Chapter 7 – Numerical Puzzle
After confirming that the Yu Hanjiang who refreshed the 2 of Heart's world record was the person he knew, Xiao Lou opened his mouth and asked, "This Yu Hanjiang, how do I add him as a friend?"
A of Hearts smiled. "There is no such thing as adding friends in the Card World."
Xiao Lou changed his words. "How do I team up with him to clear the instance?"
A of Hearts patiently explained, "If you want to challenge a secret room with someone, you must find the secret room keeper to buy a contract and establish a contractual relationship with the person you want to team up with. In this way, you will be bound together for future secret rooms. If he opens a new secret room, you will be pulled into the secret room. Similarly, if you open a room then you will pull him into the secret world where you are."
"How much is the contract?"
"Buying a contract requires the consumption of gold coins that can be obtained in the process of clearing the instance. Try and earn them from the subsequent secret rooms."
Hearing the answer from the keeper, Xiao Lou helplessly pinched his eyebrows. The currency in this world was 'gold coins' and he was currently penniless. He had to wait to buy the contract for the team since he couldn't afford it at all. What's more, the D-grade secret rooms were single-player. There was no way to form a team. He could only wait until he earned money later.
Knowing that Yu Hanjiang had also come to the Card World, Xiao Lou's mood was quite complicated.
In this strange Card World, he should be happy to meet a familiar person.
However, he came to this world because of a car accident. It was likely that Group Leader Yu also came to this world as an accident. In the real world, Yu Hanjiang might've died.
Thinking of the young criminal policeman who had solved countless unsolved cases, Xiao Lou felt very sorry.
What had happened to Group Leader Yu? No wonder why he never returned the WeChat that day.
In any case, since they were reborn into this world, the only thing they could do was live.
He thought that it would be no problem to survive the C-grade secret rooms with Yu Hanjiang's skills.
It was possible to form a team after going to the C-grade rooms. At that time, he would find a way to earn some gold coins, buy a contract book and then find Yu Hanjiang to clear the Hearts room. Since there was a professional criminal investigation master such as Yu Hanjiang, the murderers in the world of Hearts wouldn't be able to hide.
Xiao Lou put away his thoughts and spoke calmly, "Continue to break through."
The moment he finished speaking, the 2 of Diamonds card that he already extracted emitted a familiar red light. A strange force surrounded his body and he was sucked into the card room.
***
It was a dim enclosed space that was only four square metres inside. This meant people would feel cramped just taking two steps.
The light in the entire chamber came from an open flashlight hanging in a corner. Next to the flashlight was a pendulum clock and the hour hand pointed to 19:00.
The moment Xiao Lou entered the space, the pendulum clock started swinging regularly with a clear 'tick' sound.
A text prompt popped up in the suspension box.
[Welcome to the 2 of Diamonds room, 'Numerical Puzzle.']
[Please find the mechanisms at the fastest speed, crack the password and open all the password locks.]
[D-grade secret room's friendly tip: The instance can be cleared by opening two password locks. Opening all password locks is a perfect clearance.]
[The clearance time is limited to 15 minutes. If this time is exceeded, you will fail. Please pay attention to the pendulum clock on the wall.]
The timing mode of the Hearts world was similar to the 'time bomb'. The red countdown number was always moving in the suspension box. The incomprehensible puzzle plus the countdown would inevitably give people psychological pressure.
The timing mode of this Diamonds world was a pendulum clock. This secret room was limited to 15 minutes and once the pendulum clock in the room moved from 19:00 to 19:15, the instance would end.
In the quiet and enclosed space, the ticking of the clock seemed to be multiplied and this would seriously interfere with people's thinking.
Xiao Lou closed his eyes and forcibly ignored the clear bells in his ears, forcing himself to calm down.
He picked up the flashlight in the corner, raised it and carefully looked around the room.
Xiao Lou had played many secret room games. Some secret rooms were set up to have a stepping mechanism on the floor. If you accidentally stepped on a square, you were likely to fall into a pit. Therefore, after entering the secret room, he didn't move around but stood in the middle of the secret room. He first figured out the locations of the mechanisms he needed to crack. Once he confirmed that there were no problems under his feet and above his head, he stepped forward to look at the walls.
