Paintings of Terror

Chapter 190: Various Newcomers

At 11 o’clock that morning, all the 13 participants gathered together.

Those who were willing to come to the art gallery on a weekend of continuous autumn rains, apart from true art lovers, were probably only men and women who were in love with seeking romance and style.

Among the eight newcomers, there were two pairs of lovers, a middle-aged person who came in to shelter from the rain, an idle rich second generation, a young female painter, and the person named Shao Ling.

By this time, all eight newcomers had already learned from Qin Ci about the ins and outs of the horrible world in the painting. What surprised the veteran members was that, this time, the newcomers’ acceptance of this strange incident was unexpectedly high. No one loudly acted out, and there was no anger. They were silent and self-sustaining, carefully looking at the veteran members and then at their surrounding environment.

“Let me introduce us.” Qin Ci introduced each veteran member.

The middle-aged man, who was carrying a bag that had been a briefcase prior to entering the painting, pushed his thick glasses up his nose bridge. “My name is Li Yi. My electric car broke down and so I went into the art gallery to hide from the rain and ended up stumbling into this kind of place. Please take care of me.”

“My name is Yu Long, and this is my girlfriend, Fang Fei.” The young man in his early twenties had a dull green linen-textured perm, and he was pointing to the girl standing next to him, who also had long permed hair dyed the same color. The girl was silent as she looked at everyone.

Another couple, both of whom appeared to be in their thirties, also reported their names. The man appeared very decisive, and his name was Liu Yanlei. His girlfriend had a bob haircut and looked quite shrewd. Her name was Chen Xinai.

The young female painter was thin and pale, her complexion wan. It was unknown whether this was due to her art. Her expression was a little cold and disaffected, and her eyes sometimes appeared somewhat blurred and vacuous. She indifferently reported her name, “Xue Ge.”

Presumably a pseudonym or a stage name.

The last one who spoke was the rich second generation with hair dyed a platinum blonde. The reason why they could tell that this was a rich second generation was really because he was too young, and his large diamond stud earrings were simply too eye-catching.

This youth rolled up his sleeves and showed the veteran members what appeared to be a bronze bracelet on his wrist. He asked, “Elder brothers, let me ask you. Once I get out of the painting, will the watch on my wrist change back?”

Everyone: “……,”

It turned out that this bracelet was the manifestation of the deterioration of a watch…

Wei Dong looked at him speechlessly. “Buddy, shouldn’t you worry more about whether you can get out of the painting?”

“Fuck, my watch is a Patek Philippe. It’s more valuable than my life!” said this rich second generation.

Wei Dong: “…Patek Philippe?”

Rich second generation: “Patek Philippe!”

Wei Dong: “How much is it worth?”

Rich second generation: “More than 2.9 million.”

Wei Dong: “……………The Patek Philippe?”

Rich second generation: If this watch is gone, Uncle Zhang will become unemployed.”

Wei Dong: “What does Uncle Zhang have to do with it?”

Rich second generation: “He’s a servant who specializes in maintaining watches for me.”

Wei Dong: “…Poverty limits my imagination…”

The rich second generation finally said, “By the way, my name is Luo Bu. You can call me Radish or Rorobu.”

Wei Dong asked, “What do you mean by Bu?”

The rich second generation answered, “It just means exert force.”

Wei Dong said pitifully, “…This name…seems a little wretched…”

The rich second generation explained, “Probably when my dad named me, he hoped that I would not have trouble with being unrestrained in the future.”

Wei Dong: “……” You are already very unrestrained now.

Ke Xun was too lazy to listen to these two silly but amusing people continue to talk, and so he began to talk about the cause and effect of Burning Rhinoceros that Mu Yiran had mentioned.

“Since it’s related to the title of the painting,” Qin Ci said, “then let’s search for rhino horns on this ship.”

No one objected. They all went to the lower deck, and with no prior arrangements, everyone naturally separated into two groups. The newcomers formed one group by themselves, while Luo Bu mixed in with the veteran members.

Two groups searched the cabin separately. One group searched from beginning to end, and the other group searched from end to beginning.

“Let me ask.” Luo Bu held his mobile phone to illuminate everyone. “The first few paintings you entered, there were only 13 people in total? There was no one else in the painting? I’m talking about people inside the painting.”

“There are,” Wei Dong replied. “Depending on the content of the paintings, some paintings will have only 13 of us outsiders, and some paintings will have many insiders.”

“Then why are there no insiders in this painting?” Luo Bu said, “Isn’t this a big ship? Isn’t it on the vast ocean? Without insiders, how did this ship sail here?”

“This is a reasonable question…” Wei Dong looked at his companions. “What about the captain? What about the crew? Is it possible that among us, there’s the captain? Who will sail?”

“Even paintings should be logical and reasonable,” Qin Ci nodded. “Unless this is a weird kind of painting with exaggerated cartoons, similar to Pure Land. Judging by the scale of this ship, if you want it to sail long-distance, you must use wind power and manpower. The manpower required should be quite large, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to properly control such a large ship.”

“I have observed the rooms on the upper deck,” Mu Yiran said. “Many of the beds and toiletries in the rooms have been used by people. This shows that there should be a lot of people on the ship before this, and so we should have entered the painting at a certain stage in the progression of events. Therefore, although there used to be a captain and many crew members on this ship, due to certain developments, there are now only 13 crew members left in the end. Our roles are these people.”

“In this way, the disappearance of the captain and other crew members may have a direct correlation with burning rhino horns,” Zhu Haowen said.

