Chapter 224: The Abnormal Players
Xu Huo looked back at Pan Siming, but Pan Siming smiled at him and instead studied the Portrait Painting they had just seen.
"Is there something wrong with that painting?" Fan Shiji asked hesitantly. "Did we miss something?"
"I didn't see anything, anyway," Xu Huo said. "There are so many paintings here. Even if one is fake, they wouldn't put it right by the entrance."
"You have a point." Fan Shiji nodded, then paused before adding, "We'll be faster if we split up."
As he spoke, he discreetly made a hand signal, indicating that he would go check on the others' progress.
Xu Huo didn't stop him. He took his time lighting a cigarette and looked over the paintings one by one.
"Got another one? Give me a cigarette." The leather-clad woman who had left earlier came up beside him.
Xu Huo handed her the pack and even offered to light it for her, but the leather-clad woman took a cigarette and waved him off. "I have a Lighter. Thanks."
After getting her cigarette, she left.
Xu Huo continued looking at the paintings.
The situation was roughly as the man in the headscarf had described. Of the eighty-two paintings, sixty-one depicted something, though their types varied. There were oil paintings, sketches, and even a few photos. The subjects were just as varied: portraits, group photos, objects, and landscapes. Their styles also differed greatly. Some lacked color, their black-and-white tones emphasizing a sense of oppression, while others were vivid and richly colored, the hues intense and glaring.
In short, these sixty-one paintings displayed the bizarre in all kinds of ways, and each one had an Electronic Timer beneath it. The countdowns ranged from five hundred hours to two hundred hours.
There were also twenty-one empty Picture