The first volume of the funeral Chapter 5: Funeral
Darkness and silence always make people feel uneasy.
Ke Xun was worried about Wei Dong. After thinking for a while, he asked Mu Yiran beside him, "If I go to the woodshed now, will there be any problem?"
Mu Yiran's voice rang out after a while: "I'm not sure if anything happened. I only know that the last person who ran around at night died with only the top of his head left."
"..." Ke Xun leaned back on the sack, but didn't want to remain silent like before - that felt like waiting to die, so if he didn't want to die in silence, he could talk about death in silence: "Remember you said this was the third painting you entered, how did you find the signature or seal for the first two paintings, can you tell me?"
"Not interested." Mu Yiran didn't give any face.
"...You really have no team spirit," Ke Xun said, "One more helper means one more hope. You wouldn't be happy to have me hold you back, would you?"
After a while, Mu Yiran spoke again: "There is no pattern, it's useless to talk about it."
As soon as I finished speaking, I suddenly felt a heat in my ears. The boy next to me had no sense that we were strangers. He came over very naturally and lowered his voice beside my ear, asking seriously: "So where do you think the seal of this painting will be? Do you have any idea?"
Mu Yiran frowned. He had never seen such a familiar person.
Sitting up, she replied coldly: "If you can keep quiet, maybe you will have an idea soon."
"Then let me ask one last question," the boy was obviously shameless, "If we stay in this room all night without going out, will we really be safe?"
Mu Yiran was silent for a while, and finally spoke when he saw that the boy was waiting for his answer obediently, "Not necessarily. It depends on the content of the painting and the current situation. Generally speaking, the most dangerous place is the key point of the whole situation. Just like a painting, there are places that are emphasized, and there are also minor places that serve as background or to highlight the key points. If you and I happen to be in the most important place in the painting, then probably, we will die tonight."
Ke Xun's voice came out after a while: "I think, at the moment, the focus should not be our granary. Anyone with a discerning eye will see that... that mourning hall."
Mu Yiran said calmly: "According to people's habitual thinking, most people would think that the mourning hall is the focus of the entire courtyard. But if we look at the picture presented by the entire painting, perhaps the mourning hall is not necessarily the most prominent place. A painting that allows people to see the meaning of the painting at a glance can only be considered a 'good painting', but not necessarily a masterpiece."
"So what you mean is that even if the mourning hall is the focus of the painting, the real intention of the painting may not be here. It may be the three old locust trees next to the yard, or the old man's house, or even our granary," Ke Xun thought thoughtfully, "The real focus should be speculated based on the intention of the painting, right? "
Mu Yiran said "hmm".
"By the way, what is this painting about?" Ke Xun asked.
"Didn't you look before coming in?" Mu Yiran asked back.
"I was so frightened at the time that I had no time to look. Even if I had seen it, I have forgotten it now," Ke Xun said. "I just remember it was a black blur with some gray and white things in the middle."
Mu Yiran was silent again. Ke Xun felt that this guy probably despised him in his heart again. After a while, he heard him speak: "The name of this painting is "Funeral Affairs", and it was created by a painter named Li Jinghao. This painter prefers humanities and customs paintings. He has been traveling around since his youth and used his brush to record the different folk customs in different places. This painting is one of them. It depicts a funeral in a remote mountain village. The whole painting has a gloomy tone and is full of tension. It expresses..."
He suddenly stopped talking here. Just as Ke Xun was about to ask more questions, he felt a hand quickly covering his mouth. The palm was dry and slightly cool, with a slight scent of soap.
Ke Xun originally wanted to hide reflexively, but after he came to his senses, his brain raced and he immediately gave up, just standing there motionless, letting him cover his face.
The room once again fell into silence so quiet that one could hear a pin drop. Perhaps in the darkness, people's five senses would be more acute than usual. Ke Xun vaguely heard a few unusual noises coming from the yard outside the house.
Holding your breath and listening carefully, the sound becomes clearer, crackling and creaking, like... paper making a sound.
Ke Xun thought of the paper money and paper ingots hanging outside the main house's mourning hall.
The noise is so loud, could it be that there is a strong wind outside?
No, that's not right, the sound is moving.
Slowly and unconcealedly, bit by bit, with the sound of rustling paper, it approached the granary.
It felt like someone was dragging a large piece of cardboard along the ground in a sloppy manner.
It was like someone wearing paper clothes, with their limbs and torso rubbing against each other, walking slowly towards them.
—Paper clothes?! Paper —Paper people?!
Ke Xun was startled and remembered the pair of boy and girl made of colorful paper placed outside the mourning hall.
Is someone moving them?
The woodshed where Weidong was located was right in front of the mourning hall!
Ke Xun pushed Mu Yiran's hands away and tried to get up, but Mu Yiran suddenly reached out and clamped one of his arms. He tried to break free again, but he was twisted and held so tightly that he could not move, and his body was pressed forward.
"Looking for death." Mu Yiran's voice sounded faintly in his ears, with a hint of chill.
