The room’s ceiling, like the previous two rooms, was a black void with matters floating around that resembled both particles and waves. However, in front of them was not water or an iron plate, but a massive canvas blocking the path to the exit.
On the left side of the canvas, there were seven solid squares of red, yellow, green, blue, purple, black, and white, each of the same size. In the middle of the canvas, there was a tray seemingly connected to a series of complex mechanics below. The entire painting resembled a design diagram of some mechanical combination, constructed entirely from lines.
Above the canvas, a line of text read: “Place the heaviest color block on the tray to clear the level. Placing it incorrectly will result in elimination.”
“How can we know which color block is the heaviest?” He Tang asked anxiously, as the countdown on the interface mercilessly displayed the passing seconds. “They all look the same size to me! And they’re flat, how can they have weight?”
“Don’t panic,” Ke Xun reassured, patting her shoulder. “Imagine this, this is just a flat image. The comics we read are also flat images, right? Yet, we can mentally visualize them as three-dimensional. Similarly, with this image, if you imagine them as three-dimensional, they’ll all have weight.”
He Tang bit her lip, concentrating on distinguishing which of the seven colored blocks might appear larger. Meanwhile, Wei Dong reached out and tapped the black block. The color block was like an icon on a phone’s touchscreen, ready to be moved once selected.
“Between a black and white block of the same size, the black one appears to be 1.8 times heavier than the white one,” Wei Dong explained. “That’s why safes are usually dark-colored. It adds a psychological weight and has certain anti-theft effects.”
Wei Dong was about to release his finger from the selected block when Ke Xun stopped him: “Don’t rush it. Drag out the time a bit more.”
Wei Dong understood and kept an eye on the countdown. He prepared to release it when the countdown reached the last five seconds.
“Thankfully you are here. Why did this crazy painting suddenly throw in a color-related challenge?” Ke Xun said.
“What’s the big deal? In the previous two challenges, one was related to history, and the other was about physical health – it was so thrilling,” Wei Dong replied.
“Oh?” Ke Xun raised an eyebrow, then turned to He Tang and asked, “What about the challenge you just passed?”
He Tang was pondering how these two were so easygoing in such a situation and still had time to chat. Hearing Ke Xun’s question, she responded, “In the last challenge, we dealt with a music-related challenge. Fortunately, it was within my professional expertise, so we didn’t encounter many obstacles.”
Ke Xun gave her a thumbs up. This girl probably played a significant role in getting through the last challenge.
Encouraged, He Tang’s mood stabilized considerably.
Ke Xun turned to Wei Dong and said, “I understand now. All the challenges here are based on school subjects. The first major section was Chinese, and within this section, we had physics, chemistry, and physical health, and also history, music, and now art. Cheng Shi blended all the subjects his son studied at school into this painting.”
“That’s a lot of resentment.” As Wei Dong spoke, the countdown had entered the final five seconds. He took a deep breath and released his finger.
The black block fell onto the tray as if carrying immense weight. The entire canvas in front plummeted down, revealing a section of the pathway. It was only about ten or so meters long. At the far end, there was another upright canvas blocking the path.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Ke Xun strode forward, and Wei Dong was about to follow. Seeing that Fang Fei was still focused on reciting the laws, he quickly pulled her along.
Ktf mjcnjr vlrqijsfv j cjggbk rila bc ybat atf ifoa jcv gluta rlvfr—bcf lc gfv jcv bcf lc ugffc. Cybnf atfw kfgf atf kbgvr: “Jtbbrf bcf ab qjrr atgbeut. Jtbbrlcu lcmbggfmais klii gfreia lc filwlcjalbc.”
“Ktlr lr rtjwfifrr. Pa vbfrc’a fnfc wfcalbc ktja mbcvlalbcr atf mtblmf lr yjrfv bc. Lbk jgf kf reqqbrfv ab mtbbrf?” Bf Wec byrfgnfv atf mjcnjr.
“Is it green?” He Tang said. “Green is usually considered a safe color, and aren’t traffic lights always red for stop and green for go?”
“I just feel it’s not that simple,” Ke Xun frowned. “With such an obvious answer, would the painting set such a straightforward question for us? But on the other hand, it could deliberately use this mindset to make us think in a more complicated direction when it is just that simple. What do you think, Dong Zi?”
Wei Dong scratched his head. “It’s pretty disgusting to not specify the conditions for the choice. Who knows what criteria it’s based on?”
Seeing the countdown entering the second half, Fang Fei accelerated her pace in speaking out the laws. Ke Xun listened for a moment and felt that time might still not be sufficient this time. They had to solve this problem as well.
Redirecting his attention to the canvas, Ke Xun carefully reviewed the prompt. He said, “The question mentions ‘pass through’ indicating that we can go through the correct slit to move on to the next problem. But don’t you feel it’s strange? The canvas is large, but these two color bars are very narrow. Since it wants us to pass through, why not paint them wider?”
As he spoke, he stood next to the green color bar and compared: “Look, it’s just the width of my shoulders. If we have a chubby person, wouldn’t they get stuck here?”
He then switched to the red color bar and compared again. It still matched only the width of his shoulders.
“These red and green bars are of equal width,” Ke Xun said.
Wei Dong’s eyes suddenly lit up. “I got it! Choose red! Let’s go! Let’s go” Saying this, he grabbed Fang Fei and squeezed into the red slit.
Ke Xun asked He Tang to go ahead, positioning himself at the back. In case he actually got stuck, he wouldn’t want He Tang to be implicated.
Fortunately, he was not stuck, and the four of them successfully passed through the narrow red gap.
