Paintings of Terror

Chapter 124: Headstrong, Affectionate Lover

The headband on Ke Xun’s head was equipped with earphones. Whenever the painful electric current rushed through his body, countless cold voices could be heard speaking through the earphones in tones of ridicule and disgust, filling his ears with insults.

“Dead gay, pervert, disgusting, inferior to pigs and dogs, beast, dirty, nasty, shameless, scum, dead gay, filthy thing, dead gay, die a terrible death, go to hell, jump into the oil pan and burn to death. What are you doing alive? You beast that’s against morality and humanity. Dead gay. Dead gay, dead gay, dead gay…”

The horrible words were more injurious than any wounds inflicted by an ax or a machete.

Destroying the body was just inducing pain, but destroying the spirit and faith was cruel and inhumane torture.

Such cold and hateful words trampled upon human dignity and faith. Eventually, one would become more and more convinced that one really was a beast, a filthy thing unworthy of being human and of having dignity, spurned and shamed by everything in the world.

If this scorn and humiliation was tangible, then Ke Xu would probably be covered with thick sputum and drowning in dung. It was as if he’d been stripped naked and thrown into the dirtiest of dirt, surrounded by the shaming expressions and gazes of the self-righteous men who watched him.

They laughed at him, pinched their noses, and scorned him like a puddle of dirt. They said, “Dead gay, do you know to repent?”

Ke Xun lifted his head from the filth and raised his lips into a half sneered. “Go fuck your repentence. Laozi is born gay and will die gay and will still be gay even in hell. Even when the sky changes and the earth changes, Laozi will not change!”

The data on the display was vacillating frantically, while electric currents were constantly rushing through Ke Xun’s body via the wire heads. His body shrank in pain again and again under the impact of the electric current, nearly shattering his bones.

Mu Yiran looked at Ke Xun, who was soaked in sweat as if he’d just been fished out of the water. He watched as Ke Xun’s fingers dug into the armrest, and he reached out and grabbed Ke Xun’s hand, holding him tightly.

On the screen, No. 282 remained standing beside the display. Mu Yiran searched all the corners and details that could be found, but still couldn’t find the location of the signature.

On the other side, several gray figures held the tools for surgery and slowly gathered around Zhu Haowen. They communicated with each other as if they were doing ordinary work.

Their voices were vague, and even at close distance, it was difficult to discern what they were saying.

Mu Yiran’s eyelashes suddenly trembled, and his finger moved slightly over the phone. He clicked on the recording button and, facing the microphone, he said in a deep voice, “No. 282 where is Kang Lai’s signature?”

After speaking, he pressed stop and then pressed play.

From the phone’s speaker came a string of vague and indistinct words spoken in the sounds of his voice.

He didn’t understand what was being said but No. 282 seemed to understand.

No. 282 moved his chapped and gray lips, and made a low, indistinct sound. Mu Yiran tapped on the record button, and when No. 282 was done speaking, he tapped play.

“I’m Kang Lai… What do you need my signature…for?” No. 282’s voice came from the speaker, gentle but desolate.

“We need your signature to leave here,” Mu Yiran said.

“Leave here…Leave here…” No. 282, Kang Lai, spoke in a voice full of melancholy and sadness. “Yes…you should leave here. He should leave here too…A pity, a pity…I couldn’t take him out of here…”

Through the hand that Mu Yiran was holding, he felt Ke Xun twitched fiercely under the electric shock, as if his bones had shrunk into a ball. Mu Yiran asked again in a deep voice. “Kang Lai, where is the signature?”

“I…can write it on you…now…” Kang Lai said gently.

He stretched out his thin, gray fingers and tapped them on Mu Yiran’s chest.

“Write on him first.” Mu Yiran pointed to Ke Xun.

“I…I’m not in a hurry…” Ke Xun’s voice was extremely weak and shaky. “Hao… Haowen’er… anxious…”

The sharp cone used for the lobotomy had already been inserted into Zhu Haowen’s eye socket.

“Please help.” Mu Yiran pointed to Zhu Haowen.

Kang Lai turned around and gently walked toward Zhu Haowen. His fingers touched Zhu Haowen’s chest and wrote the word “Kang Lai” on his body.

A dim light flashed around Zhu Haowen’s body. A picture frame faintly appeared in the light, and Zhu Haowen’s body disappeared into the picture frame.

Kang Lai came back and looked at Mu Yiran. “Who else do you want to save?”

But it was Ke Xun who spoke. “Yiran…ask him…can he go to…the other laboratory…”

Mu Yiran understood what he meant in a second, and he looked at Kang Lai. “Could you please go to the other three laboratories and help rescue all of our companions?”

Kang Lai looked at Mu Yiran blankly with dark eyes, and asked him. “You and him… are you in a lover… relationship?”

This “him” referred to Ke Xun.

Ke Xun’s neck and head were secured in place by the leather strap, and so he was unable to look up to see Mu Yiran’s expression and movements. His ears were also filled with the vicious voices coming through the headphones, and he could not hear Mu Yiran’s answer clearly.

Toward the end, he only heard Kang Lai’s voice “translated” through the phone, sad and gentle and with a slight smile. “He…very much like…my lover…as stubborn…headstrong… and… affectionate… I hope you two… cherish…”

Ke Xun lost consciousness under the faint light.

