Paintings of Terror

Ke Xun squatted next to the dead pheasant. Across from him was Zhu Haowen, Shao Ling, and Qin Ci, all of whom were also squatting down to carefully observe the pheasant.

Ke Xun pushed the corpse of the pheasant with his hand. When Zhu Haowen, Shao Ling, and Qin Ci saw the corpse suddenly moving, they jumped back in shock and stared at it guardedly.

–It worked!

Seeing hope, Ke Xun became more energetic. He picked up the pheasant’s body, broke it’s legs with both hands, and put it in a split position on the deck.

Mu Yiran: “…”

Zhu Haowen: “…”

Qin Ci: “…”

Shao Ling: “…”

Luo Bu, from further away: “…”

“…It seems like an invisible force is playing with it,” Shao Ling said hesitantly.

“…An invisible thing from the sea?” Qin Ci guessed uncertainly.

“…Those things will do something like this?” Zhu Haowen pointed his chin to the dead pheasant that was now in the posture of riding a horse.

Then, he and Qin Ci looked at each other and saw the incredible and hopeful light in each other’s eyes.

The three people stared at the dead pheasant, not knowing what to do for a while.

But Ke Xun didn’t want to waste time. Dipping his finger in the blood from the pheasant’s head, he tried to write on the deck.

Unfortunately, the color of the deck was darker than the blood. He wrote a few words but found that the other three hadn’t even noticed. He had to stop to think. Then he plucked off two of the pheasant’s long tail feathers and tucked each behind his ears.

Zhu Haowen looked at the height of the two feathers and the distance between them, and suddenly said, “Ke Xun, is that you?”

Ke Xun nodded quickly, and the two feathers moved back and forth with his head.

.

“It’s really you, Xiao Ke?!” Qin Ci, who had always been calm, displayed a rare happiness. “Where is Xiao Mu?“

Ke Xun plucked a feather from behind his ear and pointed the feather to where Mu Yiran was standing.

“What happened?” Shao Ling asked, “Can you talk?”

Ke Xun shook his head.

“So, how about writing instead? I’ll get the bamboo slips and brush and ink?” Shao Ling said.

Ke Xun shook his head and pointed his feather at the dead pheasant on the ground. Then he dipped the feather in the pheasant’s blood and wrote on the deck a few times.

Zhu Haowen pointed the phone’s flashlight at the deck and saw that there seemed to be some blood stains on it. He said, “I can’t see clearly, wait a minute.”

As he said this, he tore off almost the entire hem of his white robe. He spread it on the deck and added, “Write here.”

Ke Xun dipped the feather in blood. When the feather touched the white robe, the white robe remained solid. He wrote, “Burn a rhino horn.”

“You want us to burn a rhino horn?” Zhu Haowen asked.

Ke Xun drew a “√” on the cloth.

Shao Ling immediately turned around to fetch a rhino horn from the central hall, while Qin Ci went to wake Wei Dong up. Luo Bu walked closer and asked, “Brother, are you invisible?”

“…” Ke Xun wrote on the cloth: (-_-).

Zhu Haowen: “…”

Luo Bu said, “Now’s not the time to play with emojis. Brother Dong nearly cried to death. What happened to you and brother-in-law? Why can’t we see you? Are you okay? Have you found the seal? Will you guys stay invisible from now on?”

“Really full of ideas.” Ke Xun was depressed and wrote on the cloth: shatup!

Luo Bu said, “Brother, you spelled ‘shut’ wrong.”

Ke Xun: “…”

Zhu Haowen: “…”

Shao Ling returned with some rhino horns. Wei Dong followed Qin Ci back with a pair of swollen eyes. Shao Ling asked Ke Xun, “Do we light it with a mobile phone or do we light it by ourselves?”

“Mobile phone,” Ke Xun wrote. “Try one first to experiment.”

Everyone understood what he meant. It was necessary to test first.

As Shao Ling was about to take out his mobile phone, Zhu Haowen took a step forward and almost eagerly used his mobile phone to ignite the rhino horn.

