Paintings of Terror

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.