Can I somehow limit the number of items in a flex container?

Question

css

https://codepen.io/Concencuc/pen/PoNwzep
For flex-direction: column to work the way I want it, the container needs to be given a height. This solution does not work in my code. Please tell me what other options are there?

Answer 1

on codepen 9 div.item, and they are arranged in a 3*3 grid
and what should happen and how should it look?