A bizarre and terrifying experience; I messed up the dungeon world.

Zhou Lang didn't answer, but he began to think more highly of Lin Zhe.

After returning to the room, Han Yingying came to the door.

She didn't go inside, but stood at the door and said, "I used a skill."

Zhou Lang raised an eyebrow.

Han Yingying's skill is [The Deceiver] – she can extract crucial information by engaging in conversations with strange individuals. However, its use is conditional; it can only be triggered if the other party actively engages in dialogue with her.

"This afternoon, while I was painting, a voice was talking in my ear," Han Yingying said. "The rule is not to turn around, but it doesn't say you can't talk. So I talked to it for a bit."

Zhou Lang's expression changed for a moment.

That's quite a bold move.

"What did it say?"

"It said, 'You draw so well, could you draw one for me too?'" Han Yingying said. "I asked it what it wanted to draw, and it said it wanted to draw the room it used to live in. I asked it which room it lived in, and it said room number three."

"and then?"

"I asked where room number three was, but it didn't answer. However, my skill triggered, and I extracted a piece of information from its words—"

Han Yingying took out a piece of paper from her pocket, on which she had written her own words:

Room number three isn't a room; it's a painting. It's painted on a wall. Every night at midnight, the painting opens.

Zhou Lang read it twice and then put it away.

"You're getting bolder and bolder," he said.

"I learned it from you." Han Yingying's face was expressionless, but her tone didn't sound like she was joking.

That evening, Zhou Lang did not wait for him in the room.

He left the house at 11:45.

There was nothing unusual in the corridor. He quickly walked to the wall between rooms 202 and 204, took out an oil lamp, and lit it.

When the green light shone on it, something appeared on the wall.

It's a painting. It's hastily drawn, but you can make out the interior of a room—a bed, a table, a chair. The painting's tone is gray, devoid of any life.

There is a number 3 in the bottom right corner of the painting.

Room 3

Zhou Lang stared at the painting for a few seconds. Then he noticed a detail—a person was sitting in the chair in the painting.

No, it's not a person. It's an outline. An outline in a darker shade of gray against a gray background, almost invisible unless you look closely.

The outline is moving.

He slowly, very slowly raised his head.

Zhou Lang took a step back.

It's exactly twelve o'clock.

A crack appeared in the image, splitting open from the middle, like a door being pushed open. A cold wind rushed out of the crack, carrying a smell of decay mixed with paint.

A hand emerged from the gap. It was a grayish-white hand with long nails covered in colorful paint.

Zhou Lang quickly retreated, returned to his room, and locked the door.

The instant the door closed, he heard dragging sounds coming from the hallway, and a soft humming voice.

He hadn't heard the tune before, but the melody was discordant, off-key, and sounded like someone trying to imitate human singing but couldn't quite get it right.

Zhou Lang sat on the edge of the bed, going through all the information he had seen that night in his mind.

Room number three is a painting. There's something in the painting. The painting opens at midnight, and what's inside comes out. Paintings done during the day are taken away at night—where are they taken?

If the paintings created during the day also become paintings on the wall... then everything that everyone paints every day will come to life at night?

If the "stick pine tree" that the bald guy drew could come to life, the scene would be quite comical.

But what if someone draws a person? Or a ghost?

—You can't draw things you've never seen before.

This rule is not a restriction. It's a protection.

Once you paint something you've never seen before, that thing might come to life in a way the artist never imagined, completely out of control.

But if someone breaks the rules—

Zhou Lang suddenly thought of the couple. In the mountain landscape they painted together, there was a very small figure in the corner of the distance. He hadn't paid attention to it at the time, but now that he thought about it, that figure was standing on the mountaintop.

They didn't even get to the top of the mountain today. So it's not something they "saw with their own eyes".

broken.

Screams came from the corridor.

It was a woman's voice coming from the third floor.

Zhou Lang rushed to the door, then stopped. The peephole. He looked through the peephole first—the corridor was empty, the lights were on, and a shadow flickered on the floor. A shadow meant someone was alive outside.

He opened the door and saw Lin Zhe also coming out of room 204. The two looked at each other and ran towards the stairs at the same time.

In the third-floor corridor, the girl from the couple was slumped on the floor. Her door was wide open, and a strong smell of ink wafted out.

And on the door opposite her—the door to room 301—a painting is growing out of it.

It wasn't a painting that was hung up. It grew out of the wooden door. The brushstrokes were distorted, the colors were muddy, and it depicted a mountain. On the mountaintop stood a figure, more than ten times larger than in the painting from earlier that day.

The figures are pushing their way out of the painting.

Its hand was already outstretched, gripping the door frame, its knuckles bent at impossible angles.

Han Yingying also came out. When she saw this scene, she immediately ran towards the girl who was slumped on the ground.

Zhou Lang was a step ahead of her. He grabbed Han Yingying's arm and pulled her behind him.

"Don't touch her."

"she--"

"Look at her shadow."

Han Yingying looked down. The girl was sitting on the ground, the corridor light shining down from above. But her shadow was wrong. The shape of the shadow wasn't that of a sitting person, but a standing figure—a figure walking down from the mountaintop.

The painting is already "alive".

Zhou Lang pulled a chainsaw out of his pocket. He had deliberately not used any tools during the day, just in case of this kind of unexpected situation.

The sound of the chainsaw starting up exploded in the corridor, rough and abrupt.

He sawed the painting on the door in a few quick cuts, along with the hand that had been squeezed out. What flowed from the cut surface wasn't blood, but colorful paint, like a spilled palette.

The figure struggled for a few seconds before shrinking back into the painting. The image on the door quickly faded, eventually becoming blank.

The corridor fell silent.

Han Yingying then realized that Zhou Lang was still holding her arm. She pulled away, and Zhou Lang released her.

The girl on the ground had fainted. Her shadow had returned to normal.

"Where's her boyfriend?" Lin Zhe asked.

They went to find the boy from the couple. In room 206 on the second floor, the door was locked, and no one answered the door when they knocked. Lin Zhe listened for a while, then said he could hear sounds inside, like someone drawing.

After midnight, I draw in my room.

Zhou Lang kicked the door open.

The boy sat at the table, a drawing board in front of him, a pen in his hand, drawing. His eyes were closed, but his hand was moving. The canvas depicted a woman—long hair, a white dress—exactly the same thing Zhou Lang had seen through the peephole last night.

"He's drawing things he's never seen before," Lin Zhe said, his voice a little tense.

No. He's seen him before.

The one who knocked on the door last night. This boy must have opened the door last night. He saw that shadowless thing, and then was controlled in some way, and is now drawing it in a sleepwalking state.

The painting will come to life at night after it's finished.