Paintings of Terror

City A was not far. It only took four hours by train.

In the early winter season, the world still retained most of its colors. Red maple trees flew past by outside the train window, as if they were about to burn the train carriage.

Ke Xun and Mu Yiran sat side by side in the seat. Their hands were next to each other with palms up. The width of the palm and the length of the fingers were surprisingly similar. At a rough look, it seemed like one person’s hand.

Looking at them closely, Ke Xun’s hands were a little rougher. There were thin calluses of various degrees on the palms and fingers.

“Look, your career line is long.” Ke Xun scratched where the ‘career line’ was on Mu Yiran’s palm and compared it with his own. “My career line is bad… But my love line is thick!”

The two people whispered about everyday routines.

Mu Yiran leaned on the back of the seat and obediently wore the neck pillow that Ke Xun gave. His cold face was buried in the furry pillow, which made him look a little simple and honest.

Ke Xun felt Mu Yiran’s hand touching the back of his head, and his fingers squeezed between the pillow and the back of his neck, as if looking for the tip of his hair.

“You want some chocolate?” A hand reached out from someone who couldn’t read social cues from the front seat, and there were two bars of chocolates.

Wearing black sunglasses, Wei Dong turned back and said, “Chocolate is not junk food. We need to store enough calories to maintain our physical strength.”

Ke Xun looked at Wei Dong’s solemn black clothes and black sunglasses and expressed his concern: “Just now, the train police kept looking at you.”

“Well, I also think this outfit gives me courage.” Wei Dong pursed his lips and chewed chocolate, feeling this was a cool thing to do.

Wearing the ‘courageous’ dark clothes, Wei Dong started to give chocolates to Qin Ci and Zhu Haowen who were sitting in the front row. He also jabbed Zhu Haowen’s shoulders and said: “When will you come back to this seat? I don’t want to sit next to Shao Ling. He’s too smart. I have been living under the shadows of smart deskmate since I was young. I had enough.”

Zhu Haowen: “I don’t want to be next to a ‘social man’. I would rather be next to a doctor.”

Qin Ci: “…”

‘Social man’ Wei Dong looked towards Zhu Haowen: “It’s easy to get trainsick reading on the train… Wait a second, Haowen Er, since when did you start reading books instead of playing games? A physical book too!”

Zhu Haowen flipped through the pages, seemingly engrossed in the plot.

Wei Dong was curious: “WTF, it has words too!”

“Detective novel.” Zhu Haowen replied.

“Who wrote it? Gokyu Higashino?”

“……”

Wei Dong did not realize at all he said the name wrong. He scratched his head and thought again: “Your book looks quite old. Is it by the detective queen Aletha?”

“Wang Shuo.”

“Don’t bully artists for being uncultured! Ke Er and I read a lot of Wang Shuo back then. There’s Hot and Cold, Measure for Measure, and there’s Fierce Animals… He wrote detective novels? Haha! Ha! That’s so funny!”

Zhu Haowen held up the book to show Wei Dong the cover. It was The Case Collection of Solicitors and the author’s name was Wang Shuo.

“That is rare. Did not know Wang Shuo had also written detective novels.” Wei Dong turned his head and muttered to Ke Xun in the backseat, only to cover his eyes the moment he turned around. “What are you doing in a public place?!”

Ke Xun looked up and said, “Adjusting the seat height… ”

“Why don’t you two just lie down…” Wei Dong discovered that they were both wearing neck pillows. An outstanding man has been turned into a fat necked grouse. Love can really lower someone’s capability…

When the train stopped at a station, Shao Ling came to this carriage. He saw a man in black clothes and dark sunglasses waving warmly at him. Shao Ling looked carefully at the front and back seats of the sunglasses fellow, making sure he was not in the wrong carriage.

The sunglasses fellow: “There is only one seat left. They don’t want to sit next to this ‘social man’.”

After greeting everyone, Shao Ling sat down and said, “In sociology, ‘social man’ refers to a person who has both attributes of nature and society, as opposed to ‘economic man’.”

“…… ” Wei Dong, with his sunglasses off, stared blankly. With both hands, He passed over his box of chocolates: “Do you want to eat some? This is for maintaining energy. It’s sweet and delicious.”

Shao Ling politely nodded and took a piece of chocolate: “Actually the sweet flavor does not belong to the taste of chocolate itself. Chocolate is native to Central and South America. The origin of the word is xocolatl, which means ‘bitter water’.”

Wei Dong chewed the chocolates and looked at Shao Ling innocently. He felt the shadows of his school days shrouded him again: “Ha, right… ”

He looked towards Shao Ling, who did not eat the chocolate but rather seemed to be in a daze.

Everyone had their own way to relieve tensions, like how Wei Dong numbed himself by making jokes and fooling around. Shao Ling’s method was probably reciting textbook knowledge like a robot…

Thinking of that, Wei Dong felt some sympathy for the new member: “Don’t be polite, eat more!” 𝒃𝙚𝒅𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝒍.𝙣𝙚𝙩

Shao Ling was patted on the back by Wei Dong for a few times, as if he had just regained his consciousness. He looked at the ingredients on the chocolate package and said, “The sugar amount is a little high. Fortunately, the saturated fat in chocolates contains stearic acid, so I’ll eat a little.”

