Chapter 41 Picture Frame
In the real world, encountering something like this would probably make one think they were overly sensitive and overthinking things. But this wasn't the real world, but rather a strange place within. Lin Qiushi had to think a little harder. He carefully observed the window, making sure the figure in the bushes had vanished before returning to bed. This time, he didn't dare turn off the lights, instead leaving them on and attempting to sleep.
Although he was very sleepy, after Lin Qiushi tried to recall the safe feeling he had when he was lying next to Ruan Nanzhu, he actually fell into a drowsy sleep - Ruan Nanzhu really was an expert in sleeping pills, just thinking about it had an effect.
The next morning, Lin Qiushi was awakened by the alarm clock. After a quick wash, he planned to go find Ruan Nanzhu. He hadn't slept well the previous night, and dark circles still hung under his eyes. The face in the mirror still looked unfamiliar, but if one looked closely, one could still sense a slight resemblance to his real self. Lin Qiushi changed his clothes and knocked on Ruan Nanzhu's door.
The door creaked open, but the person who opened it was Tan Zaozao. Her face looked even uglier than Lin Qiushi's, as if she hadn't been able to sleep all night. She said good morning to Lin Qiushi in a bad mood.
"Good morning." Ruan Nanzhu seemed to have just gotten up and washed up, with water droplets still on his chin. He had just walked out of the bathroom when he heard Lin Qiushi's voice and turned around to greet him.
Tan Zaozao went to the bathroom angrily.
Lin Qiushi was puzzled, but he soon discovered the reason why Tan Zaozao was angry - this girl actually slept on the floor in the room all night, and the place where she slept was right next to Ruan Nanzhu's big bed.
"She slept on the floor?" Lin Qiushi stared at the mat for a few seconds.
"What else?" Ruan Nanzhu said, "I don't like sleeping in the same bed with others."
Lin Qiushi: “…” He recalled the days and nights he had slept with Ruan Nanzhu. Wait, why did this statement sound weird?
Ruan Nanzhu said, "Except you."
Lin Qiushi felt a little embarrassed after hearing this, so he changed the subject: "How did you sleep last night?"
"Very good." Ruan Nanzhu replied, "The bed is nice."
This bed is indeed very large and soft, and very comfortable to lie on. However, no matter how comfortable it is, I am afraid that few people can enjoy it as calmly as Ruan Nanzhu.
After washing her face and brushing her teeth, Tan Zaozao kept mumbling, saying that Ruan Nanzhu was such a bad person, for making her sleep on the floor, causing her to ache all over...
Ruan Nanzhu ignored her at first, but when she continued to talk, he said indifferently, "How about you sleep on the bed tonight?"
Tan Zaozao: "Really? Really?"
Ruan Nanzhu: "I can go and squeeze in with Linlin."
Tan Zaozao: "..." You two dogs. Of course she didn't dare agree. Yesterday, she realized something was wrong, so she ran to Ruan Nanzhu's room in fear and spent the night there. If she really dared to sleep alone, why would she come here and lie on the floor?
Breakfast was served upstairs. Lin Qiushi had originally assumed the castle contained only the butler and the owner, but he hadn't expected several servants. After delivering breakfast, these servants quickly departed, their faces expressionless, their numbness making them look more like emotionless puppets than human beings.
While having breakfast, the host whom I met yesterday also appeared. She was still wearing the same black long dress and the strange hat. She sat by the window, grabbing the food with her big white hands and slowly stuffing it into her mouth.
No one dared to talk to her. The atmosphere in the restaurant was eerily quiet.
Fortunately, after dinner, the hostess disappeared again. According to the housekeeper, she must have gone to the studio on the rooftop. The housekeeper said that the next part of the day was free time, and that there were a few places everyone should avoid: the studio on the rooftop, and the warehouse on the sixth floor where unfinished paintings were stored. They could look around freely elsewhere, but be aware that the hostess didn't like anyone touching her paintings...
Everyone carefully wrote down what he said, and some people in the team even took careful notes for fear of missing a word.
