Escape from the Madhouse [Unlimited]

In room 1111.

The dimly lit room was filled with the smell of blood. Two fresh corpses lay beside them quietly, with nylon bags covering their hideous faces.

In contrast, there is the handsome and personable man in the autographed photo.

It seems that one of the couple admired a person named "Luo Yu" very much and regarded him as an idol. He even came to this Blue Harbor City and stayed at the Saiyan Hotel just to meet him , to get a signature.

This Luo Yu has a very refined and bookish air about him, he definitely doesn't look like an idol star.

He wore a pair of glasses, and the eyes under the lenses were half-smiling, with an uncomfortable insight.

When holding the photo, Zhou Qian would have a strange feeling, as if he was really looking at him.

The strange thing is that Zhou Qian still finds this person somewhat familiar.

The photo was square and small, the kind taken by Polaroid. Someone should have taken a photo of Luo Yu at the scene, and after the photo appeared, he asked Luo Yu to sign it as a souvenir.

What Zhou Qian was particularly concerned about was the words on the banner behind Luo Yu in this photo.

— "Yes, July 1997, 7."

The content before the "meeting" was not photographed, so there can be many explanations, such as "concert", "meeting meeting" and so on.

Due to the fact that that part of the content was covered, Luo Yu's identity could not be identified for the time being.

However, the date after the word "meeting" is very interesting.

After Zhou Qian entered the hotel, he paid special attention to the year and month this time, which happened to be "Line Harbor City 1997", but the time for these players to stay as poor tourists was not July, but October.

In other words, the two victims who died in this room probably only appeared in Blue Harbor City three months ago.

This, something is wrong.

——The killer composed of a man and a woman should have committed suicide by burning charcoal many years ago.

The dead who died under their hands should all have existed many years ago, such as the family of three who died in Room 1108.

But why did the two victims in front of me come to the Saiyan Hotel recently?

Before, Zhou Qian thought that all the dead he and Bai Zhou had met were killed by that man and woman.

They were just copied to this alien space, lived again, and were killed again.

It's just that Xiong Fei and Li Yuan were the murderers who killed them this time.

The new clue discovered now obviously completely overturned Zhou Qian's previous thoughts.

But since this is the case...why did a couple who stayed in Saiyan Hotel 1111 three months ago also be pulled into this alien space and then killed?

Now even Zhou Qian couldn't help complaining to Bai Zhou: "The story has gone so far, there is no logic at all. It shouldn't be. We should have overlooked something."

Where is the neglected place?

After thinking for a while, Zhou Qian thought of something, winked at Bai Zhou, and quickly walked out the door. "Yes. Rest area!"

Soon, Zhou Qian and Bai Zhou came to the rest area directly opposite the elevator.

There are some magazines and books on the coffee table. When Zhou Qian and the others were sitting here discussing things, they flipped through them in a hurry and roughly scanned the pages, but they didn't have time to carefully read the contents inside.

It wasn't until just now that Zhou Qian suddenly remembered that he had seen something in a certain magazine. At the same time, he also understood why he felt that the person in the autographed photo looked familiar.

After rushing to the rest area, Zhou Qian quickly picked up a few magazines, spread them all out on the coffee table, and then tried his best to recall in his mind in which magazines he had seen the name "Luo Yu".

His eyes quickly scanned the covers of these magazines. After a while, Zhou Qian had the result, and immediately put his hand on one of the magazines.

Unexpectedly, Bai Zhou also stretched out his hand towards the magazine at this time, and their hands suddenly touched together.

Bai Zhou didn't move, he raised his slender index finger, and then put it down again, making a soft sound.

Turning his head, Zhou Qian stared at him, but didn't stop, and took the magazine out first.

After picking up the magazine and flipping through a few pages, Zhou Qian found what he wanted—an introduction and some interviews about Luo Yu.

"Luo Yu: Best-selling fantasy novelist, representative as "Double World".

