Chapter 43 Decorating the Dream
The hostess's studio is on the seventh floor.
Xiao Su disappeared on the seventh floor, but according to the male companion who was with her, they did not enter the hostess's studio at that time, but just looked at other paintings nearby.
Ruan Nanzhu and Lin Qiushi climbed to the seventh floor and once again saw the corridor shrouded in shadows. The corridor was long, and the floor was still covered with thick carpet. The carpet stretched from the staircase to both sides, finally stopping in front of the studio at the end.
The studio is a little different from the other rooms. The door is covered tightly with a black cloth, as if the owner of the studio does not want light to pass through the gap in the door.
"Where is she now?" Tan Zaozao said, a little scared. She touched the goose bumps on her arms and whispered, "It would be so embarrassing if we went in and saw her drawing inside."
"I hope she's not in the studio right now," Ruan Nanzhu said. "You guys wait here. I'll go knock on the door first."
As he said he was going to knock on the door, he actually took three or two steps to the studio door and raised his hand to knock.
Tan Zaozao's eyes widened as she heard Ruan Nanzhu banging hard on the studio door. "Fuck—how can he be so bold?" she exclaimed.
Lin Qiushi was calmer than her: "He has always been very courageous."
After knocking on the door, there was no response from inside. Ruan Nanzhu knocked again and finally confirmed that no one was in the studio.
"Go in." Ruan Nanzhu said.
"Isn't it locked up there?" Tan Zaozao asked, "How do we get in?"
Ruan Nanzhu took out a hairpin from his pocket and bent down to work naturally.
Tan Zaozao: "..." She almost forgot that Ruan Nanzhu had this amazing skill.
After bending over and fiddling for a moment, the door lock clicked softly and Ruan Nanzhu opened it. He grasped the door handle and gently pulled it open. He first observed the interior of the studio from the doorway before waving to Lin Qiushi, "Come in with me. Tan Zaozao, you stand guard at the door. Call us if there's any movement."
Tan Zaozao nodded obediently.
Lin Qiushi took a step forward and entered the studio with Ruan Nanzhu.
The studio is not big and the lighting is very poor. The windows are tightly covered with black curtains. The only light is the small, not very bright lamp above the head. It takes a lot of effort to see what is going on in the room clearly.
There was a painting covered with cloth on the easel in the middle of the studio, and the whole room was filled with a strange smell of paint.
Ruan Nanzhu has always been decisive in doing things. He walked to the easel and lifted the curtain directly.
When the curtain was lifted, an unfinished painting was revealed. Lin Qiushi was stunned when he saw it: "This is..."
"The Last Supper." Ruan Nanzhu said this.
At first glance, this painting looks a bit like the Last Supper, depicting a group of people attending a dinner at a long table. However, if you look closely, you will find that the people attending the dinner are not the twelve disciples of Christ, but them. Yes, they are the ones who entered the door.
There were Ruan Nanzhu, Lin Qiushi, and Tan Zaozao. They sat beside the long table, either eating with their heads down or talking in low voices with others.
If it were just that, it would be fine, but the characters in the painting almost all have no faces. Lin Qiushi can only tell that they are the people in the painting by their clothes.
"Her face is painted." Ruan Nanzhu pointed at a girl in the corner, "She must be Xiao Su."
Lin Qiushi also saw the scene that Ruan Nanzhu described. In the corner of the long table, a girl's face was painted. However, her face did not show the joy and relaxation of eating, but unspeakable fear. Even through the canvas, Lin Qiushi could feel the breath of despair.
Apart from this painting, there was nothing special in the entire studio. After checking around, Ruan Nanzhu didn't dare to spend any more time inside. He took Lin Qiushi out of the room and locked the door.
When Tan Zaozao saw them coming out, he quickly asked them what they saw inside.
"A painting," Lin Qiushi said, "a painting of us having dinner." He then described the more unusual circumstances within the painting. After listening, Tan Zaozao swallowed and asked in a trembling voice, "Is that Xiao Su really inside the painting?"
"Yeah." Ruan Nanzhu said, "That should be it. I also want to go to the sixth floor to take a look."
