Nightmare Assault-Chapter 402: Painting and Illustration

Fatty and the man stayed close to the wall and tried their hardest to listen.

“But you didn’t tell the entire truth last time, right?” Jiang Cheng’s voice turned. He hugged his chest and leaned back on the chair. His presence unsettled the woman.

“Officer!” Li Zhumei quickly explained, “I don’t know what you mean. What I said sounded strange, but… It was real! You have to believe me. There is something wrong with Lin Chen’s works!”

Jiang Cheng pretended to write in his notebook. He raised his head and signalled her to continue.

“Repeat what you said last time.” Hua Luo looked into the woman’s eyes. “We will go back and compare it with our previous notes.”

“O-Okay.” The woman grabbed a bottle of water and gulped it down. It helped her calm down. “This was… the middle of July when I received the script from Lin Chen. They were all horror stories. She was a very good illustrator.” The woman stressed, “I’ve been in this business for over a decade. This is the first time an artist’s work made me scared to go home alone at night.”

“Do you still remember the content?”

“Yes.” The woman nodded. “The hunchback, the wig, the shadow that cannot be seen, the gaps and the nail inside the drawer.” She listed them one by one. “They are all good, but they didn’t scare me. The last story scared me.” The woman shivered.

“What story was it?” Hua Luo pursued.

“It… was her own story.” The woman’s expression became complicated with fear and confusion. Then, she added, “I don’t know how to explain it. Why… don’t you read it yourself?”

“Where is it?”

When Hua Luo said that, Jiang Cheng noted the change in the woman’s eyes. “Haven’t your people taken the original script?” She asked.

Jiang Cheng scoffed to pull her attention. He stared at her. “Don’t you have a copy? After all, it’s such a unique story.”

The woman’s face paled. Jiang Cheng leaned forward to look into the woman’s eyes. “It doesn’t benefit you to keep those things. We are doing this for you, or else we wouldn’t be here today.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll bring it to you now.” After the woman apologised, she jogged to a bookshelf to the side. After some searching, she took out a black plastic bag. She opened it before the travellers. It had an envelope. The woman took the papers out of it. The stack was quite thick.

“They are all here.”

This was similar to the script shown by Liu Guo, but the woman’s was a copy. After scanning through them, Jiang Cheng picked up the last chapter. He didn’t open it immediately but took a deep breath. Unlike the other stories, this one didn’t have a name. The woman said that it didn’t come with a name, but for publication purposes, she wanted to call it the Source.

“The Source?” Wan Xiaoning, who stood behind Jiang Cheng, frowned. This name gave her a bad feeling. Jiang Cheng flipped through the pages. He soon understood why the woman called it the Source. This was because… the story didn’t feature a horror story but a tale about a young woman. The story spanned a long time. The first page was drawn two years ago when the woman first arrived at this new city. It could be seen that the woman’s drawing skills hadn’t matured.

The woman encountered a man who treated her well. In the story, the man was the best human in the world. He brought her to the theme park, prepared a candlelight dinner for her during her birthday, and accompanied her when she was sick… The man was perfect, and the woman was happy. During this period, the woman in the illustration was blissful.

However, the tone soon shifted. The perspective changed. The sunlight disappeared. The background turned into nights or rainy days. The colour scheme turned grey. The man became more and more impatient. Sometimes, he would not even come home.

Most of the time, the woman became alone again. With the busy city as the background, the illustrator masterfully evoked the woman’s loneliness curled up in the corner.

After that, there were panels where the man started to scold and hit the woman after he was drunk. There were many times the woman tried to leave, but the man used many ways to make her stay. The man understood the woman. He knew she was a softie and understood that she would always love him. Therefore, he continued to test her bottom line. Certain horrible scenes appeared in the panels.

The young woman turned her attention and sadness to her art. There was a giant canvas in her room. She could spend a whole day painting on it. She slowly mastered the art. However, her strokes became sharper and braver. The paintbrush was like a knife, cutting the woman into pieces. Through the painting, one could feel the despair crushing the woman.

Until… the appearance of another man.

At first, the illustration of the new man was unfocused and straightforward. It was like he had appeared out of thin air. Unlike the original man, this man was reticent. Most of the time, he was only there to accompany the woman. The woman didn’t care about him.

However, as time passed, they became closer. The man would kneel gentlemanly to adjust her skirt and would silently stay by her side when she was unhappy or sick. He’d cut fruits and feed her water. The man, who only had a cameo, eventually became a part of her life.

By then, the travellers already sensed something was wrong. The woman in the comic was undeniably Lin Chen. The first man was Lee Maoshen. However, their focus was on the second man. This man should be the man who appeared and stayed in Room 808, mentioned by Wen Qing.

However, the comic revolved around Lin Chen’s room. How did the new man not be discovered by Lee Maoshen?

Plus… Jiang Cheng frowned. He could sense that the characters in the comic became smaller and smaller. Soon, he reached the last few pages. A frame appeared at the edge of the illustration. Lin Chen drew it. It was meant to be there. The man was gone. The woman became alone.

The next page and the last panel featured the woman sitting quietly before the canvas. The man was still not there.

To Jiang Cheng’s confusion, the style changed again. It felt like when Lin Chen drew this, she was under extreme fear.

Li Zhumei’s face dropped. She extended her finger to point at the last panel. “Look… over there.” She pointed at the illustrated canvas. The woman in the comic was also drawing. However, when he got a closer look at the painting, Jiang Cheng’s pupils shrank. The canvas in the illustration contained a framed canvas.

It was identical! The last page was Lin Chen’s illustration, and it was also the work of the woman inside the comic, drawn by Lin Chen.

It dawned on Jiang Cheng. The man, who appeared later, was the woman’s imagination or wish. It was a mental reliance she birthed after she faced despair in real life. She imagined a perfect man to replace her partner in real life.

All the illustrations about this man were imagined by the woman in Lin Chen’s comic or by Lin Chen. This person didn’t exist in real life! ƒrēenovelkiss.com

The last page of the drawing was true to life. It was the most realistic recording of Lin Cheng’s conditions. She was alone inside the room. The perfect man only existed in the painting under her brush.

A finger extended to point at the corner of the last page. There was a mirror. Lin Chen’s illustration was very realistic. She even drew out the mirror’s reflection.

In the mirror, there was a man dressed in black standing behind Lin Chen. The man held Lin Chen’s wrist and guided her to paint on the canvas. In the illustration, there was Lin Chen alone holding the brush.

“The man has walked out of the painting…” Li Zhumei said with a trembling voice.

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