musicians of old

Chapter 176 "Gallery" (4K [-]-in-[-])

"Paint!?... Not necessarily."

Several people stared at the bright red mark under the eyeballs at the door, and thought of many other possibilities in a blink of an eye.

For example, remnants of lacquer, coagulated blood, or marks left on underground structures by well repairers.

But the first reaction is a paint.

Because its shape is not like the meandering and sliding of liquid under the action of gravity, but with the texture, thickness and movement of brush strokes.

Even if it is not drawn with a brush, it must be wiped out with something like a finger.

Sheeran marveled at how she had become so associative in just a few seconds, and she took out the rope from her backpack and let Fanning tie it to the escalator and around her waist.

With a slight push of Fanning's crowbar, half of the door slammed backwards, kicking up a cloud of dust.

Two minutes later, several people followed suit and entered the door.

"It still stinks in here..." After walking a few steps inside, the expressions of several people changed.

The same corridor as before, but the sides are no longer empty, and things like picture frames are lined up on the wall one by one, extending to the end of the darkness.

These "picture frames" are unevenly distributed, some are more than two meters apart, some are almost close to each other, and the sizes are not exactly the same, but they have one thing in common, that is, they are all very large, the height fluctuates around the average adult height, and the width It is wider than a human.

Fanning took the flashlights from Sheeran and moved closer to one of them to observe carefully.

The material of the picture frame seems to be wood, and the inside is a cloth surface, and the content on it is a colorful abstract painting.

"...This, is this an impasto painting?" Sheeran said, "Caroun, the strokes are so thick, you can see that the places with the most paint are almost five centimeters above the surface..."

"It's a bit strange..." Fan Ning said to himself in doubt, "The color units of these paintings are extremely beautiful, but there is no technique at all, the composition is messy, and the lines are also...the same as those randomly drawn by children."

"That's the style of abstract painting, isn't it?" Joan asked.

Fan Ning shook his head: "Even if it is an abstract painting, its constituent elements are deconstructed from real objects or emotions. Even if it does not talk about natural perspective, it must also consider the layout and composition in the aesthetic sense, even if it does not reflect recognizable real images. , but also consider the self-consistency of color, logic or emotion...Although there are some amazing colors in this frame, it is just a pile of paint randomly piled on it, maybe this should not be called a 'painting'..."

Moreover, in this era, even "suggestion flow" or "impressionism" are still in their infancy. Although abstract paintings exist, they are unpopular and fragmented, basically experimental playthings with low market value.

"Well, but the color unit is really stunning and beautiful... Maybe it's some avant-garde art that I can't appreciate yet."

The three people who continued to walk in gradually found that this corridor was like a "gallery". Looking back and forth, except for a few picture frames that were blank, they were all this kind of weird "giant impasto abstract paintings".

"Caron, after I got out of the secret door of this exhibition hall today, I feel more and more like I'm dreaming."

Joan looked at these human-high patterns in the dim light. They were brightly colored and clawed, like some unknown creatures with vitality and whose shapes were hard to recognize.

"The form of things in the dream is not so stable, is it?" Hiran replied.

"I just feel that these paint patterns are unstable, and I always feel that they will...??" Joan said, "And lucid dreams are inherently self-aware, and the difference from reality lies in the sense of narrowness, detachment, and emotions that are too scattered and erratic. and thinking."

"I didn't find any indications for a dream test." Xilan looked around, "There is indeed a sense of narrowness and detachment you mentioned, but there are three of us now. Could it be that I am alone? Dreamland, the two of you are sleeping on the bed? Or, maybe this is someone who led the joint dream? Karon...how do you feel?"

"Maybe it's because everyone's inspiration is still high now." Fan Ning looked straight ahead, "I feel okay, the only thing that makes people feel strange is that after being stared at by that ancient being, I don't know where it started. Variety."

After walking forward for more than [-] steps along the corridor, they came to a slightly open hall, similar to a connecting hall. There were passages in the other three directions of the room, and there were also huge picture frames hanging on the walls. Except for two or three blank spaces, it's all bright 'impasto piles'.

Fanning stepped forward a few steps to the middle of the hall.

Here candlesticks hang from the ceiling and what resembles a large sink sits on the floor.

A mixture of irritating and foul smell penetrated into the nostrils.

"Do you think that the source of that stench, apart from the suspected polluted underground river water under the cracks in the bottom cave, is also quite close to the smell of this thing?"

He held the flashlight above his head, casting a bright light on the object.

The other two also joined in.

It is made of gray stone, about three meters wide and two meters long, and the height is higher than my navel. There are many muddy bumps on the outside.

Unremarkable styling, but strangely enough... inside, it's almost full.

"Is it the smell of this liquid?" Joan moved a little closer and sniffed.

