The young man named Xiao Kai, who was more outgoing, seemed unable to bear the silence. He pulled Tian Yang aside and whispered, "Do you know those two?"
Tian Yang nodded slightly.
"Have you had a grudge against them?" Xiao Kai had already noticed that the three of them looked a little off.
Tian Yang pursed his lips, looked up at him, and whispered, "Don't ask anything yet. I'll tell you in detail after we leave here. Also... our relationship... don't... don't let them find out yet."
Xiao Kai looked at him, then at Ke Xun and Wei Dong, before turning back to Tian Yang, lowering his voice even further: "I understand, don't worry."
"Mm." Tian Yang seemed preoccupied and only gave a soft reply.
Fortunately, not much time passed. The white light finally came on again, and this time a girl entered. Her age was hard to judge. Although her clothes were simple and mature, her eyes and brows still had a youthful air. She wore round, black-rimmed glasses.
The girl stared in shock at everything before her, finally managing to find her voice after a long pause: "This...I...I've traveled through time?"
"No, you haven't," Wu You said, looking at her with a sense of shared sorrow
. "You've entered the world within a painting." The girl stared blankly for a moment, then turned to look behind her, finding no way back, only a desolate landscape. Shocked, she turned back abruptly, her expression stiff as she said, "A world within a painting? How could this be?! This is impossible—this is not scientific—this, this doesn't make sense—"
"What's your name?" Wu You sighed.
"Gu, Gu Qingqing..."
"Alright, everyone's here. I'll get straight to the point," Qin Ci said. "Please believe me, everything you see before you, and everything you're about to hear, is real."
Perhaps due to his experience with explanations—Qin Ci had mastered the method of conveying the most important information in the most concise language—he finished his explanation quickly, leaving the three newcomers in a state of shock and disbelief.
"All of the above is true," Ke Xun replied expressionlessly. "Whether you believe it or not, if you want to leave here alive, you'd better cooperate with us. Time waits for no one, let's act now."
He took Mu Yiran's hand and started walking.
The older members followed, with Xiao Kai and Tian Yang lagging behind.
Tian Yang's gaze shifted from Ke Xun and Mu Yiran's clasped hands, and he walked with his eyes down, hearing Xiao Kai whisper beside him, "Did you hear that clearly? People die in this painting, and they die every night—I think we have to build a good relationship with these people. They said they've been through many paintings and must have plenty of experience. We absolutely cannot be alone; we must stick close to them."
"Okay," Tian Yang replied.
Xiao Kai glanced at him, leaned closer, and gestured with his chin towards Ke Xun and Mu Yiran, who were walking at the front: "Look at those two."
Tian Yang quickly raised his eyelids, then lowered them again: "Don't worry about others."
"What are you worried about?" Xiao Kai said, suddenly reaching out to grab Tian Yang's hand. "Anyway, they've already made it public, haven't they? Besides, if the painting is really as terrifying as they say, we don't even know if we'll get out of here alive. Why keep hiding it?"
Tian Yang stiffly pulled his hand away: "I'm really confused right now. Let me have some peace and quiet."
"Don't worry, I'm here," Xiao Kai didn't pull him any further. "Even if we don't survive, we can die together."
Tian Yang forced a smile at him, then didn't say anything more.
Upon entering the residential area, the first building they encountered was a tall, dilapidated house with a pointed roof. Ke Xun stopped outside the door and turned to his companions: "Ready?"
"Wait—wait a minute!" It was Gu Qingqing, one of the newcomers, who spoke up, frantically adjusting her glasses and pointing to a crack under the door. "What's that? Did you see that? That—that looks like blood—it's blood!"
Beneath the peeling paint of the wooden door, a patch of blackish-red grime extended from the crack, dried on the steps outside, covered with dead flies and unidentified insects.
Qin Ci walked up from behind, glanced at the grime, and nodded. "It's blood. It's been dried for many years; the dust on it is very thick."
Ke Xun walked to the window beside the door, wiped away the accumulated dust, and looked inside. The room remained pitch black; even light seemed unable to penetrate the darkness, making it difficult for even Ke Xun, with his excellent eyesight, to see anything clearly.
"What should we do then?" Xiao Kai asked. "Should we still go in? There might be... there might be something we shouldn't see inside..."
"If we don't go in now, it'll probably be even more exciting when we have to go in at night," Ke Xun said without hesitation. "If you're scared, you can wait outside. I'll go in."
"Ke Xun and I will go in first to scout things out," Mu Yiran quickly added. "Everyone wait outside first, and after we confirm there's no danger, we'll go in together to look for clues."
"Then I think it's better to do this," Shao Ling said. "The others shouldn't just wait outside either. Let's get a general understanding of the terrain and living conditions in this residential area. Maybe we can find clues outside the houses. Let's split into groups and go our separate ways."