“Then why do they want to burn rhino horns when they are idle?” Luo Bu asked.

“In order to see ghosts?” Ke Xun thought out loud. “Then, just like Wen Qiao in the story of Burning Rhino at Bull Islet Rock, they died in less than ten days?”

Luo Bu turned his phone’s flashlight to Ke Xun. “Then why are we looking for rhino horns? To look at ghosts and then die?”

Ke Xun squinted. “Your light is blinding me, cousin classmate. Looking for rhino horns may not necessarily mean burning it. This thing is obviously an important prop in this painting. Maybe it’s related to the seal, so we must find it.”

“Cousin classmate” Luo Bu said “Oh” and then switched the flashlight over to illuminate Mu Yiran again. “This brother, I seem to have seen you somewhere.”

“Talk less and keep looking, okay?” Ke Xun glanced at him.

“Yes, you are so handsome, you have the final say.” Luo Bu didn’t have the arrogance of a rich second generation at all. As soon as he removed the light of his mobile phone, he suddenly remembered something. With a “Fuck!” he pointed to Mu Yiran and said, “I remember now! You’re my dad’s idol! He has your picture inside the drawer of his desk!”

Mu Yiran: “…”

Ke Xun: “…”

Everyone: “…”

Ke Xun put his hands on his hip. “What are you saying?”

Luo Bu looked hard at Mu Yiran’s face. “My dad envied you for earning wealth at a young age while he was only able to earn wealth after fighting for half a lifetime. Isn’t there a saying in the circle like this: The poor play with cars, the rich play with watches, while the real tyrant plays with art galleries. Rich tyrant, this little brother pays his respect!”

After he said this, he clasped his hands and arched them towards Mu Yiran.

“……” Wei Dong whispered to Ke Xun, “This kid is twice as extra as you.”

“Do you remember what we were like when we first entered the painting?” Ke Xun couldn’t ignore how Luo Bu’s hand had been shaking earlier as he was holding his phone. Therefore, he couldn’t laugh at him, “I had so many questions to so many problems. When I saw a calm and reliable person like Yiran, I wanted to go up to him, like a drowning person seeing the last driftwood. Due to Yiran’s temperament, we pretended not to care, but only we ourselves knew what kind of mood and state we were in at the time.”

Wei Dong sighed. “Yeah, all the strength you were trying so hard to show was actually just a means to force yourself not to collapse completely. Just like, if you pretend not to care, you might really end up not caring. And so pretending to laugh and be carefree, it’s just a way to not be so afraid.”

“Like us, newcomers use self-deception to protect and support themselves,” Ke Xun glanced at Luo Bu, who was still spinning around Mu Yiran. “Let him be. Let’s hurry up.”

Two groups of people searched the lower deck room twice, but still did not find any rhino horns.

“Could it be that all the rhino horns on the ship have been burned by the vanished captain and crew?” Wei Dong wondered suspiciously after the two groups got together again.

“It’s really no good. Aren’t rhino horns a very expensive thing from ancient times to the present?” Luo Bu said.

“Yes.” It was unknown if it was because he saw a trace of Ke Xun’s original shadow in Luo Bu, but Mu Yiran, who had always been cold toward new people, seemed to be quite kind to him. “Rhino horns are expensive. They might not be in the storage room. Let’s go and look in the captain’s quarter.”

Everyone got on the deck and easily found the captain’s room, because this room was probably the most well-equipped room among all the rooms. The low, wooden bed was made more finely, and the texture of the bedding was also very high-end. In addition to the bed, there were also several storage boxes filled with clothes and daily necessities.

Qin Ci and the others had searched this room before, and they had not found anything suspicious.

This time, everyone carried out a more detailed search. Ke Xun even squatted down and knocked on the wooden floor plank by plank.

Facts proved that Ke Xun’s idea wasn’t wrong. At the head of the bed, the wooden floor made a hollow sound.

Ke Xun pulled back the wooden planks, revealing a hole half-a-person deep. There were two or three wooden boxes in the hole, and the lids were all locked.

“Then the question is, where to find the key?” Luo Bu said.

They had searched every corner of the room just now, and there was no key.

“Why are you looking for a key?” Ke Xun said as he reached out to hold the lock. With a hard yank, the lock broke with a snap.

“Brother is awesome!” Luo Bu was surprised, “You’re Astro Boy with an iron arm, right?”

Ke Xun: “…Iron your head. Don’t talk nonsense and come over to help lift the boxes up.”

Ke Xun pulled the locks off all the boxes, and then, with Luo Bu’s help, lifted all the boxes up. When everyone opened the boxes, they saw that some of them contained bamboo slips, some of them contained precious jewelry, and some of them contained rhino horns.

“The bamboo slips may contain some very important information,” Shao Ling said, looking around at everyone. “Does anyone know Qin script?”

Everyone shook their heads, and seeing the eyes of the veteran members subconsciously turning to look at Mu Yiran, Shao Ling raised his brows slightly and looked at Mu Yiran with a slight scrutiny.

“The characters in Qin script that I can recognize are very limited.” Mu Yiran glanced at the scroll of bamboo slips that was opened. “Forgive me for not being able to recognize the content on it.”

“Now that we have found the rhino horns, what are we going to do next?” Liu Yanlei, with the astute eyebrows, seemed to be thinking deeply about it.

“We have two choices, to burn or not to burn.” Shao Ling looked at everyone.

Burning would result in an irresistible force or creature that would likely lead to their deaths.

Not burning may stall the progression of the plot, resulting in no additional clues.

The 13 people who had entered the painting were now caught in a dilemma.