Under the light, the liquid is cloudy and opaque as a whole, with oily stains of different colors floating on the surface.

"Just looking at the appearance, why do I feel like I've seen this kind of liquid before?" Sheeran wondered.

"Of course I've seen it, I used to see it every day..." Fanning took a deep breath, "Isn't this similar to the bucket used to wash brushes when painting oil paintings?"

This is what it looks like after washing the paint with turpentine water... But Fanning always feels that it is very unreasonable to have such a large sink here, and the things in the water can't be seen clearly.

And... turpentine is irritating, and it doesn't have such a strong stench that can be rushed to the art museum, right?
"Why do I feel that we've been having trouble with paint recently?" Joan turned her head and asked.

"There is such a thing." Fanning tapped the ground with a crowbar.

Naturally, no one would dare to touch this unknown liquid, but he just had the idea of ​​poking it down with a crowbar, but he immediately curbed his curiosity: "...I think about it, since the conductor took office the day he rehearsed It's over, after discussing the door and secret keys, we headed to the Prudence Auction House, and we encountered various things related to paint..."

The Burning of the Paintings, the Salon of the Losers, the Llangefni Workhouse, the Benjamin Drive, and here it is.

Could it be that the "law of entanglement of secret history" is at work?
Too much irritating and foul smell makes people feel dizzy and narcotic, and other aspects of perception become dull.

Everyone stepped back a few steps, and then Joan gave a soft "Yeah".

She stepped on something relatively soft with her heel, subconsciously preparing to say sorry.

But when he looked down, he saw a futon made of cloth. Many big holes had been broken in the black cloth surface, exposing the rotten and brittle weaving grass inside.

It was only then that everyone noticed that there were seven or eight such futons in a circle on the floor of the connecting hall, which seemed to have been used for people to kneel and worship.

Combined with the huge 'pile of paint' that can be seen everywhere on the wall, and this large sink in the center, it seems that this place held an unheard of weird sacrifice many years ago. Thinking of Ms. Hamilton's previous address The ominous warnings from the hospital in the past, and the files of the poor with blood-red question marks found in the workhouse cast a shadow over everyone's mind.

Then there are three forked roads. Everyone is not too entangled in the action plan. Even if it is a complicated maze, it is the safest choice to explore one by one together.

Before leaving, the three of them couldn't help but look back at the big tank. They always felt that in such a dark and silent environment, this big vat of muddy liquid made people feel too uneasy, but neither was pouring it out, nor was it stirring it up. Buying the bottom is neither, nor can you ignore it, just think about it and feel awkward.

After walking for more than ten minutes, everyone found that this is not a maze. On the contrary, the architectural pattern is easy to understand: generally there are vertical and horizontal "galleries" interspersed with each other-the angle is not vertical, some are skewed, there are ups and downs, and there are no Completely symmetrical, there will be a slightly open connecting hall where the sink is placed every other distance.

After wandering around these "galleries", the three of them came to the innermost and relatively spacious room. There were seven stone doors on the wall nearly [-] meters long on one side. The decoration style of the doors was the same as before. The "eyeballs" are the same, but there are more scratches of different colors on them, which look like grimaces painted over in the dark.

They were not locked, and everyone leaned over to take pictures one by one. It seemed that there was a stone-like road inside, facing upwards, but they all collapsed to varying degrees. For the most serious doors, the flashlight shined on the high places inside. It was found that the walls were falling off, the soil was overflowing, and the broken rocks and collapsed colonnades had almost completely blocked the road.

Considering the real danger, the three of them reluctantly chose a path with the least degree of subsidence, and even rolled and climbed to a higher place.

This is a larger circular building, much larger than the previous symbolic halls on the upper two floors, but it is no longer empty. There are many rooms inside, but the outer layer is a circle of curved corridors.On the outer wall of the corridor, windows and huge "pigments of paint" appear alternately, and the dirt, mountains and rocks outside can also be seen through the cloudy and yellowed glass.

The arc-shaped corridor is not unimpeded. In fact, its collapse is also very serious. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is already in a "semi-connected" state with the outside world. The mud and rocks inside the mountain have poured in from many gaps, blocking Part of the access is dead.

Fortunately, this should not be the only passage. With such a layout of the building, the rooms inside the corridor often communicate with each other.

When the three searched the room, they found that some rooms had patterns painted on the floor and ceiling, or some drawings were hung on the walls, which reflected celestial bodies, constellations, herbs, minerals, or rough human anatomy maps. There are some badly weathered bottles and jars or weirdly shaped instruments, some rooms have weird dolls and masks hanging on the walls, and some rooms display skulls and teeth, handprints and footprints, plaster statues or animal taxidermy.

