Chapter 223: Blinking Portrait

This art gallery was enormous in size, visually estimating at least over three hundred meters from the entrance to the deepest mural wall, roughly the length of three football fields. It resembled a palace more than an art gallery.Both side walls and the dome ceiling above featured relief murals. Beneath the dome hung three massive crystal chandeliers, their light sufficient to illuminate every corner of this gallery. The areas slightly shadowed behind the giant pillars were also equipped with small lamps emitting soft light, convenient for viewing the paintings.

The paintings in the gallery were all hung around the circular giant pillars.

Circling around the entrance-blocking pillar, Xu Huo and his companion saw the other players participating in this dungeon.

Six men and four women.

"Everyone's here now." The first to speak was a male player standing directly in front of the entrance-blocking pillar. "The game has provided all the necessary information. There are twelve people total. The first task is to find one fake painting. The next two tasks are hidden and will probably only appear after completing the first task."

"Usually in dungeons like this, you only need to complete one task to barely pass, so as long as we find the fake painting we can get the return tickets."

After speaking, seeing no one else responding, he proactively introduced himself, "I'm Pan Siming. I've previously completed four E-rank dungeons. White Player."

Several gazes turned toward him, but Pan Siming smiled and said, "Player classification started with the Preliminary Trial Train. Not having killed anyone on the train doesn't mean lacking combat ability."

A gloomy man with a dent in his chin not far away sneered coldly, "Whether you have combat ability or not I don't know, but this dungeon definitely won't let all players pass together just by finding one fake painting. Instead of pretending to build relationships here, better check if there are actually twelve fake paintings in this gallery."

As soon as he finished speaking, a young man wearing a headscarf nearby said, "I already looked. Every pillar here has at least two paintings hanging on it. Besides some blank ones, there are roughly seventy to eighty paintings."

"But honestly, these paintings all look fake, completely lacking exhibition value."

"So it's hard to say if there really are twelve fakes."

The gloomy man snorted and left on his own.

Right after he left, a woman wearing a leather jacket standing behind the crowd popped her bubble gum with a sharp "crack," flipped her half-head of small braids, and also walked away.

The others exchanged glances, then Pan Siming spoke again, "Helping each other out would be better, but I'm not forcing it."

After he spoke, a tall, muscular man in a tank top and shorts firmly grabbed the hand of a maid-outfitted girl beside him, dragging her toward the gallery's depths. The girl seemed to want to turn back and say something, but before she could open her mouth, the muscular man tugged her again, after which she jogged along behind him.

"Pervert." a beautiful short-haired woman cursed under her breath while crossing her arms.

The man standing beside her said, "Don't be fooled by appearances. That girl is still a player no matter what."

The beautiful woman looked at him, and the man introduced himself, "I'm Deng Yu, Black Player. This should be my third dungeon. Compared to you all, I'm a fresh-out-of-the-oven newbie. Please take care of me."

The beautiful woman rolled her eyes, "Xie Man."

The other remaining people introduced themselves in turn.

Besides the departed gloomy man and leather jacket woman, the muscular man and maid girl, those remaining were Pan Siming, Deng Yu, Xie Man, plus Xu Huo and Fan Shiji. The remaining three were respectively Gao Jun, Ni Tian, and a player whose nickname was Octopus Hug Bear—he was the headscarf-wearing man who counted the paintings.

Among everyone present, whether using real or fake names, only he used a player nickname.

The headscarf man scratched his head, somewhat embarrassed, and said, "This is only my second dungeon, I'm not too clear on the rules. Is using a nickname not allowed?"

"Of course it's fine." Ni Tian revealed a charming smile. "Anyway, it's not like we'll meet again."

The headscarf man also laughed, "You can call me Big Bear too."

Among the eight players, besides Pan Siming, Deng Yu, and Fan Shiji, the others were all Black Players.

"No Player-Eaters, that's really great." Big Bear patted his chest in relief.

"You've only done one dungeon so you don't know the situation. Actually, the more dungeons you do, the less advantage Player-Eaters have." Ni Tian said. "Because normally, you can get evolution agents from dungeons. Physical evolution isn't exclusive to Player-Eaters. Plus, there are characteristics that can compensate for weaknesses."

Big Bear wore an expression of having received instruction.

"Now that we all know each other, let's go look at the paintings first." Pan Siming said. "There are still three hours until lights out, enough time for us to see all the paintings."

After matching people with their given names and obtaining some possibly true, possibly false information, the players still separated to look at paintings individually.

Xu Huo stood before the entrance-blocking pillar, examining the two paintings on it.

The first was an oil portrait of a person—someone in tattered clothes standing before a glass window, with gaunt features and bulging eyes, paired with a black background, making it a thoroughly horrifying painting.

The second was a sketch. On the black-and-white paper, only a torn-edged paper umbrella rested diagonally. The ground and background were largely blackened with heavy shadows.

Below each painting was an electronic screen with numbers constantly changing.

"Still Time, Silent Umbrella..." Fan Shiji read the two paintings' names from behind, puzzled, "These painting names are too strange. And they look so bizarre, not at all like proper serious paintings."

"Are those below clocks? They look a bit like countdowns."

Xu Huo rubbed his chin, "Just these two don't look like real paintings."

"Should we take them down to look?" Fan Shiji asked.

Xu Huo nodded. Just as they were about to remove the paintings, Pan Siming who had been watching their movements from not far away stopped them, "Before being certain, it's best not to touch the paintings randomly."

However, Fan Shiji already had the painting in his hands.

"Why didn't you say so earlier!" Fan Shiji said with slight urgency, trying to hang the painting back, but his hand slipped and the painting fell to the ground.

The "clatter" sound made players scattered throughout the gallery all raise their heads. The gloomy man immediately cursed, "Are you an idiot? The premise of authenticating is not damaging the paintings! If your brain doesn't work, keep your hands to yourself! If you cause any trouble, I'll deal with you first!"

Fan Shiji turned red-faced from the scolding. Though the other players didn't speak, their expressions weren't good.

Xu Huo picked up the painting, checked it, confirmed it wasn't damaged, and tried to hang it back. But as he turned, he saw the man in the painting blink his eyes.

Pan Siming, seeing him standing still, immediately walked over, "Did it break?"

"No." Xu Huo hung the painting up.

Pan Siming's gaze lingered on him for two seconds, then swept over the painting before saying, "Be careful."

Xu Huo nodded, moving toward the adjacent giant pillar to continue looking at other paintings.

Fan Shiji followed behind him, muttering quietly, "Pan Siming is still watching us. It was just a slip of the hand, does he need to guard against us like we're thieves?"