The bright light illuminated the small area around them. The people standing carefully outside the light looked at the floating position of the two feathers. They watched as the intersection of light and shadow slowly merged, revealing two tall and slender figures, which were exactly Ke Xun and Mu Yiran.

“Ke’er!” Wei Dong roared and rushed to hug his lost brother.

Ke Xun hugged him tightly, then pushed him away. “You got your snot on my face! Let’s focus on the business at hand first.” Then he strode over and touched the unlit rhino horns Shao Ling was carrying. He discovered that he could finally touch people and objects. In order to prove it again, he grabbed the roll of bamboo slips that had been thrown to the ground. “Okay, we’re back!”

“What happened? Is it related to the killing of the pheasant?” Shao Ling asked Mu Yiran.

Mu Yiran quickly and briefly explained what happened to them, and then said, “We need to hurry and find the seal before dawn.”

Everyone knew the meaning of this statement. No one had died tonight, and if they couldn’t find the seal before dawn, they would have to vote someone out.

Shao Ling asked Mu Yiran and Ke Xun, “So, you two didn’t experience the illusion just now?”

Mu Yiran said, “My guess is that only people who are illuminated by the rhino horn will not be affected by the illusion and can see the pheasant.”

Shao Ling said, “Then Li Yi who died on the first night, Xue Ge who died on the third night, and Fang Fei who died on the fourth night did not actually experience the illusion. What was the cause of their death then?”

“Could it be that the pheasant attacked them?” Qin Ci guessed.

“I don’t think this phantom can kill a person.” Ke Xun glanced at the pheasant’s body on the deck. “If it can attack people and kill them, why would it need illusions? Even the illusions could only kill us by luring us into the sea.”

Mu Yiran added, “Li Yi, Xue Ge, and Fang Fei, when they lit their rhino horns, their circumstances should be similar to myself and Ke Xun. They didn’t experience an illusion, and they could see the pheasant. An example is Fang Fei shooting the pheasant’s feather.”

“Since we’re presuming that the pheasant cannot attack people directly, I think there are likely two reasons that these three people died. The first is that these three people were isolated in an alternative space like Ke Xun and I were. They were unable to return to the original, and so when the sky dawned, they somehow lost their lives.”

“In the second reason, we still have to refer back to the story of Burning Rhinoceros at Bull Islet. In the story, when Wen Qiao lit the rhino horn, the demons and monsters in the sea jumped out to extinguish the fire. The mirage came from the sea and landed on the ship in the form of a pheasant. It can be inferred that, although these three people weren’t affected by the illusion, when they lit the rhino horn at the beginning, the pheasant extinguished the fire. Although the pheasant could not attack us, the story of Burning Rhinoceros at Bull Islet proved that the fire could be extinguished. Therefore, after it put out the burning rhino, it re-imposed the illusion on these three people, making it likely that these three people could still die from the illusion.”

After listening to Mu Yiran’s analysis, everyone nodded together.

“So, what do you think caused you and Mr. Ke to remain isolated in another space?” Shao Ling asked. “After the pheasant was killed, you stayed in that space, so it shouldn’t be something created by the pheasant. Who created it and why?”

“–Could it be that there are other creatures besides the pheasant in the sea?” Wei Dong shivered, and Luo Bu shivered beside him.

“Before I killed the pheasant, I did hear many strange sounds coming from the sea,” Ke Xun said.

“Does that mean…we have to kill the things in the sea to find more clues?” Wei Dong and Luo Bu looked desperate.

Mu Yiran looked down thoughtfully. After a moment, he raised his eyes to look at everyone. “In fact, after darkness falls, all of us are actually in another dimension, aren’t we?”

Everyone paused, as if they had grasped a key point but could not comprehend it.

Fortunately, they had Mu Yiran.

