Ke Xun had a deep dream, in which he kept walking, but could never escape the lush green bamboo forest.
Mu Yiran was not far ahead, but he could never reach her. He wanted to call her name, but the words that came out turned into gusts of wind entering the forest...
Ke Xun opened his eyes and woke up, directly facing Wei Dong's large face that was close to his. Ke Xun's hands moved as if crying for help: "Stop rolling your eyes, you're reminding me of Wang Fu's master..."
"Finally awake." Wei Dong's face moved away from Ke Xun's sight, and his face returned to normal.
Ke Xun fully woke up, all the weakness and pain in his body vanished. He then realized that he was in a hospital room. He vaguely remembered feeling extremely tired after leaving the painting, and then falling asleep happily on Mu Yiran's back...
Perhaps because it was Mu Yiran, he didn't seem as fixated on the offensive and defensive positions as before...
Ke Xun patted his head, almost succumbing... No, attack! I must attack! I absolutely cannot lose!
Wei Dong opened his mouth and started snapping away.
Ke Xun glanced at Wei Dong, who was sitting beside him eating potato chips: "Hurry up and shake my bed up, don't just sit there, peel an apple for me! Is this how you serve a patient? Hurry up, I want water! I want a peeled apple!"
"Where am I supposed to buy you an apple in this hot summer? Do you want some Fuji apples from the freezer? Usually, people who are newly pregnant and crave apples only buy those..." Wei Dong stopped eating his potato chips and started talking, looking for the crank on the side of the bed and starting to shake it.
"Peeling apples is standard practice in hospital wards..." Ke Xun's upper body was slowly shaken up, and he smiled with an air of elegance, "Hey you, hurry up, I want water."
Wei Dong handed him a large, thick mug.
"Shouldn't you provide a straw? Is this how you serve a patient water?! Can't you be a little more considerate?!" Ke Xun finally realized that the large ward he was in actually housed six patients, plus their families, making about twenty people in total.
Of the six patients, only Ke Xun didn't have a cast. Ke Xun moved his feet through the blanket and found they were still quite flexible. He bent his knee and found no difficulty either. "Dongzi, is my leg alright? Which one was broken again?"
Wei Dong thought carefully for a moment. "I can't remember... Anyway, everyone rushed you to the hospital, took X-rays and said it was fine, basically just a superficial injury. The doctor was urging me to be discharged this morning, but I couldn't bear to wake you, so I let you sleep for three more hours."
Ke Xun got out of bed and moved around. His right calf was slightly sore. He lifted his hospital pants and saw a large bruise on his calf, but the muscles weren't painful, and the bone was fine.
"We also found it strange. After we came out of there, it seemed like the injury suddenly became lighter." Wei Dong couldn't mention "Painting" in front of outsiders, even though they weren't listening to him.
"That Mr. Push was quite kind..." Ke Xun further simplified "Painting Push" to Mr. Push.
"We think the reason we were able to heal so quickly is to prepare for the next step…" Wei Dong cruelly revealed the truth.
"…" Ke Xun ran to the windowsill and did a few difficult leg stretches, startling the patients in the next bed, who thought he was there to cause trouble.
"Bed 84, get discharged before noon!" A cold-faced nurse came in and gave an ultimatum. "Also, someone asked about your bed earlier, probably visiting."
Ke Xun immediately pulled his legs back from the windowsill and straightened his blue and white striped hospital gown: "How do I look? Do I look sick?"
Wei Dong thought the other man was much more energetic than him, not at all like a patient: "You're as vigorous as ever."
"I've never received a bouquet of flowers for visiting patients in my life…" Ke Xun sprinted back to his bed, covered himself with the blanket, and leaned against the pillow.
Wei Dong was about to say, "Mu Yiran went back to S City a long time ago, and even Qin Ci went back to X City..."
when the ward door was pushed open, and Zhu Haowen walked in, carrying a small fruit basket filled with the kind of Red Fuji apples from the cold storage...
"Haowen is a local from B City, and he lives nearby. I felt bad for not coming to see you." Wei Dong planned to borrow a stool from the next bed for Zhu Haowen to sit on.
Zhu Haowen, however, decided to stand, placing the small fruit basket he was carrying on the table beside him. "I've been inquiring about the art museum these past few days. That area did indeed used to be the Spring Bamboo Apartments. Back then, the developers used some methods to drive away those holdout residents..."
Since these matters were somewhat related to paintings, Wei Dong still pulled the curtain separating the hospital bed as if to avoid suspicion. To outsiders, it probably looked like the caregivers were helping the patient change clothes or assist with toileting...
"Back then, there were many news reports about the developers' violent clearing of the site, but it seems the news was later suppressed. I can still hear some things from the resettlement housing near the art museum. Legend has it that the place was cursed by the people of the Spring Bamboo Apartments. The Hong Kong developers are also very superstitious, so they consulted a feng shui master, and finally used a rhinoceros and an elephant to suppress the Spring Bamboo Apartments. The art museum was simply named the Rhinoceros and Elephant Art Museum." Zhu Haowen spoke with his usual expressionless face.
