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Chapter 101: The Beginning

“Our S City is a well-connected city, and it is very tolerant.” Acting as a guide, Ke Xun led everyone around once they got off the high-speed rail. After passing by a sesame seed cake stall, he bought everyone a square sesame seed cake and said, “Stove baked sesame seed cakes are one of the characteristics of this city.”

Qin Ci and Zhu Haowen were also there, each biting into the cakes in their hands, enthusiastically chewing.

Wei Dong tasted the taste of his hometown and felt a sense of rebirth. “I just had an idea. At some point, once I’ve made enough money, I’ll shoot a film called The Sesame Seed Cake at the Tip of the Tongue, and I’ll photograph sesame seed cakes all over the country. What kind of crab, what kind of flatbread, what kind of seed? And, also our city’s own unique stove baked square sesame seed cakes!”

“Young man, what lofty ambitions!” praised an old man sitting beside the stall, eating sesame seed cakes.

“Uncle, you spoke well. Bless you!” Wei Dong also replied. Then he said to everyone, “This is the way of communication in our city. In the eyes of the old people, we are all promising youths.”

Qin Ci answered his phone and then explained to everyone, “The organizer of the medical exchange has arranged a hotel room for me. Hao Wen’er, if it’s inconvenient to look for a place, you can stay with me at my hotel instead.”

Zhu Haowen chewed hard at the cake in his mouth, feeling that his cheeks were bulging. “I’ll stay at my aunt’s house. My cousin needs manpower for the wedding preparations so I’ll have to go early to help when the time comes.”

Ke Xun looked at his mobile phone and saw that it was past 17 o’clock. “It’s still early. Let’s find a restaurant to rest for a while and eat before going back.”

Everyone nodded, and Qin Ci also said, “Let’s eat something simple tonight, and wait for Xiao Mu to get together again in a few days.”

So Ke Xun took everyone to a clean restaurant. The well-built restaurant owner looked at the four men in front of him–the fruit pattern on the front of their T-shirt made them look very fresh and juicy…

The restaurant owner opened his mouth and spoke in the eastern accent of S City, “God Ke, you always say you’ll come, but I barely saw a hint of you. Today, I’ll have to entertain you well.”

Wei Dong whispered to their two companions, “Ke’er was the one who brought about Boss Li’s rebirth…”

Boss Li immediately said in a booming voice, “I’m afraid that these two new friends don’t know. Three years ago, they used to call me Fat Dumpy Li! I weighed more than 230 catties, can you believe it? If it weren’t for God Ke, I guess right now, I would be too fat to even walk!”

As he was talking, Boss Li showed everyone the muscular lines of his forearms. Qin Ci and Zhu Haowen subconsciously gave the gold metal body sculpting expert Ke Xun thumbs up–This was the first time he came and he even brought his friends from outside. In the midst of talking and laughing, there was a hint of cherishment between life and death.

Over by the door of the private box, Ke Xun and Boss Li were talking. “It’s just four people, all our own people. Quickly put that out of your head. A sheep feast? That’s enough, that’s enough! Just bring four bowls of traditional noodles, served with a few side dishes…”

Even though Boss Li said that the “restaurant is small and the food is simple”, he arranged for the waiter to put “16 steaming bowls” on the table. The 16 steaming bowls, including the black porcelain bowls on top, were 32 bowls altogether.

“Old Li Changliang, I’ll give him 32 likes.” Wei Dong wasn’t polite. He stretched out his chopsticks and put a couscous in Qin Ci’s bowl. Then he grabbed another piece of fried tofu in soup and put it in Zhu Haowen’s bowl. After having experienced so many paintings together, they could nearly ascertain each other’s likes and dislikes.

“Since the experience…of entering…, this is the first time I have calmly tasted such delicious food.” Zhu Haowen dipped the fried tofu in fried chili oil and put it in his mouth. It was hot and crispy. He breathed out the heat, thoroughly enjoying himself. After chewing hard, he said, “After eating so well, it makes you cling harder to this human world.”

If it were in the past, they might become down-spirited due to this sentence, but no one thought about it at this moment. Instead, they laughed and raised a glass of wine. “People clinging harder to this world are most worth drinking.”

Ke Xun placed the phone in the middle of the table. Mu Yiran was on the screen. He was frowning a little, staring at the slightly shaking camera. Finally, he understood what was going on and he raised his coffee cup toward the camera, drinking with everyone.

“Kelp and tender meat, your favorites.” Ke Xun pushed the two steaming bowls in front of the camera.

After Ke Xun told Mu Yiran this, Mu Yiran put down the coffee in his hand, touched his chin and looked at him and at the food on the table that he couldn’t eat.

“Boss Mu, when are you coming? We’ll go to Ke’er’s place for dumplings.” Wei Dong’s tolerance for drinking wasn’t good, and he already felt a little dizzy after drinking three to five cups of alcohol.

Mu Yiran smiled faintly, but Ke Xun understood from his smile that this person probably had no time to come over to accompany everyone. As for the next time they’ll meet again, he’s afraid that he would have to wait for the next painting.

The painting, this weird existence, should he hate it or be grateful for it? Ke Xun and Mu Yiran “touched glass” and drank.

“Counting it down, how many levels have we broken already?” After looking around, Zhu Haowen felt that this private box was safe and so he took the initiative to talk about this sensitive topic. Even so, he still avoided using the word “painting.”