There were many characters drawn on the four walls and a large hole dug under the walls. There was a wooden box inside and a lock on the box. The combination lock had four gears that could be unlocked by turning the gear to the correct number. At this point, all the locks and gears were in the initial state of 0000.
There were four password locks. Since only two was required to clear the instance, they could pick the ones they were good at. The D-grade secret rooms were really friendly to novices.
However, Xiao Lou wanted a perfect clearance.
It was only by getting a perfect clearance that he could draw a card and possibly get a S-grade card. In addition, obtaining more cards wouldn't hurt.
Xiao Lou gazed at the wall in front of him.
Under the light of the flashlight, a nine numbered square appeared in the middle of the wall.
X/9/2
3/X/7
X/X/6
In a mathematical reasoning problem, a 3×3 disk was called a 'palace' and an advanced logical reasoning problem with nine palaces was called 'Sudoku'. This was a frequently tested topic in professional quiz competitions.
Sudoku was a 9×9 disk with 81 squares. The challenger needed to infer the numbers on the remaining spaces according to the known numbers, satisfying every horizontal row, vertical row and every 3×3 single palace. They had to all contain numbers 1-9 and not repeat.
At this time, Xiao Lou was facing a 3×3 single palace disk.
He even did 9×9 Sudoku problems so forget the 3×3 single palace question. It wasn't difficult for him at all.
In this palace, the four vacant Xs were the password.
The numbers to fill in the nine squares were 1-9. The numbers that appeared so far were 9, 2, 3, 7 and 6. According to the most basic 'no repeating a number in a single palace' rule, the missing numbers were 1, 4, 5 and 8.
How were these four numbers arranged as the password?
First, look at the known numbers. The third column of numbers was complete. 2+7+6 = 15. He could infer that the rule of the nine squares was for the horizontal and vertical columns to add up to 15. Then the first line was a 4, the second line was a 5 and the third line was an 8 and 1 respectively. This satisfied the rule of 'horizontal and vertical columns = 15.'
The password was 4581.
Xiao Lou walked in front of the box and turned the password lock from 0000 to 4581.
There was a creaking sound and the box in front of him opened. He was surprised to find that there was a card inside the box.
[Special Effects Card: Nine Palaces Grid]
Rarity: C
Description: After completing the nine square palace reasoning problem of the 2 of Diamonds secret room, it can be obtained from the treasure chest.
Note: Three the special effect card Nine Palaces Grid to the designated position and immediately form a 3m x 3m nine-square grid surface, locking up all targets within the nine square grid and making them unable to move for 9 seconds.
Number of times available: 9/9.
Xiao Lou's eyes lit up!
The Hearts secret room was a unified settlement reward in the personal space after the instance was cleared. In the Diamonds secret room, there was a reward treasure chest waiting for every puzzle solved. It was like playing a stand-alone game and going through a maze, getting a treasure chest every time an area was unlocked.
Nine Palaces Grid was a special effects card. It might only be a C-grade rarity but it was a large-range skill that locked all targets in a 3×3 square. In a key moment, he could let the enemy stay in place for nine seconds and quickly escape.
This card combined with Tao Yuanming's Remember Peach Blossom Spring meant that escaping wasn't a problem.
The harvest of the special effects card was an unexpected surprise. Xiao Lou's spirit was raised and he immediately walked to the left wall to continue the puzzle.
The mathematics problem on this wall was slightly more complicated than the nine square grid.
He saw four lines on the wall:
4894=1236
9795=1645
7743=1412
8376=??
Xiao Lou only looked at the question once before quickly answering.
Many people heard 'numerical puzzle' and subconsciously felt that their mathematics wasn't good enough. In fact, numerical puzzles weren't about a mathematical computing ability but logical reasoning ability. The key was to find the rule between the numbers.
In order to solve this question, careful observation was needed.
Xiao Lou only played secret room games and had a lot of experience with numerical reasoning.
