Paintings of Terror

Ke Xun’s eyes had been glued onto Mu Yiran’s running form. He had watched as the other darted towards the distant tent. He had also seen the giant shadow reach a hand into said tent, grabbing hold of one of the tent’s inhabitants. The person howled as the giant shadow lifted her out. All eight of its hands had then closed in on that person. Her wails had seeped out from between the cracks of the giant shadow’s fingers.

Then, Ke Xun saw Mu Yiran charge into the tent. Blood spurted out from between the giant shadow’s fingers and came raining down onto that tent. Following, a cracked open head came sliding down the top of the tent, entangled in long hair. With a thump, it landed on the ground. Dismembered arms, legs and bones followed suit. The giant shadow acted like it was taking apart a clock. Patiently, it detached each body part from her torso.

Just before dawn, the giant shadow threw the rest of the mutilated corpse down. A skeleton that still had shreds of broken skin clinging onto its surfaces fell onto the top of the tent. The giant shadow took the bloody organs it had harvested and returned to the darkness above.

Ke Xun sprinted towards the distant tent as soon as he could. When he ripped open the bloody flap, he saw Sha Liu vomiting heavily in the corner. Mother Geng was on the floor, unconscious, and Mu Yiran was staring at the pattern on the ceiling expressionlessly.

“Did you discover anything?” Ke Xun asked him.

Mu Yiran turned to look at him. “We need to gather all of the smaller tents together.”

No one was in the frame of mind to eat breakfast. Qin Ci and Mu Yiran gathered Zhao Dan’s dismembered limbs in a rug. Everyone then worked together to collect the smaller tents into one place.

But because the light was so scattered during the day time, the drawings were too fuzzy to make out.

“We have no choice but to wait until night time,” Mu Yiran said. “After the sky darkens and before the giant shadow descends, we have to put the drawings on the top of the tents together.”

“Put them together?” Qin Ci was perceptive. “So what you’re saying is that the drawings on the ceilings of the smaller tents are parts of a whole?”

“I think so.” Mu Yiran nodded slightly. “I examined the tops of our tent and Mrs. Geng’s tent. I noticed that neither of them were completed.”

“Looks like the key point is in the drawing on the ceiling of the tents.” Qin Ci pondered over this. “What I still don’t understand is why the Marvels of Peru were able to fend off the giant shadow.”

“We’ll have to wait until I come back from the temples for that answer.” Mu Yiran prepared to head out.

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.

“What should we do now?” Father Geng asked, “We can’t use the offerings we gathered before. How will we complete our mission?”

Mu Yiran swept his gaze over everyone. “What you need to do now is to collect a few things. Firstly, wine. From what I know, the people of the Ganxiong region make nutsedge wine, grape wine, rice wine, horse milk wine, etc. Collect as many types as you can.

“Fourth, feathers from the bald eagles near the sky burial platform.

“Bring all of these back before dark.”

No one asked any questions. Things had already reached such a point. No one had any spare energy or motivation to question him. No one had slept all that much over the last few days. All that was left inside them was the ability to blindly follow instructions.

“I’ll go to the sky burial platform,” Ke Xun said.

The most dangerous place during the day was the sky burial platform.

Mu Yiran glanced at him. For once, he gave him a ‘Be careful.’ Of course, he still had on a distant expression.

Ke Xun smiled at him and went on his way.

It would take nearly the entire day to go to the sky burial platform and come back. Ke Xun was quick, but considering the fact that he also had to take time to gather feathers, it was quite late by the time he managed to return to the tents. Everyone else had already returned and Wei Dong had even taken a nap.

Everyone placed the items Mu Yiran had requested in the open area in front of the smaller tents. Mother Geng and Sha Liu were kneading flour on the side, making them into little cakes.

“Duomu?” Ke Xun asked.

“I think so.” Sha Liu replied quietly.

“Xiao Mu, everyone’s here. Can you tell us what you’re thinking now?” Qin Ci looked at Mu Yiran.

Mu Yiran had been inspecting the items the group had brought back and just so happened to finish as Qin Ci asked his question. He nodded and everyone stopped what they were doing, gazes gathering on his body.

Mu Yiran looked at everyone, his gaze pregnant with meaning. “We have always thought that the most difficult part of solving this riddle was that we had no way of figuring out what this painting is depicting. After all, we have no way of knowing which denomination of Sahism is involved. Since every denomination has different pantheons, we don’t know which denomination the eight-armed creature that appears every night belongs to.

“Even if it’s the same deity, its nature can change depending on which pantheon we’re looking at. If we don’t know what kind of deity it is, we can’t figure out how to deal with it.

“We all know that since the founding of Sahism, it has assimilated deities of several different religions. After thousands of years, many different branches have developed and expanded on their own. These branches have established their own doctrines and pantheons, and drifted away from the original form of Sahism. But at the same time, they are still closely related to the original religion.

“Among these descendant branches, some flourished to the point of eclipsing the original religion’s influence.

“Therefore, a lot of people have forgotten about Sahism’s original teachings. One of them was to never take the life of a living creature.”

Everyone was shocked.

