Chapter 116

Wang Yu set down his final stroke, rose with satisfaction, and gave the paper in his hand a gentle shake, letting the freshly finished portrait unfold and hang vertically in the air.

Holding the portrait like that, he walked step by step toward Liu Yang.

The portrait swayed lightly in the air; the lines on it seemed to come alive, every detail vivid enough to inspire horrified revulsion.

Sunken cheeks looked as if corroded by time, the furrows of wrinkles filled with despair; the withered chest had lost the swell of life, the viscera seeming hollowed out and devoid of warmth; the emaciated limbs resembled dehydrated old tree roots, leaving only jagged contours; and that pair of hollow eyes held no color, like two dead hollows.

Liu Yang stared with eyes wide open, his whole body frozen stiff in the chair, not blinking as he watched the portrait.

As the portrait trembled, falling into his gaze, it was as if the rotting corpse in the painting had been reawakened, slowly stepping out of the frame in a twisted, terrifying posture, staggering, teetering, and crashing into his embrace.

That horrifying scene sent chills through his entire body; his stomach heaved with irrepressible nausea, and a surge rose in his throat.

Yet strangely, besides instinctive fear, Liu Yang's body also held an indescribable... sense of familiarity?

But this rotting corpse no longer even had discernible features — where would he have known him from?

Huala—

The trembling paper and the terrifying rotting corpse crashed into Liu Yang's embrace together; his body jolted as if electrocuted, wanting to shove the corpse away, yet his hands disobediently pulled the painting into his arms.

Holding it tight, arms wrapped around the painting, forcing it into his embrace, as if doing so could stuff the painting's rotting corpse into his own withered chest.

As if doing so could make the painting's rotting corpse come alive on his body.

"I..."

Liu Yang's gaze was dull and bewildered; he slowly lowered his head, and the world before him seemed to undergo an earth-shattering change in an instant.

In his arms, only a sheet of painting paper he had torn to shreds remained; the rotting corpse that had walked out of the painting had vanished.

He had not yet managed to breathe a sigh of relief when, immediately after, a thick, foul stench assaulted his nose.

It was as if a long-blocked nasal cavity had suddenly cleared; the smell was so pungent, so close, as if it were emanating from his own body.

Liu Yang's pupils contracted sharply, shrinking to pinpoints. He saw himself sitting in the chair — that withered chest, those emaciated limbs, and the... himself exuding a foul stench.

"I... myself?"

Liu Yang felt as if his head would split open; a terrifying thought exploded in his mind.

His mouth twisted, emitting a hoarse, bizarre human sound, like the howl of someone who had not spoken in a long time: "The rotting corpse... is me?!"

A voice tearing through the shrouding mist answered in his ears: "This is your portrait — open your eyes before death and take a look at your true appearance."

The answer was so absurd and horrifying that Liu Yang completely disbelieved it, yet blood trickled from those hollow black hollows on his face; he was weeping silently, without tears.

Liu Yang raised his head with difficulty; his blood-weeping eye sockets fixed tightly on the slowly approaching Wang Yu, lips trembling, stammering with all his strength: "Wang Yu, I... I... what exactly... happened to me?"

Wang Yu's face was calm and indifferent; the brush in his hand turned lightly a few times, the tip touched Liu Yang's throat, and then, bit by bit, gently yet steadily, pierced in.

Liu Yang seemed to feel no pain at all; his gaze remained fixed on Wang Yu, as if indifferent to everything, turning a deaf ear.

The moment he saw the painting, Liu Yang had woken from the dream of life; and the dead — where would they find the will to resist death again!

"Don't be afraid; you've merely woken up, recalled your truest self."

Wang Yu slowly withdrew the brush; blood sprayed with a sizzling sound, drenching Liu Yang's desiccated husk and the shattered painting paper red.

"Most people never truly live from birth to death; you are different — I helped you live once more before death, so you could truly die." Wang Yu said seriously.

