Paintings of Terror

Chapter 177: Replicating the Painting

Without further ado, everyone decided to temporarily divide into 4 groups. With the hospital as the center, they spread out in four directions–north, south, east, and west–to look for the signature.

Qin Ci was the first to say with a smile, “I’ll go with my old partner, Dongzi. I hope we can have a good result this time.”

Although Wei Dong didn’t understand why Qin Ci chose him directly, he still smiled and went to Qin Ci’s side. “Brother Qin had done more than 4 hours of surgery. I’m just afraid that you would have a hard time bearing it.”

Qin Ci said, “Then let’s go south. If I get tired, we can just read. There are many newspapers and magazines in cafes, and if we read the news there, maybe we can gain valuable information.”

Ke Xun immediately said, “Then Yiran and I will go east. Yesterday, we had planned on going to the beast trading market over there. Maybe we can discover something new.”

Zhao Yanbao looked at Su Benxin, the only woman present besides herself, and was about to invite her to join her, when she saw Su Benxin tilt her head and looked at Luo Wei. Su Benxin said, “If you don’t speak, everyone will forget you again. How about this, let’s partner up?”

Luo Wei nodded. “Haowen and Xiao Zhao can continue to go to the university in the west and we can head north.”

Su Benxin readily agreed. As they prepared to leave, she asked Qin Ci, “How is the situation with Xiao Qinxian? Do we need to go and check in on her?”

“She just needs rest and is sleeping right now,” Qin Ci said. “I think that even if we look for the signature now, she wouldn’t blame us for being rude.”

“Mmn, looking for the signature is the most important thing at the moment,” Su Benxin said with a smile.

As a result, the four groups went out the hospital door and headed off in different directions.

Wei Dong and Qin Ci walked all the way south. After two stops, Wei Dong couldn’t help but ask. “Old Qin, are you holding back?”

Qin Ci smiled lightly and pointed to one of the shops on the side. “Come on. Reading Time Cafe.”

After saying this, he dragged Wei Dong into the cafe.

“It’s not good for us to be lazy like this…” Before Wei Dong could finish his words, he suddenly saw two familiar figures sitting in an inconspicuous corner. It was Ke Xun and Mu Yiran.

“Damn, when did the three of you make an appointment with me behind my back?”

Wei Dong and Qin Ci went to Ke Xin’s side and put down the isolation curtain, so that the people outside would have a hard time seeing inside.

Qin Ci sat down and went straight to the point. “Let’s get down to business first, and we’ll inform Haowen and Luo Wei later.”

Wei Dong couldn’t help but look serious when he heard this.

“Let’s talk about Yu Ji first.” Although Qin Ci was a little tired, his eyes were very bright. These kinds of eyes were completely different from the calm and comfortable look of the previous days. It was as if he’d just recovered something he’d lost in the painting and had now just woken up.

As the other three listened to Qin Ci’s narration, they felt more and more that Yu Ji’ story was not that simple.

“…The above was everything Yu Ji told me last night.” Qin Ci ended the long narration and took a sip of coffee.

“You spoke with great detail, and this is very helpful for analysis.” Mu Yiran couldn’t help but give Qin Ci a big affirmation. “If I guess correctly, Yu Beiguo should be very important to Yu Ji.”

“What the fuck? Yu Beiguo?” Wei Dong made a strange expression. “Beiguo, Beiguo. Why does it sound so familiar?”

Ke Xun couldn’t help but slap Wei Dong on the forehead. Snapping his fingers, he said, “He’s the painter whose signature we’re looking for.”

“Fuck…Is it the character for fish?” Wei Dong scratched his head in embarrassment. “I always thought it was the character for deficiency…”

“…There is a character for rain at the top, so of course it is fish.”

“Then there is a character for deficiency at the bottom…”

Ke Xun took a sip of iced water and began to explain his point of view. “I think this Yu Ji’s description of his lover is very vague. Regarding this lover, we only know that he studied art abroad and then returned to China. He committed suicide due to love, and other than that, we don’t know anything about him. Yu Ji’s description of him isn’t as good as his description of Su Benxin.”

“And from his description, I don’t think he hated that two-mixed too much. There seemed to be a mixture of love and hatred for that person.”

Qin Ci nodded thoughtfully, recalling Yu Ji’s appearance last night as he was talking about the two-mixed. He had let out a kind of bewildered chuckle, saying ‘I’ve seen that person before. He has curly hair, and he’s quite handsome…He’s very artistic, and when he smiled, he looked very devilish, which made him seem very sexy.’

Ke Xun continued, “From Yu Ji’s tone, it seemed as if all his hatred were aimed at Su Benxin. It stood to reason that Su Benxin had absolutely no direct relationship with Yu Ji in this complex four love relationship. If he wanted to hate someone, he should have hated the two-mixed who stole his lover.”

“Even Yu Ji’s visit to Benxin Art Gallery was to see what Su Benxin was like. If there were no direct personal grievances, I don’t think he would behave so unnecessarily.”

