Yes, as incredulous as it sounds... the painting was indeed bleeding.
Or rather, it might have been blood.
The knife flew out, embedding itself into her chest and stomach. Exactly like it had pierced a real person’s chest and stomach, a dark red liquid kept flowing down from the blade, drip-drip-dripping onto the floor.
The woman in the painting suddenly let out a piercing and hysterical scream.
The moment Annan heard that sound, he suddenly experienced an extremely intense headache, mixed with fatigue and irritability... It was as if he had been woken up by the sound of a drill from next door or upstairs after only three hours of sleep.
And it was the kind of drill sound that made one feel their own bed vibrating—perhaps even more intensely.
Annan’s vision blurred, his head swimming with a floating dizziness.
But there was no sign of disgust on Annan’s face, no fear or anger from being attacked...
He smiled pleasantly, and without hesitation, pulled out another kitchen knife from behind his back, closing in as he got to his feet.
He held the kitchen knife in a reverse grip, thrusting it forcefully toward the depicted lady’s face.
After the peculiar, muffled noise, another stream of bright red liquid began to flow from the new wound, slowly dripping down...
But the dark red traces hadn’t even fallen outside of the painting,
before Annan grabbed the second kitchen knife and forcefully yanked it out.
The bright red traces splattered out, landing on Annan’s face—the white and lovely face that belonged to Elle Morrison, looking especially shiny.
"Can you still scream..."
Annan muttered, his smile becoming more joyful, "How about this..."
As he spoke, he continued to forcefully pull the kitchen knife out and then plunged it with all his might into the portrait’s mouth, throat, eyes, forehead, hands, and even the background of the painting that bore no figure.
To Annan’s slight disappointment, even though he had pierced the portrait’s mouth, slit its throat, he was unable to stop the screaming of the painting; when he pierced its eyes, there was no liquid resembling the color of eyes bursting out, but it was still that deep red, somewhat cold and slimy liquid... This even included when piercing the background that contained no figure, which also resulted in a "bleeding" effect.
But this was not blood. It only resembled blood.
The true color of blood should be a bit deeper than this.
Yet, as Annan continued to thrust and slash with the knives in his hands, the screaming from the painting grew fainter. Eventually, it stopped entirely.
Annan was slightly disappointed, flicking off the blood-red liquid on his hands and wiping his face again.
"...Damn, my clothes are dirty."
Annan murmured, "I hope Amos doesn’t find out."
The tone and pitch of his voice when he said this were becoming more similar to Elle’s. If Amos were outside the door at this moment, he would never suspect his identity.
After reading Elle’s diary, Annan had gained a deeper understanding of how to imitate her:
She normally wouldn’t refer to Amos as "father," but would usually call him by his name "Amos." The times before when Elle called him dad, it seemed to be only when she was expressing her dissatisfaction...
"Such an annoying thing."
Annan sighed lightly, reaching out to wipe the blood-like, but oily-feeling red liquid from his hands and the kitchen knife onto the now silent portrait.
Originally, this painting seemed as if it were alive.
If the portrait of Elle painted by Amos before was as realistic as a photograph.
Then this screaming painting seemed to possess a soul. When Elle had just glanced at it from a distance, she couldn’t even be sure if it was a painting or if there was a real person hiding behind a transparent window, watching from the other side.
But because of that... it appeared somewhat terrifying.
For it was so much like a real person—having surpassed a certain limit, it had become frightening instead.
...And now, it had lost that semblance of a soul, becoming utterly ordinary. It was just like a normal portrait, which at a glance no longer gave the illusion that "there’s a person hiding here."
But it was at that moment that Annan’s steps suddenly halted.
He faintly heard... the sound of someone using a key to open a door downstairs.
...Damn, still too late.
Was it because of the fifteen-minute delay...?
Thinking this, Annan quickly ran back to the desk and put the two books he had looked at back in their places.
He gazed at the third book he hadn’t had the chance to read, "The Curse and Seal of the Soul," and hesitated for a brief moment.
After all, the painting had already been damaged. If Amos returned to this room, he would definitely notice something was amiss. Therefore, whether this book remained here or not made no difference.
So, Annan shuffled the books back in their original row to make the gap left by one book less conspicuous. Then he stuffed "The Curse and Seal of the Soul" into his clothing.
...Fortunately, Elle’s physique was quite modest, not taking up much space in the upper garment.
It was the kind of modesty and accommodation that still left plenty of room even if you stuffed a thick book inside.
Afterward, Annan patted his chest to make sure the book wouldn’t easily fall out. Then she reattached the slightly smaller kitchen knife to her waist. Returning to the portrait, he grabbed the first large kitchen knife that had flown over and forcefully pulled it out.
He looked at the painting frame that had become battered and was smeared with red paint, and fell silent for a while.
Then he flipped it over and put it back in its place.
"This way Amos probably wouldn’t notice it at first glance..."
Annan muttered to herself, quickly opened the study door, and ran back to her room.
From the moment he heard the door open to the moment he returned to his room, it took less than ten seconds altogether.
He then took the book out and placed it under his pillow. He also took out several kitchen knives and placed them inside the dressing table, and only then did he take off his "blood-stained clothes," carelessly folded them into a ball, and stuffed them into the wardrobe.
After that, he picked out another dress.
—But didn’t put it on yet.
Annan pretended to dress, but stopped halfway and remained still.
He maintained that pose, waiting for Amos to open his room door—he had deliberately left it ajar.
Sure enough, soon he heard footsteps getting closer.
Only then did Annan start to dress.
"Elle, I’m back—oh, sorry..."
"Please step out, Mister Amos!"
Annan pretended to be angry, turned her head, and scolded, "Wait for me in the dining room, I’ll come out right away—"
Watching Amos leave somewhat awkwardly, Annan’s face returned to being expressionless.
As long as Annan acted this way, said these things, she could control Amos not to immediately search Elle’s room or rush back to the study...
This was a simple method of "Heart Control" by Annan. A technique of conversation that even ordinary people could master.
Yes, he was just an ordinary person, nothing special. Therefore, he had to be even more careful and cautious.