A prohibition against killing. Sahism…actually prohibits killing!

Then…what have they done?!

“However, even in the original religion, there are ‘meat’ offerings,” Mu Yiran said as he pointed to the stuff on the ground.

Amongst the items were the flowers he had left at the temple yesterday. They had undergone processing by the practitioner. “But in the original religion, meat can be substituted by plants. For example, Marvels of Peru represent dog meat; angelica sinensis represent horse meat; asparagus flowers and stalks represent elephant meat; puncture vines represent peacock meat; and Solomon’s seal plant represents human meat.”

Sha Liu’s face turned deathly white when she saw what Mu Yiran was pointing at.

Qin Ci looked at Mu Yiran: “Xiao Mu, how do you know which plant represents which meat?”

“I saw these on the ceiling of our tent last night.” Mu Yiran replied calmly, “The drawings were split into two circles. One circle depicted plants while the other depicted animals. In the beginning, I had not realized the two circles were matched up. I just thought that they were decorations around whatever the main picture would be. But after examining it longer, I discovered that there were depictions of feces, urine, brains, etc. I realized that it was a depiction of what Sha Liu had mentioned before: the five Dews of Wisdom and the five tribute meats.”

With that, Mu Yiran turned his gaze onto Sha Liu: “You weren’t wrong about the bloody offerings you saw in that book. But you forgot to tell us the title of the book. Can you share that with us now?”

Sha Liu’s lips trembled. She didn’t dare to meet anyone’s eyes. In a quiet voice, she said, “The book was called…the Qing Sacrificial Offerings Manual

.”

“Qing?” Father Geng was stunned.

“Qing is a denomination of Sahism.” There was no expression on Mu Yiran’s face. “After thousands of years, it has gradually become an independent religion of its own. The deities it worships are more along the lines of wrathful deities. Its ceremonies are more akin to witchcraft and they have nefarious cult-like tendencies. The ceremonies are often bloody and cruel.”

By the time he finished speaking, Mother Geng had already reached Sha Liu. She slapped the younger woman ruthlessly. “It’s all your fault! You misguided us! You made us get those, those inhumane things! You harmed us. You’re the one who got us caught into this mess—”

Wei Dong and Father Geng promptly went to pull the unstable Mother Geng away. Sha Liu’s head was lowered and she pushed her glasses that had been displaced by Mother Geng back up. In a quiet voice, she said, “But didn’t the offerings I mention protect us in the end. Ma Zhenhua is an example. People who don’t participate in the gathering of offerings will die.”

“We’ll die if we do, anyways!” Mother Geng screamed. “Didn’t Zhou Bin do everything he could? Wasn’t he still sacrificed?!”

“But doesn’t that mean that this Heishitian is a wrathful deity from Qing’s pantheon? That means we’re in a place that practices Qing.” Sha Liu bit down on her lips.

“Then how do you explain how we managed to survive without any offerings?” Qin Ci asked.

Sha Liu didn’t reply.

Mu Yiran didn’t look at her again. He continued: “That giant shadow is indeed the wrathful deity Heishitian from the Qing religion. As Sha Liu said, it accepts bloody offerings and uses them to strengthen itself. What few people know, or have long forgotten, is that Heishitian is actually a deity with two faces in the original Sahism pantheon. It has eight arms and two faces in its original depiction. One face is wrathful while the other face is benevolent.”

“A benevolent face!” Ke Xun, who had been silent this whole time suddenly snapped his fingers. “I faintly recall seeing a smiling pair of eyes when we first entered the painting. Could that be Heishitian’s benevolent face?”

“Heishitian is a god from a different religion that received its godhead after converting to Sahism. Its wrathful face retains its cruel, killer nature. Its benevolent face arose when the most powerful in the Sahism pantheon tamed it and turned it into a guardian deity. From then on, Heishitian was to protect the believers of Sahism.” Mu Yiran said, “Based on the drawings on the tents’ ceilings, although the names of the offerings for both the faces are the same, the actual objects are different. For example, for the ‘five tribute meats’, the wrathful side requires real meat. Meanwhile, plants are used instead when making offerings to the benevolent side. That is the difference between them.”

“So…” Qin Ci got where he was going with this. “The reason we were able to avoid death last night with the Marvels of Peru was because those flowers were offerings to the benevolent side. They neutralized the wrathful side’s cruel spirit by some degree.”

“That’s why I didn’t die even though I was in a tent alone last night. It wasn’t because I had evoked some psychic powers but because I had Marvels of Peru on me, right?” Ke Xun spread his hands open. “Fine, looks like I’m not actually that cool.”

Mu Yiran glanced at him, swallowing down the words he was about to say out loud. He looked at the group. “My guess is that, if these bloody offerings can strengthen Heishitian’s wrathful side, then the corresponding plant offerings will strengthen Heishitian’s benevolent side. In other words, we might be able to summon the benevolent side of Heishitian and return this painting to its original form.”

“The kind eyes in the original painting!” Ke Xun exclaimed.

“That’s right.” Mu Yiran nodded. “This is likely our only way out of this painting.”

Eve: Anyone expect this? Haha.