Paintings of Terror

Chapter 71: A Gay Man with a Serious Expression

Wei Dong and Dong Dong’s expressions changed at the same time, and Wei Dong wailed, “I don’t want to go to that place…..”

“I’ll go.” Ke Xun said, “First let’s think of a plan, then you go to the administration area, and I’ll go to both the slaughterhouse and the food processing room.”

Mu Yiran finally glanced at him and spoke quietly: “We can only go during the day when we have recess. There are no cows on the lawn at that time, and none of them will notice our movements outside. However the problem is that they’ll most likely be in the administrator’s room. If we want to get in, we’ll have to take a big risk.”

“Then what’s your opinion?” Qin Ci asked.

“Find a way to bring the cows out of the administration area.” Mu Yiran said, “I’ll do this task..”

In light of the tight deadline, Mu Yiran began to divide up the work for tomorrow’s ploy.

Qin Ci and Dong Dong were in charge of searching the admin room, meanwhile Ke Xun and Wei Dong were responsible for the slaughterhouse. Mu Yiran and Zhu Haowen would search the food processing room.

After finalizing their game plan for the next day, everyone remained in the corner of the compartment and didn’t speak another word.

Before tomorrow even comes, they would first have to get through tonight’s hurdle: the death selection. Perhaps after tonight, tomorrow’s three duos would lose one or more people, and their plans wouldn’t be able to keep up with the changes.

This time around, the few NPCs ate and drank their fill, obediently staying in a corner of the room, and no one dared to come forward and instigate chaos for the outsiders like the ones from yesterday. Only Mo Mou would throw shady looks at Mu Yiran once in a while, as if planning for a possible counterattack.

Mu Yiran didn’t even bother looking at him, merely closing his eyes to rest his mend, but Ke Xun, who had been standing in the corner, raised his head to look over.

These rooms, to put it bluntly, were exactly like the pigsty in pig farms; the pigs were enclosed all around by lattice fences, with only an exposed roof for farmers to feed them food from above.

This “human-sty” was also surrounded on four sides, with brick walls to the left and right, the farmhouse wall with windows and iron bars on the back, and an iron fence door. The upper part of the door was also made of bricks and fused to the walls on either side. The lower part of the iron fence was a wide door that could be opened and closed for people to come in and out.

Ke Xun observed for a while before walking over to Mu Yiran’s side, lowering his voice: “I think this painting is not quite the same as the previous ones. The first few paintings involved gods and ghosts, or some other kind of inhuman power that would prevent us from moving around at night. They would use a number of ways to restrict our actions, for example, going out of a prescribed range would make us feel suffocated, etc. But for this painting, I feel it’s a bit different.”

Mu Yiran’s eyes opened a bit, thinking as he continued to listen.

“In this painting, animals are the absolute rulers. In other words, they are the humans of this world. Since they are humans, they can choose who lives and dies. Does that mean, they are already the most omnipotent being in the painting? And above them, there’s no other higher power that will restrict us?”

When Ke Xun’s voice fell, Mu Yiran suddenly looked up, staring at him intensely.

“If they really are the ‘humans’ of this world, that means they would have similar human ‘abilities’, with no real divine power, just like us in the real world. For animals, the advantages are only in size and strength, but they’re lacking in height and intelligence,” Ke Xun continued, “But after all, this is a painting created by a human, therefore there can’t be such a large disparity. We still have human wisdom and intelligence, as well as our ability to be bipedal. Here, our only differences between us and them are our build, size, and strength. If there isn’t any other kind of unexplainable power that exists, then wouldn’t that mean…”

Speaking until this point, Ke Xun moved close to Mu Yiran’s ear and quietly said: “In this painting, as long as there aren’t any restrictions our ability to move, we can explore around at night?”

Mu Yiran’s long and slightly curled eyelashes flickered a bit below Ke Xun’s eyes, causing Ke Xun to sit up and move a few inches to the side.

Mu Yiran didn’t pay attention to his small movements, but moved his gaze to scan around the compartment before finally landing on a corner between two walls.

“We can try.” He gave out a response.

Ke Xun smiled, scratched his nose with his fingertips, lowered his voice and added: “Actually, I think the places I mentioned before that seemed impossible to reach but now might be possible, aside from the admin room, the food processing room and slaughterhouse, there’s one more.”

Mu Yiran finally moved his gaze to look at Ke Xun’s face.

The distance between the two was still a bit close, so when they looked at each other suddenly, they could read the other’s expressions clearly.

After meeting each other’s gazes, Mu Yiran seemed startled, and quickly moved his head away.

Ke Xun also turned his head, silently taking a deep breath before saying: “Outside the farm. Maybe we’re allowed to go outside to the lawn, as long as we can find a way out.”

“What you said sounds correct.” Mu Yiran calmly responded.

The two then stopped talking and sat side by side in silence.

Strangely and fortunately enough, up until the cows came to wash the compartments and even after they had left the farmhouse post-cleanup, no cows came to choose a person to kill.

“What’s going on? Will we really have to vote tomorrow?” Wei Dong leaned over in surprise and asked in a low voice.

