Paintings of Terror

Chapter 5: 《The Funeral》

Translated by Eve

Edited by EB

Eve: Locust trees has been changed to Chinese Scholar trees. I realized that it wasn’t actually in the locust tree family (they’re in a different genus). They’re actually Chinese Scholar trees/Japanese Pagoda trees.

Darkness and silence could always leave one unsettled.

Ke Xun was worried about Wei Dong. He mulled over it before asking Mu Yiran beside him, “Will anything happen to me if I were to go check up on the firewood room right now?”

A moment passed before Mu Yiran spoke. “I don’t know if anything will happen to you. What I do know is that the last person who ran all over the place at night died, leaving only their skull behind.”

“….” Ke Xun leaned back against the sacks. However, he didn’t want for the previous silence to persist as it had felt like they were doing nothing but waiting for death. Rather than die in silence, he’d rather chat about death amidst the quiet. “I remember that you told me that this is the third painting you’ve entered. Can you tell me about how you found the signatures or seals in the last two paintings?”

“Not interested.” Mu Yiran didn’t give him any face.

“…You have no team spirit,” Ke Xun said, “Another helping hand will make the situation more hopeful. You wouldn’t want me dragging you down, right?”

A moment later, Mu Yiran replied, “There’s no pattern to it. It’s pointless even if I did tell you.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Mu Yiran felt one of his ears heat up slightly. The youngster next to him had none of the self-awareness people had for strangers. He had come in very close to whisper into Mu Yiran’s ear. The other asked in a grave tone, “Then where do you think this painting’s seal is? Do you have any ideas?”

Mu Yiran frowned. He had never met anyone who would act so overly friendly on a first meeting.

He sat up straight and replied in an icy voice, “If you can stay quiet, then maybe I’ll get an idea soon.”

“Then let me ask one last question.” This fellow obviously had some thick skin. “If we stay inside this room for the entire night, will we really be safe?”

Mu Yiran fell silent for a moment. When he saw that the youngster was waiting patiently for his answer, he said, “There’s no guarantee.. It depends on the painting’s contents and where we currently are. Typically speaking, the most dangerous place in a painting? is the focal point of the world. A painting will have a focus, as well as secondary objects that comprise the background for the purpose of supporting the focus. If you and I just so happen to be at the most important place in this painting, then it’s highly likely that we’ll die tonight.”

Ke Xun was quiet for a while before responding. “From what I see right now, I don’t think the granary we’re in is the focal point. Anyone with eyes can see that it’s…the mourning hall.”

Mu Yiran’s tone was flat. “If we go by how humans tend to think, then most people would think that the mourning hall is the focus of the courtyard. However, if we were to look at the whole painting, the mourning hall may not be the most important and prominent feature. If you can deduce the concept or intention the painter had for the painting with one glance, then it can only be considered a ‘good painting’ at most. It would not necessarily be hailed as a peerless work of art.”

“So what you’re saying is that, even if the mourning hall seems like the focus of the painting, the intention or concept of the art may not necessarily be found in the mourning hall, but rather it could also be located at the old locusts trees in the courtyard or that old man’s home…or perhaps even the granary we’re in.” Ke Xun mulled over this. “We have to figure out the real focus point based on the painting’s intention, right?”

Mu Yiran: “Mn.”

“Oh, right, what’s this painting about anyway?” Ke Xun asked.

“Didn’t you see it when you entered the painting?” Mu Yiran asked back.

“I was startled. There was no way I’d think about looking at it. Even if I did see it, I would have ended up scared into forgetting it,” Ke Xun said. “All I remember was that it was dark and fuzzy. There was also some greyish white thing in the middle.”

Mu Yiran fell silent. Ke Xun thought that the other was probably looking down on him inwardly. A little while later, he heard the other man say, “This painting is called ‘The Funeral.’ It was created by a painter named Li Haojing. He has a preference for creating paintings depicting different human cultures. When he was young, he travelled all over and used his brush to create records of different customs from all sorts of places. This painting is one of those. This painting depicts a funeral held in a remote mountain village. The overall tone of the painting is dark and extremely tense. It shows….”

Mu Yiran’s words came to a halting stop. Ke Xun was about to question him when he felt a hand fly up to his mouth, covering his lips. The palm of that hand was dry and slightly cold. There was also the faint scent of soap.

Ke Xun had reflexively wanted to dodge. However, when he came back to himself, the gears in his heads turned and he immediately decided to abandon that action. Motionless, he let the other man cover his mouth.

The room once again sank into a pin-drop silence. Perhaps it was because the darkness heightened all his other senses, but Ke Xun could faintly hear some abnormal sounds of movement. They seemed to come from the courtyard outside the room they currently occupied.

He held his breath and strained his ears to listen to the sounds more carefully. The noises became more clear. Crackle, rustle, it sounded like…the crinkling of paper.

Ke Xun thought of the paper money and ingots that had been hanging outside the mourning hall in the central building.

The noise was so loud…did a strong wind kick up outside?

No, that wasn’t right. This was the sound of something moving.

It was neither fast nor slow. There was no attempt at concealing the noise. Something was gradually heading towards the granary, accompanied by the crackling sound of paper.

It sounded like someone was sloppily dragging a large sheet of cardboard along the floor.

But it also sounded like someone was wearing clothes made of paper and their paper-covered limbs were rubbing against its torso as they walked slowly.

——Paper clothes?! Paper—paper doll?!

Ke Xun was alarmed. He thought back to the colourful boy and girl that had been drawn on the paper outside the mourning hall.

Was someone moving them?

Wei Dong was in the firewood room which was directly in front of the mourning hall!