The trick to numerical reasoning was to ignore the size of the number itself and look at each number separately. For example, the hint of this question was 4894=1236. It was easy to find that once you looked closely. 4+8=12, 9×4=36. The simple addition and multiplication of numbers coincided with 12 and 36.
The same was true for 9795=1645. 9+7=16, 9×5=45.
In other words, the first two numbers were added together to get the first two results. The last two numbers were multiplied to get the last two results. The three hints followed the same rule, proving that the solution was correct.
The final reasoning result of the last 8376 was obvious. 8+3=11, 7×6=42. The answer was 1142.
1142 was the password.
Xiao Lou went to the treasure chest, quickly changing the password lock to 1142.
Sure enough, there was a click and the box opened successfully in front of him.
There was another card in the treasure chest.
[Special Effects Card: Mathematical Equation]
Rarity: B
Description: After completing the equation-based reasoning problem of the 2 of Diamonds secret room, it can be obtained from the treasure chest.
Note: The effect of this card is very special. You can throw the mathematical equation at any specified target so that the target receives the same damage you suffered. Simply put, you drag them to share your fate when dying and it isn't a loss :).
Number of times available: 2/2.
Xiao Lou, “…"
Why was a smiley face drawn at the end?
Was it necessary to drag someone else to death? The style of this Card World should improve!
Forcing the other person to receive the same damage as him meant sharing an end with others? Xiao Lou's mouth twitched and he put the card in his card pack.
The rarity of the Mathematical Equation card was B, indicating that the number of challengers who solved this problem was relatively rare.
For this type of logical reasoning problem, it was very simple after finding the rule. If the rule wasn't found then it couldn't be solved. It was really hard for those who hadn't played secret room games or touched numerical reasoning. It was estimated that they would be confused over this question.
Fortunately, the D-grade chamber could selectively open mechanisms. There were two choices out of four, the probability of finding a question to answer was quite large.
A prompt popped up on the suspension box. [Two mechanisms have been opened and the instance clearance condition has been reached. Do you want to leave the 2 of Diamonds secret room? Yes/No.]
Xiao Lou didn't hesitate to choose No.
He turned t the next wall, shining the light on it and continuing to crack the next mechanism.
A perfect clearance was his pursuit!
Chapter 8 – Perfect Clearance
Xiao Lou quickly cracked the numerical puzzles on two walls. At this time, he only used 30 seconds. The hour and minute hands on the pendulum still pointed to 19:00 and only the second hand pointed to 30 seconds.
30 seconds to crack two maths problems, this was thanks to Xiao Lou playing many secret rooms. He had a wealth of game experience and could think of a solution when seeing the question.
The harvest of two special effects cards made Xiao Lou full of power. He put away the card and headed to the third wall.
The third wall was different from the first two.
He saw four Chinese characters on the wall:
There were no hints for this question and he could only use his imagination.
The four Chinese characters represented the final password. It wasn't as simple as the strokes in the Chinese characters. If it was the strokes then only a few words would be written, not four words.
Common ground must be found to convert the Chinese character into numbers.
Xiao Lou shone the flashlight on the wall, carefully observed for 10 seconds and quickly came to a conclusion.
Don't think of them as Chinese characters or surnames and phrases. Simply treat them as graphics.
The thing these four characters had in common was that there was a 'symmetric axis' in the middle that could be folded.
田, if folded symmetrically from the middle would become the number 8.
王, if folded symmetrically from the middle would become the number 3.
屮 became 4 after being folded symmetrically. (The font makes this character look a bit different. Click here for an example of a symmetrical version)
日 when folded up and down became the number 0.
The four characters all had a symmetry axis and happened to become numbers after folding. This was the logic of this puzzle.
Xiao Lou didn't hesitate to adjust the gears of the password lock to 8340.
As he expected, there was the unlocking sound and a card in the treasure chest.
[Tool Card: Folding Paper]
Rarity: A
Description: After solving the Chinese characters puzzle of the 2 of Diamonds secret room, it can be obtained from the treasure chest.
