Ke Xun had already circled around to the front of the wheelchair, crouching down to look at Yue Cen. He saw Yue Cen's hands trembling and clenching tightly, displaying a panic completely out of character.
Ke Xun directly pulled Yue Cen's hand, pried open her fingers, and saw a clump of dark green stuff in her palm: "What...what is this?!" "
...It looks like moss." Yue Cen was also filled with disbelief, slowly rolling up her left leg.
Upon seeing Yue Cen's exposed calf, both of them gasped in shock. Yue Cen's calf was completely bloodless, her skin stiff, and felt like stone. Even more bizarrely, a layer of mottled moss had grown on her leg.
Yue Cen felt goosebumps rise all over her body. Her leg felt terrifyingly like stone, while the damp, fuzzy moss made her want to vomit. She quickly pulled down her trouser leg, lowering her head as if trying to calm herself.
Ke Xun, somewhat uneasy, placed his hand on her knee to check, finding it still warm and somewhat soft: "We can't delay, we have to find the fragment immediately! This world says it has given us 13 hours, but danger can strike at any moment here."
13 hours is just an unrealistic, maximized time figure.
Ke Xun was somewhat anxious, unsure of the speed of this "petrification and mossification," or what kind of "inhuman transformation" he would undergo: "Okay, Sister Cen, since your legs aren't very strong, you wait for me here at the granary. I'll run around and scout out the surroundings."
Yue Cen, however, regained her composure with extraordinary calm. Although her face was still pale, her tone had become steady: "Ke Xun, think carefully, have you encountered similar situations in your previous paintings? How did you resolve them?"
After summarizing the previous dozen or so paintings, Ke Xun now remembered each one vividly: "In the painting 'Pure Land,' Yi Ran almost turned into a stone man because of the 'Hailibu' cartoon. In that painting, you could choose the props. Basically, each person's props determined their fate in the painting, even their method of death. —As for the solution, we survived because we answered the questions correctly."
"It's a pity that no one is giving us any questions right now, and even if there were, they'd be hidden." Yue Cen looked around, her attention finally returning to herself. "Ke Xun, don't you think my changes are… illogical? Especially this moss. It's supposed to be winter here, and the 'mouse wedding' usually happens in the first month of the lunar calendar. The environment is dry and cold right now, so where did this damp moss come from?"
Yue Cen carefully examined the small amount of moss she had just removed from her leg. "This moss is very thick, like it grew from the mud in a shady courtyard or a ditch or well."
Ke Xun looked at Yue Cen, unable to believe the composure of the woman before him. He quickly composed himself and examined the moss closely. "Sister Cen, do you think these changes might be a hint from your painting?"
"A hint?" Yue Cen's eyes lit up slightly.
"Yes, precisely because it lacks logic, we might as well take it as a clue." Ke Xun said, standing up and using his excellent eyesight to look into the distance. "Actually, those green fields in the distance aren't just embellishments to this painting. As we've slowly approached the granary, I think the fields in front seem closer."
"Those green fields don't belong to the scenery of January. I think the moss must come from over there." Yue Cen said, looking at Ke Xun. "Little Ke, it's really inconvenient for you to push me around like that. Just like you said, I'll wait for you here. You go and check the surrounding area first."
"Okay, that's the only way. The sun is up now, so there shouldn't be any danger. You wait for me near the granary." Ke Xun said, tightening the coarse cloth towel around his waist, and then ran off into the distance.
Yue Cen watched Ke Xun's agile figure with a hint of envy in his eyes, but quickly returned to reality. Although he couldn't go far, he could still observe the surrounding area from his wheelchair.
Ke Xun ran for a while, feeling the ground beneath his feet soften, and seeing tiny sprouts of grass showing a glimmer of life. He wasn't sure if it was from running or the warmer weather, but Ke Xun felt a bit hot. He looked up at the sun, its brilliance almost blinding.
Looking back at the path he had come from, he saw only a cold, leaden gray, as if the remnants of winter lingered there, filled with deathly desolation, like a tattered gray quilt left behind on the road.
A few low, earthen-walled granaries lay silent in the distance, and Yue Cen, in his wheelchair, had become a distant black dot.
A clue?
A clue.
Ke Xun gazed in another direction where the vegetation was growing darker, instinctively feeling the answer must lie there.
Yue Cen, remaining in "winter," wrapped himself tightly in his coarse cloth jacket, gazing at the lonely, cold sun in the sky. He thought about what had happened "last night." According to Ke Xun and the others' descriptions of the previous paintings, this one, "Harmony," clearly broke the previous "rules." Although the maximum time limit in the painting was still "seven days" (the seven-story tower probably represented seven days), the boundary between day and night was indistinct, and each small world had its own cycle, making it impossible to discern any rules.
