Just by staring at the slanted and huge portraits on the wall, Jiu Er felt a chill crept upon her spine.
She felt that her consciousness seemed to be immersed in water, and it became difficult to breathe. The surrounding air turned scorching as if she was stewed.
Under the intense anxiety, her bones crunched. It was like an iron bar attracted by a magnet. Her bones wanted to break out of her body and cast on those oil paintings.
“…Hungry…”
“I want……”
“Absolutely… stop…”
“Flee…immediately…”
In the hot air, Jiu Er heard fine whispers, seemingly many people were whispering to themselves in low voices at the same time. In the end, she couldn’t hear anything.
“What’s your choice?” Amos’s clear voice sounded behind Jiu Er.
At the moment when Jiu Er heard him, she woke up instantly from the hallucinations.
Under that short illusion, she noticed that her erosion rate had risen silently by 3%.
“While you’re enjoying the fine experience, you lost three points of sanity.”
“Wait, does everyone who sees this painting have their erosion rate increase? Isn’t it unavoidable to have the erosion rate rise every round? Isn’t this level too dangerous?!”
“—No, I think it will only rise the first time we see it…or maybe it won’t happen anymore.”
“—Am I the only one who didn’t feel the horror of this painting?”
“—To be honest, I also…”
As Jiu Er’s erosion rate increased when she looked at the picture, the players watching outside became rowdy, and bullet text was posted continuously.
…A bunch of bastards.
You are just bullying me that I can’t interact with you now…
Seeing a group of bullet texts that laughed at her barraging, Jiu Er was annoyed.
She had made up her mind.
No matter what, she would scam all these bastards into this nightmare as long as she could get out alive!
This live broadcast couldn’t convey the fear she had just now.
I need to make them all take a look at this painting personally!
Jiu Er believed that if the other players had their erosion rate increased, they would help bring other players in.
She muttered in her heart and replied in a low volume, “Very…very shocking.”
“Yes, you still use the word shock…” Amos was surprised.
He couldn’t help but laugh.
Obviously, this homeless man wasn’t brown-nosed or pretending to give a sincere evaluation, which delighted him.
Amos walked up to Jiu Er and asked casually, “What is your name?”
“…Amis, my name is Amis.”
Jiu Er endured nausea that had not yet dissipated, recalled the earlier moment, and replied.
Fortunately, the time was not long.
Although interrupted, Jiu Er could still remember the “name.”
“Alright, Amis. Stand in front of the frame.”
Amos whispered. His voice was calm and confident, “I will make you famous all over the world.”
After Amos said that, he held the homeless man’s shoulder and pushed him forward.
Jiu Er vaguely felt that the person in the painting sprayed his hot breath on her face.
She shivered and looked at that wall. But at this moment, she couldn’t feel the burning sensation again.
That wall was composed of at least 17 portraits of different sizes. Its lower right corner had an empty frame.
No, strictly speaking, it should be called a “black frame.”
Within the frame, the paper wasn’t painted entirely black.
The bottom layer looked like the shadow on a wall corner. It didn’t seem like a painting when placed in the corner of the wall. Rather, it was a dark gate leading to the abyss.
In other words, it seemed like a picture frame that initially housed a portrait, and the person inside had escaped.
“Stand here, Amis.”
As Amos spoke, he took out the black frame behind Jiu Er.
On the contrary, after pulling out the picture frame, Jiu Er noticed that pitch-black lay behind this painted frame. The dark and dull wall was revealed.
It was like being smoked by charcoal.
The creepy, uneven, and bottomless pitch black was creepy.
Subsequently, Amos put the frame on the shelf not far in front.
He strode back again, leaning on Jiu Er’s body and crouching slightly, trying to look forward.
After that, Amos stepped back and looked up and down but still smacked his lips in dissatisfaction.
He pondered for a while. From the nearby wall, he took out an empty shelf that was used to house those frames.
“Give me one hand and hold this shelf— Yes. Make the other hand slightly curled up. I want that timid feeling. Slightly raise your head as if looking inside. Imagine that you are supporting yourself on a window and look inside.”
Amos explained carefully to Jiu Er.
Hearing this, Jiu Er already understood what kind of posture Amos wanted.
—It gave off the feeling of a naughty kid looking into the toy store through the transparent glass window.
Seeing Jiu Er’s new posture, Amos’s eyes lit up, “Yes! That’s it. Don’t move. Keep your posture… Imagine that you are hungry and inside the window is food just served in someone else’s house.”
With that, Amos quickly began painting.
But what happened next was different with the portrait painting at the nightmare’s third level shown in Wandering Child’s stream.
Jiu Er originally thought that this was just a test of endurance. She would pass as long as she stayed motionless.
But after Amos began to paint…
Jir Er felt a strong discomfort.
She wanted to move, but her body was imprisoned and couldn’t move at all.
Bullet text gradually realized that something was wrong.
The homeless man, played by Jiu Er, became more and more real. It was like there really was a hungry homeless man lying by the window and peering inside.
It wasn’t something that “acting” could accomplish.
It didn’t even look like an actual homeless man anymore.
Because a real homeless man would never have such clear emotions on his face. The mixture of timidity, hunger, greed, and malice was an abstract homeless man image that only existed in painting art.
For the broadcast viewers, they could see Amos’s hand moving quickly to complete the painting.
It was almost like a digital printer. Without any hesitation or amendment, Amos continued to paint quickly as if he was not painting according to an image but embodied the image already formed in his mind into reality.
The bullet texts were amazed by Amos’s art.
Annan had witnessed it before when Amos painted a portrait for Elle.
But these players hadn’t seen it before.
At that moment, the homeless man painted by Amos was more exquisite than Elle’s portrait.
As the portrait gradually took shape, Jiu Er felt that her body was still unable to move, her consciousness steadily blurred, and everything in front of her was elongated.
At this moment, she heard Amos’s warm and soft whisper sounded in her ears,
“You…
“Are you hungry now?”
At the next moment, Jiu Er lost consciousness without any warning.