Paintings of Terror

Chapter 2: Thirteen People

Translated by Eve

Edited by EB

Eve: Just updated the trigger warnings. While this novel isn’t that scary imo, it does get pretty gross sometimes. I’ll try to put spoiler warnings if I think something is particularly gross. But fair warning, proceed at your own risk.

The two of them cautiously headed in the direction of the village.

Ke Xun’s eyesight had always been very good. However, the distant village seemed fuzzy. He could only make out a rough outline, as if what he saw before him was a low resolution picture or ancient painting.

“What do you think happened to us…?” Wei Dong walked beside him, quivering. Talking helped lessen the fear in his chest. He kept scanning side to side. “Is this really not a dream? Do you think we transmigrated? Or what if we accidentally entered a parallel dimension? Do you think we’ll be able to make it back home?”

“Shh. Shut up for a bit.” Ke Xun lowered his voice. “The less we know about the situation we’re in, the calmer we have to be. Did you watch all those horror films in vain?”

“Fuck, why does it have to be horror films? Don’t scare me!” Wei Dong didn’t dare speak too loudly again. He also lowered his voice.

Ke Xun’s mind was also a mess.

The situation before them had emerged too abruptly and was too bizarre. Anyone would be dumbfounded, faced with this.

Wei Dong had already been scared out of his wits. They couldn’t both panic—one of them had to stay calm…or at least appear calm on the inside.

The two of them tried to make their steps as light as possible. In the stillness of the night, every movement sounded particularly loud. Furthermore, the darkness made it difficult to make out their surroundings. It felt like there was something or some sound just waiting to appear.

As they got closer to the village, the scenery around them began to clear up. Shrouded in the dark night fog, decrepit houses made of mud and grass gradually appeared before their eyes.

On the outskirts of the village stood seven or eight people.

“There’s people over there!” Wei Dong exclaimed quietly. There was surprise, fear and glee in his voice.

The fear was because they couldn’t confirm if those people were really “people.”

Ke Xun narrowed his eyes and took a look. The joy in his voice grew. “They’re human.”

He had seen someone fiddling with their phone.

The “cell phone club” was indeed the biggest group in the world. When people drove, they’d look at their phones. When people watched over their kids, they’d look at their phones. When people crossed the road, they’d look at their phones. After being hit by a car and falling onto the ground, the first thing people would do is look at their phone.

Even after coming to such a weird place, people were looking at their phones.

However, you couldn’t help but admit that wherever there were people using their phones, everything would seem to…matter less?

The two of them quickened their pace and ran over to the group of people.

“Hey, buddy! Do you know what’s going on? Does anyone know what’s going on?” Wei Dong hurried to question the young man who had been looking at them the whole time.

This was a twenty-something year-old man. He was also dressed in the same baggy white linen clothes. His hair had stayed in its original form, as had Ke Xun’s and Wei Dong’s. The sides of his head were shaved and he had a rather greasy pig tail tied to the back of his head.

“Nine, ten.” Pigtail counted. He then turned around to glance at the others. “We’re still missing three more so we’re going to have to keep waiting.”

“Dude, can you give me an explanation?” Wei Dong asked.

Ke Xun sized the people in the group up.

There were both males and females. Some were old and some looked young. There was a hefty middle-aged man with a beer belly, as well as a young, nervous-looking sixteen or seventeen years old school girl.

Without exception, everyone was dressed in these ancient-styled linen clothes.

Just who were they?

Pigtail glanced at Wei Dong and then glanced at Ke Xun. There was no expression on his face. “Wait. Three more people still have to show up. I’ll talk when we’re all here.”

Wei Dong looked at Ke Xun. Ke Xun gave him a look that said: let’s wait and see.

While waiting for some baffling reason, Ke Xun secretly observed his surroundings.

First, he looked at the person who had been fiddling with his phone.

It was a thirty-something year old man. He had on black-framed glasses and his head was perpetually lowered. The screen illuminated his face, casting a strange light on his numbed face.

Ke Xun felt up his own clothes and found his cellphone in the pocket of his pants.

This was even weirder. Their clothes had changed but everything he had on him was still there. Aside from his phone, he also had the key to his house and half a pack of gum.

It was like only the style and material of his clothes had changed.

——Just what the hell was this?

Ke Xun unlocked his phone with his fingerprint and saw that his phone was working again. However, he had no signal.

…Fuck.

This was the usual pattern in those dramatic movies: when you had to call for the police or someone else, your phone would have no signal. When you needed to drive away, your car would never start. When you had to open a door to escape, you’d never be able to find the key quickly.

Slipping his phone back into his pocket, Ke Xun’s eyes scanned the area around him again. His eyes couldn’t help but be drawn to the tallest man standing in the middle of the gaggle of people.

This person was like a crane in the middle of a flock of chicken, not only in height, but in appearance.

He had fair skin, handsome eyes, a cold and stern expression, and a calm aura around him. No matter how many people were in the crowd with him, anyone would notice him first.

Even though he was wearing crude linen clothes, while other people looked like they were wearing mourning clothes, he looked like a scholar of the Wei or Jin dynasty, free and dissolute.

When this person sensed Ke Xun’s gaze, he turned to cast an indifferent look in his direction before looking away, unaffected. He then gazed out into the fuzzy distance.

Wei Dong couldn’t hold himself back. He looked around and then walked over to the sixteen/seventeen year old girl’s side and asked her in a hushed voice, “Hey, do you know what’s happening here?”

The female student’s face paled. “I don’t know either…I just arrived…none of them would tell me what’s going on…what should I do…I’m scared…I’m scared…” And then she began to sob.

