Truth and Dare

To Play A Game

~~ A Week Later ~~

When He Xuan wakes up, he notices two things.  One, he feels so groggy and dizzy he might throw up, and two, this is not the bedroom of his apartment.  Instead of the light wood panel ceiling he's used to waking up to, he sees a white popcorn ceiling.  After the nauseous feeling passes he slowly sits up in order to take his surroundings.  It's a pretty large room with plain blue painted walls.  There are no windows or decorations, just the blanket covered floor he lies on, a mini fridge against on of the walls, a wooden chest, and a round object imbedded on the ceiling near the door.  That object looking suspiciously like a security camera.

It's during the end of this inspection of the room that he discovers that he's not alone.  Lying unconscious right next to him is Shi Qingxuan in adorable bunny print pajamas.  Seeing them, he immediately moves to shake them, "Hey, get up." Only to get no response.  An irrational fear makes him place his fingers underneath Shi Qingxuan's nose.  Small puffs of breath hitting his fingers, and a quickly seeing that their chest was moving with the breath, causes him to let out a sigh of relief.  He then chides himself for being worried in the first place.  Whoever took them clearly didn't want them dead, but had given them something to keep them from waking up too soon.

Seeing that he needs to wait for Shi Qingxuan to wake up on their own, he uses this time to get up from the floor and try to see if he can find a way out.  However, his search quickly turns futile.  The only door is locked, and looks like it can only be unlocked from the outside.  There are also no hidden openings that are big enough to fit a full grown person.  So they are stuck for now.  Huffing a breath of irritation he stuffs his hands in the pockets of his own pajama sweatpants.  Only to startle a bit at feeling something in both of his pockets.  The left feels like a phone, while the other feels like stuffed paper.

Pulling them out he discovers his sense of touch is right about what the objects are.  In his left hand is what looks like a burner phone, while his right hand holds an envelope that says "Read Me" on the back.  He stashes the envelope back in his pocket to get on the phone.  He tries to use it to call the police but after the first ring there is a computer voice that says, "Unable to reach number please try again later." This doesn't deter him from trying again.  When he ends up with the same result four times in a row, he's quick to discover the problem.  This type of burner phone is made for phoning incoming calls and not forwarding outgoing ones.  Their captor must have suspected them to try to contact someone as soon as one of them woke up, so they deliberately gave them this burner phone to prevent that from happening.  Whoever took them is clearly not stupid or an amateur.

Seeing no point in using the phone at the moment now, he stuffs the phone back in his pocket and takes out the envelope.  He examines the words on the envelope to see if he can recognize the handwriting.  It takes a bit but he thinks he knows who wrote this.  However to confirm his suspicion he needs to actually read whatever is inside.  So without wasting any more time, he rips the side of the envelop and takes out the contents inside.  Said contents being a folded up letter.  Opening up the letter he reads the first few lines before a familiar rage begins.  He was right, the handwriting belongs to Hua Cheng's assistant, Yin Yu.  After all, even in this life his acquaintance can't write worth for shit.  Taking a breath he begins again to take in what the letter says.

Hello Black Water,

Your week is up.  Did you really think I was kidding when I said I would take drastic measures if you didn't take care of this?  So now I have no choice but to make the both of you do this the hard way.  Once Qingxuan wakes up, the game will begin.  I will explain more on the burner phone that has been provided for you.  There is a camera in this room, so I'll know when you are ready and how this will proceed.