Paintings of Terror

Chapter 196: Love in the Illusion, Dispute Outside the Illusion

Warning: The last paragraph of this chapter is homophobic. If this bothers you, please skip or read with caution.

“We did discuss whether we need to actively ignite the rhinoceros horns,” Shao Ling answered Ke Xun’s question, “But out of caution, we finally decided that unless we must burn the rhino horns, we will first monitor the situation.”

“It’s just that we did make arrangements in advance on who will light the rhinoceros horn, and after drawing lots, Li Yi was chosen as the first to light his rhino horn. If he has an accident, the second person, Yu Long, will take over.”

“I think the reason why Li Yi lit the rhinoceros horn last night was probably because the endless darkness made him fearful, or because it was too dark for him to see, so he thought that lighting the horn would solve his problem.”

“As for where the rhinoceros horn he’d ignited is, Mr. Mu and I had searched for it earlier, and not only did we not find its remains, we couldn’t even find any ashes. It’s probably that the rhinoceros horn had fallen into the sea with Li Yi.”

“So this whole igniting thing is completely useless!” Yu Long suddenly said loudly. “Even after lighting it, we’ll still die. It also attracts the thing. Whoever lights the horn up, whoever dies!”

“If whomever lit the rhinoceros horn died, then there is no need to separate us into different illusions and lure us into the sea,” Zhu Haowen said indifferently.

“Then what is the purpose of this rhino horn?” Liu Yanlei asked, staring at him.

“Maybe it’s for illuminating strange things.” Ke Xun looked at him with half-closed eyes. “Maybe, only Li Yi, who lit the rhinoceros horn, saw the “strange” creature that created the illusions for us.”

“So whoever lights the rhino horn will die?!” Yu Long exclaimed sternly.

Ke Xun lifted his eyebrows. “Then why can’t someone ignite the rhinoceros horn to take the opportunity to see the monster and kill it?”

Lu Yang was choked by these words, and when he finally opened his mouth to give a rebuttal, his girlfriend Fang Fei put a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“Brother, you’re mighty and domineering.” Luo Bu gave Ke Xun a trembling thumb up.

“I think what Mr. Ke said has some truth,” Shao Ling said, ever the sensible one. “The person who lights the rhinoceros horn will likely be able to see the strange creature. After all, it was only after running the rhino horn at Bull Islet Rock was Wen Qian able to see the strange things in the water.”

“But this doesn’t mean that whoever burns the rhinoceros horn won’t die. After all, maybe Li Yi saw the monster’s body but was still bewitched into losing his life.”

“We’ll talk about the burning rhinoceros horn later. Now, please tell me about your experience last night. Maybe we can gather more clues about the illusion.”

Several of the newcomers who had followed Shao Ling last night looked uncomfortable. Each of them lowered their eyelids, not making a sound. Finally, Luo Bu, who was sitting next to Ke Xun, raised a trembling hand. “Then I’ll talk…In the illusion last night, the voice was pretending to be my girlfriend. ‘She’ said that she had been hit by a car while crossing the street and she didn’t know why she got here.”

“At the beginning, I didn’t believe it. I told her, this is a painting. How can you get in? How did you know I’m here? She said that she couldn’t bear to leave me. Maybe because her obsession was too deep, and so her soul came by itself.”

“I firmly believed this was caused by those ghosts that wanted to lie to me, but I couldn’t hold back my disbelief because she sounded so real…so I began to hesitate.”

“But I’m not stupid, right? I asked her a lot of things that only the two of us knew, but I didn’t expect that she would answer them all correctly. I…I really believed it.”

“She cried and said she couldn’t bear to leave me. She told me she didn’t want to die, and she said she loved me very much. But she couldn’t help it, she felt as if she was going to disappear soon, and she wanted me to kiss her one last time before she leaves.”

“She said she knew that I am timid, so she didn’t dare to come over. She said that if I wasn’t afraid of her, I would walk over to her and kiss her myself. She would try to wait for me to do so.”

“I, I really was timid. But I thought that this is my girlfriend. What appearance hadn’t I seen her in? Even when she had diarrhea, I would still go to the bathroom to hand her toilet paper. She, she..How could she be dead…I was in a daze for a long time, and what flashed through my mind was all the images of us together.”

“As a result, I thought of a problem–”

“You know, she and I both love raising small animals. The house we live in together has birds, fishes, turtles, hamsters, four to five cats, and seven to eight dogs. She likes to stay home and take care of them. Oftentimes, I would have to leave home for anywhere between ten days to two or three months. During this time period, these animals we raised would sometimes die due to injuries, accidents, or old age, and every time when I call back to chat with her, I would ask about the animals, and she would never tell me that they had died.”

