The Dangerous Portrait

The man seemed to have had his soul stolen by the portrait before him. No matter how anyone called to him, he gave no response.

Someone in the crowd tried to go over and snap him out of it with a pat, but Yi Jing quickly stopped him.

"Stay out of it unless you want to die."

His warning worked. The person who had wanted to approach hesitated, then quickly stepped back. No one else intended to intervene either. They stared tensely at the scene before them.

A figure flashed past Li Xian.

He turned and saw the tall man retreating a little farther away, his face expressionless.

There was not the slightest fear in his expression. He seemed to have simply taken a few steps back.

A terrified voice drew Li Xian's attention back.

"The portrait... that portrait moved!"

Everyone looked toward the portrait in front of the slightly plump man. The hand that the woman in the painting had held loosely against her chest shifted slightly, turning its palm toward them.

Then the fingers of her loosely clenched fist began to unfold one by one-

One,

Two,

Three,

Four-

Her thumb unfolded last. The painted woman's open hand kept reaching forward, then extended out of the painting!

The pale hand, its knuckles sharply defined, suddenly seized the man's collar and dragged him toward the painting.

Everyone watched helplessly as the man's feet lifted off the floor.

His head "melted" into the painting.

As more of his body entered the painting, they heard an indescribable sound.

It sounded as though something were rolling and being squeezed, mixed with a gurgling sound of water that sent chills down their spines.

A wet squelch rang out, and everyone finally understood where the sound had come from.

The man's body was not "melting" into the painting. It was being squeezed into it, forced from three dimensions into two. The tissues inside him were like toothpaste in a tube being squeezed relentlessly from the bottom, bulging and swelling more and more-

Until they finally burst through his belly.

A bright red mixture of solids and liquid sprayed out, staining the canvas crimson and catching the nearest players off guard as it splashed onto them.

Then his ruptured skin was dragged into the painting too.

[Holy shit, I think I remember what kind of instance this is!]

The player's death stirred a memory in one of the viewers:

[I watched a C-rank instance ages ago, and the people in it died exactly like this!]

[So how does this instance actually work?]

[I don't know. Every player died before day five.]

[A total-wipe difficulty? You don't see that much in the Novice Zone. Can the streamer handle it?]

Cheng Xin glanced at the chat, then picked up the notebook with "Lin Shiming" written on its cover. With a quick rustle of pages, he flipped to the entry for "Miss Dolly's Portrait Gallery."

There were only two entries, both extremely brief, recording the number of players in the instance and the corresponding death toll for each day.

The first entry listed twelve players. Two died on the first day, another two on the second, and the death toll rose to four on the third. Then, on the fifth day... everyone died, and the instance ended.

The second entry was even stranger. There were nine players, and not a single one died during the first five days. Then came the sixth day, the day of the exhibition...

A total wipe.

Faced with such strange death records, Cheng Xin frowned and uncrossed his legs.

Then the notebook was pulled from his hand.

Cheng Xin looked up and saw Lin Shiming standing in front of him.

"Oh, President Lin. All done?"

Lin Shiming nodded. "How's that player I asked you to keep an eye on?"

"He only just entered an instance."

"Which instance?"

Cheng Xin rose from the sofa and tapped the notebook resting open in Lin Shiming's palm. It was still on the page he had turned to.

"This one."

Lin Shiming was silent for a moment, then raised his hand and opened the livestream.

"Urgh... urgh-" The girl in the short skirt was so frightened by the scene that she forgot to scream. Instead, her legs gave out and she collapsed to the floor, vomiting.

An outgoing young man in a tracksuit stood among the group, his legs trembling involuntarily. He turned toward Yi Jing, his panicked voice carrying a hint of accusation. "This is what you called 'not that dangerous'?"

He had only cleared one instance before agreeing to team up with Yi Jing at the latter's invitation. Yi Jing had assured him that teaming up with a veteran would let him enter higher-ranked instances, which would not be much more dangerous than beginner instances but would offer twice the points. So he had accepted.

But compared with the F-rank instance he had cleared, the scene before him was far more than just a little more dangerous!

Yi Jing did not look too good either, but he did not show his emotions as openly as the others. He turned to the man questioning him and said:

"Liang Pei, don't worry. As long as you listen to me, you won't be in any danger."

"But..."

"Shut up."

"If I hadn't stopped you just now, that hand would have dragged you in too."

The man named Liang Pei fell silent, fear washing over him as the realization belatedly sank in.

He asked, a little lost, "Then... what should we do now? And this pool of blood..."

The man's blood had sprayed all over the floor, right near the top of the stairs, blocking their way downstairs.

"Go back to your rooms."

Yi Jing's reply was curt.

For now, that was indeed their best option.

Everyone opened the doors to their respective rooms, and Li Xian entered his own as well.

The lighting inside was much brighter than in the hallway. Warm yellow light fell across the soft, snow-white bed, while elegant pale blue floor-length curtains covered an entire wall, giving the room a decidedly cozy feel.

Compared with his lodgings in Stone River Village, it was several notches cleaner and more comfortable.

But that lovely scene was soon shattered.

As soon as Li Xian approached the bed, he noticed a portrait hanging on the wall facing its foot, exactly like the ones in the hallway.

"Jing... Jing!"

The three players Yi Jing had brought along ran out in a panic and began knocking on his door.

Li Xian's room was right next to Yi Jing's, and he had not fully closed his door after entering, so he easily heard the conversation between Yi Jing and the three players when Yi Jing opened his door.

"What's got you all so worked up?"

"A painting... there's a painting in the room too!" said one of the players, Zhang Guangding, in alarm.

Halfway through speaking, he sensed that something was wrong. He turned to look and discovered that the blood near the stairs and on the walls had vanished at some point. Only the portrait remained covered in a horrifying layer of blood.

Only two or three minutes had passed between their entering their rooms and coming back out.

"This... this..."

Yi Jing spoke as though it were nothing unusual. "It happens all the time. Once you've cleared more instances, you'll get used to it."

The discovery did not make them feel any better. Instead, it frightened them even more.

"What should we do?"

The player named Feng Tao was clearly the least able to handle stress of the three. His face had gone pale with fear, and he kept asking Yi Jing what they should do.

A flicker of impatience crossed Yi Jing's eyes. Then he smiled and said, "Why don't you try taking the paintings off the walls?"

"Will... will that work?" Feng Tao asked doubtfully.

"How will you know unless you try? Besides, then you won't have to worry about making eye contact with the paintings."

"All right, it's getting late. Go back to your rooms."

In the end, the three novice players he had brought into the instance followed Yi Jing's advice. Trembling with fear, they took the portraits off the walls and placed them under their beds.

After their conversation ended, Li Xian silently closed his own door.

All right, what should I do now?