Paintings of Terror

Chapter 109: Mu Yiran’s Change

When Ke Xun woke up, there were a few faint cell phone lights in front of him, and he could hear Mu Yiran and Zhu Haowen’s low voices speaking not far away.

He couldn’t help but turn over, and he heard Wei Dong’s weak voice, “Are you awake?”

Ke Xun sat up and found that his clothes were drenched with sweat, clinging coldly to his body. His hair was also wet, the locks sticking to his face.

Using his fingers to draw his hair back away from his face, Ke Xun raised his gaze and looked at Wei Dong’s face first. It was hard to see him clearly in the darkness, but he was sitting against the wall, looking utterly exhausted. Ke Xun asked, “How are you? Are you uncomfortable anywhere?”

“My whole body hurts everywhere. Other than that, there’s nothing else,” Wei Dong said weakly. “Fortunately, Boss Mu knocked me out the last few times; otherwise, I would have really knocked my head into the wall and killed myself.”

“The last few times?” Ke Xun asked.

“Don’t you know?” Wei Dong glanced at him. “You’re so lucky. Didn’t the baby cry some more after the first time? After crying for a while, the sound stopped, and I thought that was it. But after a while, the sound came again. Then the baby started crying again. Anyway, I was tortured again and again. After the second time, I couldn’t stand it anymore. I was about to slam my head into the wall so I asked Boss Mu to knock me out. But the sound soon woke me up again, and so Boss Mu had to knock me out again…Anyway, this was how I was able to handle it. Don’t you think that, if this happened too many times, the sounds would driven people crazy and make them mentally retarded…?”

Ke Xun looked at Mu Yiran, who was holding his phone and checking on something with Zhu Haowen. Mu Yiran’s clothes were also wet with sweat and were sticking to his body. His immaculately white shirt was now coated with dust, but this did not detract from his outstanding temperament. His face was still calm as he meticulously looked for clues.

Ke Xun got up, and a shot of pain lanced through his mind. A few white flashes of light burst across his vision, but he soon felt better after standing still for a moment. He walked over and stopped next to Mu Yiran. Tilting his head, he looked at the things in front of them. “Were these what ‘they’ were using to make that sound?”

“Yes,” Zhu Haowen answered, pointing to the hammer, to the iron cone, and then to the metal tools next to them. “But if only these things were used, it would be impossible to make such piercing and hurtful sounds. So we think the sounds last night were infinitely exaggerated for purpose of lethality. But it is very likely that, in reality, the sounds these tools could make would only be regarded as sharp and uncomfortable.”

Last night? Ke Xun took out his cell phone and looked at the time. It was past five o’clock in the morning.

Rubbing his throbbing temple, Ke Xun propped one hand on the table to support his exhausted body. He looked at Mu Yiran and Zhu Haowen and said, “Then what happened to the baby last night?”

Everything in this laboratory seemed quite contradictory. The various kinds of hardware equipment that were used to make sharp noises, the babies, and the cages for small animals, these were three things that didn’t fit together at all. So then, what were they studying?

Mu Yiran glanced at the hand that Ke Xun was using to support himself on the table, then he looked away and turned off the flashlight on his phone. His gentle voice sounded in the darkness, “Judging from the phenomenon last night, the purpose of this sound seemed to be to make the baby cry. When the baby stopped crying, the sound would ring again, continuing a second round to cause the baby to cry. I also don’t understand what their intention was and what kind of research they were doing, but this can be considered a form of infant abuse.”

Ke Xun tilted his head and looked at him in the darkness. Although he could see nothing at this moment, he intuitively felt that Mu Yiran was also looking at him.

Ke Xun felt that something had changed in Mu Yiran, something different.

For example, in the past, he probably wouldn’t be able to say the words “I don’t understand” to him so peacefully.

It was like… crushing the shell of a nut, revealing that the fruit inside the shell was not only solid but also genuine and real.

Boss Mu became a little confused by the sound, right? Ke Xun thought to himself. But he didn’t dare to ask for fear of being rebuffed and so he pretended not to respond.

“No matter what kind of experiment,” Zhu Haowen said coldly, “this is against humanity.”

“No wonder these experimental laboratories are underground.” Ke Xun raised his eyebrows. “This kind of experiment is against humanity and is really abnormal. Of course, it had to be carried out undercover, because they dare not put it up to the light. From this, we can infer that the other three test areas must also be abnormal.”

“Let’s go take a look,” Mu Yiran said. Then he paused and spoke once more, “How are you?”

“Huh?” Ke Xun was taken aback, “Are you asking me? I’m fine. Why…”

….do you want to ask?

Ke Xun swallowed back the second half of that question just in time. He really wanted to ask, but he felt that, if he did, Boss Mu might just raise his foot and leave.

Although he didn’t know why the boss’ attitude towards him was suddenly thawing, Ke Xun felt that this was good. It was better not to wake Mu Yiran up, lest this proud little brother became angry and beat him or something.

So after the “Why” Ke Xun turned the question around. “Why are there no movements in the other labs? Let’s go and take a look.”

Turning on the flashlight in his phone, Ke Xun went to help Wei Dong. Wei Dong had also slowed down a lot. He leaned on the wall and slowly followed everyone outside. In fact, Zhu Haowen wasn’t any better than the rest of them and was walking with uneven steps.

