"When did the clock upstairs turn blue?" Mu Yiran, quick to pick up on Miao Zipei's words, immediately asked.
"I can't say the exact time." Miao Zipei's eyes instinctively glanced at the clock on the wall. "This morning, when I left my room, I checked the time in the lobby. It was 6:55. The clock face was still bright orange. Later, everyone discovered the incident in the red bedroom and went back in to check on He Yu... After everyone came out of the room, they weren't in a good mood. When I got to the lobby on the first floor, I looked up at the clock and suddenly noticed the color had turned blue. It was probably before 7:30."
"The clock is definitely related to the whole incident." Mi Wei looked at Miao Zipei, somewhat complaining that he hadn't mentioned it sooner.
Miao Zipei: "Everyone was discussing other things at the time, I didn't have a chance to say anything..."
This art major was a bit slow on the uptake, but his observation skills were much stronger than average.
Everyone fell silent for a moment, slowly processing what had happened.
Shi Zhendong peeled a banana for his girlfriend, while he took a green apple to eat, trying to avoid the bright red fruits.
"How's our workload this morning?" Qin Ci asked everyone.
Ye Ningchen from the purple room was the first to speak: "I've finished almost one jar."
Guo Lixia from the blue room also reported her work: "I've made almost two jars."
Miao Zipei from the yellow room said: "I made one and a half jars."
Shi Zhendong from the green room smiled sheepishly: "I only made half a jar."
Qin Ci rearranged the workload based on each room's output: "The current workload isn't very optimistic because we can't predict what unexpected situations might arise this afternoon. I suggest everyone work together before lunch to try and finish more than half."
Guo Lixia, who had completed the most tasks, had the most to say: "Our group leader should go find the signatures; Beibei and I will do the work."
Xin Beibei looked at Guo Lixia: "Sister Guo, didn't you say you'd take on the responsibility yourself..."
Shi Zhendong hurriedly nudged his girlfriend, not letting her finish speaking.
While eating grapes, Guo Lixia said, "Some people need to be able to help. They haven't made any new discoveries, they just keep yelling and complaining."
Xin Beibei wanted to say something, but Shi Zhendong said, "Beibei, you stay and work. There's only a little over an hour until lunchtime. Let's all hurry up and finish the task this morning so we can search for things together this afternoon."
No one objected. After finishing their fruit and washing their hands, they returned to their rooms to continue working.
Mu Yiran didn't immediately return to her room but stood under the clock, observing carefully. Ke Xun slowly walked over to her side: "What did you see last night?"
Mu Yiran crossed her arms: "Zhang Tianwei was probably dragged away from the window. There's a crescent-shaped pattern on the window frame that's unique to him."
It seemed Mu Yiran's observation last night was similar to Ke Xun's. The red room was in the center of the five rooms, and Zhang Tianwei's dragging trajectory was from right to left, meaning it passed through the blue and purple rooms to the left of the red room. The other two rooms probably wouldn't have noticed.
"You saw that huge black patch too?" Ke Xun recounted last night's most terrifying "nightmare."
Mu Yiran nodded: "That black patch must have taken Zhang Tianwei away."
"This world itself is strange. Even during the day, there's always a sense of being in another dimension, and it's even more pronounced at night. It's practically a world of silhouettes, including myself." Ke Xun wanted to give himself enough reason to be certain—Zhang Tianwei was dragged away along the window in a weightless, flat state.
Mu Yiran's eyes seemed to see through everything: "Zhang Tianwei wasn't weightless last night. The pattern on his body was somewhat precarious, far less smooth than the trajectory of the black shadow." "
Black shadow?" Ke Xun seized on these two keywords, and finally someone broke through the barrier. "If that black patch is a shadow, then it fits the theme of this painting—'Shadow'."
"If it's a shadow, it's probably difficult to drag a solid object, even something as simple as opening a window would be difficult." Mu Yiran pointed out his analytical bottleneck.
"Just like Haowen said, opening a window is something a 'human' can do, but dragging a physical object by leaping across walls is something even a living person probably can't help with." Ke Xun felt that the strangeness of this world had a certain subversive quality, especially the ability to change a person's dimensional state, making him feel that his power was smaller than an ant.
"I'm not sure how many shadows there were last night." Mu Yiran subconsciously looked at his and Ke Xun's shadows, which were still deep purple with lemon-green edges. "No matter how powerful the power behind the painting is, everyone and everything here must follow the rules in the painting, including those shadows."
Indeed, the boss in the painting must also strictly follow the rules of death to carry out the killing, otherwise this game cannot continue.
Ke Xun looked up at the clock covered with blue patterns: "I don't understand these colors very well, but I feel that the clocks on these two floors and the clocks in that circular building are not part of the same system, representing different meanings."
The clocks in the circular building had no patterns, with a completely red background, as red as the red liquid flowing out of the room.
The clock had an ominous feel to it, as if its color was reserved for the dead.
Now, the clocks in this room were displaying colors completely out of place—orange and cyan—and it was unclear what they represented.
Ke Xun had initially expected this Fauvist painting to showcase a bold and decisive style, but it possessed a surprisingly meticulous logic. Finding the painting wasn't difficult; once the puzzles were solved and the logic of the events was understood, the artist's signature could be easily found.