"Have you ever heard such an urban legend - one day when you take the elevator, you may enter another dimension and meet another self. The space of another dimension subverts your imagination. The you there may be a monster, who knows?

"That's the story 'Double World' tells."

"The author Luo Yu believes that there are actually two levels in this world. Usually we can only see the first level, but not the second level.

"The second world is a complete replica of the first world. There is another us there. They are exactly the same as us and know every detail of our lives. It's a pity that they can see us, but we can't see them. .”

"So, if one day you meet another self, please be careful, he may come from another dimension to replace you.

"In "Double World", another self of the male protagonist came to the real world from another dimension, and wanted to replace the male protagonist to stay in this world. After the male protagonist found out about this, he launched a series of plots and force with the other self contest.

"The storyline is full of ups and downs, and there are too many thrilling scenes. I wonder if the hero won in the end, or was he replaced by his evil self?

"It's better to act than to be moved, come and buy this book, and learn the ending!"

Frowning and turning to the next page, Zhou Qian saw the interview related to Luo Yu.

Reporter: "I heard that you are going to hold a signing event in Linekong City soon?"

Luo Yu: "Yes. Ma'am, you are very well informed!"

Reporter: "Haha, because I am also a fan of your book. I like your book "Double World" so much. May I ask if you are going to Blue Harbor City this time..."

Luo Yu: "I'm here to collect folk songs."

Reporter: "Let me take a guess, maybe you are preparing for the next book?! My God, did I have the honor to get some news about the new book from you in advance? What kind of book do you want to write next?" story?"

Luo Yu: "Of course it's a fantasy theme. My readers love to see me write this kind of stuff. I'm very interested in homicides recently. There are a few serial homicides in Langang City that are particularly famous. I want to see them."

Reporter: "Ah, you're not talking about the murder at the Saiyan Hotel, are you?"

Luo Yu: "Yes. It's the Saiyan Hotel. I want to visit the place where the murderers lived. Maybe they will come back from hell to meet me...bring me inspiration, maybe?"

Reporter: "You just said that the subject matter is fantasy, so it's not exactly a detective novel?"

Luo Yu: "It's not a detective novel. There will be fantasy elements. Maybe it will be interoperable with the worldview of my book "Double World". I have to think about the specific setting, and now I only have preliminary ideas."

Reporter: "Wow, then I'm really looking forward to it!"

……

After a while, Zhou Qian closed the magazine.

After thinking for a while, he looked at Bai Zhou and said, "There is finally a clear explanation for all the illogical phenomena.

"This so-called alien space—is actually constructed by the author Luo Yu.

"In a sense, we have entered the world of fiction!"

"Luo Yu is writing a novel, and everything that happens in the real world of Linekong City is his material library.

"Now he is creating novels based on the murder cases of male and female groups. When serial murders happen in the real world, one by one, there is a strict chronological order.

"But when the author is creating a novel, the time when each case material appears in his mind is not linear, and there is no established law or logic at all."

"One day, Luo Yu suddenly thought of a certain person he met ten years ago, and thought that this persona was very interesting and he could use it, so he wrote that person into the novel; another day, he passed by downstairs The receptionist thought that the receptionist was very distinctive, so he was included in it. Even——

"A lot of this information is even untrue. Because the author will carry out artistic processing and imagine a lot of things when creating. Therefore...

"That's why all kinds of information in this world appear so messy!"

People and things in the real world simply cannot be connected with the phenomena of this alien space in a certain way.There is no logical correspondence between the two.

Unless this alien space is completely regarded as the author's fiction and deliberate arrangement.

Luo Yu is a fantasy writer. After getting relevant clues about him, in Zhou Qian's view, everything finally has a perfect explanation——

In many serial murders in this world, the murderer commits the crime alone. There are very few cases of cooperative crimes, and there are even fewer combinations of a man and a woman.

On this basis, the woman is cheating with the man, which makes everything more topical, and the story becomes very dramatic, which is very suitable for novelists to write in the book.

