Chapter 394 - 213: Painting the Heart

Chapter 394: Chapter 213: Painting the Heart

That was why, the moment victory was won, the Monk had immediately cast aside his identity as "Xie Yunliu," forsaken high office and riches, abandoned glory, and laid down his armor to return home and find his dear big brother.

"How could you..."

The man waved his hand. "It’s nothing. Quick, tell me. In the scenery that ’I’ never experienced, did you notice anything strange?"

The Monk helped the man sit on the bed. A foul stench wafted from it, a layer of discarded paper covering its surface. The Monk fell silent. He couldn’t imagine how the man, having lost both his legs, had managed to endure these past five years.

Day after day, year after year, he had been persistent, obsessed, driven to Madness, and consumed by guilt—all just to create the legendary "Cannibal Painting."

All the windows in the room were boarded shut, leaving it dim and lightless. The Monk found an oil lamp and lit it before recounting his years in the army. Finally, he shared his thoughts, "Except for your grandfather, the other soldiers... I felt they weren’t so much quiet and reserved as they were walking corpses."

"That’s my great-great-grandfather," the man casually corrected, biting his nails hard. Only then did the Monk notice that the man’s fingernails were pitted and uneven, some of his fingers stained with dried blood. Hearing the Monk’s words, the man’s sinister eyes, hidden behind a curtain of long hair, began to glow. "So it’s true! It’s true!"

"It’s all fake! Fake!"

"As ’my’ paintings spread throughout the Common World, everyone who saw one would fall victim to the ’Soul Capturing’ Magic hidden deep within it!"

"Soul Capturing doesn’t take away the ’Will’ from a soul completely. But as long as it takes a tiny sliver, supplements it with Painting Skill, and gives it form, it can make a portrait in the World in the Painting look... like a Human!"

"This is right! My initial idea was right! This is the essence of the Cannibal Painting! It’s the foundation for creating the Cannibal Painting!"

"In this world, ’I’ have never met my great-great-grandfather! The reason he could be painted is because the legends of my great-great-grandfather are widespread. His bravery, his skill in battle, his righteousness—everything about him lives on in the mouths of the people, his image alive in their hearts! In the heart of every person who has seen the ’painting,’ there is a ’General Zheng.’ It is all of these ’General Zhengs’ that fleshed themselves out within the painting, forming the General Zheng you saw, the one who fought alongside Xie Yunliu!"

"A large number of Human Souls can make the Darkness and the Common World draw close, forming a boundary... a Ghostly Realm! But perhaps a large number of Human Souls isn’t necessary! Just taking a tiny bit from everyone, a little bit that doesn’t affect their life or Soul Intent... using quantity to make up for quality! Maybe that could work, too!"

"So, ’I’ don’t need to paint every little detail of this world. I only need to use my brush to create a specious, false world, and just like that, it’s done!"

"It’s done! It can be done! It’s all possible! Being fake is all it takes!"

The man gesticulated wildly, laughing maniacally.

"Meow!" At that moment, the silent Little Feng Miao raised its head, its eyes shining. It silently leaped onto the man’s shoulder and gently patted his hair with its paws, as if endorsing his theory.

The more the man spoke, the more excited he became. But the Monk, who had been listening dumbfounded at his side, found his own expression growing darker and darker. After hearing the meow, the Monk’s eyes suddenly flew wide with fury. A low growl like that of a wounded beast rumbled in his throat. He shot to his feet, swung his hand, and slapped the man hard across the face.

SLAP!

The Monk’s slap knocked the man’s head to the side. Little Feng Miao, startled, leaped from the man’s shoulder. It stared with wide eyes, covering its face with its paws, blankly watching the two who had suddenly come to blows. Its posture suggested it felt the pain itself.

After hitting the man, the Monk was also a bit stunned. He stared at his own reddened palm, dazed. As he stared, he blankly raised his head and saw the man’s swollen face and the blood trickling from the corner of his mouth. Suddenly, he burst into tears. "I don’t like hearing that!"

"How is it fake? How can it be fake? At the time, I didn’t remember my past, only that I had become my master in his youth. But Old Chu, Old Xiao, and Bai Xiaopang—they crossed thousands of miles of yellow sand just to fight alongside me. Was that fake?"

"Beneath the moon, before the dunes, I drank with them until we were drunk, talking about the coldness of the world and the impermanence of life. Was that fake?!"

The Monk grew more and more agitated. He lunged forward and grabbed the man’s collar, his face a mess of tears and snot. "Old Chu said he’d long since moved past the grudges of the Jianghu, that he knew he was wrong! He even said that after he returned from the Great Desert, he and Miss Wen would have twins! He wanted to live a life surrounded by children and grandchildren, to grow old with Miss Wen! Was that fake too?!"

"They can’t go back! Old Chu and Miss Wen used their lives to save me from that place! Tell me, is that bond, in your eyes, also fake?!"

"And your ten years with my sister... no, with Xie Luohe... no, with Miss Feng Bei! Those ten years you shared a bed—do you think that was fake too?!"

"I don’t understand all this. I don’t understand Danqing. But I believe that even if we’re trapped here, even after all the hardships we’ve endured, and even if the people inside were painted two hundred years ago by that Ghost Painter using some bizarre Miracle Technique—everything I experienced, the people I saw, the wine I drank, the words I spoke, it was all real! Even if everything else is fake, that bond is real! What’s fake can’t become real! And what’s real can’t become fake!"