In this bottomless darkness, Ke Xun kept trying to sense his own existence, even having the illusion that his eyes had disappeared.
About three minutes passed, and the room returned to normal.
The diamond-shaped pattern had probably closed its eyes, so it hadn't noticed anything amiss.
The polka-dot pattern spoke Guo Lixia's voice: "What happened just now? Was there a power outage?"
"..." Sister Guo always had a way of leaving Ke Xun speechless.
The diamond-shaped pattern rolled over: "What's wrong?"
"Nothing, go to sleep." Ke Xun didn't want to cause excessive panic before falling asleep.
Apart from the two gray beds, the rest of the room was a deep, unfathomable black. Ke Xun didn't want to sleep on this black hole-like floor. He looked at the two women on the beds and finally lay down next to the polka-dot pattern.
Guo Lixia moved over: "Let's sleep side-by-side, it won't take up much space."
Ke Xun took the pillow Guo Lixia offered and lay down on his side at the other end of the bed. When vision is limited, other senses become exceptionally sensitive, such as smell. Ke Xun sensed a faint smell of paint in the air, devoid of any sign of life.
Soon, Guo Lixia's snoring filled the room.
"So noisy..." the diamond-patterned figure on the other bed muttered a few words before falling silent.
Ke Xun was wide awake. Both beds faced the window, and Ke Xun slept on the other end, facing the window.
In the dead of night, the window was a silhouette.
The light gray window frame with its intricate patterns looked like a large, dark blue cloth, the night outside paler than the darkness inside.
Ke Xun couldn't understand what those "three black minutes" meant. What kind of power could make all living beings completely merge into the night, or perhaps into another world?
The room temperature was comfortable, and there were no blankets provided, so in the darkness, the three patterns representing the three people stood out starkly in black and white.
The white-and-black-dot pattern on Guo Jie's body rose and fell with her snoring, while the narrow diamond pattern belonging to Xin Beibei remained motionless, like a decorative wallpaper.
Ke Xun slowly drifted off to sleep; the silhouette-like window created a monotonous hypnotic effect, as if everything before him would become a painting, which, if preserved properly, could be passed down for centuries.
Because of the alertness he had maintained in the previous paintings, Ke Xun seemed to keep one eye open even in his sleep—especially since Mu Yiran was no longer beside him, and he had lost an inexplicable sense of dependence and responsibility.
So, when the room plunged into complete darkness again, Ke Xun suddenly woke up.
First, he discovered that the silhouette-like window was gone, the polka-dot pattern of Guo Lixia beside him was gone, Xin Beibei on the bed was gone, and his own wavy pattern had vanished as if splashed with thick ink.
The only consolation was that Guo Lixia's intermittent snoring still rose and fell realistically in the room.
Everyone was there, just concealed by the sudden darkness.
If flowing water has a source, and light has a source, then darkness must also have its origin. In Ke Xun's imagination, the source of darkness was something like an ink sac, which would spray out whenever needed, staining the world black.
Ke Xun remained motionless in the darkness, carefully using his hearing and smell to distinguish the differences in this world. So when a corner of the window suddenly appeared in the darkness, Ke Xun almost screamed.
The silhouette-like window suddenly revealed a corner of intricate patterns in the darkness, then more and more patterns appeared, like magical plants growing in the dark, gradually revealing half of the window, and then almost the entire window.
Everything in the room reappeared: two gray beds, and three figures with different patterns on the beds.
Ke Xun's eyes were fixed on the window. If he wasn't mistaken, the so-called source of darkness should be coming from the window.
The window never fully appeared; the middle section was the same darkness as the room, this darkness sometimes widened and sometimes narrowed, slowly changing.
Ke Xun felt as if something was blocking the window, but due to his limited vision, he couldn't determine whether the black object was inside or outside the window.
The darkness around the window gradually narrowed, eventually forming a final black peak.
The complete window finally appeared, but Ke Xun noticed that the pattern on the window was different from before.
This change in pattern still occurred in the middle section of the window. Ke Xun blinked; his eyes were a little sore from concentrating so much. Upon closer inspection, it seemed that many other patterns were hidden within the window lattice design. Ke Xun tried to discern the shapes of these other patterns, but because they were all black and white, it ultimately became dizzying.
This complex pattern, like the black band from before, constantly changed in width, but unlike that naturally smooth mass of black, it always seemed to be in danger of collapsing.
Ke Xun mustered his courage and quietly got out of bed, trying to see the pattern more clearly. Finally, he vaguely saw some crescent-shaped patterns through the gaps in the curtain lattice—small crescent moons, densely packed throughout the gaps in the window lattice.
Ke Xun felt dizzy from looking at it. When he returned to bed, the complex pattern finally disappeared.
It was certain that the pattern was outside the window lattice; by extension, the darkness he had just experienced must have been outside the window as well.
