Nora Scott’s movents with the belt were very skillful, and in the blink of an eye, Mr. Zombie’s hands were bound tightly, unable to move an inch.
He struggled a few tis, but helplessly, he could only stare at Nora Scott.
"Don’t look at like that, I gave you a chance."
Nora Scott said casually, then walked to the side and looked down at the password lock on the iron door.
The program team really put in so effort, knowing she was familiar with all the chanisms, so they specifically chose one she didn’t know—the password chanical lock.
The password chanical lock, as the na suggests, is a lock that requires a password to open.
This is a five-ring password lock with five rings on it. Ancient locks usually involved four Chinese characters, but to increase the difficulty, the program team made it into more than ten Chinese characters, exponentially increasing the complexity, making it impossible to rely on luck. The correct five characters must be deduced from the clues given in the classroom to unlock it.
Therefore, her skills were useless here.
But—
It seed she had more than just this skill.
Nora Scott stepped back a bit, then slightly tilted her head, glancing towards the back door of the classroom.
With a slight curl of her lips, Nora Scott turned and directly walked towards the back door.
In a certain working room, within the program team—
"What’s she trying to do?"
"Confirm that the back door requires a key to unlock, right?"
"Yes, only we have the key to the back door."
"Then it’s fine."
"Don’t be so tense; maybe she’s just wandering around. Such fussing is unnecessary."
"You know nothing. I’ve coordinated with the ’City Secret’ program team, and she’s capable of bizarre operations. Whatever you can’t imagine, she can do. If she thinks solving puzzles is troubleso, she might just smash the door directly, which is nothing unusual."
"Is she really that wild?"
"Wasn’t it her who turned the tables in the PK episode against ’City Secret’? I thought it was scripted, and I went to ask Christopher Sullivan, who said there wasn’t any script involved. Even the suggestion for the moving NPC ca from her."
"... Now I’m quite looking forward to her smashing doors or climbing windows. There’d really be a lot to see."
...
While the program team’s attention unknowingly focused on Nora Scott, she had already andered over to the back door.
The classroom’s back door didn’t have any careless openings.
It was a very normal lock.
But—
Evidently, the program team didn’t anticipate there would be a "locksmith’s granddaughter" among their guests.
Such a B-level lock, Nora Scott felt spending ten seconds to open it was a waste of ti.
With a glance, Nora Scott didn’t imdiately unlock it but shifted her focus and began roaming around the classroom.
There were indeed so highlights.
On the classroom floor and desks, she could see so black traces.
She found a desk with obvious markings, brushed her fingers across the top layer of dust, then touched the black residue underneath, and brought it to her nose. It had a faint bloody sll.
These traces were all blood.
Nora Scott squinted her eyes, morizing the location of all the bloodstains. Her mind envisioned a grueso and violent scene where zombies invaded the classroom through the front door, driving teachers and students into the corner, then biting them to death one by one.
"Boom——"
With a bright flash of lightning, outside ca the loud and intense rumble of thunder again.
The wind howled fiercely.
It was an abandoned school inherently, and paired with the current the, the program team hadn’t repaired the classroom windows, preserving the dirty, broken old appearance.
The windows opened outward. In the fierce wind, a window was pulled open by the wind and then slamd shut, crashing hard, causing the connecting screws to loosen, and the dilapidated window fell straight down.
With the window vacant, a gust of wind instantly surged in, carrying large patches of rainwater directly inside.
The nearby desks and chairs were imdiately soaked.
Standing in the classroom, Nora Scott was blown cold by the wind and rain, frowning slightly.
She didn’t stay long and went directly to the desk marked with the most "bloodstain"—the entire classroom had this desk with the most bloodstains, nearly dyed black, clearly with special information.
She dug out all the books and items in the desk, browsing through them.
There was quite a bit of information.
The desk’s owner was a prominent figure at school.
Tons of love letters and gifts in the desk.
A senior, 18 years old, male, handso, with above-average grades, basketball team captain, well-liked.
... Tsk, not as good as the personas of Marcus Shaw or Oliver Scott.
Nora Scott thought disdainfully.