"Let's go." Lin Qiushi said.
The most special place on the sixth floor is the unfinished exhibition room, which the housekeeper warned them not to go to.
As the name suggests, that place should be where unfinished paintings are stored. Ruan Nanzhu quickly found the room on the sixth floor, easily unlocked the door, and went in with Lin Qiushi.
The environment of the unfinished exhibition room is slightly better than that of the studio. At least the windows are not covered with black cloth, and the room is very spacious.
The room was filled with densely packed paintings. Lin Qiushi glanced at a few of them and found that they all had unfinished parts, and most of the paintings had empty spaces.
Ruan Nanzhu's observation skills were as strong as ever. He scanned the hundreds of paintings and quickly found what he was looking for. He gently called out to Lin Qiushi, who was still searching, "Qiushi."
Lin Qiushi walked behind Ruan Nanzhu and saw something that caught his attention. As he saw the painting Ruan Nanzhu was pointing at, Lin Qiushi felt a chill run down his spine. He was silent for a moment, then whispered, "Is this my... bedroom?"
"Yes." Ruan Nanzhu said, "Your bedroom."
Identical in structure, even the view outside the window was the same. The painting before him clearly depicted Lin Qiushi's bedroom. His bedroom door was open, and the floor was stained with conspicuous water stains, reminiscent of the horrific scene that night—except that the painting was also missing a section, located near the door, as if it had been left specifically for Lin Qiushi himself.
"If you hadn't recognized that Tan Zaozao was a fake that night," Ruan Nanzhu said calmly as he looked at the painting and recounted the horrifying truth, "you would have probably filled in this part."
Lin Qiushi: “…Yeah.”
Ruan Nanzhu said, "This painting is quite interesting. I wonder if I can take it out." Although he said this, he didn't mean to touch the painting. Instead, he turned and said, "Let's go. We've seen enough."
Lin Qiushi said, "Do you remember the paintings inside?"
Ruan Nanzhu said, "Probably."
Ruan Nanzhu had basically memorized the general idea. As expected, after he and Lin Qiushi left, he explained, "There's no point in memorizing it. These paintings cover almost every corner of the castle. There's no way to avoid them."
Lin Qiushi sighed.
"Be careful, it's not a big deal." Ruan Nanzhu said, "After all, it's a low-level sect, and the conditions for death are quite harsh."
Tan Zaozao grumbled that it was not harsh at all. If it had been her that night, the grass on her grave might have been five meters thick. In that situation, who could calmly recognize the abnormality around them?
Ruan Nanzhu glanced at her and comforted her, which was rare for her, saying, "Don't worry, if you turn into a painting..."
Tan Zaozao said eagerly, "Will you rescue me?"
Ruan Nanzhu said: "We will definitely live on with your last wish so that you can pass away peacefully."
Tan Zaozao: “…” She was not comforted enough to say thank you.
They went to two places, and when they came down from upstairs it was almost dinner time.
Everyone appeared in the restaurant and started to eat. After the meal started, Lin Qiushi found that one person was missing. There were only seven people sitting at the long table.
"Where's the other person?" Lin Qiushi asked everyone.
"He said he wasn't feeling well," someone replied. "He was resting in his room."
Lin Qiushi: "Aren't you coming for dinner?"
The man said, "I don't know... I'll go check it out later."
Lin Qiushi nodded.
The castle is too big and everyone is scattered, so we can only confirm the number of people during meals to see if there are any problems.
The man who answered Lin Qiushi's question also seemed a little uneasy. He hurriedly left halfway through his meal. A few minutes later, his face pale, he returned and said tremblingly, "He, he's gone. He's not in the room either."
Everyone fell silent after hearing this.
"Have you searched around here?" Lin Qiushi said, "Just the nearby corridor and toilet..."
"I've looked for it," the man said, "but there's no response."
Ruan Nanzhu wiped his mouth and asked, "Is there anything extra in the room, like a painting or something?"
The man said, “…I didn’t notice that.”
"Let's go and take a look together." Ruan Nanzhu said.
The man looked at Ruan Nanzhu and nodded gratefully. It seemed that he was also very scared and did not dare to go alone again.
