Ni Tian was somewhat unwilling, but since the other players suspected there was something abnormal about Pan Siming’s and Big Bear’s deaths, she didn’t dare to break away from Xu Huo; otherwise, she might become the target of everyone’s arrows. Thereby, she had no choice but to follow his instructions.
When she saw her avoiding the gazes of the others and slowly moving to the end of the corridor before swiftly entering it, Xu Huo began searching the exhibition hall.
First and foremost, he needed to find the Girl in the Painting. Since she had come out yesterday and hadn’t returned, and she was currently not in the exhibition hall, she must have entered the painting.
"You came out last night." Gao Jun suddenly approached him from behind and said in a low voice.
The exhibition hall wasn’t soundproof, so at that moment, whether the other players turned their heads or not, they all focused their attention.
"The thief cries ’catch the thief’—you play that game pretty well," Xu Huo said evenly, "Ni Tian can vouch for whether I went out or not, but who can vouch for you?"
However, Gao Jun replied, "You two are in cahoots; isn’t it normal for you to pass the checkpoint one after the other?"
"Right, Ni Tian and I both passed the checkpoint. Not only that, we killed Deng Yu and his three people, and you’re the next target," Xu Huo continued along this line, "Does that make you feel relieved?"
"Stop looking for trouble and take a closer look at the paintings instead."
No sooner had he finished speaking than he walked away, while Gao Jun stood behind, staring at him for a while before he continued to examine the paintings.
While searching for the fake painting, what the players paid more attention to were the two missing pieces. The gloomy man and Li Weiran stopped in front of the pillar one after another, looking closely at the empty spots.
"What exactly is the connection between these two paintings?" Xie Man puzzled over the mystery.
The gloomy man next to her didn’t answer her question but walked away on his own, causing Xie Man to roll her eyes and mutter, "What’s with the attitude? Didn’t he fail to pass the level too?"
After they left, Li Weiran still stood there; but at that moment, Fan Shiji came over and whispered surreptitiously, "I have a matter to discuss with you."
Li Weiran looked at him silently, but Fan Shiji continued, "We are the most vulnerable now; the others are all unreliable. Shouldn’t we team up?"
Li Weiran nodded and took the initiative to walk towards the room.
After they left, Xu Huo then came to the position of the portrait and looked around, only to suddenly notice the leaves in the background landscape painting were fluttering. Subsequently, a hand squeezed through the leaves to appear within the painting.
The Girl in the Painting, reduced to a very small corner of the painting, was smiling and gesturing to him.
Xu Huo smiled faintly and took out his mobile phone to ask her, "Did you see the dead body last night?"
The Girl in the Painting pointed upwards and diagonally. Following her direction, he looked up to see the chandelier under the dome. The chandelier’s fixture was solid, perfectly blocking the line of sight.
"Do me a favor," Xu Huo said, "Get the body down from up there."
The Girl in the Painting nodded, then dove back into the leaves.
Xu Huo turned and walked towards the corridor. Just then, a loud noise came from a room on the left; as other players turned their heads, they saw Ni Tian flying out of the corridor, and before she hit the ground, Lu Gang emerged from chasing her, stepping right onto her abdomen!
Ni Tian, who hit the ground hard and coughed up a mouthful of blood, got up and grabbed Lu Gang’s foot, toppling him over, striking his knee to pin him to the floor, and then she pressed down on his body!
However, she was clearly no match for Lu Gang in strength. She was pushed up and slammed into the large painting behind her by her back!
Fan Shiji and Li Weiran walked out of the room upon hearing the noise, with the former asking, "Why have you started fighting?"
Ni Tian, pinned against the painting by Lu Gang, her mouth bloodied, yelled at Xu Huo, "Aren’t you going to help?!"
Xu Huo stepped forward, grabbed Lu Gang’s shoulder, and pulled him back, "That’s enough, do you really want to kill her?"
Lu Gang, breathing heavily, glared at him without saying a word, but his expression was still angry.
Yet Xu Huo said indifferently, "You’re supposed to be mute, not brain-damaged. You’re looking for an excuse to kill Ni Tian now, what about later, planning to find excuses to kill other players?"
The other players stood not too far away, all staring at Lu Gang.
"You’ve all got it wrong," You Huanhuan came out and said, "Just now Ni Tian was sneaking out of our room. I asked her, and she wouldn’t say why, that’s why Lu Gang got angry, it wasn’t an excuse on purpose."
Once free, Ni Tian immediately came over to Xu Huo’s side and reset her dislocated shoulder, "Why are you controlling me? Is the room privately yours? Or are you hiding something unspeakable?"
Li Weiran frowned, "What’s most important now is finding the fake painting. If you want to cause trouble, we might as well settle things now rather than have people constantly stirring up trouble."
"Oh! You’ve got quite the attitude," Ni Tian said with a pulled face, "If you’re so capable, why don’t you deal with these two first!"
Li Weiran visibly became angry, but before he could speak, the brooding man interrupted him, "What were you looking for in You Huanhuan and Lu Gang’s room?"
Ni Tian glanced at Xu Huo. Xu Huo took over the conversation, "Don’t you also suspect that Pan Siming was killed by someone among us? That’s why I had her look for the body."
The others immediately became more vigilant upon hearing this, but the brooding man laughed, "It seems you didn’t find anything."
"We truly didn’t commit murder," You Huanhuan said with tearful eyes, "You must believe me. If I killed Pan Siming, may the heavens punish me to be eaten by the ’Alien’!"
Unfortunately, her pitiful appearance did not evoke sympathy. Instead, Fan Shiji retorted, "If oaths were useful, thunder would have struck dead countless people by now. Bring out something concrete!"
You Huanhuan looked around, seemingly wounded by the players’ indifference. She said sternly, "Since you accuse me of murder, show the evidence. There’s no body in my room, what gives you the right to accuse me? Do you think I’m easy to bully?"
Everyone fell silent for a moment, and just then, Xie Man lost her interest in the spectacle. She turned around and waved dismissively, "We can’t even be sure if he is dead or has left the game, so what’s the point in looking for a body? Isn’t that just looking for trouble for no reason?"
The "looking for trouble" Xu Huo watched her head under the chandelier.
"Drip!" Something dripped onto Xie Man’s face. She reached up to touch it and pulled down a piece of flesh with a bloody smell. Startled, she looked up and saw a shadow falling right towards her!
Xie Man hastily retreated to avoid it, and only after the object landed on the ground did she exclaim in shock, "Pan Siming!"
"What?!" The other players were also startled by the body that fell from above, and they quickly gathered around. The brooding man turned the body over, and the onlookers couldn’t help but gasp.
Pan Siming’s death was gruesome; one eyeball had burst, his neck and half his face had been chewed up, muscle tissue hung from the skeleton in tatters, and teeth marks were visible on the edges.
"It’s him; his windpipe is broken. It seems he was bitten to death alive," the brooding man inspected Pan Siming’s clothes and frowned, "Although the clothes are soaked in blood, the amount of bloodshed doesn’t match. Whoever killed him didn’t just eat his flesh, they also drank his blood dry."