The panicked and confused young people rushed to the gate, trying to escape. But they soon remembered that the gate had just been opened and something had come in, causing the two people to dance to death as if possessed by evil spirits. They dared not approach the gate and instead tried to escape through the side door on the other side.
They didn't even know what killed the two people. Only Qin Feichang heard Egbert's words clearly and was sure that he was the culprit of all this.
Egbert was not a person who was cursed here like them, he originally belonged here. Through the opportunities of holding hands several times before, she had already seen his wrist clearly, and there was no black line pattern representing the curse.
However, she sat next to this terrifying young man and had no intention of getting up and running away. If she ran away out of fear at this time, the most likely outcome would be a hasty death.
Led by the fastest young men, several people had already entered the side door. The side door was not big, and the people behind wanted to overtake others, so they were all blocked at the door.
Someone was shouting, "Don't push!"
Someone was screaming: "Someone's dead! Someone's dead again!"
The screams were getting louder and louder, and the person at the front was almost screaming in frustration: "Stop pushing the fucking people in the back, the front can't get through! The people in the front are dead!"
The people who were originally running in the front were trying their best to retreat backwards, and the people who were crowded together stopped pushing forward in confusion.
After they backed away, the open side door suddenly disappeared. The place where the door was originally turned into a wall, and the seven people who ran the fastest before were now all embedded in the wall. The terrified expressions on their faces and the postures when they ran were all left on the wall, vivid and lifelike, like a vivid painting.
"Are they all...dead?"
"How could it be possible? That was a door, and there is a corridor behind it. How could they get into the wall?"
"This is a dream, this must be a dream!" Some people couldn't bear the horrifying scene and grabbed their arms hard, leaving bloody marks. After feeling the real pain, they couldn't help crying out loud.
Egbert, who was sitting on the sofa in the corner, pulled Qin Feichang up and took her to the back of the crowd to take a closer look at the corpses that were embedded in the wall and turned into murals.
"My painting teacher said I'm not good at drawing people, I'm only good at drawing scenery, so I had to spend a lot of time practicing drawing people." Egbert said the most terrible words in the most gentle tone, "Do you think this painting is good, Lorraine?"
If you just regard this as a painting, then of course it is very good, realistic and delicate, and the sense of fear overflows from the picture.
Like a painter who is critical of his own work, Egbert said, "I think this painting lacks some bright colors. It would look better if a little more red was added."
A tall young man who was in panic was very close to them. He vaguely heard the last sentence that Egbert said in a relaxed and smiling tone, and he immediately became furious.
He was one of the fastest runners before and almost fell into the wall like those people on the wall. He barely escaped death and was most scared at that moment. Yet, this guy who was as beautiful as a woman was still joking here.
"You stinky bitch who looks like a woman, you damn trash, what did you say!" He grabbed Egbert's clothes hard, and veins on his arms and face were bulging with anger.
Qin couldn't bear to watch it and said, "Let him go first." Otherwise you will probably die.
The expression on Egbert's face was still smiling, "Don't ruin my clothes."
The tall young man became even angrier when he saw his fearless smile. When people are extremely angry and afraid, they will do irrational things, so he did not listen to anyone's advice and tore off Egbert's clothes - the sweater that Qin Feichang had put on him earlier.
He threw the torn sweater on the ground and stomped on it, "Trash! Pretty boy! What can you do to me if I tear your clothes?! Ah!"
The smile on Egbert's face disappeared.
"Didn't I tell you not to ruin my clothes? This is the first time I'm wearing something like this."
All he had left on was the vintage nightgown he'd worn at the beginning. There was a big tear in it, and the collar hung on his arms, revealing his dazzlingly white shoulders.
Despite being in such a dangerous environment, some people stared at him with their eyes wide open.
However, the amazement did not stay in their eyes for long before it turned into horror.
Because the young girl, who was as slender and beautiful as a rose, suddenly showed a crazy look, and suddenly grabbed the tall young man's neck, just like he tore a sweater, and tore him in half, and stomped on his body madly.
He did not curse like the young man who had just stepped on the sweater, but his gloomy and silent stepping was even more creepy because what was under his feet was not a sweater.
Blood spurted all over him and he finally stopped.
The crowd had already dispersed in fear. His sudden outburst caught people off guard, and many people didn't even have the strength to run away. They just felt their legs go weak and they wanted to vomit.
Amid those horrified gazes, the young Egbert's expression returned to normal. He nonchalantly took off his red and white nightgown, stepped on the blood on the ground, and tore off a piece of the curtain beside him.
The dark red curtains he draped over his body made his chest look even whiter; the contrast between red and white was breathtaking.
Egbert dragged the dark red cloth on his body, like a ghost famous for its bloodiness and beauty in various rumors. He dragged the corpse to the wall and smeared the wall with the blood on his palms, with a serious attitude.
