When the eight veteran members entered the adjacent exhibition hall, they found it completely dark.
Hearing the door slowly closing behind them, everyone's heart sank.
The newcomers remained relatively calm; one of them said, "Is there a power outage? Let's all turn on our phone flashlights..."
Before he finished speaking, a blinding beam of white light shone directly onto a painting. The veteran members quickly approached the painting, trying to memorize its content and the artist as quickly as possible.
The five newcomers stared dumbfounded at the sudden arrival of the visitors. One young man clutched his expensive camera, which he had just bought from Japan, tightly...
Gradually, the newcomers sensed something was wrong, as if only this beam of light, these dozen or so people, and this painting on the wall remained in this dark world.
The veteran members' eyes were all fixed on the painting. It was a painting mixed in with black and white photographs. The image was black and white, not ink wash, but more like a line drawing with a black carbon pen. Perhaps to emphasize the image, the artist had drawn a large circle on a square piece of paper with a compass, concealing the landscape within the circle, adding an artistic touch to the painting.
The composition was very simple, featuring only a plainly designed house, its shadow cast obliquely by the sun. The artist's signature, written outside the circle, was in a hasty hand: "A Journey Against the Current, by Bi Di, Spring 1995."
The white light lasted only a few seconds. The veteran members had already tacitly assigned tasks: Wei Dong and Zhu Haowen focused on memorizing the image, Ke Xun and Qin Ci on memorizing the text, while Mu Yiran gave a general overview and improvised…
Shao Ling observed the composition and proportions in his own way; Fang Fei noticed the difference in the brushes—the image was drawn with a carbon pen, while the artist's signature and the large circle seemed to be drawn with a pencil; Luo Yu simply took several photos of the image with his phone…
When the world went completely dark, the five newcomers finally screamed in terror: "Where is this?! What is happening?! Who are you people?!"
Luo Jin's voice lingered slowly: "We are all fellow sufferers, may we all be lucky."
Soon, everyone fell silent. The darkness gradually thickened, like a dense, impenetrable secret realm, into which one could only slowly merge through the suffocating emptiness.
Luo Jin didn't know how long this lasted; he only knew that he was tightly gripping Ke Xun and Wei Dong's hands, his legs clamped tightly around his 'Heart Spring Sensing Car,' determined to tell everyone his feelings once he could speak: it was like swimming in asphalt…
The "asphalt" wasn't scalding hot, it was at room temperature, and it was gradually cooling, getting colder and colder, as if trying to solidify him into thousand-year-old amber.
After countless lifetimes and tribulations in the chaos, Luo Yu's feet finally touched solid ground, and he could finally breathe freely again. He greedily inhaled the angular, cold air, when Wei Dong beside him remarked, "I feel like I've swum through an entire preserved egg."
The group, unintentionally compared to "ginger soy sauce" by Wei Dong, were now adjusting to their new environment.
Although they were still in darkness, they could sense they were indoors. The world was quiet. They crouched down and touched the solid wooden floor, which wasn't clean, seemingly covered in a layer of dust.
After experiencing that indescribable "preserved egg" sensation, the five newcomers gradually calmed down, wrapping themselves tightly in their old, unfamiliar cotton robes, and listened to Qin Ci's fantastical tale, "The Tale of the Painter."
"It's so cold in here," Ke Xun said, already turning on his phone. "Holy crap, is my phone broken?"
Ke Xun's phone screen was lit, but there was no image, like the dim light of a newly turned-on screen, or the brief blank space during a scene change in an early Japanese drama—the screen was filled with nothing but a blank white light.
Soon, several more white lights appeared, and everyone's phones lost all function except for illumination.
"I can't even see how many bars the battery has." Wei Dong stared at the rectangular white light on his phone. Was charging it to 100% for nothing?
"So, the phone is useless in this painting?" A strange, cold voice rang out. The voice belonged to a boy among the newcomers. In the dim light, the boy, imitating Shao Ling, groped along the wall behind him, quickly finding the scratches carved into the wooden wall, each one very clear.
"My Ricoh camera has changed too, it's become a purely mechanical old-fashioned camera!" This time, it was the one who had covered the camera earlier, afraid it would be stolen.
Qin Ci briefly introduced several veteran members to the newcomers. One of the slightly older, short-haired newcomers volunteered, "My name is Xi Shengnan, and I'm the group leader of the 'Sculpting Time Photography Enthusiasts Group.' This field trip was organized spontaneously by a few of us photography enthusiasts. City A is our last stop..." Xi Shengnan's voice trailed off.
After the introductions, everyone had a basic understanding of the newcomers—besides Xi Shengnan, another pretty girl was named Du Lingyu, the boy with the Ricoh camera was Lu Heng, the slightly chubby boy was Cao Youning, and the boy with a sore throat and a cold leaning against the wall was Mai Peng.