When Wei Dong saw that he had made her cry, he promptly patted the girl on her shoulder. “Hey, hey, don’t cry. There’s so many people here, it’ll be fine. It’s fine. Everyone will look for a way back together. Don’t be afraid.”

“I just came to look at paintings. Why did this happen…?” The girl wiped away her tears and sobbed. “My mom told me to come back soon. If it weren’t for the rain, I wouldn’t have gone into the art gallery. Why did this happen to me…? It’s so….”

It was like she didn’t dare say the word ‘scary.’ Again, she started crying.

“You were looking at paintings? You also looked at the paintings at the gallery?” Wei Dong asked at once.

The girl nodded. “I came in to escape the rain. If I knew that, I wouldn’t have come in even if I would have gotten soaked!”

“Was it the Starry Sky Art Gallery?” Wei Dong continued asking.

The girl nodded again.

“Did you go into the erotic paintings exhibition hall?” Wei Dong added.

“What?” The girl looked up at him, face streaked with tears.

“Um, I meant that dark exhibition hall that didn’t have any windows. And all of the paintings were hard to make out, like someone had smeared shit over it or something.” Wei Dong made a gesture.

The girl nodded again. “It was that dark exhibition hall. As soon as I entered, the power went off. A light then suddenly lit up. After that I…found myself here somehow….” She started crying again.

Wei Dong turned to look at Ke Xun. “So everyone came in the same way.”

Ke Xun looked at the people in front of him. There was something really weird about them.

If everyone had come to this bizarre world in the same way, they should all be as flustered and dumbfounded as he and Wei Dong were. Even if they could suppress their panic, they would be asking questions like Wei Dong had been. They’d be trying to find a plausible explanation for all of this…. They wouldn’t act like they were now. Most of the people here were very calm and quiet. It was like….

It was like they were already used to this or that they already knew what had caused this.

Ke Xun made a signal with his eyes towards Wei Dong.

The two of them had grown up together and their relationship had always been very good. They had a deep tacit understanding between them. With just one look, they would be able to tell what the other was thinking.

Wei Dong closed his mouth and quietly stood next to Ke Xun. Intentionally or otherwise, they maintained a bit of a distance between themselves and the others.

About forty or so minutes later, three people came one after another through the withered grass of the desolate area outside of the village. One of them looked rather familiar. After pondering over it, Ke Xun realized that it was the jianbing vendor who was stationed outside the art gallery.

“I had fucking gone into the gallery to take a piss, how did I end up in here?!” The jianbing vendor looked at the crowd of people, bewildered.

“Everyone’s here.” Greasy pigtail ignored the three newcomers’ questions and turned to face the rest of the crowd. “We can go in now.”

“Where are we going? Where is this?!” The jianbing vendor grabbed Pigtail’s arm.

Pigtail glanced at him. There was still no expression on his face. There was something eerie about his voice. “We’re in a painting.”

“——A painting? What painting?” The jianbing vendor was baffled.

“Did you go into an art gallery? Did you enter an exhibition hall? Was there a glowing painting in the hall? Did you enter this place soon after?” Pigtail asked, losing his patience.

“Yes…yes. So what? That painting was rather odd….” The jianbing vendor seemed to have faintly realized something.

“You’re currently inside that painting!” Pigtail threw the vendor off and began to follow the others with large strides in the direction of the village.

Ke Xun and Wei Dong who had been listening in exchanged glances.

“Is this for real…?” Wei Dong was dazed. “How could we have entered a painting…? I don’t believe it….”

“I don’t believe it!” The three people who were last to come shouted together. “How is this possible? Where is this place? Who are you people? What do you guys want?!”

No one paid them any attention. The people in the front only care about heading towards the village.

Wei Dong looked at Ke Xun. “What should we do? Should we follow them or….”

Those people were weird. Who knew if it would be a good or bad thing to follow them?

Ke Xun looked around and then grit his teeth. “Let’s follow them.”

Two out of the three people who were last to arrive weren’t willing to go. They stayed there, kicking up a big fuss. Meanwhile, the jianbing vendor rushed over to follow the crowd. He grabbed onto one of the fellows in the group at the front. Glaring, he shouted, “Don’t go! You folks better clear up the situation right now! What the heck is happening?!”

The person he grabbed onto was that young man who stood out from the crowd.

That person paused his steps and turned his head to cast the vendor an indifferent glance. “We’re in a painting. As to why we’re in this painting, I don’t know. But if you want to go back to the original world, you’d best follow us.”

His voice reflected him as a person. It was very cold.

The jianbing vendor wanted to keep questioning him but the other man reached over to seize his wrist. Pained, the jianbing vendor was forced to let go.

These people didn’t seem to care whether those behind followed after or not. It was like the only reason they had waited for those forty minutes was to get enough people in the painting.

Ke Xun counted. There were thirteen people in total.

From what he understood from that man’s words, it seemed like that man had some kind of understanding about this strange, bizarre world. Furthermore, he seemed to also know how to get back to their original world. Ke Xun thought that if he and Wei Dong wanted to leave this place, he’d have to think of a way to get acquainted with him.

With this in mind, he chased after that person just now and started walking next to him. He turned his face to look at the man with a guileless expression on his face. With a soft voice, he said, “Hey dude, look, it’s the first time we’ve encountered something like this. It can’t be helped that we have some questions. Can you explain to us more in detail what happened? And about how we can leave this place?”

That man glanced at him coolly before his gaze shifted back to the front. His tone was still as cold as before. “If you want to leave here, there’s only one method: live and find the signature.

Signature?