Into the Painting

As expected, upon hearing Yu Xing's words, the gray-haired young woman, who had originally intended to continue causing trouble for these two suddenly appearing people, suddenly fell silent.

He seemed to consider his words for a moment, then chose a safer answer that couldn't be faulted in terms of stance, "My name is Yun Si. How is the chess player?"

Yu Xing's eyes lit up. He was really lucky today. The first experience tester he chose to talk to was the teammate Ning Feng had mentioned.

"The player who plays the game is very good, Ning Feng is also very good. They mentioned you to me." Yu Xing stepped back, expressing her goodwill.

Hearing him say this, Yun Si was also certain that these two were potential allies on the side of the Deducers, as mentioned by his teammates before entering Dead Silent Island.

If they didn't know each other, the other party wouldn't know both the title of the player and Ning Feng's real name. There are only two possibilities: either the other party had already met his two teammates and knew them to some extent, or his teammates told him themselves.

Yun Si relaxed his muscles, realizing that Yu Xing's actions just now were not a show of force, but a test. He grinned at them and asked, "Where are the other two?"

"They probably went to the district; there's a clue there about a suspected fake." Yu Xing tilted her head and pointed to the painting of the Chinese-style courtyard house. "It's not what you're looking for; don't waste your time."

"Ah, I see." When Yun Si let his guard down, his true nature was revealed. He touched his hair. "No wonder nothing happened after looking at it for so long. I'll look at another one."

Yu Xing: "... You're just going to take it easy like this?"

"How could that be? Do you think I'm stupid?" Yun Si looked at Yu Xing with some surprise. "Tell me honestly, did they say bad things about me?"

Yu Xing smirked and casually retorted, "Not really, they say you're rather stupid."

"Heh, these two guys with a ton of embarrassing pasts dare to call me stupid." Yun Si muttered, then shrugged nonchalantly. "Whatever, I'm used to it. I have my own way of finding fakes, it's... a secret. You two can compete with me, but don't you dare trip me up, or I'll get angry."

A sinister glint appeared in his eyes. "I'm angry, and the consequences will be severe, you know?"

"Don't worry," Yu Xing assured him.

Having witnessed Yu Xing's failed attempt to seduce Yun Si and Ning Feng, Zhao Yijiu was skeptical of Yu Xing's assurances.

He thought silently that Yu Xing was the kind of person who treated even his teammates as tools when making plans. Qu Xuanqing from the Fear Hospital was an example of this. As for the tester, who was an ally who wasn't so clear about the situation, it was probably the limit for Yu Xing not to go to great lengths for him.

Yun Si accepted Yu Xing's suggestion and went to look for the target painting again. He moved quickly through the corridor, hardly looking at the painting. This way of searching made Yu Xing have some guesses about the so-called "secret method".

"It's some kind of early warning or Spiritual Sense ability..." he murmured.

Fortunately, Yun Si's appearance was good news. It seemed that the other testers had already agreed to occupy a corridor and search first, so the testers in other corridors would not move to the corridor where Yun Si was before they had finished looking at the oil paintings. This gave Yu Xing a more relaxed environment for appreciating the paintings.

He looked at each painting one by one, carefully examining their techniques, and finally stopped in front of a rather ordinary river scene.

Yun Si had walked back and forth in front of this painting many times, as if he sensed something, but his attention was eventually drawn to other paintings. Yu Xing, however, stopped without hesitation and turned to say, "Brother Jiu, don't just stand there, come and look at this painting."

Zhao Yijiu stepped forward as instructed, trying to discern something from the painting.

A river.

A straight, calm river with its bottom invisible.

The river is painted a deep blue, with sloping embankments on both sides. An elderly man, whose face is obscured, is fishing.

The sky was a pale gray, the color of brain matter, barely illuminating this somewhat modern urban riverbank.

"The timeline of these paintings, like Dead Silent Island itself, is disrupted," he said. "This painting is modern."

"Well, we can work on the time issue later. Just look at this painting." Yu Xing pointed at the painting, "The figures and the river are clearly two separate things, but in this painting, they are blended together as one by the superb line work, looking exceptionally harmonious."

"Hmm." Zhao Yijiu followed Yu Xing's train of thought and indeed saw this characteristic.

The background of this painting is a common riverbank, quite ordinary, but the overall atmosphere is still oppressive. There is clearly no horror in the painting, but just staring at it can make you feel a sudden, inexplicable unease.

