Chapter 788: Death Painting

Only two players remained in Jiangjiang's villa. With her absent, these two players also vanished from the common areas as if they had turned invisible. Not a single living person could be seen in the vast villa, which gradually emboldened Bian Yongyi, who had been somewhat nervous at first. Discovering that no one was paying any attention to him, he slowly began moving around the villa. Apart from Jiangjiang's own paintings, the most valuable pieces in her villa were works by other artists. These paintings had all been gifted to her by others hoping to win her favor or as part of business exchanges. Nearly every wall in the villa was adorned with them, and the villa's owner didn't seem to care much about these costly artworks either—even the kitchen was decorated with two small pieces. "So filthy rich." Bian Yongyi clicked his tongue in admiration, then stroked the limited-edition collectible figurines displayed on the shelves before sneaking up the stairs. He didn't use any sound-dampening items, merely stepping lightly—afraid that if someone caught him, he wouldn't be able to explain himself. However, even after he slowly made his way upstairs, no bodyguard appeared. Feeling emboldened, he began opening the rooms on the second floor one by one, until he reached Jiangjiang's studio. Every painting in the studio was covered with white cloth. Assuming these were Jiangjiang's finished works, Bian Yongyi casually pulled the cover off one of them. But to his surprise, this was nothing like the warm, healing paintings he had seen online. The color palette was gloomy and gray, causing immediate discomfort at first glance, and the content was far from comforting: on the canvas, a man lay with his body severed from his head, his mangled corpse sprawled on the ground surrounded by pools of blood, while his head was clamped in the jaws of a strange, savage beast, blood dripping to the floor... And behind the beast, a mass of hands and feet stretched toward the sky, seemingly forming a mountain of corpses. Bian Yongyi took one look and hastily covered the painting back up, muttering "Everyone has a dark side" before moving on to the next one. This one wasn't as horrifying as the previous piece. It merely depicted the death of a single person—a man half-reclining against an ornately decorated pillar, his hands resting on his abdomen in the shape of a heart. Bian Yongyi recognized the man in the painting immediately. Although he didn't know this person personally and couldn't quite recall his face, the death pose was so distinctive that anyone who had seen it would never forget it—this was Jiangjiang's bodyguard, who had died a month ago during an exhibition. He hadn't made that gesture to express love for anyone; he had been activating his characteristic. "Never expected the famous Jiangjiang to have such a peculiar hobby." He proceeded to look through several more paintings, all depicting scenes of someone's death. About halfway through, he even found one featuring people he had seen just today—none other than the bodyguards who had left with Jiangjiang and Xu Huo, including Song Xu. Their deaths were all depicted in miserable fashion, as if they had been torn apart by a massive beast, all of them dying in a place that looked like an art gallery. "The imagination of painters..." Bian Yongyi continued flipping through, but the more he looked, the more something felt wrong. Because further back, there were also gruesome death scenes of the two players still staying in the villa. He was a player who had been through dungeons himself, so he knew exactly what a person looked like when they died. No super-large beasts had ever appeared in Zone 009, yet Jiangjiang's paintings were too lifelike—it was impossible to accept that these were merely products of imagination. "Could there be something wrong here?" Bian Yongyi's instincts screamed danger, but he kept looking anyway. He wanted to see if Xu Huo appeared in any of the paintings, but surprisingly, he didn't find Xu Huo—instead, he found himself! Staring at that painting of his own death, his body hanging on a fence surrounded by purple flowers in a garden, he instinctively flung the canvas away. But as he came back to his senses, he realized the place in the painting looked oddly familiar. He whipped his head around to look out the window and discovered that the scene in the painting was actually this very villa's garden! "Impossible!" Bian Yongyi slammed the door open and bolted downstairs without hesitation. He would rather get caught and beaten, or have his head shoved into a toilet, than stay in this villa and risk a death like that! However, as he passed through the garden, he couldn't help but glance at the patch of wormhole flowers. The cluster of purple-and-red blossoms seemed to possess a strange magnetism at that moment, every detail magnified, drawing one's gaze irresistibly. Bian Yongyi forced himself to look away and ran to the villa's main gate. Using an item, he peered outside for half a minute before quietly opening the door. But no sooner had he stepped out than the short-haired man caught him. His foot slipped, and he pitched forward several meters in a posture no normal person could possibly achieve before crashing to the ground. Bian Yongyi instinctively protected his head, but the hot-tempered young man didn't approach him. Instead, he let out a vicious sneer. "Perfect timing—I'll use you to test out my new item." The moment he finished speaking, Bian Yongyi found himself lifted into the air, flying over a dozen meters up before the equally airborne short-haired man caught up to him. Seeing the other man's fist, he immediately closed his eyes, but he never expected that this time, the man genuinely intended to kill him. From between the fingers of the fist striking his temple, a long needle extended. Bian Yongyi died without any suspense. The short-haired man kicked his body away, and by a cruel twist of fate, it landed right on the fence beside the patch of wormhole flowers. The iron fence spikes pierced through his abdomen. Because of his short stature and light weight, the fence didn't topple over, so he simply hung there, blood streaming down the iron bars onto the ground—exactly matching the painting in the studio that depicted his death. * Xu Huo turned to face Jiangjiang. "Do you remember Doctor Shang?" Jiangjiang lowered her gaze and smiled. "You know about my past?" "After all, you're quite famous. Finding this information wasn't difficult." Xu Huo said, "When you were still at the orphanage, he provided psychological counseling for you children." Jiangjiang shook her head. "I don't know any Doctor Shang. But I do know someone surnamed Shang—Shang Shuming. He was also quite famous back in the day, but he's dead now." "Is that so?" Xu Huo said. "I don't think he's dead. At the very least, he was still able to select suitable children from the orphanage to cultivate. Whether the cultivation succeeded is another matter. The other boy who was adopted abroad along with you—he and his adoptive parents all died." "What does that prove?" Jiangjiang countered. "The standard for determining whether cultivation succeeded is whether the subject can kill their own parents and family." Xu Huo smiled. "Do you think you meet that standard?" Jiangjiang looked at him strangely. "He who asserts must prove. Why are you asking me instead?" "Because there's something I want to know. Was Doctor Shang really Shang Shuming?" Xu Huo's smile faded, his expression turning serious. "This is very important to me." Jiangjiang shook her head, speaking with an air of helplessness. "Unfortunately, I can't help you. At least in my memories, there's no Doctor Shang. And the Mr. Shang who used to visit the orphanage when I was little died long ago. Good people don't live long. Take my adoptive parents, for example—the worst thing they ever did in their entire lives was silently cursing others in their hearts out of guilt, and yet they both died of illness." "If Mr. Shang were still alive, then he certainly isn't a good person." "In this world, only bad people manage to survive."