Paintings of Terror

Chapter 73: A Dazed Loyal Dog and a Gentle Male God

Thank you anon for the Kofi!?

“I took a look today, and the soil on the lawn is fairly soft,” Mu Yiran said. “We can try digging a trench near the edge of the fence and escape outside.”

The proposal made everyone excited, and there was a gleam of hope in their eyes.

Mu Yiran looked back at Ke Xun and saw that he was still in the same state as before, his eyelids lowered, motionless.

The giant cow began to distribute lunch, and all the NPCs avoided taking the nuts- since the leader wanted it, no one dared to grab it.

Everyone ate some more nuts so they could shovel the soil later in the afternoon. The drinking water came from the hose as the giant cow washed the compartments, and everyone managed to save some with the empty Coke bottles.

Ke Xun didn’t eat, instead sitting on the ground with one leg bent, his arm on his knee, and half of his face buried in his arms.

After eating for a while, Wei Dong realized his strange demeanor. He was about to ask, but when he saw Mu Yiran approaching, he stepped aside.

Mu Yiran sat next to Ke Xun and said calmly, “Ke Xun, look at me.”

Ke Xun tilted his face, his head resting on his arm, and his dark eyes looked at his face.

Mu Yiran felt that at this moment, he was like a baby who had just opened his eyes to see the world. In his mindset, where right and wrong were clearly distinguished, everything in this enormous world was confusing.

Facing such an expression and such a pair of eyes, Mu Yiran didn’t notice that the lines of his face were inadvertently softening. He met those eyes and whispered to him: “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have let you go.”

“It’s okay,” Ke Xun said. The voice coming from beneath the crooked arm sounded like a young and fragile child.

Mu Yiran pursed his lips, and his voice became lower and lighter: “Forget those things, Ke Xun. Think of this as a painting, as a horrible and bloody R-rated movie, you have to know…. The people who die in this painting are still in the real world and won’t die by the same method.”

“When I returned to the real world after my first painting, I once went to find the people who died inside. Although they had already passed, the relatives and friends around them still remembered them and confirmed that in reality, they did not experience such a terrible death.”

“You can think of death in this painting as an exaggerated image. It has only been rendered to be bloody and terrifying. There is no need to substitute it for reality, let alone be affected by it. Do you understand, Ke Xun?”

“I understand,” Ke Xun said.

Mu Yiran looked at him.

He only said that he understood, but his dark, blank eyes and unwavering face still clearly showed that he was trapped in that purgatory.

Mu Yiran finally sighed softly, raised his hand, and landed on the back of Ke Xun’s neck, “Rest a while.” The hand resting on his head felt tickled by the furry hair sticking up near the back, the slender fingers on the anterior carotid artery applying a light pressure, and within two seconds, Ke Xun tilted his body and fell on top of him.

When Ke Xun woke up, he heard Bi Jing’s screams from a distance. Getting up, he quickly rushed to the fence door to look, and saw a giant cow in a skirt holding him high in the air.

“What happened?” Ke Xun asked the shocked Wei Dong next to him.

“I don’t know,” Wei Dong shook his head, “The female cow… She was brought in by the administrator and seemed to be picking someone. After a while, she picked Bi Jing, but we don’t know what for. It’s still during the day, it shouldn’t be eating again right….”

Ke Xun was silent, glancing over for a bit before leaving the fence gate.

When he turned around, he saw Mu Yiran looking at him. Pausing, Ke Xun smiled: “I’m fine. Thank you.”

Mu Yiran didn’t speak, but it didn’t mean that he didn’t see the slight tremor in Ke Xun’s hands when he heard Wei Dong say “eating” just now.

Bi Jing was taken away by the female cow, his screams only causing a brief commotion among the humans before they soon calmed down; continuing to numbly eat, drink, and play.

The administrator cow who had sent away the other cattle returned and released all the other humans onto the lawn.

The people from outside the painting quietly moved to the far fence, taking turns to keep watch while the others began digging the ditch.

The lawn here was indeed soft, and with five people working at the same time, the speed was not slow at all. By the middle of the afternoon, a trench shallow enough for a person to climb in had been dug out.

But this wasn’t the perfect time to escape. It would be dinner soon, and every time the steward cow drove the humans back to the farmhouse there would be a headcount. If there were six people missing all of a sudden, they would definitely search for them and catch up immediately.

Only after nightfall, when the cows finished cleaning the farmhouse and left, would they have enough time to escape and run as far as possible.

“What if they pick someone from our side tonight?” Dong Dong asked worriedly.

“Wasn’t Bi Jing taken away?” Maybe it’ll be him tonight….” Wei Dong felt that what he said was a bit inconsiderate. Although the reality was obvious, he still ended up shutting his mouth.

“Even if someone is picked from among us,” Zhu Haowen obviously had no psychological burden regarding “benevolence”, “justice”, or “morality”, and straightforwardly said, “It’s worth sacrificing one and protecting everyone else.”

Everyone fell silent.

Although no one wanted to be the one who was sacrificed, they had to admit what he said was justified.

After dinner, the outsiders entered a state of anxiety. If someone was going to be picked, it would happen sometime in the next one to two hours.