The group left the restaurant and headed for the missing person's room. As soon as Lin Qiushi entered, he was immediately struck by the unpleasant, fishy smell. There was no doubt that the owner of this room had most likely experienced the same thing as him, only that person's luck wasn't as good as his.
"There should have been a painting hanging here." Ruan Nanzhu glanced at the wall, "Now it's gone."
"What's the point of painting if it's gone?" With Xiao Su's example, everyone felt relieved. The person who spoke was trembling with fear. "Is Yang Jie..."
Yang Jie is the name of the missing person.
"It's hard to say." Ruan Nanzhu shook his head, "We have to look for it again."
Everyone started searching upstairs and downstairs again, but after searching several floors, they still couldn't find the painting that belonged to Yang Jie. It wasn't until the next day that Lin Qiushi accidentally looked out the window and saw through the window what seemed to be something in the bushes in the distance.
He ran to the bush and unexpectedly discovered a painting nestled deep within it. The black frame was so familiar, even stained with fresh soil—it was clearly the same frame Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu had buried yesterday.
Yang Jie was also found. He appeared in the painting in Lin Qiushi's hand. The bushes in the painting seemed to merge with him, twisted and weird.
"Found it." Lin Qiushi returned to the castle with the painting.
"Wuwuwu..." The person accompanying Yang Jie started crying when he saw the painting. The grown man was shaking all over as if he had been electrocuted, and he kept wiping his tears. "Are we all going to die here? Wuwuwu, are we all going to die here?"
His emotions broke down, and he started crying with everyone else, making the whole room filled with crying sounds, which made Ruan Nanzhu's face turn black.
Lin Qiushi didn't know how to comfort these people, so he could only let them cry. Finally, Tan Zaozao couldn't stand it anymore and cursed, "Cry your ass off! Can crying solve the problem? These grown men are even more timid than a girl like her."
"So what do you say we should do?" the man said, "Another person has turned into a painting!"
"How should I know what to do?" Tan Zaozao said rudely, "I'm your mother!"
Ruan Nanzhu was clearly in a bad mood. Facing the devastated crowd, he said nothing and simply turned and left. Lin Qiushi and Tan Zaozao quickly followed him.
It was not until they reached their room that Ruan Nanzhu said, "I suspect there is a traitor.
"Hmm? What do you mean?" Lin Qiushi asked.
Ruan Nanzhu said: "It literally means that someone in the team deliberately killed someone."
Lin Qiushi was shocked: "Intentional murder?"
Ruan Nanzhu said calmly, "The picture frame pointing towards your room might have been placed there by someone."
Lin Qiushi: “…”
Tan Zaozao shuddered at Ruan Nanzhu's words: "But what's the basis...how did you guess that?"
Ruan Nanzhu said, "This is just my guess." He sat down on the bed and whispered, "I just found some time to check out where we buried the picture frame. There's a new set of footprints there, with shoes around size 35. They're not Tan Zaozao's, nor are they the hostess's." He closed his eyes, as if recalling something. "Someone dug up the picture frame... There are five girls in the team, excluding Tan Zaozao and Xiaosu, so there are three left. Two of them meet the requirements."
Lin Qiushi asked, "Is the new guy who came to you to form a team before among them?"
Ruan Nanzhu said, "Yeah."
Lin Qiushi: "Could it be her..."
Ruan Nanzhu: "It's possible." He said, "She must be crying with me today."
"Of course she's crying." Tan Zaozao said impatiently, "She's been crying every day since she got here."
Ruan Nanzhu hummed: "Let's see what the situation is first. After all, it's just my guess."
"Okay," Lin Qiushi said, "Then I'll sleep with you tonight."
Ruan Nanzhu said, "Okay."
At night, Lin Qiushi and Ruan Nanzhu slept on the soft, large bed, while Tan Zaozao slept on the floor beside them. She'd gotten used to her treatment, so she wasn't feeling uneasy at the moment. How wonderful it was to sleep on the floor! Tan Zaozao could roll around on the floor as she pleased, without having to worry about squeezing in with others. She thought, "Sleeping on the floor is so wonderful—but I don't know what to do with it!" Ruan Nanzhu, what a stingy guy! She remembered that! Humph!