However, one thing was certain: in this world about "the rat's wedding," the night hadn't brought any deaths. Moreover, time seemed to pass more slowly than expected; only 40 minutes had passed since he entered the world and first checked the time.
Yue Cen took out his phone, about to check the time again, when suddenly a very clear and loud "beep—" sounded, startling him.
This "beep—" didn't come from the phone, nor from anything around him. The sound seemed to come from beyond the heavens, like a character in a game accidentally overhearing the alarm clock of a player outside the screen.
Yue Cen turned on her phone screen; the time displayed was 01:00:09.
If she wasn't mistaken, the "beep" sound came nine seconds ago, seemingly a reminder that an hour had passed.
Just as Yue Cen made this guess, Ke Xun ran back, looking quite relaxed, not even out of breath: "Sister Cen, did you hear that sound just now? Was that the hourly chime?!" The hourly
chime—Yue Cen couldn't help but chuckle at Ke Xun's explanation: "Yes, that must have been a reminder that an hour had passed."
"That means the other groups should have heard it too."
"I think so."
Yi Ran must have heard it too.
She wondered what he was going through.
Ke Xun's thoughts were quickly pulled back by Yue Cen: "Xiao Ke, did you make any new discoveries just now?"
Ke Xun came to his senses, walked behind Yue Cen's wheelchair, and pushed it southward, the direction he had just come from: "That's another season. I've entered spring, and if we keep going, I think it should be midsummer."
"It seems that this moss must have come from over there," Yue Cen said, looking towards the verdant distance. "If the moss really is a clue, then we should be on the right track heading that way."
The two of them looked behind them simultaneously, towards the north of this world, which seemed to be an absolute edge, beyond which lay a hazy white mist.
"You can push me to walk faster, I'm fine," Yue Cen reminded Ke Xun. "And there's something important I need to mention. My leg is actually in the rehabilitation phase. I can walk for more than half an hour with the help of equipment, but the doctor advised against walking for too long, and definitely not running."
Ke Xun was a little surprised to hear this, as he had thought Yue Cen's leg was an incurable disability: "Sister Cen, was your leg injured?"
"Yes, about half a year ago, I had an accident. Fortunately, I was rescued in time and survived. The rest of my body has gradually recovered, but my leg was the most severely injured, so I've been recuperating until now. The doctor said that even if I eventually recover, I will have sequelae."
Ke Xun could imagine that kind of "sequelae," probably something like leg length discrepancy: "It's already not easy to survive. The accident half a year ago, are you talking about early summer this year?"
"To be precise, it was early summer last year. Today is the first day of the Lunar New Year," Yue Cen corrected.
Ke Xun, disregarding all that, continued, "Where did the accident happen?"
"In Z City. I was driving to an art museum when it suddenly started raining heavily. My car was hit by a truck at a side intersection..." Yue Cen mentioned the art museum, suddenly realizing the matter wasn't so simple.
Ke Xun's voice behind her was somewhat agitated: "The name of that art museum, is it..." "
The Starry Sky Art Museum." The two spoke almost simultaneously.
Ke Xun felt his palms, gripping the wheelchair armrests, were sweaty: "Sister Cen, you were chosen to be included in the painting."
Yue Cen left Ke Xun with a head of hair disheveled by the wind, wrapped in a coarse cloth to ward off the cold wind, as if silently resisting a force trying to destroy him: "If that's true, the painting nominated me, and another force, to stop the painting's selection, didn't hesitate to take the life of the person included outside the painting."
It seemed that another force could even operate outside the painting, and with such direct influence.
This was unprecedented in all of Ke Xun's experience with the painting.
The painting-pushing force and another power—who is truly righteous?
The painting-pushing force lures people into the painting, even at the cost of those who enter dying tragically within it.
The other power prevents people from entering the painting, even at the cost of keeping vibrant lives outside.
Both forces, in pursuit of their own ends, never value human life.
But what power do these ants, manipulated by these two forces, have to resist? The only thing they can do right now is try their best to survive.
The thought is chilling, yet Ke Xun and Yue Cen both felt a warmth like a spring breeze at this moment.
"Sister Cen, we've entered spring." Ke Xun gazed at the gradually greening grass and the increasing number of trees.
Birds chirped in the woods, as if whispering secrets about the season.
A building ahead caught their attention.
"It's strange, we can't see this building from a distance." Ke Xun looked at the tall, temple-like structure with some doubt.
"Perhaps, this place doesn't want to be found easily," Yue Cen said.