Professionals playing with secret chanisms in an escape room usually utilize the knowledge of geomancy, which is professional and complex, leaving outsiders baffled.
However, it’s just an escape room show, mainly focused on solving puzzles, finding the chanism to open the secret room, and then using room information hints to find the "password" to unlock it.
Nora Scott found this quite laborious.
So, while Jerry Yates was looking for the chanism location, Nora found a corner, stared at the wall for a minute or two, then swung an iron hamr at the wall—
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
The sudden noise shook the ground like an earthquake, leaving a profound impact.
Jerry Yates was startled by the noise and quickly turned around, only to see Nora had smashed a large hole in the wall with an iron hamr—this shoddy construction, beyond the fake burnt wall panel on the outside, was all a chanical structure inside, leaving one dumbfounded.
It makes sense, actually.
This hotel was built by the show crew, other floors were seemingly inaccessible but actually not built at all, only the third floor was constructed. Given the show’s special focus on chanisms, it’s natural for such walls to hide chanical structures inside.
The culprit who exposed the chanism, Nora, bit a flashlight, peered inside using the light, then reached in.
"What are you doing—"
Jerry Yates took two steps forward, frowning just about to speak, when he saw Nora pulling back an iron chain.
With a bit of force.
The next mont—
A door suddenly appeared on the wall beside them, slowly opening.
Jerry Yates: "..."
Stunned.
Show crew: "..." This cheat is too damn excessive!
Pedro Langley, who constantly kept an eye on Nora’s situation, witnessed this action with mixed emotions.
Simple, crude, decisive.
Being with her always brings countless surprises.
Though Nora’s IQ is on point, she could solve puzzles peacefully if she chose to. However, she prefers a straightforward, forceful approach over subtle brainstorming.
...
"Do you understand chanical techniques?"
With countless questions in mind, Jerry Yates finally picked the most puzzled one to ask.
"It’s alright."
Letting go of the chain, Nora casually answered, holding a flashlight in one hand and an iron hamr in the other, she calmly walked through the large door to the next room.
Alright?
Jerry Yates’ impression of her was quite unrestrained, not thinking she would be modest. But seeing the smashed wall and the door opened with just a single chain, it seed not just "alright."
Watching Nora leave the room, Jerry Yates followed quickly and asked with a frown, "How did you know there was a door here?"
Nora: "I saw it with my eyes."
Jerry Yates: "..." She’s truly great at retorting.
However, although what Nora said was unpleasant, it was indeed correct.
Earlier, Nora had confird with the "ghost" in the corridor—"leaving the room ans death."
Since that was the case, attempting to open the door directly and go through the corridor to the next room was clearly not feasible.
Besides, room 307’s door was sealed, the show crew didn’t expect guests to carry items like iron hamrs and drills, so the initial setting was—guests couldn’t leave their own room through the door, nor enter room 307 through the door.
Given that, they had to find another way.
The ventilation shaft was originally a good choice—the ghost climbing through the vent was a hint, but going directly seed too simple, so Nora suspected there must be a trap and thus studied the wall, unexpectedly finding the gap between the door and wall.
Lazy to look for clue hints, so she just directly opened the lock through the internal structure with a hamr.
...
Logically, the next room should be another room, but previously, when passing by, the door was closed, without a room number. Upon entering now, it turned out to be a storeroom.
It stores cleaning supplies, replacent bedding, and the like.
However, this storeroom had no "disguise," it had been completely burned, with scorched items scattered all over, burn marks on the walls, extinguished debris halfway through the burn. At a glance, it was shocking.
After observing the surroundings, Nora calmly swept her flashlight upwards, imdiately noticing a rather large ventilation shaft, which made her squint slightly.
—Seems inevitable to crawl through the vent.
While Nora was observing, Jerry Yates wasn’t idle either. After surveying the narrow and eerie storeroom, he stood by the wall next to the door, and said to Nora, "The door is locked, can’t be opened. There’s a chessboard inlaid on this wall, it’s Shogi, with two magnetic pieces set up. Not sure if it’s the key to unlocking the secret room."
