Paintings of Terror

Chapter 144: Even If We Are Powerless To Resist, We Refuse To Admit Defeat

This was the first time since entering the painting that they had personally witnessed the process of death.

What an extremely cold and cruel way to die, directly making everyone realize their own weaknesses and helplessness and making them fear being manipulated by a force they were powerless to resist.

This method not only deprived the dead of their lives, but also destroyed the survivors of their faith.

Ge Lei was destroyed. He suddenly emitted a hysterical scream and rushed toward the door closest to him. Ke Xun reacted quickly, sprinting after him and attempting to hold him back. But a suddenly crazed person could sometimes create enough adrenaline to make them several times stronger than ordinary people. Ge Lei stubbornly broke free from Ke Xun’s grasp and rushed through the door.

“Ke Xun! Don’t go after him. You can’t leave this room,” Zhu Haowen called out to him.

Stopping, Ke Xun slammed his fist into the door.

Mu Yiran walked up to him and silently placed a hand on his shoulder. Ke Xun turned his head to look at him and said in a low voice, “He obviously mustered up the courage and said that he would rely on his own efforts to survive…meow…”

Unfortunately, these cruel worlds in paintings weren’t like the movies. Here, villains would die, supporting leads would die, and the protagonists would, perhaps, also die.

“But I believe that,” Mu Yiran’s voice sounded softly as he gently ran his fingers through Ke Xun’s fluffy hair, “even if we die in a painting, we would never admit defeat and would never lose our identity in the face of death.”

“That’s right.” Ke Xun tilted his head slightly into the heat of Mu Yiran’s palm at the back of his head. His unstable emotions gradually settled.

Ke Xun took a deep breath and asked the people in the room who were still conscious, “Who saw how Qi Qiang died?”

Qin Ci looked at Zhu Haowen, who shook his head in response.

At that time, everyone’s attention was focused on the melting Zhang Lifeng, and no one had noticed what was happening to Qi Qiang.

Ke Xun was hesitating whether he ought to go and check Qi Qiang’s corpse when he suddenly heard Huang Pi say in a dull voice, “He cut off own head with the sword.”

Everyone looked at him. If this person didn’t speak, it was very easy to ignore his existence. No one even noticed what cartoon title he’d written for himself on that piece of paper in the box.

Just like now, after answering Ke Xun’s question, he went back to being silent once more. Sitting in the corner, he stared sullenly at the box in the middle of the room.

Li Yaqing gradually woke up, but after opening her eyes and seeing Qi Qiang’s body in separate places, she became frightened and collapsed once more, screaming and crying.

Luo Wei had to comfort her for a long time. During this time period, Wei Miao also woke up. Of course, his reaction after seeing the corpse also wasn’t calm. Therefore, in the middle of the night, to the sobbing of the girl and the silence of the men, he slowly lost consciousness and passed out.

When the room lit back up, the human faces on the walls, ceilings, and ground had changed back to the stars and moons once more, as if everything that had happened last night was nothing but a nightmare. Yet, the large pool of bright red blood on the ground remained. Qi Qiang’s corpse and decapitated head, both stained with blood, did not disappear and remained displayed for everyone to see.

No one wanted to look at these things anymore. Ke Xun and Mu Yiran moved at the same time. One person walked toward the dead body and the thick pool of blood, while the other headed straight for the box in the middle of the room. Within two steps, they discovered each other’s movements and were taken aback. They looked at each other and then resumed their respective actions.

It was Ke Xun who walked to the pool of blood that was the melted Zhang Lifeng. His eyesight was always good, and although he couldn’t bear to look too closely, he still saw the two black, round balls within the pool of blood.

It was the two longan cores.

Ke Xun stared at the two longan cores, and something flashed across his mind. Frowning, he simply stood there, desperately trying to catch that flash of something. Suddenly, he heard Wei Dong, who had already finished vomiting, groaned angrily from the corner, “A…big, living person…he just fucking melted alive…”

–Melted!

–Two dark longan cores!

Ke Xun meowed and turned his head sharply to look at Mu Yiran, who was holding the paper with the names of the cartoon in the box. He said, “Yiran, meow! Zhang Lifeng’s corresponding cartoon is The Snow Child!”

His boyfriend looked at him with an expression that said “I haven’t watched cartoons, so what kind of cheese was The Snow Child, was it a latte coffee or an ice cream, I haven’t watched cartoons.”

“The protagonist of The Snow Child is a snowman,” Qin Ci suddenly realized. “Are these two longan cores used to make snowman eyes?”

“That should be it,” Ke Xun said with a nod. “Although I don’t remember whether it was mentioned in the cartoon that the snowman’s eyes were made up of two longan cores. But Zhang Lifeng died in exactly the same way the snowman did!”

“So Zhang Lifeng wrote down the wrong name,” Zhu Haowen said. “Since he died because of this, then Qi Qiang also died because he also wrote down the wrong name. Does this prove that we all survived because we wrote down the right names?”

“If this is the case,” Mu Yiran said, putting down the paper in his hand and looking at everyone, “the rules of death selection will change tonight.”

Since everyone had written the title of their cartoons correctly, if they were still required to continue writing down the name of their cartoons, then no one would die again. Therefore, based on the rule that there would be a death per night, it was obvious that the rules of death selection would change.