There are also some things that resemble paper or text, but the edges have been eaten away by black ash, as if they were burned by fire, and the intact parts are also eroded by mildew, and the writing on them cannot be seen clearly.

These things are confusing, but they are better than the series of weird scenes they witnessed before. The three of them planned to search all the uncollapsed rooms carefully, but what happened next forced Fanning to suspend the plan ahead of time.

——The dense and sharp chirping sounds heard by Xilan and Joan seemed to have more and more serious influence on them.

In the small room, Fan Ning looked worriedly at the two of them resting with their hands on their foreheads for a long time. During this period, Joan also let them take an elixir to resist dizziness. After they calmed down a little, Fan Ning Offer to retreat.

However, the three of them have already explored a deeper area, and there seems to be a spacious space in front of them. Due to the circular structure of the layout, it is a faster way to go out from here, so the three of them decided to retreat directly after exploring this large room. .

But as soon as he stepped into the door, Fanning's pupils shrank suddenly.

All six sides of this room are covered with colorful paint!
Red, green, white, blue, purple... It's as if someone took a paintbrush the size of a person, dipped these gorgeous and complicated pastes for free, and then painted them everywhere, even Fanning saw a lot of "brush strokes" in the form of splashes or splashes, as if they were directly pouring paint buckets on the wall!
The touch of the foot landing is hard and uneven, which is enough to show the degree of "thick coating".

This weird scene made the three of them stare at each other for a few seconds, but there were other furnishings in this room that caught Fanning's attention. In the middle there seemed to be a "boiler" sunken below the horizon, with a diameter of more than five meters and a hemisphere. The interior is polished evenly, and there are no messy paint stains. It is dark and shiny under the light of the flashlight. In addition, there are also futons that have been seen next to the "big sink" scattered in many places.

But what finally attracted Fanning's attention was a set of furniture in the corner of the room that resembled a "work table and cabinet". In addition to animal specimens and strange-shaped instruments, there were dried ink bottles and weathered paper scraps on it. and quill.

Further up was a row of books, coils of rusted wire twisted in grotesque fashion, and Fanning unscrewed them carefully, effortlessly, but leaving much of the paper scattered and crumbling.

In the end, Fanning discovered that this was not a row of books, but a collection of a dozen pamphlets over [-] centimeters thick. The spine of the books had long since lost its fixed function. transcript".

Seeing Sheeran's thoughtful expression, Fanning asked, "Do you know the name of this person?"

"Recent learning results." Sheeran nodded: "Okgang was the last president of the Continental Alchemist Association more than [-] years ago."

"Could it be that this is his research site?" Fan Ning's eyes narrowed.

Several people immediately thought of the meaning of this!
——The last president means that Okgang is a key figure in the process of the "Continental Alchemist Association" separating from the "Bologna School" and degenerating into the "Harmony School"!
Doubts ensue.

Continental Alchemist Association?Harmony school? ...this may have something to do with the cause of Benjamin's madness or the clues to the paint in the Llangefni almshouse, but...what does this have to do with the Turangalian Dynasty and the Grand Court School?
One is in the 6th and 7th centuries of the new calendar, and the other is in the third history. The difference is too far. If the deep well outside was built by alchemists to explore the underground tower of the Grand Court School, it may not be so. They later put the whole research The venue has also been moved here?

The three of them were falling into deep thought when they suddenly heard a small sound of "Kang Dang".

"Did you hear any sound?" Fanning immediately looked up and looked around.

This place is too quiet as long as everyone doesn't speak. The few people have strong insight, but they feel that their hearts are so frightened that they missed half a beat.

"Yes... Did the wall collapse again somewhere? Did the stone fall or something?"

Qiong Xin patted her chest with lingering fear, walked to the door when she came, and checked the surrounding environment vigilantly.

"Kangdang—" "Kangdang——"

There were two more sounds in succession. At this time, Fan Ning felt that the sound seemed to be separated by a long distance. The volume was low but the penetrating power was strong, and it could be faintly heard in a quiet and dark environment.

He shook his head in doubt: "It's not like a wall or a stone, my spiritual sense tells me, it seems like the sound of something like a wooden shelf hitting the ground?"

Sheeran suddenly remembered something, and she took out the "Vigilance Record" from the skirt. This sacrificial vessel can display signs of life with extraordinary factors around it. Before that, three bubbles could be seen near the center of the circle.

The two people who leaned over took a look, and their expressions changed drastically.

At this moment, the palm-sized sacrificial vessel was filled with things like bubbles, they emerged and burst in circles, and the whole dark disk seemed to be boiling!
　Thanks to Lechun Yunzheng, Luoyue Station, Hanshao Immortal Emperor, PS Kuangmo, Takashiiiii, Eucalyptus, and book friends with tail numbers 8 and 10 on August 7871~
　　
　
(End of this chapter)