Paintings of Terror

Chapter 93: Putting the Cart Before the Horse

For the duration of their work time, Guo Lixia and Ke Xun immersed themselves in their work.

Guo Lixia didn’t object too much to Ke Xun’s proposal to board the windows shut, which made Ke Xun more firmly believed that the so-called shadow bewitching would only work under special circumstances and that it wouldn’t control the person at all times.

The bewitched person’s abilities were more based on the person’s physical fitness and IQ. Ke Xun even felt that, fortunately, the two people selected by the shadow weren’t very powerful. If the person being bewitched was Mu Yiran, he feared that it would be impossible for anyone to escape the painting.

For the sake of caution, when everyone finished, they gathered in the lobby and showed their clean hands and pockets.

Ke Xun shared his idea of boarding up the windows, and after some discussion, everyone agreed that this might help.

But the most important thing at the moment was to find the signature. The first place they’ll need to go was to the maze and, along the way, they could also gather the tools in the maze rooms.

Before they took action, Ke Xun went to the bathroom, where he and Mu Yiran “unexpectedly” met.

Mu Yiran showed Ke Xun his beautiful profile. “Did you make up the plan to board up the window to deceive someone?”

“Yiran also knows me well.” Ke Xun couldn’t help but bared his teeth in a grin.

“This kind of bewitchment is exactly what I thought. Once the time is right and the condition is right, this person will probably receive instructions from the depths of her soul.” Mu Yiran washed his hands.

“But I still don’t understand. When was Guo Lixia deceived?” Hao Wen’er’s voice suddenly sounded.

Ke Xun then saw Zhu Haowen in the bathroom mirror, and he suddenly remembered that yesterday, Xin Beibei had cursed Zhu Haowen as a gay. As someone who actually was gay, he couldn’t help but feel a little bit of sympathy for him.

“I have also carefully speculated about this period of time,” Mu Yiran said. “It couldn’t have happened in the morning when they were working. I asked Wei Dong, and he hadn’t left our purple room all morning, so Guo Lixia couldn’t have had the chance to become polluted by purple.”

“How can we be sure that she was polluted by purple?” Wei Dong’s voice suddenly rang out, right before he squeezed over to wash his hands.

Ke Xun tilted his head to look at Wei Dong. It was unclear where he got his experience from, but basically, he could tell at a glance whether a man was straight or gay. He instantly felt that, now that Wei Dong’s face had also appeared in the mirror, the entire image wasn’t very harmonious…

Zhu Haowen directly answered Wei Dong’s question. “Guo Lixia must have been polluted by purple because she’s blue. Only blue and purple can form indigo.”

“Why must it be indigo…oh—” Wei Dong thought of the answer under everyone’s encouraging eyes. “Because from yesterday until the Mi Wei incident at noon, the clock had always been indigo—Guo Lixia’s blue polluted by purple also happened to be indigo! The change from indigo to indigo was equivalent to being unchanged, so that’s why we didn’t realize it!”

Ke Xun put on an expression of “children can still be taught.” “The painting is very cunning. This underhandedness gave us the illusion that no one had contaminated the color and that we had no betrayers among us, causing everyone to relax their vigilance.”

Indeed, it was precisely because of this relaxation that resulted in everyone trying to appease Guo Lixia.

Zhu Haowen said, “If you break down the time, Guo Lixia’s pollution could only have happened before breakfast.”

Mu Yiran added, “After getting up in the morning, everyone went to the round tower to check on Xin Beibei’s body. At that time, everyone was together. It’s unlikely that something happened there. According to this analysis, the most likely time for an accident was after Shi Zhendong and Guo Lixia left everyone.”

Wei Dong was confused, “When had these two left us?”

Ke Xun also recalled the scene in the morning. “Indeed, Shi Zhendong was in a bad mood and went downstairs alone. Sister Guo was worried and said she wanted to console him, so she followed him downstairs. When we got to the second floor, we also saw Sister Guo there, earnestly trying to console him.”

Everyone was silent. It seemed that this time period was the most likely.

“I’ll ask Shi Zhendong about the specific situation at that time,” Zhu Haowen said.

After everyone finally assembled in the lobby, Miao Zipei proposed to untie Mi Wei. “Maybe Mi Wei can help us look for the signature.”

Indeed, Mi Wei should be the one who most desperately wanted to find the signature.

As everyone was hesitating, Shi Zhendong said, “The incident that happened at noon today was unexpected. However, we must focus when looking for the signature, and it would be impossible for us to do so if we’re distracted by looking after other people. So…you’ll still have to be wronged for a while.” Shi Zhendong looked at Mi Wei with sincerity. “Please wait for our good news in the hall.”

Mi Wei showed a mocking sneer and didn’t say anything.

“Or, let me accompany her. She’ll be lonely in the hall all by herself.” Guo Lixia seemed to want to atone for herself.

Mi Wei finally snorted. “No need.”

Guo Lixia’s words reminded Ke Xun. “We can’t leave someone alone in the hall!”

So Wei Dong and Miao Zipei stayed to guard Mi Wei, while the others went to the maze together.

