The two cautiously made their way towards the small village.
Ke Xun's eyesight was always excellent, but the village in the distance remained a blur, only a rough outline, like a low-resolution photograph or an old painting.
"What the hell is this..." Wei Dong stammered beside him, trying to ease his fear by talking, constantly glancing around. "Is this really not a dream? Has Earth been invaded by aliens? Holy crap, I don't want to die! The Wei family's hereditary athlete's foot can't end in my generation..." "Shut up
," Ke Xun lowered his voice. "The more confused you are, the calmer you need to be. You wasted your time watching horror movies."
"Holy crap, why does it have to be a horror movie? Can't it be some kind of porn?!" Wei Dong didn't dare to raise his voice any further and also lowered his voice.
Ke Xun was actually quite uneasy himself.
The situation before them was too sudden and bizarre; anyone would be stunned in that situation.
Wei Dong was clearly terrified and completely lost his composure. The two of them couldn't both panic; one of them had to remain calm—at least outwardly.
The two tried to tread lightly, for in the still night, every sound seemed amplified, and from the surrounding darkness, something suppressed, or a sound, seemed poised to burst forth.
As they drew closer to the village, the scene became clearer. Through the thick night fog, a cluster of dilapidated mud-brick and thatched houses slowly came into view.
Around the village's perimeter stood seven or eight people.
"Someone's there!" Wei Dong whispered, his voice a mixture of surprise, fear, and excitement.
The fear stemmed from his uncertainty about whether the group were truly people, or simply "people."
Ke Xun squinted, his voice filled with more excitement: "They're people."
He had seen with his own eyes someone fiddling with a phone.
Phone addicts truly are the most carefree creatures in the world. Driving while on their phones, looking at their phones while with children, looking at their phones while crossing the street, even after being hit by a car, the first thing they do upon landing is check their phones.
Even in this bizarre environment, they were still on their phones.
But you have to admit, where phone addicts are, everything seems...indifferent?
The two quickened their pace and ran towards the group.
"Dude! What's going on here? Does anyone know?" Wei Dong asked impatiently to one of the young men who had been watching them.
This man was in his early twenties, dressed in a baggy yellow and white linen shirt. His hair, like Wei Dong's, remained the same—shaved short on the sides and tied in a greasy little braid at the back.
"Nine, ten," the man counted, glancing back at the others. "Three more to go. We'll have to wait."
"Dude, explain!" Wei Dong pressed.
Ke Xun sized up the group.
There were men and women, young and old, middle-aged men with beer bellies and bloated bellies, and nervous, somewhat awkward sixteen or seventeen-year-old girls.
Without exception, everyone was wearing strange linen clothing.
Who were these people?
The man with the pigtail glanced at Wei Dong, then at Ke Xun, his face expressionless. "Let's wait. Three more people need to come. We'll talk when they're all here."
Wei Dong looked at Ke Xun, who gave him a knowing look: wait, observe.
While waiting, Ke Xun secretly observed.
The first person he observed was the one playing on his phone earlier.
He was a man in his thirties, wearing black-rimmed glasses, his head constantly down, the light from the phone screen shining on his face, making him look numb and eerie.
Ke Xun also felt around on himself and found his phone in his pocket.
This was even stranger—his clothes had changed, but everything he had been carrying was still there, except for his phone, his house key, and half a pack of chewing gum.
It was as if only the style and texture of his clothes had changed, and nothing else had changed.
—What on earth was going on?
Ke Xun unlocked the phone with his fingerprint and found that the screen finally lit up, but the top displayed "No Signal."
...Damn it.
It was practically a cliché from a melodramatic movie—the phone always had no signal when you needed to call the police or contact someone, the car never started when you needed to escape, and you could never find your keys when you needed to open a door to escape.
Putting his phone away, Ke Xun glanced around, his gaze involuntarily landing on the tallest person in the crowd.
This person truly stood out from the crowd, not just in terms of height but also in appearance.
Fair skin, handsome features, a cool expression, and a calm demeanor—he was the first person you'd notice in any group.
Even though he was dressed in coarse linen, which would look like mourning clothes on others, he looked like a carefree hermit, exuding a refined elegance.
The man noticed Ke Xun's gaze, glanced at him indifferently, then looked away without a trace, gazing into the blurry distance.
Wei Dong couldn't contain himself any longer. He looked around, then sidled up to the sixteen or seventeen-year-old female student and whispered, "Girl, do you know what's going on?"
The student's face turned pale. "I don't know either... I just arrived... They won't tell me... What should I do... I'm scared... I'm scared..." she sobbed.
Seeing that she had made the girl cry, Wei Dong quickly patted her shoulder: "Hey, don't cry, there are so many people here, it's okay, it's okay. We'll find our way back together in a bit, don't be afraid, don't be afraid."
