his mind like vines, and Qi Si's breathing grew ragged at the sheer, tragic beauty of the imagery.

Ignoring the grime, he took the photo from Chang Xu's hand.

The front of the photograph began to bleed ink as if it had fallen into water, and the once-clear image blurred into nothingness within seconds.

Words written in fresh blood seeped through from the back, already congealed:

[We are all going to die]

After her parents died, the girl finally got her wish to live with her sister, until that man appeared.

The girl could not understand why a stranger who had suddenly intruded into their lives would steal her sister's attention.

He wasn't even good-looking—he was far inferior to her sister—so why was her sister so humble, so cautious and careful in how she loved him?

The girl meddled, and the man finally left, unable to take her sister with him.

The girl watched her sister weep day after day, unable to understand why she was so sorrowful.

Her sister grew increasingly haggard, her beautiful face fading, blooming and falling with the seasons just like the roses in the garden.

The girl was helpless and could only climb to the attic once more to pray to The Idol.

The god said: "She is ill and will die. Only the heart of her beloved can bring her back to life."

The girl refused to admit it, yet she knew deep down that her sister loved that man.

Fortunately, by then, her appearance was nearly identical to her sister's; even their parents, had they been alive, might not have seen the difference.

When the man returned to the manor, she greeted him in her sister's stead and killed him.

The corpse of her sister in the coffin opened its eyes—it was a monster parasitized by roses, one that would never call her name again, never look at her with sorrowful eyes, and would only continue to age, rot, and wither as time marched on.

She grew afraid and went to beseech the gods.

The merciful god intercepted three days of time for her, allowing her and her sister to linger on in an endless cycle.

She watched as her sister repeated the process of decay within the infinite three-day loop; although the condition no longer worsened, her features had long since rotted away.

She discovered with horror that she could not accept her sister's ugliness.

Every time she saw that shriveled, bone-exposed face, she felt nauseated and wanted to retch.

She even began to regret all the sacrifices she had made in the past to keep her sister.

She asked the god if he could restore her sister's beauty.

The god opened his scarlet eyes, his smile bloodthirsty: "Let the guests who arrive at the manor nourish the roses with their flesh and blood, and everything shall be as you wish."