novel
| ← Ch.167 | Ch.169 → |
At this moment, Tian Bin's mind was blank except for the twisted face that gradually enlarged until it occupied all his thoughts. He couldn't even let out a warning scream as he disappeared from this world.
His disappearance was just as silent as Gao Yao previously. It wasn't noticed until Fu Guangbo, running ahead, habitually counted the number of teammates.
"Wait, where is Tian Bin?" Fu Guangbo didn't stop and didn't dare lower his hands. He just loudly alerted the people in the surroundings to what he found."He is gone!"
This sentence was like a thunderbolt breaking through the darkness.
Xiao Li, who was in the lead, looked back and saw that Tian Bin had disappeared without a trace. He couldn't even send out a scream. Another person was missing.
Tian Bin had covered his eyes with his fingers while moving forward, but he still disappeared. Did this mean that other people could disappear at any time?
The eaves above their head seemed to be lower than before. In the darkness where the light of their mobile phones couldn't reach, countless ghosts were surging in the paintings stuck on the wall like prison cages. There wasn't a smell that should be present when ordinary ghosts appeared. Instead, it was full of the unique ink smell of the paintings.
The reincarnators had an ominous feeling. This fear diluted the surprise they originally felt due to the behaviour of the bigshot. However, they were all seniors and didn't get out of control except for Zhao Yiyan.
Zhao Yiyan was a security guard of Paradise and didn't have a strong psychological quality. He had already been on the verge of collapse when his companion Gao Yao had died. He didn't speak and just followed the reincarnators numbly. Now that he saw another person disappear, it was enough for fear to rise inside him even though he didn't know Tian Bin.
"I... I have come in and patrolled. I've done my job. I... I can go!" Zhao Yiyan murmured to himself at first and then his voice grew louder as he tried to convince himself. Then he turned around and ran back to the entrance like crazy."
"Hey—" Zheng Yi called out."Didn't you hear it? You can't go out!"
They hadn't tried to go out but as Sherlock's brainless fan, he unconditionally believed Xiao Li's speculation.
Zhao Yiyan didn't listen to anything. He just wanted to run outside. His heavy footsteps trampled on Zheng Yi's admonition as he disappeared in the direction everyone had come from.
Would he be able to go out?
Zhao Yiyan thought as he separated from the others. He felt his security guard uniform binding his limbs tighter and tighter, making his running less coordinated and heavier.
There was darkness everywhere. Caught in chaos, he couldn't see anything and could only continue to run forward desperately. There was silence everywhere in the darkness. In such a silence, he could only hear his madly beating heart as he ran and the friction of his shoes on the ground. This magnified his anxiety and fear infinitely.
The corridor wasn't very long. After all, it was an exhibition hall, not an 800 metres wide playground.
The group had walked for a long time but they had been walking slowly in the beginning. In fact, the distance wasn't that long. In a normal time, this length might only take a few minutes when running at full speed.
However, at this time, Zhao Yiyan felt that the time was too long. He ran for ages but never saw the door he entered through. In order to move forward at full speed, he had chosen not to cover his eyes with his hands. He looked down at the ground as much as possible to prevent himself from falling.
Could it be... he had gone in the wrong direction? It shouldn't be the case. There weren't many paths here. He had seen the borders of the main paintings when he came. How could the door be so far away?"
"It is impossible to get out."
Xiao Li's words flashed in Zhao Yiyan's heart. He hadn't believed it at first but now... was it true? Even so, he didn't look back. The disappearance of one person after another in the team, combined with his belief that he had completed his patrol mission, destroyed all his psychological defenses.
Zhao Yiyan ran forward with all his strength. The paintings passed by and the ghosts in the painting looked at him like they were parasites. Zhao Yiyan had lost the concept of time and didn't know how long had passed. Just as he was feeling tired and his legs were soft, he saw a glimmer of light.
It was the door! The door was like a passage to Heaven. It faced him silently in the darkness. Although the surroundings were dark, Zhao Yiyan saw the outline of the door and his eyes reddened.
It finally appeared.
He couldn't think and he didn't observe closely. All the heaviness in his legs seemed to disappear. He took a few more steps and one hand pressed against the door while the other prepared to pull down the door handle.
Then Zhao Yiyan noticed something wrong. The feeling of the door was quite thin. It wasn't like the door they entered from. It was more like... paper. Then the hand that went to pull the handle only grabbed empty air.
In fact, if he had looked at it closely in sufficient light then Zhao Yiyan would've found that this wasn't the door to the exhibition hall at all. It was a huge painting. It was a painting of a door. The protruding door handle was just the effect of the painting.
Zhao Yiyan's hand grabbed air and he recovered it. Then the hand pressed against the door frame felt something cold.
