Paintings of Terror

Translated by Eve

Edited by EB

Mu Yiran’s voice was cold and magnetic. It was a smooth, deep, refreshing and versatile voice. Even though he was also a guy, when Ke Xun heard him speak, he felt like the other’s voice could get him pregnant.

“No one here knows what this is all about. Everyone’s been sucked into this painting. The world you’re currently in is the world within the painting. There’s only one way to leave this world and that’s to find the ‘signature.’ Furthermore, you have to make sure you survive until then.” Mu Yiran’s tone was flat, as if he wasn’t flustered about being in this situation.

“What’s the ‘signature?’ How do we find it?” Ke Xun asked.

“It’s the artist’s signature,” Mu Yiran replied, “Some painters will put their name or their initials on their painting. If it’s a Chinese painting, then we might have to look for the painter’s seal instead. As long as we find the painter’s seal or signature, we can leave the painting world.”

“This is still too abstract. What’s the difference between finding a signature in a full-blown world and looking for a needle in a haystack?” Wei Dong cut in, “What if the signature is on a roof, or underneath a tile? It can’t be that we’d have to search every roof and tile in this world?”

“The location of the signature is closely related to the contents of the painting. After you decipher the painting and obtain clues, you’ll be able to find where the signature lies,” Mu Yiran said.

“…Wouldn’t we have to search for a year or something?” Wei Dong’s eyes were dull.

Mu Yiran cast him a cool glance. “Those that cannot find it after seven days will die.”

.

“Fuck!” Both Ke Xun and Wei Dong exclaimed in shock, “Are you serious?”

“If you don’t believe it, why don’t you give it a try?” Pigtail—Liu Yufei—sneered from the side. “You guys can goof off for the next seven days and see whether you die after the seven days are up.”

“No—how would we die? Would we suddenly fall to the ground and stop breathing or something?”

There was a neurotic grin on Liu Yufei’s lips. “There are many ways you can die. There are many ways you can die. You might not be able to fathom all possible methods of death, but you can certainly die from any one of them.”

“H-how can that be…?” Wei Dong was still in a state of disbelief.

“Why have we been put in this situation?” Ke Xun also found it inconceivable. “Who made these rules? Who decides our life or death? Who has the bizarre ability to drag living human beings into paintings?”

Mu Yiran looked at him and said in a flat voice, “I don’t know.”

“I want to go back…I refuse to accept this…I’m just an ordinary person. I just want to live an ordinary life. Why did this happen to me?!” Wei Dong pressed his hands against his head and sunk into a state of helplessness and panic.

The closer you get to accepting your situation, the more intense your fear becomes, until you finally lose your head out of fear.

“Shut up!” Liu Yufei’s mental state wasn’t stable. Wei Dong’s panic had aroused his own fear that he had been forcibly concealing. “Calm down! If you want to die, go die, but don’t drag me down with you!”

His tone while saying this was filled with apprehension. He also looked left and right nervously, as if he was afraid of startling something in the dark.

Wei Dong shut his mouth at once. When he saw how Liu Yufei’s face had paled in fright, he couldn’t help but shiver. He also began to peek around but the colour of the night seemed to have gotten even darker. The thick grey fog had already fully enveloped the entire village, causing everything to become hazy. It was like there was something crouching in the village, slowly opening its pitch-dark mouth.

Immediately, Wei Dong lost all courage to speak. He tried to hold his breath as much as possible, doing everything he could to give Ke Xun a look.

However, Ke Xun didn’t pay him any attention. His head was currently turned as he continued his conversation with Mu Yiran, trying his best to extract as much information from the other as possible.

“How do you know about all of that? For example, how did you know that we can only leave if we find the signature or seal, or how we’ll die if we can’t do it in seven days. Did someone tell you that?” Ke Xun asked.

Mu Yiran didn’t look at him. He gazed at the dense fog in front of them. “No one told me any of that. This is my third time going into a painting. Everything I know I learned from the previous two paintings.”

“Third painting?!” Wei Dong was astonished once again. “What does that mean?”

“It means that even if you survive and make it out of this painting, you’ll have to enter another one.” Liu Yufei responded, in a mocking tone. If you listened carefully, you could hear a sliver of distress in his voice.

“Why?!” Wei Dong couldn’t stop himself from asking in alarm. “Didn’t you say that we could go back to the real world? Why would we have to enter another painting?!”

“I don’t know.” Liu Yufei shrugged. He pointed to the sky. “It’s controlled by the Big Boss. We have to go in. If we don’t go in, we’re dead.”

“How would we die? Can it also manipulate the real world?” Despair emerged in Wei Dong’s eyes.