Lin Qiushi had something on his mind and originally thought he wouldn't be able to sleep, but there was a sleeping pill lying next to him, so he actually fell asleep quickly.
Lin Qiushi slept until the next day. When he opened his eyes, he could not see Ruan Nanzhu.
Where was he? Lin Qiushi sat up in bed and saw Tan Zaozao still snore- ing soundly under the covers.
"Zao Zao," Lin Qiushi woke her up. "Have you seen Ruan Nanzhu?"
Tan Zaozao opened her eyes hazily and asked confusedly, "He's gone?"
"Yeah." Lin Qiushi said, "I haven't seen him since we got here."
"I don't know..." Tan Zaozao was also a little confused, "I haven't seen him."
Ruan Nanzhu had disappeared, and Lin Qiushi hadn't seen him until breakfast. If it were an ordinary person, Lin Qiushi's first reaction would probably be that they were gone, but Ruan Nanzhu was no ordinary person, so Lin Qiushi wondered if he had gone out to do something.
However, after breakfast, Ruan Nanzhu still did not show up, and Lin Qiushi began to get anxious.
"Where on earth did he go?" Tan Zaozao asked, "Maybe something happened..."
Lin Qiushi could only comfort her, "Don't worry, let's keep looking. Ruan Nanzhu is so capable, he's sure nothing will happen to him. Besides, he slept with us yesterday."
Tan Zaozao didn't say anything, his brows were tightly furrowed.
They searched floor by floor, from the first floor to the eighth floor, but still couldn't find Ruan Nanzhu.
Tan Zaozao was really anxious now and said, "Could something really have happened to him? Didn't you hear anything last night?"
"No." Lin Qiushi's hearing has always been sharp. If something happened, he would definitely hear it, but unfortunately he slept until dawn last night and didn't hear anything.
"What should we do?" Tan Zaozao asked worriedly.
"Let's... take a look at the portraits on these floors." Lin Qiushi's tone sounded a little difficult. "First... confirm it."
Tan Zaozao fell silent. She knew what Lin Qiushi meant. Lin Qiushi was afraid that Ruan Nanzhu had been turned into a portrait. If that was really the case... Tan Zaozao stopped talking and followed Lin Qiushi into the building, carefully observing the portrait.
They searched three floors but didn't see Ruan Nanzhu. While they felt relieved, they were even more worried.
Because they couldn't find Ruan Nanzhu, neither of them had much appetite even though it was lunchtime.
Tan Zaozao said dejectedly that she wanted to go back and rest for a while and continue looking in the afternoon. Seeing that she was in a bad mental state, Lin Qiushi nodded in agreement.
However, when the two returned to the house, they saw Ruan Nanzhu lying on the bed catching up on his sleep. He looked so leisurely that it didn't seem like anything had happened.
“Ruan Nanzhu!!!” Tan Zaozao howled, almost screaming, “Where have you been?! We had such a hard time looking for you!!”
Ruan Nanzhu opened his eyes and yawned lazily: "Something's up."
"What's the matter? Why didn't you tell me—" Tan Zaozao said, "Do you know how worried we are about you? We've been looking for you all morning."
Ruan Nanzhu: "I didn't know it would take so long."
Tan Zaozao: "Huh? Where did you go?"
Ruan Nanzhu said, "I went into the painting."
As soon as these words came out, Tan Zaozao instantly quieted down. She was silent for a long while before she tentatively asked, "In the painting? Is that the painting I'm thinking of?"
Ruan Nanzhu nodded.
Lin Qiushi was stunned and asked, "How did you get in... Isn't the picture frame gone..."
"No," Ruan Nanzhu said, "We misunderstood one thing. Xiao Su is gone, but the picture frame is still there. Yang Jie is gone, but the picture frame will not disappear either. Or to put it another way, the old picture frame is inlaid into the painting, and there will always be a new picture frame."
Lin Qiushi: “…”
Ruan Nanzhu said, "The person who wanted us dead used a new picture frame." He smiled and said, "Fortunately, it has been resolved now."
Lin Qiushi: "What do you mean..."