A low voice faintly came into his ears, like a cool wind in early autumn, blowing in a clear, deep voice.

Ke Xun opened his eyes and looked in the direction of the voice.

Mu Yiran sat on the sofa in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, his eyes lowered as he spoke in a low voice into his mobile phone. The brilliant light outside the window draped heavily over his body, making his pale skin and the snow-white shirt on his upper body reflect soft light.

His hair was still a bit damp, as if he had just taken a shower, the moisture turning his eyes and lips more vivid and picturesque.

Ke Xun licked his chapped lips, his throat dry.

But he didn’t make a sound. He simply continued to lie on his side like this, looking at Mu Yiran without blinking.

“…Mmn, I received the email,” Mu Yiran continued talking on the phone in a low voice. His eyes fell on the glass coffee table in front of him, where there was a transparent cup filled with clear water, reflecting the sunlight. “…I will trouble you to complete the relevant procedures for me. I’ll take a plane tomorrow, and will take care of the related, follow-up matters such as the relocation of the grave. I’ll do it myself… Yes, mmn, ok, that’s it, bye.”

Mu Yiran hung up the phone, turned, and met the still-abed Ke Xun’s gaze.

“You have to take responsibility for me,” Ke Xun said hoarsely, but it didn’t prevent him from committing a second crime. He wrapped himself tightly with the sheet to give off the pitiful appearance of having been ravaged by a cultured beast.

The cultured beast picked up the water glass in front of him, walked over, and stood by the bed. Two buttons on the collar of his shirt were undone, displaying a certain lustful asceticism. Ke Xun wished he could drag a pair of gold-rimmed glasses on the bridge of his nose, and then pull this person into bed.

“Get up and drink some water.” Mu Yiran looked at him expressionlessly, taking what he said just now as farting.

Ke Xun sat up and took the cup obediently, “Are the other people okay?” He drank the water. In fact, it was an empty question. The others must be okay, otherwise Mu Yiran would not sit here so peacefully and kindly feed him water.

“Yeah.” Mu Yiran picked up Ke Xun’s empty cup, “Do you still want to drink more?”

“Drink.” Ke Xun sat on the bed happily and looked up at him, eyes shining.

“Get up and get it yourself.” Mu Yiran turned and left ruthlessly.

“…” Ke Xun fell back on the bed and turned over while holding the sheet. Half of his face was buried in the pillow, half of his face looked at Mu Yiran, who had sat back on the sofa. For whatever reason, his phone was vibrating constantly with new messages. With a sigh, Ke Xun asked him, “Do you never take a break all year round? You’re busy with business before you enter the painting, and after you come out of the painting, you’re busy with business. Is struggling against death in the world of the paintings settled so effortlessly?”

“Otherwise?” Mu Yiran drew the brightly-lit phone, and his slender fingers moved over the screen.

Ke Xun scratched his head, thinking about it.

If entering a painting was given too much weight, how should life continue?

Even if you had to fight to the end with the painting, you still had to manage your own life so long as you live for even a single day longer. If you allowed your real life to become ruined by the paintings, then what was the point of living?

Ke Xun got up from the bed and went to take a shower.

The hotel room was booked by Mu Yiran and so Ke Xun’s clothes weren’t there. However, the clothes on his body had been soaked with sweat, and so he had no clothes to change into after the shower. He came out with a bath towel wrapped around his waist, and Mu Yiran looked at him with a gloomy face.

Ke Xun said, “Don’t worry, I don’t mean to seduce you. I just want to ask if I can temporarily borrow some clothes to wear.”

Mu Yiran probably went through a very fierce battle between heaven and man in his mind, but finally he stood up with a gloomy face and took a pair of pants and a shirt from his luggage.

“Won’t you let me borrow a pair of underwear too?” Ke Xun frantically probed on the edge of danger. “I don’t despise you.”

“Get dressed and get lost,” the big boss said coldly, trying his best to push back the dog’s head.

Ke Xun sighed and sat on the side of the bed to put on the pants. “I have never tried such a sly operation, wearing pants without underwear.”

He buttoned up the shirt and fixed his clothes. Then he looked down and said, “…Would you like to lend me a suit jacket to block the protruding part?”

Mu Yiran stared at him coldly, but when his eyes took into Ke Xun’s appearance, he paused slightly.

A person who was accustomed to casual and lazy wear suddenly changed to a noble and elegant style. This contrast resulted in a great visual impact.

Especially for someone like Ke Xun.

Without the sloppy embellishment of loose slacks, a pair of slender and straight but tightly muscled legs wrapped in stylized pants was perfectly presented to Mu Yiran. The pants made his firm and pert buttocks look more elegant and noble, looking extremely sexy. The smooth shirt accentuated his tight and powerful waist and sculpted his straight shoulders, making them look all the more brilliant and inexhaustibly powerful.

Ke Xun looked like a completely different person, a little less scattered and meaningless and a little more brilliant and…coquettish.

“It’s a bit wedged in.” Ke Xun, who was not used to formal attire, sat on the side of the bed and looked down at his crotch. The messy strands of hair on the top of his head fully demonstrated his “awkwardness.”

After Mu Yiran answered two more calls, Ke Xun walked over and sat on the opposite sofa. Picking up the refilled glass cup he had just used, he looked at him and asked, “What happened with Kang Lai?”