A real killer playing a villain; the guy surnamed Zhen in Detective, run!

Inside the broadcast van, Yan Ji's face was twitching.

He grabbed the walkie-talkie and squeezed out a few words through gritted teeth: "Control, next scene, biochemical gas chamber, full sound and light effects."

A hesitant voice came from the control room: "President Yan, the original plan for the gas chamber was already at its highest level, with the dry ice spray volume—"

"I said full capacity."

"receive."

Yan Ji slammed the walkie-talkie onto the table.

The logic lock didn't stop him, and the NPC didn't scare him.

Okay! Let's build a knowledge barrier then!

The chemistry reasoning questions involved the periodic table, redox reactions, balancing formulas, and three layers of misleading clues, making it difficult even for the guests to understand the question stem.

He didn't believe that Lu Yuan could even open this with his fingers.

On the screen, five guests walked through the ward exit and squeezed into the steel-structured room at the end of the corridor.

As the last person entered, the heavy, airtight steel door behind them slammed shut.

A low, mechanical exhaust sound came from within the surrounding walls, followed by the gurgling sound of liquid being pressurized, and dark red alarm lights lit up in circles.

The walls on both sides are inlaid with transparent acrylic panels, behind which is a complete periodic table of chemistry. Next to the element symbols are written reaction formulas, and there are also several sets of balancing equations with missing terms on the handwritten board.

At the exit directly ahead, an electronic lock is flashing a red light.

The broadcast begins: "Welcome to the biological gas chamber."

"Please complete the wall chemistry deduction within ten minutes and enter the three-digit escape code."

"If the time limit is exceeded, a lethal dose of poison gas will be released."

Meng Ying swallowed hard: "Are the production team using such cheesy lines these days?"

Da Yan stared at the formulas on the wall, his scalp tingling: "This isn't an escape room, it's a college entrance exam cram school."

Shen Yiming had been holding back the pride he had lost in the previous round, and now he finally found a way to exert his strength.

He picked up the highlighter from the wall: "Let's divide the work first. Find the outliers in the periodic table on the left, and balance the right side. Da Yan, look at the patterns in the numbers. Meng Ying, you're in charge of the diary prompts."

Meng Ying nodded and picked up the eraser and pen.

Da Yan said with a bitter face, "If my high school chemistry teacher saw me now, he would expel me from his school."

He Rihuo didn't say a word.

He consciously shrank to the corner behind the door, the furthest point from Lu Yuan, his back pressed against the steel door, his hands clasped together, and his lips moving rapidly.

Lu Yuan glanced at him: "Teacher He, are you solving a mystery?"

He Rihuo, with his eyes closed, said, "I will resolve my karmic obstacles."

Shen Yiming is already in the zone.

The question states, "Sample number seventeen reacts with catalyst number eight to produce a third gas." Sample number seventeen is chlorine, and catalyst number eight is oxygen...

Meng Ying continued, "It says 'Blue Flame' next to it, does that mean carbon monoxide?"

Big Smoke quickly wrote: "CO? Where's the carbon?"

Shen Yiming frowned: "Don't rush, there's still the formic acid decomposition reaction later. HCOOH reacts with concentrated sulfuric acid to produce CO and water, but here we've also given potassium permanganate..."

He calculated faster and faster, and soon the writing board was covered with reaction formulas.

Inside the broadcast van, Yan Ji finally regained some color in his face.

"See that? That's what program design is all about."

He pointed to the screen, "It's not about looks, it's not about scaring people, and it's not about lock-picking skills. It's about knowledge."

Old Fang remained silent; he was now allergic to the word "threshold."

The countdown has entered five minutes.

Shen Yiming's forehead began to sweat. The clues that had been leading him down the line of the question were broken in the third layer of reaction.

"How come there's one less oxygen?"

He erased half of the writing pad and rebalanced it.

Meng Ying whispered a reminder: "Could it be that it's not chlorine, but the seventeenth sample, not element seventeen?"

Shen Yiming paused for a moment.

The opium addict broke down: "So the first five minutes were completely wasted?"

Shen Yiming didn't answer, and flipped through the clue card next to the acrylic panel again.

The more anxious you are, the more chaotic your mind becomes.

Three minutes left in the countdown.

The female voice on the loudspeaker began repeating the warning, "Prepare for gas release."

"Please enter the escape code as soon as possible."

At the bottom of the wall, twelve hidden nozzles opened simultaneously.

"Hiss—" High-pressure dry ice sprayed out from the nozzle, rolling along the ground.

The indoor temperature dropped, and half of the view was obscured by the white fog.

Meng Ying covered her mouth and coughed twice: "This is too real."

The smoke machine, choked by the smoke, stumbled backward: "Did the production team move the stage smoke machine to the wrong studio?"

Shen Yiming held the highlighter pen, still staring at the formula.

"No, there must be a main thread. Sample number seventeen isn't chlorine..."

Inside the broadcast van, Yan Ji finally let out the breath he had been holding in for so long.

"That was great!" He leaned back in his chair, pointing to the scene through the thick fog: "The core of this challenge is logical pressure. With obstructed vision, time pressure, and difficulty breathing, ordinary guests will become increasingly panicked. Lu Yuan's brute-force approach won't work, and neither will mystical unlocking methods."

Old Fang glanced at him, wanting to remind him that the "useless" thing he just mentioned had already cost the production team a top-notch NPC and a special lock.

The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed them back.

Inside the gas chamber, Lu Yuan leaned against the wall. When the first wave of dry ice mist was released, he merely glanced up.

After the second round of pressurization, his nostrils twitched. Something's not right!

I walked to the spot closest to the exhaust vent, took a sniff, and then turned to the other exhaust fan.

The exhaust fan wasn't running; only the pressure pump inside the wall was still operating.

Lu Yuan glanced at Shen Yiming and Meng Ying. One of them was engrossed in solving a problem, while the other was leaning close to the wall to look at the hints. They were standing right where the white fog was thickest.

Lu Yuan walked over, grabbed one of them by the back of their collars, and dragged them backward.

Caught off guard, Shen Yiming was pulled so hard that his highlighter spun halfway through the air.

"Brother Lu, what are you doing? I'm almost done calculating!"

Meng Ying was pulled to the back, her foot slipped, and she almost bumped into the opium.

Lu Yuan pointed to the ground: "Squat down and cover your mouth."

Shen Yiming frowned: "There are only two minutes left, stop messing around."

Lu Yuan looked up, aiming at the hidden surveillance camera in the corner of the ceiling.

"director."

"The industrial dry ice you purchased is not of the required purity. During the sublimation process, it released carbon monoxide that was not properly filtered."

Everyone in the room stopped.

Lu Yuan added, "You guys aren't playing an escape room game, are you preparing for a mass carboxyhemoglobin poisoning?"

Meng Ying dropped the notification card in her hand. She reacted the fastest, grabbing her sleeve to cover her mouth and nose, and squatting down on the ground.

Big Smoke paused for half a second, then squatted down: "No, really?"

He Rihuo was already crouching in the blind spot behind the door, his posture as perfect as that of an outstanding fire drill trainee.

"I told you before, as long as I'm alive, I'll be recording the show with my dad."

Inside the broadcast van, Yan Ji listened and then laughed, "Absurd."

He picked up the microphone: "Professor Lu, the show's effect is one thing. If you can't solve the problem, you can continue reasoning. Don't use such frightening statements to affect the other guests."

The technician turned to Mr. Yan: "Should we maintain the original spray pressure?"

"Proceed with the original plan." Yan Ji stared at the screen. "He wants to break the rules? Impossible, keep criticizing!"