Ke Xun also didn’t understand; voting required all of the outsiders to be gathered together, but the male and female farmhouses were separate. Would a special bridge form so that everyone would be forced inside before voting?

Mu Yiran thought for a while and asked Ke Xun, “Among the five women from outside the painting, are there any older women?”

Ke Xun scratched his head: “I wasn’t able to look closely since I had my back turned towards the, the entire time. Let me think about it.”

Mu Yiran stopped speaking and waited silently until Ke Xun spoke again: “Yes, I remember their voices. One of them sounded like she was around 40 to 50 years old.”

Mu Yiran paused and then said in a low voice: “Then maybe it’s not that the giant cows didn’t select someone to die tonight, but rather they just didn’t select anyone from the men’s farmhouse.”

“You mean… they chose a woman?” Wei Dong was both a little scared and a bit disappointed.

“And it’s probably the 40 to 50 year old elder sister,” Ke Xun understood what Mu Yiran meant. “Young women are kept for breeding, but older women no longer have any value past their birthing years. They also wouldn’t wait until they’re too old or else the meat would go bad. So when the women reach forty or fifty years old… butchering is pretty much the only thing they can do.”

Everyone went quiet for a bit.

After the silence, they couldn’t help but feel a bit relieved knowing that at least their lives would be safe for tonight.

It was midnight and the whole farmhouse was quiet, and with the exception of a few snores here or there, no other sounds of talking were heard. The NPCs in the same compartment were asleep, and both Wei Dong and Zhu Haowen had begun to knock out as well. However, at this moment, Mu Yiran silently stood up.

Ke Xun, who had been watching him, also stood up and asked him in a low voice, “What are you going to do?”

Mu Yiran also lowered his voice and pointed to the corner between two walls: “I’ve practiced rock climbing before, and I want to try to climb up and look outside.”

“I’ll go with you.” Ke Xun said without hesitation.

Mu Yiran glanced at him: “Don’t use all your energy at once, this wall is too high, especially if you haven’t had practice previously. There’s a chance of accidentally letting go and running out of stamina. Falling down from that height really isn’t a joke.”

Ke Xun smiled: “Don’t underestimate me. When I was in school, if I was considered to be second place, then no one could claim to be first. Even after graduation, I haven’t stopped exercising. You don’t have to worry about my physical strength. As to whether or not I’ll slip, it’ll be up to you since you’ll be in front of me. If you climb up I’ll climb up, as long as you don’t let go, I won’t let go.”

Mu Yiran didn’t say anymore, he knew that Ke Xun wouldn’t compromise when it came to these things, and he definitely wouldn’t let him take such a big risk alone.

Leading him to the corner, he quickly taught him a few rock climbing skills in a quiet voice, but soon discovered that Ke Xun was indeed a sports student with a natural aptitude for physical fitness. After only a little instruction, he could already grasp a number of moves and put two and three together.

Mu Yiran still reminded him of a few precautions after the explanation before waking up a bewildered Qin Ci and asking him to keep an eye on the NPCs. If someone woke up and found him and Ke Xun were missing from the compartment and yelled for the giant cow, they would be in big trouble.

Mu Yiran asked Qin Ci to play it by ear, and if things really got out of hand, knock them out with a karate chop.

Qin Ci remained speechless for a while.

Even if he was a doctor, he didn’t dare to just karate chop anyone. He wasn’t as bold as Ke Xun, and if he did it wrong he could possibly kill someone. He was a doctor, and his job was to save people, not kill them, but he understood the importance of the matter. If he couldn’t do it, it would be the outsiders who would die instead, so he ended up agreeing.

When Mu Yiran was about to start climbing, Ke Xun suddenly felt regret.

He would have to watch him climb in order to see where his hands and feet would land.

But upon looking up, the scene that met his eyes suddenly made his mind a mess, this… this is just…. Ah….

At this moment, Ke Xun really admired Mu Yiran.

This person really was honest and magnanimous in any situation, and he never did anything unnecessary or had extraneous thoughts, able to adapt at any time yet still unyielding.

Ke Xun silently sang the Chinese national anthem several times in his heart before following with a solemn expression.

Mu Yiran didn’t climb very fast. In order to account for Ke Xun’s speed, he stopped from time to time and looked down to see whether he still had the ability to keep up.

Obviously, Ke Xun’s skills were very reassuring in this aspect. When he reached halfway up the height, Mu Yiran saw that his fingers between the bricks were still as stable as before, and he couldn’t help but relax and continue climbing.

It took the two of them more than twenty minutes to finally scale the top of the high wall. Standing at the apex and looking out, the whole farmhouse came into view, tall and spacious compartments, two neat rows of fences; there were also large brooms, tables, chairs and other objects placed in a corner of the farmhouse, which gave a strange feeling akin to being in a kingdom of giants.

The two used the moonlight coming from the window to look around. Ke Xun was the first to discover an exit route, and pointed to an area of the back wall closer to the roof — there was a vent that was just big enough for a person to fit through!

—

A: Ngl I thought Ke Xun was in shock bc of MYR’s ass…

H: Is… that not what happened? Or maybe… MYR’s… other part???!