Plague Doctor

Chapter 417: Thing in the Painting

1 fried chicken, 2 fried chicken, 3 fried chicken. As Lucky munched on his food, he watched Wu Siyu work. Initially, he was completely at ease but slowly, his fur started to stand on end. The thing inside the painting, that was...

The colors of black, white, orange and grey were mixed together, adding wild colors to the object in the painting. The thing had two different colored eyes, one was yellow and the other was green. The gaze spoke of dangerous intent. That was a cat! A large cat with a horrible mix of colors in its coat. Its ears were perked up as it looked ahead.

“Why, why did you paint this?” Lucky immediately patted his legs to ask. Was this some kind of tactic to make him cower to their demands? By then Wu Siyu was so caught up in her painting process that she did not notice Lucky. She continued with multiple brush strokes to fill in the background. It was a kaleidoscopic backdrop. It was symmetrical yet extremely chaotic. The cat sat in the middle. Finally she stopped. It was like she came out of a deep trance and she took a step back to review what she had done.

“Hmm?” She scratched her head with the end of the brush. ‘What is this?’ Even though the painting caused Lucky to cower in fear, Wu Siyu felt nothing from it. It was just a normal painting to her. “Well, it’s a cat, a very fat one.” She told the camera. “I honestly have no idea why I painted this.”

Back at the command central, Elder Tong and the rest were equally confused. What was so unique about this? Was this just the manifestation of Wu Siyu’s subconscious and nothing else?

Wu Siyu studied the cat in the painting when she saw the cat winking at her. Then its fur started to shimmer. The kaleidoscopic background was moving... Was it her synaesthesia or was it real? She could not tell anymore.

“Lucky, come over here.” She summoned, “See if you think this cat is actually moving or not.” Even though Lucky only got half of the gist, he immediately shrunk his neck and tossed the chicken thigh away. ‘Such a vicious tactic, no wonder the tribe leader told us to be extra careful around humans. They want to feed me to this cat! This is so immoral...’

The more Wu Siyu looked at it, the more she felt like the cat was moving but strangely enough, while the eyes were blinking, there was no life to them. They looked like empty shells, but the pair of eyes appeared to have some kind unique attraction. She felt the background was spinning faster and faster... Suddenly with a clatter, the palette and brushes fell to the ground. The paint splattered everywhere.

‘Huh?’ Lucky who was making his escape turned around. He saw Wu Siyu standing there, unmoving. A different kind of anxiety overcame him. He patted his head to say, “What’s wrong?” Was this another conspiracy by the humans? But as he moved about to another angle where Wu Siyu was no longer blocking the canvas, Lucky was stunned. The multi-colored cat on the canvas had disappeared... It disappeared, just like that. The canvas still had the beautiful background but not the cat. The space where the cat once occupied was not empty, instead it was filled in by the background. Everything seemed right. It was as if this was the painting Wu Siyu had started with but Lucky was sure he saw that cat inside the painting.

“What, what is going on?” Lucky patted his paws in shock. Wu Siyu did not answer. She stood there like a statue. Lucky by then noticed something had gone wrong. He sidled up to her and noticed the lifelessness in her eyes. It was like she... had been turned into a shell, staring straight at the canvas before her.

“Help, help!” Lucky patted on the ground anxiously, “Something’s not right!” The Elder Tong spotted this from the command central and immediately ordered the Ancient Seal team posted outside the studio to head in. Everyone was shocked, the painted cat had disappeared and so did Wu Siyu’s soul. The medic team conducted a quick check on her. Her eyes responded normally to light and she had normal breathing and pulse. She did not faint or went into a coma. But it was also true that there was no life in her eyes and she did not respond to any surrounding stimulus. It was like she had turned into a walking carcass.

However, there was no sign of dark corruption inside the room or in the watercolor. Perhaps things happened too fast for the surveillance to capture anything. Within one frame, the watercolor changed and the cat disappeared. Did the cat take away Wu Siyu’s soul? They originally depended on Wu Siyu to find a new clue, but it brought them a new problem.

However, this did prove that Wu Siyu was indeed a vital character in this incident and there was some kind of strange power inherent in her painting. They were dealing with a completely unpredictable enemy.

...

“Meow?” When Wu Siyu recovered, she realized her surroundings and even herself were completely different. The cat in the watercolors drew her in. She stared into its eyes and she felt herself being sucked in. The next thing she knew, she was like this. She looked at herself. She lifted her hand and she saw a paw. She had turned into the cat that she drew. ‘Can someone tell me what’s happening? I’m waiting...’ Wu Siyu wanted to say that but the voice that came out of her throat was, “Meow, meow, meow?”

She looked around. There was grey sky, a spacious darkened wasteland. It stretched down the horizon. There was no building, plant, humans, only wasteland.

‘Have I landed at the mutated area?’ Wu Siyu thought as she tried to sniff out the smell of radioactive substances in the area. But when she moved her feline body, other than the overweight problem that slowed her movement, she did not feel any pain or discomfort. ‘O well, these things can’t be rushed.’ She meowed to herself, ‘As they say, cats have nine lives, and I’m only on my first one.’

Wu Siyu did have a wish to become a cat when she was young and now, she finally got her wish fulfilled. She bounced up from the ground and wagged her tails.

‘Well, this is an unexpected perk. Despite my size, I can jump so high.’ She scratched at the ground. The soil here had similar usage to a cat’s litter box.

The more she stayed there though, the more Wu Siyu felt like she was no longer on Earth. The place fitted the description of the illusion described by Ximei more...

Meow! Wu Siyu stopped playing with her paws as a thought entered her mind. ‘Where has Dirty-minded Jun disappeared to? And why was my watercolor the only thing left of him in the oak forest? The similarity here is my watercolors. Is it possible that Dirty-minded Jun was pulled into them as well? The difference is that I’m here in the form of a cat but Dirty-minded Jun most likely still retains his human form. Does this mean... I will be able to find him... somewhere around here?’