"Alas..." the old man sighed. "This year, a severe drought has struck. The wells are dry, and the fields are parched. I fear there will be no harvest this year... The government has not only failed to reduce taxes, but has actually increased them. It's tough... How are we supposed to survive... Alas!"
This sounded like a typical ancient folktale.
Mu Yiran asked calmly, "Which official governs this area?"
The old man lowered his voice and replied, "The county magistrate."
The county magistrate seemed to have no name; no matter how they asked, the old man's answer was always just "county magistrate."
Ke Xun, Mu Yiran, and Huang Pi wandered around the village again, but didn't find any more seemingly useful clues. So, they inquired about the location of the county government and hurried there.
The county government was naturally located in the county seat. The buildings and scenery there were just as gloomy and somber as the village they had just left.
Ke Xun inquired about the exact location of the county government office along the way. The three of them hurried through the houses until, following the directions given by the last passerby, they arrived at a house. Just as they were about to walk towards the door, they heard a voice from the open window beside them: "Your Excellency
, please take a look." Ke Xun was passing by the window when he heard the voice and turned to look inside. He saw a scholar-like man with a mustache holding up a painting to show another person.
The other person was dressed in official robes and wore a black gauze hat. Although the world was dim, he could still make out the bright red color of his official robes.
An official?
Could this guy be the county magistrate whose name he couldn't get?
Ke Xun peered through the window.
The scholar, holding up the painting, said to the magistrate, "Your Honor, may you live as long and prosperous as this pine tree!"
The magistrate stroked his beard with satisfaction and laughed heartily, "Not at all, not at all."
Ke Xun turned to Mu Yiran, "What the hell is this? The magistrate's room window faces the street; anyone passing by can peek inside. Is this a bug in the painting or a deliberate clue left for us?"
Before Mu Yiran could answer, the people inside had already heard the commotion outside the window. The scholar-looking man... Pointing at Ke Xun, the scholar asked, "Who are you?"
Ke Xun cautiously took a half-step back and cupped his hands in greeting. "I'm just passing by, and happened to catch a glimpse of the magistrate's face and voice."
The scholar walked to the window, peeked out at Ke Xun, stroked his mustache with one finger on each side, and said to Ke Xun with a mocking tone, "Go and herd your cattle!"
With that, he slammed the window shut, and then laughter from inside came from him and the magistrate.
Ke Xun turned to Mu Yiran with a bewildered look: "Do I look like a cowherd?"
Mu Yiran glanced at the two fluffy cat ears on his head that were wiggling around, pursed his lips, looked away, and carefully examined the surroundings. After a long while, he finally spoke: "I think the line 'I'm telling you to herd cattle' is a standard NPC line. Of course, it might also be a clue. We can go find a cow to try."
The two of them acted immediately, striding away from the strange county government window, but they didn't notice Huang Pi lagging behind, glancing expressionlessly at the closed window.
However, finding a cow wasn't easy. Returning to the village they had just left, the three of them wandered around for a while but didn't see any farmers using oxen to plow the fields. Most were plowing by hand. But then again, cows were very important tools of labor in ancient times. Their value was even higher than that of slaves, and ordinary poor families couldn't afford cows.
As darkness fell, the three decided to return to the house they had come from. They hurried along the marked paths, when suddenly they heard a child crying, "My sheep! My sheep! My sheep! My sheep!"
Looking in the direction of the sound, they saw a constable-looking man forcibly snatching a lamb from a commoner's arms. The child was no match for the strong constable and was quickly kicked to the ground, who then ran off with his lamb.
Ke Xun remarked, "...The NPCs in this painting are really dramatic. They act like they're doing whatever they want, regardless of whether we can see them or not."
The three didn't stop; it was getting dark, and survival was paramount.
They returned to the mud-brick house they had come from, and pushed the tightly closed door. Surprisingly, the door could still be opened. Ke Xun had assumed that, according to the usual pattern, the "painting" wouldn't allow them to return to the room they had come from—meaning that after dawn the next day, the three of them could choose to search for clues in another world?
Pushing open the door, Ke Xun saw that Qin Ci, Luo Wei, and Li Yaqing had already returned, but the others were still nowhere to be seen. Ke Xun couldn't help but worry about Wei Dong and Zhu Haowen, so he asked Qin Ci, "Brother Qin, do you know which door Dongzi and the others chose?"
Qin Ci shook his head: "We were the second group to leave. Xiao Wei and the others should be after us, but you don't need to worry. Haowen is a reliable person; I think they should be on their way back."
Ke Xun took out his phone and checked the time. It was already past 7 PM. He thought that if the two hadn't returned by 8 PM, he would go to the world they had chosen to look for them.
"Did you find any clues in that world?" Qin Ci asked Mu Yiran.
"Not yet." Mu Yiran briefly described the world they had gone to, and then asked Qin Ci and the others if they had found anything.
Qin Ci's expression turned strange. After a moment of contemplation, he slowly spoke, "The world we went to... is too bizarre, somewhat subverting any previous painting. Everything there... whether it's buildings, trees, flowers, or even people, is... flat."
