Paintings of Terror

Chapter 112: The Bright and Warm Ke Xun

Mu Yiran turned the experiment log over a few more pages. These pages recorded the preparations for the operation and the physical condition of test subject No. 213.

Until he turned another page, and it read:

At 3 o’clock in the afternoon on April 20th, No. 213 underwent frontal lobotomy. The operation went smoothly and took 9 minutes and 23 seconds.

During the operation, No. 213 was conscious and able to answer questions.

.

After the operation, No. 213 fell into a coma.

…

At 6:15 in the afternoon, test subject No. 213 had a brain death. The operation failed.

“Fuck.” Ke Xun cursed, but seeing that Mu Yiran was still flipping, he had to continue to light up the page with his mobile phone.

—June 10, the second day after the operation, test subject No. 214 woke up, unable to respond to questions.

—June 13, test subject No. 214 was diagnosed to be in a persistent vegetative state.

—August 3, test subject No. 251 lost language functions after surgery.

—September 21, test subject No. 276 passed an intelligence test after surgery and was determined to have regressed to the mental capacity of a 2-year-old child.

—October 9, test subject No. 282’s body was in good condition after the operation and was ready to enter the second phase of testing.

—October 13, test subject No. 282 showed no expected adverse reactions to the test. The frontal lobotomy was determined to have no side effects on test subject No. 282. After discussion, the research group will prepare to conduct an ET exam on 282 in ten days.

—October 23, an ET exam was carried out on test subject No. 282 and had no effect.

—October 24, periodic ET exams are showing slow results. The subject must be observed over a period of time.

Ke Xun asked Qin Ci, “What is a persistent vegetative state?”

“Like a vegetable,” Qin Ci said.

“What about an ET exam?” Ke Xun asked.

Qin Ci frowned, puzzled. “ET? Endothelin? Embryo transfer?”

“It doesn’t sound like it. What do you think?” Ke Xun turned his face toward Mu Yiran and asked.

“Mmn.” Mu Yiran turned the log to the last page, “This log ended in December of that year. It doesn’t include the final results of the experiment or mention the purpose of these experimentations.”

“And it doesn’t sound like a very standardized medical log,” Qin Ci said, “It can be seen that this isn’t a professional or specialized medical institution. It just uses some medical methods to conduct experiments.”

“And this research institute doesn’t seem to hesitate to use various research methods that are decertified and disapproved for implementation,” Mu Yiran said coldly. “It’s clear that it would do anything for experimental purposes.”

“So, does the painter want to illustrate the research value of ‘people’, or is he exposing these sinful perversions at the research institution?” Zhu Haowen asked.

Qin Ci said, “I prefer the latter.”

“If it is the latter, then we need to think about where the artist will put his signature,” Zhu Haowen said.

“Could it be those high-sounding words on the wall of the foyer?” Wei Dong wondered.

“Would it be so obvious? We saw it as soon as we entered the door,” Zhu Haowen said.

“How can we be sure? The light is dim there,” Wei Dong responded. He turned to look at Ke Xun and added, “Ke’er, let’s go up and try.”

They both left the underground basement and went to the lobby on the first floor.

The passage on the wall seemed to be written in paint. Ke Xun went to the canteen and found two knives. After handing Wei Dong one, he spent the whole morning scraping the red paint off the wall, in case it was covering up the signature.

However, Wei Dong was disappointed to find that there was nothing under the paint.

“Sure enough, there’s no such good thing.” Wei Dong shook his sore hand. “Ke’er, do you think I should carry this knife with me? If something comes up to me at night, I can use it. What do you think?”

“Unlikely.” Ke Xun didn’t want to pour cold water on him, but he had to make him recognize reality. “If just chopping at them with a knife is so easy, this painting wouldn’t be difficult. But you can still carry the knife. It’ll strengthen your courage.”

“What courage?” Wei Dong sighed. “I’m afraid of hurting myself with it, so forget it. What did Dr. Qin tell us about Laboratory B? When people become anxious, their behaviors become extreme…Do you think I’ll survive tonight? I’m really afraid that I’ll fall on this one.”

Ke Xun lowered his eyelids, thinking. Then, he suddenly raised his gaze to look at him. “In fact, I think Laboratory B is the easiest of the four in terms of survival. It’s just a loss of various senses. Think about it? What situation puts a person in a status similar to having a loss of senses?”

“Death,” Wei Dong said dejectedly.

“I shouldn’t have any expectations for your IQ,” Ke Xun said indifferently. “In addition to death, there are two conditions. One is unconsciousness, and the other is deep sleep.”

Wei Dong said, “Huh?”

Ke Xun said, “Kneel down and call me Dad.”

Wei Dong said, “Dad, my old man, even though what you say is reasonable, do you think I can sleep in that kind of situation?”

Ke Xun said, “I don’t recognize this stupid child. If you can’t sleep, then you can be unconscious. Before 11 o’clock in the evening, let Boss Mu go with you to Laboratory B and pinch you and Haowen’er unconscious. When you’re unconscious, even if you lose your senses, you wouldn’t feel it, and so you could rest easy until dawn.”

“Fuck! This idea is too great,” Wei Dong exclaimed. “Even calling you grandpa wouldn’t be a loss. Okay! We’ll do it like this.”

