The entire night was like a car silently traveling in the dark; no one knew where the destination was, or what they would encounter along the way.
Ke Xun watched the colors gradually clearing in the room. If this change could have a name, he would call it "dawn."
Ke Xun specifically checked the window, which was boarded up; the gaps were extremely narrow, not even enough for a chopstick to pass through.
Where was Guo Lixia? She was nowhere to be found, neither alive nor dead—it was truly strange.
Finally, Ke Xun found a crumpled piece of paper against the wall below the window, like a piece of discarded paper carelessly crumpled up in real life.
Ke Xun couldn't recall anyone using paper in this room, so he picked it up with some doubt. It weighed about the same as a regular A4 sheet of paper.
Ke Xun unfolded the paper and noticed its strange shape; it didn't seem to be a traditional square, and it had an inexplicably smooth feel.
As the paper slowly unfolded, Ke Xun's heart sank lower and lower. When the entire paper was laid flat on the table, Ke Xun's heart plummeted into an icy abyss.
"Ke'er! Are you alright? Come out!" Wei Dong's voice came from outside the door.
Ke Xun rolled up the paper with mixed feelings, held it in his hand, and opened the door.
Everyone's faces were grim; the initial fear was gone, replaced by a sense of resignation.
"Mi Wei is in trouble?" Ke Xun had already guessed the result.
Miao Zipei's voice was low: "Mi Wei didn't suffer much; her condition was similar to when Ye Ningchen left."
Shi Zhendong glanced into the open blue door: "How is Guo... Xiao Guo?"
Ke Xun walked solemnly to the table in the hall and spread the paper out on it.
Wei Dong went over to look first: "What is this? It's a little person? This is..."
"This is Sister Guo." Ke Xun stopped looking at the small, terrifying-yet-comical human skin.
Upon hearing this, Wei Dong shuddered in fright. He mustered his courage and examined the "little person" on the table more closely—or rather, a human skin hollowed out, about 30 centimeters tall, limply lying on the table. Judging from the facial features, it was indeed Guo Lixia.
Although everyone had seen or heard of the horrific scenes of Zhang Tianwei and Xin Beibei in the glass tanks before, none had been as shocking as this "Guo Lixia."
This indescribable "corpse" now lay on the table before them. There was no need to enter the circular building, nor was there any special large glass tank; only a cold, thin corpse, like a piece of paper easily overlooked, clearly displayed before them.
"Was this thing unfolded like this when you first found it?" asked Mu Yiran.
"No, like a crumpled ball of waste paper..." Ke Xun said.
Zhu Haowen also examined the "Guo Lixia" on the table more closely: "So that's how it is. The shadowy figure probably used the same method as before to forcibly drag its prey to the window, but a human body can't fit through a window crack. The shadowy figure didn't want to waste such readily available color resources, so it had to extract the color on the spot."
"Extract the color on the spot? How?" Miao Zipeng asked.
Zhu Haowen shook his head: "Only the shadowy figure itself can probably explain this clearly."
Even though they couldn't obtain the specific method, they could imagine what happened last night. Guo Lixia's body must have been forcefully drained of color, probably similar to extracting color from a glass jar, only more barbaric and cruel, resulting in her being completely drained, even her skin wrinkling, ultimately shrinking into a ball like a piece of waste paper.
It's like drinking a packaged beverage; when you forcefully inhale, the outer packaging wrinkles.
Ke Xun couldn't help but recall the sound of Guo Lixia gasping for breath in pain last night.
"If this method is also effective, why did the shadowy figure go to such lengths to drag the person away?" Shi Zhendong boldly examined Guo Lixia's corpse again and found that although the corpse was flat as paper, it still had a faint color. Her facial features and hair were still clearly visible, and the polka dot pattern on her clothes could still be faintly seen as light blue.
Qin Ci quickly realized this as well: "This method can't completely absorb the opponent's color. Torturing someone like this is probably the limit of the shadow's power."
Ke Xun seemed to realize something, and in a moment of panic, he rushed downstairs: "Quickly go to that pool and see if Sister Guo's coins are still there!"
Everyone instantly understood, their hearts tightening. Mu Yiran instructed, "Split into two groups. One group goes to the pool downstairs, the other to the circular building, then meet in the lobby on the first floor."
The group quickly formed teams. Miao Zipei was about to rush downstairs with Wei Dong and Mu Yiran when Mu Yiran said, "You go to the sixth floor. You'll probably be needed there to identify the colors."
Miao Zipei seemed to understand, but nodded and followed Qin Ci and the others upstairs.
Ke Xun arrived at the pool. Although he had prepared himself mentally, he still couldn't accept the reality when he saw the circular coins with their patterns at the bottom.
Mu Yiran and Wei Dong remained silent, finding it hard to believe that Guo Lixia was still alive.
"Give Sister Guo a quick death." Ke Xun's voice was so low it was almost inaudible.
