The Art Gallery Lobby

The boy seemed to sense something, so at the last moment he turned his head and his eyes met Yu Xing's.

I don't know if it was just my imagination, but the moment our eyes met, the rabbit doll in the boy's hand seemed to lift its head slightly, only to be pressed down again by the boy's hand.

After that, the boy didn't react at all. He calmly turned his head back and followed the group in the direction they were supposed to go, as if the presence of two unfamiliar strangers standing at the corner was no big deal to him.

Yu Xing waited two seconds and realized that the group of onlookers didn't come this way, meaning the boy really hadn't informed the ghosts in the group of their presence. Was this a way of expressing goodwill?

"Have you seen him before?" Zhao Yijiu teased. "For a moment, I sensed his killing intent, but when he saw us, or rather, when he saw you, the killing intent vanished. Do you know him?"

"You're really perceptive. I didn't sense anything." Yu Xing shrugged. He was definitely not as sensitive to auras as Zhao Yijiu in her ghost form, and Zhao Yijiu had no reason to mislead him on such a detail. "According to you, you might have actually seen him and me, but I haven't seen him."

Zhao Yijiu's gaze was strange. "Wow, my dear captain is so amazing, so famous."

Why are you being so sarcastic?

Yu Xing genuinely couldn't quite grasp the thought process behind Ghost Wine in certain details. He shook his head. "We'll see how it goes after we get to know him. Let's head to the main entrance first."

Generally speaking, large venues like this will either have a large map painted in the lobby connected to the main entrance, or paper maps and brochures will be placed on shelves at the entrance. Moreover, during an art exhibition, there will definitely be a map indicating the types of paintings in each area.

The problem now is that they didn't know where they started from the beginning. Now they want to go around to the gate, and they will inevitably encounter the danger of encountering tour groups and NPCs in the venue. Who knows, those strange paintings might turn into vengeful ghosts.

Zhao Yijiu said, "Seeing how weak you are, I'll tell you in advance if there are any other auras ahead. Go wherever you want; I trust your luck. After all, you are 'lucky'."

Yu Xing didn't refuse. After all, his Persona Mask name was also Xing, a word that was very mysterious to him. Who knew if it meant good fortune or misfortune? In any case, he was quite confident in his memory. If he went first, at least he wouldn't take a detour.

So he randomly chose a direction that looked good and followed the corridor, listening for any tour groups nearby and observing whether there was any pattern in the paintings along the way. After walking through several passages, he came to a stairwell.

The staircases lead to both the upper and lower floors, indicating that they are on the second floor of this three-story art museum.

The second floor, apart from the exhibited paintings and the visiting groups, was surprisingly empty of any other players, which was rather strange.

"Want to go up to the third floor and take a look?" Zhao Yijiu saw Yu Xing stop in front of the stairs and assumed he was hesitating about whether to go upstairs first.

"No need, let's go downstairs." Yu Xing glanced at the third floor, then went downstairs directly. Zhao Yijiu had no objection and leisurely followed behind, like a large, fierce, automatically following accessory.

When they reached the first floor, the ornament finally moved. It stretched out its arm to stop Yu Xing whispered in her ear, "There's someone ahead."

"People?" Yu Xing had reservations about this term.

"A plague entity, I sensed it... not a very strong aura." Zhao Yijiu leaned casually against the stair railing. "What should we do?"

Yu Xing tentatively sensed it. For him, the presence of a cursed entity meant he could sense the aura of a ghost, but it wasn't very accurate. For example, he couldn't tell whether the plague entity Zhao Yijiu mentioned was on his inevitable path.

If he were alone, he would need to make more preparations, but now it's different; he has a teammate standing beside him.

So Yu Xing smirked, completely washing her hands of the matter. "Then it's up to you."

Zhao Yijiu drawled, "Why me?"

"Otherwise, what are you for? When we were formulating the plan, we said your role in the team was to be a pathfinder. Isn't this the perfect opportunity to test your skills? Go for it, Pikachu." Yu Xing gestured forward.

Zhao Yijiu remained noncommittal, but still straightened up and walked downstairs. He walked so casually that Yu Xing initially thought the so-called plague body was just a trap, and that he could actually avoid it without much effort.

