Paintings of Terror

Chapter 167: Women

13 kilograms of beasts seemed to be the total amount of beasts in 13 people.

When some people thought of it like this, they could no longer remain calm. Yu Ji even said, “We all have beasts in our bodies. It’s just that they’ll appear at different times! Sooner or later, they will all come out. There are 13 days, and they will all come out in the end!”

“Please keep quiet.” It was the staff in the specimen processing room who spoke.

Qin Ci stood at the door and made a gesture of invitation. “We have something to talk about. Everyone else, please wait outside for a while.”

Yu Ji was still in the middle of saying something resentfully when he was pulled out by Wei Dong and Lion.

For the first time in history, Xiao Qinxian did not complain about being excluded. Right now, she was incredibly silent, perhaps because she saw the depressing state of the female body beast, or perhaps because she believed what Yu Ji had said about them having equal share of the 13 kgs of beasts. For this kind of strange thing that no one could crack, even the “lucky ones” may not escape bad luck.

Ke Xun was still standing at the door. Zhao Yanbao, who was about to close the door, looked at Ke Xun outside. Just as she was about to say something, Ke Xun said, “Go and talk about it. I don’t have to hear it.” After saying this, he took the initiative to close the door.

Some people went to Qin Ci’s office to wait, while the others sat on the chairs in the hallway and looked out the window.

It was still dark outside, and the sound of muffled thunder boomed across the sky.

Xiao Qinxian asked the nurse for a pen and paper to design a “wedding costume” for the two deceased.

The atmosphere in the specimen processing room was even more depressing. Zhao Yanbao sat in the place closest to the glass bottle that contained the female beast, and told a story with a gloomy gaze—

“When Chi Lei and I were young, in our small hometown, the idea of the ????priority of sons over daughters was very serious, and our two families were no exception. However, my family was relatively better. Although my parents preferred my younger brother, at least they were willing to let me study. As for Chi Lei’s home… Chi Lei was the most undignified one at home. Whether it was her elder brother or two younger brothers, they were always yelling at her, pushing and shoving her, and her parents turned a blind eye to all of it. Once someone gets into trouble, the one who was beaten would always be her. Her father used to beat her mother, and then her mother would beat her. There was still a deep scar on her scalp. It was done by her father with a shovel when he was drunk. In order to heal the injury, she had to shave her head. At the time, she was only 15 years old. Her mother didn’t take it seriously either.”

“She was admitted to a key high school with me, but her family refused to pay, so she ended up going to a technical school instead. In order to save accommodation costs, she had to live in a local aunt’s house. In those two years, we rarely saw each other. She graduated from technical school and started to work. She even got a boyfriend.”

Zhu Haowen looked at Zhao Yanbao with a little doubt, but it wasn’t easy to interrupt the other party.

Zhao Yanbao took the initiative to explain, “Chi Lei wasn’t born a lesbian, not even the acquired one. In terms of sexual orientation, she had always liked men.”

“Unfortunately, she had never met a decent man. Neither her family nor her boyfriend regard her as a person, nor do they regard women as people, including her mother.”

“Her boyfriend actually proposed to exchange girlfriends with his buddy one day to play, and she left, and never returned to that sinful town.”

“I had already been admitted to the university in B City, and she came to join me. At that time, we rented a house and lived together. We just depended on each other, like relatives. She knew my secret, but we couldn’t possibly have that kind of relationship. Some innate things couldn’t be changed, and she couldn’t use her mental will to change her body’s preference. Also, I had someone I liked back then.”

“People like me aren’t recognized by the majority of society, and so I studied psychology due to my own internal confusions. Sometimes, I feel very good about my sexual orientation, sometimes I feel that my feelings are more pure. My sexual orientation won’t allow me to comply with blind dates and getting married for the sake of continuing the family line.”

“My values ??and Chi Lei’s values ??were completely the same, and so our living habits were very integrated. We were a rare soulmate. We were better than friends and relatives, but neither were we lovers.”

Zhao Yanbao paused a little when she said this. For a while, she seemed to be gathering up her words.

Qin Ci couldn’t help but ask, “Chi Lei had given up hope on the opposite sex at that time?”

Zhao Yanbao smiled lightly. “We found that it’s the same everywhere. Although people’s thoughts in cities like S City and B City are also different, they’re not much better than our backward town.”

“At that time, I was an assistant in a psychological counseling center, assisting a reputable psychologist. Because Chi Lei often came to see me, she would occasionally ask the psychologist about some psychological problems and often got very helpful advice. We all respected him back then.”

“After working part-time there for two years, I decided to come out for the sake of my girlfriend at the time. Who knew that my girlfriend would then flee. She also studied psychology. After I came out, she went abroad and broke up with me with no contact. Coming out of the closet was a disaster in our industry. In the eyes of ordinary people, homosexuals themselves were mentally unsound, and they weren’t qualified to be psychologists to treat others. And indeed, it seemed that most people really thought so.”

