According to what Ruan Nan Zhu said, it was obvious that even if they were pulled into the painting, the ghosts could not directly take action against them.
But since the glass in front of them was framed with picture frames, it meant that almost everyone who came here to use the toilet had been framed - they just didn't know why the woman had chosen Lin Qiu Shi in the end.
"Maybe because of his looks," Ruan Nan Zhu said casually. "He's quite cute."
Upon hearing this, Tan Zao Zao stared with wide eyes: "Then why wasn't I pulled in?"
Ruan Nan Zhu: "Are you cute?"
Tan Zao Zao: "..." Ruan Nan Zhu, if you dare say that outside, you'd be dead, you know that?
In short, there seemed to be quite a few picture frames hidden in this castle. At least after returning to the bedroom, Ruan Nan Zhu had dug out several more. One was hidden to the right of the mirror, another was inside the bedside table. Ruan Nan Zhu even found a secret compartment in the ceiling with a picture frame inside. No wonder he had become a target to be dragged into the painting as well. And what the mistress was doing was merely a cover up by the lady of the house - it turns out the ghosts in this world actually had intelligence, and it was not low.
After digging out all the picture frames in the room, Ruan Nan Zhu very unceremoniously smashed them all. After smashing them, he also told the people in the team about it and asked them to find and overturn any picture frames they could find.
Lin Qiu Shi didn't know if it was his illusion, but he always felt that the mistress' eyes were particularly resentful when looking at Ruan Nan Zhu that morning, as if she hated him to the bone and wished she could skin and debone him.
Ruan Nan Zhu either didn't notice or didn't care at all. He still sat calmly at the dining table eating the delicious steak, completely unaffected.
But even though people had started looking for picture frames, it was still a little too late. The next morning, someone disappeared again and became a beautiful painting.
Ruan Nan Zhu went to take a look at the painting, then took out a flat picture frame from under the missing person's carpet. Lin Qiu Shi sighed with the picture frame in his hand: "This works too?"
He put the picture frame aside and shook his head: "Really unpredictable."
Ruan Nan Zhu said, "It really is unpredictable, so we'd better find the key as soon as possible." He said, "I feel like she's getting more and more unscrupulous."
Lin Qiu Shi nodded.
Ruan Nan Zhu's intuition was indeed correct, because that night, the woman appeared outside their window again.
In the quiet rainy night, the woman stood in the middle of the desolate yard. The rain fell on her body. She looked up slightly towards Ruan Nan Zhu's balcony, revealing a hideous smile.
Ruan Nan Zhu was smoking outside. Seeing the woman, he didn't say anything. His expression was quite indifferent. He just said: "She's standing outside."
Lin Qiu Shi walked over to his side and saw the scene outside as well.
Seeing this woman, ordinary people would have been scared away already. Only Ruan Nan Zhu could look at her indifferently without retreating. Eventually it was the woman who disappeared first.
"Aren't you afraid?" Lin Qiu Shi asked, turning his head.
Ruan Nan Zhu exhaled smoke: "Whether you're afraid or not makes no difference." He handed Lin Qiu Shi a cigarette.
Since they were indoors anyway, Lin Qiu Shi took the cigarette and lit it, looking at the darkening sky outside: "What should we do next?"
Ruan Nan Zhu: "Wait."
Why wait, what were they waiting for - Ruan Nan Zhu didn't explain, and Lin Qiu Shi didn't ask either. He finished his cigarette and followed Ruan Nan Zhu back into the room. Tan Zao Zao was already lying on the floor mat with her butt poked up, fast asleep. Her appearance inside was really hard to match with her cold elite image outside. She was not outstanding in appearance or temperament, and she had a habit of sleeping like a worm lying on the bed with her butt poked up, which was truly an eyesore. Lin Qiu Shi didn't know if her fans would feel disillusioned seeing this.
Lin Qiu Shi kindly pulled up the quilt to cover her, then lay down next to Ruan Nan Zhu.
"You stand on the bridge watching the scenery, while others watch you from the building. The bright moon decorates your window while you decorate other people's dreams," Ruan Nan Zhu said. "Do you have any new thoughts on this poem?"
Lin Qiu Shi thought for a moment: "We stand in the castle looking at the paintings, while others watch us from above, picture frames decorate our windows while we decorate other people's dreams..." The note had explained things quite clearly, it was easy to understand the answer with just a little thought, he just hesitated a little now, wondering if the "dream" mentioned in the last line referred to the world they were pulled into by the woman, or something else.
"I think the dream refers to the paintings upstairs," Ruan Nan Zhu said, turning to look at Lin Qiu Shi's profile.
The two were extremely close to each other, they could even feel each other's breath.
If it was someone else, Lin Qiu Shi might have felt uncomfortable. But probably because they had shared a bed before, Lin Qiu Shi didn't feel anything was wrong.
"You mean the banquet painting?" Lin Qiu Shi asked.
Ruan Nan Zhu: "Hmm."
Lin Qiu Shi blinked: "Then should we go burn that painting?"
