Volume 1: Breaking Ground Chapter 13 On Magical Realism
"Rhino and elephant? Could it be related to the Rhino and Elephant Art Museum?" Sha Liu found it a little unbelievable.
Many people have also thought of this. The coincidence between the painting and reality is even more shocking.
Elder Li Taiyong still had a normal look on his face: "The Xixiang Art Museum originally occupied this area. A few years ago, the street in front of the museum was Chunsun Street. Later, the street was renovated and a subway was built underground, and Chunsun Street completely disappeared."
"Could it be that the Rhino-Elephant Art Museum and that famous internet-famous restaurant are..." Xinmiao felt that talking about outside things in this world was like talking about a dream.
“Yes, they were all run by that Hong Kong developer.” Old man Li Taiyong confirmed.
This information is obviously very important to Chunsun Apartment, but no one can really connect this information to the seal. After all, the scope of the world in the painting has been confined to the tube-shaped building, and it is impossible to go out and search for it on the stone rhinoceros and elephant.
Besides, the door is closed and it is impossible to enter and exit freely.
Everyone was in a depressed mood and the weather was hot, so they ate very little for lunch. After the meal, everyone felt a little sleepy because they did not sleep well last night.
So, everyone went back to their rooms for a short lunch break.
Ke Xun returned to his 411 and went into the bedroom. He first looked down at the red slippers under the bed, but didn't see any change in their position. "Was there any movement in our room last night?"
Mu Yiran: “I didn’t hear it.”
Yes, compared to the loud noise outside the window last night, all other noises seemed insignificant.
There is electricity in the room during the day and you can turn on the electric fan, which is a very enjoyable thing in this harsh environment.
Ke Xun fell asleep quickly and had a very bright dream. In the dream, he turned into a child, holding a small utility knife and carving on the wall. All he carved were crude bamboo shoots patterns.
As he was carving, the sky began to slowly darken, and Ke Xun woke up because he felt nervous.
Taking a nap in hot weather is not a comfortable thing. Ke Xun was sweating all over. When he woke up, he found that one of his legs was still on Mu Yiran's leg. He subconsciously pulled it away, but suddenly found that the other party was awake.
"I'm sorry, I was sleepy and pressed on you." Ke Xun touched the mark of the mat on his face and woke up completely.
I don’t know how long Mu Yiran has been awake, and how long I have been suppressing him.
Mu Yiran still lay flat on his back: "I just don't want to wake you up from your dream."
"Huh?" When did the boss start to care about his dreams?
"You were talking in your sleep."
"This... is a very rare phenomenon. I usually don't have this problem." Ke Xun quickly clarified.
"You said: The bamboo shoots can be drawn quickly and will soon break through the soil."
"I said?!"
"Yes, you did."
Ke Xun thought carefully about his dream: "I dreamed that I was a ..." At this point he suddenly realized, "Yes, a child! Have you noticed that the positions of those bamboo shoots are not very high, and I have to bend down to see them every time!"
Mu Yiran seemed to be thinking about something. He stood up and sat cross-legged on the bed. "The painter Luo Bin is very young. He was born in 1985. If the world in the painting is now in 1996, then Luo Bin was only 11 years old at that time and had not yet grown up."
"You mean, the child who painted these bamboo shoots is very likely the painter himself?" Ke Xun thought this idea was bold, but not groundless.
If this is true, where can we find clues to the seal? Could it be that the seal was also carved somewhere with a utility knife?
Mu Yiran said: "The situation of Room 616 is quite different from our rooms. It should have been an empty room before. The bedding, tables and chairs inside were put in later. It seems that the apartment was bought together for the convenience of renting. It looks more like a hotel."
"You mean to say that the previous residents of Room 616 have moved all their things away?" Before Ke Xun could finish his words, he heard a knock on the door.
Although it was broad daylight, the knock on the door still seemed very abrupt.
Wei Dong's voice came from outside the door: "Ke'er, open the door!"
Ke Xun just opened the door and found that Sha Liu from next door had come to the door without knowing when, and asked anxiously: "What's wrong? What happened?"
Wei Dong simply said at the door: "Haowener found it. Outside our window, outside... the terrain has become higher."
"What do you mean the terrain has become higher?" Shaliu asked anxiously.
“Isn’t there a circle of concrete wall built outside? It goes all the way to your fourth floor. Now when we look out the window, we find that the road surface outside is level with the fifth floor!” Wei Dong didn’t know how to express it better.
"Let's go up and take a look." Mu Yiran had already walked out the door, and Sha Liu followed closely behind. Despite the dizziness and nausea that he had felt before, Ke Xun also followed him.
As soon as he reached the fifth floor, Ke Xun felt the suffocating feeling: "Why do I feel like the stairs here have also deformed?"
Ke Xun gave himself a few more Danshen pills, suppressed his heart , and gritted his teeth to go up to the sixth floor.
616 was just as Mu Yiran said. The decoration and furnishings had the feeling of an old hotel. There were old-style embossed wallpaper, and the doors, windows and heaters were all covered with wooden edges. Even the bed was a standard hotel single bed, and there was a color TV on the TV cabinet.
