Paintings of Terror

Chapter 141: Common Characteristics

“This happened so suddenly that we couldn’t hold her back at all…” the newcomer named Zhang Lifeng recounted with lingering fear. “After she jumped into the fire, the fire suddenly soared and completely enveloped her body. We couldn’t even try to pull her out…She, she just…like this, she just…just burned to death…”

“This really is too sudden,” Wei Dong sighed. “There were no warning signs at all?”

The three newcomers looked at each other and shook their heads. “She was normal before and even complained to us about how weird the world in this painting is. She didn’t seem like she was affected by anything.”

The veteran members also looked at each other, and Mu Yiran asked Qin Ci, “Which cartoon has a plot about someone throwing themselves into a fire?”

Qin Ci pondered for a long time, and finally shook his head. “I really can’t think of a cartoon like this.”

Mu Yiran looked at Ke Xun again. Ke Xun met his boyfriend’s gaze and thought that he couldn’t let his boyfriend down. It was rare for his boyfriend to be helpless because he didn’t know anything about cartoons. He was his boyfriend’s boyfriend so he must take charge and assume part of his boyfriend’s role in the team.

Ignoring the cat’s tail that grew out of the back of his ass, Ke Xun mobilized all his brain cells, trying to remember the cartoons he had watched as a child.

Mu Yiran didn’t interrupt his thinking, and only took out his phone to check the time.

It was already more than nine o’clock in the evening. Except for the dead Zhao Haicui, all the members had returned to this initial room.

According to the rule stipulating a death per night in the painting, it was unclear who among these people would die tonight and in what way.

“Currently, we have identified four of the six worlds,” Mu Yiran said, lowering his voice slightly so as not to disturb Ke Xun’s thinking. “Among them, Dr. Qin corresponds to the world of The Fish Child, Ke Xun corresponds to Tiger Learns a Skill, Wei Dong corresponds to Ma Liang’s Divine Brush, and Ge Lei corresponds to Black Cat Sheriff.”

“In addition, Ke Xun also discovered a hidden world, Good Kitty, which corresponds to Haowen.”

“As for the remaining two doors, one leads to the world with the sea and the faraway city, while the other leads to the world where Zhao Haicui threw herself into the fire.”

“Our next task is to find out as soon as possible what cartoons those two worlds belong to, and our other task is to continue to find ways to open up hidden worlds.”

“Regarding the first task, we’ll have to wait until daylight tomorrow to complete it. Therefore, the focus now is on the second task.”

“Based on Ke Xun’s description, triggering a hidden world can be roughly related to the characters or clues in the cartoon. On the surface, the character or clue may not seem to be directly related to the ending. But it is also very likely that once the plot has ended, the characters or clues in it can open a hidden world.

“Now, let’s sort out what important characters or clues in these cartoons may become the conditions for triggering a hidden world.

“Wei Dong had already finished the plot for Ma Liang’s Divine Brush, so let’s sort out the clues for this world first.”

After speaking, Mu Yiran looked at Wei Dong.

Wei Dong quickly said, “Ke’er and I originally thought that by drawing a door with the magic brush, I would be able to open up a hidden world. But after I returned to that world and tried it, it didn’t lead to anything at all.”

Mu Yiran asked, “Are there any important characters in the story of Ma Liang’s Devine Brush besides the protagonist and the villain?”

Wei Dong thought for a moment. “Would the old god that gave Ma Liang the magic brush count?”

Qin Ci said, “The old god only appeared once at the beginning. Even when Ma Liang encountered difficulties later on, he never appeared again. Since you have already advanced the storyline to the end, I’m afraid there’s no way to find this old god.”

“This…so advancing the story to the end is a mistake?” Wei Dong asked, depressed.

“Not necessarily,” Qin Ci comforted him. “Ke Xun also discovered the conditions to trigger the hidden world after he pushed the story to the end. Just think about it carefully, without disregarding any possibilities.”

“What about The Fish Child?” Zhu Haowen asked Qin Ci.

“I punished the evil officials and foreigners according to the plot of the cartoon,” Qin Ci said. “I searched for a while but didn’t find any clues. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know about the method Ke Xun used to trigger a hidden world. Now that I think about it, the more important role or clue may be the fish child’s basin. The ending in the cartoon was that the fish child returned to the bottom of the basin. Maybe I should…”

“Don’t.” Wei Dong waved his hand hurriedly. “If you go back to the bottom of the basin, what if you can’t change back again?”

“That’s likely,” Zhu Haowen said expressionlessly.

“This is indeed a dilemma.” Qin Ci frowned slightly.

“According to the process Ke Xun used in triggering his hidden world,” Mu Yiran, who had been quiet for a while, suddenly said, “Tiger Learns a Skill and Good Kitty both have cat characters, and in Tiger Learns a Skill, a cat was precisely the condition that triggered a hidden world. Then, we can consider using the same method to trigger other hidden worlds.”

After hearing this flawless reasoning, Zhu Haowen said, “So what we need to find may be the characters in each cartoon, such as the mouse in Good Kitty and One Ear in Black Cat Sheriff.”

“That’s right!” Wei Dong clapped his hands. “Then, thinking about the animals in Ma Liang’s Divine Brush, Ma Liang drew a chicken, a sheep, and an ox. A chicken, a sheep, and an ox! Think about it, which cartoon has chickens, sheep, ox?”

