Chapter 1546: The Way Out
Closing the door, Xu Huo signaled the Painting Woman to come out, then stopped her from transforming into a human form. "Be careful not to be discovered."
However, the Painting Woman laughed and turned into a real person, saying smugly, "They can't catch me."
"Puppets?" Xu Huo's expression paused slightly. There weren't many puppets in the castle. Aside from the real human puppet he and Lian Hanshan had encountered earlier, there were several others made of different materials. But they were all casually placed around the castle, not specially collected. It was more like puppets that could originally move on their own had suddenly lost power and arbitrarily stopped somewhere.
He recalled that the Painting Woman had once mentioned she might have been to the Box Carrier's castle.
"Are you sure this is the castle?"
The Painting Woman nodded. To avoid attracting attention from outside, she chose to type: "I remember this place. Someone brought me here. It's huge."
The Painting Woman didn't want to become someone else's tool, but she was easily fooled. Basically, as long as a player proposed it, she would follow them. She had been brought here by a player before, but that player's fate was predictable.
The person who brought her here died. The castle wasn't hers. In the end, she stole a puppet and ran away...
Thinking of this, Xu Huo looked at her. "How did you get out?"
"I left when the door opened." The Painting Woman wrote with a grin.
Xu Huo described the Box Carrier's appearance. After confirming that the Painting Woman had never actually seen him, he asked again, "You don't know who opened the door?"
The Painting Woman shook her head. She only said she was bored in the castle and emphasized that the puppets here were all very fierce. Every time she wanted to come down and play, she was discovered. Forced to stick back to the wall, she eventually found the main door open one day. So, after "consulting" a wooden puppet's opinion, she took it and ran off to a new life.
Noticing the small time gap between her mention of the door opening and her leaving with the puppet, Xu Huo pressed further, asking what changes had occurred inside the castle around the time the door opened, and what the world outside looked like after she stepped out.
"I didn't see anyone else coming in when I left," the Painting Woman said. "The house didn't seem to change either. But those puppets were all very busy, cooking and sweeping... They wouldn't cook for me at all."
Going around in circles without hitting any key information, Xu Huo instead asked how long she had been inside before the door opened.
The Painting Woman couldn't remember at all and felt he was making things difficult for her. "It just suddenly opened."
She mimed a pushing-up motion on a door.
"The door was above your head?" Xu Huo paused.
The Painting Woman nodded repeatedly, pointing upward. "The door was up there, where the light was."
Because of the castle's special height, the dome was too high. The lights were all below, with no lighting fixtures above. And it was the same as the rest of the castle—completely sealed, leaving no gaps.
Xu Huo patiently continued questioning before learning that the "door" the Painting Woman referred to wasn't an actual door, but a crack. After the crack appeared, she could sense and find it, which was how she managed to escape with the puppet.
It wasn't that a door had opened in the castle's dome, but that a portal leading outside had appeared within the castle's space.
Combined with her earlier statements, it was highly likely that the Box Carrier had entered the castle. This also meant he had opened his suitcase.
Assuming Xu Huo's previous deductions were all correct, then the suitcase must be a time-space type item. The door opening meant a spatial portal was created. Regardless of whether the Box Carrier came in or not, this spatial passage was formed—the timing was just uncertain.
Time was crucial.
After giving the Painting Woman some instructions, Xu Huo had her stick back onto his clothes.
"You were gone for so long. Stomach upset?" the young female player asked with concern.
The other two didn't say anything.
"Let's get to know each other," the backpack-wearing man said.
The three had already exchanged names. The female player's surname was Zhu. She didn't give her full name and asked to be called Zhu Zhu. Her profession was a fashion designer.
The backpack man was named Guan Donglai, a professional extreme athlete. According to him, his favorite activity was climbing.
Lian Hanshan had already introduced himself to Xu Huo earlier. He used to be a training instructor, and his current profession was a future planner.
"Is that even a profession in the game? Future planning is a job?" Zhu Zhu asked curiously.
"There are all kinds of strange professions," Lian Hanshan said good-naturedly.
Xu Huo's introduction was simple. "Yu Er, freelance painter."
Professions often didn't correlate with the items players used. And since players used items more frequently, everyone felt no psychological burden when introducing their professions.
After getting acquainted, Guan Donglai proposed a way to break the deadlock.
"I have an item that requires more than three people to use. It might be able to get us out."
"No matter where we are, it doesn't matter. As long as the instance hasn't started, we're all in a 'free' state. If the game isn't forcibly restricting us, we just need to open the Box Carrier's suitcase."
The other three were surprised but remained silent. It might be feasible against someone else, but the Box Carrier was a Super Player. No matter the situation, it wouldn't be as simple as it sounded.
"Do you know what's trapping us?" Zhu Zhu asked.
"That's not important," Guan Donglai said. "Whether it's an item or an instance, even if we knew, we couldn't solve the problem by relying on strength and logical thinking like clearing an instance. We have to rely on items."
As he spoke, he placed a colorful rope on the table.
"This item is called 'Escape from Death.' When used by multiple people simultaneously, the rope can open an escape passage in any dangerous situation. The condition is that each person must contribute one A-grade time-space item."
Hearing this made the three of them flinch. Zhu Zhu immediately asked, "A-grade item? Does it have to be A-grade?"
"It has to be A-grade," Guan Donglai said. "Without sufficient compensation, how could we open a portal in this space? So not only does it need to be A-grade, but it also has to be time-space type."
Seeing how certain he was, Zhu Zhu felt deflated and turned to the other two. "Do you have any?"
"I do have an A-grade item," Lian Hanshan said with a slight frown, "but not a time-space type. Time-space items are rare to begin with, let alone at this level."
"Same here." Xu Huo looked at Guan Donglai. "Have you tried using a Space Device?"
Guan Donglai paused, seeming to think it over. After a moment, he said, "We could try, but the device would likely be destroyed. Besides, do you have three A-grade Space Devices?"
Under everyone's gaze, Xu Huo shook his head with slight disappointment.
Guan Donglai was also regretful. He put the item away. Then Xu Huo asked, "Can one item only be used by one person?"
"Of course," the latter pointed at the castle walls. "Even if we could forcibly open a space like this, the time would be extremely short. It would be good enough for one person to pass through. Sorry, I'll have to find someone else. Maybe others have what's needed."