Zhu Haowen was sitting on the bed playing games. When he saw everyone coming, he took the initiative to make room for him by the window.
Mu Yiran opened the window and found that the ground outside was built on the fifth floor. To outsiders, it might look like a two-story building.
Ke Xun and Sha Liu looked at the hustle and bustle of traffic outside the window and felt that the mundane world outside seemed unreal.
"Then where are these residents living below the fourth floor?" Sha Liu seemed to have thought of something and shuddered.
"Below the ground." Mu said happily.
Ke Xun still didn't quite understand: "What was outside your window before?" Then he looked at Mu Yiran again, "What was outside the window like when you came here to check in the morning?"
"It's a cloud of white mist." Mu said happily.
Wei Dong also nodded: "Yes, although our window is bright, we just can't see clearly outside, it's like there is a thick fog outside, and only the sunlight can vaguely shine through."
"Can you suddenly see it now?" Ke Xun thought this was very strange, even a little nonsensical.
"It's not sudden," Zhu Haowen suddenly said, "I could vaguely see some scenes this morning."
Sha Liu looked at the world outside and suddenly had the urge to rush out. Zhu Haowen stopped her in time: "You can't go out. This window can't be opened at all."
Mu Yiran seemed to have thought of something: "Let's go to the fifth floor and take a look."
Zhu Haowen looked up at Mu Yiran, and followed everyone to the fifth floor.
As there were no companions on the fifth floor, everyone had to go to the window of the public toilet and found that there was still hazy fog outside, but they could vaguely see the outline of the city scene.
"It's so weird, what can these phenomena indicate?" Sha Liu didn't mind being in the men's restroom at this time.
"This must be related to the deformation of the room." After Ke Xun arrived on the fifth floor, he felt better than before.
"Why did the room deform? Where are we?!" Sha Liu was a little depressed and out of control. "Based on what we saw on the sixth floor just now, this tube building is clearly buried in the ground! We have been in the ground all along!!"
“So, the name of this work is ‘Breaking the Ground.’” Mu Yiran faced the window, and his expression could not be seen clearly.
Ke Xun felt as if an electric shock had passed through his body and goose bumps appeared all over his body. It was not because of fear, but because of an inexplicable understanding: "So this is a work of magical realism."
Wei Dong was frightened by Ke Xun: "Ke'er, can we talk it out nicely?" - Why did he suddenly start to cause such trouble?
Ke Xun said seriously, "It is our building that needs to be broken ground, and the entire Chunsun Apartment. The bamboo shoots also symbolize our building. We are now buried in the soil, and are now slowly breaking ground."
Mu Yiran couldn't help but turn around and said, "Go on."
Because the men's restroom was empty, Ke Xun's voice echoed here, like a meaningful speech -
"The reason why the room is deformed is because the top of the tube building is gathering inwards. Why is it gathering inwards? It is because the whole building wants to transform itself into a bamboo shoot with a pointed top, and then wait for an opportunity to break out of the ground!"
Ke Xun's words are full of imagination and unreality, but they fit perfectly with the world in the painting, forming a true story with both pictures and texts.
Shaliu's voice was full of trembling: "If the ground is really broken, what will happen to us?"
No one has answered this question, no one can answer it.
Finally, Mu Yiran said: "Before the groundbreaking, the top of the floor will be completely gathered together, and those of us inside will be completely trapped, completely isolated from the outside air - the groundbreaking is not set up for us, we are just buried with it."
"No, no," Sha Liu took two steps back, "What should I do now? It's almost night time, and the ghost in Room 307 is going to come out!"
Mu Yiran looked at the watch on his wrist: "It's four o'clock. We still have time. Try your best to collect graffiti works in the building. No matter what medium they are painted on, we must find a way to collect them! Maybe the seal is among them."
"Okay!" Shaliu was the first to leave. The search before nightfall became a life-saving straw.
Everyone dispersed, some went directly to look for graffiti works, and some communicated with other members and then looked for them together.
When we had dinner at about 6pm, no one had gotten anything.
The doorman suddenly appeared in the restaurant and gave everyone a new instruction: "Stay in your rooms tonight and don't go out."
The NPC suddenly changed the hard rules, or in other words, suddenly narrowed everyone's range of activities - not being allowed to go out meant that people were not allowed to visit other people's houses or use the stairs.
Xinmiao was the first to raise a question: "What should I do if I go to the toilet at night?"
"I've placed a bucket at the door of each of your rooms. After dinner, please take it back to your rooms and eat in the bucket at night ." The doorman said expressionlessly.
As night fell again, many people felt a little at a loss.
Qiu Lu was even more afraid because two of her companions had died: "If we are not allowed to go out, we won't even have a chance to escape! If some monster breaks through the door, we will definitely die!"
Sha Liu said, "If it doesn't work, we can still jump out of the window."
Ke Xun frowned: "The result would be even worse."
Sha Liu stared with red eyes: "It's better than being messed with by others!"
This sentence reminded everyone again about the hunchbacked man in 307, who was holding a porcelain basin in his hand and stirring the stuffing inside.
