"How come you have time to come here?"
Chu Xiu was admiring a painting in front of him when he suddenly heard a familiar greeting from upstairs. He looked up and saw a ghost-like man clinging to the railing, looking down at him.
The man looked unusually pale, with messy long hair tied into a braid as a hairstyle. His clothes were loose and stained with paint, with a patch of red paint on his chest. At first glance, one would think he had been shot.
"I remember the exhibition is the day after tomorrow. You came early, didn't the security stop you?" The man said as he walked downstairs. Chu Xiu said, "The security knows me. Okay, don't blame me. How many days have you been here? If someone doesn't know you, they would think you just crawled out of your grave."
Lu Yanli yawned and said, "I don't know, maybe a week."
As he was talking, Chu Xian came around another corner and asked curiously, "Xiao Lu, where are you going? You look like a ghost."
Lu Yanli said in a sad tone: "I was just dug out of the grave."
"You're really good at it. You wouldn't be planning to hold an exhibition soon and end up not painting anything, so you're cramming today?" Chu Xian mocked him, earning a death stare from the latter.
"No, inspiration strikes me, do you want to watch it?"
The two siblings looked at each other and said, "Look!"
In the attic room on the top floor, Lu Yanli pulled the curtain that was blown by the wind, and a huge oil painting appeared in front of everyone.
The air was silent for a moment.
"I'm so shocked..." Chu Xian said vaguely after a long while. She took a step forward, wanting to take a closer look.
Chu Xiu rubbed the goose bumps on his arms: "Why did you draw something so hellish?"
On the huge oil painting, which was more than 10 meters high, He Da painted a hellish scene, with raging fire, sea of blood, and mountains of corpses. Fortunately, Lu Yanli only laid the foundation and had not yet finished it. Even so, the cold and hot oppressive feeling as if it came from hell was enough to make it difficult to breathe.
Lu Yanli leaned lazily against the wall and yawned again.
"We feel relieved to see that you are still alive." Chu Xiu said, "I was planning to invite you to have a drink, but you should get some sleep for a day."
"You said you won't go, so why not?" Lu Yanli still looked half dead. "I want to go. Remember, you said you would treat me."
"Hey, I'm just saying..."
"It's settled. I'll go to your place tonight." Lu Yanli waved his hand and turned his face away. "Okay, you two go. I'll take a nap."
“Really…” Chu Xian and Chu Xiu were chased out of the door by him. Lu Yanli yawned again and turned back to his room to sleep.
In the sea of blood, hundreds of ghosts are ferocious.
"I really don't know who he looks like. My uncle and aunt are not like this." Chu Xiu complained. Chu Xian said, "That's right. If he wants to look like my uncle and aunt, what else can he do?"
Thinking of Uncle Lu's serious and unsmiling expression transferred to Lu Yanli's face... Chu Xiu shuddered at his own imagination. Then he imagined Auntie's smiling and nagging expression being put on him...
"Then he should continue to maintain it."
At Lu Yanli's home, a young couple sat in front of Lu's mother and listened to her nagging patiently.
"He doesn't come home every day. If you have time, go to his gallery and see him. He should be there. There's no doubt about it."
"Okay, thank you Auntie, we'll go check it out later."
The petite girl snuggled in the young man's arms. She had a baby face and looked innocent and cute. Mother Lu liked her more and more and couldn't help but say, "When are you going to get married? Auntie will give you a big red envelope."
Lin Chu smiled, pretending to be shy and lowering her head: "It's still early, what do you think? Xiaoyu?"
Yu Xianguang gasped and held back a scream, reaching out to rub the part where his girlfriend had been violently attacked, with a wry smile on his face: "Ah, yes, yes, no rush."
"Well, there's no rush once you settle down. Unlike my guy, he's always in a mess. Which girl would like him if he's always slacking off?"
Lin Chu followed suit with a wry smile.
Mother Lu could say that about her own son, but she didn't dare. After finally chatting with him for a long time and finding out the location of the guy's new gallery, the family rushed over immediately.
It was not until they got back into the car that Yu Xianguang sighed, "Auntie, what's going on here... I wonder what Brother Lu did before?"
Lin Chu got out of the car without even turning his head: "She doesn't know about it, Brother Lu is hiding it."
"What about Director Lu? Doesn't he know? Doesn't he care?"
Lin Chu said, "Of course I should care. Why would I interfere when my own son is capable? Besides, even though they are having a bad time outside, the director loves Brother Lu very much and is very proud of him, but he just doesn't say it."
To outsiders, Lu Yanli is a painter with a weird temper and aloof personality. Only a small number of people know that he is also a very capable reporter. He dares to do things that others dare not to photograph, interview or expose. However, every time he gets into trouble, he has to keep a low profile for a while, and sometimes he goes home to hold an exhibition to maintain his image as a noble artist.
No one could tell anyone about this matter. Father Lu had only heard a little about it. No wonder Mother Lu thought her son was always idle.
As they were talking, Lu Yanli's gallery was located in a two-story residential building deep in an alley. As soon as he walked in, he could feel the rare damp coolness in summer, and the sides of the house were covered with slippery green moss.
"Brother Lu? Brother Lu?" Lin Chu knocked on the door. "Mr. Lu, help me..."
After knocking for a long time without any response, Yu Xianguang asked, "Could it be that Auntie remembered it wrongly? He is not in the gallery?"
“Probably not.” Lin Chu continued to knock on the door, his voice getting louder. “Brother Lu! Don’t stand by and watch someone die! We need you—”
The door was suddenly opened, revealing a pale man with a gloomy face and dark circles under his eyes. He stared at Lin Chu who was still knocking on the door, and smiled a chilling smile: "If the reason you two came to see me is just to talk some nonsense, you can lie down today."
The crackling of my five knuckles is the accompaniment before the storm.
"If it's really an urgent or important matter, let's go first." Relying on his small stature, Lin Chu slipped through the gap on his side, leaving Yu Xianguang facing Lu Yanli, with cold sweat on his back.
After a long time, Lu Yanli withdrew his gaze, closed the door, and floated behind like a ghost, slowly walking from the yard to the hall.
"Pour your own tea. Tell me, what trouble are you causing me this time?" Lu Yanli didn't get enough sleep. He leaned back on the sofa with his head tilted back and an eye mask on. It was hard not to suspect that he had fallen asleep behind the door.
A "井" shape popped up on Lin Chu's forehead. He suppressed the fist that was about to fly to the other person's face and smiled falsely: "There is a big thing. I think you are interested. Do you want to go and see it?"
The latter answered her with a slight breathing sound.