Liu Yang tilted his head back, letting the blood from his neck splash onto his face, into his eyes, letting those two dead black hollows be relit by the blood of life.

"Th... thank... you..."

Liu Yang's voice was dry and weak; after the blood color faded, his two black-hole eyes turned a ghastly white.

Wang Yu gently closed Liu Yang's eyes, turned, and walked toward Wang Xu, who had snapped awake, too frightened to speak.

"You... you... don't come over." Wang Xu stared straight at Wang Yu, tongue frozen, completely unable to understand what had happened.

Wang Yu slowly crouched down, gently tugged at the corner of Wang Xu's clothes, and used it to wipe the bloodstains from the brush tip.

He asked softly once more: "I trust Liu Yang; he didn't leak the news to anyone else, so I rewarded him by waking him from the dream."

"What about you — did you deceive Liu Yang, did you sell the news to someone else?"

Wang Xu shook his head frantically, face deathly pale, teeth chattering: "I didn't — besides Liu Tou'er, I told no one, really, let me go..."

Wang Yu confirmed the latter was not lying; he smiled, and fished out a bottle from the corner of the sofa.

The bottle was transparent, the size of a little finger, half-filled with a deep blue liquid; a gentle shake refracted a dreamlike luster.

"T-37 Hallucinogen, also called Awakening Liquid, or Happiness Water?"

"You like this stuff, because drinking it lets you temporarily forget worries and sorrows, as if placed in paradise, right?"

Wang Yu asked in a warm, gentle tone, not at all like someone who had just killed, but rather like a patient doctor questioning his patient.

Yet the patient Wang Xu felt no warmth whatsoever; he only felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar, his body stiffly nodding.

Wang Yu suddenly reached out, tightly strangling Wang Xu's throat, tone sincere: "You're wrong — T-37 Hallucinogen cannot save you. The only way to forever escape worries and sorrows is death!"

Crack!

With a faint crisp sound, Wang Xu's corpse fell limp onto the sofa; his mouth gaped open, as if in the final moment of life he still wanted to say a word of thanks to that benefactor who helped him escape the world of suffering.

Wang Yu remained calm, his voice without a ripple: "No need to thank me."

Dong dong dong—

Short, sharp knocks sounded.

Wang Yu unhurriedly wiped the blood from his face with a tissue from the table, then opened the door.

Outside the door, a motley crew of varying heights and builds — a vicious tiger, a goat head, a blood fox, a pig head, a snake face, a hyena — crowded the narrow corridor; under the dim lights they truly resembled a horde of demons and monsters crawled from the abyss.

"Sixth Senior Brother, you forgot your mask." The blood fox produced a mask from her bosom and handed it over.

Wang Yu took the mask and slowly placed it on his face — an ox head, the ox head honest and expressionless, only six eyeballs depicted on the forehead.

"I'll lead the way." The ox head once again reverted to his usual taciturn self.

The hyena followed first, the snake face and vicious tiger close behind, the goat head bringing up the rear; the blood fox and pig head paused a moment, turned, and entered the dead man's room.

"Honestly, Sixth Senior Brother forgets things whenever he paints — forgot Second Senior Sister's instructions again, killed with the brush tip, honestly..."

Wearing the blood fox mask, Hong Ya gave a light leap, clearing several meters to land lightly and soundlessly beside Liu Yang's corpse, leaving not even a shoe print on the ground.

With a wave of his five fingers, the latter's neck was torn open skin and flesh, his entire head ripped off like a ball, slammed hard against the wall, then bounced to the ground with a dull thud.

The ugly pig-headed Zhao Zhixin scanned the room, his skeletal muscles crackling all over, his whole body suddenly shrinking into a dwarf.

He walked into the room and carefully picked up the fragments of the portrait on the floor and the blood-stained tissues, stuffing them into the garbage bag he had prepared long ago...

Chapter End