The young man named Xiao Kai was apparently more outgoing. He seemed to be unable to tolerate such silence, so he pulled Tian Yang aside and asked him in a low voice, “Do you know those two people?”
Tian Yang nodded slightly.
“You had grudges with them?” Xiao Kai had already noticed that the expressions of these three individuals were not quite right.
Tian Yang pursed his lips, looked up at him, and whispered, “Don’t ask anything for now. I’ll tell you in detail after we leave here. And… our relationship… don’t…don’t let them know.”
Xiao Kai looked at him, then turned to look at Ke Xun and Wei Dong, then turned back to Tian Yang and lowered his voice even more, “I understand, don’t worry.”
“Okay.” Tian Yang seemed to have a lot of things on his mind and only responded with a faint voice.
Fortunately, not much time had passed, and the white light finally lit up again. This time, a girl came in, her age not easy to determine. Although she was dressed quite plainly and maturely, there was still a youthful student-like air about her, with a pair of round-framed glasses perched on her nose.
The girl looked shocked at everything in front of her, it took her a while to find her voice, “This… I… I isekaied?”
“No, you haven’t,” Wu You looked at her with sympathy, “You’ve entered the world inside the painting.”
The girl was speechless for a while, turned to look behind her, found no way back or any doors, only desolate soil. She turned back abruptly and said with a stiff expression: “Inside… inside the painting? How is that possible? This is impossible – this is unscientific – this, this doesn’t make sense -”
“What’s your name?” Wu You sighed.
“Gu… Gu Qingqing…”
“Alright, now that everyone is here, I’ll be brief,” Qin Ci said, “Everyone, please believe that everything you see in front of you, and everything you are about to hear, is real.”
Perhaps because he was used to explaining — Qin Ci had mastered how to convey the most essential information in the most concise language, so it didn’t take much time. While the three newcomers were still in a state of shock and incredulity, Qin Ci finished speaking.
“All of the above is true,” Ke Xun took over expressionlessly. “Whether you believe it or not, if you want to try to leave here alive, it’s best to cooperate with us. Time waits for no one; we act now.”
As he spoke, he reached out and took Mu Yiran’s hand and stepped forward.
The veteran members followed suit with Xiao Kai and Tian Yang falling at the end.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Tian Yang’s gaze shifted from Ke Xun and Mu Yiran holding hands. He looked down, kept walking, and heard Xiao Kai whispering beside him, “Did you hear clearly just now? People will die in this painting, and they will die every night—I think we must establish good relationships with these people. They claim to have entered many paintings, so they must have a lot of experience. We absolutely cannot be alone; we must stick close to them.”
“Yxjs,” Kljc Tjcu gfqilfv.
Wljb Bjl uijcmfv ja tlw, ifjcfv bnfg, jcv qblcafv ab Bf Wec jcv Ze Tlgjc kjixlcu lc atf ogbca klat tlr mtlc, “Obbx ja atfw.”
Kljc Tjcu delmxis gjlrfv tlr fsfilvr jcv atfc ibkfgfv atfw jujlc, “Gbc’a wlcv batfgr.”
“Qtja’r atfgf ab kbggs jybea,” Wljb Bjl rjlv, atfc revvfcis ugjyyfv Kljc Tjcu’r tjcv, “Ccskjs, atfs’nf jigfjvs wjvf la qeyilm, gluta? Dfrlvfr, lo atlr qjlcalcu gfjiis lr jr afggloslcu jr atfs rjs, kf vbc’a fnfc xcbk lo kf mjc ifjnf jilnf. Qts ybatfg tlvlcu?”
Tian Yang stiffly withdrew his hand from his grasp, “There’s a lot on my mind right now, let me be alone.”
“Don’t worry, I’m here,” Xiao Kai didn’t pull him again. “Even if we can’t survive, we can die together, right?”
Tian Yang forced a smile at him and said nothing more.
As they entered the residential area, the first building they encountered was a tall and dilapidated pointed roof house. Ke Xun stopped outside the door and turned to his companions, “Are you ready?”
“Wai—wait a moment!” It was that girl named Gu Qingqing, one of the newcomers, who spoke. She held onto her glasses in panic, pointing to the gap under the door, “What’s that? Did you see it? That—that looks like blood—blood!”
Under the wooden door with peeling paint, there was a black-red stain extending from the gap. It dried on the steps outside the door, with dead flies and unknown insects lying on the stain.
Qin Ci walked up from behind, bent down to look at the stain, and nodded, “It’s blood, dried for many years. The dust on it is quite thick.”
Ke Xun walked to the window beside the door, wiped off the accumulated dust with his hand and looked inside, but the room was still dark, as if even light couldn’t penetrate the darkness inside, making it difficult for even someone with good eyesight like Ke Xun to see anything inside clearly.
“What should we do?” Xiao Kai said, “Do we still need to go in? What if…what if there are things we shouldn’t see inside…”
“If we don’t go in now, it’ll be even more exciting when we have to go in at night,” Ke Xun didn’t hesitate, “If you’re afraid, you can wait outside. I’ll go in.”
“I’ll go in with Ke Xun to check out the situation first,” Mu Yiran quickly added, “Everyone wait outside. Once we confirm it’s safe, we’ll go in together to find clues.”
“Well, how about this,” Shao Ling said, “Other people shouldn’t just wait outside. Let’s try to get an idea of the layout and living conditions of this residential area. Maybe we can find clues outside the houses too. Let’s divide into groups and act separately.”