Ke Xun pulled Mu Yiran’s hand off of himself. He wanted to get up but Mu Yiran suddenly reached over to grab his arm. Ke Xun wanted to throw him off but the other twisted him around and he ended up pressed faced down, unable to move an inch.

“You’re looking to die.” Mu Yiran’s voice was quiet against his ear, a biting chill laced through.

“I…” Ke Xun was about to speak when a hard knee pressed down against his neck, causing him to nearly choke. He only managed to spit out one word.

Fuck, this guy was trained in martial arts.

A wise man submits to his circumstances. Ke Xun stopped trying to move and let Mu Yiran hold him in place.

The noises outside got louder. The rustling sound had already reached the window of the room they were in. Suddenly, the noise stopped. For a moment, there were no sounds of movement.

Ke Xun subconsciously looked towards the window. The window was made of wood so no light came through. Regardless of whether it was inside or outside the room, it was pitch-black. Therefore, he shouldn’t have been able to see anything when he looked over.

And yet, an eye suddenly appeared on the window, splitting the darkness and forming a crack in the wood.? Through this crack, the eye could peer into the room.

It wasn’t the eye of a living human, or rather, it didn’t look like the eye of a real person.

The eye was drawn atop of paper—black ink of white paper. The drawing was very simple. It was just one eye. It was an almond-shaped eye with a jet-black pupil. There was a single, thin, curved line drawn atop of the eye. It was probably supposed to represent the eyebrow.

Ke Xun rejoiced at the fact that Mu Yiran’s knee was still pressed down against his neck. Otherwise, he might have let out a shout from the sudden fright.

He didn’t know how it was possible for him to so clearly see the eye in this pitch-black room. There was no light source inside or outside the room. And yet, he could clearly make out the eye through the crack in the window. Right now, it was motionlessly staring at him .

A drop of cold sweat slid down his forehead. He held his breath.

That eye was currently looking at him. The paper doll outside was currently looking at him.

Mu Yiran behind him was also still. The two of them and the paper doll outside the room were all fixed in place, sinking into a strange deadlock.

Who knows how long this deadlock lasted? Perhaps it lasted for a long time, or perhaps it only lasted a few seconds. Just as Ke Xun felt like his brain would go numb, the paper doll’s eye disappeared. The painting’s world in front of them once again fell into infinite darkness.

Ke Xun was about to sigh in relief when he saw a finger abruptly jab through the slit the eye used to be at. The finger was deathly white but the nails were ink-black. It scraped against the wood window. Upon closer inspection, Ke Xun realized that the finger had a really odd shape. It was rectangular and flat—it was a finger drawn on paper!

Fuck!—startled, Ke Xun cursed inwardly. Since when was paper so aggressive?!

Before his thought passed, the finger began to exert more strength, scrapping vigorously against the window. The ear-piercing scratching noise echoed throughout the room. It sounded like the wood would soon splinter from the paper doll’s scratching.

——It’s going to come in! Ke Xun started struggling when he realized this. He couldn’t let it come in, he had to do something to stop it!

Contrary to his expectations, Mu Yiran’s hold on his hands tightened. Although Ke Xun was rather strong, he was unexpectedly unable to do anything under Mu Yiran’s restraint.

He was about to use all his strength to struggle free when he felt Mu Yiran lean over. The other hissed in his ears very quietly, “Don’t move! You won’t be able to stop it.”

…Well, he couldn’t just wait for death either. ?Ke Xun wriggled his neck, wanting to flash Mu Yiran a look of disapproval. But before he could turn his head around, Mu Yiran spoke again, “Listen, if it comes in, do not move. If it comes near, hold your breath. That is, unless you want to die.”

Ke Xun gave up resisting. Compared to himself, Mu Yiran had already experienced two paintings before. Of course, another important factor that contributed to this decision was that the other was stronger than him. Currently, he was still in the other’s hold. His butt was up in the air and he was lying on the floor.

Ke Xun shifted his head and decided that he might as well pillow his head on the knee Mu Yiran had on the floor next to him.

Mu Yiran: “….”

In the darkness, the wood-scratching sound persisted. The sound of sharp paper against blunt wood caused his teeth to ache and raised both goosebumps and the hairs on his body.

He forced himself to endure it. Seconds felt like years. Suddenly, there was a rustle behind him followed by a heavy thump. Because they had sat on the sacks in the corner of the room earlier, they had managed to loosen them. One of them had actually fallen onto the ground.

Following the heavy thump, a silence befell both the room and outside. Ke Xun looked up and saw that the finger had disappeared from the crack in the window. But a second later, the window was suddenly heavily pounded upon. The sound was horrifying. It sounded like a heavy-set man was slamming his huge fist against the window.

——“The BOSS has gone out of control!” was Ke Xun’s first thought. He raised his head as if to ask Mu Yiran what they should do. He then felt the other release him and say in a very quiet voice, “Remember what I just said. Don’t move.”

Don’t move? Wouldn’t he be helplessly awaiting death then? Ke Xun hesitated for a moment. In the end, he lowered his head…right back onto Mu Yiran’s knee.

He’ll trust this man just this once. He’d put his life in his hands.

Mu Yiran’s body stiffened imperceptibly. His hand was extended, ready to push Ke Xun off, but he ended up slowly retracting it a moment later.

The shabby wood window could not withstand the force of the attack in the end. With a bang, it splintered into innumerable tiny pieces.

Ke Xun remembered what Mu Yiran had said. He didn’t dare move. He could only try his best to look up.

Outside the window, the paper doll in the shape of a boy silently stood in place. Its distinct features carried a lifeless smile as it stared at the two people in the room with its dead eyes.

Eve: …KX putting his head on MYR’s knee I—