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Start with one strange idea: your brain runs on rules.
Every thought you have is your brain cells firing in patterns, one triggering the next, following the laws of chemistry and physics. Nothing in there breaks those laws. So in principle, every step could be written down. A rulebook for you: when these cells fire, those fire next.
Imagine someone wrote that rulebook for the philosopher John Searle. Every neuron, every reaction, all of it on paper.
Now put Searle in his Chinese Room again. But this time the rulebook is not for Chinese. It is the rulebook of his own brain. He sits inside and follows it, step by step, simulating himself.
A question comes in through the slot: "Are you conscious?"
Searle the operator looks it up, follows the rules, and writes back what the rulebook says: "Yes. I'm conscious. Machines can't think."
That is the exact answer the real Searle would give. From outside, there is no way to tell which Searle you are talking to: the living man, or the man hand-copying his own brain. The outputs are identical.