The Parchment Painting’s Allegory

Qin Zhilu‍‍​⁠​‍​‌⁠‍‌‌‌​​⁠⁠‍‍​‌‌‌​ used An Yu’s wrist bandagesto bind his most heavily injured left arm. During the process, blood began to drip again, pitter-pattering down through the cracks in the attic’s wooden floorboards. He simply used a knife to thoroughly scrape away the parts tainted with gunpowder, leaving behind deep, bright-red gashes.

Sienna watched him tend to the wounds and said, “You’ve changed a lot since your youth. It seems the Black Tower hasn’t spent these years carefully crafting a persona for you; you truly are as cold and dangerous as the rumors say. That aura makes you even more charming.”

She flirted with him, but there was no hint of a smile in her bright, piercing eyes. “Back then, the researchers called you an ‘extreme anomaly,’ but I didn’t truly see it until today. That slaughter just now; your battlefield capabilities are truly unforgettable.”

Qin Zhilu glanced up at her. “Soon enough, you will be just like me.”

“Me? I am merely a broken fragment, lucky enough to reflect a few glimmers of a god’s radiance,” Sienna shook her head with a hint of regret. “Acquired genetic expression isn’t always successful; it fails five or six times out of ten. Theoretically, higher Genetic Entropy should trend toward a steady state, but as genes accumulate, I feel more and more chaotic, and gradually lose the ability to harness the genes I possess. I trust you haven’t encountered such obstacles.”

Qin Zhilu was somewhat surprised. “Indeed, I haven’t.”

“See? That is the difference between a god and a fragment. One can see the whole leopard through a single spot. You are the leopard, and I am merely a spot upon it.”

Qin Zhilu stared at her and asked point-blank, “What exactly happened in District 99?”

Sienna picked up a half-burnt candle from the table and brought it close to the sheepskin scroll, whispering, “Perhaps it all stems from this drawing.”

“Colonel Disf happened to be drinking in my shop right before he vanished. It was an ordinary night; he had just returned from patrolling the collection plant, ordered half a dozen brandies and a roast beef sandwich, and sat chatting with the hunting teams. By the late hours, everyone else had left, leaving only the Colonel passed out at the table. I intended to help him upstairs to sleep, but then the mailman suddenly came running in…”

“Colonel, I’ve finally found you!” The mailman poked his head through the door, waving a large envelope to shake off the accumulated snow. “There’s a document for you. Please sign for it!”

Disf propped himself up from the table and looked at the unusually thick envelope with bleary, drunken eyes, muttering a curse. “Shit, it’s so late, why wasn’t this delivered to the garrison center?”

The mailman yawned. “I’ve been to both the garrison center and your home. This is an express delivery from the Main City; the sender requested it be delivered into your hands immediately.”

Disf stood up instantly. “The Main City?”

Sienna gave the last sandwich to the mailman, but as she went to close the door, she saw Disf standing still by the table inspecting the letter. The drunken haze had completely faded away from his hawk-like eyes. He muttered solemnly to himself, “Why would the Main City use this method to communicate…”

Sienna teased him with a smile, “It’s been nearly thirty years, and you’re still as disciplined as your first day on duty.”

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Sienna froze. “Why do you have that look on your face?”

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Sienna watched the flickering candlelight. “I used to hear people say ‘their face lost its color from fear’ and thought it was just an exaggeration. But that night, I watched the color drain from the Colonel’s face layer by layer; it was more terrifying than a ghost. His whole body was shaking. For a moment I thought he was so drunk he was having a stroke and went to steady him, but he grabbed the sheepskin drawing and the envelope and sprinted out. No matter how I called, he didn’t look back…”

Don't scrape

Don't copy

Sienna frowned, with worried eyes. “Like the next victim being marked. At the time, I couldn’t fathom the meaning of the drawing at all; I could only follow my instinct to hide.”

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An Yu’s heart skipped a beat. He tapped on the photo of the Poets second drawing. “Was it an eye like this?”

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She happened to be pointing at the most wide-open eye in the drawing; it stared directly at the viewer with a sense of insight and eeriness that felt unsettling if looked at for too long.

Don't scrape

“The thing Disf tried to cover up by building this house was likely the same pattern as the one on this drawing,” Qin Zhilu studied the drawing once more and continued questioning Sienna: “How did your partner die?”

“He slept on the floor above me. That night, I suddenly heard a thumping sound from the ceiling. I ran up to find him rolling on the floor as if in a nightmare. He ran outside with a contorted expression, and I chased him until he collapsed, vomiting blood… He likely died from some kind of mental curse. Before he died, he told me: in dreams, do not follow anyone, but do not kill the inducer either. Otherwise, I would become the next one.”

Jiang Xiao was shocked. “You mean, not only did he not relinquish his faith, but he also tried to kill the other party in the dream? What terrifying mental strength.”

“Sienna’s partner was a strictly screened soldier with the strongest mental stability; I didn’t expect that would be the very thing that killed him,” Qin Zhilu stared at the image, whispering, “The Colonel vanishes, the partner dies resisting the dream, and yet this drawing mysteriously returns to the cult’s activity room…”

“This is a cursed drawing. It triggered my awakening and the Colonel’s anomaly. The Colonel should be the Super-aberrant behind the scenes. He desperately wants to kill me; during the days I’ve been hiding, every person I encounter suddenly tries to attack me.”

Qin Zhilu stared at her. “You said just now you already know the meaning of the drawing?”

“Perhaps,” Sienna paused. “I had a dream too. The voice in the dream told me that he and I are both parts of a puzzle, and we ought to rely on one another.”

“A puzzle?”

Sienna pointed at the drawing. “The God wandered aimlessly through time and space, accidentally stepping into the abyss to sleep. His massive body shattered: Order and Chaos, ability and cognition were separated from one another, just as the heaven and earth once differentiated from a mass of chaos. Only, the world will eventually merge back into one and vanish into a state of heat death, but He can never awaken because of Chaos’s headstrong insistence.”

Sienna paused for a moment, staring blankly at the small, separated patch of sheep’s blood in the corner of the drawing. “Although I can’t fully understand the meaning of this dream, I suspect I belong to a part of the ‘Chaos’ entity; a small fragment that accidentally fell off. I’m even thinking that the Super-aberrants that have awakened over the years might also be parts of the Chaos entity, just much smaller, like dust or powder scattered in every corner of the world. Because they are small, they awakened faster, becoming the source of the intensifying aberrations over these years.”

No one responded; the only sound in the attic was her voice. Sienna gave a self-mocking twitch of her lips. “Of course, this is just my wild speculation based on the dream’s guidance. I’ve asked a few residents, and the inducers in their dreams are all familiar people, whereas the voice in my dream has no identity.”

An Yu suddenly looked up. “That’s because their dreams come from the Super-aberrant, while your dream comes from the person who drew this picture. This ‘divine’ tone is far too familiar. The voice in your dream—” he randomly clicked on a video of the Poets previous evening prayers, “—is it him?”

Sienna only listened to two lines before nodding in astonishment. “Who is he?”

Before An Yu could answer, he saw Qin Zhilu rapidly transmit a short message to the Black Tower.

“Arrest the Poet immediately.”

“Commander,” An Yu hesitated, “if the Poet tells this parable to the Black Tower, they will become suspicious of you…”

“We can’t worry about that now.” Qin Zhilu gripped the sheepskin parchment. “We underestimated him. He doesn’t just have supernatural perception; he used a single drawing to awaken Sienna and Disf, who had been dormant for over twenty years. This ability is practically indistinguishable from a curse. This man absolutely cannot remain in the Main City.”