Ke Xun's cat ears perked up. "Flat? Describe it in detail."
"Two-dimensional," Luo Wei calmly interjected from the side. "It's like we've entered a two-dimensional world, but it's not truly two-dimensional. True two-dimensionality has no thickness, but the scenery and people in this world still have a certain thickness, about... as thick as a sheet of paper."
"To give an analogy," Qin Ci continued, "it's a bit like paper cutting. Everyone looks like a paper cutout, the houses, the scenery, even the water, all seem to be cut out of paper."
Ke Xun stared in disbelief, his cat ears twitching. "It is indeed quite bizarre, even more bizarre than the world we went to... Do those scenery and people have color?"
"Yes, not only is it there, but the colors are also very vibrant," Qin Ci said. "The people inside are wearing old-fashioned clothes, somewhat like the style of the late Qing Dynasty."
Ke Xun scratched his head and looked at Mu Yiran: "This painting seems a bit chaotic. The two worlds our two groups entered are not only different in style, but also in historical period. The one we entered should be set before the Qing Dynasty."
Mu Yiran nodded, listening to Qin Ci continue: "After we went in, we found ourselves in a fishing village, surrounded by fishermen. We circled the entire village twice but didn't find any clues, so we had to search house to house. Time was tight, and we only checked seven or eight houses. There are still a large number of places we haven't found. We plan to continue searching tomorrow."
Just then, Wei Dong and Zhu Haowen, along with Zhao Haicui (who had her hair in a bun) and Zhang Lifeng (who had chosen two longan seed props), pushed open the door and entered the house.
"How was it?" Ke Xun asked abruptly.
Zhu Haowen and Wei Dong stared at him.
"...What?" Ke Xun asked, confused. "Why are you looking at me? Did the word 'handsome' grow on my face?"
Zhu Haowen: "..."
Wei Dong: "...I swear I just heard you 'meow'!"
Ke Xun looked utterly bewildered: "...Are you crazy? I only said three words, how about those three words?"
"Boss," Wei Dong turned to Mu Yiran, "you be fair, didn't Ke'er meow first before asking the question?"
Mu Yiran frowned slightly, confirming that Wei Dong was telling the truth. Ke Xun was even more confused. Didn't he know what he had said? He didn't think he had meowed at all. What was all this nonsense?
Scratching his head, Ke Xun put the strange question aside for the moment and asked Wei Dong and Zhu Haowen, "Let's not talk about anything else. Tell me, have you found any clues, meow?"
Everyone: "..."
Seeing Ke Xun's clueless expression, no one continued the topic. Zhu Haowen answered, "The world we entered was very strange. All the animals were anthropomorphized."
Ke Xun exclaimed in surprise, "Could it be that we've traveled back to that 'Animal World' painting again?!"
Zhu Haowen said, "It shouldn't be. All the animals are normal-sized. There are no animals as big as the giant bull in that painting. And... all the animals can talk like humans. They wear clothes like humans, which is why I said all the animals are anthropomorphized."
"That's really bizarre... meow," Ke Xun said.
Everyone: "..." You're the bizarre one, okay?
"We searched this world for a while and found that it was a world without humans, with a normal social order," Zhu Haowen continued, "but we still couldn't find any relevant clues…"
Before he could finish, Wei Dong interrupted, "We almost got caught by a bunch of cats and ended up in jail."
"What happened, meow?" Ke Xun asked hurriedly.
Wei Dong glanced at Zhao Haicui, the woman with her hair up, who was standing next to him with a grim expression, and snorted, "It was all because of this lady. She saw a talking animal and made a huge fuss, seriously disrupting public order. A few cats in police uniforms rushed out from the side to grab us, and I had to pretend to be a country bumpkin who had just arrived in the city for a long time before they let us go."
Qin Ci frowned, "Three doors, three completely different worlds. What exactly is the theme of this painting trying to express? Are the worlds inside the remaining three doors also completely different from these three worlds?"
"What's the name of this painting again?" Wei Dong asked.
Everyone looked at each other, having been so focused on Luo Wei before entering the painting that they hadn't noticed it.
Only Mu Yiran spoke up: "The work is titled 'Pure Land,' painted by Milen."
"Pure Land? Could this painting be related to religion again?" Wei Dong shuddered; the psychological trauma from the painting "Faith" hadn't faded yet.
"But the styles of these three worlds are so different, and they have absolutely no religious feel," Qin Ci said.
"Yiran, do you know Milen, this cat?" Ke Xun asked.
Wei Dong: "...Are you sure you didn't intentionally call a person a cat?"
Ke Xun rolled his eyes at him: "I meant 'person.'"
"Oh no..." While Ke Xun and Mu Yiran were talking, Wei Dong whispered to Zhu Haowen, "Ke'er's confused. It must be because of that strange world they entered. What do we do? He doesn't even realize it! Do you think he'll end up only able to speak cat language?! That's terrifying!"
"Think of a way." Zhu Haowen's face was stern; he ignored Wei Dong and lowered his eyes, lost in thought.