Note: Have you ever played an origami game? Use your imagination to fold the paper into the shape you want and it will quickly enlarge into the real object. For example, if a paper boat is placed into the sea then it will become a small boat. Fold a horse and you can have a horse mount. It isn't recommended to fold into a plane, which is the origami technique that most people now. The folded aeroplane can easily crash when enlarged into a solid body.
Number of times used: Unfortunately, such a strong folding paper can only be used once.
Xiao Lou could only fold the simplest paper plane. Even if it was magnified by a hundred times, it couldn't carry people and fly. He didn't know any other origami and it was better to save this first. If he met people who were proficient in origami then he would give it to them. It had a rarity of A and the function of the real object must be very strong. It couldn't be wasted. If a car or boat was folded at a critical moment, their lives could be saved.
Xiao Lou put the Folding Paper card away and turned to crack the last puzzle.
There was still a treasure chest left and opening it would pass the instance perfectly.
He shone the flashlight on the last wall and saw many messy arrow symbols on the wall.
The corners of Xiao Lou's mouth raised.
He happened to have done this type of puzzle.
At that time, he and his friends had been playing a vampire-themed secret escape room. They had encountered a similar mechanism in the secret room but it wasn't arrow symbols on the wall. It was English letters such as RDDLUU, where U stood for up, D for down, L for left and R for right. It also meant up, down, left and right in the four directions.
What was the relationship between up, down, left, right and numbers?
As long as you followed the direction stated with your fingers and wrote it in the palm of your hand, you would get a number.
←↓→↓←,Left, down, right, down, left, this wrote out the number 5.
→↓←↓→,right, down, left, down, right, this wrote out the number 2.
←↓↓→↑←,the answer was 6;→↓↓←↑↑,the answer was 0.
The arrow code of this wall gave the result of 5260.
Xiao Lou quickly moved the gears of the password lock to 5260 and successfully opened the treasure chest, obtaining the last card of the 2 of Diamonds secret room.
[Tool Card: Four-way Arrow]
Rarity: A
Description: After solving the arrow puzzle of the 2 of Diamonds secret room, it can be obtained from the treasure chest.
Note: Can be used in a flexible way. In particular, when encountering a maze, you can use the arrow to give your teammates some tips so they won't go to a dead end. The tool card has a very high viscosity and can be glued to any location on the ground, branches, buildings, etc. Once the tool card is left in place, it can be customized to seven colours to prevent people with bad eyes from seeing it.
Number of uses: Unlimited.
Xiao Lou looked again at the description and found a key word mentioned in this Four-way Arrow tool card—maze.
This showed that in future Diamond rooms, it was very likely he would encounter a maze full of mechanisms!
Moreover, this card clearly referred to 'teammates', proving that the maze in the later period was indeed a team model and multi-path exploration. Perhaps a person stepping on the wrong mechanism meant all their teammates would be shot into a hedgehog.
If the Diamond room was developing in the direction of a 'mechanism labyrinth', challengers not only had to find their way out of the maze but also use their brains to solve puzzles and open the right mechanism, facing punishment that might arise at any time. A rain of arrows, a knife array, boulders, puzzles, poison, flames… there were too many ways of punishment and the difficulty if the late secret rooms would exceed his imagination.
Xiao Lou was just thinking this when two lines popped up on the suspension box.
[Congratulations to the challenger Xiao Lou for perfectly clearing the D-grade secret room 'Numerical Puzzle' in 58 seconds, the instance clearance score is greater than 99% of the challengers!]
[This instance clearance is evaluated as S-grade. A perfect clearance will get an extra lucky draw chance. Please return to the personal space for settlement of the rewards.]
Xiao Lou saw the perfect clearance prompt and pressed the 'exit' button to return to the personal space.
***
At the same time, the 2 of Diamonds secret room.
Yu Hanjiang looked at the equations on the wall and frowned slightly.
He hated maths the most. Seeing 4894=1236, he only had a splitting headache.
Just then, red letters suddenly filled the suspension box above his head.