Wei Dong thought that staying in the hall would be a leisurely errand. At the very least, he wouldn’t need to enter the tunnel. But he ended up being forced to listen to Mi Wei’s last words.

Mi Wei confessed her last words to Miao Zipei. “Just tell my mother that I have gone to study abroad as an exchange student, and videos are not allowed there. Please imitate me and send emails to my mother in the future…Anyway my mother doesn’t have me in her heart, only my brother. I haven’t been home for the New Year since I started college two years ago.”

Wei Dong wanted to interrupt her several times, wanting to tell her that the reality of an incident so severe as death could not be cloaked away by making up reasons. But he held back and remained silent.

This way, Mi Wei could “travel” more at ease.

Her last words accounted for more than an hour, and for the remaining time, they discussed the painting. Miao Zipei said, “The shadows in Fauvist paintings are often expressed in various colors, which is very consistent with certain settings in this painting’s shadow. The shadow may need colors and could get it by taking our colors.”

Wei Dong thought that his analysis made sense. “Our daily task is to store berries. In fact, to put it plainly, we’re basically storing colors. It seems that the position of colors in this painting is very important.” He added with a helpless sigh, “Do you think, if we really nail up the windows with wooden boards, we can block the shadow?”

Miao Zipei didn’t have an answer to this question, so he turned to Mi Wei.

Mi Wei shed tears again. “I think that the people who meet the conditions of death will die tonight. This has nothing to do with windows. However, those wooden boards should be able to block the transportation of the body, so at least the person might avoid Xin Beibei and Zhang Tianwei’s tragedy.”

Although Wei Dong’s work was more focused on art designs that can cause early onset of balding, he was still an alumni of the Academy of Fine Arts. Therefore, he had some common language with these two people. “The solutions to the first few paintings are in line with the original intention of the author, and so there’s a large connection between the two. What do you think the author of this painting wanted to express?”

Miao Zipei thought for a moment and said, “Rong Rang is a very young painter. He has only emerged in the past two years. He relies a great deal on the unconventional Fauvism revival painting style, but due to his obsessive worship of Fauvism, he often scorned other schools.”

Wei Dong looked down at the brightly colored shadow at his feet. “It’s clear that this painter is very twisted. You should have seen the original painting ‘Shadow.’ What is it about?”

“It depicts some very abstract expressions. The person was like a silhouette, but had a very gorgeous figure. The colorful and thick lines that outlined the person, I think these are the author’s way of depicting shadows,” Miao Zipei expressed his views.

“You said that the figure is like a silhouette?” Wei Dong asked.

“Yes, the person had a somewhat printmaking effect and looked like black and white type of pattern. Or maybe it’s just a pure black human figure.” After he said this, Miao Zipei seemed to have realized something. “Speaking like this, isn’t the usage of shadow in this painting tantamount to putting the cart before the horse?”

Mi Wei’s spiritless eyes also brightened. “Is this the painting’s meaning? The shadow is the master, and the physical body is the shadow’s vassel!”

The other two nodded, thinking that Mi Wei had hit the point.

“Although we understand this, how does it help us solve the painting? Where can the painter’s signature be?” Miao Zipei was still helpless.

“What’s the special significance of the maze in the painting?” Wei Dong asked.

“This isn’t clear. Maybe the painter admires ancient Greek culture. Maybe the painter wants to use the labyrinth to express wisdom. Even now, some Europeans still like to draw labyrinthine maps, because they think the labyrinth represents wisdom,” Miao Zipei said.

They were still discussing this when the others finally returned.

Wei Dong hurriedly asked, “How was it? What’s in the underground passageway? Does it connect to the castle?”

Everyone looked exhausted. Even Guo Lixia was panting tired, and who knew what role this woman played in it.

Qin Ci wiped away his sweat and sat down. “The underground passageway does indeed lead to the castle. We went to every building in the castle, but they were all completely dark inside. Even when we turned on our mobile phones, we still couldn’t see anything inside at all.”

Ke Xun and several others temporarily put down the wooden boards and various tools they were carrying in the lobby. He said, “Right now, only the highest level of the circular building is left unexplored.”

Indeed, the circular building had six floors. The first three floors were filled with empty glass jars. The fourth floor was used as the representative of red, where Zhang Tianwei’s red color was squeezed out. The fifth floor was used as the blue representative, which was the place where Xin Beibei was stored.

In the morning, due to Xin Beibei’s decapitation incident, everyone was a little alarmed, and so they hadn’t gone up to the sixth floor to investigate.

“Okay, Yiran and I will make a trip to the sixth floor, so please board up the bedroom windows!”

Ke Xun’s proposal was unanimously approved by everyone.

As a result, Ke Xun and Mu Yiran were able to be “inseparable” and act alone with just the two of them.

But this trip was not pleasant. When they climbed the copper ladder outside the fourth floor to the fifth floor, they saw a frightening and confusing scene: in the open blue room, half of the blue liquid in the glass jar had disappeared, but Xin Beibei’s body was still inside.

Without the cover of the blue liquid, they could see her corpse clearly—there was only one meter left of her, as if her entire body had shrunken down.

Because of the failed rescue in the morning, Xin Beibei was now decapitated and so she remained in the glass jar.