They were waiting quietly against the walls, radiating tension. Suddenly, they saw a bright white light coming in from the window. Turning their heads and looking out, they saw that the lamps above the lawn were lit up, illuminating the large open space in front of the farmhouse. Bright as day, a few cattle were headed here with other cows that they’d never seen before. The giant cows who hadn’t been seen previously each showed up with a cage in their hooves, all of them closed with a human inside.

“What are they going to do?” Wei Dong asked in confusion.

No one could answer him, everyone just stared outside silently, vigilantly.

The door of the farmhouse opened with a crash, and two stewards walked in before heading straight to the cubicle where the outsiders resided.

“No…” Fear and despair appeared in Wei Dong’s eyes, “They’re going to choose someone…”

The huge gap in height, build, and strength made people so sad that even the thought of running away couldn’t emerge. Everyone could only stand still in despair while helplessly waiting for death to come.

The giant cows walked to the door and looked down at the group, stretching out hooves and picking up the people in the compartment one by one. Each time they would scan the humans, whispering exchanges between the two cows from time to time.

In the end, they selected a total of four people.

Dong Dong, Mo Mou, Ke Xun, and Mu Yiran.

“Ke er-” Wei Dong was shocked, “Why- Why are there three people-”

His cry came to an abrupt end.

Why couldn’t it be three people? The painting never stipulated that three people wouldn’t die in one night.

“Doctor Qin, stun him!” Ke Xun yelled at Qin Ci.

However, until Ke Xun and the others were taken out of the gate of the farmhouse, Qin Ci couldn’t bear to do it.

The four people were carried to the open space outside the farmhouse. There were no tables and chairs for hot pot, no knives and wooden barrels, only the empty ground, a dozen giant cows, and the people in cages carried in their hooves.

The cows were communicating. One bull brought something akin to a lottery stick box, and each cow drew a stick out.

After the lottery results were illuminated, two cows stood up while the others stepped back, forming a circle and vacating the middle of the lawn.

The cows lowered the cages in their hands, releasing the people inside before retreating to the edge of the makeshift court.

The two humans who came out were extremely strong and tall men, fierce in expression and emanating blood lust.

They glared at each other, gritting their teeth fiercely as they circled one another. Suddenly, their violence came to a head, rushing at the other swiftly, punches and kicks were thrown around, and the fierce battle soon turned into a brawl.

“Fuck… is this cockfighting?!” Dong Dong finally understood.

He had watched cockfighting videos on the Internet before, which was by no means as fun and enjoyable as people imagined.

It was an extremely cruel and bloody sport that caused intense discomfort.

In the video a few years ago, he still remembered the bloodstained and tragic death of the defeated rooster.

He didn’t understand who came up with this kind of entertainment, how they could take such perverse pleasure in watching it.

Of course, this idea had only flashed in his mind for a moment back then. Regarding the clip, he simply left a “What the f*ck” in the comments, not much different from the other viewers who jeered at the video saying things like “just two farm hens pecking at each other”.

He didn’t have any sympathy for the chickens, unbothered to think about their thoughts and emotions, after all, they were simply birds.

They also wouldn’t know that those roosters who died in battle with pride and dignity were nothing more than “cooking chickens” in the eyes of humans.

The two humans fighting the circle had an obvious gap in strength, one of them had been beaten so badly that three or four teeth had been knocked out.

However, he continued struggling to get up and fight, as if his life was only meant for fighting alone, and whether he lived or died didn’t matter.

As it were, he died, and was beaten to death by a stronger person.

The giant cows applauded and whistled, clamoring and making noise.

The deceased was carried down and thrown into the slaughterhouse. Meanwhile, the survivor was brought back to his cage, and his master fed him food from the slits of the cage as a reward.

A few of the giant cows took out what seemed like money and gave it to the owner of the winning human, ending a round of “cockfight” gambling.

The second round soon began, and the opponent who came on the court was even stronger than the previous human, followed by Mo Mou from their farm.

Mo Mou seemed to be used to such occasions, excited rushing towards his opponent without hesitation: “You, the consequences of irritating me are very serious, you won’t be able to bear it. I’ll let you taste my ‘big guy’, and you’ll cry and beg me to stop.”

Mo Mou, he was the previous human leader of the farm, and although he was defeated by Mu Yiran, he was still very strong. Tall, built, handsome, full of fighting spirit and ambition, arrogant and prideful, even Ke Xun didn’t dare to look down on him.

However, the strong Mo Mou was immediately KO’d by the opponent’s heavy punch.

The opponent only punched him once, but the heavy blow knocked him on the head, sending him flying back, leaving him twitching a few times after falling to ground before no longer moving.

There was a roar of laughs from the onlookers, and the administrators of their farm seemed a little embarrassed. They weighed the remaining three people in their hands, and seemed to be choosing one that was strong enough to beat the opponent.

Then their eyes fell on the new leader of the humans, Mu Yiran.

—

A: Not ZHW being like “even if someone dies it’s a worthy sacrifice” ASDKSADFID easy to say if you’re not the one dying

H: C’mon God Mu! Save you and your hubby!

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