His heart seemed to be struck as he lowered his head to see a cold hand. It tightly grabbed Zhao Yiyan's arm and he couldn't do anything but call for help as he was pulled into another world.
Countless pale hands stretched out from behind the door in the painting to drag him inside.
***
On the other side, the reincarnators watched Zhao Yiyan's disappearing back and were caught in a dilemma for a while.
Fu Guangbo and the others naturally didn't want to go and save him. At this time, dragging along a teammate whose mood had collapsed was tantamount to suicide. This was something every senior understood. Therefore, they were struggling over the question of whether their direction was right or not.
Numerous cases on the forum showed that in a spiritual event, going back was just looking to die. However, if they went forward, could they last until they saw the culprit? What if the creator was behind them or in a painting they passed by?
The reincarnators in the team were a bit uncertain so Ye Zeqing closed his eyes and tried to use his physique to sense it. Finally, he shook his head."I still can't sense it. The moment I came to this paradise, a large part of my physique was suppressed. Therefore, I can't say anything. I only know that the ghost energy here is strong."
He was watching Xiao Li as he spoke.
Xiao Li's fingertips caressed the doll's hair in his pocket. This was indeed the case. In every exhibition hall and especially in this gallery, Tan Li was suppressed very badly. It could be imagined that the background of this Future Paradise was quite deep.
It could be seen based on the task alone. On the first night, they had entered so many exhibition halls and encountered one wave after another. The reincarnators could only swing like seaweed in the deep sea under the bombardment of ghosts.
Not to mention, every ghost had a type of character and weren't like ordinary ghosts. If it was an ordinary task then they would enter one exhibition hall per night and they would be given a path to live. It shouldn't be like this where it didn't want to let the reincarnators live.
Xiao Li speculated that the person behind this should be an existence similar to the god of lies but the urgent task right now was finding the initiator of this exhibition hall, not the small minions in the paintings. In this case, when faced with paintings, wouldn't the same kind be better?
Xiao Li generally didn't look for helpers easily due to his personality. If possible, he liked to rely on himself first. However, there was a very suitable existence for his current circumstances. He finally set his goal on the ancient woman.
He took out the little yellow book and wrote in it. Then the ancient painting that he hung in his house as a decoration appeared in his hand.
The ancient woman in the painting was originally sitting under the tree. The stick person, added by Xiao Li, was holding onto the female singer's arm with two lines that were his hands and resting on the legs of the female singer.
Xiao Li opened the ancient painting and the ancient woman didn't move. She just opened her eyes and stared at him quietly.
"Yo, are your feelings so good?"
The ancient woman, "......"
Good, yeh right!
It was unknown what the stick person wanted to do. It was obviously so crude but it was sticky. She couldn't get rid of it in the painting and it was just as annoying as Xiao Li. After a brief and friendly greeting, Xiao Li held the ancient painting and approached an oil painting.
The painting showed an office. The windows of the office showed a thunderstorm outside. Golden lighting illuminated the display facilities in the office. The tall desk and comfortable boss chair looked like President Sun's office when they came.
The ancient woman in the painting didn't move. She maintained an elegant posture as she stared at this painting. Xiao Li told her, "There are only paintings here. Can you find the ghost who made these paintings? Or can you find the most powerful painting here?"
The ancient woman narrowed her eyes. Perhaps it was because she seldom saw 'the same kind' but the woman in the ancient, long dress stood up. The stick person slipped from her dress and stared at its short legs with a look of embarrassment. Then it stood up.
The ancient woman stared carefully at the painting in front of her. She didn't adjust the angle of her gaze but she could see that the rain outside the window weren't raindrops but ghosts. Her eyes passed by a little ghost and spread to other places.
In the end, the ancient woman extended a finger and pointed to the left. Xiao Li nodded and walked in the direction she indicated, but he didn't put away the ancient painting. As they passed by a corner, a hand suddenly stretched out of a painting. It was very long and reached out to hold Xiao Li's hand tightly.
However, the ancient woman was one step ahead of it. An arm with a long and wide sleeve stretched out and grabbed its hand first. Two hands met in the air and held each other tightly. They both wanted to pull the opposite hand into their own painting. This led to a moment where no one could do anything.
Finally, Xiao Li took the initiative to break the silence."Unexpectedly, the ghosts here are quite polite. They know how to shake hands when meeting a senior."
The rest of the people, "......"
They looked at the ancient woman and then the painting in front of them. The ancient woman was from an ancient painting of the Republic of China period while the paintings in front of them were all modern paintings. In this respect, the ancient woman was an old senior for paintings and it seemed there was a good reason to shake hands. It wasn't so difficult to accept...
Wait, did the ghost world really have this concept? Were they brainwashed by Hercule's magical brain circuit and entered his rhythm?
| ← Ch. 167 | Ch. 169 → |