Paintings of Terror

Chapter 243: The First Photo

“The Earth’s core is nurtured by the soil. Within it lies time. In the beginning, the heavenly light creates water. Within the water, white fish emerge. Their breath turns into Qi and surrounds the inns as a ring.”

This was the opening content of the “Code of Shamans”. Later in the book, it discussed specific methods of practicing shaman craft. Currently, Fang Fei was reading it attentively, hoping to understand it as quickly as possible.

While the film in the tank was still being developed, Mu Yiran and the others were inventorying the items in their luggage. Mu Yiran noticed Shao Ling’s Xun and asked, “Is this Xun any different from the one you used before?”

Shao Ling had already examined the Xun many times: “I haven’t played the Xun for many years. When I was a kid, I used a clay Xun, a nine-hole Xun. This one is a stone Xun. It’s an ancient Xun. It has no sound holes, only a blowing hole.”

Wei Dong didn’t understand a thing, “Luckily, you know what it is. If it were me, I wouldn’t even know it’s a musical instrument. I thought it was a strange little jar. How can this Xun make sounds without holes?”

Shao Ling picked up the Xun and looked at the blowing hole, “This type of Xun probably can’t produce a musical tone. In ancient times, it was used to imitate bird calls or animal sounds, to attract and catch prey. Similar Xuns with only one blowing hole have been found in the Hemudu and Yangshao cultural sites. This is probably the most primitive form of the Xun, dating back to at least six to seven thousand years ago.”

“Six to seven thousand years, and I haven’t even had a chance to read ‘Five Thousand Years of Chinese Nation’ yet,” Luo Bu sighed on the side, while Koharu seemed very interested in the stone Xun and kept leaping to try to reach it.

“I think this Xun’s shape resembles an egg. I wonder if this item holds any informational or practical value.” Zhu Haowen said.

Qin Ci quickly understood Zhu Haowen’s point, “It’s just that we don’t know what the ‘Earth’s core’ mentioned in the book really is. Could this Xun be a hint towards the Earth’s core?”

This statement caught Shao Ling’s attention, and he carefully analyzed the stone Xun in his hand, “In fact, the standard shape of a Xun is a flat-bottomed oval. This one’s flat bottom is not very prominent, making it closer to the shape of an egg. If this shape is indeed a hint, there might be some clues to follow. For example, in this world, there are many buildings and foods with Tang Dynasty style, but this Xun is definitely not of the Tang style. The Xun had already developed into a five-hole instrument in the Shang Dynasty, and from then on, it became a formal musical instrument. By the time of the Tang Dynasty, it had evolved into a five or six-hole instrument, and it would certainly not look like this one.”

Wei Dong also began to think: “Why is this thing so hard to figure out? If they really wanted to hint ‘Earth’s core’ at us, they could have just used an egg or an egg-shaped stone. Why bother with a Xun?”

Shao Ling replied, “There is a possibility that the shape of the Earth’s core itself is similar to this Xun, with a hole at the top.”

Zhu Haowen: “There’s another possibility. Leaving an egg might get censored by the painting.”

“Censored?” Wu Dong asked.

Zhu Haowen: “Yes, the items in our luggage, though we did not bring them into the painting, are strongly connected to us. For example, this Xun. It appeared in Shao Ling’s bag because he can play it, but not in other people’s bag. If this is an item that another timeline has left, I believe that a lot of the items that can provide hints to us have been censored. The things left can only be the ‘correct items’, items that have direct correlation to their owner.

“If that’s the case, these items might be messages sent to the us nowadays by our other selves?” Qin Ci speculated, still feeling confused but sensing that they were getting closer to the truth.

“If it really is as what you guys say, then there are some things in my art collection too,” Wu Dong picked up his own Wei’s Art Collection. “Look at this page. It appears to be a bunch of Easter eggs, but don’t you think there’s something strange about this particular one?”

On the page, there indeed appeared to be a collection of colored eggs, each egg drawn with various beautiful patterns. Yet, one egg stood out in the corner. It was larger than the others and had no patterns, just a thick line around the middle of the egg.

Luo Bu looked at it closely, “I don’t think so. That line is probably just the pattern on this egg.”

