Chapter 788: Death Painting
Only two players remained in Jiang Jiang's villa. She wasn't there, and those two players had vanished from the common areas as if invisible. The vast villa showed no sign of a single living person, which made Bian Yongyi, who had been a bit nervous at first, gradually grow bolder. Discovering that no one was paying him any attention, he slowly began moving around the villa.
Besides her own paintings, the most valuable items in Jiang Jiang's villa were other people's paintings. These were all gifts sent by others to win her favor or in exchange for benefits. Almost every wall in the villa was hung with them. The villa's owner didn't seem to care much about these expensive paintings either—even the kitchen was decorated with two small ones.
"Really rich," Bian Yongyi clicked his tongue, then stroked some limited-edition toy models displayed on the cabinets before sneaking upstairs.
He didn't use a silencing item, only lightening his footsteps—afraid that if someone discovered him, he wouldn't be able to explain himself.
But by the time he slowly reached the upper floor without any bodyguards appearing, he boldly opened the rooms on the second floor, all the way to Jiang Jiang's studio.
All the paintings in the studio were covered with white cloth. Bian Yongyi assumed these were Jiang Jiang's finished works, so he casually pulled one off.
But he never expected that these were nothing like the warm, healing paintings he had seen online. The tones were dark and gray, making anyone who looked at them feel uncomfortable, and the content was absolutely not healing: On the canvas, a man's head was severed from his body, his broken corpse lying on the ground surrounded by a pool of blood, while his head was clamped in the mouth of a strange, ferocious beast, blood dripping to the floor... And behind the beast, a mass of hands and feet stretched into the air, as if forming a mountain of corpses.
Bian Yongyi only glanced at it before quickly covering it back up, muttering "Everyone has a dark side" before moving to the next one.
This one wasn't as horrifying as the previous. It merely depicted a person's death—he was half-leaning against an ornate pillar, his hands placed in front of his abdomen forming a heart shape.
Bian Yongyi immediately recognized the person in the painting. Although he didn't know him and couldn't recall his face, the death pose was too distinctive—anyone who saw it wouldn't forget it. This man was Jiang Jiang's bodyguard, who had died a month ago in an exhibition. He wasn't making that gesture to show love to anyone; he was using his trait.
"Who knew the famous Jiang Jiang had such a special hobby."
He looked at several more paintings, all depicting scenes of someone's death. Halfway through, he even saw people he had seen today—none other than the bodyguards, including Song Xu, who had left with Jiang Jiang and Xu Huo.
Their deaths were all gruesome, as if torn apart by large beasts, all in a place that looked like a gallery.
"A painter's imagination..." Bian Yongyi continued looking, but the more he saw, the more he felt something was wrong, because further on were the gruesome death scenes of the two players who had stayed in the villa.
He was also a player who had been through instances and knew too well what people looked like when they died. No super-large beasts had ever appeared in District 009, but Jiang Jiang's paintings were too realistic—it was impossible to accept them as mere products of imagination.
"Is there something wrong here?" Bian Yongyi felt uneasy instinctively, but he kept looking. He wanted to see if there was a painting of Xu Huo, but instead of finding Xu Huo, he found himself!
Staring at the painting of himself hanging on a purple garden fence, he instinctively threw the canvas away. But when he came to his senses, he felt the place in the painting looked familiar. He abruptly turned his head to look out the window and realized that the scene in the painting was actually the garden of this very villa!
"This is impossible!" Bian Yongyi slammed the door and rushed out, running downstairs without hesitation. He would rather be caught and beaten or shoved into a toilet than risk staying in the villa with this kind of deadly danger!
But as he passed through the garden, he couldn't help looking at the patch of wormhole flowers. The purple and red blossoms seemed to have gained a magical power at that moment, every detail magnified, drawing his gaze.
Bian Yongyi forced himself to turn away, ran to the villa's main gate, used an item to peer outside, and half a minute later quietly opened the door.
However, no sooner had he stepped out than the buzz-cut young man caught him. His foot slipped, and he flew forward several meters in a pose absolutely impossible for a normal person before crashing to the ground.
Bian Yongyi instinctively protected his head, but the hot-tempered young man didn't approach him. Instead, he let out a sinister laugh. "Perfect timing to test my new item on you."
As soon as he finished speaking, Bian Yongyi automatically flew into the air. After rising more than ten meters, he was caught up by the buzz-cut young man, who was also airborne. Seeing the other's fist, he immediately closed his eyes, but he never expected that this time the man was intent on killing him. Hidden in the gap between his knuckles as he struck Bian Yongyi's temple was a long needle.
Bian Yongyi died without any suspense. The buzz-cut young man kicked him away, and by unfortunate coincidence, he landed on the fence beside the wormhole flower patch. The iron fence pierced through his abdomen. Because he was short and light, the fence didn't topple over. And so he hung there on the fence, blood flowing down the iron bars onto the ground—exactly matching the painting in the studio that depicted his death scene.
*
Xu Huo turned to look at Jiang Jiang. "Do you remember Doctor Shang?"
Jiang Jiang lowered her eyes and smiled. "You know about my past?"
"After all, you're too famous. Finding this information isn't difficult," Xu Huo said. "When you were still in the orphanage, he provided psychological counseling for you."
Jiang Jiang shook her head. "I don't know Doctor Shang, but I do know someone with the surname Shang—Shang Shuming. He was also famous in the past, but he's dead now."
"Is that so?" Xu Huo said. "I don't think he's dead. At least, he could still pick suitable children from the orphanage to cultivate. But whether the cultivation was successful is hard to say. The other boy who was adopted abroad with you, along with his adoptive parents, all died."
"What does that prove?" Jiang Jiang countered.
"The criterion for judging whether the cultivation was successful is whether one can kill their own parents and relatives." Xu Huo smiled. "Do you think you meet that standard?"
Jiang Jiang looked at him strangely. "Whoever makes the claim must provide the evidence. Why are you asking me instead?"
"Because I want to know one thing—was Doctor Shang really Shang Shuming?" Xu Huo's smile faded, and he spoke seriously. "This is very important to me."
Jiang Jiang shook her head, helpless to help. "Unfortunately, I can't help you. At least in my memory, there is no Doctor Shang. And Mr. Shang, who often came to the orphanage when I was a child, died long ago. Good people don't live long. Like my adoptive parents—the worst thing they ever did in their lives was curse others in their hearts with guilt, and they both died of illness."
"If Mr. Shang is still alive, then he must not be a good person."
"In this world, only bad people can survive."