Paintings of Terror

Chapter 174: Anger

The hospital’s emergency number was called, though it was unknown how long the ambulance would take to arrive.

Mu Yiran called Qin Ci again and briefly explained the situation to him.

At this moment, the room looked appalling. Lion’s blood was splattered on the sheets, the walls, and even on the ceiling.

Ke Xun squeezed the two ends of the broken blood artery in Lion’s throat together, and this seemed to have stopped the blood from gushing out. However, Lion was still in critical condition.

Ke Xun felt as if his entire body was trembling, and only the hand holding the blood vessel was able to maintain a sense of stillness. Perhaps, this single stability was because a life was on the line.

“What’s that?!” Xiao Qinxian suddenly shrieked. “What’s that on his neck?!”

Ke Xun tried his best not to look, for fear of being affected. Even so, he still felt it. At first, he thought it was the inhalation and exhalation of breaths, or maybe the throbbing of a blood vessel. But the movement seemed to become more and more extreme, making it seemed as if Lion was like a bullfrog, his throat expanding and retracting.

Everyone was stunned by the sight of Lion’s neck changing so drastically. Mu Yiran walked over and checked the other man’s breath with his hands. His gaze lingered on his forehead for a moment, and then his expression sank.

“He’s already dead.”

Ke Xun didn’t remove his hand. He recalled hearing many years ago about someone whose throat had been maliciously slit in an elevator. That person’s friend had pinched his arteries with his own hands until medics arrived and rescued him.

“Ke Xun, he’s already dead.” Mu Yiran’s gaze remained locked on Lion’s neck, which had bulged almost to the size of a football, turning the stretched skin almost transparent.

Wei Dong grabbed Ke Xin’s shoulder and said, “Ke’er, Lion is dead! Don’t try to save him anymore! It won’t matter anymore!”

Wei Dong was so anxious that he added, “Ke’er! Let go! His neck is too abnormal. What if something happens to you?! Ke’er, we’ve done our best!”

During all that time, Luo Wei never spoke, obviously shocked by this scene. Coupled with the weird phone call just now, the entire thing was beyond terrifying and confusing. He took a few deep breaths and said, “It’s the beast. The beast is coming out of his trachea!”

Mu Yiran soundlessly moved behind Ke Xun and grabbed his shoulders so hard that he had no choice but to let go. “Everyone move back! Stay away.”

At this point, Lion’s neck was the size of his head, appearing as if it might explode like a bomb at any time.

Xiao Qinxian gazed in horror at this strange sight. From her vantage point, the inexplicable bulge under Lion’s head seemed to suddenly grow big, then small, big, then small. She was so frightened that she nearly fainted. She backed away until her body was pressed tightly against the cold wall in the hallway.

Mu Yiran and Wei Dong pulled Ke Xun and retreated to the door. Luo Wei was standing the closest to Lion, his face covered in a cold sweat.

Ke Xun grabbed Mu Yiran’s hand. “When I was trying to save him just now, I felt as if something like a hand was gripping me, desperately asking for help.”

Mu Yiran said, “Lion is completely dead. He had nothing to do with the thing that was holding you. Stop thinking about it, Ke Xun.”

Perhaps it was because he was thinking about it too much just now, but Ke Xun felt as if he’d collapsed a little.

Mu Yiran held Ke Xun’s hand tightly, and his voice was softer than ever before as he said, “We’ve done our best.”

“Bang—”

With a loud noise, nearly the entire ceiling was dyed red.

Lion’s appearance was completely horrific, and the flesh between his head and shoulders was just a blurred mangleness…

Everyone present had forgotten to close their eyes, forgotten to step back, and had even forgotten to think about the reason for the explosion just now.

“Hu–hu–” The strange noise sounded in the room. It had always been there, but after the loud noise, it was now more clearly discernible.

“Ahh!–There–!” Xiao Qinxian’s voice resounded through the floor. “It’s at his feet! What is that?!”

Luo Wei subconsciously looked at his feet, and saw a blood-red body on the ground. Like a pufferfish, it stretched and swelled with a “hu–hu–” panting sound. Like a magic trick, its body swelled as large as a football in one instance, and then shrunk as small as a fish in the next.

Luo Wei swallowed and retreated away from the “pufferfish” step by step. “This is…his beast.”

Wei Dong’s legs had softened, but he didn’t forget to grab Luo Wei’s arm and pull him out of the door. “Lion…Lion obviously doesn’t have a beast. Why did this happen?”

“He did.” It was Mu Yiran who spoke.

“What…”

“When I looked at him earlier, I saw the red beast mark on his forehead,” Mu Yiran said.

