Paintings of Terror

Chapter 25: A Rather Complicated Newcomer

Translated by Eve

Edited by EB

Qin Ci got up and walked over. He patted Ke Xun on his shoulder. There was an inevitable chill in his rich and mellow voice. “Let’s do our best to look after them.”

Wei Dong took the satchel off his shoulders—his two-strapped backpack had turned into a crude cloth satchel after entering the painting.

He had brought jerky, chocolate, sausages and even five packs of instant ramen with him. When he saw the fear on the poor kid’s face, he had wanted to take out some chocolate to comfort him. However, he was stunned upon opening up his bag. His ramen had turned into clumps of flour, his chocolate had turned into some yellow thing, and his jerky and sausages had reverted to their raw forms. They were all jumbled together.

“What the heck did this turn into?!” Wei Dong yelled angrily. He pulled out the yellow thing he thought used to be chocolate and placed it in his hand as he stared at it.

“Looks a bit like cheese,” Qin Ci said.

“Cheese?” Wei Dong was dumbfounded. “I get ramen turning into clumps of flour and cooked meat turning into raw meat, but why did chocolate turn into cheese? What kind of weird logic is that?”

Ke Xun felt his sides and found his phone. He swiped his screen and saw his phone light up. As expected, they could still use it to check the time and as a source of light.

“It probably regressed?” After answering Wei Dong’s question, Ke Xun asked Qin Ci, “Has Mu Yiran come yet?”

Qin Ci shook his head.

Just as he said that, a sudden light burst before their eyes, blinding them. By the time the light retreated, they could see that two more people were standing in front of them. They were screaming out of fear and alarm.

Ke Xun and Wei Dong looked at the two people with complicated gazes.

It was like looking at their past selves who had just entered a painting for the first time. At that time, they hadn’t expected what kind of unimaginable experience would await them.

Who knew how many of these people would survive in the end?

Eventually, those two people noticed everyone. They staggered over towards them. It was a young man and woman. They looked like a couple. The man sprinted over to Ke Xun and shouted, “Hey, dude! What’s going on?”

The two people ran over. Ke Xun said, “This is a painting. The world inside a painting. It must sound incredulous, right? But it’s real. We’re inside the painting you had just been looking at.”

The man was stunned. He then cursed, “What kind of fucking bullshit are you saying?! Are you sick in the head?”

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Ke Xun raised a brow: “Do you have medicine?”

The man was both frightened and angry: “Are you crazy?!”

Ke Xun: “Can you heal me?”

The man was enraged. “Fuck—” As he swore, he raised his fist, intending to punch Ke Xun in the face. Ke Xun easily dodged him. The one then turned around, wanting to continue the fight. However, Wei Dong tugged on him.

“Hey, buddy, take it easy,” Wei Dong said, “Don’t provoke him. If he really decides to fight, he’ll beat you up until you’re crying and calling him daddy.”

“Let go of me!” The man threw Wei Dong off and rushed over towards Ke Xun. However, his girlfriend grabbed onto him.

“Zhou Bin! Enough! Hurry and ask what’s going on!” The girl’s panicked voice held a sobbing quality to it.

Zhou Bin glared at Ke Xun but dropped his fist. He glanced at the other people. He saw that the majority of the people seemed to be in similar states as his girlfriend and himself—panicked and helpless. There was only one person who remained calm: a tall, steady and tidy-looking man. He went over and asked, “Hey there, can I ask you where this is? What’s happening?”

As a doctor, Qin Ci had a lot of patience. He gave Zhou Bin and his girlfriend a simple explanation. Upon hearing this explanation, Zhou Bin and his girlfriend were both shocked into a daze.

Ke Xun didn’t want to bother with them. He turned around and gazed into the distance.

In the distance, there were mountains as far as the eye could see. The tops of the mountains were covered in mottled snow. The reflection they gave off was blinding.

