Paintings of Terror

Chapter 183: Expert

Trigger warning:?This chapter, towards the end, mentioned abortion. Depending on the reader, the last paragraph might be interpreted as a negative commentary on the nature of the mother. If this bothers you, especially with abortion being such hot topics in the current political sphere here in America, please read with caution and/or skip the last paragraph.

“…I really can’t remember. Anyway, I must have seen it in Heart City. I was born here and have never left…” The nurse felt everyone’s expectations and was very sorry for not being able to help them.

Looking at the disappointed crowd, Ke Xun could only clap his hands to cheer everyone up. “Actually, this is also a clue. At least we know that the three characters Yu Beiguo appeared in the form of an artistic signature. I don’t think this signature would appear on a painting. The people we asked, such as drivers, passersby, and nurses, are not from the art world, and so it would be impossible for them to pay attention to the signatures on paintings, even well-known famous paintings.”

Indeed, there were many famous paintings from ancient and modern China, both nationally and abroad. However, the general public would only pay attention to the images and not the signatures or the seals of the painter.

“If it’s not on a painting, then it’s in a place that the people in this city are familiar with, such as the iconic buildings in the city center, or a famous square…” Mu Yiran speculated.

Ke Xun took the map out from the inner pocket of his clothes. “It seems like I didn’t buy this for nothing. Maybe it can help us.”

Mu Yiran looked at Ke Xun, feeling as if the other party was like a timely rain. When they needed it the most, he pulled out the map of Heart City, just like magic.

Qin Ci felt that there were too many branching leads in this painting, and his brain was already tired. But right now, he had to fight hard, and so he said, “Well, let’s assign today’s task. Some people can go to the city’s landmark buildings and look for the signature. Others can go to the door of the hospital to wait for the expert. If we can really get the beasts she’s giving away for free, maybe we can gather enough to make 13 kilograms of beasts. Maybe it would be helpful in leading us to the next step.”

“Can I ask how much Xiao Qinxian and her sister’s beasts weigh? Don’t tell me it’s another two full kilograms.” It was Wei Dong who spoke.

Qin Ci nodded helplessly. “You guessed it right.”

Wei Dong scratched his head. “Xiao Qinxian’s sister isn’t counted as one of us, so we have an extra kilogram of beasts?”

Zhu Haowen said, “Calculated like this, if all the beasts come from our bodies, then we will have only one survivor left in the end.”

“Pei, pei. Hurry and spit pei pei. Otherwise, it’ll be ominous.” Wei Dong hurriedly grabbed Zhu Haowen’s hand and tried to get him to touch the wooden door. “Hurry up and touch wood. Hurry and pei pei.”

Zhu Haowen was expressionless. “Pei pei.”

Meanwhile Su Benxin had been thinking about something, and it was at this moment that she suddenly said, “I think one person should stay behind. The ward of this hospital has real-time surveillance cameras, which should have captured what happened to Xiao Qinxian last night. Maybe we can gain some clues from looking through the surveillance video. Besides, we can check whether she received a phone call. Didn’t you all suspect that she might have answered a call?”

Qin Ci thought it was reasonable. “Then…”

Su Benxin said, “I’ll stay. After all, Xiao Qinxian is a woman, and it would be more appropriate if I watch her video recording.”

“Okay, I hope you won’t have a psychological shadow from watching what happened to Xiao Qinxian.”

“Now’s not the time to care about something like that. I’ll watch on fast-forward, so that the plan with Luo Wei and I in the afternoon wouldn’t be delayed.”

Therefore, the plan was decided as such: Su Benxin would stay in the hospital to watch the surveillance video of Xiao Qinxian. Zhu Haowen, Qin Ci, Wei Dong, and Zhao Yanbao would look for the signature near several landmark buildings in the city. Luo Wei, Ke Xun, and Mu Yiran would wait for that expert at the door of the hospital.

……..

The hospital’s back door was completely different from the front door. The back door was small, and it faced a small street, not looking at all like it was the backdoor of a large hospital.

Ke Xun looked at the sparse pedestrians outside, but no one stopped here, much less the imaginary expert with peculiar bones.

Luo Wei’s face seemed to have looked thinner and paler, but this didn’t prevent him from looking for that person with sharp eyes. “The old woman said that the expert would be at the back door of the hospital every weekend and would stay all day. I don’t think she would be a pedestrian.”

If she wasn’t a pedestrian, she could only be someone who would stop here for a long period of time.

At present, there was only a fruit stand at the entrance, a maternity and baby clinic opposite, and two restaurants.

Ke Xun glanced at the owner of the fruit stand. It was a young man who looked like a rodent, looking quite shrewd. “My fruits are much cheaper than those at the main door! Hey, look at these strawberries. They’re very sweet! I’ll give you 6 for one yuan! I’ll give you 2 and a half pounds for 10 yuan! Let’s be friends!”

As Ke Xun was thinking about whether to buy some fruits or not, Mu Yiran pulled his sleeves and said, “It’s her.”

There was an old woman in ragged clothes, guarding a pile of junk and sitting at the base of the wall on the street.