After the butler finished speaking, he left, leaving ten people in the restaurant.
"I want to go out and take a look. Is there anyone coming with me?" Someone in the team started to stand up and wanted to go out to look for clues to the key.
So the two teams left one after another, basically in groups of two.
Lin Qiushi was about to invite Ruan Nanzhu when he saw the new girl shyly approach him and whisper, "Little brother, do you have teammates? Can you guide me? I'm so scared..." The girl was quite good-looking, and her pitiful appearance truly inspired pity. It was a pity for Ruan Nanzhu, a professional cross-dresser. His acting skills were far superior to the girl before him. Even Lin Qiushi could tell that Ruan Nanzhu remained calm and even craved another hard-boiled egg.
"No." Ruan Nanzhu refused so bluntly.
"But I'm really scared. I will try my best not to hold you back." The little girl began to cry again.
Ruan Nanzhu raised his eyebrows and gave Tan Zaozao a look in private.
Tan Zaozao understood what she meant, stood up, walked to the girl's side, and said, "I'm sorry, I made an appointment with him yesterday, you should find someone else."
When the little girl saw Tan Zaozao, a hint of indignation appeared in her eyes. She was about to say something else, but Ruan Nanzhu had already stood up and waved to Tan Zaozao, indicating that they should set off.
Tan Zaozao followed him out the door together.
Lin Qiushi, who was sitting nearby, also found an excuse to leave. It seemed that Ruan Nanzhu's disguise as a girl did have many advantages. At least he didn't have to worry about girls approaching him to form a team and it would be difficult to refuse.
"There's something wrong with that new guy." Ruan Nanzhu said this after he went out.
"What's wrong?" Tan Zaozao didn't notice. "She cried so miserably yesterday..."
Ruan Nanzhu glanced at Tan Zaozao and said, "Do you think someone so timid would dare to team up with me?"
Tan Zaozao raised an eyebrow: "That's right."
Ruan Nanzhu's beauty isn't gentle; on the contrary, it's filled with aggression and alienation. He's like a gorgeous flower in the jungle, using its dazzling colors to tell others that it's poisonous. While he might appear vulnerable when dressed as a woman, Ruan Nanzhu, dressed in men's clothing, clearly isn't used to putting himself in a weak position.
He sat there, merely raising his eyebrows, and people couldn't help but retreat, not daring to approach. Even Lin Qiushi wouldn't consider teaming up with someone like him.
"What if lust blinded her mind?" Tan Zaozao walked with them while observing the paintings beside them. "Who knows."
Ruan Nanzhu said nonchalantly: "There are no more than ten people who have taken the initiative to team up with me, and none of them are newbies. She will not be an exception." Pretending to be a newbie has advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that it is not easy to alert others. The disadvantage is that once the identity is discovered, it will become the target of exclusion by the entire team. After all, no one knows what the purpose of that person pretending to be a newbie is.
The castle was enormous; the second and first floors alone contained countless rooms. As they walked from the second to the third floor, they noticed the only commonality was that every part of the castle was covered in paintings of all kinds, even the restrooms.
Lin Qiushi didn't know much about art, nor did he know how well these paintings were done, but the only thing he was sure of was that these paintings made people feel very uncomfortable. If possible, he would rather cover them all with white cloth.
"Should we not touch the painting?" Tan Zaozao also remembered the housekeeper's words.
"No, it's not." Ruan Nanzhu said, "Did you notice his choice of words?"
"Master doesn't like it?" Lin Qiushi still remembered the housekeeper's original words.
"Yes, it's that the master doesn't like it, not that he absolutely cannot touch it." Ruan Nanzhu stopped in front of a picture and suddenly frowned.
"What's wrong?" Tan Zaozao saw that his face looked wrong.
"It's okay." Ruan Nanzhu said, "Do you know anything about painting?"
Tan Zaozao shook his head: "I don't know, I haven't learned it."
Ruan Nanzhu said, "I don't understand either. It seems that the three of us can't tell anything from the painting. Let's go to the room upstairs and take a look."
Lin Qiushi nodded, and the three of them began to walk up the stairs.
