- Goal
- Solve an S-class locked-room case for Zhi Shang and submit the answer.
- You are
- An observer. The protagonist is new lunar energy-researcher Zhi Shang.
- Clue
- All case information appears in this chapter. The weapon’s name is written in One in Fifty Thousand.
I
The Locked-Room Energy Institute stands on the Moon. Researchers solve rooms randomly generated by the Chord system; correct answers produce energy. Zhi Shang ignores where the energy comes from. Every six months he must solve 100 A-class rooms or be transferred and eventually dismissed.
He chooses an S-class room.
Letter · K-0122, The Desiring Absolute Rationalist
K-0122 maximizes long-term structural gain while treating desire as a tunable reward term and emotion as negotiable noise.
II · The locked room
- Victim
- Zhang Tao, investor.
- Reporter
- Gu Ling, core developer of the Chord log system’s security module.
- Location
- Room 3702, Building 9, 439 Expo Avenue.
Gu Ling once vowed to kill Zhang Tao after learning the truth about her mother’s death. Years later, she finds his body in a locked room at 4:14 p.m. The apparent cause is methane poisoning, but she entered without suffocating.
12:10 living-room door opens
12:10 living-room door closes
12:48 living-room door opens
12:48 living-room door closes
12:50 gas turns on
13:50 gas turns off
16:12 living-room door opens
The logs, ventilation, lock, and timing form an S-class puzzle. Zhi Shang reconstructs the sequence, identifies the weapon named in One in Fifty Thousand , and submits the solution to Chord.
The system accepts the answer and releases energy. The case is solved, but the final record hints that the Moon institute itself is part of a larger locked room.
Case file 09 “S-Class Locked Room” complete. Return to case files →