Paintings of Terror

Ke Xun pulled his cell phone away from his ear and then laughed into the mic: “Then I’ll see you in the next painting.”

This way, he wouldn’t have to hear the other person tell him goodbye.

After hanging up, Mu Yiran received a text. It was Ke Xun’s Vchat ID. However, he didn’t send his address over.

It was obvious that he was waiting for Mu Yiran to add him on Vchat.

Mu Yiran stared at the string of numbers for a long time with a dark expression. But in the end, he still reluctantly added the other.

This person’s profile picture was a single eye—Ke Xun’s own eye. The contrast of the black and white parts of his eye was very distinct. The eye also seemed to be curved into a smile, with the outer corner raised in an obvious arc. After carefully examining the other’s eye, he realized that it looked like there was something inside the other’s pupil. Therefore, Mu Yiran clicked on the photo and zoomed in. As a result, he was met with a sentence: What’re you looking at me for?

Mu Yiran: “….”

This person’s name was also ‘Corgi’.

Mu Yiran: “….”

“Corgi’s” message came really quickly: My male god Mooney! Muah muah!

Mooney: Address.

Corgi：)))8”

Mooney：)))1”

Corgi：)))10”

Mooney：)))4”

Corgi: Okay, I’ll send you our local specialties later.

Mooney: No thanks.

Corgi: Have a safe journey, Sir. Come visit me often.

A second before Mu Yiran exited the chat, he saw that Corgi’s display picture had changed. It was now a simple drawing of a person.

The next morning, Wei Dong visited Ke Xun.

“Yi? I thought I’d catch the two of you in bed together. Why are you alone?” Wei Dong pulled the sheets off of Ke Xun, revealing a half naked single dog.

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 yawned. “You say it as if you have a way to avoid doing it.”

Wei Dong paused and then sighed. “With effort, one can achieve anything. What if there was a way?”

Ke Xun looked up towards him. “Not even Boss Mu or Dr. Qin could figure out a way to avoid entering paintings. Do you really think shitty students like us would be able to do something they couldn’t do?”

Wei Dong tugged at his hair. “I don’t want to give up! When I went home and saw my mom last night, I jumped onto her. I can’t bear to leave my mom, even if she slapped me so hard it felt like my teeth had fallen out…. I didn’t dare talk to them about the painting. I was afraid they’d think that their son had gone crazy. It took me so long to fall asleep. I started crying while writing a letter to them. I don’t want to die, Ke er! I still haven’t enjoyed life to the fullest! I’ve never even had a girlfriend before!”

Ke Xun’s head was lowered as he changed clothes. After washing up in the bathroom, he headed to the kitchen.

Wei Dong also followed along. He watched Ke Xun heat up milk, fry eggs and slice ham in a daze. He murmured, “Looking at you right now, I realize how wonderful an ordinary life is…. The more I think about it, the less willing I am to accept this. Why did I have to be chosen…?”

“I think that everything happens for a reason.” Ke Xun tied his hair back before slicing bread. “But the reason might be inside a painting. We’ve only entered one painting thus far and therefore don’t know anything about the other paintings. There’s no way we can come up with any connections or pick up on any clues right now. So, rather than complain, why not be more proactive? Think of how we can safely escape the next painting. Maybe we’ll come to a breakthrough next time.”

“You’re right.” Wei Dong forced himself to raise his spirits. “But how should we go about dealing with the next painting? We don’t even know what it’ll be about.”

Ke Xun finished making two simple sandwiches. He plated them and handed one to Wei Dong. He then went to sit at the dining table. “We’ll go look for the jianbing vendor after this. We might as well brainstorm ideas together since we’ll all be seeing each other in the painting anyway.”

However, they didn’t find the jianbing vendor at his usual spot.

“That dude’s psychologically fragile. He probably took a few days off to recuperate,” Wei Dong said.

Ke Xun went to talk to the breakfast vendor and the snack vendor to ask about the jianbing vendor’s phone number. He then dialed the number.

No one picked up.

“Would any of you happen to know where he lives?” Ke Xun asked.

The egg-stuffed pancake vendor pointed in one direction: “He rents a place in the Happiness District.”

“Thank you.” Ke Xun called Wei Dong over and they hurried over to the Happiness District.

They asked the security guard which building the jianbing vendor lived at. Shortly after, they were able to find it.

They knocked on the door for a long time but no one answered. The two of them exchanged glances. Suddenly, a neighbour popped his head out and said, “Don’t bother. There’s no one at home.”

Ke Xun: “Do you know where he went?”

The neighbour: “People from the psychiatric hospital came to take him away.”

Wei Dong was shocked: “The psychiatric hospital?”

The neighbour: “That’s right. He was doing fine but suddenly went crazy. He started smashing things and slamming his head against the wall. He cried so hard it looked like blood would start dripping out of his eyes. He almost pushed his wife off the balcony too.”

Wei Dong and Ke Xun exchanged glances. Ke Xun asked, “Where’s his wife now?”

The neighbour: “She followed him to the psychiatric hospital to fill out the paperwork. Her husband will probably have to stay in the hospital for a long time. I heard that his doctor said that it was pretty serious. He might never be able to be discharged.”

Downstairs, Wei Dong’s eyes filled with alarm. “Do you think that this was caused by the painting’s residual effects? Do you think we’ll suddenly go crazy too?”

Ke Xun pulled out his phone and dialed a number. His call was picked up after three rings: “Boss, the jianbing vendor went crazy. Do you know why?”

Wei Dong stared at Ke Xun with wide eyes.

Mu Yiran seemed to think for a moment. “This was probably due to the “painting’s” restriction. If we speak of our experiences in the paintings or leak information about the world inside paintings to outsiders, they’d probably think that we’re crazy. Therefore, the ‘painting’ simply forces us to go insane for real. The consequences of breaking its rules is to be driven to death by insanity.”