The victims all lived on the 11th floor, and there was a symbol of an inverted pentagram at the scene of the crime. These elements cast a layer of mystery on the murder case, which is particularly arousing imagination.

As a result, the serial murders committed by the man and the woman made Saiyan Hotel famous and caused a great sensation.

Fantasy writer Luo Yu was attracted here because of this.

In order to find inspiration, Luo Yu has lived here for a long time, probably for 3 months.

During these three months, he lived in the Saiyan Hotel day and night, feeling the presence of a man and a woman, enjoying the feeling of being surrounded by the victim's resentment...

The atmosphere of the hotel inspires his creations.

He was constantly inspired and wrote many things.

Regarding the serial murders committed by the couple, he would write one murder scene after another in the Saiya Hotel based on the historical materials and files he found, combined with his own imagination.

Thus, there is no time travel, and no space-time confusion.

People killed in different time periods will appear in one space uniformly, just because this is the space constructed by the novel.

It's just that during the creation process, the author Luo Yu obviously encountered certain problems.

For example, the information about the victims publicly released by the police may be very limited, and the cases suitable for writing novels are even more limited.

Furthermore, perhaps in real history, most of the people who were killed were ordinary people without any obvious features in appearance.

But the victims that Zhou Qian and the others saw in the alien space were all handsome men and beautiful women. This is probably the artistic processing done by Luo Yu.

In short, on the basis of real history and for the purpose of increasing drama, Luo Yu combined his imagination and created many new images of victims.

For example, when he held a book signing three months ago, he met a certain beautiful reader who impressed him, so he also wrote this reader as one of the victims in the novel.

That's why, the person who appeared in the hotel three months ago also entered this space.

Another example……

Zhou Qian looked at Bai Zhou, said all his thoughts, and continued: "For another example, when he saw eleven poor tourists staying in Saiyan Hotel, he had a new inspiration.

"For the nine of us who are still alive, he had a flash of inspiration and thought that maybe the story of the double world could be applied to us. So all nine of us have replicas.

"He may think that nine main bodies, plus nine copies of different dimensions, eighteen people playing together and killing each other, would be a very exciting novel. In addition—"

"Xiong Fei and Li Yuan were killed, and Luo Yu may have seen their corpses during the fun, so when he was conceiving the novel that night, he created a pair of executioners based on them.

"The author saw their throats cut, so they will be portrayed by the author as monster killers whose heads will fall off and their necks will bleed.

"Of course, the killing method of the pair of executioners is based on the real behavior of the man and woman in history! By the way, about the man and woman—"

Bai Zhou took his words and said, "I need to revise my previous guess. The scene where a man and a woman know each other and love each other is not some revolving door before death, it is probably just the author's imagination of them."

"Hmm. Wait..."

Zhou Qian said again, "Let me think about it again... Monster killers, love stories, male monsters seduce men... No——

"What I said just now is not entirely correct. This space may not be a novel written by Luo Yu, but just his manuscript or collection of materials!"

"As for the story of Xiong and Li, Luo Yu's writing is very messy, and the logic is not smooth; the love story of a man and a woman is not clear enough——

"All of this is not a novel that can be officially written. It is likely that the author is still in the stage of collecting materials and organizing the outline. So I said that this alien space is just his manuscript world.

"As for the author himself now, he is now..."

"Since he can see us, Xiong Fei and Li Yuan, in the real world, the author Luo Yu must be living in the Saiyan Hotel, and he is probably on the 11th floor. He is most likely living in—"

Hearing what Zhou Qian said, Bai Zhou looked at him and said two common answers: "1103."

Room 1103 is the room where the man and the woman often lived when they killed each other, and it is also the room where they committed suicide.

In the interview, Luo Yu mentioned that maybe the man and woman would return to the world from hell to talk to him.

Then, for the purpose of feeling the death breath of the two of them, and for the purpose of getting inspiration, he probably lives in 1103.

When the players checked in, Luo Yu might be hiding somewhere in the lobby, or watching everything in the dark at the corner of the corridor on the first floor.