"It's almost 11 o'clock, I should get back to work." Before returning to the blue room, Ke Xun went to the restroom. The restroom was on the other side of the hall, its door a natural wood color, a color that symbolized freedom and harmlessness.
Mu Yiran seemed lost in thought. Ke Xun didn't usually invite her friends or boyfriend to the restroom, so she went in alone.
When Ke Xun came out, she found Mu Yiran staring intently at the blue room's door, her expression extremely unnatural.
"Yiran?" Ke Xun stepped forward and patted the other's shoulder. "Yiran."
Mu Yiran seemed to snap out of his daze, his slightly unfocused eyes looking at Ke Xun. "Ke Xun, something was wrong just now."
"What did you see?" Ke Xun wanted to give him a heartwarming "Don't be afraid, give me a hug" gesture...
"Now that I think about it, what I saw just now might have been an illusion," Mu Yiran's eyes looked at the blue door again, which had now returned to normal. "That door might have been calling me in."
"What do you mean? Is my door flirting with guys for me..."
Mu Yiran completely ignored Ke Xun's casual flirting and stood up to return to his purple room.
"Yiran, Yiran," Ke Xun muttered, feeling the name was particularly volatile and igniting, brimming with hormones. "Just now, what exactly happened?"
Mu Yiran opened the purple door and looked inside, her expression even more certain: "What I just saw was Wei Dong walking out of our room and going straight into the blue room. After the blue door opened, there were actually a lot of friends gathered in the room."
"Holy crap, Ranran, don't scare me."
"I was the only one in the hall at the time, and your appearance shattered the illusion." Mu Yiran's brows were still slightly furrowed.
"This illusion is quite terrifying," Ke Xun looked around the seemingly bright and harmless hall. "Just now, in the illusion, were you able to resist it? Or rather, did you still have your own judgment?"
"I was conscious. I thought the phenomenon was strange at the time, so I didn't act rashly."
"In other words, if it were someone else, they would likely have been summoned into a door of a different color." Ke Xun had just finished speaking when he suddenly heard a soft laugh in the hall.
This soft laugh came unexpectedly, sending chills down everyone's spines instantly. —Upon careful analysis, the laughter clearly came from the NPC with the sweet voice.
Accompanying the soft laugh was that familiar music again, and the NPC's sweet voice rang out: "Next, we will play a piece of music for everyone. We hope you can enjoy your work while listening to the beautiful music."
Ke Xun and Mu Yiran exchanged a silent glance, feeling that even in broad daylight, everyone's every move could not escape the eyes hidden in the castle.
So, the two women each entered their respective colored doors and went to enjoy their work.
The two women in the blue room had almost finished their tasks; Guo Lixia was the main laborer, while Xin Beibei clumsily assisted from the side.
"Sister Guo, you two take a break. I'll do the rest," Ke Xun said, sitting down on a small stool and carefully filling bottles with the processed blue berries.
Guo Lixia was also a little tired and sat down in a chair next to her. "This work is nothing compared to what we did in the garment factory. Back then, we worked day and night."
Ke Xun focused on his work, not wanting to learn too much about the members' personal and family situations. The more he knew, the more burdened he felt, since most of these people were going to "stay."
Some of the members who became figures in the painting were merely passersby to him, while others became indelible marks on his life.
"Back then, to buy my son a brand-name computer, I worked overtime for a whole month straight. I was only able to afford it because I was young; otherwise, I would have been hospitalized!" Guo Lixia rubbed her back, recounting her past.
Ke Xun couldn't help but chime in, "Sister Guo's son should be in college by now, right?"
Guo Lixia lowered her eyes, making her expression unreadable. "He's in college, abroad. His father went abroad three years ago and took him with him. He actually wanted to stay with me," Guo Lixia paused, her hand rubbing her lower back, "We don't have much ability, we can't ruin his future."
The topic was a bit heavy, and Ke Xun smiled. "Once your son comes back, Sister Guo will be able to enjoy life."
Guo Lixia gave a bitter smile and didn't speak again.
Xin Beibei stood up to wash her hands, changing the subject: "Team leader, did you know that Zhu Haowen before?"
"We went through three paintings together, what's wrong?"
"Is that guy gay?"
"So what if he's gay?" In Ke Xun's mind, that word always existed in capital letters.
Xin Beibei rubbed the soap lather in her hands: "Nothing much, I just think this guy is a cunning gay, and a total shut-in with a lot of bad intentions."
Ke Xun chuckled: "I'm just wondering, what did Haowen do to you?"
"Don't you think his mouth is really sharp? And he's always deliberately targeting me!" Xin Beibei rolled her eyes, "I just think he's interested in my Lao Shi. Judging from his attitude towards me, he's really a bit jealous."
"Don't be like that, Haowen isn't that kind of person." Ke Xun didn't know Zhu Haowen very well either. Regardless of whether he was gay or not, he would never be jealous of a woman.
Guo Lixia couldn't help but interject: "Although my English isn't good, I know what you mean by gay. I just don't understand, there's no smoke without fire. What are you worrying about? Is your boyfriend Lao Shi not normal either?"
Xin Beibei blushed and remained silent for a while.
Guo Lixia and Ke Xun exchanged glances, not expecting such a big piece of gossip to have surfaced.
Ke Xun: Is the painting of the old man specifically targeting people like us...?