Red-Clothed, Little Bear

"Little Zhou, Mommy is entertaining a guest."

"Be good now, go to sleep. I'll take you out for KFC tomorrow."

Mrs. Zhou sent Little Zhou back to his bedroom.

Then she brewed a pot of tea for Zhang Ze.

The little bear from the painting was still etched in Zhang Ze's mind. After a few seconds, he asked, "Is he your son?"

"Yes, Little Zhou is in second grade this year."

"I thought the one crying so miserably outside just now was your child."

"That was a professional mourner I hired." Mrs. Zhou looked embarrassed. "We don't have any relatives in Hanjiang City. These days, there's a service for everything. As long as you pay, they'll cry more heartbreakingly than the family."

All right.

Zhang Ze had misunderstood.

Since Little Zhou was the real son,

Zhang Ze remembered the system prompt.

[Murderous Painting: Scream Index, 2 Stars]

[A gifted artist had both hands chopped off by her own parents. She used her blood to complete her final painting, which her parents then exploited and sold at an exorbitant price. Strangely, every buyer died not long afterward. Some said that behind the painting lay another world...]

Since Little Zhou said an older sister taught him to draw every night,

the ghost was obviously inside the painting.

And she apparently even "watched cartoons"...

Zhang Ze guessed that it might be something like a world within the painting.

To a child, wouldn't that be a cartoon?

"Don't mind him. If you want to take the painting away, you can do so now."

Mrs. Zhou continued.

After thinking it over, Zhang Ze gave up on taking it back to his haunted house. At least, there was no need to rush.

He found Little Zhou's reaction strange.

As a transmigrator, Zhang Ze knew very well that children in this world were anything but ordinary. They were far more impressive than the kids in Detective Conan next door.

Apart from the weakest Red-Clothed in Third Ward, who couldn't beat anyone,

almost every child had something remarkable about them.

With that in mind, Zhang Ze decided to show Little Zhou some respect.

He booked a hotel on his phone. For tonight, he would stay in the western suburbs, then he continued asking,

"Did Old Zhou leave behind any belongings?"

"His belongings are all in the attic. I've already sorted through them," Mrs. Zhou said.

They chatted for a few more minutes.

Before the tea had even cooled,

another group of mourners arrived at the funeral tent outside. Mrs. Zhou temporarily left the living room to receive the guests.

Meanwhile, Zhang Ze entered the attic.

He examined Old Zhou's belongings.

As it turned out, he really did find something unusual.

It was a diary.

The diary naturally belonged to Old Zhou. Zhang Ze could tell from the handwriting, though its entries were brief. It was more like a small memo book than a diary.

The earlier entries were fairly normal.

Until around a month ago, strange phrases began to appear.

March 24.

"I recently came across a pretty good supernatural novel. The protagonist is a detective. At first, I thought it would be awful—after all, when has there ever been such a profession as detective in this country?"

"Then I realized... this book seemed surprisingly good? The protagonist looked like a detective on the surface, but he was actually a paranormal livestreamer who filmed real supernatural incidents."

"Come to think of it, everyone in my circle likes horror elements, just like me. Birds of a feather flock together, I suppose."

"I saw a cursed oil painting at an auction house. They said the artist was already dead. I'm going to buy it and see just how scary it is."

March 28.

"I bought the oil painting. It looks somewhat creepy, but that's all. For an old hand like me who has experienced plenty of horror works, it doesn't count as anything outstanding."

"Still, when I was watching the children's channel with my son, the television seemed to air that cartoon again. Its name appeared to be... Boonie Bears."

"Little Zhou has always been withdrawn and his grades have never been good. Every day when I come home after handling business, Little Zhou is playing with a model chainsaw and imitating the short, ugly bald guy from the show."

"Don't the other children around him think Big Bear and Second Bear look stupid?"

April 1, April Fools' Day.

"Little Zhou is obsessed with that cartoon. Whenever he sees that yellow bear-man get a beehive stuck over his head, he laughs himself silly. Speechless."

"Why can't Little Zhou learn from his father and develop a more refined taste?"

"Still, one thing worth being happy about is that over the past few days, Little Zhou seems to have become more talkative. Could it be the cartoon's doing? He seems to prefer staying in his bedroom rather than the living room with the television."

"If it can make Little Zhou more cheerful, I might improve my opinion of this idiotic, childish, completely worthless cartoon."

April 7.

"I've been paying a little too much attention to this cartoon lately."

"I discovered that Little Zhou has actually learned how to draw. That's an incredible improvement. When he was in kindergarten, he never knew how to draw and was often bullied by the other children."

"I should encourage him more. Even though he's still drawing that stupid-ass Boonie Bears, at least it's had some positive effect."

"But... Little Zhou has been out of school and staying home all this time. Who taught him to draw?"

April 11.

"I found Little Zhou's drawings in his room. Some of them confused me greatly. They aren't random scribbles; there seems to be some kind of plot."

"Is that really a plot allowed in a cartoon?"

"I saw... him draw Bald Strong luring Big Bear and Second Bear into putting their hands into bottles. Their hands got stuck, and in the end, both bears had their hands chopped off to break the bottles."

"If such a bloody scene appeared in a cartoon, the censors should be dragged out and shot."

April 21.

"A new character appeared in Little Zhou's drawings."

"Was it an illusion?"

"It was a woman in red. I feel like I've seen her somewhere before, but definitely not in that cartoon..."

The diary ended there.

Zhang Ze was stunned.

Judging from Old Zhou's handwriting, the Murderous Painting's influence had begun when it appeared in Little Zhou's drawings.

Little Zhou had been the first one affected.

But Little Zhou had not died.

Old Zhou had died instead.

That was not what Zhang Ze focused on.

What mattered was that Old Zhou had written about a woman in red. Combined with the painting Chen Yi had seen in the bedroom earlier, the woman in the painting was dressed in blood-red clothes.

Unlike Xu Yin, who had gradually become Red-Clothed bit by bit.

She was more like Zhang Ya.

She started out as Red-Clothed!

Holy shit, that was terrifying.

Zhang Ze's scalp instantly went numb.

He had never expected to encounter a complete Red-Clothed right at the start. Wasn't this difficulty way too high?

Even Chen Ge had gone through a series of trials, only gaining the qualifications to enter other places with Red-Clothed after taking a shortcut and getting Zhang Ya into his shadow.

Zhang Ze had absolutely nothing right now.

And he was facing a Red-Clothed female ghost from the get-go?

"No."

"If she really were Red-Clothed, this family should have been wiped out long ago."

"But only Old Zhou has died after all this time. There must be some condition or restriction to this Red-Clothed's killings. If I can grasp the pattern, there might still be a way."

Zhang Ze immediately came to his senses.

Even if she was Red-Clothed,

as long as she had not immediately caused a massacre,

there was still room to maneuver.

This start of his was not necessarily a hopeless death sentence.