As everyone was thinking about this, Ke Xun suddenly clapped his hands, having found something from his memory. “Fire Boy meow! I remember that the main character in this Fire Boy cartoon turned into a big fireball, like Zhao Haicui. Could this be a corresponding cartoon, meow?”

All this time, he had been thinking about this question that Mu Yiran had directed at him.

Qin Ci exclaimed “Oh” as understanding dawn. “It’s very likely. It’s good that you still remember such an old cartoon. I almost have no impression of it.”

Ke Xun pulled on his cat ears. “The reason why I still remember this cartoon is really meow because this cartoon left a black shadow on my childhood meow! The protagonist turning into a fireball has such a weird painting style meow.”

“So it seems that Zhao Haicui’s corresponding world is Fire Boy.” Qin Ci looked at Ke Xun and then at Mu Yiran.

Mu Yiran also looked at Ke Xun. “What kind of protagonist is the fire child?”

“What kind?…Meow, of course he’s a human.” Ke Xun tilted his head and looked at him curiously, his cat tail flicking behind him.

Mu Yiran’s fingers, which were tucked into his pants pockets, twitched slightly. However, his face was still calm. “Zhao Haocui has a rabbit headband. If we were to look at your example, after wearing the cat headband, you began to change into a cat. Then, Zhao Haicui should be changing into a rabbit.”

“Oh, that makes sense, meow!” Ke Xun’s eyes widened and he tilted his head. “Yes, I’m sure that the protagonist in Fire Boy is human, meow. This cartoon seems to be about ethnic minorities, meow.”

Mu Yiran turned his head to ask the three newcomers, “Did Zhao Haicui’s posture or language changed in any way when she was with you?”

The three people looked at each other and then shook their heads. Zhang Lifeng said with a bad expression, “We were all in a panic when we were separated. Once we found each other, we were very anxious to find our way back. The weather was too cold and so we panicked, fearing that we had gotten lost. We didn’t feel calm until we had entered the cave with the fire. But because there was a strange old man in the cave, we were a little scared and didn’t carefully pay attention to one another…”

Wei Miao, the owner of the dragon horn headband, suddenly said hesitantly, “I don’t know if I was just imagining it, but the moment when Zhao Haicui jumped into the fire, I saw her shadow cast on the cave wall, and it looked like a…rabbit…”

“What’s more,” Qin Ci added, “the protagonist in Fire Boy didn’t jump into the fire. It was after swallowing fire that he turned into a fireball.”

“Meow, so Zhao Haicui’s corresponding world isn’t Fire Boy meow.” Ke Xun’s tail swished.

“What is the fire called in Fire Boy?” Mu Yiran asked Ke Xun.

“Just…it’s called tinder or fireball? I don’t know exactly, meow meow.” Ke Xun’s tail swished again.

The last “meow meow” was really cute. Mu Yiran took his hand out from his pocket and gently clamped the tip of Ke Xun’s tail between two fingers.

Ke Xun looked at him with wide, wet eyes.

Mu Yiran didn’t look at him anymore. He fiddled imperceptibly with the furry tail between his fingertips. On the surface, he still looked like a cold, solitary and handsome boss. His eyes fell on Qin Ci. “What kind of animation style does Fire Boy have?”

Qin Ci thought for a moment. “It seems to be a paper-cut animation style.”

“What about Hailibu?” Mu Yiran continued to ask quietly.

“Hailibu is the most common kind of animation,” Qin Ci said.

Mu Yiran’s quiet eyes swept across everyone’s faces, and then he said in a deep voice, “Now I have roughly determined a problem: Ma Liang’s Divine Brush is puppet-style animation, The Fish Child and Fire Boy are paper-cut animations, and Tiger Learns a Skill, Good Kitty, Black Cat Sheriff, and Hailibu are done in common animation styles.”

“Wei Dong corresponds to Ma Liang’s Divine Brush and so when he didn’t enter his corresponding world, his body changed by slowly transforming into a puppet similar to the style of Ma Liang’s Divine Brush.”

“Ke Xun, Haowen, Zhao Haicui, and I correspond to cartoons with a common animation style. Therefore, we didn’t change to reflect the style of animation, like Wei Dong, but instead, we are directly changing into the characters in the cartoon. For animal characters, we will gradually become an animal, and for human characters, we will gradually take on the fate of that character.”

“So we can infer from this that, since Qi Qiang and Huang Pi are changing into puppets, the worlds that correspond to them are puppet-style cartoons?”

“And, with Luo Wei’s changes into paper, could it be because the world he corresponds to is a paper-cut cartoon? For example…Fire Boy?”

Everyone was shocked and were thinking about Mu Yiran’s inferences, when Ke Xun gave a meow, tail twisting in Mu Yiran’s hand. “Yes! It’s Fire Boy meow! It’s Luo Wei’s. Doesn’t he have a red round stone, meow? Maybe this is the so-called fireball in the cartoon, meow!”

“Guys…” Wei Dong’s trembling voice suddenly sounded. “It will be eleven in five minutes…”

Eleven o’clock. This time, would death come to randomly select people in the room, or would…they enter the cruel process of voting to put someone to death once more?