"Look at the fishing rod in the old man's hand. The fishing line is connected to the buoy in the middle of the river. The thing below the buoy is also drawn with faint lines. If you don't look carefully, you won't find what's hidden in the river." Yu Xing only had one spot. Zhao Yijiu squinted and indeed saw a faint, unknown object.

This thing isn't defined by dark colors, but by strange lines connected to the river's waves. With a very magical brushstroke, these lines are blended together to create a "visible" riverbed monster.

"So this is the painting?" Zhao Yijiu could only tell that the painting was indeed skillfully executed, but he couldn't conclude that it was a fake. He wasn't in his ghost form now and didn't have the same powerful perception as a ghost, so he couldn't sense the ghostly aura in the painting.

Yu Xing nodded, her tone very firm. "Yes, it's this painting. Take it down."

They had already asked Ning Feng what to do if they found a fake oil painting. Ning Feng said to just take it down and hand it over to the person in charge on the third floor.

The other ghost viewers didn't stop them, as if the ghosts themselves vaguely knew about it and that these dwarves had been given a special mission by the organizers.

Zhao Yijiu then reached out and pressed down on the frame of the oil painting.

"Why this painting?" Yun Si had already noticed their actions. He had only seen them lingering in front of the painting for too long and pointing at it, but now that he saw Zhao Yijiu reaching out to take the painting, he finally couldn't help but come over.

It was their own skill to find a fake painting and secure a spot, so Yun Si didn't intend to compete for it. He was just curious; he had also felt there was something wrong with this painting, but he couldn't get a clear answer no matter how much he looked at it. Coincidentally, there was another painting on the other side that caught his attention, so he went over there.

He was curious about how these two psychics had determined the painting was a fake. They didn't seem to have been attacked by ghosts, and there wasn't even any stiffness in their bodies, which meant they weren't hallucinating.

Since Yun Si asked this, Yu Xing didn't intend to hide it from him. After all, even if others knew his method of appraising paintings, they couldn't imitate it. "Crodir's colors are more sophisticated, and his lines are more fragmented. This painting doesn't match Crodir's level of line work."

Yun Si waited a while longer, but found that there was no follow-up to the sentence. Zhao Yijiu had already taken down the painting and was holding it in her hand, intending to leave with Yu Xing.

"That's it?" he asked again, somewhat incredulously. "Just because of these so-called lines, you can be sure there's a ghost in this painting?"

"That's the right way to authenticate paintings," Yu Xing smiled at him. "Paintings that don't conform to the painter's habits and abilities are obviously fakes. Isn't that easier than figuring out which painting contains a ghost? Besides, I asked Ning Feng about the rules carefully, and it seems the person in charge never said that paintings that aren't fakes don't contain ghosts. If you want to judge the authenticity of a painting by the aura of a ghost, you'll probably have to put in a little more effort."

Yes, even authentic paintings can contain ghostly elements!

Yun Si suddenly realized that the reason he found the other painting more suspicious was because his warning system had alerted him. His title was Prey, and he had an innate sense of enemies and danger. So this sense led him to the genuine painting, but did not give him the correct answer.

Perhaps the traditional Chinese courtyard house he initially saw also harbored a ghost.

The ghosts in the authentic paintings don't come out to attack outsiders, but their hidden aura is beyond their control, continuously influencing the outsiders' judgment.

For outsiders to definitively determine if a painting is a forgery, they must provoke the ghost within the painting in various ways, causing it to attack them. Only by being attacked can they obtain a definitive answer. In this respect, the design of this instance is very cunning, meaning that they will inevitably experience an attack from the ghost every time they find a painting.

Yun Si was speechless for a moment. No wonder the search for the fake took three plus five, a total of eight hours. All of that time was for them to try and make mistakes.

But I'm so envious... A teammate who can really authenticate oil paintings would save him so much trouble...

He pursed his lips and followed the two out of the corridor. After all, if Yu Xin's painting really was a fake, then the entire corridor would be useless.

Nine painters, five forgeries: it would be reasonable to assume that each of the five painters created one painting. It's unlikely that Crodir alone would have two paintings.

Of course, no one says it can't be done this way, but everyone tacitly agrees that it's not quite reasonable. At least, they'll only go back to the exhibition area of the painter whose work has already been found to be a forgery if they really can't find it anymore.

Yun Si didn't follow too closely, but turned and went to Area B. At the last moment before leaving Area A, he seemed to sense something and looked back. He found two people who were also experience testers and were not very familiar with him whispering to each other. Their eyes were on the backs of Yu Xing and Zhao Yi.