The stairs are made of wood and make crisp tapping sounds when you step on them. There is more than one way to the top of the building. There are stone stairs on both sides of the castle that can be used to climb from the first floor to the top floor.
Most of the rooms in the castle were locked, with only a small number open. These open rooms were almost all filled with various paintings, still depicting people and scenery. However, just as they were discussing going to the studio on the rooftop to take a look, a scream suddenly came from downstairs.
It was a woman's scream, which stopped immediately. When others arrived, the screaming person was gone, leaving only an empty staircase.
"Who was shouting just now?" asked a middle-aged man in the group.
"I don't know. We just arrived too," Lin Qiushi said. "Which floor did you come from?"
The middle-aged man said, "The third floor."
Lin Qiushi said, "We're on the sixth floor. The screams must be coming from between the third and fourth floors..."
Because of the sound, most people gradually arrived at the location of the scream, and soon they discovered the identity of the person screaming.
"Her name is Xiao Su, and she's my new teammate." The man was speaking, but his expression was filled with fear. "She said she was going to the bathroom, but she disappeared."
"Which floor are you on?" Lin Qiushi asked.
"Top floor," the man swallowed. "There's no toilet on the top floor, so she tried to come down..." Instead, she appeared between the third and fourth floors and vanished after a scream. In the world beyond the door, disappearance meant death, yet no one knew how she had triggered the conditions for her death.
"Let's look for it again." Ruan Nanzhu said, "What if it's just a misunderstanding?"
It seemed that this was the only way, but the man who lost his companion in just a few dozen minutes seemed to be greatly shocked, and joined the other two-person group trembling.
Ruan Nanzhu glanced at Lin Qiushi and said, "Should we go to the rooftop and take a look?"
Lin Qiushi said, "Okay."
Tan Zaozao muttered beside them, "You guys really just run to wherever there's danger, aren't you afraid of anything happening?"
Ruan Nanzhu said nonchalantly, "If something goes wrong, it can happen anywhere. The important thing is to get the key and get out as soon as possible. This kind of thinking is a misunderstanding of you newbies. Some things can't be avoided by hiding."
Tan Zaozao snorted and said nothing. These things are easier said than done. If one could face death and ghosts as calmly as Ruan Nanzhu, who knows how many dangerous and desperate situations one would have to endure in the sect.
They went up all the way and soon reached the eighth floor of the castle, which was the roof.
The rooftop was an old attic, still filled with paintings, but these paintings seemed slightly different from those downstairs. Lin Qiushi observed them for a while before realizing, "Are these paintings new?"
Ruan Nanzhu sniffed and said, "It should be. There's also the smell of paint."
Tan Zaozao suddenly stopped in front of a painting. A hint of doubt appeared on her face. After a moment's hesitation, she said, "Come and take a look. Isn't your painting a bit strange?"
Lin Qiushi walked behind Tan Zaozao and saw the strange painting that Tan Zaozao mentioned.
It is indeed very strange. The painting depicts a woman's back in the usual distorted style. The woman's back is infinitely stretched, circling around the stairs again and again, like a huge whirlpool.
"What do you think it looks like?" asked Tan Zaozao.
"A woman's... back?" If you only look at the content, it is basically difficult to recognize what is in the painting. However, both Tan Zaozao and Lin Qiushi thought of the same thing the moment they saw the painting - a terrified woman climbing the stairs. She seemed to be being chased by something, and her back revealed an unspeakable fear.
"Newly painted." Ruan Nanzhu's voice came, "The paint hasn't even dried yet."
Tan Zaozao and Lin Qiushi exchanged glances, both thinking the same thing. Tan Zaozao touched the goose bumps on his arms and forced a smile, "This, this couldn't be..."
"Probably," Ruan Nanzhu said, "You can ask that girl's male companion to come over and take a look." His gaze fixed on the painting, he said slowly, "See if this is his missing teammate."
…
Xiao Su just wanted to go to the toilet.