Ruan Nan Zhu was silent for three seconds, realizing that Lin Qiu Shi was serious, he said: "Aren't you afraid anymore?"
Lin Qiu Shi: "Aren't you still here? Besides, if the mistress's dream really is that painting, do we have to wait until she finishes it?"
Ruan Nan Zhu: "She can never finish that painting."
Hearing this, Lin Qiu Shi was stunned for a moment, then immediately understood Ruan Nan Zhu's meaning. The mistress would indeed never finish that painting. There were 10 people in the painting, which meant she had to pull 10 people into the frame and turn them into paintings. But according to the rules inside the door, the team would never be completely wiped out, which meant that the mistress's painting would always lack one face - the painting could indeed never be completed.
"Let's go take a look tomorrow," Ruan Nan Zhu said. "We can't stay here any longer, it will only get more and more dangerous."
Lin Qiu Shi nodded.
Ruan Nan Zhu's guess was indeed correct, because the next morning, another person from their team disappeared. This time no one reacted too much, everyone was already used to things like this happening.
The butler collected the missing person's painting and Lin Qiu Shi watched him take it upstairs.
"Where is he taking the painting?" Lin Qiu Shi was a little curious.
Ruan Nan Zhu: "Don't know, let's follow him and see."
After saying this, the two tacitly put down their knives and forks and walked out. Tan Zao Zao still didn't understand what was going on, but hurriedly followed them out with a piece of bread stuffed in her mouth.
The butler went up to the sixth floor and opened the room where unfinished works were stored. He went inside and came out very quickly.
Lin Qiu Shi and the others hid around the corner of the stairs, watching as the butler's figure disappeared in front of them.
"Go in and take a look?" Lin Qiu Shi asked.
Ruan Nan Zhu nodded.
Skillfully picking the lock, Ruan Nan Zhu opened the door of the unfinished works room again. This time when they entered, they made a new discovery.
"...Were these new paintings added?" Seeing the paintings in the room, Tan Zao Zao felt a little creepy. They saw that many originally blank spaces in the paintings in the room had been filled. Filling up the picture frames was a black-clothed woman in the image of the woman in the rain. Her figure was everywhere - windows, corridors, stairs, courtyards. She even appeared in the scroll painting that belonged to Xiao Su.
This made Lin Qiu Shi inexplicably feel that the picture had been tainted.
Ruan Nan Zhu looked at these hundreds of paintings and fell into thought. His movements paused and he said, "Look around."
Tan Zao Zao had been in a state of confusion from the beginning, still eating the bread in her hand: "Look for what?"
"Look for a door," Ruan Nan Zhu said. "The door should be in the painting."
"Really?" Although Tan Zao Zao was a little doubtful, she still followed Ruan Nan Zhu's words and began to search through the hundreds of paintings in front of her.
About half an hour later, while flipping through a painting pressed at the bottom, Lin Qiu Shi finally found what he was looking for. He called out in a low voice: "Found it!"
It was a very ordinary looking painting at first glance. The painting depicted a scene inside the castle, but there was a very special sight in this scene - a black iron door.
The black iron door stood in the dark corner, easy to miss if you didn't look closely.
Ruan Nan Zhu took the painting: "This is the staircase on the right side of the second floor. Let's go take a look."
They took the painting straight to the second floor and quickly found the scene in the painting, but it was different from the one in the painting. Where the iron door should have been was a white wall, and there was an ordinary landscape painting hanging on the wall.
Ruan Nan Zhu reached out and took down the painting, discovering a switch behind it. Seeing the switch, he reached out and pressed it. With a slight rumbling sound, a huge crack opened in the wall in front of them, and a black door appeared before the three.
"The door is found!" Tan Zao Zao was overjoyed, "Now we just need the key..."
Lin Qiu Shi and Ruan Nan Zhu looked at each other.
Ruan Nan Zhu: "Shall we do it?"
Lin Qiu Shi: "Let's go."
Tan Zao Zao didn't understand the meaning of their conversation. It wasn't until she saw Ruan Nan Zhu take out a lighter from his pocket that she exclaimed: "You two can't really be going to..."
Ruan Nan Zhu: "If you're afraid then wait here."
Tan Zao Zao decided to still go with them after all. It'd be better to have some company in case something happened, right? Safety in numbers as they say.
Lin Qiu Shi: "..." Was she planning for them to die together?
After making the decision, Ruan Nan Zhu was extremely decisive. The three went straight to the mistress's studio on the seventh floor. Of course, they didn't forget to knock on the door before entering the studio, otherwise if they pushed the door open and saw the mistress sitting inside, it would be quite awkward.
The mistress didn't seem to paint during the day, only at night. This gave Ruan Nan Zhu a chance. He walked to the painting, opened the lighter, lowered his head and lit it in one smooth motion, as if he had done it countless times before.
Tan Zao Zao watched from the side with her heart racing, vigorously rubbing the goosebumps on her arms.
The flame caught on the paper and quickly devoured the painting in front. But as the flames spread, Lin Qiu Shi heard a faint sound, like a human scream, and also like the wet creaking sound made by burning damp wood.
