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Chapter 19: Brothers, as well as Father and Son

Translated by Eve

Edited by EB

“But that old man looks like he’s gonna eat us—literally eat us!” Wei Dong looked traumatized. “I don’t think you’ll be able to ask him anything. You might even end up as his lunch. Speaking of lunch, I think we’re out of luck for lunch too. The old man has already transformed. I bet he’s already forgotten how to make human food….”

Mu Yiran didn’t pay attention to his ramblings. “Even if he’s transformed and is unable to answer our questions, we still need to enter his inner room and look for clues.”

Wei Dong shivered. “You’re entering the tiger’s den, ah. It’s too dangerous. Ke er, talk him out of it.”

Ke Xun looked at Mu Yiran. “You really want to go?”

Mu Yiran didn’t respond. He only met Ke Xun’s eyes with an expressionless face.

Ke Xun: “I’ll go with you.”

Wei Dong: “….”

Ma Zhenhua trembled. “C-can I not go? I’ll look for the signature elsewhere….”

Zhang Maolin promptly joined in. “I’ll also go look for the signature. This way we won’t waste any time.”

Without waiting to hear the others’ opinions, Mu Yiran said, “You can go back to carefully examine the Li residence’s mourning hall if you’re not scared. We’ve already looked through all the other places in this village. The most probable locations left are the mourning hall and the old man’s house. We will reconvene here in an hour.”

Ke Xun pulled Wei Dong over and quietly said to him, “Be careful. If you don’t see me by night time, assume that I died. You have the key to my house. If you manage to leave the painting, go to my house. My property deeds, all of the gym’s documents and certificates, my ID and my bank card are all inside the pot of the fake cactus on the balcony. All of my passwords are the last six digits of my social ID card. Help me donate all of my savings and rent my apartment out. Use the rent to buy new machines for the gym. Give my share of the gym’s earnings to my business partners. My one terabyte of movies on my computer are for you.”

“Fuck off! All of your movies are gay pornos! I have no need for them!” Wei Dong cursed him loudly. He then tugged Ke Xun’s elbow worriedly. “Are you really going to go? For his sake? You don’t have to go so far. There are plenty of other fish in the sea. Why waste your life on him? You’ve only known him for a few days. Besides, what are the chances he just so happens to be gay too? It’s not worth it to do this over a straight man.”

“What nonsense are you thinking about? It’s not just for him, but for us. We physical education majors have a motto: ‘you will be rewarded for what you put in.’ You can’t always let the other person be the giver while we wait.” Ke Xun said, “Besides, did you forget? My intuition has always been spot on.”

“And?” Wei Dong didn’t understand what that had to do with anything.

Ke Xun smiled and then turned around to leave with Mu Yiran.

Their group split off into two.

Mu Yiran and Ke Xun arrived at the old man’s courtyard. Mu Yiran stopped and turned to look at Ke Xun. “Do you really want to go in with me?”

“I don’t just want to go in with you, I want to leave with you too,” Ke Xun said.

“That won’t be a given,” Mu Yiran said. “But if you don’t plan on backing out, then you better listen to my plan.”

Ke Xun: “All right. Let’s hear it.”

Mu Yiran examined his expression and then said, “You’ll enter first. Carefully head towards the door. If the old man starts to chase you, do your best to lead him away. I’ll take advantage of this time to enter the house and search the inner room. I hope that you’ll be able to keep him busy while I do this. The longer, the better. Can you do that?”

“I have a question,” Ke Xun said, “This old man isn’t normal. What if he’s faster than me? What should I do then?”

“You and Wei Dong were able to escape this house a while ago. This means that you’ll definitely be able to escape this time as well,” Mu Yiran replied, “Actually, you were too fast and managed to break free of his range, thereby throwing him off completely. Therefore, this time, you have to maintain a good gauge of your speed. Don’t let him catch up to you but don’t throw him off either. You have to maintain a safe distance between the two of you the whole time. Lead him out of this courtyard and do your best to drag it out for as long as you can. When I’m done, I’ll come find you. At that time, you can throw him off. Do you have any other questions?”

“Yes.” Ke Xun said, “What’s your phone number?”

Mu Yiran’s expression turned cold. “If you don’t have any more questions, head inside.”

Ke Xun warmed up his legs and stretched. He pointed and said, “Hide over there by the door. I’ll draw the old man over to that side.”

Mu Yiran stood where Ke Xun indicated. He then saw Ke Xun’s stride into the courtyard.

Mu Yiran stared at the other’s back. Ke Xun hadn’t hesitated at all as he walked over to the house’s door. His usual undisciplined, lazy posture had completely disappeared. Currently, his spine was straight and his strides were full of power. At this moment, he really did seem like a genuine formidable, sharp phys ed major.

Formidable, sharp man Ke Xun walked to the door.

The door was closed and he couldn’t see the interior of the house.

Ke Xun didn’t want to give his imagination any time to work. He reached out and pushed the door open at once.

Creak. The dusky light slowly filtered into the dark central room. The old man looked like a zombie as he stood there sluggishly in the room.

The moment he saw Ke Xun, the mouth of his ashen, corpse-like face suddenly pried open, revealing black gums and a black hole-like oral cavity. It opened up far past what would be possible for a normal human. The old man then pounced towards Ke Xun with this giant mouth.

