Chapter 1: The Strange Man, The Strange Painting

  "Whoosh... whoosh... whoosh..."

  In the dimly lit earthen house, a rough, wrinkled and calloused hand was waving a brush full of ink on a poor-quality, coarse Xuan paper...

  The painting is still unfinished, the ordinary wolf hair brush is still wandering on the rice paper, the lines are still sketching, and the shades are still being rendered...

  With a gentle flick of the wrist, the brush dances like clouds and flowing water...

  Huh? The left hand, the one holding the brush is actually the left hand. The left hand moves the brush, how difficult it is, yet this painter can paint so swiftly and smoothly, without any pause, is he really painting with a carefree and effortless style, or what?

  It shouldn't be a blind painting. If it were, how could the paintings under his brush be so realistic, so vivid, and so lifelike? How could they make people shiver with fear at just one glance? A painting that can make people shiver with fear, how could it possibly be created by a blind painter?

  Left hand painting. If at this time, his pupils are all white, without a single black dot, then this painting should be a...

  Eyes see the world, right hand draws reality; a white pupil, left hand draws...

  Shh... this is a secret, a secret that has been passed down for thousands of years on this magical land of China. This secret cannot be spoken.

  "Slap!"

  The person who was painting suddenly threw the brush he held in his left hand onto the old wooden table, stretched out his left index and middle fingers, tightly closed together, and wiped them from right to left towards his eyes...

  Heavens, his eyes, his eyes were all white pupils, without a speck of black. Was he... was he blind? Did he paint this picture on the table?

  He rubbed his eyes with two fingers, and his eyes blinked a few times. The white pupils disappeared, and two bright and spirited eyeballs appeared in the eye sockets.

  He was not blind, but a man in his forties with a square face, straight hair standing upright, thick eyebrows and big eyes, and a full beard.

  This middle-aged man named Xie Zhongshi is a painter who had already made a name for himself in the art world over twenty years ago. He had a promising future ahead of him, but he gave it up and chose to retreat from the world, returning to his hometown. No one knew where he was because his hometown was too poor and too small.

  This is his own choice, he said it was his fate.

  "What is this? What is this?" Xie Zhongshi, who seemed to have just woken up from a dream, stared with wide eyes and looked at the painting on the table in horror, holding it up with two trembling hands.

  On the painting, a man in his twenties is depicted with his eyes closed and blood oozing from the corners of his mouth. His hands and feet are shackled to an iron bed in a large "X" shape. The man's intestines are hanging out, clearly having been disembowelled. Underneath him is a grey-white windbreaker, stained red with blood. On his right wrist, which is handcuffed, several deep gashes have been cut, and blood is flowing down from his limp hand into a large bucket below...

  Next to the water bucket, an old man with his hands clasped together, wearing a black Taoist robe, triangular eyes, and sporting an eight-character mustache stood upright. The old man had a hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth, and his eyes gleamed with greed as he watched the man's blood flowing into the bucket with a gurgling sound from his wrist...

  "No, no, it won't do, absolutely not." Xie Zhongshi, almost frantic, crumpled the painting in his hand into a ball, tore it to shreds and scattered them in the air.

  Paper scraps flew down, and he fell weakly onto the worn-out sofa behind him.

  Wine, perhaps only wine could make him forget the painting. He bent down and picked up a bottle of inferior white wine from the ground, gulping it down.

  Tears streamed down from his dry eye corners and flowed into the mouth corners. He swallowed the tears mixed with white wine into his belly.

  "Dad, why are you drinking again?" A 15 or 16-year-old boy with a pale and delicate face walked in, scolding his father for drinking.

  The young man's name is Xie Yuxiao, born in 1986, and he is fifteen years old this year. He is the son of Xie Zhongshi. Because it was a drizzly day when Xie Yuxiao was born, Xie Zhongshi named his son Xie Yuxiao.

  Xie Zhongshi looked at his son, thinking of the scene in the painting where he was disembowelled, and suddenly felt a sharp pain in his heart. Tears were about to well up, but he held them back, took two more sips of wine, bent down to put the bottle under the sofa, and then wiped his eyes with his hand, muttering: "I won't drink anymore, I won't drink anymore."

  Xie Yuxiao, 15 years old, smiled at his father and walked to the table with a row of white teeth. He unfolded a watercolor landscape painting on the table and looked at it carefully. After a while, he raised his head and praised his father: "Dad, your paintings are getting more and more atmospheric."

  "Is that so?" Xie Zhongshi casually responded with a sentence and fell silent. After a while, he suddenly stood up, pushed the stack of paintings on the table to the ground like waste paper, and said to his son: "Go back and fetch your painting folder, Dad will take you out for sketching."

  "Sketching?" Xie Yu Xiao hesitated for a moment, seemingly extremely unwilling, but looking at his father's serious face, he still nodded and went to fetch the sketchbook.

  This will be a gentle autumn rain that has just passed, and the autumn rain that has just passed makes the bleak autumn atmosphere in the autumn colors more intense.

  Xie Zhongshi, with his back straight, wearing a worn-out Sun Yat-sen suit and carrying a painting folder, walked slowly along the rugged mountain road with his son. Behind them was the small village of Xue Ling Cun, which was about the size of a palm, and in front of them was a narrow path leading to the back mountain of Xue Ling Village.

  Xue Ling Village, a small mountain village deep in the Qinling Mountains with only 50 or 60 households, is known to very few people.

