Although the two corpses still retained their human forms, a closer look revealed that they had been sliced into pieces like chicken cutlets by some sharp weapon and neatly stacked on the ground.
Their clothes were completely soaked in blood, twisted and contorted against the bodies. The soil beneath them was stained a dark reddish-brown, reeking of blood. A dozen or so crows perched around the corpses, not flying away even as Mu Yiran approached, their dark eyes fixed on him with a deathly stillness.
Ke Xun turned around, opening his mouth to vomit, startling Wei Dong, who scrambled back seven or eight meters: "Holy crap, shut up! What did you see?!"
Ke Xun shook his head, managing to suppress the urge to vomit for a long time. He took two deep breaths of the unpleasant air, gritted his teeth, and turned back around.
Mu Yiran was still staring at the corpses, seemingly lost in thought.
Ke Xun steeled himself and looked at the two corpses again. They lay side-by-side. If you ignored the fact that their bodies were cut into pieces, their postures at the time of death were remarkably peaceful. Their arms were neatly placed at their sides, their legs were straight, and their heads were perfectly tilted upwards.
Faces… Ke Xun glanced at the corpse on the left. A sixteen or seventeen-year-old schoolgirl had her innocent eyes closed. Her face was covered in blood, obscuring her youthful innocence. Her soft, long hair was a tangled mess of mud and blood beneath her. Her body, just beginning to blossom in her youth, was now a pile of minced flesh.
Ke Xun couldn't imagine the horrific things this girl had experienced before her death. How afraid, how much in pain, how much she longed to go home as she was slaughtered like livestock by that irresistible, terrifying force.
Ke Xun's hand, hanging at his side, trembled involuntarily, then clenched into a fist.
"Have you finished examining her?" he asked Mu Yiran.
Mu Yiran looked up at him and nodded slightly.
Ke Xun stopped talking, walked over, picked up the shovel lying nearby, and started digging.
Mu Yiran watched him but didn't say anything more.
Wei Dong, standing a little further away, didn't dare come closer, so he raised his voice and asked Ke Xun, "What are you doing? Don't mess around!"
Ke Xun just kept digging and ignored him.
More and more crows appeared in the air, constantly falling down. Seeing Mu Yiran standing motionless beside the corpse, several crows stopped staring at him and landed directly on the corpse, tearing at the pieces of flesh with their sharp beaks.
Mu Yiran frowned slightly and took a few steps back.
Ke Xun heard the sound, turned his head and glanced at the crows, suddenly feeling a surge of anger. He swung the shovel at the crows on the corpse, yelling, "Go to hell! Get lost!"
However, there were simply too many crows. As soon as he swung away a few, more fell down, and even more fell. Soon, the two corpses were covered with crows, almost completely obscuring them.
Ke Xun didn't want to touch the corpse, and after hesitatingly working for a long time, he finally just covered the body with soil. The crows hid to the side, dozens, even hundreds, of them staring at him silently and coldly.
"Ke Xun," Mu Yiran suddenly called to him in a deep voice, "Stop, don't bury it."
Ke Xun gripped the shovel tightly and looked up at him: "Just let them be eaten by birds?"
"Look at what they're doing." Mu Yiran looked at him coldly.
Ke Xun looked at the flock of crows and met their dark, lifeless eyes.
"If you bury these two, you'll be next," Mu Yiran warned, taking a few steps back. "Put down the shovel and come here."
Ke Xun pursed his lips, then threw down the shovel and strode towards Mu Yiran. "Have you finished investigating? I'm going back."
Mu Yiran glanced at him, her calm tone carrying a barely perceptible hint of acquiescence. "I have nothing more to investigate."
"Dongzi, get up, let's go." Ke Xun immediately turned and strode away from the wasteland along the path he had come from.
Some distance from the village, Ke Xun saw several other people leaving the village together, also heading towards the wasteland. Liu Yufei was in the lead, not even greeting Wei Dong.
Everyone was diligently searching for clues.
Ke Xun calmed down and turned to look at Mu Yiran: "Did you find any clues just now?"
Mu Yiran glanced at him, her tone indifferent: "Why would you assume I would share the clues I find with you?"
Ke Xun was speechless for a moment, and Wei Dong, standing beside him, was also speechless, watching Mu Yiran's back as she continued walking forward without stopping: "What you said isn't entirely wrong, but it still feels a bit hurtful..."