Two girls were involved with this boy, one being a sophomore school beauty, the girlfriend; the other was the boy’s childhood friend, timid and quite unnoticed in a crowd.
Having skimd through the general information, Nora Scott tossed all the items into the desk drawer, then clapped her hands and found a campus card from the boy’s stationery.
A gust of wind ca again, blowing her skirt and hair in a flurry, tiny droplets splashing onto her face. Nora Scott squinted her eyes.
Too lazy to solve puzzles, she grabbed the campus card after getting the basic information and went straight to the back door.
Workshop—
"She found the key person’s desk so quickly, and now she’s headed to the back door without solving any puzzles?"
"What’s she planning to do this ti? I get nervous just looking at her now."
"...You know, so thieves open doors with just a card or a piece of wire?"
"In ’City Secret,’ she earned a nickna—the Expert Thief."
...
The director’s team fell silent.
In just a few sentences of their discussion, Nora Scott had already unlocked the back door in less than ten seconds.
"..."
The atmosphere turned awkward.
Even if you beat them to death, they couldn’t have imagined that inviting a guest on the show would an having to guard against her physical prowess, chanical techniques, and... her lock-picking skills?!
In the air of desperation, soone glanced at their watch and calmly reminded, "It’s been less than ten minutes."
"..."
Another mont of silence.
This show is all about thrills and brainstorming.
Bella Autumn, for instance, is fully within their control—after all, Bella Autumn struggles with the chanical locks and only faces them directly when the guests can’t find any clues at all.
But Nora Scott—
It’s too simple and crude!
Yet, they can do nothing about it.
The director rubbed his face and said helplessly, "Before the recording, I had a word with her. Even though she’s responsible for all the chanisms this episode and knows the optimal solutions, we asked her not to directly break the chanisms for the program’s effect."
This was also for the "show’s" sake.
After all, this is a "chanical techniques" escape room show; the audience should at least appreciate the difficulty of these techniques. If each chanism were to be easily dealt with by her, chanical techniques would lose any sense of presence.
Moreover—
Judging by the public opinion in the third episode, it’s only a matter of ti until "Nora Scott is the escape room planner" becos public. Then, having the audience see Nora Scott "quickly solving chanisms" might spark criticism.
So, Nora Scott has to "hold back."
No one expected Nora Scott to avoid the chanisms entirely and co up with an alternative route... Unsure whether to cry or laugh.
"How are the other guests doing?"
In this unspeakable silence, soone suddenly asked.
"Clent Winter is freaked out, screaming non-stop, making zero progress."
"Diana Johnson is also quite scared. She’s just now calming down to look for clues."
"The teachers have made so headway, but they’re going pretty slowly."
"The fastest is Bella Autumn—unwavering and composed, though startled by the zombies outside the iron gate, she quickly regained her cool. It’s worth ntioning that this girl might lack variety show flair, but she is in her elent with these kinds of gas—an absolute highlight."
...
"In our calculations, the first to finish would take at least half an hour," soone said helplessly, "What do we do now, just let Nora Scott wander aimlessly? I’m afraid she’ll ss with the zombies everywhere."
The director pondered for a mont, then said, "Have the hidden zombies co out early and try to herd her back into the classrooms to stall her for a while."
"Let’s go with that for now."
The director’s team agreed unanimously.
But in agreeing to this, no one anticipated—
Nora Scott knows martial arts.
So, in the next ten minutes, they witnessed a spectacular "Nora Scott versus Zombies" scene through the monitors.
——This is a scene you can only dream of in movies.
A historic first in reality TV history.
To stall Nora Scott, they unleashed more than a dozen zombies, all strong and sturdy, none old, weak, sick, or disabled.
Yet, in front of Nora Scott, each of them turned into a chicken without a fight.
Originally, they pursued Nora Scott; within two minutes, the tables turned and it was Nora Scott chasing and beating them. Next, she trapped them all at the end of the hallway, tying the n’s hands with belts and the won’s with scarves, then tossing them all into the restroom.
"..."
The workshop was silent.
After a long pause, soone uncertainly blurted out—
"Holy crap, after filming this episode, should we perhaps get the NPCs so psychological counseling?!"
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