She came down from the seventh floor and hurriedly looked for the toilet on the sixth floor. There were many toilets in the castle, and she soon found the place she was looking for at the end of the sixth floor.
After entering the restroom, Xiao Su found a stall and was about to sit down when she noticed a strange portrait hanging on the wall in front of her. It was of a woman wearing a black hat and a long black gown. Her face was pale, her eyes half-closed, and raindrops slid down the brim of her hat to her chin. Her face was pale and long, giving her an inexplicable sense of creepiness. Most of the paintings in the castle were abstract, and it was almost impossible to discern the content without knowing the background. However, the content of the scroll before her was so clear that Xiao Su even wondered at first glance if it was a self-portrait of the castle's mistress.
This painting might hold an important clue... Xiao Su stood up and walked to the front of the scroll, wanting to examine it carefully. However, as if possessed, Xiao Su stretched out her hand towards the scroll as she approached it. When she regained consciousness, her palm was already pressed against the scroll.
"Ah!!" Xiao Su was suddenly startled and withdrew her hand. She felt her hand was wet and had a smell of earth after the rain. When she looked up again, the scroll had changed. Xiao Su widened her eyes and looked at the painting in front of her in shock... The painting was still the same painting, but the pale-faced woman in the painting was gone.
Seeing this, Xiao Su no longer dared to stay and turned around and ran away. She wanted to go upstairs to find her teammates. Her feet made a series of rapid noises as they stepped on the sturdy wooden stairs.
"Tada, tada, tada." - The crisp sound of footsteps echoed in the ancient castle. Xiao Su ran and ran, and ran around the stairs for a long time, but the stairs in front of her seemed to be an endless cycle. All the scenes were frozen, and only the stairs in front of her kept extending forward.
"Ah, ah, ah." Xiao Su was panting heavily, her whole body covered in sweat. Her physical strength was exhausted and she was almost unable to run.
However, the clattering footsteps continued, and Xiao Su could smell the rain again. She trembled and turned her head to see a dark shadow standing quietly at the entrance of the stairs. No, it wasn't a black shadow. It was a woman dressed in black. Her body was soaked by the rain, her face was extremely pale, and in her right hand she held a huge picture frame. Her black pupils were like two black holes, staring at Xiao Su in front of her with dead silence.
Xiao Su's whole body was trembling. She opened her mouth to speak but couldn't. She used her hands and feet, and used up her last bit of strength to crawl forward crying.
"Tada tada." The footsteps sounded again, but this time the footsteps were neither fast nor slow, just following Xiao Su.
Xiao Su was covered in sweat, as if she was drenched in water. She had used up all her strength and could only lie on the ground like a puddle of mud, unable to move.
The woman walked in front of her. The room was dry, but water droplets were flowing down her body, and some even dripped onto Xiao Su's body.
Xiao Su looked up and saw the woman took out a picture frame. An indescribable twisted smile appeared on her pale face, and her mouth, painted with red lipstick, grinned into a terrifying arc. Then, the woman waved the picture frame and smashed it down at her.
"Ahhhhhhh!!!" Xiao Su let out a shrill scream, and darkness attacked her eyes. She felt her body getting cold and her consciousness became blurred... Everything was over.
…
The male companion downstairs quickly returned to the rooftop and confirmed what Lin Qiushi and the others had seen.
"That's her, that's her!!" The man started screaming the moment he saw the scroll, his expression filled with terror. "That's exactly what she's wearing!"
"What if this painting was done yesterday?" someone in the crowd asked tremblingly, "Are you so sure?"
"It can't be yesterday!!" The man's expression was almost broken. He wanted to touch the scroll, but he didn't dare to reach out. "She wasn't wearing this dress yesterday! She changed into this dress today!!"
They were indeed provided with new clothes in the castle, and they were very beautiful. Lin Qiushi also saw those clothes in his own closet, but almost everyone else in the team changed into them - after all, this was a horror world, and who knew what would happen if they changed clothes casually.
I just don’t know why this girl named Xiaosu suddenly changed her clothes.
"She was turned into a painting." The man murmured softly, "She was turned into a painting..."