"So, finding the photographer's signature guarantees we can leave?" Du Lingyu's voice trembled slightly.
"He's a painter," Cao Youning corrected her.
"Bi Di is a photographer."
"We're inside his painting now."
Du Lingyu fell silent, and her phone went dark, as if conserving its energy along with its owner.
The surroundings seemed to brighten slightly, but the light was strange, very different from a normal dawn.
"Turn off your phones first." Mu Yiran, who had been silent for a long time, suddenly spoke.
Perhaps it was Mu Yiran's unique aura that made people believe him, but the newcomers all turned off their phones at the same time. The darkness was gradually thinning, and the surroundings were filled with an indescribable light, like cold-toned nightlights.
"Before 'dawn', let's talk about this painting and the artist. I hope everyone will speak freely." Mu Yiran could barely make out where they were in the dim light—it was a wide corridor in a wooden building. Not far from them was a wooden door, probably leading to a room, while in another direction it led to a deep staircase, connecting to bottomless darkness.
It was like a scene from a horror movie, with danger brewing all around.
"You just said that Bi Di is a photographer?" Qin Ci asked Xi Shengnan.
Xi Shengnan nodded: "We came to the art museum today to appreciate Bi Di's photography. Actually, his exhibition doesn't open until next month, but we can't stay in City A for a whole month. We figured the exhibition would be prepared in advance, so we begged the staff to open the door for us."
"If I had known it would be like this, I would never have gone to any photography exhibition," Cao Youning muttered softly, recalling what her grandmother had said when she was a child: it's like being chased by a ghost.
"Is Bi Di a very famous photographer?" Shao Ling asked.
"He has a certain reputation in the industry, but he's not nationally famous," Xi Shengnan picked up the conversation. "This exhibition in City A is his first photography exhibition. Since City A is his hometown, this exhibition can be considered a memorial to this artist after his death."
Bi Di is dead. The old members exchanged glances without saying a word. This situation coincided again with the situation of the painters they had seen before. Every painting they entered was a posthumous work by the artist.
"As a photographer, did Bi Di occasionally paint?" Shao Ling continued to ask.
"It's hard to say. Bi Di changed his photographic style after he turned 40. First, he returned to black and white, no longer producing color photographs; second, he almost abandoned capturing and candid shots," Xi Shengnan said.
Hearing this, Mu Yiran's gaze fell on him, and Shao Ling continued to ask, "Abandoning capturing and candid shots means losing the true essence of photography. Why did he…"
"He crafts a photograph like he would a book or a movie," said Mai Peng, whose voice was hoarse from a cold. "For a single photograph, he might create dozens of line drawings. After the finished photograph is completed, he burns all those drafts, leaving only a few in the world. The painting we're in here is one of the most precious line drawings."
"The name of this line drawing is 'A Journey Against the Current.' Have you seen the finished photograph of 'A Journey Against the Current'? Can you describe what the photograph looks like?" Shao Ling turned his attention to Mai Peng; clearly, this young man knew more about the painter.
Mai Peng shook his head regretfully: "I've seen all of Bi Di's photographic works, and I remember almost all of them, but I've never seen a photo called 'The Journey'—this line drawing is the first time I've seen it either."
Qin Ci looked at the other newcomers: "Has no one seen the photo 'The Journey'?"
Everyone shook their heads. Cao Youning said: "Don't even mention the photo, I couldn't even see what this line drawing we just came in was depicted. I was too busy being scared."
Luo Tan looked at his simple phone with some disappointment: "I even took a few photos. I think when we first came in... Aww—Aww—Aww—"
Luo Tan's sudden scream startled the newcomers. Wei Dong also panicked, trying to remain calm: "What's wrong? Are you hungry?"
"Something furry is rubbing against my feet!" Luo Tan was so scared that he went limp, even forgetting to dodge, only knowing to grab Wei Dong, who was closest to him, while sweating profusely.
Everyone panicked. They all looked at Luo Tan's feet in the dim light, and it seemed there was something furry moving. Du Lingyu, one of the newcomers, screamed, "Oh my god, what is that?! Do these kinds of inexplicable things often appear in paintings...?"
Ke Xun lit up his phone and shone the light on Luo Tan's feet: "It's a dog."
"Ah?! Holy crap, this is so weird!" Luo Tan struggled to move towards Ke Xun, not daring to look down. The dog followed him closely. "Mommy, is this some kind of bizarre NPC...? Oh my god, its color is so weird, how can it be so white..."
"When did this dog sneak in? How did it get in so silently? I don't remember drawing a dog in the picture..." This time, it was Lu Heng, equally frightened, who spoke. "
I don't think it belongs in the painting," Mu Yiran remained calm and collected. "Luo Bo, where's your motion-sensing car?"