He silently heard the front desk say that there are only rooms on the 11th floor, and silently watched everyone enter the elevator and go upstairs.

In the end, he also went to the 11th floor, lived in 1103, and wrote the new people he met and the new inspiration he got into his novel manuscript.

Now Zhou Qian and the others have entered the manuscript world formed by Luo Yu based on some historical data, combined with his own imagination, flashes of inspiration, and his private settings in a special way.

Therefore, since the novel manuscript also records the "dual world" setting, players will be chased and killed by another self, trying to replace them.

After sorting out his thoughts, Zhou Qian couldn't help but said: "If we poor tourists can enter the world of manuscripts, is it possible that the author himself will also enter?"

"Maybe." Bai Zhou said, "So, maybe when we find him, we will be able to get a way out of here.

"This space now has countless 1103 rooms, and he is probably in one of them. He may not know what happened, and he is still writing."

"We really have to leave." Zhou Qian said, "This brain hole is probably close to ten. The situation will become more and more dangerous.

"First, will the murderer who killed Xiong Fei and Li Yuan be the killer of other serial murders in the author's imagination? If the author imagines it and writes this setting into his manuscript In this space, it is very likely that there will be another terrifying murderer chasing us.

"Second, if the author gets inspiration and wants to kill a certain character casually, we may die at any time. This is his manuscript world, and his setting is reasonable."

At the end of the conversation, Zhou Qian shook his head: "What kind of virtual game in the exhibition hall? It's really big. I thought at first that it just played a trick of traveling through time and space. I thought it was too simple.

"Of course, this brain hole just explained the plot story clearly, but there is still one most essential problem that we haven't solved yet."

What Zhou Qian said was nothing more than the problem related to the elevator and the floor.

——No matter what number the player presses in the elevator, they will eventually go to the 11th floor, but they will encounter different murders every time.

After a while, Zhou Qian put down the magazine, and exchanged a glance with Bai Zhou in the dim rest area.

They said two words together: "Page number."

·

In the box of the virtual game hall.

The gamblers didn't speak for a long time because they were completely confused.

[Ah, what is the relationship between Brother Qian and 137——]

[Why do you ask that?Is that the point?The point is, what do they mean by "page number"? ! ]

[It's a pity, why is the gambler who sent a reminder message to Brother Qian not here]

[Yeah, although he didn’t say anything about 137, but He Xiaowei is indeed a lie!He is also too sharp.If he is here, we can ask his opinion]

[Wait, don't we have a pastor?Pastor, what do you think? ! ]

Seeing a group of gamblers looking over, the pastor explained: "Zhou Qian has just analyzed that this world is not a completed novel. It is the author who finds inspiration in the hotel and writes the manuscript, which constitutes the world.

"The author is going to write about a serial murder case. Then, for such a complicated case, how do you think it will be more convenient for the author to organize the manuscript?"

Without waiting for the gambler to answer, he stared straight ahead at the screen, and the pastor said to himself, "Let me give you an example. On September 1987, 9, a family of three were murdered. I numbered it A7 and put it on the first page." One page. News stories, police disclosures, photos from the scene, it's all there.

"After that, I wrote down my outline of the case on this page——

"The content of the outline is that a man, a woman, and a child were killed in some way by a certain murderer. They live in 1108."

"Continuing on, on January 1988, 1, an old grandmother and granddaughter were murdered. They lived in 29. I put this case on page 1112 of the manuscript."

“1988月4月5日，又发生了一对夫妻被害的案件。他们住在1108。我手稿的第3页，记录着这桩案子……”

"In this way, I think it should be easy for you to understand."

The pastor said, "A man and a woman couple killed each other, and the victims were all on the 11th floor. Based on this case, Luo Yu created a novel. Therefore, all the cases on the pages of his manuscript happened on the 11th floor.

"That's why, no matter which number is pressed in the elevator, the player is spinning around the 11th floor."