Ke Xun turned around and ran. The sound of wind and the old man’s steps echoed in his ears, helping him judge the distance between them.

This was Ke Xun’s area of expertise. When he had been in school, he had participated in all sorts of competitions. He had used sound to determine his opponent’s positions. This ability of his had influenced how he adjusted his tactics during these competitions.

Ke Xun kept a good distance of about five steps between himself and the old man. Together, they ran out of the courtyard.

Mu Yiran quickly entered the courtyard after Ke Xun and the old man disappeared from view. He headed straight for the inner room.

Ke Xun didn’t dare take the old man in the direction of the Chinese Scholar tree. He was afraid that they would encounter the others. Therefore, he took the old man through the village.

Now that he thought about it, only he would be able to do this. If it were anyone else, they would either be too slow or lack endurance.

His current speed wasn’t his fastest pace. However, it was still considered fast by normal people standards. If it hadn’t been because Wei Dong had been dragged along by Ke Xun, he would have probably been caught by that old man very early on back then. He definitely wouldn’t have been able to maintain this kind of speed, especially not for a long time. Right now, Ke Xun would probably have to run for ten, twenty, thirty or even more minutes to buy enough time for Mu Yiran.

But there was something Ke Xun didn’t understand. If the old man wasn’t human, and was some kind of ‘thing’, its ability shouldn’t be below that of a human’s.

Mu Yiran had said that if they didn’t follow the painting’s rules, they’d face undefiable retaliation. And this had been proven true during the last two nights. The ‘things’ that had appeared in the past…although there were ways to avoid being harmed by them, it had always been out of luck or coincidence. If they were to face them head-on, they would have no chance of survival.

In other words, even if there were rules, they had no way of fighting the painting’s powers head on.

But this wasn’t the case with the old man.

The old man couldn’t outrun him.

Wasn’t this weird?

Ke Xun couldn’t help but turn around when he thought of this.

He nearly lost his footing from the fright he received with this one glance.

He had no idea what the heck was chasing him any more. That giant black hole-like mouth obstructed his view of the old man’s head. Two withered hands were outstretched, the fingers abnormally long. Looking at them with those skinny, shriveled arms, they looked like those twisted Chinese Scholar trees.

What was the most frightening, however, was the old man’s abdomen.

Because the old man was running quickly, his clothes were pressed tightly against his body by the wind. The outline of the protruding thing on his abdomen had thus become very prominent.

It was a face.

The face had eyes, a nose and lips, and it’s expression was very vivid.

That face was currently crying.

Its mouth was open. It looked aggrieved, like it was in pain. It kept wriggling around, as if struggling to move, as the old man ran.

Ke Xun felt his body begin to itch. He couldn’t help but scratch at his own stomach.

Suddenly, a thought flashed through his mind: Itchy…my whole body is itchy…just like last night….

Who knew how long he had run until he finally saw Mu Yiran appear in front of him. Ke Xun shouted: “Boss, that fellow—he’s also deformed!”

Mu Yiran made a sign and then disappeared around the bend. Ke Xun increased his speed and managed to throw off the old man after a few more minutes.

Mu Yiran had been waiting for Ke Xun on the path that led to the Chinese Scholar trees. He watched Ke Xun jog over. Despite running at such a fast pace for so long, this person was unexpectedly only slightly out-of-breath. He looked like he had just been warming up.

Even Mu Yiran had to admit that the other’s endurance was greater than his.

“That old man is also deformed.” Ke Xun walked over. “He has a face on his abdomen. I think that it might even be another brain in there. Even if it isn’t capable of thought, it can control the expression of the face on his stomach. Did you find any clues in his house?”

Mu Yiran: “Yes. Cedar wood.”

“He was the one to construct Li Guaiguai’s coffin?” Ke Xun was shocked. “They’re both people with deformities, shouldn’t he have some sympathy instead?”

“His name is Li Mazi.” Mu Yiran glanced at Ke Xun. “He’s Li Guaiguai’s father and…brother.”

Ke Xun was taken aback. “I feel like I just found out something disastrous.”

Mu Yiran had no expression on his face. “After this village became a closed and backwards society, ignorance and inhumane customs started to get passed down. Many people here married their relatives. The level of medicine here is low as well. The survival rate of children became low. Furthermore, there are many more men than women. For the sake of reproduction, the village gradually? adopted a shared wife system.”

“…A closed and backwards society is terrifying.” Ke Xun didn’t know what to say.

“Actually, the chances of an infant being born with a defect is only 4% even in consanguineous marriages.” Mu Yiran continued, “Furthermore, many children with defects tend to die before they reach adult age. Some even die in infancy. It was probably rare for people with such extreme body deformities like Li Mazi and Li Guaiguai to live so long, even amongst this village.”

“I can’t tell if they were lucky or unlucky,” Ke Xun said.

“They were definitely not lucky.” Mu Yiran looked at him. “Can you imagine what kind of life a person like him, whose deformities make him look like a monster, must have led in this village?”

Eve: I’m laughing so hard at Ke Xun nonchalantly slipping in some flirting. Can I have your number ( ?° ?? ?°) And then I was grossed out by the incest. And also sad because I can only imagine the discrimination Li Mazi and Li Guaiguai must have faced.

EB: What is Ke Xun’s intuition never wrong about? (????)