“To be more precise, each of us are in a different space,” Mu Yiran continued slowly and clearly. “And there’s not just one alternate space, but there are several different spaces. The pheasant used these different spaces to separate us, and then it created the illusions to trap us. Then the question is, if the different spaces were created by the pheasant, why did Ke Xun and I remain in a separate space even after killing it? If these spaces weren’t created by the pheasant, how was it able to use it to separate us at will?” 𝐛𝐞𝗱𝗻𝐨𝐯𝗲𝗹.𝐜𝐨𝐦

“There are other phantoms in the sea that cooperated with it?” Wei Dong guessed.

“Or, the spaces it created wouldn’t disappear after it’s death but could still survive?” Zhu Haowen said.

Mu Yiran looked at him. “We have already presumed that the illusion we experienced every night was created by the mirage. Since the mirage was condensed by a thousand-year-old spirit, its spaces wouldn’t disperse easily, and so we continued remaining in the same space. My guess is that these spaces would be maintained for a while yet.”

“So you mean, whether it is the space we were isolated in when we experienced the illusions, or the space where you and Ke Xun were isolated after killing the pheasant, all of these were created by the pheasant?” Shao Ling looked at Mu Yiran. “But there is one thing I need to remind Mr. Mu about. When we experience the illusion, we cannot see, hear, or feel each other in the isolated space. But, according to the situation that you and Mr. Ke just described, you were able to see and hear us in our space. Why is that?”

Mu Yiran was about to speak, when Ke Xun said, “Shao Ling, are you suspicious of Yiran and I?”

After hearing these words, everyone became silent and looked back and forth between Shao Ling and Ke Xun.

Shao Ling’s expression remained unchanged, and he looked at Ke Xun calmly. “Yes, I’m really sorry to say that, but given the nature of the death rule in this painting, it’s hard not to doubt that the two of you aren’t the embodiment of an upgraded illusion. After all, it’s not light yet, and this night isn’t over, is it?”

Ke Xun smiled speechlessly. “You know, you are clever but your cleverness makes you stumble.”

Shao Ling was unmoved, and remained calm and indifferent. “I am not smarter than others, I am just more cautious.”

“It’s very interesting.” Ke Xun looked at him with a faint smile. “It’s difficult for a cautious person like you to give absolute trust, so I’m very curious about how you can have such a trustworthy friend, one where you can put your fate in his hand and vice versa. Mr. Shao, forgive me for guessing. The illusion you described experiencing that first night was probably made up by you, right? In fact, you don’t have such a friend at all. The reason why you made up such a person was to make yourself appear as someone who is very loyal, so as to gain everyone’s trust, especially those newcomers with no backbones. Let me guess one more thing. Actually, you’re a person with a strong desire for control, right? You don’t like being controlled by others, and obviously we veteran members wouldn’t thoughtlessly obey you, so you need to control the newcomers and have them listen to you, right? Of course, I’m not saying you’re a bad person. There are all kinds of people who like to maintain control. But let me advise you, it’s good to be cautious, but too much caution makes you too full of suspicion. Not only do you have no friends, but you can also easily make mistakes.”

Shao Ling was silent, his tight mouth indicating that he wasn’t as calm as the expression he tried to maintain.

Wei Dong asked Ke Xun quietly, “How do you know that his first night experience was made up?”

Ke Xun snorted lightly. “You forgot, the illusion every night was based on humans’ seven emotions. The first night was based on “love”, but we didn’t realize it at the time, so he made up the matter with his friend. A few nights later, he conjectured that the illusions were based on the seven emotions. At the time, he could no longer change his telling of his experience the first night, but fortunately, no one paid attention to it. Whose “love” would be with him? He’s not gay!”

Wei Dong looked at him. “You’ve been with the big boss for so long that your IQ combat effectiveness has also increased rapidly.”

Ke Xun glanced at Shao Ling. “You can doubt me, but you can’t doubt my big boss, who had been working so hard to help everyone find a way out.”

—————–

Xida: Ke Xun’s logic is faulty though. Platonic love is as genuine and important as romantic love.