"Did you guys hear that?" Lin Qiu Shi asked without much hope.
As expected, Ruan Nan Zhu and Tan Zao Zao both shook their heads, indicating that they hadn't heard anything.
In a moment, the painting in front had turned into black ashes. With the last corner ignited, there was a crisp sound from the ground, as if some metal object had fallen onto the floor.
Lin Qiu Shi lowered his head and saw an antique bronze key, as expected.
"Ahhhhh!" At the same time, an angry woman's scream came from downstairs, the scream shook Lin Qiu Shi so hard he almost lost his footing. Without thinking, they knew it must be the mistress's voice.
"Run!" Ruan Nan Zhu grabbed the key and turned to flee.
Lin Qiu Shi and Tan Zao Zao followed closely behind.
They rushed down the stairs, but when they reached the fourth floor, they saw the mistress with a frenzied expression who had already caught up. Her tall figure was now hunched, angrily roaring something from her mouth. Her dark eyes were filled with unconcealed anger and madness, but what attracted the most attention was the huge picture frame she was waving heavily in her right hand. No one wanted to be hit by that thing.
"Take the side stairs!" Ruan Nan Zhu was already very familiar with the structure of the castle. Seeing the woman, he immediately changed direction.
The woman rushed towards them with uncoordinated flailing limbs, looking almost like a giant arthropod. But her speed was extremely fast. She was behind them in an instant.
Lin Qiu Shi didn't dare stop for a moment. As long as he stopped, it felt like the picture frame would immediately smash down on him.
They quickly went down to the fourth floor. Ruan Nan Zhu didn't look back: "Lin Qiu Shi, lure her away, give me some time to open the door--"
Lin Qiu Shi gritted his teeth: "Okay!" He looked back at the huge woman behind him, grabbed a painting from the wall next to him without thinking, and smashed it towards her.
The painting hit the woman squarely. She let out an almost hideous roar, pouncing towards Lin Qiu Shi.
Lin Qiu Shi dodged to the side, barely escaping the picture frame swung at his face. He looked at Ruan Nan Zhu and ran downstairs towards the first floor.
The woman followed him down the stairs as expected. Lin Qiu Shi felt like he had never been so calm before. Making sure the woman was following him, he quickly turned around towards the stairs at the other end of the corridor and ran back up. This should be enough time for Ruan Nan Zhu to open the iron door!
Sure enough, when he returned to the second floor, Lin Qiu Shi saw that the iron door had been opened.
Soft light emanated from inside the door, telling those inside that this was the way back to the world of the living. Lin Qiu Shi panted heavily, exerting the last of his strength to sprint wildly towards the door. But just as he was about to enter, he felt a pair of big hands grab his ankles hard and forcibly drag him back out of the door--
The woman appeared in front of him with a hideous expression. She held his feet in her hands and raised her right hand holding the picture frame, smashing it heavily downwards.
At this moment, Lin Qiu Shi's breath almost stopped. The scene before him slowed down infinitely, as if it was the last slideshow before death. He could even see the woman's flying black hair...
The picture frame smashed down. Lin Qiu Shi involuntarily closed his eyes.
"Ahhhhh!" But the darkness that should have come did not arrive. Instead, Lin Qiu Shi heard the woman scream. He opened his eyes to find his whole body soaked in blood, with his pockets as the source, still gushing blood nonstop. This fresh blood seemed to be something aggressive to the woman. She even put down the picture frame in her hand and kept retreating.
Lin Qiu Shi didn't dare think too much about what was going on. He turned and rushed into the door. Passing through the light-filled corridor, his figure paused and he finally returned to the long-lost real world.
"Phew..." Lin Qiu Shi sat on the bed, his head full of cold sweat. He raised his hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead, got up and went outside to knock on Ruan Nan Zhu's room.
With a creak, Ruan Nan Zhu appeared at the door. Seeing Lin Qiu Shi, his expression relaxed slightly: "You got out."
Lin Qiu Shi nodded. The scene before he exited was too frightening, and now his whole body felt weak: "When I got out, that woman grabbed me."
Ruan Nan Zhu frowned: "You're not hurt, are you?"
Lin Qiu Shi shook his head: "No." He was a little confused, "I was clearly caught by her, but it seems like something saved me." He searched his pockets but didn't find anything strange inside, "A lot of blood flowed out of my pocket... Do you know what that was?"
Ruan Nan Zhu leaned against the door without answering.
Lin Qiu Shi asked directly: "Why did you lie to me?"
Ruan Nan Zhu: "Do you always act so directly?"
Lin Qiu Shi was a little confused: "Why can't I be direct? What's so secretive about this?"
Ruan Nan Zhu looked down at Lin Qiu Shi, with a strange expression: "Didn't you ever consider that maybe I was actually trying to harm you?"
Lin Qiu Shi honestly shook his head: "I didn't think about that."
Ruan Nan Zhu: "..." Lin Qiu Shi, how can you be so cute.