Everyone’s mood became heavier. However, Mu Yiran didn’t give anyone time to come to terms with this, and he quickly made arrangements. “Ke Xun and Dr. Qin will sort out the plots of the cartoons that correspond to us. Try to recall as much detail as possible and find out what characters or items have in common.”

“Haowen will enter the hidden world triggered by Ke Xun yesterday, advance the plot of Good Kitty to the end, and try to find ways to trigger other hidden worlds.”

“Everyone else will stay here temporarily to assist Ke Xun and Dr. Qin. Meanwhile, I’ll look for Ge Lei and bring him back.”

“Yiran!” Ke Xun grabbed him by the arm. “You can’t go to other people’s worlds, otherwise your body will change…”

“Don’t worry. I’ll come back quickly.” Mu Yiran gently squeezed the back of Ke Xun’s neck, took advantage of his momentary lack of strength, and strode through the door that Ge Lei had disappeared in.

–”He had obviously mustered up the courage and said he would rely on his own efforts to survive…”

The words Ke Xun had said still flashed across Mu Yiran’s mind. Although Ke Xun’s mood had quickly picked up, Mu Yiran knew that, in that moment, Ke Xun’s persistence and beliefs were almost defeated.

If, no matter how hard they worked and no matter how brave they were, they still couldn’t defeat this terrible and evil force, then what was the meaning of their current determination to resist?

Mu Yiran decided to find Ge Lei and bring him back so that his cat-shaped Corgi could re-wag his tail with vitality.

Ke Xun’s tail dragged limply behind him as he and Qin Ci faced the titles on the paper, carefully recalling the plot of each cartoon.

“The composition of characters in The Snow Child is very simple. Except for the snowman, there are only two rabbits,” Qin Ci analyzed. “So it should be fairly easy to trigger this hidden world so long as we look for rabbits in the plots of other cartoons.”

“Excuse me, I have something to say that might not sound too pleasant,” Luo Wei suddenly said. “Zhang Lifeng, who corresponded to the cartoon The Snow Child, had already been killed. Do we still need him to find this hidden world?”

“Although I don’t know what the result will be in going through a dead person’s world,” Qin Ci said, “I think that, in terms of finding the signature, we can’t let go of any possible clues. Although the sentence “existence is rational” doesn’t seem very appropriate when applied to this place, in the paintings, any existing clues may be the key to finding the signature, and so we can’t let it go.”

“Understood.” Luo Wei nodded. “I have no further questions.”

“Speaking of rabbits,” Wei Dong continued the topic from earlier, “isn’t Zhao Haicui a rabbit…?”

“But she had already thrown herself into the fire,” Luo Wei said. “So, the two rabbits in the cartoon couldn’t be her. There should be rabbits in other cartoons, right?”

The last sentence was directed at Ke Xun.

“There are, meow.” Ke Xun nodded. “There are rabbits in Black Cat Sheriff, and there are also rabbits in Good Kitty.”

“Ge Lei corresponded to Black Cat Sheriff, but we don’t know if he can…be recovered. Meanwhile, Haowen is now in the world of Good Kitty, and we’ll have to wait for him to return,” Qin Ci said. “Then let’s put the world of The Snow Child aside and move on to analyzing other hidden worlds…”

“Hailibu!” Ke Xun exclaimed. “Hailibu is also a hidden world. There are also many animals, squirrels, deer, crows, foxes, sheep, cows, ants, horses, meow! Meow meow meow!”

Everyone: “….”

Qin Ci hurriedly tried to calm the cat. “Don’t worry, take your time. Let’s first list the important animals and props involved in each cartoon, and then try to find common characters. We’ll let everyone test it one by one, okay?”

Ke Xun agreed, “Meow!”

With Ke Xun and Qin Ci as the main brain and everyone else as supplementary help, they listed all the important characters, animals, or objects in each cartoon that they could recall.

The Snow Child – rabbit, radish, fire

Legends of the Book of Heaven – fox, book of heaven, egg, county magistrate, gods

Ma Liang’s Divine Brush: old god, county magistrate, old master, cattle, sheep, chicken

The Fish Child: the fish child’s porcelain basin, lotus, pearl, county magistrate, foreigner, boat, net

Good Kitty: mice, rabbit, squirrel, tiger, chicken, fish

Hailibu: arrow, mountain god, squirrel, deer, sheep, cow, crow, ant, horse, bear, wild goose

Fire Boy: arrow, monkey, sheep, tiger, gourd, stream, fire

Black Cat Sheriff: cat, rat, monkey, rabbit, dove

Nezha Roils the Sea: Yin and Yang circle, huntian silk, magic wheels, fire-tip spear, sword, deer, lotus, god, dragon

Tiger Learns a Skill: Cat (hidden world has been triggered)

Aside from Zhao Haicui and Qi Qiang’s worlds, which they had yet to determine, there was still the cartoon that corresponded to Huang Pi. They looked at the title that he’d written for himself.

“Laoshan Taoist”

Qin Ci glanced at Huang Pi thoughtfully. This man took the initiative to choose the ancient Confucian scarf of a scholar for himself from the very beginning, which was really quite contrary to his own character and temperament. The fact that he even knew cartoons like Laoshan Taoist ?was even more surprising.

The most surprising thing was that since he survived the death selection last night, it meant that he wrote down the correct answer.

People could…really hide themselves.

No matter how bad of an adult people become, even they may have good childhood memories.

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