Liu Qin had vanished without a trace, and Calligraphy and Painting Hall did not send any new painters either.
The Pawnshop suddenly became heavily guarded, and it lasted for several days. During that time, the apprentices could only paint the same things over and over.
They had no idea what kind of paintings they were supposed to create. No matter how spirited they were, given enough time, they would become numb and despairing.
Li Mo, on the other hand, became the most idle of them all.
Of the three sharing his room, Zeng Xiaoyi chose to voluntarily become a menial, while the other two consciously switched rooms, leaving Li Mo alone.
Li Mo no longer went to the main hall. Calligraphy and Painting Hall had no such rules anyway, and with his current painting skills, it was already difficult to improve through long hours of practice.
He simply stayed in his room and painted by the dim candlelight, never finding the conditions crude.
Li Mo balanced work and rest. Usually, after finishing a painting, he would stretch his limbs for a while, doing his utmost to slow the decay of his body.
Only hunger could make him leave the room for a short while.
The only drawback was that he sometimes could no longer distinguish day from night.
Li Mo looked at the scattered stars outside the window. Seeing that midnight was still far off, he held his brush and let it dance across the xuan paper. Gray-black ink slowly spread, forming a ferocious Mountain Lord.
The Mountain Lord flickered in and out of view within the painting, emanating an indescribable Killing Intent.
As the painting grew more complete, Li Mo had utterly entered the zone. His brush did not pause in the slightest, and his expression was relaxed and at ease.
Just as he was about to add the finishing touch that brought the dragon to life, Li Mo's unfocused pupils gathered themselves again.
It was as if his thoughts had returned from a dense mountain forest, and he forcibly stopped his brush.
Li Mo looked at the Mountain Lord in the painting, devoid of Essence, Qi, and Spirit, and did not feel regretful. He casually crumpled it into a ball and held it over the candle flame until it burned into ashes.
The ink sticks from Calligraphy and Painting Hall were very strange. Under the scorching flame, they gave off a faint fragrance.
Now, when he painted, he could only be thirty percent certain of reaching the standard of his first Tiger Roar Painting. Most of the time, by the final strokes, he found himself running out of strength.
When he had painted for the first time, heaven, earth, and man had all been on his side.
Even if Li Mo had let that stroke fall just now, the Mountain Lord in the painting would not have been the one he wanted.
He had painstakingly practiced painting in his room for days, yet unfortunately, he could never grasp that spark of inspiration from before.
Of course, Li Mo had not gained nothing. At the very least, as his painting skills improved, he was gradually recovering the feeling of having divine aid when he set brush to paper.
He closed his eyes and summarized the problems, then jogged a few laps along the wall.
Once Li Mo had recovered, he sat back down before the desk and began another round of painting. It was still the Mountain Lord.
However, he was running low on ink, so he picked up the little remaining ink stick.
Just as Li Mo prepared to grind ink, a dense patter of footsteps swept past outside the door.
"What the hell?"
Li Mo noticed that although it was late, the painter apprentices should not have returned to their rooms yet. They had to practice in the main hall until Zi Shi at the very least.
Bang, bang, bang...
The footsteps outside sounded again, like a heavy object hammering against Li Mo's heart. The temperature in the room abruptly dropped by five or six degrees.
Li Mo was nearly eleven years old now, and the first signs of Death Sickness had already emerged.
Li Mo was not sensitive to cold. For him to immediately notice something was wrong, the temperature indoors had to be comparable to the depths of winter.
He recalled the Pawnshop's recent vigilance. His right hand instinctively moved behind his waist, and a dagger fell into his palm.
The dagger was a small blade used by carpenters for carving. Mother Li had tied hemp rope around its handle, and Li Mo had kept it hidden beneath his shoe.
Li Mo's expression was tense as he pressed his back against the wall and stared at the door.
After several breaths of deadlock, he hesitantly called out, "Steward Hu, you are a great man of great tolerance. Why bother arguing with a yellow-haired child?"
"Hehehe..."
A silver-bell-like laugh sounded. Before the desk where Li Mo had been sitting, Steward Hu had somehow appeared. She wore a pale red robe, her attire bewitchingly flamboyant.
Her eyes in particular had become willow-leaf brows and phoenix eyes.
"Little Li Mo, how did you recognize me?"
Li Mo sighed in relief and respectfully bowed. "I happened to catch the scent... the unique rouge fragrance on Steward Hu."
"And now?"
Hearing that, Li Mo looked up, only to see gray smoke billowing from Steward Hu's entire body.
The smoke was very similar to the black aura Liu Qin emitted, though its color was slightly different.
Immediately afterward, countless pustules emerged across Steward Hu's delicate skin, along with foul-smelling rotten flesh. Her skin seemed to be dissolving at a rapid pace.
Li Mo could not help standing frozen in place. Although he understood this was Steward Hu testing him, a chill still shot up his spine and straight to the crown of his head.
"I won't tease you anymore."
Steward Hu smiled and covered her face with a gauzy veil.
In an instant, the gray aura she emitted vanished, and her flesh and blood returned to normal. Only, her facial features had been wiped away, and she stared at Li Mo with her Faceless visage.
Li Mo finally understood why Steward Hu wore Nether Makeup. Her features were all fake, which was why they appeared so exaggerated.
Steward Hu took out the Tiger Roar Painting Li Mo had handed to Liu Qin. Bloodstains still marked the painting.
She held it under the candlelight and examined it carefully.
"Li Mo, you really do have some skill. No—this is talent. You painted the Mountain Lord's ferocity so vividly that it seemed ready to leap off the page."
"But strangely enough..."
Steward Hu's Faceless face watched Li Mo. He faintly sensed malice, as though the Mountain Lord in his painting were lunging straight at him.
"Have you seen a tiger beast?"
Li Mo had a premonition that if his answer did not suit Steward Hu's intentions, what awaited him would likely be separation of head and body.
"Reporting to Steward Hu."
"Li Mo grew up in Niu Family Village. I once saw a Mountain Lord on the high slope behind the village, and I have never forgotten it."
"Oh my, my mistake, my mistake."
Steward Hu smiled radiantly and said in a mercurial tone, "You are from Niu Family Village. It would not be strange for you to have seen a Mountain Lord."
Her disposition changed again as she asked playfully, "Then have you eaten beast meat?"
Li Mo frowned slightly and answered, "My family was poor since I was young, and I also had an elder brother and elder sister. We ate only one meal of grains a day. In the village, only pregnant women and children ate meat."
Because of Eternal Life, people no longer needed to eat once they reached thirty.
Children only received one meal a day as well. Eating coarse grains did not affect the development of their bodies, and they were easy to raise.
If people had not lost the ability to reproduce after twenty, every household would have been overflowing with children and grandchildren.
In Li Mo's understanding, the villagers did not eat meat because they were accustomed to thrift, and they did not lack grain. There was simply no need to risk hunting.
Yet after Steward Hu's string of baffling questions, a terror crept into him the more he thought about it.
Li Mo suddenly recalled that although he had seen pregnant women eating meat, he had never seen villagers slaughter the corpse of a wild beast.
What strange things did the birds and beasts in the mountain forests possess? Was the absence of birds and beasts in Smelting Town necessarily connected to them?
Li Mo wanted to know the answer, but Steward Hu clearly would not tell him.
All the mysteries would have to wait until he possessed sufficient power. Then, he would peel back the cocoon thread by thread and uncover every secret of Smelting Town.
Li Mo looked at Steward Hu. Even without speaking, Steward Hu already understood what he meant.
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