The "Guo Lixia" figure was currently held in Mu Yiran's hands. Mu Yiran remained silent, walked to the edge of the pool, and completely immersed the small piece of skin in the water. Several minutes later, the dots on the surface of the skin gradually disappeared.
The skin floated on the surface like trash.
Ke Xun dug a half-deep hole by the pool and buried "Guo Lixia" inside, muttering in a voice barely audible, "Sister Guo, I'm sorry for the injustice. When your son returns from abroad, I'll have him kowtow and offer incense to you properly."
Wei Dong stood to the side, his heart heavy. He still remembered when Guo Lixia first entered the painting a few days ago; she was an innocent person caught up in it, only wanting to find a place to get hot water.
But who among those who entered the painting, those who came and went, wasn't innocent?
Mu Yiran's gaze lingered on the maze. As if struck by a thought, he walked to the edge of the maze, stood in the northeast corner, and gazed into the distance.
"Yiran, did you find something?" Ke Xun asked, turning back.
Mu Yiran squinted, seemingly trying to see something clearly in the distance. Hearing Ke Xun's question, he replied, "Nothing special. I just heard some noise in the maze, so I came to listen."
Ke Xun frowned. "Who is this Minotaur you mentioned yesterday?"
Wei Dong looked at his buddy: It's rare that you can remember such a long name.
"The Minotaur had the head of a bull and the body of a man, and lived in a labyrinth. Legend has it that young boys and girls were offered as sacrifices to him," Mu Yiran said as he left the labyrinth and walked with the two toward the castle. "Later, when archaeologists excavated Crete, they actually discovered the remains of this labyrinth. There were a lot of linear texts on the clay tablets inside, including records like this: Athens offered seven women, one boy and one young girl as tribute, etc. These records are consistent with the story of the sacrifice to the Minotaur."
Ke Xun watched the members passing by on the open-air corridor above the castle, his gaze lingering for a moment on the several floors of the circular building. "Do you think the Shadow's extraction of color from people is also a kind of sacrifice?"
Wei Dong looked at the pool that recorded life and death. "And the design of the pool seems quite ritualistic."
"If it really is a color sacrifice, then who is it sacrificed to?" Mu Yiran tried to analyze. "These colors add up to black. Does the Shadow use black to become stronger, or does it have some other purpose?"
"I always feel that a shadow can only exist if there is a physical body. These two things are interdependent and indispensable." Ke Xun looked down at his own shadow. "The law of this world is the same. The dead lose their color and their shadow—I think this law also applies to the Shadow itself."
"That Shadow is already powerful enough. How big must its physical body be!" Wei Dong couldn't even imagine.
"Fauvism sometimes amplifies what it wants to express, like the shadow this painting wants to express," Mu Yiran continued, now that the group had returned to the hall. "Although the shadow is so large it can cover everything, its actual size may not be that big."
Just then, another team came downstairs and into the hall. Zhu Haowen, hearing Mu Yiran's words, pondered, "If the shadow has a physical form, then the actions of the physical form should be consistent with its shadow. According to our previous analysis, a large shadow can control our shadows, thereby controlling our bodies. So what was the physical form of the large shadow doing at that time?"
Mu Yiran's eyes suddenly lit up, but she didn't say anything, instead looking at Miao Zipeng: "What new discoveries have you made?"
Miao Zipeng said, "The fourth and fifth floors are still red and blue, only the doors representing the colors are tightly closed. The sixth floor is pure purple. Whether it's the clock on the wall or the purple liquid in the glass tank, it's the purest purple, with red and blue in equal proportions."
Qin Ci asked Mu Yiran and Ke Xun, "Is this the purple you saw yesterday?"
Ke Xun scratched his head, feeling that he couldn't give everyone clear information about color identification.
Mu Yiran: "The purple we saw yesterday was slightly reddish."
Miao Zipei suddenly realized: "So that's it! It seems someone added a small amount of blue to the purple liquid today, making the red and blue colors equal, thus refining the most accurate and pure purple!"
As for where that small amount of blue came from, everyone knew, and the image of Guo Lixia's pitiful thin corpse simultaneously flashed through their minds.
The NPC's voice rang out again, announcing today's work task as still storing three large jars of berries, and then inviting everyone to breakfast.
Now that only seven people remained, the work task seemed particularly heavy, especially in the blue room, where only Ke Xun was working. Even working non-stop, it would take at least half a day to complete.
"Have you ever wondered why the NPC has never shown up? We've never encountered this situation in previous paintings." It was Zhu Haowen who spoke.
Suddenly, another sneer came from the hall, clearly from the NPC.
"Probably because they're too ugly to be seen." Ke Xun raised the middle finger into the air.
"..." Zhu Haowen looked at Ke Xun, "Or perhaps this person cannot manifest in person and can only broadcast their voice to us."