"I just came in to look at some paintings, how could this happen..." The student sobbed, wiping away her tears, "My mom told me to go home early, and if it weren't for the rain, I wouldn't have come in to take shelter from the rain, how could I have encountered such..."
She seemed hesitant to say the word "terrible," and started crying again.
"Looking at paintings? You also went to the art museum to look at paintings?" Wei Dong asked hurriedly.
The student nodded: "I only went in to take shelter from the rain, if I had known it would be like this, I wouldn't have come in even if I had to go home soaked!"
"Is it the Starry Sky Art Museum?" Wei Dong pressed.
The student nodded again.
"Is it the exhibition hall with the erotic paintings?" Wei Dong asked again.
"Huh?" The student looked up at him with tears in her eyes.
"Uh, no, it's that dark exhibition hall, there are no windows, and all the paintings are like they've been covered in shit, you can't see them clearly." Wei Dong gestured.
The student nodded, "It was that dark exhibition hall. As soon as I went in, the power went out, then a light came on, and then... I inexplicably ended up here..." She started crying again.
Wei Dong turned to look at Ke Xun, "So everyone got here this way."
Ke Xun looked up at the people in front of him. These people were rather strange.
If everyone had arrived at this bizarre place in the same way, they should be as panicked and confused as Wei Dong and him. Even if they could suppress their panic, they would ask around like Wei Dong, trying to find a reasonable explanation. Instead, most of them were very quiet and composed, as if...
as if they were already used to it, or understood the reason behind it all.
Ke Xun gave Wei Dong a wink.
The two had grown up together, sharing a perfect understanding; a single glance was enough for them to understand each other.
Wei Dong shut his mouth, subtly standing next to Ke Xun, intentionally or unintentionally maintaining a certain distance from the others.
After waiting for about forty minutes, three more people arrived from the depths of the desolate, overgrown wilderness. One of them looked somewhat familiar; Ke Xun thought for a moment and remembered that he was the owner of the pancake stall opposite the art museum.
"I just went into the art museum to find a toilet to pee, how did I end up here?!" The pancake stall owner looked at the group with suspicion.
"Everyone's here." The greasy-looking guy with the braid ignored the three newcomers' questions and turned to the others. "You can go in now."
"Where are we going? Where is this?!" The pancake owner grabbed his arm.
The guy with the braid glanced at him, his face still expressionless, but his voice sounded somewhat sinister: "Inside the painting."
"--Painting? What painting?" The pancake owner was completely confused.
"Did you go into an art museum? Did you go into an exhibition hall? Was there a painting in the exhibition hall that was glowing? And then you came here?" The guy with the braid asked impatiently in a series of questions.
"Yes...yes, what's wrong? That painting is pretty strange..." The pancake owner vaguely realized something.
"You're in that painting right now!" The man with the pigtail shook him off and strode after the others who had already started walking, heading into the village.
Ke Xun and Wei Dong, who had been eavesdropping nearby, looked at each other in disbelief.
"Really...?" Wei Dong was stunned. "How could someone get into a painting... I don't believe it..."
"I don't believe it!" the last three shouted. "How is this possible! Where is this? Who are you? What do you want?!"
No one paid any attention; the people who had been there earlier just kept walking into the village.
Wei Dong looked at Ke Xun: "What should we do? Follow them or..."
These people were behaving strangely; following them might be a blessing or a curse.
Ke Xun looked around and gritted his teeth: "Let's follow them."
Two of the three who had come later refused to follow, staying behind and shouting. The pancake vendor, however, strode up, grabbed one of the first group, and glared at him, yelling: "Don't go! You need to explain yourself! What exactly is going on?!"
The one he grabbed was the young man who stood out from the crowd.
The man stopped, tilted his head, and glanced at him indifferently. "This is indeed a painting. As for why people are in the painting, I have no idea. But if you want to get out and return to your original world, you'd better follow us."
His voice, like his personality, was extremely cold.
The pancake vendor wanted to grab him and continue asking questions, but the man pinched his wrist, causing the vendor to wince in pain and be forced to release his grip.
This group didn't seem to care whether the later arrivals followed, as if they had waited for over forty minutes just to make sure everyone was there.
Ke Xun counted; there were thirteen people in total.
Judging from the man's words, this group seemed to understand this strange and bizarre situation quite well and also knew how to return to their original world. Ke Xun felt that if he and Wei Dong wanted to leave, they would have to find a way to improve their relationship with these people.
Thinking this, he took a few steps to catch up with the man and walked alongside him. He turned to look at him, his voice gentle but his expression okay: "Hey buddy, you see, this is the first time we've encountered something like this, so we're bound to ask a few questions. Could you tell us in detail what's going on and how we can get out of here?"
The man glanced at him indifferently, his gaze returning to the distance, his voice still icy: "There's only one way to leave: survive and find the signature."
A signature?