The sky above them was exceptionally blue, almost abnormally so. It was a clear sky but it also felt like the sky hid countless, enormous, horrifying things behind it.

Ke Xun sucked in a breath of air. There was a chill briskness in the air from the snow in the distance.

“It’s a bit hard to breathe,” Wei Dong said, squatting down beside Ke Xun.

“Yeah. Although it’s spacious here, for some reason, I feel constricted. Like I’m being asphyxiated.” Ke Xun replied.

“We’re not going to be suffocated to death, are we?” Wei Dong shivered. “That’s a terrifying way to go. I would rather smack my head against something and die like that instead.”

As soon as he finished speaking, they heard Zhou Bin’s girlfriend shriek, “How can this be,ah—I don’t want to die—Zhou Bin! Zhou Bin! What should we do? I don’t want to die—”

Wei Dong and Ke Xun exchanged glances. It looked like Qin Ci had already told them everything about the painting.

Ke Xun didn’t want to keep listening. He continued to stare at the reflective snow on the mountain tops.

Wei Dong also looked around them. “Why hasn’t Boss Mu come yet? He couldn’t have decided to just die outside rather than come into the painting, could he?”

“He’s not the kind of person to resign himself to his fate or retreat.” Ke Xun said.

Wei Dong clicked his tongue. “You’re already praising him? You’re not really interested in him, are you?

Ke Xun shoved his hands into his pockets. “There’s many ways you can be ‘interested’ in someone. You could appreciate them, admire them, worship them or love them. You could also be a fan of someone’s looks or personality.”

“…Alright, I know what kind of ‘interest’ you have towards him.” Wei Dong said, “Do whatever you want. I support you. In any case, who knows when we’ll die in this painting. Since we might die at any time, you might as well do whatever you want.”

The two of them were chatting to help remain calm. Suddenly, a flash of bright light once again pierced their eyes. When the light rescinded, they looked around and saw Mu Yiran, who still stood out from the crowd, walking towards them.

Ke Xun subconsciously smiled. He kicked Wei Dong, who was squatting next to him. “Get up.”

“Why?” Wei Dong got up reluctantly. “He’s your male god, not mine. Do I have to stand up and welcome him with you?!”

Ke Xun examined Mu Yiran as he walked over. He sighed. “A big shot is truly a big shot. Even beggar’s clothes look fashionable on him.”

Wei Dong shaded his eyes and glanced over too. He then sighed as well. “These clothes make us look like beggars. And yet they make him look like an otherworldly immortal….”

Before he finished speaking, he saw the damned gay next to him eagerly run towards Mu Yiran in welcome. All he could do was mutter ‘face con’ under his breath before following after him.

“Everyone’s here,” Qin Ci said to Mu Yiran.

Thirteen people.

Mu Yiran swept a glance over the crowd. He didn’t pay any of them any attention. He kept his eyes on Qin Ci: “Where are we supposed to go?”

Qin Ci jabbed his thumb over his shoulder. “Down the hill.”

After detouring around a few large rocks that were about 3 or 4 people tall, they found a path that headed down the hill. There were no traces of human civilization. There also weren’t many plants around either. The entire slope was filled with giant stones and broken rocks. The landscape all around them was painted ash grey.

At the bottom of this path was a giant, flat space. There were around ten tents sparsely sent up within this area. Some were big and some were small…well there was only one big one. The big one could probably fit ten people at once. Meanwhile, the small ones were really small. They also looked flimsy.

Qin Ci lead the group. He carefully made his way down. Ma Zhenhua followed right after him. Mu Yiran glanced at Ke Xun but didn’t say anything to him before leaving. Ke Xun had just been about to follow along when he noticed that the newcomers were all cowering in place. No one dared to move.

Ke Xun looked at the family and then said to the father, “Come on. It’s no use staying here. It’ll become even more dangerous at night time. You’ll die here. Meanwhile, if you go down there and look for a way to leave with us, you have a chance of surviving.”

