Paintings of Terror

Chapter 96: Guo Lixia

The whole night was like a car driving silently in the darkness. It was unknown where the end point was or what would be encountered on the road.

Ke Xun looked at the gradually brightening colors in the room. If this change could have a name, it would be best to call it “breaking dawn.”

Ke Xun carefully inspected the window that was nailed with wooden boards. The gaps between the boards were so narrow that not even a chopstick could pass through.

Where was Guo Lixia? It was very strange not to see a body, whether alive or dead.

After searching for a while, Ke Xun saw a ball of paper at the base of the wall beneath the window. It looked just like waste paper that had been scrunched up into a ball.

He couldn’t remember if anyone had used paper in this room, and so he doubtfully picked up the ball of paper. It weighed about the same as a piece of ordinary A4 paper.

As he unfolded the paper, he realized that the shape of the paper was rather strange. It didn’t seem to be a traditional square shape, and it gave off a certain feeling of indescribable lubricity against his hand.

As the paper was slowly unfolded, Ke Xun’s heart sank bit by bit. When the entire piece of paper was laid flat on the table, his heart dropped into a deep ice valley.

“Ke’er! Are you okay? Come out!” Wei Dong’s voice came from outside the door.

In a complicated mood, Ke Xun rolled up the paper, held it in his hand, and opened the door.

Everyone’s expression was bad, but without the early panic from days ago. Instead, it was more like a kind of resignation.

“Something happened to Mi Wei?” Ke Xun had already guessed the result.

Miao Zipei’s voice was low and deep. “Mi Wei didn’t suffer, just like when Yening Chenyi left.”

Shi Zhendong looked into the open door of the blue room. “What about Xiao Guo?”

With a solemn expression, Ke Xun walked to the table in the hall and spread the paper out on the table.

Wei Dong was the first to walk over to take a look. “What is this? Is this a little person? This is…”

“This is Sister Guo.” Ke Xun no longer looked at the horrifying and somewhat comical-looking little piece of human skin.

Upon hearing this, Wei Dong shook with fear, but still managed to gather up the courage to cautiously examine the “little person.” To be precise, it was a piece of human skin that had been emptied of its inside. It was about 30 cm high when spread pliable on the table. Looking at the features, it was indeed Guo Lixia.

Although everyone had either seen or heard about the tragic sight of Zhang Tianwei and Xin Beibei inside the glass jar, none of it was as shocking as this “Guo Lixia.”

This unspeakable “corpse” was now lying on the table in front of everyone. There was no need to enter the circular building, and there was no special large glass jar. There was only a thin, cold corpse, looking like a piece of paper that may have been overlooked if it wasn’t clearly placed in front of everyone.

“When you first discovered it, was this thing already like this?” Mu Yiran asked.

“No, it was balled up like waste paper…” Ke Xun said.

Zhu Haowen took a closer look at “Guo Lixia.” “It might be that the black shadow probably dragged his prey to the window using the same method it had used before. The only difference was that this body could not pass through the window. It hated to waste such prime color resources, and so it just extracted the colors on the spot.”

“Extracted the colors on the spot? Extracted, how?” Miao Zipei asked.

Zhu Haowen shook his head. “Probably only the shadow himself could answer this question.”

Even if they didn’t know the specifics, they could still imagine the situation last night. The color should have been strongly squeezed out from Guo Lixia’s body. This method was probably similar to extracting colors using the glass jar, but it was simply more brutal and cruel. As a result, the entire body was emptied out, and even the human skin was wrinkled and bunched, until it finally shrank into something that looked like a ball of waste paper.

Just like when one was drinking a kind of bagged beverage. When one sucked strongly, the bag would buckle and bunch together.

Ke Xun couldn’t help thinking of the painful sounds Guo Lixia had emitted last night.

“If this method is also effective, why did the dark shadow try it’s best to drag people away?” Shi Zhendong took a closer look at Guo Lixia’s body once more, and he found that, although the corpse was as flat as a piece of paper, there was still a faint touch of color on it. Her facial features and hair could still be seen clear as day, and the polka dot pattern on her clothes still had a faint light blue color.

Qin Ci quickly discovered this too. “Using this method, the shadow might be unable to completely extract the color, and torturing people this way was probably at the shadow’s limit.”

Ke Xun seemed to have thought of something. Anxiously, he rushed downstairs. “Hurry up to the pool and check if Sister Guo’s coins are still there!”

Everyone thought of it instantly and tensely listened to Mu Yiran’s arrangements. “We’ll divide into two groups. One group will go to the pool downstairs, and the other group will go check in the round building. Afterward, let’s gather in the lobby on the first floor.”

They quickly divided into groups. Miao Zipei was about to rush downstairs with Wei Dong, but then he heard Mu Yiran say, “Go to the sixth floor instead. You probably need to identify the color there.”

Miao Zipei seemed to understand. He nodded and followed Qin Ci and the others upstairs.

Ke Xun arrived at the pool. Although he was mentally prepared, when he saw that the coins with circular patterns were still at the bottom of the pool, he still couldn’t accept the facts.

Mu Yiran and Wei Dong did not speak. At this point, it was hard to imagine that Guo Lixia was still alive.