"What were you doing before she went to the bathroom?" Faced with such a horrifying fact, Ruan Nanzhu remained remarkably calm. He said, "Tell me in detail."
The man trembled and said, "I didn't do anything. I didn't do anything at all. I just came here and looked at the paintings. Then she went to the bathroom..."
Ruan Nanzhu: "Are there any special paintings?"
The man shook his head.
Ruan Nanzhu said, "Let's go to the restroom on the sixth floor."
So they ran to the women's restroom on the sixth floor.
After checking around, there was nothing special about the toilet, but Lin Qiushi always felt that something was wrong. Seeing Ruan Nanzhu frowning, it was obvious that he felt the same way.
"Wait." Lin Qiushi suddenly remembered something. He looked around and finally determined that something was wrong. "Why are there no paintings in this room?"
As soon as these words were spoken, everyone realized that something was wrong.
There is almost no place in the castle without paintings. Whether it is the bathroom, bedroom, study, or corridor, there is always a framed scroll hanging in almost every corner.
But the toilet in front of me didn't have the painting. I searched every corner but couldn't find any trace of it.
"Are you sure there aren't any?" Ruan Nanzhu said, "Is it that there were never any, or was the painting that was there taken away by someone?"
No one knows the answer to this question, and the only person who knows the answer has become part of the painting.
Deathly silence spread among the crowd.
The ringing of a bell in the castle broke the silence. It was the bell announcing lunch time. Everyone heard it and started walking towards the second floor.
Although the atmosphere is scary, you still have to eat what you need to eat and sleep what you need to sleep.
Today's lunch is still steak.
No one had much appetite, except Ruan Nanzhu.
Ruan Nanzhu's movements were graceful and smooth, and he managed to make cutting steak look artistic.
Perhaps because he was eating so deliciously, everyone's eyes were focused on him. Ruan Nanzhu was obviously used to being the center of attention. He finished his steak calmly, wiped his mouth, and said, "Why? Not to your taste?"
Lin Qiushi: "No... I just have no appetite."
"Enjoy your meal." Ruan Nanzhu looked around and smiled. "Maybe this will be our last meal."
Everyone: “…”
Lin Qiushi looked helpless: "It's unlucky to say that."
Ruan Nanzhu: "Can I avoid dying if I say a few auspicious words?" He asked, "Congratulations on your prosperity? Live a hundred years?"
Lin Qiushi didn't know whether to laugh or cry, but what Ruan Nanzhu said did make sense. Death is something that will never change with people. It's better to calm down and enjoy every minute of life - this is the truth, but few people can do it.
With Ruan Nanzhu's kind comfort, Lin Qiushi had no choice but to eat a few more bites.
The hostess did not join their lunch this time. She arrived late when they were about to leave and passed by everyone.
Although it was only a side view, Lin Qiushi still noticed that her pale face had a look of satisfaction, as if she had just eaten something delicious. The corners of her eyes and eyebrows were full of joy, although this kind of joy would only look terrifying on that strange face.
"Let's take a nap." Ruan Nanzhu suggested after lunch.
"Okay." Tan Zaozao didn't sleep well yesterday and felt tired all morning.
Who knew Ruan Nanzhu glanced at her and said, "Are you still sleeping on the floor?"
Tan Zaozao: "...Can't you just let me sleep on the bed?"
Ruan Nanzhu: "You can sleep in the bed in your own room. As for my bed." His tone was calm and cold. "You are not qualified yet."
Tan Zaozao: “…” Ruan Nanzhu, you son of a bitch.
The author has something to say: Tan Zaozao: Why are you targeting me?
Ruan Nanzhu: I feel very bad when I can’t act coquettishly anymore.
Tan Zaozao: I let you wear women's clothes!
Ruan Nanzhu: Humph, whether he wears women’s clothes or not, he must like it.
Lin Qiushi: ...What are you talking about?
Thanks to the following babies for their mines, grenades, and rocket launchers. Special thanks to "Did you sleep early tonight?" for their mines x46, shallow water bomb x1, and grenade x6.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