Ke Xun paused. “…Fuck. The painting is really making good use of this censoring rule.”

Mu Yiran said in a mild voice: “Therefore, regardless of wearing you’re writing a farewell letter or establishing your will, don’t mention the paintings to any outsiders. It’s useless.”

When Wei Dong heard this, he sighed. “It’s forcing us to suffer in silence.”

“Is there anything else?” Mu Yiran asked.

Ke Xun looked around and then lowered his voice. “Boss, since you frequently go overseas, do you think you could get your hands on some guns?”

Mu Yiran chuckled through the phone. When he spoke, it sounded like there was both ridicule and helplessness in his voice. “It’s no use. They’ll lose their functions. I tried it in my second painting. After going in, it became completely useless.

“It’s not just guns. All weapons are the same. Qin Ci brought a sharp scalpel once. Not only did its tip become round, the blade became five or six cm thick. It became as useless as a piece of scrap metal.

“Besides, there’s the issue of passing through the art gallery’s security. Regardless of whether it’s on you or in your bag, there’s no way you’ll be able to bring in a prohibited item.

“Even everyday items see a reduced usability upon entering the painting. For example, our cell phones. Typically, we can only use them to check the time or shine a light. It depends on the time period the painting is based on. Sometimes, the camera function or audio player might work.

“As for what other things will become after entering the painting, you can test it out for yourself.”

After hanging up, Ke Xun spread his hands out. “That’s that, I guess. Maybe we should just go learn the magical incantations from a Mt. Mao daoist priest.”

Wei Dong mulled over this issue. “We can’t take prohibited items into the gallery but what about other useful things? For example, cell phones, a tent, food, ropes, etc. What do you think?”

Ke Xun laughed. “Did you see Mu Yiran and Dr. Qin with any of those things in the last painting?”

Wei Dong was stunned: “I don’t think so.”

Ke Xun: “I think that, first of all, the ‘painting’ won’t let us starve to death. Otherwise, there would be no need to create such terrifying things to kill us. It could just trap us in a windowless, door-less room for a while without any food. We’d all die eventually. Why waste its energy with all that other stuff? As for a tent, wouldn’t a tent be cumbersome in a life-or-death situation? Experts know how to be flexible. That’s why they didn’t bring anything with them.”

Wei Dong: “Well I’m not an expert. I just want to be able to eat good food before I die. I definitely have to bring chocolate and jerky with me for the next painting.”

Twelve days later, Ke Xun and Wei Dong, who had a backpack full of food, arrived at the Long River Art Gallery’s third exhibition hall. After entering the painting, they discovered that bringing one’s own food was a futile endeavour.

The process of entering the second painting was the same as the first. First, the lights went off. Quickly after, a light that seemed to have no source would appear and illuminate a painting hanging within the exhibition hall’s walls.

Before Ke Xun was sucked into the painting, he tried to keep his eyes open so that he could see the painting’s contents. However, all he saw was a scene of fuzzy plants and flowers. Within this scene was a pair of distinct, narrow eyes. The eyelids over the eyes drooped down and they contained a benevolent, happy smile within them.

Ke Xun took a long time to re-open his eyes because he had been abruptly teleported from the pitch-black art gallery exhibition hall into an extremely bright place.

All around him was a blue sky filled with clouds and a grassy mountain covered in snow. There was also that blinding sunlight.

It looked like a holy site that would attract many tourists.

Ke Xun’s mind was blank for a moment. He had been prepared to see some kind of sinister, horrifying scene. He hadn’t expected such a change in style. It had caught him off guard.

He turned to look at Wei Dong beside him. Both of them were frozen in place.

“…What the heck…” Wei Dong said while staring at Ke Xun, speechless.

Both of them were dressed in shabby clothes with holes in them.

“So are we beggars this time?” Wei Dong looked down and tugged at his clothes that kind of looked like a dress but wasn’t. “Kind of looks like Gandalf the Grey Wizard’s robe, doesn’t it?”

Ke Xun was pondering over what era these clothes were from, he heard a distant voice call out, “Over here.”

When he looked in the direction of this voice, he saw Dr. Qin. The older man was also wearing similar clothes. He was currently sitting on a large rock. Several people stood around him too. Aside from Ma Zhenhua, who had survived the last painting with them, there were also a few unfamiliar faces. All of them looked terrified and alarmed.

Ke Xun and Wei Dong headed over. First, they sized up the new people. There were two young ladies who looked to be about eighteen or nineteen years old. One was thin and tall while the other was slightly chubby and short.

The taller one had long hair and was beautiful. Right now, her small face was deathly pale and there were tears in her eyes.

The slightly chubby girl looked unremarkable. She had on a pair of black-rimmed glasses. There was no life in her eyes, presumably because of the fright she felt.

Aside from them, there was a twenty something year old adult frantically hitting his phone. Lastly, there was a family of three. The forty-something year old couple had a child who looked like a middle school student with them.

Ke Xun frowned, fury lighting up within him.

A child.

There was also a child!

“Fuck this!” Ke Xun couldn’t help himself from kicking a rock. He scared the new people, causing them to shudder and turn to look at him nervously.

Eve: Mu Yiran’s handle is basically ‘Money’ if anyone hasn’t guessed it LOL.

Also, sort of spoiler but it’s also one thing I feel like I should mention, in case this is a turn off for anyone, female representation isn’t the greatest for the first 2/3 ish of the novel. Like, it’s not like the author villainizes all the female characters or that they’re all completely useful. It’s just that there is some bias present. There are female characters in this story I like. Though the screen time is definitely less than their male counterparts even near the end.