“… Just eat.”

……

The train soon arrived in City A. The hotel was already booked, so everyone was not in a hurry to check in.

“It’s still early. Let’s go to the art gallery first.” Qin Ci said.

“Just now Radish said they have arrived at the art gallery.” Wei Dong took off his sunglasses when he passed the mirror in the waiting hall. Walking among this group of people, he felt like a blind man who needed to be taken care of, or like a hostage in opaque sunglasses.

Everyone had the everlasting art gallery ticket in their pocket. This time it said, ‘Old Station Art Gallery’.

It took everyone a long time to find the old railway station on the map. Because of the completion of the new railway station, the old railway station had been arranged into a public art gallery, which was said to improve the citizens’ level of art appreciation.

As of now, ‘Old Station Art Gallery’ had been open for ten years. Except for major art exhibitions, it was almost empty at regular times. People’s level of art appreciation was not something that an art gallery could change.

So, when the taxi driver heard that these few “tourists” were going to the art gallery, he warned them wholeheartedly: “Don’t waste your time. It’s very boring! There’s no pieces from big masters, really! Other museums or art galleries have some representative pieces, not here! You guys might as well go to the botanical garden or zoo! The zoo has just added baby kangaroos!”

Zhu Haowen sat leaning forward. He was inexplicably flanked by Qinci and Wei Dong to sit in the middle of the back row and felt very awkward. “I heard that this art gallery was built by the mayor against the public’s suggestions. It was said that the bidding projects that year included an aquarium, a train model exhibition, and a folk memorial museum.”

“You’re right!” The taxi driver loved to chat, “Any one of them would be more popular than the art gallery! Especially the aquarium, imagine how many children it would attract! Could also open a buffet cafeteria underground and people could eat while enjoying the fish behind the glass. That would be so exciting! It could also generate income for the city!”

“Yes yes yes.” Wei Dong nodded inattentively throughout the drive.

When they got to the old train station, everyone thanked the taxi driver and “persisted” to get off there. Wei Dong didn’t forget to add: “I just want to see how miserable this art gallery is…”

Ke Xun and Mu Yiran had already arrived by the previous taxi. The girl with the long black ponytail standing next to them was Fang Fei.

This hairstyle made Fang Fei look sharper and cooler. She nodded to everyone and didn’t say much.

“Brother! Brother! Brother-in-law, brother-in-law!” A voice came from a distance. It was obvious who it was.

Luo Bu arrived on an electric scooter, swaying from side to side: “Fortunately, you two are tall, otherwise I would have to go around this dilapidated building again. I looked around for a long time and still haven’t found the art gallery.”

Ke Xun silently pointed to the big characters on the door of “this dilapidated building”: Old Station Art Museum.

“Ohh, it’s here~” Luo Bu stopped the scooter. He looked up with blinking eyes, “This small shabby building is so small and run-down. I thought it was a convenience store.”

The art gallery was not very small. Old train stations in old cities were almost always this size.

“I thought you had thought that this was a garage…,” said Wei Dong.

“Aiya, Brother Dong?! When did you arrive?” Luo Bu suddenly discovered Wei Dong was here and was excited. He then immediately saw Qin Ci: “Brother Qin!” Then Shao Ling: “Brother Shao!” And then Zhu Haowen: “Wen Er… “

Zhu Haowen: “Don’t call me Brother.”

Luo Bu happily leaned forward and rubbed Zhu Haowen with his elbow: “Show your ID if you dare, let’s see who the older brother is~”

Zhu Haowen: “…”

“Click!” Luo Bu used his phone to take a selfie for the two of them, “It’s nothing to be young now. Let’s take another picture ten years later, and see who looks older~”

Luo Bu looked at the picture on his phone. Two young faces exuded unlimited youthfulness, although one had no smile, and another had a forced smile.

Luo Bu really wanted to ask everyone to take a photo together at the entrance of the art gallery, but felt that this proposal seemed ominous…

Zhu Haowen turned his attention to the art gallery: “The reach of this Old Station Art Gallery was not ideal. In fact, many citizens even complained about the municipal decisions back then…”

Luo Bu: Huh? The topic change was not smooth at all.

Shao Ling raised his head to inspect this old art gallery: “Was this municipal decision affected by other factors? The railway station was rebuilt into an art gallery in 2009. Other art galleries you have experienced before were built on different dates, some of them are hundreds of years old, and some of them are newly opened in the past two years. I think it is necessary for us to find out the reasons for why these art galleries are built. This one was built against the public’s consensus, and the people of this city do not buy it. It can be said that this was a wrong decision, but how was this decision made in the first place?”

After Shao Ling said this, he looked around. Fortunately, barely anyone visited here. It was just them standing alone in front of the gate.

“What gave me the deepest impression was the painting Breaking Through the Ground. The developers from Hong Kong bought that land which led to the residents of the Spring Bamboo Apartments to be forcefully removed, and even created resentment.” Qin Ci also felt the same way. “So, it seems that the art galleries were built by some mysterious force.”