Paintings of Terror

Chapter 84: Clock-face

“When did the clock upstairs become cyan?” Mu Yiran quickly caught onto Miao Zipei’s point and asked immediately.

“I can’t remember the exact time.” Miao Zipei’s eyes subconsciously looked at the clock on the wall, “When I walked out of the room this morning and looked at the time, it was 6:55 and the clock face was still bright orange. Later when everyone found that something happened in the red bedroom, we went to go see He Yu… once we all left the room, everyone’s mood was down. When I reached the lobby on the first floor, I looked up at the clock and suddenly found that the color had changed to cyan. That was probably before 7:30.”

“The issue with the clock must have something to do with the incident.” Mi Wei looked at Miao Zipei, and was a little unsatisfied that the other party hadn’t mentioned anything earlier.

Miao Zipei: “Everyone was discussing other things at the time, so I didn’t have the chance to say anything….”

This art student was a little slow, but his observation ability was much better than ordinary people.

Everyone was silent for a while, slowly digesting the situation.

Shi Zhendong peeled a banana for his girlfriend and took a green apple for himself, making sure to avoid the bright red fruits as much as possible.

“How was our work efficiency this morning?” Qin Ci asked everyone.

Yening Chenyi from the purple room took the lead and said: “I’ve almost finished a jar.”

Guo Lixia from the blue room also reported her amount: “I’ve almost got two jars finished.”

Miao Zipei in the yellow room said, “I’ve finished a jar and a half.”

Shi Zhendong in the green room smiled with embarrassment: “I’ve only done half a jar.”

Qin Ci began to re-arrange everyone’s positions according to each room’s work volume: “The current speed of completion isn’t very optimistic, especially because we can’t predict what’ll happen in the afternoon. I suggest that everyone work together before lunch time and strive to complete more than half of the required jars.”

Guo Lixia, who had done the most jars, had the most to say at this time: “Our team leader should continue to look for the signature, Beibei and I will continue working.”

Xin Beibei looked at Guo Lixia: “Sister Guo, didn’t you say you would do it all yourself….”

Shi Zhendong hurriedly nudged his girlfriend, and didn’t let her finish her sentence.

Guo Lixia spoke as she ate some grapes: “Some people would be better off helping with the workload. There’s no new information, and all they know how to do is scream.”

Xin Beibei wanted to say something, but she heard Shi Zhendong say: “Beibei, just stay and work okay? Right now there’s more than an hour before lunchtime. Let’s all hurry and try to complete the task while it’s still morning, and then in the afternoon we can all look together.”

No one had any objections. After eating the fruit and washing their hands, they returned to their respective rooms and continued to work.

Mu Yiran didn’t immediately go back to his room, and instead stood under the clock, inspecting carefully. Ke Xun slowly walked up to his side: “What did you see last night?”

Mu Yiran held his arm: “Zhang Tianwei was probably dragged away from the window. The window lattice had a moon-shaped pattern resembling his clothes.”

It seems like the scene that Mu Yiran saw last night was similar to what Ke Xun had witnessed. The red room was located in the middle of the five rooms, and Zhang Tianwei seemed to have been dragged from right to left, that’s to say, passing by the blue and purple rooms that were to the left of the red room. The other two rooms shouldn’t have noticed anything.

“Did you see that big black mass?” Ke Xun spoke of the scariest part of last night’s “nightmare”.

Mu Yiran nodded: “It should be that darkness that took Zhang Tianwei away.”

“This world was already very strange. Even during the day, there’s always this feeling of being in different dimensions. It becomes more obvious at night, becoming a world of silhouettes, including myself.” Ke Xun needed to convince himself of the truth — Zhang Tianwei had been dragged away from the window in a sort of weightless and flat 2D state.

Mu Yiran’s eyes seemed to understand everything: “Zhang Tianwei probably wasn’t flattened last night, as the pattern belonging to him was very unstable, far less held together than that of the shadow.”

“The shadow?” Ke Xun grasped onto these two keywords. Someone was finally willing to bring these words to light, “If that darkness was indeed a shadow, then it matches the title of this painting — 【Shadow】.”

“If it really was a shadow, then it would be very difficult for it to drag a body. Even if the window was open, it would still be hard to accomplish.” Mu Yiran put forward his own analysis.

“Like what Hao Wen’er said earlier, windows can be opened by ‘people’, but it doesn’t make sense for us living people to help out the entity.”

Ke Xun felt like the strangeness of this world primarily involved subverting expectations, especially with its ability to change an object’s physical dimensions, making everyone feel that their power was smaller than that of an ant.

“I’m not sure how many shadows were present last night.” Mu Yiran subconsciously looked at the shadows below him and Ke Xun: they were still a dark purple with lime green borders. “No matter how powerful the magic behind the painting, everything inside must follow the rules of the world, including those shadows.”

Indeed, the enemies inside the painting must strictly follow the rules in order to kill people, otherwise the game wouldn’t be able to continue.

Ke Xun looked up at the clock covered with cyan patterns: “I don’t know much about the color changes, but I think the clocks on the two floors of our building and the clocks in the circular building aren’t affected by the same things, so they should have different meanings.

The clocks in the round building had no patterns: they were completely red, as red as the liquid that flowed out of the room.

That clock seemed ominous, as if the color was especially set up for the dead.

Right now, the clocks in the building were changing one by one into colors that were inconsistent with any of the five rooms — orange and cyan, it was unknown what these represented.

Ke Xun originally thought that this Fauvist painting would demonstrate a more bold and decisive style, who knew that it also seemed to operate under such meticulous logic. In fact, it really wasn’t difficult to escape the painting. As long as all the puzzles were solved, and the cause of the incident was found, logically, the artist’s signature would be revealed.