[Congratulations to challenger Xiao Lou for perfectly clearing the 2 of Diamonds secret room, Numerical Puzzle, in 58 seconds, refreshing the 2 of Diamonds' world record!]
Yu Hanjiang who hadn't solved a question in one minute, "…"
Entering the room, moving and turning the password gears for four walls took time. A 58 second perfect clearance meant answering four questions. In other words, Xiao Lou took an average of 10 seconds to clear each question.
This Xiao Lou, wasn't the speed at cracking the numerical mechanisms too fast?
Yu Hanjiang frowned and looked at the announcement again.
The Xiao Lou he knew was a professor in the Department of Forensic Medicine at the medical university.
Their first contact was because a girl from the medical university fell to her death. Once the investigation started, the students mentioned that her last class was Professor Xiao's class. The students also evaluated Professor Xiao very highly. In the beginning, Yu Hanjiang thought that the highly respected Professor Xiao would be an old expert around 40 or 50 years old. He hadn't expected Xiao Lou to be so young.
It happened to be raining the day that Xiao Lou came to the police station to make a statement.
The man's black hair was wet from rain and it was attached to his ears, lining a clear face. His eyelashes were long and thick. The rain on it covered the black and clear eyes with a gentle layer of water.
He wore a white shirt and his clothes was wet from the rain, but he didn't look embarrassed. The man's posture was straight and upright. He had a clean temperament and his laughing eyes made people feel friendly at first sight.
Yu Hanjiang had been exposed to people from all walks of life but Xiao Lou's temperament was undoubtedly unique. Gentle, graceful and talented, this was the student's evaluation of him. The medical students regarded him as a male god and it was said that his class was always packed. In the university where the class rate was extremely serious, his class actually had students from other departments come to listen.
In the process of writing the statement, this man was always calm and it could be seen that his psychological quality was very high and he was well-bred.
Yu Hanjiang's first impression of him was very good.
The girl's case was quickly resolved and he thought they would have no more intersection. Then the Major Crimes unit encountered a bad poisoning case. Yu Hanjiang went to send the poison to the Forensic Identification Centre and he met Xiao Lou again.
The two people became familiar with each other and added each other as friends. Xiao Lou helped a lot during the investigation of the case and Yu Hanjiang wanted to invite him to dinner. It was just that the Spring Festival was approaching and Xiao Lou pushed the dinner back.
Unfortunately, on the seventh day of the new year, there was no time for Yu Hanjiang to meet Xiao Lou…
The familiar name caused countless memories to rush through his mind. Yu Hanjiang took a deep breath and quickly stabilized his mind.
A person who could perfectly pass the numerical puzzle secret room in 58 seconds was obviously a master of numerical puzzles. Was this Xiao Lou and the young forensic doctor he knew the same person? Yu Hanjiang couldn't determine this.
He only knew that Xiao Lou was widely acclaimed at school. As for whether he played puzzle games in private, Yu Hanjiang didn't know.
Perhaps later he could find a chance to contact this Xiao Lou and check?
Yu Hanjiang put away his confused thoughts and continued to focus on the mathematical puzzle on the wall.
***
Back in Xiao Lou's personal space, he also saw the news of the 2 of Diamond's world record being refreshed.
He felt some surprise.
Spending 10 seconds on a question was normal for him. After all, he played too many secret room games and the most common mechanism in a secret room was a numerical puzzle.
Perhaps the people who came to the Card World didn't have as high a psychological endurance as him and the people who often played numerical puzzle games were less likely to be seen. Thus, he picked up this world record for cheap.
The 2 of Diamonds room wasn't difficult. As long as the interference of the clock's ticking sound was ignored and the challenger calmed down and carefully observed to find the logic of the numbers, the answer could be quickly obtained.
The 15 minute numerical puzzle room was perfectly cleared by Xiao Lou in 58 seconds.
What card would he get from this perfect clearance draw?
Looking at the 2 of Diamonds on the card wall, there was a green 'passed' in the lower right corner. Xiao Lou calmly declared, "Where is the keeper of the Diamonds room? Come out and meet me."
Chapter end
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