Human skin

The missing person was one of the men who had entered the Instance on Yi Jing's team.

Everyone else ate lunch with their heads down, weighed down by their own worries, seemingly oblivious. Yi Jing glanced around as if casually surveying the room and met Li Xian's eyes.

A few seconds later, he spoke up.

"Feng Tao, the guy I brought with me. Have any of you seen him?"

Everyone shook their heads, only then realizing that someone was missing.

Yi Jing put on a troubled expression. "That's strange. I haven't seen him all morning either."

Zhang Guangding swallowed. "Could he have..."

He didn't finish, but everyone understood what he meant.

Yi Jing looked at Li Xian and extended an invitation. "If you don't mind, could you come look for him with me?"

Li Xian frowned and put down his glass of water. "Wouldn't splitting up be more efficient?"

"I was thinking we'd be safer with more people. Someone suddenly going missing is pretty unsettling, after all. We'll feel better once we find him, right? If anyone else wants to join me, I won't turn them down."

"Well... you have a point."

Some of the others began to waver.

Yi Jing seized the opportunity to press further. "Besides, this Instance's map is pretty small. Searching the whole place won't take long."

In the end, everyone agreed to Yi Jing's request except Li Xian, Song Qingzhang, and the man who called himself "Zhang San," who had yet to respond.

Li Xian cupped the glass on the table in both hands and lightly rubbed its rim.

"All right."

"Are we really going to agree?" Song Qingzhang asked, a little worried.

Li Xian nodded.

With everyone present, he was curious to see what tricks the other man could pull.

They searched the first floor first, but found no sign of him.

Because of the second floor's layout, a glance was almost enough to tell whether anyone was there. After a quick look, they focused their search on the third floor.

"Maybe he's been in his room the whole time," Liang Pei suggested.

But things didn't go as they hoped. Feng Tao's door was shut tight, and there was no response when they knocked.

"Ah, looks like he's not here..."

Liang Pei had barely finished speaking when Li Xian reached toward the door and tried turning the handle.

Click.

It opened.

Yi Jing pushed the door open, exposing the scene inside to everyone.

Feng Tao's corpse lay before the portrait in the room.

He lay faceup, his body from the chest upward covered in densely packed, elongated wounds that went deep enough to expose bone.

The split flesh curled outward, and blood had sprayed all around him, making his whole body look like a burst of bloody petals.

The newer players, who had cleared few Instances, were stunned by the graphic carnage.

Yi Jing stole a glance at Li Xian. His expression hadn't changed, and although the young man who always followed him looked somewhat pale, he was still relatively composed.

He silently confirmed his suspicion that the two were "veteran players" who had cleared quite a few Instances.

Everyone cautiously entered the room. Once they were close enough to see the dead man's face clearly, the girl in the short skirt's knees buckled despite herself, and she braced against the wall.

Feng Tao had died with his eyes open. Dozens of cuts crisscrossed his face, one running vertically across his eye socket and slicing his eyeball in half.

A short knife lay on the floor not far from his hand, its blade stained with blood.

Pale-faced, the girl in the short skirt pressed harder against the wall, only to discover that everyone was looking in her direction.

She looked up in confusion and realized that the wall she was leaning against was the one with the portrait.

Like Feng Tao's flesh, the portrait was now covered in cuts, so badly damaged that its original image was unrecognizable.

The girl in the short skirt shuddered and hurried away from the wall.

Liang Pei could hardly bear to look at the corpse on the floor. Though he hadn't spoken much with Feng Tao, they had still been teammates. He was about to step back and make room when Li Xian moved a few steps closer, his gaze shifting between the portrait and Feng Tao's corpse.

"Did you find something?" Liang Pei asked.

"The cuts on the painting seem to line up with the ones on his face."

Hearing this, Liang Pei fought his discomfort and looked back and forth between them several times.

"I think you're right..."

The cuts were so haphazard that most people wouldn't think to compare them at first, yet he had noticed.

Liang Pei stole a glance at Li Xian, only then noticing how unusually calm this quiet player had been from beginning to end.

With his profile turned toward Liang Pei, he studied the portrait on the wall intently, his thick eyelashes fluttering twice.

Wait, why did I have time to notice that?

Just then, someone stepped forward, blocking Liang Pei's view of Li Xian.

"What's left to look at in that portrait?"

Mr. "Zhang San" planted himself right beside Li Xian.

Without turning his head, Li Xian frowned and asked, "Look at this painting... doesn't it seem like there's no one in it?"

"It's torn up like this, and you can still tell whether there's someone in it?"

Despite his skepticism, he still took a careful look at the badly shredded canvas.

Li Xian reached toward the portrait and straightened the torn section of paper that had curled up in the middle.

Sure enough, the figure in it was gone.

He turned to say something, only for a shadow to dart out from behind the portrait!

Li Xian's pupils contracted, and at that moment, he stumbled forward!

Just as he was about to collide with the unidentified creature darting out from beneath the bed, the River God Doll appeared in his hand. He was about to aim the item and throw it when the shadow abruptly veered away, lunging toward the girl in the short skirt by the wall.

"Aah!!!"

The girl in the short skirt screamed at the sudden turn of events. Only then did Li Xian see what had darted out-

It was a flat sheet of human skin. It seemed to have been folded up behind the torn canvas, but now it had unfolded completely and plastered itself onto the girl in the short skirt with astonishing speed.

Her brief scream caught in her throat, and her entire body rapidly shriveled like a deflating ball.

"Run!"

No one knew who shouted first. While the skin clung to the girl in the short skirt, everyone streamed out. By the time the last person escaped the room and shut the door, she had become an exceedingly thin sheet of human skin.

"Lock... we have to lock this door! We can't let that thing out!"

"But none of us has a key!"

In the end, Yi Jing brought a chair and wedged it against the door. They watched from a distance for a while, only breathing a sigh of relief when there was no movement inside, then hurried away and ran downstairs to the first floor.

"That scared me to death..." Song Qingzhang patted his chest. "Why did you get so close to the painting? Don't do that again!"

"I actually kept a safe distance."

"Huh? But..."

Everything had been chaotic. By the time Song Qingzhang came to his senses, all he saw was Li Xian about to press right up against the portrait.

"...Never mind. Thank goodness that skin didn't attack you."

Li Xian paused, then explained, "Someone pushed me."