[That's the problem with the Novice Zone. The instances may be easy, but there's always someone trying to screw over their teammates.]
[Once you reach the Advanced Zone, everyone's seen that trick, so nobody bothers anymore... though you still run into some dirty tricks sometimes.]
[Have you checked Yi Jing's perspective? He's already started talking people into getting themselves killed... tsk, tsk.]
[He claims he's helping newbies, but he's actually recruiting cannon fodder to test the death conditions. I can't stand people like that.]
[But aside from moving the portraits, there should be another condition everyone's triggered, right?]
[There aren't any clues at all. Has anyone figured out what the condition is?]
[Nope.]
[Same.]
[+1]
Watching the scrolling comments, Cheng Xin had to admit that the information available wasn't enough for him to deduce why the number of fingers had increased. Still, he had a vague guess about what had caused one of the deaths recorded in the notebook.
"Is the condition that stops the portraits from reaching out really that hard to find? So hard that nobody discovered it even by day six, and the whole team got wiped out?"
Lin Shiming said, "Put it this way: I think this instance is about as difficult as a B-rank instance in the Advanced Zone... maybe even A-rank."
Li Xian and Song Qingzhang went up to the second floor.
This floor seemed to be an exhibition hall. Tall stools displaying classical ceramic vases decorated the four corners, but there were no other furnishings on the floor.
The exhibition hall occupied the entire second floor. Its floor, walls, and ceiling were all pure white, making the already empty space feel even colder and more desolate.
Li Xian had identified it as an "exhibition hall" because, at its far end, five reddish-brown frames hung on the pristine white wall.
There were no pictures or sheets of paper in them, just five empty frames.
The two of them made a circuit of the empty exhibition hall before their gazes finally settled on a sign attached to the wall.
It read:
"Opening time: September 9, 2002, 12:00 noon."
"2002?" Song Qingzhang asked in confusion. "Time inside the instance is different from outside?"
"This instance probably takes place in an earlier period."
Li Xian wasn't surprised by this. After clearing Stone River Village, he had noticed that the Player Center didn't display a date anywhere.
The light screen only showed the time in a twenty-four-hour format. Perhaps years, months, and days no longer meant anything here.
After searching the second floor, they returned to the third. This wasn't the mansion's top floor; another staircase led upward at the end of the corridor.
However, an iron door blocked the entrance to the stairs.
Li Xian tried it and found that the door had rusted completely shut. Brute force alone wouldn't open it, so he had to give up.
They went back down to the first floor. The mistress of the house had disappeared, leaving only a half-finished cup of coffee on the coffee table.
Li Xian dipped his little finger into the coffee and touched it to the tip of his tongue.
Bitter.
It wasn't the bitterness of ordinary coffee. It tasted as though several packets of concentrated coffee powder had been mixed together, so bitter it was almost astringent.
"Aren't you afraid it's poisoned?"
A cold voice reached his ears.
Li Xian turned and saw the tall, "unsociable" man.
The man stood opposite them with his arms folded.
For some inexplicable reason, Li Xian found something familiar about him.
He shifted his gaze to the man's face.
But he really had never seen him before.
"What's your name?"
The man paused, then replied, "Zhang San."
Li Xian: "..."
Song Qingzhang: "..."
The man, after seeing their expressions: "..."
[Come on, dude, at least put some effort into your fake name! What the hell is Zhang San?!]
[It's so fake that I'm starting to think it might actually be real.]
[I can't with this guy. Now I have to find out his real name...]
[Huh? Why can't I find his stream?]
[That's not right. Isn't it in this instance's section... holy shit, it really isn't there!]
[What's going on? Is this another skill?]
[Whose skill would be that useless? Hiding their stream?]
The three stared at one another in silence for a while. Song Qingzhang was the first to crack and lowered his head. He could barely suppress the upward twitch of his lips, leaving his expression contorted.
The man before them stood perfectly straight, looking not the least bit guilty. Finally, Li Xian replied, "Oh, then my name's Li Si."
"Pfft."
In the end, Song Qingzhang couldn't hold it in.
After saying that, Li Xian stopped paying attention to this strange "Mr. Zhang" and turned his gaze to the full-length portrait instead.
Song Qingzhang sounded a little worried. "Is it safe to stare at that painting?"
Li Xian said, "It's... different from the paintings in the corridor."
It felt like an ordinary oil painting.
Everyone must have seen this conspicuous portrait on their first day in the instance, so staring at it probably wouldn't cause any problems.
The woman in the painting wore an elegant smile. Both her appearance and her bearing were identical to those of Dolly, the mistress of the house. After staring at her for a while, Li Xian finally realized what had been bothering him.
Although the woman in the painting wore a long red dress, her bare arms and ankles were exposed. Dolly, however, had every inch of her skin covered by fabric, without even a glimpse of her neck showing.
As he pondered this, Li Xian suddenly noticed a few oddly colored patches in a corner of the portrait.
He leaned closer to those patches and narrowed his eyes, examining the cluster of colors.
"Painted... when... Miss Du Sha... was eighteen."
Li Xian barely managed to decipher the nearly illegible writing. Beneath it was another line of even blurrier, smaller text.
"98... 9... 9."
This line was a string of numbers, but he couldn't make out exactly what the first two digits were.
Judging by the traces, both lines had originally been written on the painting, but they had been smudged before the paint dried completely. Since their color was similar to the background, nothing looked strange from a distance; they simply appeared to be flecks in the background.
"Miss Du Sha?" Song Qingzhang asked, leaning closer to check the writing himself. "...It really does say Sha. But didn't the mistress call herself Dolly? Could the woman in this portrait be someone else?"
Li Xian said, "And this date-the exhibition also opens on September ninth."
Questions were gradually surfacing, but a voice interrupted them.
"My three guests, what are you looking at?"
Song Qingzhang jolted and turned around. Dolly stood before them, her red lips curved upward, but there was no amusement in her eyes.
When had she arrived? Why hadn't there been any footsteps?
Then she took two steps closer. "This close up isn't exactly the best angle for admiring a painting, is it?"
Dolly's tone darkened with the question. Her gaze fixed on Li Xian, as though she could hardly wait to tear him apart.
Li Xian met Dolly's gaze, only to see her expression stiffen. Then she glanced around rather unnaturally.
For an instant, she seemed to have felt a spine-chilling sensation...
As though something dangerous had set its sights on her.
Yet she found nothing when she looked around, so Dolly dismissed it as her imagination and turned her gaze back to Li Xian.
"Why aren't you answering me?"
Li Xian paused, then said, "I think a good painting can be appreciated from any angle."
At this, Dolly raised an eyebrow with interest.
"Of course this painting looks beautiful as a whole from a distance, but up close, you can also see its delicate brushwork and exquisite details. The patterns on these shoes, for example, are rendered wonderfully, aren't they?"
"Hehe..."
Dolly laughed softly.
This time, her eyes curved with her smile. She gave Li Xian's ear a satisfied pinch. "Go eat."
Li Xian breathed a sigh of relief and immediately turned away from the painting. He didn't notice that, after releasing his earlobe, the mistress behind him frowned and surveyed their surroundings again.
People gradually took their seats around the dining table. First came Li Xian and the other two, followed by two less noticeable players who weren't close to Yi Jing. Finally, Yi Jing arrived with his three followers and sat down.
The girl in the short skirt, a complete newcomer, had also joined Yi Jing's group. But counting everyone up...
One person was missing from the dining table.
Before you continue