“What’s the reasoning behind this?” He Tang asked Wei Dong.
“Since it involves width, I think it may likely be testing another psychological effect of color, which is the effect of expansion-contraction color,” Wei Dong said. “Red, orange, and yellow are expansion colors, while blue and green are contraction colors. So, if we had walked on the green color strip just now, we might have gotten stuck in it. Although the two color strips are actually the same width, I think what Cheng Shi wants to test is their visual effect and psychological effect. The psychological effects are all true in the painting.”
He Tang made an expression that she understood, and Wei Dong added, “So, girl, if you want to look slim, wear dark clothes, black stockings or what not to make your legs look thinner.”
He Tang: “……” Black stockings…
Ke Xun: “Your otaku traits are exposed. Stop talking nonsense; the third problem is here.”
The third problem was still on a canvas. While Wei Dong was carefully reviewing the question, Ke Xun had already heard Fang Fei finish speaking the rules, and using the item box to request Cheng Shi’s consciousness and his signature.
The surroundings did not undergo any changes, but the void above their heads began to flicker. Particle and wave-like dots jumped randomly and disorderly, sometimes they were scattering light spots, sometimes forming a fence-like pattern of alternating light and shadow bars, and sometimes a combination of light spots and bars.
During this unpredictable transformation, a bright line suddenly lit up on the edge of the void above, as if someone had opened a corner of the box from the outside and let in a large amount of light.
Schrödinger’s cat, once observed by people after the box was opened, the cat in a superposition state in the box would inevitably collapse into one of the states.
The light spots and the bars in the void, at the moment when the light projected in, instantly stopped flickering and jumping, fixing themselves neatly on the black void, turning into a signature that seemed to be written with light: Cheng Shi.
“How… how do we reach it?!” Wei Dong exclaimed. “Are they testing us even at the last part?!”
The countdown for the third question had entered the second half, and Ke Xun was also anxious. What laws could make a person fly? There was no time to think about laws at this moment! No one had martial art skills like Qinggong. How could they—
——Huh? Qinggong?
Ke Xun pulled up the book of laws and shouted in a desperate attempt, “Left foot steps on the right foot to borrow force to fly up!”
——”Law accepted.”
Fang Fei: “……”
He Tang: “……”
Wei Dong in shock: “——WTF—this can even work?!”
Ke Xun: “No time to explain, let’s go up quickly!”
The group of people did not dare to hesitate and soared into the air by using their left foot to step on the right foot with resigned expressions on their face.
However, just before reaching Cheng Shi’s signature, Ke Xun suddenly received two help requests at the same time.
“You have only one chance left to accept a help request, please choose to accept one or reject all.”
Ke Xun looked at the avatars sending help requests, one was Deng Lin, and the other was Wu You.
Ke Xun thought for a moment and asked He Tang, “If you want to make this decision, I’ll follow your choice.”
These two people, one was her boyfriend whom she was deeply in love with, and the other was her rival in love who was like a thorn in the flesh.
He Tang bit her lip, her expression complicated.
However, time waited for no one. Just when Ke Xun thought she didn’t want to make a decision and was about to reach out to accept help from one of them, he heard He Tang whispering three words from between her lips, low but clear: “Choose Wu You.”
Scumbag man could just go fend for himself!
Wu You and Deng Lin entered the same challenge this time, but they had already fallen out before entering, so they each sought help from other people when they encountered a problem they couldn’t solve.
As Ke Xun expected, the topics involved in these challenges were all related to school subjects. Wu You and Deng Lin encountered a physical education problem this time, so they sought help from Ke Xun.
After solving Wu You’s problem, Ke Xun, along with Wei Dong, Fang Fei, and He Tang, reached out towards Cheng Shi’s signature.
Just like pushing the lid off from the inside of a box, the void above their heads was completely lifted, and a large amount of light spilled down, making it impossible for people to open their eyes. As the light gradually dissipated, they found themselves in the exhibition hall of the Impending Winter Art Museum.
Standing in front of them were Mu Yiran, Zhu Haowen, Shao Ling, Qin Ci, and Luo Bu. However, Deng Lin and Wu You had not yet emerged at this moment.
No one spoke. They held their breath and stared at the painting “Schrödinger’s Cat” on the wall. It wasn’t until five minutes later that it glowed up, and a figure appeared before them.
It was Wu You.
Her shoulder-length hair seemed to be soaked with sweat. With hair strands sticking to her pale face, she looked quite disheveled. Upon seeing everyone, Wu You suddenly slumped to the ground, covering her face with a mix of laughter and tears. Finally, she squeezed out a muffled sentence from between her fingers, “Deng Lin is not coming out……”
“You might as well think of it this way,” He Tang, calm at this moment, spoke, “if it weren’t for him cheating, you wouldn’t have followed us on this date and ended up in this place. You wouldn’t have entered this exhibition hall because you fought me, and you wouldn’t have been involved in this terrifying world within the painting. Everything started because of him, and now he’s paying the price. Consider it his fate.”
Wu You lifted her tear-streaked face and saw He Tang’s hand extended in front of her.
Extending her own hand and gripping this ice-cold and delicate hand that was also trembling, Wu You was pulled up by He Tang and said: “Sister, we’ve been miserably deceived by that idiot!”
The two of them hugged each other and burst into tears.
All the men: ……
So far this is the best ending of all arc lol.
Damn that’s satisfying
No one deserves death, but he definitely wasn’t a good person
Thank you for your translation 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚
i wonder how he helped? did he just ?? carry her?? but shes still sweating ….