They've been discovered.

It was only a matter of time before the two strategists were discovered, and things were already in a relatively good state. After all, they had even found a painting, although they hadn't yet handed it over to the person in charge on the third floor for evaluation. But Yu Xing's confident tone made Yun Si feel that the painting should be the correct answer.

But judging from the situation, those two strategists seem to be in trouble.

Yun Si concealed himself on a shelf displaying ancient armor and observed the situation in Area A. He saw two companions from the experience tester team whispering to each other for a while before following them. One of them carried a small Quill Pen.

He knew about that pen. This person was one of the luckiest members of the experience tester team. His title was Chef. There was a sacrifice around their spawn point. After searching for two hours, Chef actually managed to get his own sacrifice. Now, Chef could be considered the most confident person in the entire experience tester team.

The chef's ability is cooking—cooking living and dead things, cooking the souls of the living and the dead. That Quill Pen, whose form was transformed from some sacrificial offering, doesn't seem weak at all. With the chef targeting them, Yu Xing and Zhao Yijiu are unlikely to have an easy time.

After thinking for a moment, Yun Si followed behind the chef and his fellow chefs, deciding to watch the excitement first and lend a hand if necessary.

The chef wasn't good at attacking, but in this situation, having a sacrifice gave him a significant advantage: he didn't need to go to great lengths to agitate the ghosts, since he already had a sacrifice in hand.

The offerings themselves are inseparable from the aura of the ghosts. If offerings are used, this aura will become even stronger. If the chef uses offerings near Yu Xing and Zhao Yijiu, it is very likely that the ghost in the fake painting will be activated. Once the ghost "sees" Zhao Yijiu holding it, it will inevitably launch an attack.

To be honest, he was also a little curious. Yun Si even thought about letting the chef have his way. He wanted to see how the ghosts in the fake paintings attacked. He could guess from the portraits that the people in them attacked directly, but what about the landscapes? Did they suck people in?

Normally, anyone trying to obtain a fake painting would be attacked, so it wouldn't matter if Yu Xing was attacked once, right? He should be able to get out of trouble, right?

Yun Si, who was watching the spectacle, was very happy. No matter which way it unfolded, he could get a lot of information. Yu Xing's Broken Mirror Squad was an invisible ally of their team, but that was also something that happened during the time confusion. In the current timeline, both sides only knew that they had met each other and helped each other. The Broken Mirror Squad was far from reaching the level of strength that Yu Fengchen had seen before. This was what Yu Fengchen told them after returning from the Tomb Palace.

So he also wanted to see how quickly Yu Xing and Cold Wine could resolve the problem.

With this in mind, he followed the people in front of him to the staircase between the second and third floors. Because they were quite far away, he could clearly see that Cold Wine and Yu Xing exchanged glances, as if they had already discovered the enemy with ulterior motives following behind them.

Just then, the chef took action.

The chef suddenly approached the strategist in front of him, the Quill Pen in his hand transforming into a real feather, which swept towards Zhao Yijiu with a certain purpose. A drop of bright red blood dripped from the feather, and in an instant, the riverbank oil painting in his hand began to tremble. Zhao Yijiu looked down and, to his surprise, gripped the painting even tighter.

Yu Xing became even more arrogant, laughing out loud, "I thought you guys had been following me for so long but hadn't dared to make a move. You finally couldn't hold back anymore."

The chef, a middle-aged man, knew he had already been exposed when he heard Yu Xing say that, but he wasn't panicked. "Isn't your intention to get me close so that the ghosts will include me in their attack range?"

He sneered, "That suits me perfectly. Only those who withstand the ghostly attack are the winners. I'll take this painting."

The trembling of the oil painting grew stronger and stronger until finally, everyone heard the sound of splashing water.

Yun Si's face stiffened.

How could he hear it from so far away?

The painting's attack range couldn't be that wide; he just wanted to be a spectator!

The next second, his vision blurred as he, who had only wanted to watch the excitement, felt the surrounding air visibly altered. By the time he breathed in fresh air, the atmosphere had changed.

The sound of a flowing river and the robust laughter of elderly people filled my ears.

Before him stretched a long, clear blue river, but the drafty feeling between his legs caused Yun Si's expression to contort for a moment.

He looked down and didn't see his feet directly, but instead saw... a long white dress.

A thunderous sound seemed to strike his mind, and he incredulously reached out and pinched his chest.

He also has chest.