"I..." Ke Xun was about to speak, but a hard knee pressed against his throat, almost choking him, and he couldn't utter a word.
Damn, he’s also a martial artist.
A man who knows the current situation is a wise man. Ke Xun stopped struggling and let himself be pushed and held down.
The noise outside the house came closer, rustling until it reached the window of his room, and then the sound suddenly stopped, without any movement at all.
Ke Xun subconsciously raised his eyes to look at the window. The window was made of wooden boards and no light could penetrate it. The room was pitch black. It was also late at night outside and there was no light. Naturally, it was pitch dark when looking outside.
An eye suddenly appeared in the place of the window, as if a crack had opened in the darkness, and the eye was peeking into the house through the crack.
This is not a living person's eye, or rather, not a real person's eye.
It was drawn on paper, white paper with black lines, a very simple eye with an almond-shaped eye socket, a black pupil, and a thin, curved eyebrow above the eye.
Ke Xun was thankful that Mu Yiran's knee was still pressing against his throat, otherwise he would have blurted out something out of shock.
He didn't know how he could see the eye so clearly in such a dark room. There was no light source inside or outside, but the eye was so clearly embedded in the gap of the window, and it was there, looking at him motionlessly at this moment.
A drop of cold sweat slid down his forehead and Ke Xun held his breath.
This eye was looking at him, and the paper man outside was looking at him.
Mu Yiran behind him did not make any movement. The two people and the paper mannequin outside the house just stayed where they were, caught in a strange stalemate.
It was unknown how long this stalemate lasted, perhaps very long, perhaps very short. Just when Ke Xun felt that his mind was about to become numb, the paper man's eyes suddenly flashed and disappeared, and the scene in front of him fell into endless darkness again.
Ke Xun was about to breathe a sigh of relief when he saw a finger suddenly stretched out from where the paper man's eyes disappeared. The skin was pale and the nails were black, scratching the wooden window panel. Upon closer inspection, the finger was in a very strange shape, square and flat - it was actually a paper finger!
Shit—Ke Xun cursed inwardly, when did a piece of paper become so arrogant? !
Before he could finish his thought, the finger suddenly began to scrape the window panel with force, making a harsh sound. The old wooden panel made a "crackling" sound, as if it was about to break under the scraping.
——It's coming in! After realizing this possibility, Ke Xun began to struggle——Can't let it in, have to stop it!
However, he didn't expect that Mu Yiran clamped his hands even harder. Even though Ke Xun was very strong, he was completely useless under Mu Yiran's hands.
Just as he was about to use all his strength to break free, he suddenly felt Mu Yiran pressing down on him and whispering in his ear, "Don't move! You can't stop it."
...You can't just wait to die. Ke Xun twisted his neck to make Mu Yiran look at him with disapproval, but before he could turn his head away, Mu Yiran's second sentence reached his ears: "Listen, once it comes in, don't move. If it gets close, hold your breath, unless you want to die."
Ke Xun gave up struggling. After all, Mu Yiran had two more paintings' experience than him. Of course, his higher fighting power was also an important factor. At the moment, he was still restrained by him, lying on the ground with his butt sticking up. He couldn't move even if he wanted to.
Ke Xun tilted his head and simply rested his head on Mu Yiran's knees which were resting beside him.
Mu Yiran: "..."
In the darkness, the sound of scratching on the wooden window panels continued. The friction between the sharp edge of paper and the wrinkled and dull wood made people feel sore and their hair stood on end.
Just as he was trying to endure it and counting the seconds like years, he suddenly heard a rustling sound behind him, followed by a loud "bang" - the sacks piled in the corner might have become loose because of the two people's sitting just now, and they rolled to the ground at this moment.
After the loud bang, there was a sudden silence inside and outside the house. Ke Xun looked up and saw that the finger in the gap of the window was retracted. The next second, the whole window was suddenly smashed with a loud bang. The sound was horrifying, like a big man weighing more than 100 pounds was swinging his big fist and hitting the window panel.
——The boss is going berserk! These words were the first thing that came to Ke Xun's mind. He looked up and wanted to ask Mu Yiran what to do now, but he felt that he had loosened his grip on him, and his voice came over again in a low voice: "Remember what I said just now, don't move."
If I wasn't allowed to move, wouldn't that mean I was just waiting to die ? Ke Xun hesitated for a moment, and finally fell back down - lying back on Mu Yiran's lap.
Just trust him this time and put your life in his hands.
Mu Yiran's body stiffened slightly without being noticed, and the hand that had been stretched out to push Ke Xun away stopped in mid-air, and after a moment, he slowly retracted it.
The worn wooden window panel finally couldn't withstand the impact of that force, and it broke into pieces with a clang.
Ke Xun remembered Mu Yiran's words and dared not move. He could only try hard to open his eyelids and look up.
At the window, a paper-made statue of a boy stood there quietly, with distinct facial features and a lifeless smile, looking at the two people in the room lifelessly.
