Paintings of TerrorCh287 - “Human” is the Key

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Just at that moment, Xiao Kai suddenly convulsed violently, his back snapped forward as if broken, and he slammed into Tian Yang’s chest. Immediately, he vomited a huge amount of black blood from his mouth, thick and viscous like asphalt, gushing continuously from his mouth and nose.

“—Xiao Kai!” Tian Yang hoarsely shouted, wanting to lift Xiao Kai up. However, as soon as he grasped his arm, he was horrified to find that Xiao Kai’s black jacket had been soaked through with blood for some time. He subconsciously looked down, only to see blood dripping steadily from the hem of Xiao Kai’s pants. aXI7Y4

“—What’s happening to him? —What’s happening to him?” Tian Yang, with blood all over his hands, held onto Xiao Kai, who was still convulsing violently, and turned his head, asking Qin Ci in despair and helplessness.

But Qin Ci stared with a frown at Xiao Kai’s dark blue face. The situation with his face was too bizarre; the subcutaneous connective tissue seemed to have lost its cohesion and connection, causing his facial skin to appear as if it was hanging on his skull. And between his facial skin and skull, it was filled with liquefied substance—to be clear, it was blood and dissolved subcutaneous tissue.

At this moment, blood began to spurt from Xiao Kai’s eyes, nose, ears, mouth, and even from all the pores on his body. He convulsed and collapsed on the sofa, becoming entirely a figure made of blood.

Tian Yang wanted to help him up, but Xiao Kai’s entire body seemed to have melted and turned into mud, and Tian Yang, caught off guard, lost his balance and sat down on the sofa.

Without Tian Yang blocking in front of Xiao Kai, now everyone standing on the coffee table could see Xiao Kai’s terrible state. He Tang, Wu You, Gu Qingqing, and Luo Bu screamed out loud a few times from the shock for a moment. However, Mu Yiran suddenly raised his voice: “Be careful, don’t let the blood spray onto exposed skin!”

Everyone snapped back to reality and quickly tried to cover their exposed skin as much as possible. However, Tian Yang was already in a daze, covered in blood, like a soulless shell, sitting next to Xiao Kai, staring blankly at him.

Xiao Kai, lying on the sofa, suddenly began to convulse violently, his limbs thrashing involuntarily. A large amount of thick blood sprayed from his anus, splashing onto the sofa backrest behind him, onto Tian Yang’s body, and even onto higher places like the door, the wall, and the ceiling.

Amongst this blood, there were even fragments of internal organs mixed in. iHeCft

The few girls and Luo Bu were so scared by this scene that even their screams changed tone. He Tang even fainted on Shao Ling’s back.

The other men, although they did not scream, were also shocked into silence by the scene before them.

Xiao Kai’s blood sprayed for a long time, and the entire sofa had already been soaked in blood. When he finally stopped, he looked like a pile of melted blood mud on the sofa.

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.

The filthy blood flowing in from under the door and the window seams was still slowly accumulating, and it seemed to stop flowing only when the sky was barely getting light. The blood pool was only one or two centimeters away from covering the coffee table, and the people on the coffee table were already soaked in sweat, a result of shock, heat, and exhaustion. sfmdYt

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Although the blood stopped gathering, it did not disappear, filling the space between the coffee table and the sofa, the door, and the window. If they wanted to leave the room, they would have to touch this thick, black blood.

“Or… let’s wait and see if it will flow out from the door crack again?” Wei Dong also hoarsely suggested. qlUX3R

“That would take too much time,” Shao Ling’s sweat-soaked hair hung in front of his forehead, sweat beads still continuously dripping down, “we must seize every minute to find clues during the daytime to leave this place. We can’t afford to waste a single minute.”

Xiao Kai’s gruesome death was too horrifying, and no one wanted to be the next one.