“It was because she knows that I can’t stand this. I have never liked to hear about death, whether it’s human or animal.”

.

“I may be useless, undesirable, and very silly, but I will become depressed for a long time if the people or animals I know die.”

“My girlfriend knows this about me, so if a small animal at home dies, she would never tell me on the phone, and would wait until later when I get home.”

“She hopes that I would be less sad for a day, and she doesn’t want me to associate her voice with notifications of death.”

“——So at the time, I felt that it was a bit…a bit contradictory. I think, if she really has a soul, and her soul could really find me due obsession, would just look at me in secret. She would never come out of her own accord and tell me she was dead. She would rather I find out the news later.”

“I suddenly remembered that we used to talk about those tragic romances in which the heroine was terminally ill. My girlfriend told me that if she was terminally ill, she would never tell me. She would never be like those people and would never pretend not to love me or break up with me or pretend to cheat. She didn’t want me to feel sad.”

“Instead, she would seize the last moment of her life and work harder to be nice to me. Then, when she was about to die, she would run away to die quickly. Even if I would eventually find out that she had died, although I would still be sad and depressed, when I thought back to my last moments with her, they would all be full of happiness…”

“Anyway, I won’t say any more sappy stuff. I just want to say that I don’t think she would come to inform me of her death, let alone cry so sadly in front of me, making me feel uncomfortable and leaving me with one final, heartbreaking memory of her.

“So, I hesitated. I didn’t dare to go forward, but she kept crying, saying how much she loves me. But no matter what, she always wanted me to go to her, and the more I listened to her voice, the more weird I thought it was. I was so scared that I peed on the spot…”

“And after you peed, everything lit up?” Ke Xun looked at him, a little dumbstruck. However, he felt that this kid actually wasn’t…so silly. When he saw him lying on the ground this morning with tears staining his face, he had thought that this kid was so scared, he’d cried. Now, he realized that those tears may have been for his girlfriend.

“From this point of view, the illusions used to confuse us are roughly the same,” Shao Ling said. “It seems to use people close to us to deceive us and lead us into a deadly trap. I wonder, in the illusion you experienced last night, are there any other important clues or characteristics about the illusion that you’ve discovered?”

Everyone thought for a long time, and finally Mu Yiran said, “The power behind the illusions can read our memories and use them to simulate and shape the personality and behavior of the person we are close to.”

“For example, under what circumstances, in what tone and manner, and the judgment and handling of problems, these are all in line with the personality of the person.”

“But, the image it simulates is based only on the memory of the ‘past’ person in our mind. In other words, it can grasp our past, but it cannot control our ‘present progressive.’”

“Once we raise a new problem, it can only solve and deal with it according to the experience of the ‘past.’ But people’s thoughts are always changing and evolving with the progression of time. This is why, when we question it, it will often reveal flaws. This is because our heart has a clear answer, but it answered after some careful judgment and analysis.

“Therefore, we may find a way to deal with this illusion, and that is…”

“Ask it the latest questions, and find flaws in its answer!” Yu Long’s rush to answer, interrupting Mu Yi’s words.

“I think this method is no longer useful,” Liu Yanlei said, “Is that behind-the-scenes power so stupid? It had already used that trick last night, and if it used it again tonight, everyone will already know that it’s fake, it’s an illusion, so who would believe it?!”

He glanced at Mu Yiran with some contempt.

“Then you probably don’t know,” Ke Xun looked at Liu Yanlei, “in the illusion I experienced last night, it was his voice that was used to confuse me. How can you be sure that the illusion tonight will not take advantage of the people next to you to deceive you? For example, what if your girlfriend calls out to you in the dark to save her? Do you believe her? Would you save her or not save her?”

“The illusion has separated us. If Xinai’s voice sounded in the dark, it must be fake!” Liu Yanlei retorted.

“Brother Qin told you about the paintings we’ve gone through.” Ke Xun looked straight into Liu Yanlei’s eyes. “Don’t you know that the death conditions in the paintings are not always the same? The death conditions in some paintings will continue to escalate. So, can you guarantee that you will be quarantined alone tonight?”

Liu Yanlei was repeatedly refuted by Ke Xun, turning his momentum involuntarily short. After reacting, he became a little irritated and sneered, “As far as I know, only those who know how to swim can drown. Your experience is not the be-all and end-all. Those who are defeated by schemes are those who have done bad things and have a bad body. I don’t think the experience of you perverted homosexual can help us in any way!”

After he said this, the room suddenly fell into an awkward silence.

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Xida: What? Who to die next? I vote for Liu Yanlei.