"Let me try!"
Su Man, always impatient, snatched the key from her and repeatedly poked it into the lock, twisting it left and right—
It still wouldn't budge.
"Could this key… be a fake?" Zhu Shu asked hesitantly.
Yu Yaqing's face instantly darkened. "He tricked me!"
"Don't worry, maybe there are usage restrictions," Bai Youwei said calmly. "Let's try again when it's light."
"That's possible," Zhu Shu nodded upon hearing this. "Like Bluebeard's torture chamber, you can't enter at night, only during the day. Let's not be discouraged, we'll try again tomorrow."
Yu Yaqing's expression softened slightly after hearing their explanations, and she nodded, saying, "Okay, then we'll try again tomorrow."
At this moment, Bai Youwei slowly spoke again, "Besides conditional restrictions, there might actually be another reason."
Yu Yaqing looked at her suspiciously, "What reason?"
Bai Youwei said lightly, "Just now you said… the fewer people who clear the game, the richer the rewards. If only one bride is left in the end, she will receive a 7x reward. Regardless of whether what the gardener said is true or false, as long as someone believes it, they are likely to hide the real key and prevent us from clearing the game."
Yu Yaqing was stunned, "You mean… among us, someone has secretly hidden the real key?"
She looked at the people around her… Su Man, Zhu Shu, Bai Youwei, and… Hu Ya.
Hu Ya met Yu Yaqing's gaze and immediately panicked, "I didn't… I didn't take the key! Maybe they took it!"
She pointed at Zhu Shu, then at Bai Youwei!
"They are all scheming! They must have hidden the key!"
"Alright, stop yelling." Bai Youwei raised her eyelids, a little annoyed. "It's giving me a headache. Anyway, we'll know what's going on tomorrow."
Yu Yaqing thought for a moment and said, "You guys go back to your rooms, I want to go to the basement again."
"You're going alone?" Su Man said, "I'll go with you."
Zhu Shu hesitated for a moment, "Then I'll go too…"
Bai Youwei said helplessly, "Alright, alright, since we're going, let's all go."
The women headed to the basement.
Hu Ya bit her lip and followed them.
…
The basement was dark and cold.
They lit the torches on the walls and came to the end of the cages.
The passage was still there.
Warm air flowed out of the passage.
Yu Yaqing bent down and crawled in. After a while, Su Man also crawled into the passage.
They originally thought it would take a long time, but before long, the two crawled out one after another, covered in sweat and with flushed cheeks.
"It's too hot, we can't get in." Yu Yaqing shook her head at them. "The original exit is blocked by a tin brazier, and now there's a pile of fire burning there, all red-hot charcoal."
"We can only wait for the brazier to go out during the day before we can enter," Su Man sighed, "Forget it, let's go…"
A shrill scream suddenly came from the passage.
Everyone was startled.
Everyone subconsciously looked at the dark hole, and thinking of Cheng Qian's current situation, a chill ran up their spines, making their hair stand on end.
One scream after another, rising and falling, shrill and eerie, vaguely mixed with Zhao Lanfen's cries…
The other end of the passage seemed like a living hell.
"Don't listen," Su Man said with an ugly expression. "It's all fake! Cheng Qian and Zhao Lanfen are already dead, the Duke is deliberately trying to scare us!"
Zhu Shu's face also looked pale, and she slowly said, "This is a women's special, all the difficulties are aimed at the weaknesses of women, we can't be fooled."
Softness, timidity, sensitivity, suspicion and mistrust!
Those insignificant flaws, at this moment, could cost them their lives!