Although Mu Yiran said this, no one dared look in Lion’s direction to verify.

Luo Wei frowned, carefully recalling the scene before Lion’s accident. “When I was answering the phone, I saw that something seemed to be wrong with him. I thought he was dreaming…Now that I think about it, at the time, his forehead was already a little red…”

By this time, everyone had already retreated to the door. Mu Yiran asked, “What call?”

“Just before the accident, I answered a call and it was a very unclear male voice on the other end. He said…” Luo Wei paused, and then repeated what the man said with some difficulties. “It came out of his trachea.”

Hearing this sentence, Xiao Qinxian slumped to the ground. “The devil! This is the place of the devil! I want to leave! I’m not playing anymore! I want to go back!”

When the paramedic arrived, two people were pulled into the ambulance. One was Lion and the other was Xiao Qinxian.

Several medical staff were carefully cleaning up the bloody “pufferfish” on the ground, and one of the nurses said, “Let’s all go back to the hospital together. Dr. Qin is waiting for you there.”

“Why didn’t Dr. Qin come over?” Wei Dong felt that this was unusual for Qin Ci.

The nurse couldn’t hide her sadness. “Something happened to our colleague Yu Ji just now. Dr. Qin only found out after answering your call.”

It turned out that something had happened to Yu Ji too.

Two yesterday, and two more tonight. In this city, was the number of deaths even in pairs?

Ke Xun suddenly remembered something. “We have to quickly call Haowen’er and the others.”

“I’ll call.” Mu Yiran walked to his room next door. “You all get ready. Let’s go with them to the hospital right away.”

……

When they arrived at the hospital, Qin Ci was already in the operating room, performing a beast stripping procedure on Yu Ji.

“How did Yu Ji die?” After hearing about Lion’s situation, Zhu Haowen couldn’t help asking about Yu Ji.

Pale-faced, Su Benxin said with lingering fear, “After a diagnosis, it was said that his internal organ was ruptured by something sharp. When Dr. Qin checked, he found blood in his abdominal cavity.”

“Something sharp?”

“It was…it was said that it was something that extended form within his body…” Su Benxin’s voice became weaker, as if just saying this was enough to terrify her.

“Today, these two things happened too suddenly, especially Lion, which completely took us by surprise,” said Zhao Yanbao, who was currently one of the more calmer members of the group. “He had no red marks, so he should have been the safer one among us.”

“At dinner, which was the last time I checked everyone for beast marks, his forehead was still clean.” Luo Wei had already recollected what happened last night. “After he returned to the dormitory, I quickly turned off the lights and went to sleep, so I didn’t pay much attention to him.”

Suddenly, another operating room opened and a nurse came out. The glass bottle in her hand contained the pufferfish-like beast. It was still agitating, as if it would explode at any moment.

The nurse said, “This beast is very complete. The deceased has been examined with equipment and there is no beast left in his body.”

“The beast…Why is it like this? Is it still alive?” Wei Don stammered.

The nurse said in a soothing tone, “Please rest assured. Once the beast body is separated from the host, it will no longer have any lethality. We have stripped out similar beasts like pufferfish or balloons before. It is said that this kind of beast is caused by the host’s anger…”

After speaking, the nurse carefully sent the pufferfish to the room dedicated to refrigerating beasts.

“Angry? Why is Lion suddenly angry? His mood seemed relatively stable last night.” Zhao Yanbao couldn’t make sense of the reason at all. “And this beast appeared so suddenly, it must have a direct connection to his anger.”

Mu Yiran looked at Su Benxin. “Are you his friend? I remember that you two came in together right before we entered the painting.”

Su Benxin’s eyes were red from tears that she must have shed at some point in time. “Yes, we’re friends. Lion is the photographer I specifically invited for the art exhibition. I killed him. If I hadn’t invited him, what happened today wouldn’t have happened…”

“Do you know him?”

“Not very well. I only know that his photography works were widely praised in the industry. He was a very optimistic and sunny person. I’ve never seen him lose his temper before. How could he…” Su Benxin shrugged and then cried. “Angry? Why would he become so angry to this point…I’m such a useless friend…”

Su Benxin’s heart felt so painful that she couldn’t help herself. She curled up in the corner of the hallway, trembling and crying.

No one spoke in the hallway. Except for the sound of Su Benxin crying, the sounds coming from the pufferfish seemed to echo.

“Hu–Hu–”

————————-

Xida: Su Benxin is sus. The night before, Lion seemed fine, except Su Benxin was the last person to talk to him. I wondered if she said something to him.