“It’s almost 11 o’clock, let’s go back to work.” Ke Xun went to the bathroom before returning to the blue room. The bathroom was located on the other side of the hall, its neutral palette indicating that it was safe to enter.

Mu Yiran seemed to still be thinking hard about something, and Ke Xun didn’t have a habit of asking his friends or boyfriends to go to the bathroom together, so he went alone.

When Ke Xun came out, he found Mu Yiran still staring at the door of the blue room, his expression unnatural.

“Yiran?” Ke Xun stepped forward and patted the other’s shoulder, “Yiran.”

Only then did Mu Yiran come to his senses, and he looked at Ke Xun with distracted eyes: “Ke Xun, there was a problem just now.”

“What did you see?” Ke Xun wanted to do something heartwarming and say something like “Don’t be afraid to hug me”…..

“Now that I think about it, I must have seen an illusion just now,” Mu Yiran’s eyes looked at the blue door again, and the door had returned back to normal. “That door seemed to be luring me in.”

“What do you mean? Was my door helping me pull guys….”

Mu Yiran directly ignored Ke Xun’s casual flirting, standing up to prepare and return to his purple room.

“Yiran Yiran,” Ke Xun spoke his name out loud, feeling that this name was particularly exciting, explosive, and easy to ignite the hormones, “Just now, what really happened?”

Mu Yiran opened the purple door and looked inside, his expression becoming more firm: “The scene I saw just now was that of Wei Dong walking out of our room and directly into the blue room. After the blue door was opened, unexpectedly many of our companions had gathered inside as well.”

“F*ck, Ranran please don’t scare me.”

“I was the only one in the hall at the time, and you broke the illusion when you appeared.” Mu Yiran’s brows were still furrowed.

“That illusion was truly too scary,” Ke Xun looked around the bright and harmless hall. “In the illusion just now, were you able to fight it? Or were you still able to make your own decisions?”

“My consciousness was still clear, and because I thought the phenomenon was strange at the time, so I didn’t act rashly.”

“In other words, if it had been someone else in your place, they probably might’ve been tricked by a different color door.” Ke Xun had just finished speaking when he heard a chuckle inside the hall.

The laugh came unexpectedly, and it was instantly creepy — after a careful analysis, it was clear that the laughter came from the sweet voice of the NPC.

The chuckle came again, accompanied by the familiar sound of music, and that sweet voice rang out: “Next, I’ll play a song for everyone. I hope everyone will enjoy their work with some beautiful music in the background.”

Ke Xun and Mu Yiran looked at each other silently. Even in the daytime, their every move couldn’t seem to escape the hidden eyes inside the castle.

As a result, the two of them walked into their respective rooms and went to ‘enjoy the beauty of hard work’.

The two women in the blue room were almost finished with their task. Of course, the main source of labor was Guo Lixia, while Xin Beibei was just awkwardly helping.

“Sister Guo, you can rest for a while, I will do the rest.” Ke Xun sat down on a small stool and carefully filled the blueberries into the jar.

Guo Lixia really did feel a little tired, and she took a seat on the chair next to her: “This job is far better than when I worked in a garment factory. Back then, we worked so hard that the days blended together.”

Ke Xun tried to immerse himself in his work, he didn’t want to learn too much about the personal details about these companions. The more he understood, the greater the psychological burden. After all, most of the people here would end up ‘staying’.

Of the people who were forced into these paintings, some would simply become passerbys, while others might be imprinted so deeply that they’ll never be erased in their lives.

“In order to buy a brand-name computer for my son, I worked an extra month. Luckily I was still young back then, or else I would’ve ended up in the hospital.” Guo Lixia massaged her waist as she talked about the past.

Ke Xun couldn’t help but respond, “Sister Guo’s son, he should be in college now right?”

Guo Lixia lowered her eyes, making it so that the others couldn’t see her expression: “He went to college in a foreign country; three years ago his father went abroad and brought his son with him. My son actually was willing to stay with me,” Guo Lixia’s hand paused, “I don’t have many skills, and I didn’t want to delay my child’s future.”

The topic was a bit heavy, so Ke Xun quickly put on a smile: “When your son returns, Sister Guo will be able to rest easy.”

Guo Lixia smiled bitterly and said nothing.

Xin Beibei stood up to wash her hands and changed the subject: “Group leader, did you already know Zhu Haowen from before?”

“We’ve been through three paintings together, what’s wrong?”

“Is that guy gay ?”

“What’s wrong with being GAY?” In Ke Xun’s mind, this word has always been in all caps.

Xin Beibei scrubbed the soap bubbles in her hands: “It’s nothing, I just feel like he has some sinister thoughts, the kind of person who harbors a lot of bad intentions.”

Ke Xun couldn’t help but laugh: “I really wonder… Did something happen with Hao Wen’er?”

“Don’t you think his tongue is particularly sharp? Also he always deliberately targets me!” Xin Beibei rolled her eyes, “I feel like he’s interested in Lao Shi, looking at his attitude towards me, it really does seem like he’s jealous.”

“Don’t say that, Hao Wen’er is not that kind of person.” Ke Xun didn’t know Zhu Haowen very well, but whether or not he was gay, there was no way he would ever fight a woman out of jealousy.

Guo Lixia couldn’t help but interject: “Although I don’t speak English well, I also know what gay means. I don’t understand, flies won’t swarm eggs without cracks, so what are you so worried about? Or is it that your boyfriend Lao Shi is abnormal?”

Xin Beibei’s face flushed before remaining silent.

Guo Lixia and Ke Xun looked at each other, they weren’t expecting to hear this much gossip.

Ke Xun: “This elder-painting, did they pick us because we’re like this….”

—

A: Let’s be real, if ZHW was interested in anyone, it’s probably KX

H: XBB, maybe you should look at your own relationship first before pointing fingers at others…