After speaking, Jerry Yates looked a bit uneasy.
—Why did he actively tell Nora this.
"Oh."
Having long noticed the chessboard, Nora responded calmly.
Jerry Yates: "..."
I really don’t want to have any interaction with her.
Nora Scott suddenly turned around, glanced at Jerry Yates, and pointed the flashlight at several positions, asking, "See those shadows?"
Jerry paused.
Following Nora’s direction, he looked over and, sure enough, saw multiple shadows on the wall.
?
He couldn’t connect the dots.
His puzzled gaze landed on Nora.
"Six walls form the chessboard; the hint is clear enough. Just place the pieces according to the shadows," Nora said offhandedly, as if the current problem was no problem at all.
Unable to stand her confident deanor, Jerry frowned, his tone sowhat stiff, "There are no pieces."
"Find them."
Nora shot him a cold look.
Jerry: "..."
The show team probably increased the difficulty on purpose; clearly, there were two boxes under the chessboard for the pieces, but not a single one inside. They likely wanted to ss with Nora by deliberately hiding the pieces in various corners.
— In fact, Nora was spot on.
The pieces weren’t big, and while the show team hadn’t cut the storage room’s power, they dimd the lights to make it almost impossible for them to find the pieces among the clutter.
After searching for about ten minutes, Nora and Jerry found only seven pieces.
Yet—
Nora estimated that at least twenty pieces needed to be placed to activate the chanism.
Standing beside the chessboard, holding those few pieces, while Jerry was frowning and trying to imagine the six walls as one chessboard and determine the piece placent, Nora had already started placing the pieces with a frown on her face.
One by one, with ease, without even glancing more than necessary at the walls.
Watching her actions, Jerry was baffled, frowning at her, "You’re just placing them randomly?"
After placing the final piece in her hand, Nora turned to look at him, sowhat bewildered, "Why?"
"..."
Unable to understand her way of thinking, Jerry was stumped, then reminded her, "Aren’t you placing the pieces randomly?"
Nora found it amusing, "Why would I randomly place them?"
"How would I know?"
Jerry’s expression was slightly unpleasant.
"..."
Three seconds later, Nora finally realized — this guy’s spatial visualization and mory skills were lacking, and he didn’t know anything about playing chess, so he was totally unaware of the correct positions.
She raised her eyebrows, tilted her head slightly, and asked with a faint smile, "Can’t you see?"
Seeing her smile, Jerry’s eyelid twitched, feeling a bad on, but he still instinctively responded, "See what?"
"The positions of these pieces." Nora raised her arm, her finger slightly curved, lightly tapped the edge of the chessboard, and smiled lightly, "They’re all correct; none are misplaced."
Eyebrows raised in shock, Jerry’s eyes widened slightly, incredulous, "Are you sure?"
"You’ll know by checking yourself."
Nora said nonchalantly, her deanor and tone full of confidence.
Stunned for a mont, Jerry took a deep breath, randomly picked a piece’s position, and found a starting point, aligning it with the wall for deduction. Although he lacked spatial visualization skills, counting grid by grid made him realize — Nora’s piece positions were probably correct.
"You looked once and rembered everything?"
Squeezing his brow, Jerry was in disbelief.
In contrast to Nora, he now felt like a fool. — But he knew that he was only average; it was just that Nora was extraordinary.
"Yeah."
Nora used a wooden stick to poke through a pile of cotton batting to find chess pieces.
Jerry asked, "How did you do it?"
"..."
Nora paused, turned to look at him, slightly bewildered.
?
Expanding the six planes into chessboard grids, then filling them based on shadow positions, recording their specific placents... Proceeding step by step, does this require any special skills?
Marcus Shaw and Oliver Scott could easily handle such a task.
Andrew Hughes, given a piece of paper and a pen, could study and mark out each piece’s position.
— Since there were too many skilled people around, Nora was montarily unsure how to answer Jerry.
After a mont, she said, "You could draw it out on paper; that’s all. I just skipped that step."
Jerry: "..."
Do we really have to experience academic pressure while filming a variety show? Damn it!
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