Just gazing at those huge, crookedly stacked portraits piled by the wall, Jiu’er felt an odd chill slowly rising from her spine.
Her consciousness seemed to drown in water, making it hard to breathe. The air around her grew hotter and hotter... as if she was being simmered by something.
Under the strong unease, all her bones creaked and groaned. Like iron bars attracted to a magnet, wanting to burst forth and throw themselves into those massive oil paintings.
"Definitely... Stop..."
"...Escape... Now..."
In the scorching air, Jiu’er heard fragmented whispers.
It was as if many people were talking quietly to her at the same time, and as a result, she couldn’t hear anything clearly.
Amos’s clear voice rang out from behind Jiu’er.
The moment she heard his voice, Jiu’er instantly snapped out of the illusion.
In that brief moment of illusion, she noticed that her erosion degree had silently increased by 3%.
"—You’ve got a hunch here. Good, take another sanity check, you’ve lost three san points."
"—Wait, does everyone increase their erosion degree upon seeing this painting? Then isn’t it a guaranteed increase in erosion degree every round? Isn’t this level damn dangerous?!"
"—No, I think it’s probably only the first time you see it that it will increase... might not increase either."
"—Am I the only one who doesn’t feel scared of this painting..."
"—To be fair, I actually also..."
Seeing Jiu’er’s erosion degree increase just by looking at a painting, the players watching from the outside exploded in chatter, firing off lines of relentless barrage.
You all are just taking advantage of the fact that I can’t interact with you in a quality manner right now...
Watching the barrage of mockery drift by, Jiu’er grit her teeth in hatred.
She had made up her mind.
No matter what—so long as she could make it out alive, she would deceive them all and lure them in!
The live stream couldn’t convey the fear she had just felt...
She had to make them all take a look at this painting!
Jiu’er believed if they also experienced an increase in their erosion degree, they would surely help lure others in...
While muttering to herself inwardly, she softly answered, "Very... very shocking."
"Not bad, you can even use the word ’shocking’..."
Amos sounded somewhat surprised.
He couldn’t help but let out a laugh.
Obviously, the frank and genuine compliment from this wanderer, devoid of flattery and pretense, gave him particular delight.
He walked up to Jiu’er and casually asked, "What’s your name?"
"...Aimee, my name is Aimee."
Jiu’er endured the lingering nausea, recalled for a moment, and then responded.
Luckily, it was a short interruption.
Despite the distraction, Jiu’er could still remember "her" own name.
"Very well, Aimee. Stand in front of the picture frame."
Amos said in a low, steady, and confident voice: "I will make you... famous throughout the world."
With that, he patted the wanderer’s shoulder and nudged him forward two steps.
Jiu’er vaguely felt as if someone from one of the paintings was breathing hot air onto her face.
So, the wanderer shuddered and scrutinized the wall. But at that moment, he couldn’t feel that searing breath any longer.
In front of this wall made up of at least seventeen or eighteen different-sized portraits, the bottom right corner was, instead, an empty picture frame.
No, strictly speaking... it should be called a "black frame."
Within that frame, it was not a piece of paper fully painted black.
Instead, it was a pre-drawn draft, similar to the shadows found in a corner of the wall. The moment it was placed in the corner, it seemed as if this was not a painting... but a pitch-black gate leading to an abyss.
It was as if a portrait had originally been placed within this frame...
——and the person inside had escaped.
"You just stand here, Aimee."
Amos said, taking out the black frame from behind Jiu’er.
Jiu’er noticed that, paradoxically, once the frame was pulled out... it revealed the truly pitch-dark and lightless wall hidden behind this shadow-covered frame.
It was black as if it had been smoked by carbon.
That odd, asymmetrical, bottomless blackness was somewhat spine-chilling...
Then, Amos placed the frame on a stand not far ahead.
He strode back, supported Jiu’er’s body, and posed her in a slightly hunched forward stance as if straining to look ahead.
After reviewing her up and down, Amos still seemed somewhat dissatisfied and smacked his lips.
After pondering for a moment, he took an empty easel designed to hold a frame from the nearby wall.
"Stretch out one hand and rest it on this easel—right. Curl the other hand slightly, and have it convey a sense of timidity... Lift your head a bit, as if peering inside. Imagine you’re leaning on someone’s window, looking inside—"
Amos explained to Jiu’er in detail.
By now, Jiu’er had already understood what kind of pose Amos wanted.
——It was that of a mischievous child, pressing against the clear glass of a toy store window, peering eagerly inside.
Seeing Jiu’er’s new pose, Amos’s eyes lit up: "Yes! That’s it—don’t move, hold that pose... Imagine you’re very hungry. And inside the window is someone else’s freshly cooked, steaming meal..."
With that, Amos began painting swiftly.
But what happened next,
was completely different from the "third level" of painting demonstrated during the street kid’s live broadcast...
Jiu’er had thought that this was simply a test of endurance. All she had to do was maintain this pose without moving.
But after Amos began to paint in earnest...
She distinctly felt an intense discomfort.
She wanted to move, but her body was immobile, completely unable to budge.
The barrage chat also gradually realized something was wrong.
Because the vagrant that Jiu’er was portraying began to act more and more realistically... as if there really was such a starving vagrant, huddled by someone’s window, peering inside.
It was beyond the realm of "acting."
It even stopped resembling a real vagrant.
Because a real vagrant would never display such vivid emotions— that mix of fear, hunger, greed, and malice was more like an almost abstract image of a vagrant found only in artistic paintings...
From the audience’s viewpoint, they could clearly see that the painting in Amos’s hands was being completed at breakneck speed.
It was just like a printer. Without any hesitation or corrections, he painted swiftly and continuously... as if he wasn’t painting from a model, but materializing an image already formed in his mind into reality.
The barrage of comments was already full of awe at his artistry.
Annan had previously seen the portrait that Amos had painted for Elle.
But clearly, these players had not seen it...
And now, the portrait of the vagrant that Amos was painting, its brilliance surpassed that of Elle’s portrait.
As the portrait gradually took shape, Jiu’er felt her body remained immobile, her consciousness growing blurry, and everything she saw was elongating.
It was then that she heard Amos’s warm and gentle whisper in her ear:
"Feeling hungry now?"
The next moment, Jiu’er lost consciousness without warning.