northernbook Chapter 605 Painter (5)
Chapter 605 Painter (5)
Pei Yun sheathed the dagger, and his resentment dissipated considerably. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and sat back down on the sofa.
The four teams looked at Pei Yun with inquisitive eyes. Xu Wei, the captain of one of the teams, asked, "Fellow Daoist Pei, you just told me that after you fell into an illusion on the altar, your whole body was bound by chains of resentment and you couldn't break free. So how did you finally escape the illusion and obtain this dagger?"
"...Indeed, Fellow Daoist Pei, this dagger is filled with such resentment that none of us present could withstand even a glance at it. How could you..." Captain Zhou Hui also asked in confusion.
Pei Yun calmly glanced at the probing gazes around him, paused, and took out a gold key necklace from his collar: "This treasure can help me resist resentment."
Everyone's eyes lit up at the sight of the treasure. A hint of envy and jealousy flashed in Wu Ziwei's eyes: "This is the treasure that Fellow Daoist Pei found outside the villa?! If we had known, we would have searched outside first..."
"No." Pei Yun shook his head.
"Ok?"
"What? This wasn't found outside the villa?"
They and Pei Yun's team were teleported into the villa at the same time, so Pei Yun definitely couldn't have found the treasure under their noses; it must have been found outside the villa earlier.
"Fellow Daoist Pei, you're not going to say this is your own treasure, are you? We've already tried it before; we can't use our own treasures in this mission world..."
"...Fellow Daoist Pei, now that our five teams are working together, we should share any treasures we find..."
Some people from the other four teams started making sarcastic remarks, and some even started eyeing the golden key.
Before Pei Yun could speak, Fu Lingchen sneered slightly, looking at the various expressions on the faces of the crowd, and said, "This golden key is indeed Pei Yun's own treasure. As for why she can use treasures in the mission world... of course, it's because she got permission from the spirit of the 'Trial Gate'!"
Upon hearing this, the people present frowned slightly and focused their attention on him.
"A spirit? You mean... the spirit of the 'Trial Gate'?"
"You encountered the artifact spirit in the previous 'gate'?!"
"That can't be! We've never seen the artifact spirit..."
The members of the four teams chatted amongst themselves, but the four team captains stared straight at Fu Lingchen and Pei Yun.
"Just because your team didn't see the artifact spirit doesn't mean our team didn't. Do you know why we were able to see the artifact spirit? That's because we completed the trial mission and made the 'door' disappear..." Fu Lingchen said.
"what?!"
"How can it be!"
Apart from the calm Pei Yun and his group of five, the others stood up in shock, looking at Pei Yun with disbelief and skepticism.
"This treasure belongs to me. Anyone who wants to steal it can try, and I will gladly oblige."
Pei Yun's assertive attitude immediately made the faces of the other teams around him look unpleasant.
Pei Yun didn't want to waste time arguing with them about these trivial matters. Whether they believed her or not, she changed the subject directly: "Our team has already shared the situation outside the villa. What did you find inside the villa?"
Seeing that Pei Yun was unwilling to say more, the four teams had even more doubts about Pei Yun's team's claim of successfully passing the previous "gate".
However, most people would just laugh about it in their hearts; the most important thing now is the "door" trial mission.
Qian Zheng began recounting their discoveries in the villa: "...This villa has five floors in total. Except for the top floor, which we couldn't explore because the housekeeper prevented us from doing so, we explored the other four floors. There are a total of sixty-five rooms across the four floors. Fifty-two of the bedrooms contain a portrait of a young woman. There are also a kitchen, a nursery, a storage room, and so on..."
"The kitchen was the one our team scouted. Although the servants fed us human flesh, there were no whole corpses in the kitchen, only pieces of chopped meat..."
When Wu Ziwei mentioned this, the members behind him looked extremely disgusted, as if they were about to vomit, which suggests that they had seen something repulsive in the kitchen earlier.
"Is there anything unusual about the portrait?" Pei Yun asked, getting straight to the point.
Speaking of this, Xu Wei, the team leader and an elite disciple of the Array God Hall, stepped forward. This half-white-haired old man was more skilled and experienced in array formations than the other four array masters present.
He took out a handkerchief from his sleeve. This handkerchief contained a trace of resentment, though compared to the dagger Pei Yun had obtained, the resentment within it was insignificant. But it was with this handkerchief that Xu Wei discovered the secret of the portrait:
"...The painting contains an independent space, similar to a spatial array, but without the array plate I cannot break it. Of course, we don't need to break the array; as long as we find a medium, we can enter the independent space within the painting..."
"This handkerchief is the medium?" Upon hearing this, everyone present perked up and stared at the handkerchief in the old man's hand.
“That’s right.” Xu Wei nodded. “I found this handkerchief in a bedroom. I noticed that the portrait of the woman hanging on the wall in this room looked very similar to the woman in one of the paintings in the second-floor corridor. This handkerchief was also tainted with a trace of resentment. So I took this handkerchief to the painting in the corridor, and as soon as I infused it with spiritual power, my consciousness entered the painting…”
"What is the independent space in the painting?" Qian Zheng asked eagerly, while the others stared at him with interest.
"It should be... a memory, something that happened in this villa..."
"What do you see?"
“A young man, presumably the ‘painter,’ gave this handkerchief to the woman in the painting and promised to paint a beautiful portrait of her…”
Pei Yun asked, "Did you encounter any attacks from vengeful spirits in the independent space?"
“…No.” Xu Wei shook his head, looking at Pei Yun, “I’m certain that my experience is different from Fellow Daoist Pei’s. The independent space really is like a memory, without any resentment or vengeful spirits…”
The other teams also shared their findings, more or less. Overall, the four teams were quite safe in the villa, unlike Pei Yun's team, which encountered two crises and almost suffered total annihilation at the church.
By this time, it was completely dark, and the crystal chandelier in the main hall illuminated the entire room as brightly as day. The five teams prepared to choose their own rooms to stay in.
Unexpectedly, the two maids brought food from the kitchen again, still bloody meat. However, this time neither the "painter" nor the butler appeared.
No one present seemed inclined to eat, but Fu Lingchen, clutching his stomach, stared at the meat on the table and whispered, "Aren't you all feeling a little hungry? It's strange, even though ninety percent of our spiritual power is sealed, we're still cultivators after all, yet I feel a long-lost hunger..."
Upon hearing this, Zhou Fengminglu, He Changxuan, and the other two immediately agreed, perhaps because the four of them had exhausted their spiritual and mental energy in the church earlier.
Their stomachs felt like they were wheezing, desperately craving food. The four of them stared at the bloody flesh and couldn't help but swallow hard.
Pei Yun's expression hardened as he noticed the odd behavior of his four companions. He then asked the other four teams, "Besides the meat in the kitchen, is there anything else to eat in this villa?"
All four team leaders shook their heads at Pei Yun: "There's food only in the kitchen. We've inspected the meat; it's all human flesh and has a rotten smell. I suggest your team members not eat it..."
Fu Lingchen and the other three struggled to shift their gaze from the meat on the table to Pei Yun.
"Sit down." Pei Yun had the four of them sit cross-legged on the ground. She walked behind them, raised her hands, and used the Breathing Life Technique to inject four streams of spiritual energy into their bodies. Upon seeing this, the four of them closed their eyes and began to cultivate.
The onlookers' expressions changed slightly, looking at Pei Yun with a mixture of surprise and apprehension.