Paintings of Terror

Chapter 229: Strange Negatives

Everyone moved away from the window in an instant, and subconsciously gathered around Mu Yiran, as if it was the safest place.

Mu Yiran, who was surrounded ‘watertight’: …

“How many photos did you take before realizing something was wrong?” Ke Xun felt that he was squeezed out of the “teammate circle” by the big guy Cao Youning, so he simply asked the photographer directly, “Why did I feel that the click sound in the first shot was faster than the second one?”

Mai Peng tried his best to maintain his composure: “Yes, the shutter speed of the first shot was faster than the second one. The first one was a test shot, so I chose 1/250 second, which is commonly used. It’s suitable for shooting people in regular motion. I felt pretty good when I was shooting, so I decided to try at a slower speed. In fact, it is best to use a slow speed for shooting night scenes. I tried 1/30 second, and I think this speed should be barely enough to bear the deviation caused by the shakes from my hands.”

Mai Peng paused for a moment before continuing: ” I saw the two bright spots by the window only in the first shot. Although I changed the position when I was taking the second picture, the window was still within the scope of the viewfinder. Unfortunately, when I took the picture, it felt very bright. My eyes were a bit blurred and I didn’t have the chance to see anything.”

Ke Xun thought for a while and made a bold proposal: “There is one last piece of film left, do you dare to take a picture of the outside?”

Mai Peng: “Outside the door?”

Ke Xun stood up and walked to Mai Peng’s side: “Yes, let’s crack the door open and point the camera at the corridor outside to take a picture. I’ll be with you.”

Mai Peng felt that his hands, which were holding the camera, were sweating. He wiped on his cotton robe, and then held the camera steady again: “Okay, I’ll try.”

No one else in the room spoke anymore. Even though they thought this matter was risky, clues were often obtained from dangers. Entering the painting itself was a risky process.

Ke Xun accompanied Mai Peng to the door, and gently opened the latch that fastened the door. The darkness outside was like a thick fog that could taint the whole room black at any time.

“I’ll stand against the door. Try not to lean out. Just shoot at the crack of the door.” Ke Xun stood behind the door, opening the door to the width of a camera lens, “Let’s shoot.”

Mai Peng took a deep breath and felt that Ke Xun’s tone made him feel more at ease. He held the camera, steadied his mind, and quickly finished shooting. Perhaps because he was afraid of disturbing people outside or something else, Mai Peng didn’t turn on the flash. Some things should be able to be captured even without the flash.

Ke Xun pulled Mai Peng back to the room, quickly closed the door and put the latch on: “Did you discover anything new just now?”

Mai Peng felt a little bad: “I didn’t dare to look at it. Besides, it was pitch black outside, so I couldn’t see anything. I just adjusted the aperture to an appropriate distance. I was afraid that my hands would shake, so I adjusted the speed to 1/60 second.”

“It went well just now.” Ke Xun pulled Mai Peng to the table and found that Mai Peng’s hands were already a little cold. “The next step is to develop the film.”

The few0 newcomers began to prepare for film development in a hurry. Under the guidance of Mai Peng and Xi Shengnan, they gradually divided their responsibilities and proceeded in an orderly manner.

The veterans helped with other tasks. About an hour later, the roll of film was finally fixed and could be taken out of the developing tank.

Everyone turned on their phones to illuminate, and Koharu also leaned over to look with its bright eyes.

“Very successful, even more successful than expected.” Mai Peng slowly unwrapped the roll of film, and scanned the pictures one by one with focused eyes, “The room temperature here is too low, so the grains of the images are relatively large. Even by controlling the water temperature and time, we can only guarantee basic clarity.”

Du Lingyu couldn’t help but say: “It’s already incredible to be able to produce negatives like that in this environment.”

Most people didn’t speak, but just stared at the patterns on the roll of film in Mai Peng’s hand. Frame by frame, each frame was like a small world, leaving eternal light and shadow.

Because it was Lu Heng’s film, he looked at it very carefully: “The earlier ones were taken by us on the mountains. After that, the roads, yes, then the sunset, yes, the night view of the city. That’s right. What I took before I entered the painting was yesterday’s night scene.”

This sentence sounded very bleak.

No one had time to talk about being bleak now. Fourteen pairs of eyes (including Koharu) were staring intently at the slowly unfolding city night scenes. A dozen night scenes slowly passed by. The final picture was a night view of the TV tower.

“This is the last one, and we entered the painting after.” Lu Heng’s voice was a little weak.

The next picture — Du Lingyu let out a scream and then covered her mouth tightly with her hands. She hid completely behind Cao Youning. Cao Youning also wasn’t feeling good. His chubby body was slightly trembling: “W-W-What is this? Oh my god… this woman is terrifying.”

The whole picture was light gray and appeared to be indoors. It was a faint shadow of a dark gray woman, who seemed to be running. Because the picture was too small, it was hard to see clearly.

Fang Fei stared at the picture for a long time: “I think this is the second floor of the Lantern Inn. Today we went to see where the deceased Xiayu was. I remember these wooden pillars very clearly, and the overall layout is basically the same.”