When Ke Xun and the others walked over, the old woman was excitedly matching bottle caps with the beverage bottles she’d picked up, “assembling” a complete bottle, and shaking them next to her ear. It was unclear what she was listening to.

Sensing their approach, she waved her hand and said, “Don’t block my light.”

Ke Xun leaned his body to the side. “Grandma, I want to ask you something.”

“You don’t need to ask me.” The old woman’s voice was elderly, but her words were clear. She didn’t want to stop her work at this time. “I come here on Saturday.”

Ke Xun’s heart moved. Maybe he’d found the right person.

No longer asking questions, Ke Xun simply crouched down and helped the old woman put the plastic water bottles that were tied in a large bundle into the woven bag on the side.

It wasn’t until the work was finished did the old woman raise her head to look at Ke Xun. Because she was facing the sun, her elderly gray eyes were lighter in color, resembling some kind of glass balls.

“You guys, are you looking for beasts?” the old woman asked directly.

Ke Xun didn’t expect to be seen through right away, so he told the truth, “We heard people say that there is an expert who donates beasts here.”

When the old woman heard the word “expert”, she laughed and said with some ridicule, “What do you want beasts for?”

Ke Xun and his companions looked at each other, and so he told the truth, “We want to get out of here, but we have to gather 13 kilograms of beasts.”

The old woman looked directly at the sun with some kind of enjoyment and asked Ke Xun after a while, “You still don’t have enough?”

“Currently there are 6 kilograms,” Ke Xun replied.

The old woman scrutinized the three of them with her gray eyes, and she said slowly, “Once you leave, you can never come back. Won’t you regret it?”

After this question was asked, there was a long silence.

Ke Xun didn’t know what he was hesitating about. He knew that he should stay in this place, and that this world wasn’t innocent. But he seemed to have a hard time letting it go. It wasn’t like in previous paintings, which made people unwilling to stay even for a second.

What would happen if they collected enough beasts? What if there were no more nightly deaths in this world?

“We’ll have no regrets.” The sound of Mu Yiran’s voice brought Ke Xun back. “We want to go back to our real world.”

Luo Wei’s voice soon followed, “We want to go back.”

The old woman no longer asked. From her ragged pocket, she took out three large bottles and glanced at the logo on the bottles. “This bottle has two liters, still one liter short.”

The bottle contained a red liquid that looked like tomato juice.

“But add these two bottles with 500 milliliters each, and it totals 7 kilograms.” The old woman pushed the pile of large and small bottles to Ke Xun.

“These…these bottles contain beasts?” This was the first time Ke Xun knew that there were such things as liquid beasts.

.

“They can’t compare to those rare treasures, but the weight is enough.” The old woman sighed softly, with a hint of compassion. “The hospital is a place with the most beasts…Don’t worry. The souls of these beasts have been put to peace. You can use it.”

The three of them had never thought that the old woman would give away 7 kilograms of beasts so happily. Moreover, she was someone who didn’t know anything about their situation.

Mu Yiran couldn’t help but say, “Old woman, when you pick up waste near the hospital, you only pick common plastic water bottles. Generally speaking, people who pick up waste in hospitals tend to focus more on the medical waste there. Although some of these collections may not be legal, the profits are huge.”

“You are very observant.” The old woman looked up at Mu Yiran.

This was indeed the case. If she was only collecting ordinary household garbage, then there was no need to go to the hospital door, and still even using it as a fixed point every Saturday. This, in itself, was very puzzling.

“I came here to collect beasts,” the old woman said slowly. “I said just now that the hospital is the place with the most beast. Do you know what that building closest to the back door is?”

Ke Xun looked at the building and vaguely remembered that the sign at the door seemed to have said Maternal and Child Healthcare, or something of that nature.

“That is the place where children are born,” the old woman said. “It’s also the place where fetuses are aborted. There is a floor dedicated to abortion and to inducing labor.”

The three remained silent, vaguely understanding the source of these liquid beasts.

“As long as there’s life, then there’s death.” The old woman looked up at the three young men. “How old are you? I see that you’re not even thirty years old yet, but you must be at least 25. When I was young, I liked to read books, and I read such a sentence in a book: At 20, you know the benefits of life; at 25, you know where there is light, there will be darkness; and at 30, you know that there are many places where the more the light, the more the darkness, and where the more the joy, the heavier the sorrow.”

This was the first time they’d ever heard this, and even Mu Yiran, who had read a lot of books, had never seen such a sentence. But now, having encountered it, he would remember for the rest of his life.

The old woman shook the empty bottle in her hand and put it up to her ear to listen. It was unknown if she heard anything. She continued to say, “Not everyone has a beast in their bodies, but these fetuses whose lives were interrupted is like a beast in every mother’s womb, the beast in their heart, the beast they cannot get rid of in their lifetime. These beasts can be big or small, depending on the magnitude of the pain and hatred in the mother’s heart. I have seen a four-month-old fetus, whose soul was so heavy that the mother could not move. When I finally took the beast out, I couldn’t lift it at all. It weighed dozens of pounds.”