Everyone agreed, and based on the principle of experienced people mentoring newcomers and mixed-gender groups, they were divided into four groups. Zhu Haowen was also willing to go into the houses to search for clues, so he formed a group with Ke Xun and Mu Yiran. Shao Ling led Wu You, He Tang, and Tian Yang, Qin Ci led Luo Yu and Gu Qingqing, and Wei Dongfangfei led Xiao Kai.
After dividing into groups, the group didn't rush to leave. Instead, they waited outside the house for Ke Xun, Mu Yiran, and Zhu Haowen to enter, in case of any unexpected situations and to provide timely rescue.
Ke Xun gripped the doorknob, took a slight breath, and then twisted it forcefully.
"Click."
The lock opened with a sound.
Ke Xun cautiously and slowly opened the door a crack, and a thick, foul, and pungent smell of dust instantly rushed out. Ke Xun quickly stepped aside, pulling Mu Yiran and Zhu Haowen along with him.
The door, now uncontrolled, made a rough, teeth-grinding sound as it slowly and shakily opened. The daylight outside crashed into the darkness inside, and in that instant of light and darkness meeting, something seemed to skim silently across the floor in the depths of the room. Ke Xun
held his breath and looked at the floor inside the doorway. The daylight shone on it, not very bright, but he could barely make out some marks.
Sure enough, there was a pool of blood that had long since dried and turned black, spreading outwards along the cracks in the wooden floorboards, forming grotesque patterns on the ground. Around it were some scratches, as if someone had slipped in the blood, and further in, a series of messy, bloody footprints.
"They're human footprints," Ke Xun said.
Mu Yiran walked closer, looked down for a moment, then turned to look at the inside of the door before saying, "A person died here. He came out from inside and then fell by the door. There's a bloodstain on the inside of the door, which is half of this person's profile and right ear. He hit the door with his face when he fell, and his face was already covered in blood before he fell.
"Given that there are no other bloodstains on the inside of the door besides this one, we can deduce that this person never got up after falling.
"The question now is, where is this person's body? If it was taken away after death, why wasn't the blood on the ground cleaned up?"
"Of course, if it's supernatural forces at work, then this isn't a problem."
"Shall we go in?" Zhu Haowen looked at the two.
"Into the into the into the into the into the into theinto theinto." Ke Xun still didn't hesitate. "According to convention, there's usually no danger during the day."
"But some things, just because you can't see them during the day doesn't mean they don't exist." Zhu Haowen said calmly. "Remember 'Anthropology'?
" "…You reminded me," Ke Xun said, taking out his phone, turning on the camera, turning on the flashlight, and shining it into the room for a while. He didn't see anything invisible to the naked eye. "Okay, let's go in."
The three of them didn't delay any longer. They greeted the people waiting outside and stepped into the room without looking back.
The groups outside also began to split up, each choosing a direction, and quickly left the front of the house. However, no one noticed that on the inside of the door, the half-face covered in blood and grime, the corner of the lips, was slowly curving upwards, revealing a strange and twisted smile.
Ke Xun turned on his phone's flashlight and walked in first.
The house had a central hall at the entrance, with a staircase directly opposite leading to the second floor. Two doors on each side led to four rooms.
A trail of bloody footprints stretched all the way to the top of the stairs, surrounded by scattered bloodstains of varying sizes.
"How badly was this person injured before they died?" Ke Xun said. "Look at their footprints; almost their entire soles were soaked in blood, and it didn't fade as they walked to the door, meaning the blood was constantly flowing from the wound."
"This person walked down barefoot," Mu Yiran said. "They were most likely in bed or the bathroom before they died." "
With such a large amount of blood, it doesn't seem like a simple accident. Could it be murder?" Zhu Haowen asked.
"So, this is a haunted house?" Ke Xun suddenly turned his head sharply, startling Zhu Haowen.
"What?" Mu Yiran stared in the direction Ke Xun was looking—a dark, shadowy corner at the turn of the stairs on the first floor.
"Something seemed to crawl past just now," Ke Xun said.
"You saw it?" Zhu Haowen asked.
"No," Ke Xun shook his head, "I had my back to that side, how could I see? I just had this feeling for no reason."
"Your intuition seems to be quite accurate," Zhu Haowen didn't dismiss Ke Xun's subjective feeling as nonsense, looking at him and Mu Yiran, "So, should we continue?"
"Continue." The two said in unison, even their calm and composed expressions were strikingly similar.
Zhu Haowen lowered his eyes, feeling that the light from Ke Xun's phone was a bit dazzling, so he took out his own phone from his pocket, turned on the flashlight function, and pointed to the door of the first room on the right: "To save time, I'll check this one."
Ke Xun pointed to the second room: "Then I'll check this one."
Mu Yiran chose the room on the left, and the three of them carefully pushed open the doors.