But then, the shadow on the edge of the wall began to wriggle, making him sense the fluctuations of Zhao Yijiu's ability. Under the independent rules of this art museum, the shadow wizard's ability to move seemed to be suppressed to an extremely uncomfortable range; at least, the shadow was wriggling with great difficulty.

He stood there quietly, waiting.

Half a minute later, Zhao Yijiu emerged from the shadows on the wall again, her blood-red pupils carrying a hint of coldness and indescribable emotions, mostly obscured by her black, tousled hair.

"We can go around it," he said. "Come with me."

Yu Xing consciously placed his hand in Zhao Yijiu Zhao Yijiu his arm and pulled him into the shadows, resulting in another brief, disorienting moment.

This time, Yu Xing did not completely lose consciousness because he was in the shadows. He squinted and barely managed to examine the images around him as he traveled through the shadows. He felt as if he had become a being from another dimension. Everything around him was black, with occasional white lines outlining some meaningless, chaotic patterns. Just seeing a little bit made him feel like his brain was about to explode, and a suppressed madness silently spread from the bottom of his heart.

Yu Xing thought that if this were a world with dice, he would already need to undergo a rational assessment because it was merely indescribable knowledge.

It was that kind of sanity check that failed, deducting sanity points and nearly driving me to madness.

Zhao Yijiu, or rather, Zhao Yijiu in his ghostly state, took it all in stride, as if this chaos, enough to make one's head explode, was as commonplace to him as breakfast every day.

Yu Xing's mind went blank for a moment. In that instant, his consciousness drifted to the thought that if Zhao Yijiu had been plagued by such ghostly consciousness and indescribable torment every day before entering the Absurd Deduction Game, it would be a miracle if he could have persevered. Not to mention that when he split into different paths, he was on the Righteous Path. This difficulty was probably no less than when he himself slowly suppressed evil from an unconscious monster mind and returned to human thinking.

The next moment, the darkness suddenly receded like a tide, revealing white dots of light ahead. Zhao Yijiu, with a relaxed expression, led him into the dots of light, and everything became clear.

With the feeling of solid ground beneath her feet, Yu Xing steadied herself and looked around. She found herself standing in a corner of a spacious and magnificent hall.

The hall exudes extravagant taste with its elaborate and ornate design. The chandeliers above appear to be made of gold, their dark gold hue conveying mystery and nobility. Soft sofas and crystal coffee tables surround the hall, while several large paintings hang on the walls. Ancient armor is displayed on shelves, and the museum's map and event information are placed in opposite directions.

A tall, bald man stood at the top of the stairs on the second floor, talking to a well-dressed woman. The woman occasionally let out a pleased laugh. Her hat covered her face, making it impossible to see her face, only her silver hair was visible.

"Ms. Linda, your painting has been praised by everyone. Perhaps the One-Eyed Prince will be the most dazzling item at the upcoming auction." The bald man smiled broadly. Just by looking at him, he appeared normal, and even his vocal organs were his own throat and mouth. However, his height of over two meters proclaimed that he was also a ghost, or rather, he was probably a plague-like NP.

Ms. Linda was opposite him, was much shorter, about 1.7 meters tall, which was considered a normal height. She maintained a certain social distance from the bald man, which meant that the woman carrying the bag didn't have to look up at him while they were talking.

"Thank you for your kind words. The One-Eyed Prince is my most satisfying painting recently, and I certainly hope it will be cherished like a jewel and bring me wealth. But I know that those other painters are also very Spiritual Sense lately, and their paintings are equally excellent. I'm not confident I can surpass them," Ms. Linda said with a smile and modestly. "In comparison, I'm very sorry for being late and making you wait for me in the lobby. Let's go up now."

The two didn't lower their voices, and since the hall was so spacious you could hear a pin drop, their conversation reached Yu Xing's ears. A smile played on Yu Xing's lips.

He was indeed very lucky. Just as he needed to move around the lobby and gather information, the two men who posed a threat to him were about to go upstairs. And judging from their conversation, they were the last two people left in the lobby; everyone else was upstairs.