The father’s lips trembled slightly. In the end, he held his wife and son’s hand and followed along silently.

The other people had also heard Ke Xun’s words. Perhaps it was due to herd mentality, or because they had noticed that Qin Ci and Mu Yiran seemed to be experienced with this kind of thing, but everyone seemed to snap out of it. They helped each other down the hill, trembling.

Ke Xun actually didn’t get what was happening very much. It was such a pure, clear environment. How could something terrifying appear here? Just what was the painter thinking while creating this?

Although the road was hard to transverse, there weren’t any particularly dangerous parts. However, they had four girls and a kid with them. Therefore, there was still quite a bit of stumbling and screams.

Wei Dong had ran over to the pretty eighteen/nineteen year old girl a long time ago. He supported the girl’s elbow as she descended the hill like a eunuch would the Empress.

They finally made it down to the tents as the sun set in the west. Just as they arrived, a middle-aged man dressed in similar attire as them walked out from the largest tent. His skin was darkly tanned and he had chapped lips. He was short and had dark eye circles. His pupils were also quite small. He looked at everyone and said in a stiff tone, “Sleep early tonight. Don’t run around outside. Gather in this tent tomorrow morning. I will be waiting here for you. Right now, I’ll give you your sleeping arrangements.:

No one replied. Everyone listened to him silently.

This person didn’t seem to mind. His inhumane black eyes swept over everyone. “You will sleep in the tents tonight. The tents are small. Only two people can share a tent. Remember, only two people can be in each tent.”

Thirteen people, two per tent. That meant that one person would have to be on their own.

After the middle aged man finished speaking, he headed to the most distant small tent, leaving behind the crowd of people.

It seemed like it would be up to them how they divided themselves up.

Ma Zhenhua was the first to react. He hurriedly walked over to Mu Yiran, his eyes full of hope. “Mu xiaoge, I…can I be in the same tent as you? Please!”

Before Mu Yiran could speak, they heard the young girl with glasses shout: “Wait a second! Can I say something first?”

Everyone turned to look at her.

After getting over her initial fear and shock, she had become the calmest person amongst the newcomers, even if her face was pale and her voice trembled. “What I want to say is, although I don’t know what terrifying thing might happen later, I think that at this kind of time, we should stick together. Regardless of whether it’s in novels or movies, you should all know that people who fight alone never get a good ending.

The glasses girl seemed to be encouraged by everyone’s silent listening. She pointed to Qin Ci, Mu Yiran and Ke Xun and continued, “It seems like you guys have some experience and know each other. Meanwhile, we are unfamiliar with this…‘world’. We are powerless and don’t know what to do. People like us will die easily.

“Therefore, I sincerely hope that and implore you all to think about the group and help us. After all, the more people there are, the stronger the group is. If we can survive, we will definitely be able to assist you. The less people there are, the greater the danger, right?

“I beg you to help us, to help everyone make it out here alive. It would be better for everyone to work hard and figure out a way to leave here together. The strength of all of us is greater than the strength of just you five, right?

“I think that there’s something wrong with that person just now. He purposely stressed that there can only be two people per tent. I think that there’s definitely something fishy here. I think that something’s going to happen tonight.

“Under this kind of circumstance, I implore you to be generous and give us newcomers a bit of kindness. Please don’t make us face this alone, okay?

“Therefore, what I’m trying to say is…could the people with experience each take one of us newcomers into each tent? Help us increase our chances of survival, please! Please! I trust that you guys are good people, kind people. Please!”

Ke Xun couldn’t help but examine the glasses girl a bit more keenly.

You really couldn’t judge books by their covers.

This glasses girl was able to think clearly. She spoke in a tidy and clear manner. What was even more rare was that she was able to remain calm-headed in a situation like this. She was more formidable than several of the men here.

The newcomers that entered these paintings were not necessarily all pure weaklings.

Eve: That’s smart and sneaky.