Paintings of Terror

Chapter 81: Dying to Become 2D

Brief reminder: diamond/rhombus = XBB, dots = GLX, waves = KX

In this dark and endless void, Ke Xun tried his hardest to perceive his own existence, and at one point, even questioned if his eyes had simply disappeared.

About three minutes later, the room was restored to its original condition again.

The diamond pattern probably had her eyes closed just now, so she didn’t notice anything abnormal.

The dot patterned Guo Lixia spoke: “What happened just now? Was that a power outage?”

“….” Sister Guo always had a way of making Ke Xun not know what to say.

The diamond pattern turned over: “What’s the matter?”

“It’s okay, go to sleep.” Ke Xun didn’t want to cause everyone to panic before going to bed.

Inside the room, except for the two gray beds, the rest of the bedroom was a pure black. Ke Xun didn’t want to sleep on this floor that resembled a black hole. He looked at the two women on their beds and finally went over next to the dot pattern.

Guo Lixia moved over a bit to make room: “If the two of us sleep with our feet on opposite ends, we won’t take up much space.”

Ke Xun took the pillow Guo Lixia handed over and lay down on the other side of the bed. When people’s vision is obstructed, other sense organs would become extremely sensitive, such as smell. Ke Xun felt like the air was filled with a faint scent of paint and no other traces of life.

After a while, the sound of Guo Lixia’s snoring filled the room.

“It’s so noisy…” The diamond pattern on the other bed murmured a few words before going silent after a while.

Ke Xun didn’t feel sleepy. The heads of the two beds were in the same direction as the window. Since Ke Xun slept on the other side, he was facing the window.

The window in the middle of the night was like a silhouette.

Light gray window frames with an intricate pattern, and the night outside was lighter than the darkness inside the bedroom, resembling an inky blue canvas.

Ke Xun couldn’t figure out what those three minutes of darkness meant, and what kind of power could make all living things completely blend into the night, or seemingly enter another world.

At this time, the temperature inside the room was just right, and since there weren’t any blankets on the beds, the three patterns representing the three people were extremely eye-catching.

The dotted pattern on Sister Guo’s body constantly fluctuated with her snoring, while the narrow rhombus belonging to Xin Beibei remained motionless, like decorative wallpaper.

Ke Xun slowly became sleepy, and the silhouette-like window became a monotonous hypnosis, as if everything in front of him was just a painting, frozen in time.

Because of his habit of being alert in previous paintings, Ke Xun seemed to have one eye open even while sleeping: especially without Mu Yiran nearby, he lost that feeling of being able to depend and rely on others.

So, when the room fell into complete darkness again, Ke Xun suddenly woke up.

He first noticed that the silhouette-like window was gone, the dot-pattern Guo Lixia beside him had disappeared, and Xin Beibei’s on the other bed similarly couldn’t be seen. The wave pattern on his own clothes had also disappeared without a trace, as if he’d been splashed with thick ink.

He was grateful that Guo Lixia’s intermittent snoring was still fluctuating in the room.

Everyone was still there, just covered by this sudden darkness.

If flowing water had a source of water, and light had a source from which it shone, then this darkness should also have its own source. In Ke Xun’s imagination, the origin of this darkness was something like the ink sac of a squid, which would be sprayed out when needed, dying the world black.

Ke Xun stayed motionless in the dark, carefully using his ears and nose to try and distinguish the differences in this world, so when a corner of the window suddenly appeared in the dark, Ke Xun almost screamed.

The silhouette-like window frame suddenly seemed to gain a complicated design, then there were more and more patterns stretching out from the corner, as if a magical plant was growing in the dark, and gradually half of the window was exposed, continuing until the entire window was revealed.

Everything in the room appeared again: the two gray beds and the three people with different patterns on them.

Ke Xun’s eyes stared unblinkingly at the window. If he guessed correctly, the so-called source of that blackness should be that window.

The window itself never fully appeared. The inside section was now the same darkness of the room, and that shadow seemed to wriggle, slowly changing shape.

Ke Xun felt like something was blocking the window, but his line of sight was hindered, and he couldn’t tell whether or not that black thing was inside or outside the window.

The darkness within the window gradually narrowed, and at last formed a thin black needle-like point.

The entire window was finally revealed, but Ke Xun noticed that the decorations on the frame were no longer the same as before.

The pattern change seemed to occur only in the middle section of the window frame. Ke Xun blinked — because he’d concentrated too hard, his eyes were a little sore — and upon looking closer, he noticed that there were many other designs hidden in the lattice pattern. Ke Xun tried his best to distinguish the other shapes inside, but because everything was black and white, his vision went blurry.

The complex pattern on the frame was similar to that black band on the window just now, constantly changing shape, but unlike the slow calmness of that shadow, the design seemed always in danger of collapsing into nothing.

Ke Xun steeled himself and quietly got out of bed, wanting to get a closer look at the frame design. He was finally able to make out some moon-shaped patterns peeking out from the gap between the window frame; the small densely packed crescent moons scattered between each lattice crack.

Ke Xun looked until he felt dizzy, and once he returned to bed, that complicated pattern had disappeared.

What was certain was that since the design had appeared outside the lattice frame, similarly, that darkness just now must have been outside the window.