Could something have passed by the window? Judging from its trajectory, it moved horizontally from right to left, so the next window it passed through would be the purple room next to the blue room on the left—Mu Yiran and Wei Dong's room.
As for where its starting and ending points were, that remained unknown…
In any case, the room had returned to its original state.
Ke Xun felt like he had experienced a night like an Oscar-winning animated short film.
When they opened their eyes in the morning, everyone was a little unaccustomed to the vibrant colors. Xin Beibei was the first to get up, patting her azure pillow and neatly placing it on the bedside table.
Xin Beibei's white dress had a beautiful sky-blue diamond pattern, which complemented the golden shadow at her feet.
The familiar music rang out again, and the NPC's sweet voice arrived as promised: "Good morning, everyone! Welcome to the lobby on the first floor to enjoy a delicious breakfast! After breakfast, please continue to enjoy your work. Today's task is still storing three large jars of berries! Please remember, do not contaminate the color!" The NPC seemed to pause for a moment, then suddenly changed to a peculiar tone: "Of course, you can freely enter and exit the room that has lost its color, please feel free."
Ke Xun's heart sank, and he hurriedly got out of bed and put on his navy blue cloth shoes: "Everyone, get up quickly, something might have happened outside."
Sure enough, many people in the lobby were gathered in front of a door, their faces gloomy.
This door was the red door in the middle of the five doors, but now, the door that should have been a vibrant red had turned a lifeless grayish-white.
In this red room lived He Yu and Zhang Tianwei, who had broken the rules last night.
Qin Ci stepped forward, preparing to open the door.
Xin Beibei screamed: "Don't wander into rooms! This door is too strange!"
Shi Zhendong approached his girlfriend to reassure her, "The NPC already said that doors that have lost their color are freely accessible."
Qin Ci had already pushed the door open, and the first to enter were Ke Xun, Mu Yiran, and several other "veteran members" who had experienced the painting process. Shi Zhendong followed closely behind, instructing his girlfriend, "You girls wait at the door, don't come in."
Xin Beibei obediently stayed at the door, but Guo Lixia went in without a second thought, followed by Mi Wei and Ye Ningchen.
The room quickly erupted in terrified screams from the women.
Xin Beibei trembled in fear in the hall, moving further and further away from the gray-white door.
If she had dared to go in, she would have discovered that not only had the door lost its color—the entire room had become pale and empty, including the corpse lying on the bed.
He Yu's body was almost blending into the pale sheets; his eyes were open, even his eyeballs had become transparent like glass marbles, and his hair and eyelashes were like plaster casts of human form art, completely turned a dilapidated gray-white.
Several students couldn't hold back their tears; their sobs contained sadness, but even more so, fear.
Guo Lixia slowly leaned closer to group leader Ke Xun: "Is this a dummy?"
Ke Xun: "..."
Mi Wei was the first to stop crying: "Where's Senior Tianwei? Where is he?"
Yes, this room was supposed to house two people, but now only He Yu's body had been found, and Zhang Tianwei was nowhere to be seen.
Ye Ningchen wiped her red eyes: "Let's hurry and find Senior Zhang! Finding him should reveal the truth! Could it be that Senior Zhang witnessed all this and was captured by someone?"
Everyone thought Ye Ningchen's analysis was too naive, but they couldn't bear to expose it.
Ke Xun suddenly said, "Xiao Ye is right, Zhang Tianwei was probably dragged away by someone."
Mu Yiran's deep eyes met Ke Xun's: "You also noticed the strangeness at the window last night?"
Ke Xun nodded and asked everyone, "Does anyone remember what the pattern on Zhang Tianwei's clothes was like?"
As expected of art students, these students were very sensitive to patterns. Everyone said, "His clothes had a moon pattern, a crescent moon, red."
Guo Lixia couldn't help but complain, "According to the old saying, a red moon in the sky means demons are coming."
Although everyone knew that a red moon was a natural phenomenon, they were all a little wary of Guo Lixia's statement. After all, in ancient China, a blood moon was indeed considered unlucky, and in some European legends, a red moon could awaken mysterious dark forces.
Zhu Haowen said directly, "I don't think last night's death was related to the pattern on the clothes. The premise is obvious: someone broke the rules in this room. The deceased not only wandered around the room but also didn't wash his hands."
The newcomers fell silent, witnessing for the first time the price of disobeying the rules.
Miao Zipeng mustered his courage and looked at "He Yu" on the bed: "Don't you all think the state of the corpse is strange? Just like that auntie said, it looks like a mannequin. Actually, the mannequin description isn't accurate either; the corpse looks more like a two-dimensional person—it has completely lost its shadows!"
As soon as he said this, everyone mustered their courage and began to observe the corpse. No wonder they felt uncomfortable with the glaring whiteness earlier, but due to some psychological factor, they didn't want to look at the corpse for long. Now it seemed that the corpse had lost all three-dimensional shadows, as if it were some unexpected anomaly, existing in a different dimension from everything around it.