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“S-so, what should we do…” Wei Dong’s legs were shaking badly, “I can’t stand much longer…”

He had been carrying Fang Fei on his back all night, even Ke Xun, who had very good physical stamina, was already very tired. This time, Wei Dong had outperformed himself. jPEVsA

“Put me down,” Fang Fei said, “let me carry you.”

“Fei Ge, I know you’re strong,” Wei Dong weakly replied, “but I need to save face too…”

“Then, how about I wrap my legs with clothes and wade through the blood to open the door?” Ke Xun said, “Guys, take off your clothes and lend them to me. I’ll go over faster, and hopefully, the clothes won’t get completely soaked through with blood.”

“Impossible,” Mu Yiran said, “everyone is only wearing a single layer of clothing. No matter how you wrap it, it will get soaked, plus, you not only have to get over there but also have to push the sofa away and open the door.” F KlOg

“So, does that mean we can only wait for the blood to slowly flow out before we can move?” Luo Bu also weakly asked.

“I very much suspect, that by the time this blood dries up, it might just be dark again,” Zhu Haowen said.

While everyone was discussing what to do, there was suddenly movement on the sofa.

Tian Yang had been sitting on the sofa all night without moving, but now he slowly stood up and was about to step down from the sofa. WzK2sU

“Don’t go down!” Ke Xun shouted.

Tian Yang stiffly turned his head to look at him, his face covered with terrifying black blood splatters, his voice hoarse and hollow: “It’s useless… Ke Er, it’s already useless…”

Saying that, he stepped into the knee-deep blood pool under the sofa.

“Hey! Don’t go down—” Several voices urgently shouted, one after another, but they were powerless to stop him. ePFQDE

Tian Yang waded through the blood, pushed the sofa aside, and then opened the door.

Outside the door, there were no more human skins and unidentified matters seen last night. The blood in the room rushed out as if a floodgate opened, and in no time, it was drained away.

Tian Yang went outside, fetched a few chairs from the dining room, and placed them from beside the coffee table to the door, then pushed the sofa from the living room over to make a connection, so that the people on the coffee table could step on them and avoid contact with the blood on the floor, all the way until they walked far away from the house.

“Tian Yang, there will be a way, you wait here, we’ll go find the signature immediately, hold on!” Ke Xun looked at Tian Yang, who was sitting weak and limp on the ground and half covered in blood, and felt a mix of emotions. thiXkc

Tian Yang stared dazedly at his feet, soaked through with black blood, as if he hadn’t heard anything.

“What should we do now?” Wu You looked at a few people who could come up with ideas.

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“He Tang doesn’t look good.” Qin Ci reached out to test her forehead’s temperature. He Tang widened her eyes in horror, afraid to hear anything scarier than being diagnosed with a terminal illness from his mouth.

“It may be due to dehydration and lack of sleep,” Qin Ci said with an unchanged expression, “finding water and food is still one of today’s main tasks. I think we should split up. Considering last night’s situation, if we still can’t find the signature today, we must prepare in advance. We need to find another house and turn one of its rooms into a seamless, inaccessible chamber, or install mechanisms to block the blood flow. During the day, those things shouldn’t be able to move around, so residential areas are relatively safe. I suggest the four girls stay behind. Fang Fei, you lead them to find a suitable house and room, do some cleaning first, and then make up for some sleep. How’s that?” OePjyI

“No problem,” Fang Fei replied, calling Wu You, He Tang, and Gu Qingqing to head towards the nearby set of houses.

After the four girls walked away, Qin Ci turned back and lowered his voice to the others, “He Tang’s situation is not good. She’s starting to run a low fever.”

Everyone was shocked, and Luo Bu’s eyes turned red: “What should we do… where’s the signature, we still have no clue where it is. All the clues are scattered. Where should we even start looking?”

“Qin Ge, you take Radish and Dong Zi to find water,” Ke Xun held Luo Bu’s shoulder, then turned to Qin Ci, “the four of us will look for the signature. We’ll meet back here at noon.” 4n1Uyr

“Okay,” Qin Ci wasted no time and took Luo Bu and Wei Dong towards the direction of the forest.

