Paintings of Terror

“Ha, what do you mean? How could such massive cauldrons just disappear like that?” Wei Dong asked, astonished.

“The nine cauldrons were divine artifacts passed down from ruler to ruler. The ancient people deeply believed in the divine and the supernatural. They thought that whoever possessed the nine cauldrons could stabilize the nation and become the rightful ruler of the world.” Shao Ling explained. “That’s why mentions: ‘In later generations, sages would follow Yu’s example and forge the cauldrons from generation to generation.’ So, during the chaotic Warring States period, these nine cauldrons became rare national treasures that monarchs of various countries sought after.

“As for the whereabouts of the nine cauldrons, some say that during the Zhou royal family was in financial distress and heavily in debt. They melted the cauldrons down to mint coins to pay off their debts. Others claim that as the Zhou dynasty weakened, the king of Zhou, fearing calamity, had the cauldrons sunk into the Si River and lied to everyone that the nine cauldrons went missing, which led to the famous historical event of Qin Shi Huang ordering people to search for the cauldrons in the river.

“But the most mystical account comes from a record in the Shiji Zhengyi, which says that King Zhao of Qin seized the nine cauldrons from the Zhou court and was sending them back to his kingdom, only for one of them to suddenly fly into the Si River, after which the other eight also vanished. Later, Qin Shi Huang sent thousands of men to search the river for the cauldrons, but they found nothing in the end. Since then, the nine cauldrons have disappeared from the world.

“From then until now, so many years have passed, and countless people have sought the cauldrons, yet all have failed. We’re just ten people. If we want to find the cauldrons out of nowhere, we would need a ‘golden finger’ from the heavens.”

Everyone fell silent, the only sounds were the crunch of their footsteps in the snow.

“But we do have a golden finger,” Ke Xun suddenly smiled.

Everyone turned to look at him.

“I’ve always felt, that only people like Yiran and Prez Shao, who are truly talented and outstanding, could survive in these paintings,” Ke Xun continued, taking a few big steps forward, then turning back to face the group. He walked backward and smiled as his breath formed warm white puffs in the cold air. “As for a newbie as ordinary as me, it’s likely that I would have been taken out right in the first painting.

“So why am I still alive now? Of course, I’ve had Yiran’s protection. But what about Dong Zi? What about Radish? What about everyone else? Why is it that people with far more ability than us have died in the paintings, while we’ve managed to survive?

“It wasn’t until today that I suddenly realized something. We’ve always thought of ourselves as the unluckiest people in the world. This painting incident didn’t choose others, but chose us. It lets us experience these terrifying life-and-death ordeals. Who could be more unlucky than us? But what if we looked at it from a different angle?”

“Maybe, we are actually the luckiest group of people in the world, which is why we’ve managed to survive in these paintings. If we were truly someone without luck, perhaps we would have been like the others who died in the painting and got picked out by the rules of death and became the first few lab rats to verify the death conditions.

“Just like me meeting Yiran in the first painting I entered. Why did I get grouped with him when we were picking the cloth strips? Without him, I would have died on the first night. So, meeting Yiran was my luck.

“And have you noticed? In all these paintings, aside from fatal situations where we could rely on our own abilities to survive, in those scenarios where death was caused by forces beyond our control, we were never the first to be targeted. Like in the painting we just completed, ‘Restart’, let me ask first—who among us is particularly attractive to mosquitoes?”

Wu You, Fang Fei, Qin Ci, and Wei Dong raised their hands.

We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.

“—What does this mean?

“This means that we are indeed very lucky people! It means that the force behind these paintings, besides selecting the truly strong ones, is also selecting the resilient, the fortunate—those who are favored by fate. This is the ‘golden finger’ that the heavens have given us!

“So, with so many lucky people gathered together, so maybe, we really could find the nine cauldrons crafted by Yu, which have been lost for thousands of years!”

Ke Xun’s words were like a sudden enlightenment, causing everyone to jolt with realization—yes! Whether they were lucky or unlucky, this was a question they had never tried to consider with reverse thinking.

Perhaps they had been making a mistake all along, that was, their optimistic and positive thoughts being blinded or suppressed by the negative energy and setbacks. Just like the god of both good and evil, like black and white, yin and yang, many things were two sides of the same coin. With the palm side up, it was joy; with the back side of the hand, it was sorrow. But once they let the hand cover their eyes, they habitually closed their eyes and passively endured the darkness, forgetting that as long as they tried to open their eyes, the first thing they could see was the palm of their hand, full of warmth and strength.

“I suddenly feel an endless surge of motivation,” Wu You said, waving her arm.

“I’m also full of confidence,” Gu Qingqing said such uplifting words for the first time without her usual shyness.

