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

A closed loop.

Zhou Lang walked up and took the drawing board away. The boy's hand paused in mid-air for a moment, then he collapsed onto the table like a puppet with its strings cut.

Zhou Lang crumpled the unfinished painting into a ball and stuffed it into his pocket. He couldn't leave it in the room, nor could he let it be "taken away."

"Everyone must inspect each other's paintings tomorrow," he said. "Any painting with something you haven't seen before will be destroyed on the spot."

Lin Zhe adjusted his glasses and did not object.

Han Yingying stood at the door, watching Zhou Lang finish handling everything before speaking, "Were you on guard against this from the beginning?"

"There's a logical chain between the rules," Zhou Lang said. "Things that can be drawn will come to life; you can only control variables by drawing things you've seen before. Once someone sees something they shouldn't have seen and then draws it—that's the situation we're in now."

He walked out of 206 and glanced at the end of the corridor.

The green light on that wall had disappeared. The painting in room number three was also gone.

It's as if they never existed.

The next day, Zhou Lang did two things.

The first thing I did was to inform all the players about what happened last night.

The bald, burly man's expression changed several times after hearing this: "Damn, does that mean the tree I drew yesterday also came to life?"

"The one you drew, even if it came to life, would just be a stick," Zhou Lang said.

The bald man paused for two seconds, scratched his head, and was actually comforted: "That's true."

But the couple ran into trouble. The girl woke up crying, and the boy also woke up, but had no memory of what happened last night. He didn't remember drawing that picture, nor did he remember opening the door.

The two middle-aged people—the man was called Old Chen, and the woman was called Sister Xu—were both very cautious. Old Chen said he had strictly followed all the rules last night, and nothing had happened. Sister Xu didn't speak, but simply nodded.

The man in the sportswear was in the worst condition. He was frightened on the bus, and then experienced the noise in the corridor last night; he still can't speak properly.

The second thing Zhou Lang did was to search the guesthouse inside and out again during the day with Han Yingying and Lin Zhe.

The key point is that wall.

During the day, the wall between rooms 202 and 204 was spotless, with nothing on it. No matter how much you knocked or shone the light, it was just an ordinary wall.

"It only appears at night," Lin Zhe said. "And you said you're using a green light source?"

"An oil lamp." Zhou Lang didn't go into details about the origin of the oil lamp.

"In other words, Room 3 is usually hidden and can only be seen under special conditions. The green light is one condition, and approaching midnight is another." Lin Zhe jotted down a few notes in his notebook. "If Room 3 is the core of the entire instance—what is that gray figure inside?"

Han Yingying said from the side, "The message I got yesterday didn't mention any figures. It only said that room number three was a painting."

"Can you still use your skills?" Zhou Lang asked.

"Yes, but the other person needs to take the initiative to talk to me."

"When I'm drawing today, I'll try to see if I can bring it up again."

Han Yingying nodded.

During the morning's sketching time, Zhou Lang changed his painting location. He went to the back of the guesthouse and painted a distant view of the mountain behind it.

The painting is still quite ordinary, but every detail is based on what he saw with his own eyes, and he didn't add a single unnecessary blade of grass.

Halfway through his drawing, he noticed something.

There was a clearing halfway up the mountain behind the hill, with several wooden stakes standing there. The stakes were arranged in a circle, like a venue for some kind of ceremony.

He didn't draw this in the painting. But he remembered its location.

When collecting the paintings at noon, the old lady checked them one by one. When it came to the couple, she paused.

"Where's the painting I handed in yesterday? That mountain scene?" the old lady asked with a smile.

"Didn't you take it away?" the male member of the couple said.

"It's been taken away." The old lady repeated, but her tone was somewhat subtle. "But the person in the painting, isn't that someone you've met before?"

The boy's face turned pale: "Who is it?"

"That one standing on the hilltop on the left," the old woman was still laughing, "is something that's been painted in, and can't be taken out."

After saying that, she picked up a stack of paintings and turned to go into the kitchen.

kitchen?

Zhou Lang followed. The kitchen door was closed, and he pressed his ear against it to listen. There was no sound from inside. After waiting for two minutes, he pushed open the door; the kitchen was empty. The stack of paintings was gone too.

The windows were closed, the back door was locked. The people and the painting vanished into thin air.

"What are you doing in the kitchen?" the old lady's voice came from behind.

Zhou Lang turned around and saw the old lady standing at the kitchen door, holding a basin of washed vegetables, her smile no different from before.

"Let's find some water," Zhou Lang said.

"The kettle is in the living room." The old lady walked into the kitchen, placed the vegetables on the cutting board, and began to chop.

Zhou Lang stepped back. He noticed a detail—there were a few drops of paint on the old lady's apron. Red and blue.

Today, everyone is using green and brown tones in their paints. Nobody has ever used red or blue.

Are those colors from yesterday's painting? Or from an earlier one?

In the afternoon, Han Yingying sent a message.

She heard that voice again while she was drawing. This time, instead of trying to get information directly, she used a cleverer method—she deliberately made a mistake in her drawing and then muttered to herself, "I messed it up."

The voice said in her ear, "It's not bad, it's very beautiful. Would you like to see my drawing?"

Skill triggered.

Han Yingying extracted the second piece of information from this sentence:

[The paintings in Room Three aren't just one, they're many. Every time a painting is taken away, another one appears in Room Three. The things depicted in the paintings all live on in Room Three.]

After reading the message, Zhou Lang connected the clues he had gathered over the past few days.

The guesthouse collects the guests' paintings every day. The paintings are stored in Room 3—a space that exists inside the walls. The paintings in Room 3 "come alive," and everything depicted in the paintings is inside.

That gray figure was probably drawn by one of the previous batches of players.

"If this reasoning holds true," Lin Zhe said, "then Room Three is actually an ever-expanding space. With each iteration, new paintings are added, and the room becomes increasingly cluttered. Until a certain tipping point—"

"The painting won't be able to hold it all; the things will spill out," Zhou Lang added.

"The mountain landscape painting the couple did last night is partially finished. If they collect more paintings tonight..."

The three were silent for a moment.

"We need to go into room number three," Zhou Lang said.

"How do I get in? It's a painting, not a door."

"It will open at midnight." Zhou Lang checked the time. "Tonight."

"Are you crazy?" Lin Zhe rarely showed a wavering expression. "I don't know what's inside, and I don't know how I'll get out if I go in—"

"So I'll go in alone," Zhou Lang said. "You guys keep watch outside. If I'm not out by 12:30, smash that wall down."

"Would breaking down the wall actually work?"