“You guys discuss the clues first, I’ll be right back.” Ke Xun said to the remaining three, then ran towards a nearby house. Soon he came out with some clothes and towels in his hands.

“Wipe off the blood on your bodies and change into clean clothes,” Ke Xun placed the items next to Tian Yang, “Tian Yang, there’s still time. Don’t give up until the last moment. Think about your wife and children at home.”

Tian Yang, still in a daze, only regained consciousness when he heard the last few words. He looked up at Ke Xun and slowly reached out for the towel to wipe his face. 9J2zHd

Ke Xun returned to Mu Yiran and the others, looking at them, “How about it, any ideas?”

“None at all,” Zhu Haowen maintained his usual calmness, “the climate, the blood calamity, the blurred time period, the chaotic vegetation, and the infrasound waves, what do these have to do with the theme of ‘restart’? Only by understanding this point can we possibly find a way to find the signature.”

“Although there are many clues now, that’s all there are. We’re stuck and unable to break through the bottleneck.” After Shao Ling finished talking, his gaze turned to Mu Yiran.

This person was younger than himself, but his vast knowledge, clear logic, meticulous thinking, and rational mind were stronger than anyone else here. Even he, who had always been somewhat arrogant and confident, couldn’t help but feel admiration for him, even… a hint of reliance. v7SLz2

There really were always people more talented than you. Shao Ling sighed lightly in his heart.

“Our clues seem abundant at the moment, but they appear to be missing several crucial links,” Mu Yiran remained calm. “It’s like having several PVC pipes without the fittings to connect them, unable to form a complete interconnected pipe system.

“The bottleneck that Shao Ling mentioned does indeed exist. We have thought of everything we can think of. If we still can’t find the ‘fittings’, then there’s only one possible reason — the ‘fittings’ are right here around us, but we have overlooked them.

“So let’s think now, what exactly have we overlooked? We have checked every house here, we have been to the forest, but the forest is vast, and the places we could go to are limited. There are large areas we haven’t explored. Even if we wanted to thoroughly search the entire forest, seven days would be far from enough time. If the signature is in the forest, places too far away obviously make no sense, and we have already walked through places close by and didn’t make any discoveries.” KAvrDu

“Therefore, I believe that even if the signature is in the forest, without finding the crucial ‘fittings’, without deciphering the core meaning of this painting, even if the signature appears right in front of us, we wouldn’t see it, wouldn’t recognize it, and even if we touch it, it might not even serve any purpose.”

“And if the signature is in this residential area, the same reason above would cause us to unknowingly miss it.

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“The forest and the residential area, seemingly two completely independent areas that are not interfering with each other, but since they both belong to the main body of this painting, there must be an internal connection, perhaps complementary, perhaps causal.

“Think about the content of this painting. The main content is a human hand. Let’s not consider whether it’s just a symbolic representation. Since the artist used a human hand to express the idea of this painting, the nature of ‘human’ is very important. pbTLng

“Then think about the life-threatening experience we went through last night. The hidden force behind the painting processed human skins and blood and used them as conditions of death to kill us. Unlike previous paintings, which involved deities, shamans, and monsters, this time the executioner of death was ‘human’, once again highlighting the importance of the element of ‘human’ in this painting.

“Hence I believe that between the forest and the residential area, two equally important entities, the residential area, which is filled with the element of ‘human’, may be the key to unlocking the puzzle. Regardless of whether the signature is in the forest or the residential area, the crucial clue must be in the residential area.

“We have checked all the houses in the residential area, inside and out, the open spaces, the food, and some items that seemed to possibly conceal clues, but we have gained nothing. This means that we must have overlooked something that we didn’t check, or if we did check it, we didn’t pay much attention to it.

“So I think, what we need to do next is to check every room here again, focusing on those seemingly unimportant and easily overlooked things.” ArtDm3