“I don’t know. Maybe.” There was a numb expression on Liu Yufei’s face. “In any case, it doesn’t matter whether we’re in the real world or the world inside a painting—we’re nothing but insects before it. We are forever toyed with, whether it’s by a higher power, a higher higher power, or a higher higher higher power. Despite this, as the proverb goes, even the lowly cricket and ant will cling to life. Most people would still try to think of a way to keep living, wouldn’t they?”

“But why does it have to be me?!” Wei Dong tore at his own hair, “I’m just an ordinary person. I had been doing fine living my ordinary life. Why did it choose me to go through something like this?!”

“How do I put it.” Liu Yufei’s lips curved into a mocking smile. “You just have bad luck.”

Wei Dong didn’t speak again. When he had just entered the painting, he had still wanted to fool himself into thinking that everything was a dream, or that it was just a coincidental temporary BUG in the universe. But now, he had already accepted the ‘reality’ before him.

He couldn’t utter another word. He could only hold his head between his hands helplessly and grasp tightly onto his hair as if his life depended on it. His eyes and face were full of dread, unwillingness and despair.

“Dong zi,” Ke Xun wrapped his arms around his friend, pressing the other tightly against his chest. “We’ll be fine. Didn’t they say we can go back to the real world? Don’t be anxious. Raise your spirit. We’ll definitely get back. Everything happens for a reason and every action has its consequence. I don’t believe that we can’t find out the source of all this. Did we play all those Nintendo games in vain as kids? Clearing levels and beating up the boss, isn’t that what we’re best at?”

“Bullshit. We get thirty lives in Contra and can gain lives by getting green mushrooms in Super Mario, but what about here? Do we get extra lives here? We’re just ordinary people who have only one life. We don’t even have any weapons for self-defense. Who knows when we might slip up and get a game over.” Wei Dong lowered his head, dejected. But compared to before, his voice sounded a lot more spirited.

“All right, don’t let your imagination run wild anymore.” Ke Xun’s tone was calm and sounded natural. “Even if we don’t have weapons, we have to have courage. Even if we’re like insects, if we die, we should die on the corpse of the elephant.”

Mu Yiran, who had been walking next to him, turned to glance at Ke Xun and just so happened to meet eyes with the other.

Their eyes locked onto each other. Ke Xun smiled at him. There was a hint of fearlessness and apathy reflected in the arc of his lips.

There were all kinds of people who entered paintings. But no one knew just how long they would be able to survive.

Mu Yiran looked away, apathetic, eyes forward once more.

In the dense grey fog before them were three old crooked Chinese Scholar trees. Planted in a shabby old courtyard, the trees were absolutely still.

“We’ve arrived at the Li home.” Liu Yufei sucked in a breath, his voice sounding stiff and nervous.

Ke Xun perceptively turned to look at him. “Is there something wrong?”

Liu Yufei didn’t expect him to ask him this. He didn’t dare meet Ke Xun’s gaze. The corner of his lips rose. “No. Let’s go in.”

Seeing that the other didn’t want to speak, Ke Xun didn’t pursue the topic.

The door to the courtyard was slightly opened. When Liu Yufei pushed the door, it opened with a creak. However, this ear-piercing creek somehow didn’t transmit very far in the deathly still night. It was like the thick fog had swallowed it up.

As soon as they entered the courtyard, Ke Xun and Wei Dong nearly shouted in shock from what they saw. Liu Yufei also couldn’t help but swear under his breath.

The Li home was not small by any means. It was constructed as a siheyuan. There were buildings on all four sides. Right now, white curtains and long banners hung all over the three-roomed central building in the north. On either side of the central building’s door were large strings of ritual paper money and gold ingots made from folded pale yellow paper. Displayed at the entrance of the door were two pictures, one of a boy and one of a girl. The children were dressed in brightly-coloured clothes and were smiling with bright eyes.

It looked like a mourning hall.

“What the fuck? Fuck—Fuck!” Wei Dong was trembling all over. Liu Yufei’s expression also warped. Ke Xun looked around and saw that the only person who was still calm in their group of four was Mu Yiran. However, he could see a hint of gravity and vigilance in the other’s eyes.

“No wonder we’re wearing these kinds of clothes.” Liu Yufei looked down at his body.

These were obviously mourning clothes. Ke Xun felt miserable. He wanted to take these clothes off and throw them onto the ground. However, he remembered that he was naked underneath these clothes so he could only give up on that idea.

“Let’s go.” Mu Yiran gave Ke Xun a cool glance.

Those that received strips of cloth with the character yang on it were to guard the Li Family’s granary.