"I also looked up some legends about the Rhinoceros Elephant Art Museum online, especially about that popular restaurant below the museum. Many people say that if you go there for a late-night snack, you'll see strange things." Wei Dong took out his phone and tapped around. "Unexpectedly, the more rumors like this there are, the more popular that restaurant becomes."
"Strange things?" Ke Xun asked.
"The most common story is that you'll see a fleeting shadow, and that shadow is often wearing red clothes." Wei Dong pointed to a message and read it aloud.
Zhu Haowen spoke again: "I just want to know, were the situations you experienced before similar to this one?"
Ke Xun thought for a moment: "This time it seems exceptionally realistic. The previous system game style was more intense, and the NPCs were more mechanical. I think the location this time is crucial. The scene overlapped with the real world, resulting in a very realistic recreation of many scenes."
Ke Xun looked at the thin isolation curtain: "I can't say any more. We can discuss some things in the group."
Zhu Haowen, however, seemed interested in the world in the painting: "I pay more attention to rules and logic. As long as the world isn't arbitrarily arranged, it's a reasonable existence."
Wei Dong looked at Zhu Haowen, very glad that he had ended his history of being roommates with this person. If they hadn't experienced life and death together in the painting, this person in front of him would really seem like an NPC arranged in the painting...
Wei Dong then looked at the "flesh and blood" Ke Xun, who was gulping down water from a large mug, and suddenly felt a sense of happiness as if he were being tightly embraced by the real world.
"Stop giving me those shifty glances, will you?" Ke Xun said, managing to squeezing one eye at Wei Dong while drinking water—that took some skill.
"Including those two, there are five of us in total. See you then," Zhu Haowen said casually, his tone like a cold-faced homeroom teacher introducing students: "Let's all get to know each other."
...
After Zhu Haowen left, Ke Xun was discharged from the hospital and took the train back to his hometown, Z City, with Wei Dong.
Z City and B City aren't far apart, only a little over two hours by high-speed train. At this time of day, the carriage was nearly empty, with no other passengers around them.
Wei Dong leaned back in his seat and dozed off. When he opened his eyes, he saw Ke Xun grinning foolishly at his phone.
"What could make you so happy?" Wei Dong rubbed his sleepy eyes.
Ke Xun chuckled a few times, his eyes never leaving the phone screen: "Have you ever thought about how we all immediately immerse ourselves in real life after leaving the paintings?"
"Your all-powerful phone can tell you that?" Wei Dong habitually opened the Candy Crush game on his phone. "Phone, phone, please tell me, who is the most lewd man in the world?"
Ke Xun completely ignored Wei Dong's next words: "Yesterday, Dr. Qin said in the group that he rushed back to X City from B City that day and was immediately scheduled for a major surgery. He was the chief surgeon, and the surgery was very successful."
"Dr. Qin is a man who has seen a lot. Ordinary blood and gore would never make him flinch." Wei Dong casually eliminated a whole row of red balls, feeling very satisfied, as if he were silently resisting those paintings.
"And that guy," Ke Xun said, his eyes and eyebrows seemed to no longer belong to him, as if an indescribable joy was flowing from the depths of his heart, slowly spreading to the corners of his eyes and between his brows.
Wei Dong had rarely seen Ke Xun show such an expression. Although Ke Xun hadn't shown any signs of depression in recent years and always seemed to be having a great time with his brothers, Wei Dong always felt that Ke Xun had reserved a part of himself, perhaps a part reserved for his true self—since Ke Xun's parents' accident, he had never shown that carefree smile from his youth again.
Although Mu Yiran was an unattainable international legend for Wei Dong and Ke Xun, who lived in Z City, Wei Dong actually hoped that this ethereal man could descend from the clouds and linger on earth a little longer if it could bring his buddy genuine happiness, even if it was just to let his best friend laugh like that a few more times.
"Didn't you hear me? You're hungry again after just finishing a KFC family bucket?" Ke Xun gently tugged at Wei Dong's head.
"Who stabbed my whole family in the back?"
"..."
Wei Dong blinked hard, trying to hold back the tears that were about to spill. "Um, I didn't hear you clearly just now. What happened to the big boss?"
Ke Xun patiently repeated, "Two hours after leaving B City, he appeared at a famous painting auction in Hong Kong."
"Two hours? It takes three hours to fly from B City to Guangzhou, right? How come it only took two hours to get to Hong Kong?" Wei Dong felt that he was sometimes quite clueless.
Ke Xun didn't seriously consider the question. In his imagination, as soon as Mu Yiran walked out of the art museum, he should have been picked up by some mysterious figure, and everyone was dressed like characters from The Matrix...
"Then he probably went to Hong Kong on a private jet." Wei Dong saw the god-like distance between the big boss and ordinary people again and couldn't help but mutter, "Ke'er, I still think that the big boss is too far away from us... Actually, there are many people around us who are quite good, like Hao Wen'er."
"Who is Hao Wen'er?" Ke Xun looked up from his phone blankly.
"Never mind."