  Xie Yuxiao, 15 years old, was walking behind his father Xie Zhongshi with his head down. As he walked, he suddenly stopped and shook off the painting folder that had slipped from his shoulder. Looking at his father's back, he said reluctantly: "Dad, it's almost dark, what are you still drawing?"

  Xie Zhongshi was a painter, and he had his reasons for taking his son out to sketch in the open at this time. He turned his head to look westward and said to his son: "The wind blows away the clouds, the rain passes and the sky clears up, and the sunset will come out soon. The sunset after the rain is the most beautiful, Dad brought you out to experience the freshness after the rain, the serenity of nature, the beauty of the sunset, let these most beautiful things inspire your inspiration."

  "Oh."

  Xie Yuxiao nodded and reluctantly followed his father, continuing to walk forward. After a while, he couldn't hold back anymore and stopped again, saying: "But I just don't like painting."

  "Don't you like it? You have such a good talent for painting, why don't you like it? I'll tell you, as long as you learn to paint well, in the future, you won't need to go anywhere else, just stay in this Blood Spirit Village, and you can be famous and rich!"

  "Why don't you go anywhere? Later I'll have to go out to college, and venture out. You want fame, you have fame; you want money, you have money? If it's really like that... then why did you draw so many paintings, why not sell them for money?"

  "You don't understand anything, I have my own reasons for not selling the painting. Going to university? What a joke! Let me tell you, you won't be going anywhere in this lifetime, just stay in Blood Spirit Village and study painting honestly with your old man." Xie Zhongshi suddenly stopped in his tracks, his tone changing abruptly as he loudly scolded his son.

  Xie Yu Xiao, only fifteen years old, had a rebellious personality. As soon as his father scolded him, he immediately retorted without hesitation: "If you don't want to say it, then don't say it. Why are you yelling at me? I don't like it, that's all. You can't control me." After finishing speaking, he turned around and walked away. Xie Zhong Shi was taken aback, hastily catching up a few steps, holding onto his son's shoulder, and coaxing him with words of guidance. He pointed to the sunset hanging in the sky and said: "Look, I told you the sunset is coming out, isn't it beautiful?"

  Xie Yuxiao raised her head and looked at the sunset in the direction her father was pointing, then her gaze inadvertently shifted to a towering mountain peak on the left and said: "Yesterday, Village Chief Bo brought all the villagers to Xue Mo Peak to worship the 'Blood Spirit Stone', why didn't you go, and not let me go?"

  "Damn 'Blood Spirit Stone', what's there to worship? That's feudal superstition, only ignorant people would do such a thing."

  "The villagers all say that the 'Blood Spirit Stone' is very spiritual, saying that the first drop of dew that drips from the 'Blood Spirit Stone' at dawn can cure a hundred illnesses. Many people in the village claim that their illnesses were cured by the 'Blood Spirit Stone'."

  "It's all nonsense, don't believe those things, let's go!"

  Two people walked along the small path to a flat ground at the back of the mountain. The scenery here is indeed good, with green mountains and trees, and flowing water. Xie Zhongshi looked around and led his son to a large bluestone by the river, letting him sit on the stone to quietly contemplate, while he himself walked towards a small hill not far away with his painting folder on his back.

  Xie Yu Xiao sat alone on a large bluestone, sitting for a while, looking at the empty and deserted mountain behind him as night fell, and suddenly became afraid in his heart. He was afraid because he remembered his stepmother who had been eaten by wolves seven years ago. His stepmother had entered their home when he was eight and a half years old, bringing with her an older sister four years his senior, but less than half a year later, she was eaten by wolves while searching for his father who had gone out to paint and not returned.

  In his impression, there was only a stepmother, and he could say that he knew nothing about his biological mother. His father had never told him anything, and whenever he asked, his father would only say that his mother had gone on a long trip. More news about his biological mother came from the villagers, who said she was a young and beautiful woman who left Blood Spirit Village after giving birth to him...

  "Haha...... Hehe......"

  A burst of laughter and chatter from men and women came from a short distance away.

  Hearing the cheerful and pleasant laughter, Xie Yuxiao, who had been lost in thought, involuntarily turned her head to look at the two boys and two girls dressed as students walking over from the small path on the right.

  "Little classmate, which mountain nearby is better for watching the sunrise?" A tall and slender girl walked over to ask Xie Yu Xiao.

  Xie Yuxiao glanced at the four people beside her and didn't answer the girl's question, instead asking: "You guys aren't from around here, are you?"

  "Hey, we're university students who came to the deep mountains for an adventure during National Day holiday. It's getting dark soon, and we want to find a mountain peak with a great view of sunrise tomorrow morning. Can you give us some directions?"

  "University student? Watching sunrise?"

  Xie Yuxiao, who had always yearned to attend university one day, was instantly filled with admiration for the four college students. He stood up, looked around, and suggested a good spot to watch the sunrise: Blood Demon Peak. Patting his chest, he volunteered to be their guide and lead them there.

  Some people were willing to be guides, and the four college students naturally wouldn't refuse. After a brief rest, they followed Xie Yuxiao along another small path towards the Blood Demon Peak, whose name was somewhat intimidating.

  The sun rises, the beauty is abundant, the sea of clouds surges, and the morning glow forms a piece. However, these four vigorous university students never thought that this trip would make them never return again.