Ke Xun scanned their surroundings. He noticed that there was a room in the courtyard’s west wing that had a white piece of paper with the word ‘grain’ written on it in black.

Meanwhile, on a door on the south side, there was a similar white sheet of paper with a black ‘firewood’ written on it. Wei Dong and Liu Yufei, who had chosen the gu character were to chop firewood in the firewood room.

Wei Dong stuttered out curses quietly. The firewood room directly faced the door to the mourning hall in the north wing. The paper boy and girl were smiling at the door to the firewood room.

“Dong zi, be careful.” Ke Xun grabbed Wei Dong’s shoulders and whispered into his ears. “There should be axes in the firewood room. Hold one in your hand and stay alert. Don’t fall asleep. If anything happens, call for me. If nothing else, run out into the courtyard.”

“G-got it…you should also be careful….” Wei Dong’s voice shook. He then headed to the firewood room alongside Liu Yufei with extreme reluctance.

Ke Xun also followed Mu Yiran to the granary room in the west wing. They pushed open the door and entered. A mixed scent of dust and rotten cereals attacked his nose.? Ke Xun choked on the scent, pinching his nose as he retreated to the entrance.

Mu Yiran acted like he couldn’t smell it. He walked right in and pulled out his cell phone from his pocket. He then unlocked his phone and used the light of his screen to illuminate the room. There were more than ten sacks of different sizes piled up in one corner of the room. The window was made of solid wood. Tightly shut, it probably wouldn’t let even a sliver of light in. Of course, it was even darker inside the room right now since it was currently nighttime.

“Come in and close the door.” Mu Yiran turned to look at Ke Xun.

“Let’s air it out first. Not even a mouse can survive such a stench,” Ke Xun said.

“Come in and shut the door.” Mu Yiran repeated coldly, unmoved.

“…Are you also a reincarnated broken record?” Ke Xun sighed. He then walked in and shut the door.

“Put the wooden bar through it too.” Mu Yiran continued in his icy voice.

“Have you ever heard of the saying ‘enmeshed in a trap of one’s own devising?’ If I put that bar in, it’ll be hard for us to escape if anything were to happen.” Ke Xun tilted his head and looked at the other.

“Did you think it’d be safer outside?” Mu Yiran sneered coldly.

Ke Xun was taken aback. He then silently set the bar in place across the door.

Mu Yiran turned off his phone and the darkness befell the room. There was nothing but the putrid stench of dust and rot that made it hard to breath. The scent felt nearly tangible.

“What next?” Ke Xun asked.

“We wait.” Mu Yiran’s voice sounded extra deep and chilly in the darkness.

“Just…wait?” Ke Xun took two steps forward and discovered that it was really way too dark. It made him feel like he was in space. It felt like he was on the verge of falling into a black hole with every step he took. He didn’t feel steady at all.

He pulled out his phone and unlocked it. With the light of his screen, he found where Mu Yiran was positioned. The other was actually sitting on top of the sacks in the corner of the room. He was leaning against the wall, seemingly resting his eyes.

“So we’re just going to wait like this? We don’t have to do anything?” Ke Xun walked over and asked.

“You can also sleep.” Mu Yiran didn’t open his eyes. 𝚋𝚎ｄｎｏｖ𝚎𝚕．𝚌ｏｍ

“Don’t we have to look for a signature or seal in here?” Ke Xun squatted down next to Mu Yiran and used the screen’s light to illuminate the other’s face.

Looking at it from such a close distance, he discovered that the other’s skin was seriously ridiculously good. The other’s features looked even profounder under the light of his screen. He was like a sculpture that had undergone meticulous polishing.

“If it was that easy to find, people wouldn’t die in paintings.” Because of the light against his face, Mu Yiran furrowed his brows slightly. “I advise you to save your phone battery. Use it only when you must. There’s nowhere to charge it inside paintings. And you’re going to have to stay here for seven days. Of course, if you want to die tonight, you can use it as much as you like.”

Ke Xun turned his phone off at once. He then went to sit next to Mu Yiran on the sacks. “Look at you, how much must you hate me? What, will you get to live longer if you curse me into dying an early death?”

Mu Yiran didn’t pay him any more attention.

Ke Xun was silent for a long time. In such utter darkness, all he could hear was Mu Yiran’s quiet breathing. Meanwhile, he couldn’t hear anything outside the granary.

He actually really wanted to know more about those three people who had gotten the strips of cloth with min written on it. According to the old man’s arrangements, they were on night-watch.

If it was a night-watch, it definitely meant that they had to stand vigil in the mourning hall.

Inside the central building covered in curtains and funeral banners…was there a corpse?

Eve: Ke Xun’s and Wei Dong’s friendship is so pure.