After a while, he stepped back to take a look, then turned around with satisfaction, opened his arms and showed his work to Qin Feichang who was standing alone, "Look, it looks better after adding red."
On the wall behind him, there is a huge flower, with blood and handprints smeared on the white wall. The boy standing in front of the pattern has the same decadent and seductive feeling as the blood flower background behind him, but the smile on his face is sincere and expectant, pure and touching.
—Everyone was so scared that they screamed and cried.
The young people finally realized that this crazy and weird beautiful boy was probably not a human like them.
Qin Feichang also found it difficult to deal with. The malice was too great, and he was doomed to die.
"Why don't you say anything? Don't you agree with me?" Egbert asked.
Qin Feichang did not respond, she just pondered and looked at his expression.
Egbert then asked the others, those who were hiding far away and unable to escape, "Is my painting not beautiful?"
There was a hint of aggrievedness in his expression, as if he really needed other people's approval.
Someone trembled under his gaze and replied, "Yes, it looks good."
The girl who was speaking probably wanted to please him so that he would let her go, but her flattering smile was extremely stiff.
Egbert laughed happily and asked the others, "What do you think? Is my painting good-looking?"
“It looks good… It looks good!”
People answered one after another, and no one dared to anger him again.
But even though so many people praised him, Egbert still didn't seem very satisfied, and he didn't know what kind of answer he wanted.
He looked at his painting aggrievedly and asked Qin Feichang again, "Is it good-looking?"
Qin Feichang replied: "It's late, I should rest now. I'm tired. We can talk tomorrow."
The rest of the people in the hall were stunned, including Egbert. Observing his expression, there was no sign of anger, Qin Feichang walked back to the sofa in the corner silently, closed his eyes and rested.
Although she didn't know what to do or say to trigger Egbert's madness, she knew that it was best not to continue following his thinking and behavior patterns, otherwise she would most likely end up dead.
In the silence, Qin Feichang heard Egbert come over and sit next to her. He said, "Then you have to tell me the answer tomorrow."
You guessed it. In his uncontrollable behavior, he can do anything, but he needs a reason that he can recognize, so as to minimize his madness.
The second half of the night was unexpectedly quiet. Although many people were still trying to escape and made some noise, they were forced to calm down when they found that they could not escape, and finally sat down to rest in the place farthest away from them.
Qin Feichang kept her eyes closed and never fell asleep. She was just resting her eyes, so she found that this night was too short compared to ordinary nights. This was not her illusion, which showed that this place was probably not a real place.
The issue of different speeds of time flow gave her a guess.
Is this an illusion? Or a dream
The moment the first ray of light came in in the early morning, the sound of a deep bell was heard again in the distance.
The magnificent building changed again. It quickly lost all its bright colors and turned into ruins again. The only difference from the shabby banquet hall they saw yesterday was that there were a few more corpses.
The bodies of those who died last night were emitting a fishy smell by the wall, and the people embedded in the wall were still there.
Qin Feichang opened his eyes and saw Egbert's smiling face at first sight.
He said, "You haven't commented on my painting yet."
Qin Feichang looked at the wall, which had changed a lot. The vivid people and the mottled gray wall background seemed like two separate worlds, but they merged strangely together. The bright red blood flower pattern was the finishing touch, like a huge eye with full of malice looking at the person struggling to escape in the picture.
"This painting is better than last night's." Qin Feichang's attitude was no different from the one he would have towards an ordinary painting. He commented calmly with the indifference of an outsider.
The smile on Egbert's face grew bigger and bigger, and finally he laughed out loud, leaning back and forth on the sofa, clapping his hands continuously, "Yes, yes! That's right, the painting last night was only a half-finished product, it wasn't pretty at all, they were all lying, this is the real beauty now!"
Suddenly, whispers were heard in a corner of the hall.
"Hmm—"
"What’s wrong with you?"
"Oh my god, her belly!"
In the corner where the commotion happened, many people who had just woken up were rolling around holding their stomachs and looking painful.
Some people kept coughing up blood and spitting out glass shards; some people's stomach contents changed shape, bursting their bellies and revealing a wooden railing; some people's stomachs bulged, as if a vase was stuffed in their stomachs...
Qin was very sure that this was the result of the dinner they had last night. They ate something unknown, and now that the hallucinations were gone, the "food" they ate had also changed in appearance.
I'm afraid the more I ate last night, the more painful it will be now.
Egbert, who tempted them to eat those things, wrapped in dark red cloth, walked towards them step by step, observing them crawling like a child observing ants.
He walked and stopped, showing great interest.
Qin Feichang took advantage of the time when his attention was diverted and left quietly.
Egbert noticed it, looked up at the broken door, and saw a shadow flash by. His face and eyes, filled with sunlight, smiled.
It's really interesting, it's really interesting—