Mu Yiran nodded slightly. “Yu Ji himself studied oil painting abroad. Judging from his description, his lover also studied art abroad, and he also mentioned that this two-mixed has a high artistic talent. We may boldly infer that this so-called lover and this so-called two-mixed are actually the same person, and that person is Yu Beiguo.”

“However, because this painting has strict confidentiality measures for the name Yu Beiguo, Yu Ji forgot the name of his lover that died, until he suddenly remembered last night.”

Ke Xun felt very uncomfortable when he heard this. This was probably the cruelest part of this painting. It could make you ignore and forget your most important person, causing you to react toward them with the most dismissive attitude.

Qin Ci nodded slightly. It seemed that he also agreed with Mu Yiran’s statement.

Only Wei Dong was unable to understand. “Then why can’t he just say it directly? Even if the name Yu Beiguo was blocked by the painting, he only needed to say that he had a lover, so why should one person be divided into two?!”

“He wasn’t pretending to be mysterious,” Mu Yiran said. “He just subconsciously didn’t want his lover to get too close to Su Benxin. Although his lover was, in fact, indeed taken away by this woman, Su Benxin, he couldn’t accept it psychologically, so he made up a so-called two-mixed to separate Yu Beiguo and Su Benxin.”

“Isn’t this self-deception…?” Wei Dong said no more. He already understood in his heart that this incident had dealt a great deal of damage to Yu Ji.

“When we were in the hospital earlier, Haowen’er told me something,” Ke Xun said, recalling. “According to Zhao Yanbao’s observation, Yu Ji seemed to be someone with mild to moderate depression.”

“How did she find out?”

“Professionals probably have their own observation methods.”

Qin Ci said, “I remember that Yu Beiguo had committed suicide due to depression. Could it be that Yu Ji and Yu Beiguo both had depression?”

Qin Ci couldn’t help but intensify his tone, “About that beast, I actually wasn’t finished talking about it. From a strict point of view, there wasn’t a direct picture inside the frame.”

“What?!” Ke Xun and Wei Dong asked in unison.

“The center of that empty picture frame is Yu Ji’s heart.”

Everyone became quiet as they listened to Qin Ci’s words.

“The heart actually didn’t look like what it should. On the surface, it seemed to be covered by some wisps from the titular beast, connecting the heart to the picture frame. If I remember correctly, the picture in Yu Ji’s body is exactly like what we saw at the beginning, which was Yu Beiguo’s painting The Scarlet Beast.”

Because this was too strange, the other three didn’t know what to say for a while.

Wei Dong took a long time to settle himself, and he kept gasping for breath. “Fuck…that…Is there a signature in that picture frame?”

Ke Xun couldn’t help but admire Wei Dong’s pragmatism to even think of the signature.

Qin Ci shook his head and sighed, “The reason why the surgery took so long was that I was looking for the signature, but unfortunately, there was none. There was only one painting, a three-dimensional painting with Yu Ji’s heart as the specimen.”

Mu Yiran said, “Yu Ji actually wanted to add the painter’s signature, but he couldn’t do it in the end, so he only wrote the prefix of his surname on the wall before his death.”

Although the topic was very heavy, no one had time to express their feelings. They could only grit their teeth and be pragmatic.

Ke Xun said, “According to our previous speculation, Yu Ji’s story should be like this. Yu Ji and Yu Beiguo were lovers when they studied painting abroad together. When Yu Beiguo returned home, he fell in love with Su Benxin. The Scarlet Beast was something Yu Beiguo had painted before his death. Maybe Yu Ji had seen this painting before, or maybe the art gallery was the first time he’d seen it. Regardless, it was very meaningful to him, and it could even be said that it punched him directly in the heart, such that an unshakeable knot was formed over his heart.”

“But why would they lie? The night we first arrived, both of them said that they weren’t familiar with Yu Beiguo,” Wei Dong asked.

Ke Xun said, “That’s where my doubt lies. Even if the painting made them forget their lover’s name, they couldn’t have forgotten everything. Since Yu Ji was able to remember it so clearly, I think it’s also impossible for Su Benxin to forget. After we reveal the signature, Su Benxin should have remembered more things.”

Su Benxin, like Xiao Qinxian, had become a mystery.

“Speaking of which, I am ashamed to say that the reason why I called everyone out alone was to guard against Su Benxin. I just couldn’t figure out her bottom line,” Qin Ci said.

Mu Yiran nodded. “Su Benxin couldn’t have forgotten this matter. When she recited the content of the title page of the book The Scarlet Beast word for word, I guessed that she had something to do with the origin of everything.”

Xida:?What Mu Yiran said in the last paragraph is valid, because Su Benxin’s name has xin (heart) in it, and the name of the city is called Heart City. I’ve gotten to the point in the book where I am reading along as I translate, and I can honestly say that I am worried about Luo Wei, because Su Benxin seems to be paying him a lot of attention.