# Chapter 229: The Instance's Task Trap
Hasty footsteps echoed through the exhibition hall, but the sound of hard objects scraping against the floor did not speed up, maintaining its original rhythm as it moved toward the hall, the contrast between fast and slow doubling the sense of terror and strangeness.
As Big Bear rushed into the exhibition hall, he looked up and only saw two rows of dim yellow lamps that could only illuminate three feet in front of the pillars. The vast art museum was otherwise devoured by darkness. Within the tightly sealed space, one could faintly hear sounds like wind passing through gaps, which then transformed into the sound of liquid flowing!
One hand grabbed the wall at the corner of the room. Big Bear glanced back and then charged into the darkness, running toward the portrait that had been torn during the day!
A tall, thin shadow emerged from the corridor and merged into the darkness, following the path of Big Bear's escape. After it disappeared into the darkness, two more shadows came out from the left and right corridors respectively, entering the exhibition hall one after another.
Big Bear chose the central wall of the exhibition hall, hiding himself in the darkness. Estimating that he had run close enough to the portrait, he slowed down, circled around to the side of a pillar, and immediately reached for the painting!
Just as his hand touched the frame, a game prompt suddenly appeared:
[Congratulations to player Hidden One for finding a counterfeit painting, completing the first task of this instance.]
The smile that hadn't yet fully spread across Big Bear's face froze in place, while the monster in the darkness let out a furious roar, madly slashing and smashing around the exhibition hall. The two shadows positioned on opposite sides of the hall quickly retreated.
The Painting Woman, who had been floating above the art museum, leisurely passed through the exhibition hall, circled around the pillars, and came to the place where Big Bear had been hiding. But by this time, there was no one in front of the pillar.
Landing on the ground, she looked left and right, then turned back to see the flowers and grass in the landscape painting hanging on the pillar behind her rustling, so she walked over...
In the darkness, the monster's low growl never ceased. Although the exhibition hall was already empty, it still wandered between the pillars, as if searching for something.
Xu Huo, who had been waiting in vain for the Painting Woman to return, slightly pulled open the half-closed door and sidestepped out of the room. He grabbed the strings to elevate himself and moved toward the exhibition hall.
The darkness did not completely block his vision. From his high vantage point, Xu Huo could take in the entire art museum, and thus he could clearly see what the monster wandering in the darkness actually looked like.
Five or six meters tall, it had a human-like torso and limbs, but they were very disproportionate. Its slender arms and legs were somewhat like a mantis. When it walked, its overly long feet would drag and scrape on the ground, making a sound. Notably, there was a long white object on its right arm that looked like a walking stick.
A walking stick?
Xu Huo frowned slightly and looked toward the center of the exhibition hall. The statue that had been standing there was gone, leaving only a plaster draped cloth standing in its place!
The monster active in the art museum at night was actually a statue?
From the Painting Woman and the "god" mentioned by Yuan Yao, it was clear that some special props in the instance possessed a certain degree of autonomy. They could be simply props left behind in the instance, or they could become instance bosses. The statue in the Hundred-Person Art Museum was clearly the latter.
The active monster stopped and suddenly turned its head to look in Xu Huo's direction.
Xu Huo quickly hid behind a pillar. Just as he steadied himself against the pillar, he heard the sound of hard objects scraping the ground suddenly close at hand. A slender arm reached around the pillar from the side. He manipulated the strings to lift himself higher, and as the monster craned its neck to look, he circled around from the other side to its rear, hiding behind the next pillar.
Glancing sideways at the monster hunched over the pillar, he began searching the exhibition hall and soon found a missing painting on a pillar to the right.
The missing painting should be the counterfeit taken by a player, and the painting that had been hanging in this spot during the day was a group photo.
From the time Big Bear was attacked to when he entered the exhibition hall, only a few dozen seconds had passed. The player who completed the first task hadn't taken a nearby painting but had gone to the center of the exhibition hall to take a group photo. This indicated that besides being taken after lights out, the counterfeit paintings had a second condition.
Carefully avoiding the monster that was searching behind every pillar, Xu Huo arrived at the front door of the art museum. The person in the painting "Still Time" hanging on the first pillar rolled his eyes, and the hand originally crossed over his chest lifted to wave at him.
His gaze lingered for a second on the smiling face of the person in the painting, then he crossed the exhibition hall to the left side and found the torn portrait of a woman.
The person who had actually torn this painting was Big Bear. After Deng Yu disappeared, he was still the first player attacked by the monster. He had fled to the exhibition hall simply to try his luck—if he got a counterfeit painting, he could immediately leave the instance and be saved.
Seeing a few drops of blood on the ground, Xu Huo casually wiped them away, then took down the woman's portrait.
[Congratulations to player Passerby A for discovering a counterfeit painting. Do you wish to submit it to complete the first task?]
[After submission, you can obtain a return ticket and an instance rating no lower than D-level, and unlock the second instance task.]
The face of the woman in the painting was somewhat distorted. A double image fluctuated around her outline, as if there was another face in the painting, simultaneously shouting something.
Even though it was obscured by the woman's colors, Xu Huo still recognized that face as belonging to the player Big Bear.
So Deng Yu hadn't disappeared—he had been sucked into the painting?
Turning back to look at the "Still Time" that was staring fixedly at him, he suddenly realized that the living paintings here were very likely all transformed players. During the day, there were no counterfeit paintings, but who had seen the moving paintings? Besides reacting with fear and avoidance like Big Bear, there was another line of thought—that the living paintings were the counterfeits.
And if one came to take a painting at night, the consequence was being sucked into the painting, becoming part of it, and thus successfully completing a counterfeit painting!
"Bang!" Ten meters away, the monster suddenly smashed a frame.
Xu Huo immediately tucked the painting under his arm, grabbed the strings, and circled back around from the front door of the art museum. As he left, he looked toward the front door pillar again, ignoring the angry expression of the man in the portrait, and instead glanced at the painting "Silent Umbrella." At this time, the shadow behind the umbrella was the same as when he had entered the art museum—biased to the right.
The monster moved over. He didn't linger and turned back to the room.
The unlit room was pitch black. He swept his gaze over the sofa where Ni Tian was lying, then returned to the bedside, put away the prop, removed his disposable gloves, and placed the painting by the cabinet.
He didn't rush to submit the painting.
Deng Yu and Big Bear had undoubtedly entered the painting. The player "Hidden One" who had completed the first task had the painting disappear after submitting the task. So submitting the task meant the game would reclaim the counterfeit painting, and the players trapped inside would not be able to get out.
But his hesitation wasn't because of the players inside, but because of the instance's task trap.
In previous instances, multiple tasks had appeared simultaneously, but the Hundred-Person Art Museum required submitting the first task before unlocking the second. This indicated that submitting the previous task might impose restrictions on subsequent tasks.