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

There was a small notebook on the bedside table. She opened it, and on the first page were a few lines of writing in her own handwriting, but she had never written anything like this before:

*A five-day sketching tour centered around a guesthouse.*

*Team leader: Mr. Shen.*

There were twelve people traveling together.

*On the third day, Li Ming disappeared.*

Han Yingying closed the notebook and put it back in its place.

Li Ming has disappeared—is this a clue from the dungeon, or part of his identity memories? She sorted through the images in her mind, and there were some blurry scenes, like someone else's memories being inserted into her memory. They were unclear, but she could make out the general outline: She had been here for three days. Everything was normal on the first day. On the second day, some people started saying they heard noises at night. On the third day, Li Ming did not appear during roll call in the morning.

Mr. Shen, the teacher in charge of the group, said he might have gone back first, but no one believed him.

Han Yingying sorted out her memories of her identity, opened the door, and walked into the corridor.

There was someone in the corridor, with their back to her, looking at a painting hanging on the wall.

She recognized that figure from behind.

"Zhou Lang." She walked over and lowered her voice.

He turned his head. "You're awake."

"What is your role here?"

"The photographer is here to document the sketching group's creative process." He hefted his camera in his hand. "And you?"

"An art student." Han Yingying handed him the notebook. "It's on the bedside table; it should contain information from the copy."

He flipped through the notebook and handed it back to her. "Li Ming, I checked. No one has seen him since 11 p.m. last night. His things are still in the room, the drawing board is still there, but he's gone."

"The teacher in charge said he went back on his own."

"Mr. Shen," Zhou Lang paused, "he went into Li Ming's room at 10:30 last night and stayed for about twenty minutes."

Han Yingying kept this information to herself. "How did you know?"

"I asked the front desk, and they said someone saw it."

"Would the receptionist tell you something like that?"

"I asked the waiter next to the front desk," he said. "The front desk wouldn't tell me, but the waiter did."

Han Yingying glanced at him but didn't ask any further questions. She had witnessed this man's way of asking questions once before, in the haunted manor. His way of questioning ghosts was similar to his way of questioning people; he always looked for the easiest opening to ask.

"I have a skill," she said. "A con artist, I can extract information from the mouths of the supernatural."

"I know."

"...You know that?"

"I guessed." He hung the camera around his neck. "You used it once when you first entered the instance, in that corridor."

Han Yingying thought for a moment; she had indeed used it that time, but thought no one had noticed. "Were you there that time too?"

"upstairs."

She was silent for a moment. "So you mean, you want me to contact the supernatural entity and find out about Li Ming from it?"

"If you're willing," he said. "If you're not, that's fine too; I have other ways, just slower."

Han Yingying put the notebook back into her pocket. "Tell me about the copy; I need more information before I decide."

Zhou Lang recounted what he already knew in a short time, about three minutes. After listening, Han Yingying mentally reviewed the clues.

Mr. Shen went into Li Ming's room last night. Li Ming is missing; there were no signs of struggle. Some members of the sketching group heard crying coming from the basement last night. The guesthouse was built in 1987 on the site of an abandoned art academy that closed due to a fire. Some students perished in the fire; the number is unknown.

"The basement," Han Yingying said. "The eeriness is in the basement."

"Highly likely."

"Then I'll go."

Zhou Lang glanced at her. "Are you sure?"

"A con artist's skills are never wasted." She walked towards the stairs. "Besides, you said to slow down, but I don't want to."

Zhou Lang caught up, and the two walked side by side down the corridor. Han Yingying noticed that he walked very quietly, not intentionally, but just out of habit.

The basement door was behind the kitchen, locked with a regular padlock. The padlock was rusty, but the latch was new. Han Yingying crouched down to take a look.

"Changed it," she said.

"Within the last two months." Zhou Lang pulled a wire from his pocket, quickly pried open the lock, and said, "Go in."

Han Yingying walked down the stone steps, the chill seeping up from her feet. Zhou Lang followed behind her, his phone's flashlight shining on the wall in front of him, illuminating a damp patch of water.

The basement wasn't large, and it was cluttered with odds and ends: old picture frames, broken easels, and several sealed cardboard boxes. In the corner was a small door, through which a sliver of light shone—not from a flashlight, but from an old-fashioned incandescent bulb, yellowish and dim.

Han Yingying walked over, placed her hand on the door, and pushed it open a crack.

Inside was a small room, with an easel in the center. On the easel was an unfinished painting of a person; the outline was still there, but the facial features were missing, and the paint was still wet.

A person was standing next to the easel.

No, it's not human.

The thing was facing away from the door, wearing an old work uniform stained with paint. It had a human-like body, but its neck was at the wrong angle, tilted to the left by about thirty degrees, exceeding the range that human joints could withstand.

Han Yingying didn't back down; she pushed the door open and went inside.

A con artist's instincts kicked in, and she spoke, her voice steady: "Who are you drawing?"

The thing turned its head—the angle of its neck didn't change, but its whole body rotated, turning to face the front, and Han Yingying saw its face.

It has no eyes, the eye sockets are empty, but it is "seeing" her, that much is certain.

"It's been found," it said, its voice like two pieces of sandpaper rubbing together. "It was meant to be found."

"Who wants to get it back?"

"Everything that was burned must be retrieved."

Han Yingying went over the question in her mind and continued, "Where is Li Ming?"

The thing was silent for a moment, then tilted its head to the right, before turning it back to the other side, a muffled crack coming from its neck. "In the painting."

Which painting?

It raised its hand and pointed to the portrait on the easel that had no facial features.

Han Yingying looked at the painting; the paint was still dripping down, a deep red mixed with ochre, exactly the same color as the paint on her fingers.

Her fingers tightened, and she remained silent.

Zhou Lang's voice came from behind, not loud, but clear: "Enough, come out."

She stepped out, and Zhou Lang closed the small door behind her. The two stood in the basement, the beam of their flashlights swirling around the floor.

"Li Ming was depicted in the painting," Han Yingying said. "The painting is its container, or its way of storing its prey."

"The fire in 1987," Zhou Lang said, "didn't just burn down buildings, but also students' paintings. Those paintings contained its own kind, or even itself. It wanted to find them, to use the blood and flesh of living people as paint, and to repaint them."

"Was Mr. Shen an accomplice?"

"Mr. Shen is it," he said. "Or rather, it resides within Mr. Shen's body."

Han Yingying went through the logic chain and found no loopholes. "Then how do we break it?"

"Burn that painting."

"If you burn it, Li Ming—"