Players, Please Board the Train

Xu Huo pocketed the lighter. ”Tell me how to clear the third stage.”

The oil painting man laughed. ”Ah, so that’s why you asked earlier. If you’d said it was for this, I would have told you right away. I was put on the front door to give players a hint. See? On your first day here I already gave a hint.”

”Really?” Xu Huo lit a cigarette, inhaled, then pressed it against the painting and burned a hole in the paper. ”Or was it to trick me? When I came out at night, what did you want me to do?”

The oil painting man swallowed his anger and forced a smile. ”Of course it was to remind you of the key to the second task. Once someone goes into the painting it’s hard to get out. If you want to restore the real painting you’ll need my help.”

Xu Huo glanced to the side, then burned another hole in the painting. ”You’re lying.”

”I’m not!” the oil painting man shouted immediately. ”I’m telling the truth—why would I lie to you about this… Stop burning it! Stop!”

Only after the third hole appeared did Xu Huo say, ”One lie, one hole. Think about that.”

”You’re technically alive inside the painting, so you might make it out someday. If the painting is burned, you’re done for now.”

”I can pull players out of paintings. I can save you too.”

When he finished speaking, the oil painting man hurriedly agreed, ”You’re right. I’ll tell you everything. Just make sure you save me!”But Wei Da said, ”Something isn’t right.”

Xu Huo walked in front of Silent Umbrella and asked, ”Can you still come out of paintings?”

The tattered umbrella rotated slightly to the left.

”What does that mean?” Wei Da asked, puzzled.

”It means no.” The next day, when Da Xiong led the players to check the woman’s portrait, Xu Huo had already noticed this painting moved too—sometimes left, sometimes right. At the time he paid attention and realized the umbrella seemed to react to players’ words. After saying certain lines, he found the umbrella would respond to events in the gallery, but it didn’t react when asked which room Da Xiong lived in.

He even asked Da Xiong if Deng Yu had damaged the painting; Da Xiong answered yes, and the umbrella turned left. When the topic of monsters attacking people who ruin paintings at night came up, the umbrella turned right.

Of course the people inside paintings might once have been players and therefore untrustworthy, but during his earlier conversation with the oil painting man the umbrella had been turning left and right as well.

It looked like this silent umbrella was far more honest than the oil painting man.

Xu Huo lost patience and reached for the oil painting to burn it, but the oil painting man cried out, ”I’m really not lying!”

”You’re lying!” Wei Da retorted. ”If you could come out of paintings, the other paintings wouldn’t be so calm.”

”If going into a painting means you can’t come out, how could they finish the second task?” the oil painting man blustered.

”There’s a time limit.” Xu Huo tapped the electronic timer. ”This dungeon is called ’Thirty Days.’ None of the electronic clocks’ countdowns exceed thirty days. The longest so far is just over four hundred hours. Going into a painting doesn’t mean you can never get out; it means you can only come out within a certain time.”

”So that’s what Thirty Days means,” Wei Da said. ”Maybe after thirty days they become real paintings.”

Seeing his lower half already burning, the oil painting man wailed and begged, ”Don’t kill me! I’ll talk!”

”You should ask the Curator! Request a new painting from the Curator!”

But neither of the two men standing by bothered to stop the fire. Only after the painting fluttered down and finished burning on the floor did Wei Da speak: ”The umbrella didn’t react. Is it because it doesn’t know, or because it doesn’t want to tell us? Should we try other paintings?”

”No need; the real and fake ones won’t tell you,” Xu Huo said.

”True. If I were trapped in a painting forever, I’d try to take someone down with me.” Wei Da sighed, then brightened with hope, looking at Xu Huo as if hoping he would first try someone already inside a painting. ”The third task is to add a new painting, right? That should also happen at night. And does doing the third task before finishing the first two even count?”

Xu Huo didn’t answer. The oil painting man’s method didn’t hold up. Last night he had already seen a monster use its cane to turn Xie Man into a painting. If requesting a new painting from the Curator created a painting, then the painting that appeared here should be a living painting. The worst-case scenario would be that the requesting player becomes the painting; and even if the request succeeded, would taking that new living painting be like Lu Gang being eaten by the painting that contained Xie Man?

The oil painting man’s words were utterly unreliable, so his method wasn’t even worth trying.

”This won’t work,” Xu Huo said bluntly. ”Think of another way.”

Wei Da secretly breathed easier, but after pondering he still couldn’t come up with anything. ”But the tasks all involve paintings and players. Maybe part of what the oil painting man said is true. Perhaps creating a new painting requires the Curator, but getting the new painting might not be done the way it described.”

Xu Huo nodded slightly. ”Paintings are painted.”

”Paintings are painted, yes, but the paintings in the Hundred-Person Art Gallery are clearly people.” Wei Da said, and when he saw Xu Huo take an empty frame, he couldn’t help raising his voice. ”Aren’t you afraid you’ll turn into a painting too?”

”Players have already touched all the frames over the last few days. Even if someone is going to become a painting, it has to wait until night.” Xu Huo said. ”Go search the rooms for pencils.”

Wei Da had no choice but to go. After checking the rooms one by one he ran out excitedly. ”You’re right. I found several pencils in the two rooms at the far end of the left corridor—graphite and colored pencils. They were hidden in fake flowers stuck in a vase.”

Xu Huo handed him a pencil disguised as a flower branch. ”You draw first.”

Wei Da hesitated only a little before taking it eagerly. ”This at least is much safer than facing the Curator directly.”

He quickly drew a simple house on a sheet of paper, but the sculpture and the gallery gave no reaction.

”Maybe it only takes effect at night?”

”It will only work at night.” Xu Huo collected the drawing and hung it on a pillar, then grabbed another blank sheet and put the pencil in his pocket.

If Wei Da turned into a painting when night came, then they wouldn’t need to test this method any further.

Feeling someone move from the left to the right behind him, he didn’t turn and said, ”You know these paintings aren’t fake during the day, right?”

Wei Da gave an embarrassed laugh. ”I was just walking around…”

Xu Huo picked up the two frames on the right. ”These two paintings are useless to me. My word stands: if you survive, the painting is yours.”

Wei Da gave a bitter smile. ”I’m just afraid I’ll become a painting… I’m really unlucky. After doing several dungeons I always seem to trigger the traps for others.”

He rubbed his chin and mumbled to himself, ”In the last dungeon I was almost captured—nearly had my insides sacrificed. Some players who look weak are actually not weak at all.”

”Pretending weakness and showing strength are both survival tactics,” Xu Huo said calmly. ”A mistake is either due to carelessness or insufficient strength. It depends on yourself, not your opponent.”

Wei Da stared at him in surprise. ”You think so clearly.”

”Game theory is a…” Xu Huo stopped mid-sentence, then continued after two seconds, ”Game theory is a fair game, because both the strong and weak can stand on either side of the scale.”