Zhu Haowen continued, “I started at the tube houses, with everyone, and in total, I’ve broken through three levels.”

Wei Dong pushed the meat egg roll in front of Zhu Haowen. “Ke’er and I had two with you.”

After Qin Ci finished drinking, his face wasn’t red but pale instead. “I experienced it twice with Xiao Mu, and the third time, I met Xiao Ke and Dongzi.”

Zhu Haowen tasted the delicious meat egg roll and mentally did the math. “In other words, judging from the total number, this game has already gone through seven levels. Brother Qin, are you sure it was the first level when you entered?”

Qin Ci pulled his thoughts back to the day that he didn’t want to recall. “At that time, all 13 people said that it was their first time. It was in the northwest of L City. I worked there for six months due to a medical exchange program, and I would usually go to look at art in my spare time and wander around the museums. Even now, I still remember that the name of the gallery was called Time Art Gallery.”

Qin Ci’s current mood could only be understood by those who had experienced a painting.

Mu Yiran was silent on the other side of the screen.

“I think we’d better write down each experience. Instead of recording it in detail, we can just record some key words and numbers in vague ways. Maybe we can find some pattern from it.” Judging from Zhu Haowen’s expression, this person probably had recorded his experiences in all three paintings.

Wei Dong was already flushed from drinking. He pulled at his hair and said, “When do you think this will be over? Don’t tell me we’ll just keep going through levels after levels for the rest of our lives?”

The idea of constantly having to enter paintings for the rest of their lives was wretched.

“If Brother Qin is certain that he and the others had entered the first level, then one can say that this painting has a beginning.” Zhu Haowen hesitated, then extended his hand and patted Wei Dong. “Everything has a beginning and an end. It’s impossible for it to loop indefinitely.”

“We can draw two conclusions about the beginning of this matter,” Mu Yiran said from the screen. “Perhaps, Time Art Gallery was the general beginning, or perhaps at a certain time in the past, an entire group was annihilated, and so a new starting point was re-established.”

“There’s always a beginning.” Ke Xun took over. “At present, every level we had experienced thus far had its own rules. As long as there are rules, there are certain numbers, and so we can’t go through these levels forever. There must be an end point to these levels.”

There must be a total number to these paintings.

People constantly went in and out of the painting, but which painting would be the final one?

“Since the number of participants is 13, then perhaps the total number is also related to 13,” Wei Dong said what everyone was thinking. Then he scratched his head and said, “It’s not a lucky number.”

“Under the premise of this hypothesis,” Zhu Haowen said as he dipped his hand in water and wrote the number 13 on the table. “Since the first, we have passed 7 levels today, and so we’re halfway to the 13th level already. It’s just around the corner. But judging from the three levels I’d gone through, there hadn’t been any changes in the degree of difficulty, and there seems to be no pattern between easy and difficult.”

“Because the time period and the style of these works are different, the world they show is different,” Mu Yiran said. “The NPCs all acted differently. Some are very mechanical, some are indistinct, and some will observe us secretly and even try to bewitch us.”

Mu Yiran was referring to the “Shadow” that everyone just came out of. “By the way, those Morris patterns are indeed related to the painter’s experience. In order to put himself through school, this man once worked on drawing Morris patterns for a huge mansion. These patterns were primarily orange, and they were continuously spread throughout the mansion. The painter spent a full year drawing this, and then he had to undergo nearly a half a year’s worth of psychological treatment. This incident probably caused him a great deal of stimulation.”

This explained why Morris-patterned windows would appear in a Fauvist painting, and why Rong Rang’s image would be orange–all these represented the painter’s inner world.

Mu Yiran seemed to have something going on over there on his end. He nodded to everyone and terminated the video chat.

But before he left, Ke Xun looked at the video, and Mu Yiran looked at him one final time.

“According to Xiao Mu just now, is it possible that the NPCs in these levels are gradually becoming stronger? Even gradually thinking for themselves?” Qin Ci speculated.

Everyone was eager to figure out the rules of these paintings. Their understanding of the clues to these rules might be a magic weapon that could save their life.

But their analysis at this moment was just a guess.

The door to the private box opened, and the restaurant owner came in. He carried a tray with four bowls of delicious-looking, steaming beef noodles with green coriander sprinkled on top.

“I personally made the glutinous rice noodles. The taste is absolutely extraordinary!” The boss enthusiastically put the rice noodles on the table one by one. Then he put down a plate of cut beef and a few small saucers. “When I was at the door, I heard a few words, and I don’t understand what you young people are saying these days. It’s almost like my kid, who stays at home and plays games all day. He chats with his classmates all day long, so I’ll tell him, ‘Unlike the game world on the computer, reality is really dangerous! You’ll understand when you enter society. In games, you can be resurrected after losing your life, but in the real world, if you fall, it’ll sometimes be difficult to climb back up.”

After hearing this, everyone thought it was the truth, and so they all toasted the boss.

“Sorry. Since I started exercising, I’ve quit drinking.” The boss poured himself a cup of tea and drank it with everyone. “This year is the year of my birth sign. How much older am I when compared to you younger brothers? In these 50 years, I’ve also experienced a few dangerous ups and downs, and I feel that some things that may seem difficult aren’t necessarily bad. Some people need experience, and once they’ve experienced it, they would no longer be so timid.”