“No, I know my own drawing habits,” Wu Dong shook his head without hesitation. “I wouldn’t draw an egg like this in the middle of a bunch of colored and patterned eggs. Besides, I deliberately emphasized that line in the middle of the egg, using bold strokes. I believe it’s some kind of hint.”

As Wei Dong spoke, he flipped through other pages of the art collection, “Also, I noticed that there are many blank pages in the book between pages I have drawn on. That’s really not my habit and it’s definitely not caused by carelessness. If I didn’t guess wrong, there were originally drawings on those blank pages, but because they revealed information, they got naturally screened out by the painting!”

“Naturally screened out”, everyone had already treated the painting deliberately hiding information as a natural occurrence.

Everyone flipped through the art collection and gradually agreed with Wu Dong’s observations. Qin Ci said: “So, the key to solving the puzzle lies in the shape of the egg. Shao Ling’s Xun has a hole, and Wu Dong’s egg has a thick line in the middle. It’s highly likely that the Earth’s core must possess both of these characteristics.”

To the conclusion drawn by Qin Ci, everyone nodded in agreement and instinctively turned their gaze to Mu Yiran.

Mu Yiran had already opened the developing tank and taken out two rolls of film: “Let’s take a look at these negatives first before doing more analysis.”

Wei Dong and Luo Bu quickly jumped into “projector operators” mode and processed one of the film rolls before placing it into the projector. “Is this… Mai Peng’s camera’s film?”

“Yes, I believe the first picture we took when we first came to this world is crucial,” Mu Yiran said. “The photos we captured last night at other locations and time frames didn’t capture any people, so they are meaningless.”

As the lights in the room were blown out one by one, the projection on the wall gradually became clear. It displayed scenic views of the wilderness, with strong black-and-white contrasts. The entire image felt very dimensional. If it were printed, it would be an impressive photograph.

“No wonder Mai Peng is known as ‘Mai God’,” Wei Dong looked at the flickering frames on the screen. “These photos truly can make him a god.”

As these landscape and street figure photography slowly passed by, it finally settled on a scene of the world familiar to everyone — the wide view captured not only the stairs but also the entire corridor.

Just as Mai Peng had mentioned when he took the photo, there was indeed a person walking up the stairs. The person was wearing a large robe, and their face was entirely white.

“Oh my god, why does this person look so scary?” Luo Bu’s hands trembled in fright.

“It seems to be… a Master Shaman,” Wei Dong observed the person’s face on the screen. The white mask was strikingly similar to Fang Fei’s mask. “Due to the inverted colors, this Master Shaman is wearing an entirely black mask.”

Fang Fei also stared at the display on the wall from the side: “If my judgment is correct, this should be the Shaman from the Cold Night Inn.”

This was the first time the camera captured a photo of a Shaman, making this photo particularly eerie.

“Look at this part of the corridor; there’s another person,” Zhu Haowen pointed to a spot on the other side of the photo. “This person is crouching there, and their figure is relatively small, so it’s easy to overlook them.”

Soon, everyone noticed the person crouching against the corridor wall. They were facing the wall while crouching, their right hand raised as if drawing something on it.

“This person should be a woman,” Fang Fei said, “She somewhat resembles… but the pattern on her robe isn’t right. None of us wear robes with large color blocks.”

Even without Fang Fei’s comment, others also had a similar feeling. The woman crouching there looked like Du Lingyu in terms of hairstyle and body shape.

“Don’t you guys feel that the patterns on her robe are somewhat similar to the one on Xiayu’s robe?” Wu Dong pointed out.

It was indeed similar and was very much similar.

If this woman was truly Du Lingyu, why was her robe covered in bloodstains? And what was she writing on the wall as she crouched there?

“If I’m looking at it correctly, she seems to be drawing lines on the wall, and those seven lines on the wall are all or partially drawn by her,” Shao Ling said.

“But how did the camera capture so many things? How did Mai God manage that?” Luo Bu couldn’t help but ask. From his perspective, if a person stood at the shooting location and looked in that direction, it would be impossible to see both the areas under the stairs and the entire corridor at the same time.