Everyone agreed without objection. They divided into four groups, mixing up women with men, and newcomers with veterans. Zhu Haowen also volunteered to enter the house to search for clues, so he teamed up with Ke Xun and Mu Yiran. Shao Ling led Wu You, He Tang, and Tian Yang. Qin Ci took Luo Bu and Gu Qingqing, while Wei Dong and Fang Fei led Xiao Kai.
After the groups were formed, everyone didn’t rush to leave but waited outside the house for Ke Xun, Mu Yiran, and Zhu Haowen to enter, in case of any unexpected situations that might require timely rescue.
Ke Xun grasped the doorknob, took a deep breath, and then twisted it with force.
“Click.”
The door lock clicked open.
Ke Xun cautiously and slowly pulled the door open a crack, and a thick, rotten, foul-smelling, and suffocating dust-filled odor rushed out instantly. Ke Xun quickly leaned aside, pulling Mu Yiran and Zhu Haowen along.
The door, no longer under human control, emitted a harsh and unpleasant creak as it trembled and slowly opened. The daylight outside penetrated the darkness inside the room. As the light and the darkness intersected, something, deep inside the room, seemed to glide across the floor silently and stealthily.
Ke Xun, holding his breath, first looked at the floor inside the door, where the light shone. It was not very bright, but he could still see some traces.
Sure enough, there was a pool of dried and blackened bloodstains, spreading along the cracks of the wooden floor, forming a terrifying pattern on the ground. There were some scratches around it, as if someone slipped in the blood. Further inside were a messy set of bloody footprints.
“These are human footprints.” Ke Xun said.
Mu Yiran walked closer, looked down for a while, then turned to look at the interior of the door before saying, “At this position, someone had once died here. He walked out from the inside, then fell at the door. There’s a bloodstain on the inside of the door, it’s half of his face and his right ear. His face hit the door as he fell, and before falling, his face was already covered in blood.”
“Given that there are no other bloodstains on the inside of the door except for this one, it can be inferred that the person did not ever get up after falling.
“The current question is, where is the body of this person? If the body was taken away by someone after death, why wasn’t the blood on the ground cleaned up?
“Of course, if supernatural forces are at play, then this question isn’t a question anymore.”
“Shall we go in?” Zhu Haowen looked at the two.
“Let’s go in,” Ke Xun still didn’t hesitate, “Usually, there shouldn’t be any danger during the daytime.”
“But there are some things, just because you can’t see them during the day doesn’t mean they don’t exist,” Zhu Haowen said lightly, “Do you still remember ‘Human Studies’?”
“…You reminded me,” Ke Xun said. He took out his phone and turned on the camera and flashlight. He shone it into the room, but didn’t see anything that couldn’t be seen with the naked eye, “It’s okay, let’s go in.”
The three of them didn’t delay any longer. After letting the people waiting outside know, they walked in without looking back.
The other groups outside also started to move, each choosing a direction and they soon left the house. However, no one noticed the bloodied half-face on the inside of the door, with the corner of its lip slowly lifting up, revealing a twisted and eerie smile.
Ke Xun turned on his phone’s flashlight and walked in front.
The entrance of the house led to a hall, with a staircase directly opposite, leading to the second floor, and two doors on each side leading to four rooms.
The trail of blood footprints extended all the way to the staircase, and around the footprints, there were small and large bloodstains scattered everywhere.
“How badly was this person injured before death?” Ke Xun said, “Look at his footprints, almost his entire feet were soaked in blood, and there’s no sign of it dwindling all the way to the door. This means that a large amount of blood kept flowing out from the wound.”
“This person walked down barefoot,” Mu Yiran said, “Most likely, he was in the bed or in the bathroom before he died.”
“With so much blood, it doesn’t seem like a common accident, could it be murder?” Zhu Haowen said.
“So, is this a haunted house?” Ke Xun suddenly turned his head sharply, startling Zhu Haowen.
“What’s the matter?” Mu Yiran stared at the direction Ke Xun turned. It was a dark and backlit corner of the first floor’s staircase.
“I feel like something just crawled past,” Ke Xun said.
“Did you see it?” Zhu Haowen asked.
“No,” Ke Xun shook his head, “I was facing away from that direction, how could I see it? I just inexplicably had this feeling.”
“Your feelings have always been quite accurate,” Zhu Haowen didn’t dismiss Ke Xun’s subjective feelings as groundless, looking at him and Mu Yiran, “So, do we continue?”
“Continue.” These two said in unison, with similarly calm and composed expressions on their faces.
Zhu Haowen lowered his gaze, feeling that the flashlight on Ke Xun’s phone was a bit too bright for his eyes, so he took out his own phone from his pocket, turned on the flashlight, and pointed to the first room on the right, “To save time, I’ll check this one.”
Ke Xun pointed to the second room on the right, “Then I’ll check this one.”
Mu Yiran chose the room on the left, and the three of them cautiously pushed open the doors.
Thanks for the translation! And may I ask, since it’s currently new arc, will you divide the chapter by arc again? Because the other arcs are divided and that really helps whenever I forget certain case or character and need to reread again, but this new arc I see that it’s still under the continuation of the last arc. Would really help if you kindly divide this new arc with previous one, thank you and sorry to disturb
😊
i forgot to create a new arc, thanks for reminding 🙂
I finally caught with this novel!
Thanks for the chapter 😊
we’re already at the 12th painting, ahhh i cant wait! thanks for the chapter!! <33
I’m so scared
Thank you for your translation 💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙💙