When Ke Xun and Wei Dong arrived in J City, a government sponsored science and technology fair was being held.
Colorful flags were erected on both sides of the main road, forming a kind of barrier, and related advertisements and the likes were scattered everywhere.
Even while sitting in the dumpling restaurant across from the Square Box Art Gallery, a city employee still squeezed in to hand them two exhibition flyers.
Ke Xun and Wei Dong had developed a habit. They must eat and drink before entering a painting. Since it was lunch time, and the time for the painting was usually before 6 pm on the same day, they had no worries and sat by the window that overlooked the street, eating slowly.
The Square Box Art Gallery on the other side of the street was very technologically styled. From the outside, it looked like stacked square black and white boxes. The exterior wall resembled piano lacquer, glowing in the sun. It also exuded a sense of coldness and simplicity that was common to the era of technology.
They were both eating while staring at their mobile phones.
Wei Dong said, “A girl in our advertising department took a selfie with a skin smoothing beauty filter and nearly lost her nose. She looked like Mrs. Voldemort, showing just two nostrils on her big white face.”
Ke Xun said, “You’re watching the moments of the girls in your company?”
Wei Dong replied, “Am I such a superficial person? I’ve already finished watching long ago. Now, I’m just watching Weibo.”
Ke Xun said, “…Beast, even looking at other people’s Weibo?”
Wei Dong said, “Fuck, it’s because the company doesn’t have a marketing staff. You don’t know how shameless our boss is. He’s forcing all employees to push out with the regularity of three meals a day, and share published company product advertisements to their own circle of friends. No one could escape. He’s even forcing everyone to apply for Weibo just to forward the various promotions and advertisements posted on the company’s official blog on a daily basis. No exceptions are made. The company won’t even let go of family and friends. They have to help too. Since it’s not noon yet, I want to complete my assignments–Know what, you follow me on Weibo. I just applied for an account to share the company’s official blog posts. You can then forward my latest Weibo posts.”
Ke Xun asked, “What’s your ID?”
Wei Dong said, “Weifeng_Mang.”
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Ke Xun said, “…How do you even like this name?”
Wei Dong said, “It’s not illiterate. The word ‘Weifeng’ seems elegant at first. And mang? At first glance, it’s clearly rogue. So, if I turn my name upside down, it becomes Elegant Rogue Awesome, right?”
Ke Xun said, “…That’s not wrong when converted like that. Haowen’er just sent a wechat message…He’s also here.”
As he spoke, he raised his head to look outside, and he saw Zhu Haowen standing in front of the Square Box Art Gallery, looking as if he was searching for someone. Ke Xun immediately waved at him.
Zhu Haowen entered the shop and sat at the table. Ke Xun wanted to order another bowl of dumplings. “What to drink, alcohol or a beverage?”
Zhu Haowen wasn’t polite with him either. “A beverage.”
“Okay,” Ke Xun raised his voice. “Boss, I’ll have another bowl of dumpling soup!”
Zhu Haowen: “…”
Wei Dong quickly asked Zhu Haowen to follow him on Weibo, so as to help him forward company ads.
Zhu Haowen looked at the both of them a little speechlessly.
“Olof tjr ab ub bc.” Bf Wec rtgeuufv. “C rlcuif vbu ilxf Gbcuhl mjc vb cbatlcu yea kbgx.”
“Rffvif atgbeut ws tfjga.” Qfl Gbcu mbnfgfv tlr mtfra. “Prc’a atlr atf qba mjiilcu atf xfaaif yijmx? Qf’gf jii rlcuif vbur, wbgf cbyif atjc jcsbcf firf.”
“Szmerf wf, vbur mjc jirb yf vlnlvfv lcab fzqfglfcmf vbur jcv ugffctbgc vbur,” Bf Wec rjlv. “P kjca ab gfqbga sbeg fzqfglfcmf qblca.”
Wei Dong said, “I was wrong, big brother. This greenhorn requested to be carried.”
Zhu Haowen looked at Ke Xun. “You’ve had a boyfriend before?”
Ke Xun said, “I did. I’m so handsome, it would be strange if I’ve never had one.”
Zhu Haowen asked, “Why did you both separate later?”
Wei Dong replied, “That kid couldn’t stand the pressure. Ke’er was the school idol back then. He would walk into school and thousands of pairs of eyes would be staring at him. As a result, people became aware that Ke’er and this kid were a couple. But the kid was too ashamed and wanted to break up with Ke’er. Then he turned around and found a girlfriend to refute the rumors. Hehe. He’s obviously gay, but he ran to fucking deceive a woman’s feelings. Snatched us straight guy’s potential love partner. How shameless.”
Zhu Haowen asked, “… Ke Xun, does your family know your sexual orientation?”
Ke Xun answered, “Regardless of whether they know or don’t know, that old couple can’t control me anymore. Fortunately, my old man wasn’t obsessed with passing on the family line. Even if he finds out from up there, at most, he’ll just visit me in my dream and scold me or shout at me. It’s not like he can come back to life and return his son.”
Zhu Haowen said, “Sorry, I didn’t know you…”
Ke Xun replied, “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
Zhu Haowen stopped talking and quietly ate his dumplings.
Ke Xun and Wei Dong finished their share and slid their mobile phones out.
“Online graphic livestream: This poster met a very handsome little brother on the main road. Getting ready to summon the courage to go up and give it a go,” Wei Dong read the blog post on the phone. “Hope this poster will have good luck. Please wait for my follow-up!—Fuck, girls these days are really getting more and more superficial. They don’t understand what inner beauty is. Being handsome doesn’t necessarily equate to being kind and gentle. Just like us, someone with a good temper, a careful heart, and hard working. Patient art designers like us are the best choice.”
Zhu Haowen: “……”
Ke Xun said, “Who are you watching now?”
Wei Dong answered, “I was just searching the city casually, and when I saw that the girl’s profile picture was pretty, I clicked in to take a look. My expectations once more felt the malice of the world towards single dogs.”
As he was talking, he saw a beautiful girl enter the store and directly walked over. Blushing and clutching her phone, she asked Ke Xun, “Little brother, little brother, can I take a photo with you?”
Wei Dong: “……”
“Okay.” Ke Xun solicitously stood up. “Where?”
The beautiful girl concealed her inner ecstasy and pointed outside. “Can we go out? The light in the shop is too dark.”
Zhu Haowen had just finished eating his share, and so he wiped his mouth and he and Wei Dong followed Ke Xun out.
Outside, there were two girls standing under the tree. They seemed to be the beautiful girl’s best friend. They were holding onto their mobile phones with one hand and covering their mouth with the other hand, giggling.
The three girls looked at the mid-day view. After considering that taking pictures in front of the dumpling restaurant wouldn’t be very scenic and that Ke Xun’s attitude seemed to be very kind, they finally decided to take pictures in front of the art gallery across the street.
As he was crossing the road, Ke Xun saw Qin Ci and Mu Yiran walking towards this side and beckoned them over.
After finding a good position outside the art gallery, Ke Xun stood beside the pretty girl.
The pretty girl herself wasn’t short, but there was still quite a height difference when she stood next to Ke Xun, causing the two girlfriends to scream cutely as they raised their phones to shoot.
Wei Dong whispered to Zhu Haowen next to him. “Die, public enemy of single dogs.”
Zhu Haowen was expressionless.
“Little brother, can I add your Wechat as a friend?” The beautiful girl looked at Ke Xun expectantly after taking the photo.
“I’m afraid this won’t work,” Ke Xun said. “I fear my boyfriend will be jealous.”
The beautiful girl was taken aback. “You… Damn!”
Wei Dong said, “Look, she’ll scold him.”
The beautiful girl exclaimed, “Awesome! Only a man is worthy of such a handsome little brother! Ahhh!”
Wei Dong was stunned. “…WTF?”
Zhu Haowen: “…..”
Qin Ci came closer. “…I don’t understand these young girls nowadays…”
Mu Yiran: “…..”
The men watched as the beautiful girl rushed to her girlfriends, and after a whisper, the three of them screamed in excitement. It was then that they decided to quickly enter the art museum.
Before entering the gallery, Ke Xun turned his head and told the three girls, “Don’t enter this gallery. It has just been renovated and it’s full of formaldehyde and dust, both of which can easily cause cancer and are corrosive to the skin.”
Although the Square Box Art Gallery hadn’t really been recently renovated, it had been closed recently and today was the first day it opened its door. They weren’t eager to enter the designated exhibition hall and instead focused on looking at the other exhibition halls for useful clues.
However, the result wasn’t optimistic.
The paintings exhibited in this art museum span various themes and genres. They were a bit like a nouveau rich wearing gold, silver, jade, and diamond rings all on one hand, making it impossible for other people to infer the theme or genre of the painting they’ll enter.
Finally, they entered the designated exhibition hall, and they almost immediately scanned their surroundings, trying to see as many paintings in the hall as possible.
When the light went out and the only light source came on, what they all saw was an old, gray painting.
In the center of the painting was a low and dilapidated building. Thick creepers covered the outer walls, and fallen leaves were piled on the ground. Outside the building was a wooden sign with black letters in a white background. Before they could clearly see the words on the wooden sign, the painting became distorted. Under the bright light, the half-opened iron gate seemed to have yawned wider and wider, welcoming their arrival.
Immediately, before entering the painting, Ke Xun caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a pale and frightened face in a dark window of the dilapidated building. The face’s gray lips were wide open, as if screaming: Don’t come in.
Oak Mountain Research Institute.
The wooden sign next to the big iron gate had long been eaten by insects and termites, which proved that this building had been abandoned for many years.
Everyone stood in front of the big iron gate and looked up at the abandoned research institute that they were about to enter.
“I don’t like this kind of place,” Wei Dong swallowed and muttered.
“Who doesn’t,” Qin Ci said calmly.
Their group of five weren’t the first to enter the painting. The sounds of panicked footsteps came from one side, then they saw two men running from a short distance away. Seeing them, the men quickly called out three questions, “What’s going on?! Where is this?! Who are you?!”
As Qin Ci explained the situation to them, the rest of the group members looked around.
The building wasn’t densely surrounded. There were only a few low buildings some distance away, and sandwiched between them were lifeless trees, two dilapidated brick walls, and a small dirty and deserted street. From a distance, the buildings and trees were all shrouded in a smoggy gray fog.
This was obviously a limited type of painting. The limited types were called thus because they restricted the range of activities to within a certain area. Except for these areas, other places were like virtual images. In other words, they would appear extremely fuzzy with low pixelations. This meant that this specific painting wanted participants to move only within the area of the research institute.
After hearing Qin Ci’s explanation, the two men obviously regarded Qin Ci as a mental case. One of them, a man in his thirties with a thug-like air, directly pushed Qin Ci, saying, “Tell me, is this some kind of technological gimmick that you and the relevant departments put together? Do you have our consent? I’ll tell you, you’re infringing on our rights! I’ll file a complaint against you, believe it or not! Hurry up and take us back. Otherwise your art museum won’t be able to open anymore! I know people in the city. Once I made it known, it’s game over for you, do you understand? Now hurry up and take us back!”
Qin Ci shook his head and simply stopped talking. Reality would make him understand that the people he knew in the city wouldn’t be able to solve this problem that he was facing.
The thug violently left Qin Ci, and he and the other man rushed to the other side of the small street once more. Obviously, before Ke Xun and his group had entered the painting, these two had already run around the street many times, trying to find a way out.
Everyone watched the two men disappear into the gray fog at the end of the small street, and then they turned their heads to look at the other side of the street. As expected, after a while, the two men ran over from the other side, panting.
A painting with a limited range wouldn’t allow them to go anywhere else. Once the person had reached the end of the range, he would appear on the other side of the painting.
Before the two astonished men could run out again, another man and woman came over from the depths of the gray fog. This was followed by the usual doubts, anger, fright, inquiries, and disbelief. Ke Xun’s group of five simply stayed to the side and ignored them.
About ten minutes later, another woman walked over. Half an hour later, from the depths of the gray fog, the last three people appeared.
Ke Xun took one look at them and couldn’t help but sigh.
Xida: This new arc is one of my favorite arcs. It’s called Human Studies, and as it’s name suggests, it is creepy and intense. And finally, we get to see Mu Yiran thaw significantly toward Ke Xun.
When Ke Xun and Wei Dong arrived in J City, a government sponsored science and technology fair was being held.
Colorful flags were erected on both sides of the main road, forming a kind of barrier, and related advertisements and the likes were scattered everywhere.
Even while sitting in the dumpling restaurant across from the Square Box Art Gallery, a city employee still squeezed in to hand them two exhibition flyers.
Ke Xun and Wei Dong had developed a habit. They must eat and drink before entering a painting. Since it was lunch time, and the time for the painting was usually before 6 pm on the same day, they had no worries and sat by the window that overlooked the street, eating slowly.
The Square Box Art Gallery on the other side of the street was very technologically styled. From the outside, it looked like stacked square black and white boxes. The exterior wall resembled piano lacquer, glowing in the sun. It also exuded a sense of coldness and simplicity that was common to the era of technology.
They were both eating while staring at their mobile phones.
Wei Dong said, “A girl in our advertising department took a selfie with a skin smoothing beauty filter and nearly lost her nose. She looked like Mrs. Voldemort, showing just two nostrils on her big white face.”
Ke Xun said, “You’re watching the moments of the girls in your company?”
Wei Dong replied, “Am I such a superficial person? I’ve already finished watching long ago. Now, I’m just watching Weibo.”
Ke Xun said, “…Beast, even looking at other people’s Weibo?”
Wei Dong said, “Fuck, it’s because the company doesn’t have a marketing staff. You don’t know how shameless our boss is. He’s forcing all employees to push out with the regularity of three meals a day, and share published company product advertisements to their own circle of friends. No one could escape. He’s even forcing everyone to apply for Weibo just to forward the various promotions and advertisements posted on the company’s official blog on a daily basis. No exceptions are made. The company won’t even let go of family and friends. They have to help too. Since it’s not noon yet, I want to complete my assignments–Know what, you follow me on Weibo. I just applied for an account to share the company’s official blog posts. You can then forward my latest Weibo posts.”
Ke Xun asked, “What’s your ID?”
Wei Dong said, “Weifeng_Mang.”
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Ke Xun said, “…How do you even like this name?”
Wei Dong said, “It’s not illiterate. The word ‘Weifeng’ seems elegant at first. And mang? At first glance, it’s clearly rogue. So, if I turn my name upside down, it becomes Elegant Rogue Awesome, right?”
Ke Xun said, “…That’s not wrong when converted like that. Haowen’er just sent a wechat message…He’s also here.”
As he spoke, he raised his head to look outside, and he saw Zhu Haowen standing in front of the Square Box Art Gallery, looking as if he was searching for someone. Ke Xun immediately waved at him.
Zhu Haowen entered the shop and sat at the table. Ke Xun wanted to order another bowl of dumplings. “What to drink, alcohol or a beverage?”
Zhu Haowen wasn’t polite with him either. “A beverage.”
“Okay,” Ke Xun raised his voice. “Boss, I’ll have another bowl of dumpling soup!”
Zhu Haowen: “…”
Wei Dong quickly asked Zhu Haowen to follow him on Weibo, so as to help him forward company ads.
Zhu Haowen looked at the both of them a little speechlessly.
“Olof tjr ab ub bc.” Bf Wec rtgeuufv. “C rlcuif vbu ilxf Gbcuhl mjc vb cbatlcu yea kbgx.”
“Rffvif atgbeut ws tfjga.” Qfl Gbcu mbnfgfv tlr mtfra. “Prc’a atlr atf qba mjiilcu atf xfaaif yijmx? Qf’gf jii rlcuif vbur, wbgf cbyif atjc jcsbcf firf.”
“Szmerf wf, vbur mjc jirb yf vlnlvfv lcab fzqfglfcmf vbur jcv ugffctbgc vbur,” Bf Wec rjlv. “P kjca ab gfqbga sbeg fzqfglfcmf qblca.”
Wei Dong said, “I was wrong, big brother. This greenhorn requested to be carried.”
Zhu Haowen looked at Ke Xun. “You’ve had a boyfriend before?”
Ke Xun said, “I did. I’m so handsome, it would be strange if I’ve never had one.”
Zhu Haowen asked, “Why did you both separate later?”
Wei Dong replied, “That kid couldn’t stand the pressure. Ke’er was the school idol back then. He would walk into school and thousands of pairs of eyes would be staring at him. As a result, people became aware that Ke’er and this kid were a couple. But the kid was too ashamed and wanted to break up with Ke’er. Then he turned around and found a girlfriend to refute the rumors. Hehe. He’s obviously gay, but he ran to fucking deceive a woman’s feelings. Snatched us straight guy’s potential love partner. How shameless.”
Zhu Haowen asked, “… Ke Xun, does your family know your sexual orientation?”
Ke Xun answered, “Regardless of whether they know or don’t know, that old couple can’t control me anymore. Fortunately, my old man wasn’t obsessed with passing on the family line. Even if he finds out from up there, at most, he’ll just visit me in my dream and scold me or shout at me. It’s not like he can come back to life and return his son.”
Zhu Haowen said, “Sorry, I didn’t know you…”
Ke Xun replied, “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.”
Zhu Haowen stopped talking and quietly ate his dumplings.
Ke Xun and Wei Dong finished their share and slid their mobile phones out.
“Online graphic livestream: This poster met a very handsome little brother on the main road. Getting ready to summon the courage to go up and give it a go,” Wei Dong read the blog post on the phone. “Hope this poster will have good luck. Please wait for my follow-up!—Fuck, girls these days are really getting more and more superficial. They don’t understand what inner beauty is. Being handsome doesn’t necessarily equate to being kind and gentle. Just like us, someone with a good temper, a careful heart, and hard working. Patient art designers like us are the best choice.”
Zhu Haowen: “……”
Ke Xun said, “Who are you watching now?”
Wei Dong answered, “I was just searching the city casually, and when I saw that the girl’s profile picture was pretty, I clicked in to take a look. My expectations once more felt the malice of the world towards single dogs.”
As he was talking, he saw a beautiful girl enter the store and directly walked over. Blushing and clutching her phone, she asked Ke Xun, “Little brother, little brother, can I take a photo with you?”
Wei Dong: “……”
“Okay.” Ke Xun solicitously stood up. “Where?”
The beautiful girl concealed her inner ecstasy and pointed outside. “Can we go out? The light in the shop is too dark.”
Zhu Haowen had just finished eating his share, and so he wiped his mouth and he and Wei Dong followed Ke Xun out.
Outside, there were two girls standing under the tree. They seemed to be the beautiful girl’s best friend. They were holding onto their mobile phones with one hand and covering their mouth with the other hand, giggling.
The three girls looked at the mid-day view. After considering that taking pictures in front of the dumpling restaurant wouldn’t be very scenic and that Ke Xun’s attitude seemed to be very kind, they finally decided to take pictures in front of the art gallery across the street.
As he was crossing the road, Ke Xun saw Qin Ci and Mu Yiran walking towards this side and beckoned them over.
After finding a good position outside the art gallery, Ke Xun stood beside the pretty girl.
The pretty girl herself wasn’t short, but there was still quite a height difference when she stood next to Ke Xun, causing the two girlfriends to scream cutely as they raised their phones to shoot.
Wei Dong whispered to Zhu Haowen next to him. “Die, public enemy of single dogs.”
Zhu Haowen was expressionless.
“Little brother, can I add your Wechat as a friend?” The beautiful girl looked at Ke Xun expectantly after taking the photo.
“I’m afraid this won’t work,” Ke Xun said. “I fear my boyfriend will be jealous.”
The beautiful girl was taken aback. “You… Damn!”
Wei Dong said, “Look, she’ll scold him.”
The beautiful girl exclaimed, “Awesome! Only a man is worthy of such a handsome little brother! Ahhh!”
Wei Dong was stunned. “…WTF?”
Zhu Haowen: “…..”
Qin Ci came closer. “…I don’t understand these young girls nowadays…”
Mu Yiran: “…..”
The men watched as the beautiful girl rushed to her girlfriends, and after a whisper, the three of them screamed in excitement. It was then that they decided to quickly enter the art museum.
Before entering the gallery, Ke Xun turned his head and told the three girls, “Don’t enter this gallery. It has just been renovated and it’s full of formaldehyde and dust, both of which can easily cause cancer and are corrosive to the skin.”
