Yi Jing

The clock in the bedroom ticked its way to nine o'clock that evening.

The lights outside in the corridor abruptly went out.

Li Xian sat at the foot of the bed, his head lowered in silent thought.

Apart from the glimpse he had caught of the portrait on the wall when he entered the room, Li Xian had never deliberately looked at it again.

The man who had died had clearly triggered some condition, and that condition was most likely staring directly at the portrait for longer than a certain amount of time.

Li Xian did not know exactly how long that was. By the time he noticed, the man's eyes were already "glued" to the painting, staring unblinkingly as though bewitched.

So, to be safe, not looking at the portrait was the best choice.

But leaving the portrait hanging there in plain sight did feel dangerous.

After thinking for a while, Li Xian chose a compromise between "taking the portrait away" and "leaving it untouched."

He found a piece of clothing in the wardrobe and gently draped it over the portrait.

Once that was done, Li Xian turned off the light and lay down on the bed.

In the middle of the night, a rhythmic tapping woke him.

Tap, tap.

It was their hostess Dolly's high heels.

Her footsteps were very strange. Every two steps, she would fall silent for a while before taking another two.

The sound gradually drew closer.

The footsteps stopped beside his door.

Li Xian held his breath and strained his ears. After the footsteps stopped, a barely audible sound came from outside the door.

Swish, swish...

It sounded like something rubbing against a surface.

About a minute later, the rubbing stopped. Dolly's footsteps resumed, then halted outside the room next door.

Perhaps it was his imagination, but she seemed to linger considerably longer this time.

The intermittent footsteps continued to the end of the corridor, then returned at the same pace before finally fading out of earshot.

Li Xian breathed a sigh of relief. Just as he was about to go back to sleep, he suddenly caught sight of something.

In the dim room, a lifelike face stood out starkly against the white wall.

The clothing draped over the portrait had somehow fallen to the floor.

Even more strikingly, the figure in the painting now held up one finger.

Li Xian averted his gaze, a thin sheen of sweat forming on his palms.

Why?

Even something like that counted as breaking the "rules"?

Fortunately, the fingers on the canvas showed no sign of opening any further. They remained at "one," but Li Xian knew that was only temporary.

Li Xian made no further attempt to move the canvas. Instead, he turned over and closed his eyes.

Others, however, were not as calm as Li Xian.

Feng Tao opened his eyes and discovered that the painting he had shoved beneath the bed had somehow returned to the wall.

He quickly looked away, uneasily recalling what he had just seen.

That painting... had it been holding up one finger?

No, maybe I saw it wrong. The light was so dim at night, after all.

Right. I must be overthinking it.

Feng Tao desperately wanted to look up and check again, but the scene of the first man's death kept circling through his mind, leaving him too frightened to raise his head and give the painting another glance.

He wanted to go back to sleep, but the moment he closed his eyes, he felt a gaze fixed relentlessly on him.

It's that painting!

She's watching me!

Feng Tao screamed inwardly.

Driven by overwhelming unease, he slowly climbed out of bed and stood, keeping his head deeply bowed as he approached the canvas.

Once his fingers found the frame, he quickly shut his eyes, took the painting down, and laid it face down on the floor.

The sensation of being watched vanished.

"Hah... hah..."

Feng Tao panted, his heart pounding wildly as he shoved the painting beneath the bed again.

Yet when he closed his eyes, that inescapable feeling of being watched returned.

It's my imagination. Just my imagination...

He kept telling himself that as he curled up on the bed. After a few minutes, or perhaps a dozen or more, he opened his eyes a sliver.

The portrait appeared squarely in his sight, holding up two fingers.

The next morning, Feng Tao appeared before the others in a daze.

He had barely slept all night. More terrifying still, when he opened his eyes that morning, the number of fingers raised in the portrait had increased to three.

When all five fingers open, I'll die...

Feng Tao shuddered.

Yi Jing seemed to notice that something was wrong with Feng Tao and patted him on the back.

"Let's have breakfast first."

The breakfast their hostess Dolly had prepared was particularly elaborate and plentiful. Song Qingzhang enthusiastically popped a pastry into his mouth, only to frown after chewing twice.

"It's tasteless..."

After swallowing the food, he spoke quietly to Li Xian beside him.

Li Xian took a sip of the soup in his bowl.

That had no flavor either.

Or rather, the ingredients retained their own flavors, but no seasoning had been added.

He glanced at Dolly, who was sitting on the sofa.

She was not eating with them. Instead, she simply sat on the sofa, gazing intently at the full-length portrait on the hall wall that looked exactly like her, occasionally picking up the coffee on the coffee table for a sip.

Feng Tao turned to glance nervously at her, then asked in a low voice at the dining table, "The portraits in your rooms... what's happened to them?"

Everyone exchanged glances. None of them looked particularly well.

When no one answered, Yi Jing cleared his throat and said, "There must be a pattern to the changes in the portraits. We should share information and see whether we can find any useful clues."

Only then did someone at the table answer Feng Tao's question.

"The... the portrait in my room is holding up two fingers..." the woman in the short skirt said, her voice trembling.

After exchanging information, they discovered that everyone's portrait had raised at least one finger.

Five people's portraits were holding up two fingers, while three fingers... appeared only in Feng Tao's.

Upon learning that he alone had the highest count, Feng Tao began to turn pale.

"Yi Jing, wh-what should I do?"

Yi Jing set down his chopsticks. "Don't panic. How about this? After breakfast, we'll split up by floor to search for clues..."

"What did you do last night?"

A voice interrupted Yi Jing.

Yi Jing's brow twitched. He turned and found that the speaker was the best-looking male player.

Meeting Li Xian's gaze, Feng Tao answered instinctively, "I-I put the painting under the bed..."

"Only once?"

"...Twice."

Li Xian then asked the girl in the short skirt, "What about you?"

She replied, "I thought the portrait was too creepy, so I stuffed it into the wardrobe..."

Under Li Xian's questioning, everyone quickly discovered what they had in common-

They had taken the portraits down and put them somewhere else.

"So it seems taking the paintings off the walls is what makes the number of fingers increase. We'd better avoid touching the portraits without good reason," Yi Jing concluded, sounding surprised. Then he smiled at Li Xian as though offering praise. "You're very perceptive."

Li Xian remained silent.

He had not moved his portrait last night, so the conditions that caused it to raise a finger were probably broader than that.

To be safe, it was best not to do anything at all to the portraits in their rooms for now.

After breakfast, everyone split up to investigate the mansion.

"That guy called Yi Jing... something about him makes me uncomfortable," Song Qingzhang told Li Xian.

Although Yi Jing seemed gentle and harmless, Song Qingzhang could not shake the feeling that something was off.

Li Xian replied, "We'd better keep our distance from him."

Song Qingzhang nodded. "So you feel that way too?"

Li Xian was indeed wary of Yi Jing, but his wariness was not based on instinct alone.

"He was the one who suggested sharing information in the first place. But once everyone had reported the number of fingers in their rooms, he changed the subject to splitting up to search for clues."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Asking everyone what they did last night, finding what those actions had in common, and using that to work out what breaks the rules is an easy enough idea to come up with."

"But as an 'experienced player' taking the lead, he didn't do that."

"You mean... he did that on purpose?"

Li Xian nodded. "He only appeared to offer suggestions. In reality, he didn't provide any meaningful help."

"But what would he gain from that?"

"I don't know. Just be careful around him."