Ruan Nanzhu: "It means exactly what it says. Also, I found a new note."
There was too much information, and Lin Qiushi and Tan Zaozao were unable to fully understand it all at once. Both of them had confused looks on their faces, and it was obvious that their brains were a little stuck.
Seeing the two of them, Ruan Nanzhu's expression was quite kind. He said, "Don't worry, you can take your time to think about it."
Lin Qiushi: “…” Is this tolerance towards their IQ?
No, this is fatherly love and mercy. Tan Zaozao sadly understood the meaning in Ruan Nanzhu's eyes.
Ruan Nanzhu probably saw from the expressions of Lin Qiushi and Tan Zaozao that they were still confused, so he could only sigh, sit up from the bed, and briefly recount what happened last night.
It turned out that after Lin Qiushi fell asleep, Ruan Nanzhu woke up in the middle of the night. After waking up, he felt something was wrong in the room. He got out of bed and walked to the bedside, where he found a picture frame appeared near his window.
The picture frame was hidden in the night. If Ruan Nanzhu didn't have good eyesight, he would probably have missed it.
His intuition told him that there was something wrong with the picture frame. Ruan Nanzhu hurriedly left the room and wanted to take the picture frame back. When he went downstairs, he saw a woman in black standing at the stairs and looking at him quietly.
If it were an ordinary person, he would have been scared silly, but Ruan Nanzhu was used to these tricks. Not only was he not afraid, he stared at the woman for several minutes until she disappeared on her own.
"Fuck!" Hearing this, Tan Zaozao finally couldn't hold it in anymore. She said, "Are you not afraid at all? Just staring at her like that?"
Ruan Nanzhu: "What's there to be afraid of? Look, she was the one who left first in the end."
Tan Zaozao: “…” convinced.
Ruan Nanzhu said: "She showed up a few more times. I wanted to go out and remove the frame quickly, but something didn't feel right." He said, "I felt like she was pushing me somewhere."
Lin Qiushi listened quietly.
"I thought about it carefully and realized she only appeared at the stairwell, but she didn't attack me. Could it be that she didn't want me to go up the stairs?" Ruan Nanzhu said, "The only place she didn't appear was the door, so I guessed she wanted me to leave."
"The outside world is the world of paintings?" Tan Zaozao said, "Isn't that right?"
"That's about right. This is all thanks to the information Qiushi provided me," Ruan Nanzhu said. "I discovered that the scenery outside is indeed reversed." It was pitch dark outside, and the bushes were all pitch black and identical. An average person wouldn't have noticed anything unusual. However, because of Lin Qiushi's precedent, Ruan Nanzhu observed carefully before leaving, and finally confirmed that the scenery outside was indeed reversed.
"I didn't go out. I just waited in the room for a while." Ruan Nanzhu spread his hands. "Who knew I would have to wait so long?"
"You scared me to death." After hearing Ruan Nanzhu's answer, Tan Zaozao breathed a sigh of relief and said, "You don't know, Qiushi and I both thought you turned into a painting."
Lin Qiushi nodded.
"I'm fine." Ruan Nanzhu smiled.
Although Ruan Nanzhu described the scene in just a few words, Lin Qiushi was well aware of the danger involved. Ruan Nanzhu was only a few steps away from being left in this world.
"What do you mean by the new note?" Lin Qiushi was more concerned about this.
"Hmm." Ruan Nanzhu took the note out of his pocket.
Lin Qiushi took it and saw a short poem on it: "You stand on the bridge, admiring the scenery, while those who admire the scenery watch you from upstairs. The bright moon adorns your window, and you adorn the dreams of others."
Lin Qiushi was shocked: "Is this... a clue to the inside of the door?"
"Yes." Ruan Nanzhu said, "I got this clue from someone else."
"Others?" asked Tan Zaozao.
Ruan Nanzhu: "It's the new guy who tried to team up with me on the first day."
The author has something to say: Lin Qiushi: It’s the fifth day since Zhu Meng last saw me. I miss him so much.
Ruan Nanzhu: Lin? Qiu? Shi???
Lin Qiushi whispered: I was just kidding...
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