“I feel like if I throw a snowball up to the sky right now, I could knock down a plane,” Wei Dong clenched his fist and raised his arm to flex his muscles, but all that was shown was the soft, fluffy sleeves of his down jacket.

“But it can’t be denied that being sucked into the paintings is still a very unlucky event,” Captain Ke had always been good at striking a proper balance between tension and relaxation. When someone started to think too highly of himself, he would promptly reach out and push them back down to their original place. “This means that even if we are lucky, this level of luck still cannot overcome the hidden force behind the paintings. But don’t forget, if there are two forces battling behind the scenes, at least one of them is on our side. Since they allowed us to find out about the gu-xiang and the ‘Classic of Mountains and Seas’, I think they would also allow us to find the nine cauldrons.”

“No matter what,” Shao Ling said, “everyone, go back tonight and have a good rest. Tomorrow, we’ll keep pushing forward. I feel like we’re already at the doorstep of the gate to decrypt the mysteries. We’re just missing the last threshold. Once we cross it, the truth will be fully unveiled.”

“Wooh! Ganbatte!” Ke Xun, Wei Dong, and Wu You cheered.

The falling snow swirled several times in the air before drifting out in all directions.

The next morning, everyone gathered again in Ke Xun’s living room.

The chain of clues that Shao Ling summarized was printed into ten copies, and everyone held one. The clues corresponding to the paintings after the “Burning Rhinoceros at Sea” were changed to “the nine cauldrons lost during the Qin Dynasty.”

“Apart from this set of clues in our hands, what we currently know now is: the rope patterns on me, Mu, and Ke Xun’s gu-xiang are speculated to be the ‘Earth Cords,’ while others’ gu-xiang correspond to the Yu version of the ‘Classic of Mountains and Seas’ on the nine cauldrons,” Shao Ling said, attempting to sit upright on Ke Xun’s beanbag sofa, but he couldn’t, so he could only slump on the sofa in a particularly Ke Xun-like style. “And the problem we urgently need to solve is: where are the nine cauldrons?”

“If the legend that one of the nine cauldrons flew into the Si River is true, then finding the nine cauldrons would likely be extremely difficult. The Si River has a total of thirty tributaries of various sizes, with five first-class tributaries having a drainage area of over 100 square kilometers. To perform a carpet-style search within them, not to mention the enormous financial costs, we would also struggle to meet the manpower requirements.

“Moreover, Qin Shi Huang’s attempt to find the cauldrons involved mobilizing national power. We are only ten people. If we tried to find the cauldrons in a conventional manner, everything we do would probably be futile efforts. We lack both manpower and time.

“So, in order to find the cauldrons, we may have to proceed as Ke Xun suggested—relying on luck. But even if we are to rely on luck, it still needs to be within a certain scope: this scope means that we must first narrow down a small area where the nine cauldrons could potentially be, and we must have at least a 50% confidence that they are indeed sunk in the Si River.”

“Actually, I thought about it last night,” Ke Xun said. “The nine cauldrons are physical objects that are historically documented to have existed, but what about the Earth Cords? Logically, such a thing shouldn’t exist, but since this whole situation defies logic, let’s assume the Earth Cords do exist. Then where would we find them? Ancient people believed the Earth was square, but in reality, the Earth is round. So, where do we look for the four corners of the Earth? If the Earth Cords are impossible to find or aren’t necessary to find, then maybe the nine cauldrons are similarly impossible to find and unnecessary to find as well?”

This left everyone stunned. Indeed, some of yesterday’s assumptions could explain the existence of the nine cauldrons but not the Earth Cords. If the Earth Cords didn’t hold up, then the nine cauldrons, as part of the same gu-xiang, shouldn’t hold up either.

“I want to know why we need exactly thirteen people,” Zhu Haowen said. “If the event originated from the ‘Classic of Mountains and Seas’, wouldn’t nine people going into the paintings be enough? Why are there four more to represent the Earth Cords? Does this mean the Earth Cords are indispensable and have certain functions when working in tandem with the nine cauldrons?”

“That line of thinking makes sense,” Ke Xun nodded.

“We said earlier that ‘Liezi’, The Questions of Tang chapter talks about the functionality of the Earth Cords,” Mu Yiran said. “It says, ‘The Gonggong clan fought with Zhuanxu for the throne and, in anger, rammed the Buzhou Mountain. The Heavenly Pillar broke, and the Earth Cords were severed. Therefore, the sky tilted northwest, causing the sun, moon, and stars to fall there. The southeast corner of the Earth collapsed, causing all waters to follow there.’

“From this passage, we can deduce that if even just one or two Earth Cords were broken, the Earth would collapse, indicating that the Earth Cords’ functionality is to keep the Earth stable.