After coming out of Laboratory A, the four of them went to Laboratory B, which was the opposite door. They knocked on the door and had to wait a long time before Qin Ci finally opened it. With his face somewhat pale, he looked at his four companions and forced out a smile. “You also managed to get through it. That’s good.”

“How are you?” Ke Xun took a look inside the room with his mobile phone and saw that the doors of the four small areas were opened. Xu Zhen, Huang Pi and Qi Qiang were lying on the ground, immobile.

“Fortunately, there are no casualties.” Qin Ci shook his head with some embarrassment. “But if we have to stay here another night, I can’t guarantee the same outcome.”

“What happened last night?” Mu Yiran asked him.

“About twelve o’clock,” Qin Ci said, “our senses abruptly disappeared.”

“What do you mean?” Wei Dong actually understood, but he couldn’t believe it.

“Our ability to hear, touch, smell, see, and taste.” Qin Ci’s breathing became a little heavier. “Even breathing. You couldn’t feel the breath coming in and out of your lungs. This feeling was like suffocation. Although you’re still breathing, it felt like you weren’t, making you feel as if you’re suffocating. This psychological fear would increase your stress response, which made you feel even more like you’re suffocating.

The four people in Laboratory A shared a moment of silence.

Although the noise was painful and unbearable, when thinking about the feeling of suffocation and the loss of bodily senses that the people in Laboratory B had suffered, they felt as if they were a little bit luckier.

Qin Ci seemed to know what the four of them were thinking, and he couldn’t help but smile again. “You think suffocating is the hardest part? In fact, most people don’t know that after losing touch, sight, smell, taste and hearing, life would become sadder than death. In the absolute silence of 0 decibels of sounds, and still you couldn’t see, couldn’t feel, couldn’t smell, maybe…it was like floating inside an endless black hole, never dead but neither alive. That was how it felt.”

Wei Dong shivered steadily, and quickly waved his hand. “Doctor Qin, Doctor Qin, please stop talking. I’m about to vomit in terror. I’m still dying here.”

Qin Ci smiled, and no longer said anything. He turned his head and looked at the other three B people in the room. He told Mu Yiran, “Let them rest first. Let’s check the people in the other two labs.”

Mu Yiran nodded, and Qin Ci walked towards Laboratory C first.

Ke Xun glanced at his somewhat exhausted back. Then he fell back and quietly leaned into Mu Yiran’s shoulders. In the past, whenever he leaned in to whisper into his ears, Mu Yiran would move his head back a little to put some distance between them. But this time, Mu Yiran didn’t move away, allowing Ke Xun’s warm breath to gently brush against his ear.

“Do you think that Doctor Qin’s state is a bit strange?” Ke Xun said in a very quiet voice.

Mu Yiran nodded slightly, causing his earlobe to accidentally graze Ke Xun’s lips.

Ke Xun returned to walking normally, looking at Qin Ci.

Mu Yiran was silent for a moment. Finally, he asked quietly, “What are you thinking about?”

I was thinking about why you’re acting so abnormal right now, but how could I say it? Boss, are you possessed by something? Why are you acting so strange when you woke up this morning? It’s making me feel so confused. Are you treating me like what I thought? Oh my god, why am I even thinking this? I must be stupid, right?

Ke Xun let out an “mmn.”.

Mu Yiran: “…..”

I asked what you were thinking, not if you were thinking.

“Perhaps because of the experience last night, he had a little negative reaction left over.” Mu Yiran brought the topic back to Qin Ci and kept his voice down as much as possible.

Ke Xun: “Yeah.”

Mu Yiran said, “It seems to be a sensory deprivation experiment.”

Ke Xun: “Yeah.”

Mu Yiran asked, “…Are you listening?”

Ke Xun: “Yeah.”

Mu Yiran said, “…What did you hear?”

Ke Xun: “Yeah.”

Mu Yiran: “…..”

Qin Ci knocked on the door of LaboratoryC, but no one came to open the door even after they had been waiting for a long time. They looked at each other with a sinking feeling

Since they couldn’t get in, they had to go to Test Area D first.

Test Area D only had Cai Xiaoyan, who was the poor, unlucky person most likely to die last night.

When they knocked on the door, it was quickly opened from the inside. Cai Xiaoyan looked dazed and scared, and when she saw them, she threw herself forward in relief and hugged the person closest to her, crying bitterly.

Wei Dong could barely support his own weak body and was nearly thrown to the ground by this sudden embrace. He patted Cai Xiaoyan on the shoulder, saying, “Don’t cry. In fact, this is good. The fact that you survived is already good. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

They entered the room, checked it again, and found that it was no different than yesterday. Mu Yiran asked Cai Xiaoyan, “Did something happen last night?”

Cai Xiaoyan said in a dull voice, “I heard someone opening the door and walking in..There were people talking, but I couldn’t understand what they were saying. I was too scared…I fainted, and soon afterward I woke up, you came…”

They silently looked at each other.

This situation was obviously somewhat unexpected. They thought that the person who would die had unexpectedly survived. Instead, it was the people in Laboratory C who had not responded to their knocks.

This painting was even more bizarre than they had imagined.