“Probably with the use of a wide-angle lens. This makes the viewing angle larger and the scene wider,” Shao Ling replied. “My new phone comes with a wide-angle lens. Though it’s incomparable to professional camera lenses, I still looked up about them online — they might produce negative space, which are somewhat like compositional blank spaces in pictures. Clearly, the extent of the wide-angle also produced some negative space in this photo, but these spaces aren’t entirely blank, there seems to be something else there.”

Everyone stared at the display on the wall intently. Perhaps due to the use of a wide-angle lens, the proportions of the picture appeared slightly surreal. Nevertheless, it successfully captured the Master Shaman walking upstairs and Du Lingyu at the far end of the corridor. Besides these, there were indeed some “blank” things at the edges of the photo. These things didn’t belong to the Lantern Inn, nor were they simply caused by spatial stretching. Instead, they were peculiar phenomena that resembled starry skies.

“The buildings and the surroundings of the figures seem to be stretched. Due to the inverted colors, what we’ve captured here are actually some white spots on a black background,” Wei Dong frowned and studied the image. “But what are these things exactly?”

Mu Yiran also stared intently for a long time. “This photo contains quite some information. Let’s analyze it step by step: According to Mai Peng, the photo was taken with a shutter speed of 1/60 seconds. The shooting time was when we just entered this world. So, in another word, it captured events that happened precisely one hour before we entered the painting.”

“After comparing various aspects, it’s almost certain that the girl drawing lines on the wall is indeed Du Lingyu. This means that an hour before we entered the painting, the other Du Lingyu was in this corridor.

“When we entered the painting, the lanterns were not lit. Based on our previous analysis regarding time, this was an hour before midnight, which means 11PM of the day before our entry into the painting. This should be the time when the other timeline was running, which explains why the camera captured other ‘members.’”

“However, there’s a problem. It’s evident from the photo that it was nighttime as well, because there were no lanterns lit on the corridor. So why was Du Lingyu alone in the corridor at night? From the bloodstains on her, it seems that she was involved in some emergency event, but her reaction was not to seek help from others, instead, she was drawing lines on the wall. This indicates that the act of drawing lines is a crucial matter.”

“As for the bloodstains on Du Lingyu’s body, we can’t determine if it’s her own blood or someone else’s. We also can’t tell if the Shaman who was going upstairs is related to this event. Du Lingyu mentioned before that when she first arrived in this world, she felt a severe headache, as if she had been struck heavily. As for who attacked her, we don’t know if it was the Shaman, the other Du Lingyu, or someone else entirely…”

Fang Fei suddenly interrupted Mu Yiran: “When we first arrived in this world, if the other Du Lingyu was also in the same location, it would create a situation of twin-born. It seems that something terrible will happen if the two people meet.”

“But so far, Du Lingyu has been relatively safe. We haven’t seen anything terrible happening to her,” Qin Ci said.

“Therefore, let’s dare to assume,” Mu Yiran continued, “that Master Shaman prevented the negative consequences of twin-born just in time. As Fang Fei mentioned before, someone had specifically asked the Master Shaman to resolve the case of twin-born. I suspect that the heavy blow might be the resolution.”

Fang Fei nodded excitedly, “I just saw that page in the book. The method to resolve twin-born is to draw the two persons together and perform a ‘union’ through patting on the crown of their heads!”

Wei Dong also listened with excitement, finding it hard to believe that they could deduce all this from just one photograph. “This makes sense! But why would the other Du Lingyu encounter us? According to our analysis, aren’t we on a different timeline?

Mu Yiran said: “The moment we entered the painting is likely an important point in time. It’s also where the two timelines converged. At this point in time, it’s very likely that people from both timelines can meet each other.”

Wei Dong still couldn’t understand, “I still don’t get it. Why was Du Lingyu the only one there at night? Where were the other ‘us’?!”

Mu Yiran’s face turned somewhat grim. A hint of pity, which was unusual for him, flickered in his eyes, “Perhaps, at that time, she was the only survivor.”

“W-what?!” All eyes turned to focus on Mu Yiran’s face. “You mean that, at that moment, in the other timeline, the rest of us were already dead?”