“The nine cauldrons, inscribed with images of all Nine Provinces, have a weight that cannot be estimated. The ancients believed they possessed supernatural power, reinforced by shaman craft. One cauldron represents one region’s land, and the nine cauldrons represent the entire world. The world, under heaven, is all under the king’s dominion. The nine cauldrons are the land under the heavens.

“Both the Earth Cords and the nine cauldrons are related to the Earth. The Earth Cords are to keep the Earth steady, and as for the nine cauldrons, to set the cauldrons is probably to stabilize the land.”

“Exactly!” Ke Xun’s eyes lit up. “This matches the clue from ‘Breaking Through the Ground,’ which suggests that ‘a dark force is about to break through and enter the real world.’ Maybe these nine cauldrons are divine artifacts used by shamans to suppress this force! What do y’all think?”

Everyone nodded repeatedly. Wei Dong said, “That ties everything together! It was probably like this: The dark force was originally suppressed by the nine cauldrons, but during the Qin Dynasty, the nine cauldrons suddenly disappeared, and the force suppressed beneath the Earth began to stir, trying to break through to the human world. At that moment—at that moment—”

At this point, Wei Dong suddenly widened his eyes in horror, staring at everyone in front of him. “At that moment… The power of the nine cauldrons is needed again to suppress that force, but the nine cauldrons are gone. So… so the people entering the painting appeared, and their gu-xiang resembles patterns from the ‘Classic of Mountains and Seas’ on the cauldrons… So… so we actually are… are… the cauldrons? We—we are the missing—nine cauldrons?”

Over the past few days, everyone had been gradually peeling back the layers of clues, repeatedly being shocked by the new theories and revelations. They had thought their nerves were strong enough after going through several shocks, but once again, the new theory left them stunned and disoriented.

After a long while, Mu Yiran spoke: “That theory is plausible, but I have another hypothesis. As for why the nine cauldrons disappear, this remains unknown. Assuming the nine cauldrons were indeed used to suppress evil, then those who imbued them with divine power or shaman power onto the cauldrons, must have been shamans.”

“If the evil force truly took advantage of the nine cauldrons’ disappearance to break through and invade the human world, then perhaps the people with the ‘Classic of Mountains and Seas’ and the rope patterns on their bones might have been specifically selected by the shamans. The shamans used their power to imprint those on their bones, so that they could act as a substitute for the cauldrons to suppress that force.

“So, perhaps none of us are the actual cauldrons or Earth Cords themselves, but rather we’ve inherited a kind of seal-like mark that can fulfill the same role as the nine cauldrons and Earth Cords.”

“…I feel much better after hearing that from my brother-in-law…” Luo Bu exhaled deeply, patting his chest.

“Of course, all of this is mere speculation for now,” Mu Yiran said. “And if the gu-xiang seal truly works, then why have countless people over the past thousand years entered the painting again and again? So, ultimately, we still need to try our best to find the whereabouts of the nine cauldrons.”

“But in that case, how does the world of the ‘Classic of Mountains and Seas’ connect to that dark force?” Zhu Haowen suddenly asked.

“I think that with the clues we have now, we can’t clearly answer that question,” Shao Ling replied. “There’s a theory that the images in the ‘Classic of Mountains and Seas’ are actually all related to shaman craft.

“For instance, the South of the Seas chapter mentions the land of the Feathered People, the Long-Armed People, and the Cross-Legged People. In the illustrations, the Feathered People are depicted wearing feathered garments, the Cross-Legged People are shown with their legs crossed, and the Long-Armed People might just be an exaggerated depiction of a particular arm-stretching posture.

“The original ‘Classic of Mountains and Seas’ engraved on the nine cauldrons disappeared during the Qin Dynasty, but some rubbings might have been passed down for some time. However, in the process of being passed down, it would have been easy for later generations to misinterpret or misread them, leading to the depiction of these gods and spirits in the text version of ‘Classic of Mountains and Seas’ as if they actually existed.

“But it’s very possible that these Feathered People, the Long-Armed People, and the Cross-Legged People were originally just ordinary people or shamans. As the images engraved on the cauldrons, they are the ordinary people or shamans performing shamanic rituals. They wore unusual clothing, danced shamanic dances, and made ritual gestures. These exaggerated images and movements, after centuries or millennia, became distorted and were passed down as tales of monster-like beings from some nation.

“So, another possibility could be this: The world of the ‘Classic of Mountains and Seas’ might not have existed. Its images might all be symbols of some shaman craft, imbued with supernatural power. What truly exists is that dark force lurking beneath the Earth, and the real purpose of the illustrations of the ‘Classic of Mountains and Seas’ might be to suppress and seal evil. This entire event of entering the painting could be an opportunity set by that dark force to break free from its bonds.

“I think the painting frame is the barrier that separates the world of black and white, good and evil, and the world inside the painting, might be presented by that dark force, to show us how that world looks like.”