Kaidan Game Train: Abide Rule or Die!
Chapter 788: The Painting of Death

Chapter 788: Chapter 788: The Painting of Death

Only two players remained in Jiang Jiang’s mansion; without her there, those two seemed to have disappeared just like invisible men from the common areas. The vast mansion showed no sign of life, and this caused Bian Yongyi, who had initially been somewhat nervous, to slowly become bolder. Realizing no one cared about his presence, he began to move around more freely in the mansion.

Apart from Jiang Jiang’s own paintings, the most valuable ones in the mansion were those from other people, gifts given in pursuit of her favor or for some benefit in exchange. Nearly every wall in the mansion was adorned with them, and it seemed that the host did not care much for these expensive paintings either, even decorating the kitchen with a couple of small ones.

"Rich people, huh," Bian Yongyi muttered, and after caressing the limited edition collectible models on the shelves, he sneaked upstairs.

He didn’t use the Silencing Prop, only lightening his steps—fearing he couldn’t explain himself if discovered.

However, when he slowly reached the top floor and no bodyguards appeared, he confidently opened the rooms on the second floor, all the way to Jiang Jiang’s studio.

All the paintings in the studio were covered with white cloths, and Bian Yongyi, thinking these were Jiang Jiang’s finished works, casually pulled off one of the covers.

But to his surprise, this was nothing like the warm and healing paintings he had seen online. The color scheme was grim, immediately giving viewers an uncomfortable feeling, and the content was definitely not healing: the canvas depicted a man with his body parts separated, his torn-up torso lying on the ground surrounded by a pool of blood, his head clutched in the jaws of a strange beast as blood dripped to the floor... Behind the beast lay a mass of arms and legs stretching into the air as if forming a mound of corpses.

After only one glance, Bian Yongyi quickly covered it again, muttering "Everyone has a dark side," before moving on to the next painting.

This painting was not as shocking as the previous one. It simply depicted the death of a person, who was leaning against a beautifully decorated pillar with his hands in front of his stomach, forming the shape of a heart.

Bian Yongyi instantly recognized the person in the painting. Although he didn’t know the individual and couldn’t recall his face, the way he died was too unique; anyone who saw it once would not forget—it was Jiang Jiang’s bodyguard, who died in an exhibition a month ago. He made this gesture not to show love to someone, but to use his special ability.

"I had no idea the famous Jiang Jiang had this kind of dark hobby."

He continued to look through several more paintings, all depicting the death scenes of various people. Halfway through, he even saw those he had just met today, none other than the few bodyguards, including Song Xu, who had left with Jiang Jiang and Xu Huo.

Their deaths were all depicted as tragic, as if they were torn apart by large beasts, all dying in a place resembling an art gallery.

"The imagination of a painter..." Bian Yongyi continued looking further, feeling increasingly uneasy as he did, because the subsequent paintings included the gruesome death scenes of the two players left in the mansion.

Being a player who had entered instances before, he was all too aware of what it looked like when people died. There never had been any super-large beasts in Zone 009, but the realism of Jiang Jiang’s paintings made it impossible to accept them as mere products of imagination.

"There wouldn’t be any problems, right?" Bian Yongyi had an uneasy instinct, but he kept looking; he wanted to see if Xu Huo was in any of the paintings. Instead of finding Xu Huo, he found one of himself!

As he looked at the painting of himself hanging on a fence in a purple garden, he instinctively flipped it over, but then he got a gut feeling that he recognized the place in the painting. He whipped his head around and looked out the window, only to realize that the scene in the painting was the garden of this very mansion!

"This is impossible!" Bian Yongyi flung the door open and rushed out, running downstairs without hesitation: he would rather be caught and beaten up or shoved into a toilet than risk dying by staying in the mansion!

Yet as he passed the garden, he couldn’t help but glance at the cluster of Wormhole Flowers—purple and crimson intermingled blossoms that seemed to possess a magic at that moment, their details amplified, drawing the viewer’s gaze.

Bian Yongyi forced himself to turn his head and ran to the villa’s gate. Using a prop, he peeked outside for half a minute before he quietly opened the door.

However, no sooner had his front foot stepped out than his back foot was caught by Buzz Cut, and he slipped, plunging forward several meters in a posture impossible for a normal person before falling to the ground.

Bian Yongyi instinctively protected his head, but the irascible young man with the buzz cut did not approach him. Instead, he sneered, "Perfect, I’ll try out my new prop on you."

As soon as the words were spoken, Bian Yongyi was lifted into the air, floating up about ten meters before being caught up by the likewise airborne Buzz Cut. Seeing the other man’s fist, he immediately closed his eyes, not anticipating that this time his attacker intended to take his life. A long needle suddenly extended from the seams of the fist that hit him right in the temple.

Bian Yongyi’s death was without suspense, and he was kicked away by Buzz Cut, landing, of all places, on the fence bordering the Wormhole Flowers. The iron fence pierced through his abdomen, but because of his short stature and light weight, the fence did not collapse, so there he hung on the fence, with his blood streaming down onto the ground—exactly like the scene of his death depicted in the painting in the studio.

*

Xu Huo turned to Jiang Jiang, "Do you remember Doctor Shang?"

Jiang Jiang smiled faintly, "You know about my past?"

"After all, you were quite famous. It wasn’t hard to find this information," Xu Huo said. "He conducted psychological counseling for you guys back in the orphanage."

Jiang Jiang shook his head, "I don’t know Doctor Shang, but I do know someone with the surname Shang—Shang Shuming. He used to be very famous too, but he’s already dead."

"Is that so?" Xu Huo said. "I think he’s not dead, at least he’s still able to select suitable children from the orphanage to cultivate. Whether any of those children were successfully cultivated is another question. Another boy who was adopted overseas with you died along with his adoptive parents."

"What does that prove?" Jiang Jiang countered.

"The standard to judge whether the cultivation was successful is to see if one can kill their own parents or relatives." Xu Huo smiled, "Do you think you meet this criteria?"

Jiang Jiang looked at him curiously, "He who asserts must prove. Why are you asking me instead?"

"Because I want to know one thing," Xu Huo’s smile faded as he spoke earnestly, "Is Doctor Shang truly Shang Shuming? This is very important to me."

Jiang Jiang shook his head, expressing his inability to assist, "I’m sorry I can’t help you. At least my memory contains no Doctor Shang, and Mr. Shang who used to visit the orphanage often when I was young is also long dead. Good people don’t live long, like my adoptive parents, who in their lifetime only did as much wrong as to curse others in their hearts with guilt, and yet they both died of illness."

"If Mr. Shang is still alive, then he’s definitely not a good person."

"In this world, only the bad ones survive."