“Don’t be too optimistic,” Ke Xun warned. “If those ‘researchers’ wake you up before the experiment begins, then you’ll have to bear with it.”

“…Don’t scare me,” Wei Dong said. “That kind of experiment can affect people like Qi Qiang Huang Pi, Xu Zhen and Dr. Qin. Qi Qiang and Huang Pi both look like hard people. And although Xu Zhen is a woman, she has a strong personality and is definitely more determined than ordinary people. Dr. Qin is a doctor himself, and so he shouldn’t be too flustered about this situation—even people like them could barely survive the night. I’m so weak-willed. People like me who are afraid of suffering probably won’t survive the night.”

Ke Xun squeezed his shoulders. “If you have to bear with it, think about other things and distract yourself.”

Wei Dong said with a bitter face, “What could I think about? I don’t think I’ll be able to think of anything under that kind of pain.”

Ke Xun said, “Think about your bosses, and think about your clients who are incessantly demanding that you make alterations to your images.

Wei Dong said, “I think I can live.”

“Very good,” Ke Xun said.

Wei Dong looked at him. “Then what about you? In Lab C, people would surely die…Ke’er, have you figured out what to do?”

Ke Xun lowered his eyelids and turned the knife in his hand. “I’ve thought about it.”

“What is it?” Wei Dong asked hurriedly.

Ke Xun smiled. “Probably to power up with love.”

Lunch still consisted of only rice, bean porridge, and mixed bean salad. Everyone exchanged the result of the morning’s search. The result of the exchange was that there was no result, so they continued in the afternoon, focusing on the contents of all the documents that could be found upstairs and downstairs.

Even though the documents in the research institute were not as vast as the sea and were piled up in mountainous piles, they had no choice but to stack them up in the entrance hall so that they could look through them using the lights streaming in through the windows.

“Could there really be a signature in these documents?” Xu Zhen had patiently flipped through documents most of the afternoon and finally couldn’t help but ask.

“Even if there’s no signature, we can learn about the background or other related things about this institute,” Qin Ci said. “This will help us infer where the signature will appear or in what form.”

“These all have scientific or medical terms, I really don’t understand them.” Xu Zhen pinched her eyebrows, and pointed to the stack of documents next to her. “Even more terrifying, they’re all research papers and obscure scientific materials. I feel like I’m reading a book.”

Qin Ci couldn’t respond to this, and Qi Qiang even jumped up anxiously to kick down a large stack of documents.

“What the fuck do you want to find out?!” Qi Qiang cursed, eyes blood-shot. His emotions were clearly out of control.

When Zhang Hanrui, Li Yaqing, and Cai Xiaoyan saw this, they were so scared that they immediately moved away from him. The swelling on Zhang Hanrui’s face still hadn’t gone down yet.

Qi Qiang turned around twice, then he rushed to the office next door, pulled out a chair, and smashed it against the front glass door.

As a result, the chair was smashed to pieces, but the glass was still intact.

Qi Qiang refused to give up. He went to the next room and tried it again.

Ke Xun was annoyed. He got up and went to the cafeteria, where the cooking had now completely fallen on his head.

As he was washing the rice and cooking the beans, he saw Zhang Hanrui and Li Yaqing walked in, arm in arm. They stood nearby, watching him blankly.

“What’s wrong?” Ke Xun asked, turning his head.

“…It’s fine…We just don’t want to stay in the hall…” The two girls’ emotions had stabilized a lot.

“Then sit here for a while, and we’ll eat later,” Ke Xun said, turning his head and continuing to wash the rice.

“Brother Ke…” Zhang Hanrui called to him in a trembling, nasally voice. “You don’t seem to be…very scared?”

Ke Xun lowered his eyelids and smiled. “Fear is the just beginning of fearlessness. Besides, I have a boyfriend for protection. What is there to be scared of?”

His words relaxed Zhang Hanrui and Li Yaqing’s nervous emotions, and they let out tearful laughs. Zhang Hanrui sniffed and said in a hoarse voice, “Even with things like this, you’re still showing affections here.”

“The show right now is the real show,” Ke Xun said.

“That’s right,” Zhang Hanrui chuckled. “The love at this time is the real love.”

Feeling better again, she asked casually, “Then you and Brother Mu, who is the gong and who is the shou?”

Ke Xun: “…” Fujoshis were all demons.

Li Yaqing interjected, “I feel like Brother Mu is more aggressive…”

Ke Xun said, “…Are you two feeling better now? Come and boil the water. Can you boil water?”

“Why boil water?” Zhang Hanrui sniffed, walked over, and took the pot that Ke Xun had handed over.

“To soak your feet in.” Ke Xun was expressionless.

The two girls couldn’t help but laugh again, and then they turned on the water hose to get water.

Zhu Haowen stood at the entrance of the canteen and looked at them. His eyes fell on Ke Xun’s hands holding chopsticks and mixing beans.

This person always had the ability to dissolve any dark, depressing and fearful atmosphere, creating a sliver of light and warmth from that broken gap.

Others might become colder and more apathetic, but not him.

He will only be brighter, work harder, and be more fearless, time and time again.