“After I came out of the closet, Chi Lei suddenly stopped coming to our counseling center, and the prestigious psychologist also went abroad for further studies. I later learned that the psychologist had sexually assaulted Chi Lei for two years. Because he had some evidence that I am a lesbian, if Chi Lei didn’t satisfy him, these materials would be spread out, making me ‘unable to move in the psychology world for a lifetime’…”

A thick darkness was surging outside the window. The sound of thunder split the sky, and a torrential rain suddenly fell.

“That night, we both hugged each other and cried bitterly in the dark. She said that she had some evidence that the beast had sexually assaulted her, but the other party had immigrated to another country already, and she didn’t want to worry about a lawsuit. When it got out, she feared it would just end up hurting herself. I didn’t understand it at the time. I thought we should stop everything we were doing to win the lawsuit. The one who really shouldn’t be able to move in the field of psychology should be that beast.”

“Chi Lei told me to calm down and even said that her life wasn’t good. Later, she talked about living in her aunt’s house while studying in technical school. She had been sexually assaulted by her uncle and cousin one after another…She told her mother and aunt, but those two people didn’t believe her. Or maybe it wasn’t that they didn’t believe her but that they were just pretending to be deaf instead.”

The rain was pouring down outside, and the wind had ravaged the half-bright world into a crumpled black-and-white photo, as if attempting to shred it.

“We decided to be together as partners and to spend the rest of our lives together.”

“Even though we took harbor in one another, Chi Lei had never been able to release the bondage on her body, a bondage of the male-dominated world on women. The pain caused by her original family had continued to escalate in adulthood and she could not escape it.”

Zhao Yanbao gently stroked the glass bottle in front of her, and softly looked at the female beast. “Women don’t have much voice in this unjust world. They are told ‘keep your hair long and your knowledge short’, and they said ‘women pondering over God is laughable’. They are told this is normal, this isn’t malicious, and it even has a hint of doting in it…In fact, the truth is the women are being excluded from the social class, both explicitly and implicitly. In the past, every year during the Spring Festival Gala, there would be a few sketches about henpecked husbands, but I have never seen such a thing in real life. The people I’ve met in my profession are many, and I have never seen it. I don’t know if this is something that society had created to deceive unmarried women?”

Several men in the room were silent, and they didn’t know what to say.

Su Benxin was a little moved. She seemed to feel the same way.

Now, Zhao Yanbao seemed to be talking to the female beast, “Look at you, you have beautiful eyebrows and eyes, but no mouth. Is it because you have no right to speak? Look at you, such a good person, but you have to be naked. Is it because you had no choice but to expose yourself to be exhilarated and flogged by those who coveted you? Look at you, you have obviously strong limbs, but you have no hands or feet. No hands to grasp anything nor feet to travel the world. You are so stiff and are standing upright, as if alert to the dangers around you. Or is it because of the rope that binds you? If that damn rope is broken, you will get better. You will be better.”

Zhao Yanbao’s tears fell on the outside of the glass bottle. “I know you can’t love me. Have I ever blamed you? For us, love was the least thing worth mentioning.”

Su Benxin lowered her head, unable to bear looking at those tears.

Qin Ci seemed to have discovered something suddenly. He hurried over to observe the glass bottle. “The beast has changed! It is slowly softening!”

Mu Yiran didn’t look over. He slowly got up and prepared to leave. “Let them be alone for a while.”

…….

The beast from Chi Lei’s body finally softened into a round thing. Zhao Yanbao said that this may be a different kind of relief.

The weight of the beast had not changed. It was still 1974 grams. Combined with Zhi Chun’s beast that was 26 grams, the final total came to 2000 grams.

Yu Ji was still panicking, but Wei Dong was relieved. “This painting we entered can be panic-inducing, but it’s a good thing you’re a painter.”

Meanwhile, Ke Xun tried to use Qin Ci’s computer to conduct some research, only to find out that this city had no internet. When he asked the nurse, the nurse doubtfully said, “Sir, do you want to send a fax?”

Ke Xun said, “No, I just wanted to order takeout…”

“Then you can call for takeout.”

“Thank you.”

In this world without internet, the painting must be trying to hide something. What was it so afraid that might be discovered on the internet?

“What do you want to check?” Mu Yiran came to Ke Xun at one point later.

“In the book The Crimson Beast, what exactly is written on the title page.” Ke Xun sorted out the questions in his mind one by one, and this was the first thing he wanted to solve.

“Su Benxin and Xiao Qinxian, these two people who have read this book, there must be someone who can remember.” Mu Yiran looked at Su Benxin who also entered the room.

Su Benxin was pulling back the curtains in the office, and revealing an outside world the color of glazed glass.

“There is indeed a sentence on the title page: I saw a woman riding on a crimson beast: Chapter 17 of the Book of Revelation.” Su Benxin turned back from the window.

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Xida: I find it ironic that the author is talking about the suppression of women and women equality, and yet there is no representation of strong, intelligent, and likeable female characters in our protagonist’s main group.