Although the Square Box Art Gallery hadn’t really been recently renovated, it had been closed recently and today was the first day it opened its door. They weren’t eager to enter the designated exhibition hall and instead focused on looking at the other exhibition halls for useful clues.
However, the result wasn’t optimistic.
The paintings exhibited in this art museum span various themes and genres. They were a bit like a nouveau rich wearing gold, silver, jade, and diamond rings all on one hand, making it impossible for other people to infer the theme or genre of the painting they’ll enter.
Finally, they entered the designated exhibition hall, and they almost immediately scanned their surroundings, trying to see as many paintings in the hall as possible.
When the light went out and the only light source came on, what they all saw was an old, gray painting.
In the center of the painting was a low and dilapidated building. Thick creepers covered the outer walls, and fallen leaves were piled on the ground. Outside the building was a wooden sign with black letters in a white background. Before they could clearly see the words on the wooden sign, the painting became distorted. Under the bright light, the half-opened iron gate seemed to have yawned wider and wider, welcoming their arrival.
Immediately, before entering the painting, Ke Xun caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a pale and frightened face in a dark window of the dilapidated building. The face’s gray lips were wide open, as if screaming: Don’t come in.
Oak Mountain Research Institute.
The wooden sign next to the big iron gate had long been eaten by insects and termites, which proved that this building had been abandoned for many years.
Everyone stood in front of the big iron gate and looked up at the abandoned research institute that they were about to enter.
“I don’t like this kind of place,” Wei Dong swallowed and muttered.
“Who doesn’t,” Qin Ci said calmly.
Their group of five weren’t the first to enter the painting. The sounds of panicked footsteps came from one side, then they saw two men running from a short distance away. Seeing them, the men quickly called out three questions, “What’s going on?! Where is this?! Who are you?!”
As Qin Ci explained the situation to them, the rest of the group members looked around.
The building wasn’t densely surrounded. There were only a few low buildings some distance away, and sandwiched between them were lifeless trees, two dilapidated brick walls, and a small dirty and deserted street. From a distance, the buildings and trees were all shrouded in a smoggy gray fog.
This was obviously a limited type of painting. The limited types were called thus because they restricted the range of activities to within a certain area. Except for these areas, other places were like virtual images. In other words, they would appear extremely fuzzy with low pixelations. This meant that this specific painting wanted participants to move only within the area of the research institute.
After hearing Qin Ci’s explanation, the two men obviously regarded Qin Ci as a mental case. One of them, a man in his thirties with a thug-like air, directly pushed Qin Ci, saying, “Tell me, is this some kind of technological gimmick that you and the relevant departments put together? Do you have our consent? I’ll tell you, you’re infringing on our rights! I’ll file a complaint against you, believe it or not! Hurry up and take us back. Otherwise your art museum won’t be able to open anymore! I know people in the city. Once I made it known, it’s game over for you, do you understand? Now hurry up and take us back!”
Qin Ci shook his head and simply stopped talking. Reality would make him understand that the people he knew in the city wouldn’t be able to solve this problem that he was facing.
The thug violently left Qin Ci, and he and the other man rushed to the other side of the small street once more. Obviously, before Ke Xun and his group had entered the painting, these two had already run around the street many times, trying to find a way out.
Everyone watched the two men disappear into the gray fog at the end of the small street, and then they turned their heads to look at the other side of the street. As expected, after a while, the two men ran over from the other side, panting.
A painting with a limited range wouldn’t allow them to go anywhere else. Once the person had reached the end of the range, he would appear on the other side of the painting.
Before the two astonished men could run out again, another man and woman came over from the depths of the gray fog. This was followed by the usual doubts, anger, fright, inquiries, and disbelief. Ke Xun’s group of five simply stayed to the side and ignored them.
About ten minutes later, another woman walked over. Half an hour later, from the depths of the gray fog, the last three people appeared.
Ke Xun took one look at them and couldn’t help but sigh.
Xida: This new arc is one of my favorite arcs. It’s called Human Studies, and as it’s name suggests, it is creepy and intense. And finally, we get to see Mu Yiran thaw significantly toward Ke Xun.