“Let’s treat Sister Guo well.” Ke Xun’s voice was almost inaudible.

The current “Guo Lixia” was being held by Mu Yiran. Mu Yiran silently walked to the pool and completely immersed this little human skin in the water. A few minutes later, those dot coins at the textured pool bottom gradually disappeared.

The human skin floated completely on the water, floating like garbage.

With his bare hands, Ke Xun dug a half-wall deep pit directly by the pool, buried “Guo Lixia” in it, and muttered in an inaudible voice, “I’ve wronged Sister Guo. When your son comes back from abroad, I’ll have him kowtow to you with incense.”

Wei Dong stood on the sidelines, feeling very uncomfortable. He still remembered that Guo Lixia was an exceptionally innocent person when she’d inadvertently entered the painting two days ago. All she wanted was to find water to drink.

But these people who entered the painting, these people who came and went, back and forth, which one of them weren’t innocent?

Meanwhile, Mu Yiran’s eyes were fixed on the maze, as if lost in thought. He walked to the side of the maze, stood at the northeast corner, and looked into the distance.

“Yiran, what did you find?” Ke Xun asked.

Mu Yiran narrowed his eyes, as if he was trying to see something in the distance. He heard Ke Xun’s question and replied, “It’s nothing special. I just heard what seemed to be movements in the maze, so I walked over to listen.”

Ke Xun frowned. “Could it be the Minotaur that you spoke of yesterday?”

Wei Dong looked at his best bro: It’s really rare that you can remember such a long name.

“The Minotaur is essentially a person with a bull head who lives in a maze. It was said that virgin maidens would be used as a sacrifice to pay tribute to him.” Mu Yiran walked away from the maze, and they headed toward the castle. “Later, during an archeology dig in Crete, archaeologists discovered the remains of the labyrinth that was mentioned in the myth. There were a large number of linear writings on the clay tablet found inside. These writings were records, such as seven sacrificial Athen maidens, boys and girls names, and so on. These records were exactly in line with the myth of sacrificial tributes being paid to the Minotaur.”

Ke Xun looked at the members who were passing by the outside corridor above the castle, and his vision paused momentarily on the round tower. “Would you say that the dark shadow’s extraction of people’s colors is considered as a kind of sacrifice?”

Wei Dong looked at the pool that could record life and death. “There is also the setting of the pool, which seems to be quite ritualistic.”

“If it really is a sacrifice of color, then who is it used to worship?” Mu Yiran analyzed. “When added together, these colors will result in black. Is the shadow using black to make itself strong, or does it have other purposes?”

“I always think that, as long as there is a shadow, then there should be a physical body. These two things are interdependent and indispensable to one another.” Ke Xun looked down at his own shadow. “The laws of this world are also like this. The people who died will lose their colors. At the same time, their shadow will be lost–I think the same rules applies to the shadow itself as well.”

“The shadow itself is already strong enough, imagine how powerful the actual body is!” Wei Dong couldn’t imagine it.

“Fauves would sometimes magnify something they want to express, such as this shadow that the painting wants to express.” At this time, more people had returned to the hall, and Mu Yiran continued “Although the shadow is large enough to cover everything, it’s material body may not be as big.”

It happened that another team member had just come downstairs to the lobby. Hearing Mu Yiran’s words, Zhu Haowen said thoughtfully, “If the shadow has a material body, the actions of this body should be consistent with his shadow. According to our previous analysis, the big shadow could control our shadows, so as to control our physical bodies. So what was the shadow’s material body doing at that time?”

Mu Yiran’s eyes immediately lit up, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he looked at Miao Zipei and asked, “Did you discover anything new?”

Miao Zipei said, “The fourth and fifth floors are still red and blue, but the doors representing them are now tightly closed. The sixth floor is a pure purple. Whether it’s the color on the wall or the purple liquid in the glass jar, it is the purest purple, an equal mixture of red and blue.”

Qin Ci asked Mu Yiran and Ke Xin, “Is this the same purple you saw yesterday?”

Ke Xun scratched his head, feeling that it was difficult for him to provide clear information on the description of color.

Mu Yiran said, “The purple we saw yesterday was slightly reddish.”

Miao Zipei had a sudden realization. “That’s it! It seems that someone had added a small amount of blue to the purple liquid today, which makes the red and blue equal, so the colors extracted became the most correct and pure purple!”

As for where those small amounts of blue came from, everyone knew in their hearts; the corpse of the poor Guo Lixia appeared in their minds.

The NPC’s voice sounded, announcing that today’s work task was still to store three jars of berries. Then it invited everyone to have breakfast.

Now that there were only seven people left, their work tasks had become extremely laborious, particularly in the blue room. In that room, there was only Ke Xun alone who could complete the work, even if he worked diligently.

“Have you ever thought about why the NPC never showed up? We have never encountered this type of situation in the previous painings,” Zhu Haowen said.

Suddenly, there was a sneer in the hall, clearly coming from the NPC.

“It’s probably too ugly to let anyone see it,” Ke Xun said, raising his voice loud and clear into the void.

“…..” Zhu Haowen looked at Ke Xun. “Or maybe this person can’t show his appearance, so he could only broadcast his voice to us.”