The absence of any NPCs on the second floor suggests that the floor they were referring to was the third floor.

In addition to the eight-hour art exhibition, they also have an auction to hold, which is not mentioned in the notices outside the art museum and is probably a hidden plot point.

Wait a minute, the bald man and Linda disappeared at the end of the stairs, and Yu Xing and Zhao Yijiu came out from the corner. He paused for a moment, then quickly began to gather all the information in the hall.

First was the museum's topographical map. The map of the three floors was drawn separately. Although it was drawn with simple black and white lines, this actually gave Yu Xing a more intuitive impression of the museum's layout.

He noticed that the art museum was quite large; he and Zhao Yijiu had only walked through about a third of the second floor, wandering around.

After memorizing the map using his instantaneous memory, he turned to the event information board. The content on the board was similar to the notice Zhao Yijiu had mentioned, except for an additional headcount statistic: the total number of visitors to the art exhibition was 120.

More than a hundred ghosts have gathered in this art museum, but it's unclear how many are outsiders... There are currently one hundred and twenty-two visitors.

Zhao Yijiu remained his devoted follower, silently watching Yu Xing's every move, as if he had completely given up on anything that required thinking.

Yu Xing had the illusion that she had a Samoyed following her.

His gaze shifted from the event information board to the coffee table in the center of the hall. The coffee table was exquisite, and a beige velvet blanket was placed under the coffee table and sofa. Yu Xing touched the sofa; it was ice-cold, devoid of any body warmth.

The teacups on the coffee table were cold, completely devoid of warmth, indicating that some time had passed since the art exhibition began.

At this moment, Zhao Yijiu said, "Captain, are you sick and would like to sit down and rest for a while?"

Despite the tight timeframe, he insisted on making sarcastic remarks to demonstrate his rebellious nature.

Yu Xing smiled and agreed, "Okay, I'm tired too."

After saying that, he actually slumped onto the sofa under Zhao Yijiu's gaze and sighed comfortably, "The sofa is of good quality, so soft."

It was indeed soft. The moment he sat down, he sank into it. The soft sofa surface seemed to want to embrace him, making his 1.85-meter height appear as fragile as a small animal.

Zhao Yijiu just stared at him, her expression saying, "No matter how you try to get my attention, I won't ask you why you're doing this."

But after about ten seconds, his expression changed slightly.

Because Yu Xing seems to be getting more and more involved.

He was completely buried in the sofa. He had been perfectly normal just moments before, but now he seemed to be sinking into a swamp, as if the surface of the sofa was not beneath him, but rather a puddle of mud from which he could not extricate himself, or a stomach that was constantly digesting food.

"Hmm, Captain, what are you doing? Trying to put on a show of being eaten in front of me?" Zhao Yijiu didn't pull Yu Xing out; instead, she leaned forward, leaning against the sofa back, looking at Yu Xing's face below. "Are you enjoying this?"

"Not really, I was just testing out what kind of things these exhibits in the art museum are." Yu Xing struggled to his feet, managing to pull himself off the sofa without much effort. He touched the back of his shirt and commented, "It looks like a monster sofa that eats people, but it's too slow. It's not very intimidating unless someone holds me down on the sofa and won't let me get up, like trying to drown me by shoving my face underwater... Hmm, strange facilities, worth keeping an eye on."

"Heh, so you like this kind of game." Zhao Yijiu looked at him with a mocking gaze, leaned forward again, reached for his leg, then bypassed him and pulled out a piece of paper from the sofa cushions.

The paper was stuck in the gap of the sofa armrest. Perhaps it was too light, or perhaps it was inanimate, but in any case, it didn't cause the sofa to dent and swallow it. Instead, it remained in the gap.

The paper was a little crumpled, but the activity instructions were written on it in blood-red font.

"There are five forgeries in this exhibition. We hope that our discerning group members can identify them. For each painting found, one person will have the opportunity to stay and have a private conversation with the artist after the exhibition."

"Fake paintings are very strange; perhaps at the same time you find it, it also finds you."

Zhao Yijiu was certain that Yu Xing was in such a hurry because he had discovered this piece of paper.