Lu Heng suddenly felt not alright. He trembled for a long time and couldn’t say a word: “I, yes, I, I took the photo at this location, b-b-b-but there were many people there when I took the picture, and the deceased was lying there with a white cloth over! You, you were all there at the time, you all saw it!”

Wei Dong patted Lu Heng on the shoulder: “Yes, this is where we were standing at that time. There were two pillars in front, and there were full of people… But why did the photo look like this? Who is this woman? What is she running for? This is simply too strange.”

“The woman seems to be running very fast. She’s completely blurry, like a gray shadow,” Qin Ci also expressed his opinion, “I can only vaguely tell that it’s a woman from her hairstyle.”

It took a while for Lu Heng to speak: “It’s easy to explain why the figure is blurry. I used a very slow speed at that time, only 1/16 second. I originally planned to take a picture of the corpse…” He looked towards Xi Shengnan who was beside him. She patted the back of his hand, as if wanting to comfort him too.

Mai Peng took over: “If the speed was so slow, then this figure was actually not moving fast. Judging from the extent of the blur, this person’s speed was actually slower than the walking speed of average people.”

The analysis eventually came to a dead end.

“Let’s continue.” Mu Yiran broke the silence.

“Okay.” Mai Peng continued to unroll the film, and the next photo taken was of this room. The whole photo was whitish, maybe because the room was too dark at that time, but the two black spots by the window were exceptionally clear. In reality, that should be two extremely bright spots.

“Woo…” Koharu seemed to be frightened, and ran directly from the table to the bed, and then to the window, as if she wanted to find the dog that “imitated” herself in the photo.

Shao Ling examined it carefully for a long time: “When the photo was taken, all of us sat apart. Why is there almost no one in the photo?”

Mai Peng also found it strange: “I took the photo from the side of the bed, aimed towards the window. Many people were sitting there, especially Cao Youning, who was clearly lying in bed and wanted to sleep…why, why is everyone missing?”

“Let’s continue and see the next one.” Mu Yiran said.

In the next picture, the entire image was black, much darker than the previous one. A large group of people gathered around the table and were doing something. — Obviously, this photo was brighter, and the resolution was relatively higher.

Ke Xun had sharp eyes and he looked carefully: “Why do I feel that this group of people seems to be…”

“Eating.” Zhu Haowen finished what Ke Xun wanted to say.

After hearing this, Du Lingyu curled up behind Cao Youning: “I can’t take it anymore, this is too strange and creepy.”

Zhu Haowen frowned and looked at it further: “The person at the table is holding a big spherical thing in his hand. What is that?”

“This one also has Koharu,” Luo Bu spotted a dog beside the table. “The eyes are not so bright, but Koharu seems to be eating something too. It’s a big pile. My God, what is it eating…”

“Let’s look at the last one.” Mu Yiran said.

Mai Peng felt that he had completely stopped thinking, and now he could only execute orders mechanically. He moved the film in his hand stiffly and showed the last one. Half of the last one was pure black, as if there was only half of the photo.

Everyone was already mentally prepared and remembered what was taken in this last photo. — It was the one taken by Ke Xun and Mai Peng at the corridor from the crack of the door. Who knew what would appear in it.

Mai Peng wiped the cold sweat from his forehead with one hand: “I can explain why there is only half of the image. Although this film roll has thirty-six sheets, because the whole camera has been restored to an old-fashioned camera, the film has also become old-fashioned film. When I was developing the film just now, I found out that this roll of film was manually wound out of a large roll. From the trimmed shape at the top, I can see that it was manually trimmed.”

“What does that mean? I-I don’t quite understand.” Wei Dong asked.

“That is to say, the film wound manually may not be strictly thirty-six sheets. People who wind it tightly may end up with thirty-seven sheets, and those who wind it loosely may only have thirty-five sheets. This roll is relatively loose, so it only has thirty-five and a half sheets. Hence the last picture we saw was only half.”

“Oh…” Wei Dong also wiped the sweat from his forehead, “I thought there was only half of the world left outside the door.”

Even though only half of the photo remained, the horror was beyond people’s expectations.

The negative film was gray, not as white as imagined, and the contrast was clearer. Everyone could immediately tell that this place was the wooden corridor at the door. The scary thing was that there was a figure standing very close to the door, which was where the crack of the door was facing. Because there was only half of the photo, there was only half of the figure. Due to the backlight, it looked very white on the film, but the facial features couldn’t be seen clearly. There were two very black spots on the left chest of the figure.

“Oh my God…” Mai Peng’s hands trembled, “When we were taking a picture of the outside, someone was there?! And this person seemed to be walking in! And he was so close to the camera! Could it be that he is in the room now?”

It was hard for everyone to keep calm at such a time, and they tried to stay close, fearing that the figure who “sneaked in” through the crack of the door would suddenly attack.

Du Lingyu completely blocked her ears and didn’t dare to listen anymore.

Fang Fei squinted her eyes and stared at the film for a while: “The black spots on this person’s left chest and left arm should be two very bright spots in reality. Why do I think this person seems to be holding something? It seems to be an animal with eyes as bright as Koharu.”