"Leaving the elevator, the players saw different murders, not because they went to different time and space. It was because they opened different pages of this manuscript.

"Therefore, the number on the elevator panel does not determine the floor, but the number of pages in the manuscript."

[Fuck, is this all right? ]

[Wait, the elevator has only 12 numbers, but the manuscript has many pages, right? !How do you explain this? ]

[Brother, this is normal instead!Zhou Qian clicked on the "11" building twice, but the murders he saw were different. Why?This can be explained by the question you just raised——

[The elevator has only 12 numbers, but the manuscript has many pages, so the relationship between "elevator number" and "page number" is "one-to-many" rather than "one-to-one correspondence"! ]

The pastor said: "Yes, the elevator only has 12 numbers. So, the first time Zhou Qian and the others press the 11th floor, they may go to page 11 of the manuscript.

"But the second time they pressed the 11th floor, they might go to the 22nd page of the manuscript, which is the double of 11.

"The murder files recorded on these two pages of the manuscript are different, so of course the scenes they saw were also different.

"Of course, this rule is what I assumed. How to map the 12 numbers to the different page numbers of the manuscript, they still have to find out. In addition——"

Squinting his eyes, the pastor said: "When Zhou Qian and 137 met the man and woman, they had already entered the world of manuscripts. Afterwards, they successfully went to the lobby.

"Then, if you press the number '1', you still have a chance to go to the first floor. Players won't just go around on the 11th floor. It's just a matter of probability.

"It's just that... the first floor is probably quite dangerous."

All the gamblers said in unison: "Why?"

The pastor said: "Because most people will subconsciously press '11' a few more times after finding out that they press the numbers in the elevator back and forth to reach the 1th floor. Common sense and past experience will make them feel that, The first floor is the safest if you can leave the hotel from the first floor.

"Zhou Qian and the others haven't seen other players, because he and 137 have never pressed the '1' floor at all."

"But other players are different. Most of them will definitely meet on the first floor, and don't forget, based on the author's 'double world' story setting, there will be another group of 'players' appearing from a different dimension world.

"So... the current situation on the first floor is probably enough."

At this moment, in the game.

When Zhou Qian looked at Bai Zhou again, his expression was serious: "If the author's manuscript does not have many pages, we can try a few more times to find out the rules thoroughly. The next thing we have to do is to find The author of this manuscript world, find a way to return to reality."

"Well. We have to hurry up. Then go to the first floor." Bai Zhou said.

"As soon as possible. That kid He Xiaowei thought he must have pressed the '1' floor after hitting a ghost, and he might have met fake players."

Zhou Qian looked a bit serious, "I just hope that Yin Dao's intuition can be reliable. In this way, he can protect He Xiaowei to some extent. Eh - can he do it? He is He Xiaowei's master."

"Relax. In this case, the 'gut' talent will come in handy. "

Bai Zhoudao, "When I was doing dungeons with Yindao, his intuition was always accurate. He can usually grasp the movements of bosses and treasure chests quickly and directly—"

Before Bai Zhou finished speaking, Zhou Qian interrupted him with an "oh" while pressing the elevator.

Bai Zhou faintly sensed something, but he wasn't completely sure. "Zhou Qian?"

Zhou Qian stepped into the elevator first, and then looked at him thoughtfully.

Bai Zhou walked into the elevator and continued to meet his gaze uncertainly: "Zhou Qian? Do you have anything to ask me?"

Zhou Qian: "After you came out of "The Bucket List", why did you disappear for seven days and didn't contact me at all?"

Bai Zhou: "I'm going to brush the book. What's the matter?"

"Well, brush the book." Zhou Qian asked him, "Swipe with Yindao?"

Bai Zhou:?

Zhou Qian stopped looking at him, but just looked at the digital panel.

After the elevator closed, the number "12" reflected Bai Zhou's face, and Zhou Qian pressed his thumb on it with a "slap".

"Forget it, let's go. Find the pattern of page numbers and elevator numbers, as well as the author."