Ke Xun lowered his eyes and thought for a moment, then quickly followed, turning his head to look at Mu Yiran: "You're right, you really have no obligation to share the clues you've obtained with someone I'm not even that close to. We're not related, it's a favor if you tell me, it's your right not to tell me, and I can't possibly hate or blame you for it. Besides, this is an era where everything is compensated.
"Since that's the case, let's discuss it from the perspective of cooperation and mutual benefit. I think I still have some value to you, and I won't take your clues for free. You give, I receive, how about it?"
Mu Yiran glanced at him without any change in expression and coldly asked, "How do you plan to repay me?" Ke
Xun ruffled his messy hair and answered seriously, "I'm a terrible student, so I can't offer any intellectual help, but I should be able to handle the physical labor. If you need any errands or tasks, you can give them to me. You just need to talk. What do you think?"
"Do I look like someone who's lazy?" Mu Yiran asked him.
"No, you look like a big shot who can command everything with a flick of his wrist," Ke Xun said sincerely. "Big shot, please take me under your wing. I'll give you one free, guaranteed profit."
"You're the freebie, your whole family are freebies," Wei Dong said.
"Are your legs thicker than his?" Ke Xun asked.
"Hello, big shot, I'm the freebie." "Wei Dong said to Mu Yiran.
Perhaps shocked by the two's blatant attempt to curry favor, or perhaps anticipating the prospect of being relentlessly pestered by these two idiots even if he refused, Mu Yiran walked around expressionlessly for a while before finally speaking: "This is the first painting you've entered. There are many things you don't understand. We are not as peaceful as you see us. So, if you two truly want to team up with me, you must first agree to one condition."
"Tell me," Ke Xun looked at him.
The serious look in his eyes made Mu Yiran slightly soften his cold expression. If the other party agreed without even thinking, it would make him less trusting.
So he spoke in a calm voice: "I need you to always remember that all the clues we obtain must not be revealed to anyone other than the three of us without my permission. Any questions?" Wei
Dong looked at Ke Xun. He knew his childhood friend best, and this request didn't align with Ke Xun's values.
To outsiders, Ke Xun always seemed carefree, easygoing, and even somewhat aloof, but as his best friend since childhood, Wei Dong knew he was actually a very pure and kind person. Although he had done his share of bad things, he had also done his share of good things.
Ke Xun didn't care about gains and losses and was never a selfish or petty person.
He used his parents' inheritance to open a gym. Even when he could support himself, he didn't forget his friends.
Ke Xun brought his brothers and classmates who were struggling financially and on the verge of starvation into the gym. Those who could be instructors became instructors, those who couldn't did reception, back-office work, or accounting, and those with no skills did equipment maintenance, cleaning, and handing out flyers. He tried his best to ensure they were well-fed.
So, while Ke Xun wouldn't go out of his way to help everyone, he wouldn't hesitate to lend a hand if it came to him and he could.
Back to the present, everyone who entered this painted world wasn't facing poverty or hunger; everyone was facing life and death. Helping might save one or even several lives; not helping, in this context, was tantamount to sending someone to their death.
Wei Dong wasn't sure if Ke Xun would agree to Mu Yiran's condition. Ke Xun wasn't a saint, but he wasn't Satan either.
"Can I ask why?" Ke Xun looked at Mu Yiran.
Mu Yiran also looked at Ke Xun.
This guy, who was sometimes thick-skinned and acted silly, always managed to soften his heart involuntarily with the pure look in his clear eyes.
Mu Yiran lowered his eyes, his voice still cold: "Because, inside the painting, what can kill you isn't just those 'things,' but also living people."
"You mean, those who entered the painting with us might kill us?" Ke Xun's gaze sharpened slightly. "Why?"
"There's a rule in the painting," Mu Yiran said coldly, looking at the lifeless village before him. "As I said before, we only have seven days. If we can't find the artist's signature or seal within seven days, everyone will die. And during these seven days, someone might die every day due to the various strange powers within the painting, but this isn't absolutely unavoidable.
"In fact, deaths caused by the power within the painting are random. Like last night, you were already on the verge of death, but because of the unexpected situation in the main room, you escaped. This wasn't a pre-set process by the power within the painting; whether it's an unfortunate death or an accidental survival, it's all random."
"However, there is an unchangeable and unyielding rule in the world within the painting—if, by chance, no one dies on any day within the seven days due to the randomness of the world within the painting, then between eight and nine o'clock the next morning, all the surviving people will gather together and vote to choose one...to die."