Could something have passed by outside? According to the moving trajectory of that object, it was moving from right to left, therefore the next window it goes through should be that purple room next door: the room of Mu Yiran and Wei Dong.

As for where that thing began and ended, it was still unclear…..

Regardless, the bedroom had been restored to its original form again.

Ke Xun felt like he’d experienced an “Oscar-winning animated short film” kind of night.

When they opened their eyes early in the morning, everyone was a little uncomfortable with the brilliant colors filling their vision. Xin Beibei got up first, patting the blue pillows and placing them neatly on the bed.

The beautiful sky blue rhombus on Xin Beibei’s white skirt greatly complemented the golden shadow under her feet.

The familiar music sounded again, and the sweet voice of the NPC came as promised: “Good morning everyone! Please go to the lobby on the first floor to enjoy a delicious breakfast! After breakfast, please continue to enjoy the beauty of hard work. Today’s task is still three big jars of berry storage. Please keep in mind, don’t pollute the colors!” The NPC seemed to slow down, and suddenly spoke in a strange tone: “Of course, the room without any color can now be freely entered and exited, so everyone do as you like.”

Ke Xun’s heart sank, and hurriedly got out of bed before putting on his own sea-blue cloth shoes: “Everyone, quickly get up, something must’ve happened outside.”

Sure enough, many people in the hall had gathered in front of the door with a strange expression on their faces.

The door was the red door, which had been in the center. At this time, the door that was supposed to be bright red had now turned into a lifeless gray-white.

It was in this red room that He Yi and Zhang Tianwei, who had both made mistakes, lived in.

Qin Ci stepped forward, preparing to open the door.

Xin Beibei cried out: “Don’t recklessly enter! This door is just too weird!”

Shi Zhendong came over to comfort his girlfriend: “The NPC already said that the door without any color can be freely entered.”

The door was opened by Qin Ci, and the first to walk in were Ke Xun, Mu Yiran, and the other ‘old members’ who’d already entered paintings. Shi Zhendong followed closely behind and told his girlfriend, “You girls wait at the door, don’t come in.”

Xin Beibei obediently stayed at the door, but Guo Lixia went in without even thinking, followed by Mi Wei and Yening Chenyi.

The women’s screams of horror soon erupted inside the room.

Xin Beibei trembled with fright in the hall, moving further and further away from the gray door.

If she had the courage to walk in, she would find that it wasn’t just the door that lost color, but the whole room had become pale and void, including the corpse lying on the bed.

He Yu’s corpse almost blended in with the pale sheets. He had his eyes open, and even his eyes had become transparent like glass spheres. The hair and eyelashes were similar to plaster, completely transformed into a dilapidated off-white.

The several college students couldn’t help crying. There was sadness in their tears, but more than that, there was fear.

Guo Lixia slowly sidled up to team leader Ke Xun’s side: “Could it be a dummy?”

Ke Xun: “….”

Mi Wei was the first to stop crying: “What about Senior Tianwei? Where is he?”

Indeed, this room should have had two people, but now only He Yu’s body was found, but Zhang Tianwei was missing.

Yening Chenyi wiped her red eyes: “Let’s hurry and find Senior Zhang. If we find him, we should be able to find out the truth! Maybe Senior Zhang was caught by someone because he witnessed what happened?”

Everyone felt like Yening Cenyi’s analysis was a bit too naive, but they couldn’t bear to expose it.

Ke Xun suddenly spoke: “Xiao Ye’s right, Zhang Tianwei should have been dragged away by something.”

Mu Yiran’s deep eyes met Ke Xun’s: “Did you notice something strange with the window last night too?”

Ke Xun nodded and asked everyone: “Those of you who remember, what was the pattern on Zhang Tianwei’s smock?”

Truly worthy of being art majors, these students were all very sensitive to patterns. Everyone said: “His clothes were full of moon motifs; crescent moons, in red.”

Guo Lixia couldn’t help but ridicule when she heard this: “According to old folktales, when there’s a red moon in the night sky, evil spirits will appear.”

Everyone knew that the red moon was a natural phenomenon, but at the moment, they all hesitated after hearing Guo Lixia’s statement. After all, in ancient China, the blood moon was indeed unlucky, and in some European legends, the red moon would strengthen evil creatures.

Zhu Haowen bluntly said: “I don’t think the death last night had anything to do with clothing pattern. The main reason is obvious, as someone in the room had made a mistake. The deceased not only recklessly entered another room, but also didn’t wash their hands.”

The newcomers were silent, finally face-to-face with the cost of violating the rules for the first time.

Miao Zipei bravely inspected ‘He Yu’ laying on the bed: “Don’t you think there’s something wrong with his body? Like auntie Guo said just now, it really does look like a dummy. Although, calling it a dummy wouldn’t be accurate. Instead, the body seems to resemble that of a 2D person — he’s completely lost any shadows!”

As soon as she said this, everyone finally had the courage to observe the corpse. The strange paleness of the body had initially caused some psychological disturbance amongst the group, causing them to not want to continue looking. Now they could see that it had lost all sense of three-dimensionality, and the shadow was no longer present on the same plane of existence.

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A: I’m ngl, I spent half of the time translating this chapter extremely lost QAQ

H: You did a good job, jiayou!