Chapter 70: Art Exhibition?
Li Mu had been to an art exhibition before.
But that time, it was an event organized by his homeroom teacher, Yang Ye, something like a school field trip for elementary students. Also, that exhibition didn’t require a ticket.
The next afternoon, just like the day before, he let Xiao Jing take over his body and practiced music with Yu Fan for about an hour. Around 2 p.m., they left the KTV.
“You can draw and sing, why didn’t you go to a regular high school and become an art student?” Li Mu asked with his hands in his jacket pockets, sounding curious.
“I learned it on my own. It’s just a hobby.”
Yu Fan didn’t want to turn his hobbies into schoolwork. That would kill the fun and probably make him dislike them. It’s like someone who enjoys playing games, if you make them play games like it’s school, with class times and homework, they’ll get tired of it quickly.
Li Mu thought about it carefully. He realized he didn’t really have any lasting hobbies.
He used to like guitar, so he taught himself for a month. But now the guitar just sits in his closet gathering dust.
Later, he got into games, but after his family passed away that year, he became addicted, playing day and night. Now, he doesn’t care much for games anymore.
Sitting on the back of Yu Fan’s electric scooter, he asked, “Didn’t you register as a shaman? How come I haven’t seen you go with Uncle Chen Yi to exorcise any ghosts?”
“Shaman sounds lame. Call me the Ghost Hunter.”
“......”
“There aren’t that many ghosts anyway. And we still haven’t found that raincoat ghost.” Yu Fan muttered, “I think that ghost might have a grudge against the dismemberment ghost. Why else would it attack right when it saw it?”
“Maybe the raincoat ghost killed the dismemberment ghost when they were alive?”
“Probably not. Even if the dismemberment ghost did something truly heinous to the raincoat ghost in their previous life, it wouldn’t have left such a strong obsession that turned it into a ghost.”
After chatting a bit about ghosts, they arrived at the entrance to the park.
Even though there was an art exhibition going on inside, there weren’t many people at the gate.
Yu Fan was just there to have some weekend fun, so he didn’t seem in a rush. After locking his scooter, he bought two bottles of cola from a nearby shop.
Li Mu didn’t really want to take the cola from him, it made him feel like he was being taken care of too much.
But after hesitating for a moment, he still reached out and took the drink, turning his head silently to look around.
Even though he always said Yu Fan was just a normal classmate, just a regular friend, he had to admit that after spending time together lately, Yu Fan’s place in his heart had gotten more important.
The two walked into the park together and arrived at the exhibition hall.
Li Mu wasn’t especially interested in paintings. He looked around out of curiosity at the artwork on the white walls, but couldn’t really understand what was good about them.
To him, these paintings didn’t even look as cool as the character designs in Honor of Kings.
Yu Fan, on the other hand, was really enjoying it. He would stop in front of certain paintings from time to time to look at them carefully.
These days, he liked wearing gold-rimmed glasses. With his usual well-dressed look and his serious expression while looking at the art, he gave off a bit of that artsy vibe.
If he had long curly hair too, he’d look just like the classic image of a struggling artist.
“I don’t get it…” Li Mu said, starting to regret coming along. He gave up on the paintings and began looking around at the other visitors instead.
Most of the visitors here were like him, completely confused by the exhibits.
“We should leave,” he said, unable to hold back any longer. “It’d be better to go to an internet cafe.”
Yu Fan immediately became interested. “Internet cafe? What game do you play?”
“I don’t play anything.”
“Then how about Dota? I’ll teach you, it's amazing!”
Li Mu didn’t have a particular preference for games, so he just nodded to show his agreement.
Yu Fan excitedly grabbed Li Mu’s arm and started pulling him out of the exhibition hall, talking nonstop.
“It’s really hard to recommend Dota now. All the classmates like mobile games, and the ones who play on computers all like League of Legends. I have to go online to find someone to play Dota with. In real life, I can’t even find a teammate for ranked games.”
“You don’t know, this game is really fun. Once you get the hang of it, you’ll see.”
Li Mu still wasn’t interested, but he kept nodding lazily.
“I heard this year’s dota international competition is being held in our country. After the spring exams, we’ll have half a year with nothing to do. We could even go see the competition live.”
“By the way, what are you going to do after the spring exams? I’m planning to travel around with Chen Yi and catch more ghosts.”
“......”
Li Mu didn’t know how to respond to that.
He glanced around helplessly, then suddenly stopped walking.
Yu Fan didn’t pull him forward and turned back, asking in confusion, “What’s wrong?”
“I think… I think I saw that painting move.” Li Mu pointed to a portrait on a nearby wall.
It was a painting of an old farmer, with skin darkened by dirt and sweat as he worked in the sun. The details were so fine that you could even see the wrinkles on his skin, the sweat on his forehead, like a high-definition photograph.
Li Mu wasn’t an expert in art, but even someone like him could tell this painting was impressive.
Yu Fan had also stopped in front of this painting earlier.
“Move? Did you see a ghost again?” Yu Fan looked in the direction Li Mu was pointing and studied the painting for a moment before shaking his head. “You must have imagined it. Has Xiao Jing been affecting you too much? You’re under a lot of mental stress, huh?”
When Xiao Jing takes control, it sometimes causes Li Mu to have weird dreams at night and makes him sleep lightly, so he hasn’t been getting enough rest lately, giving him dark circles under his eyes.
Fortunately, he was still young, so even if he went without sleep for a few days, he could manage.
Li Mu thought what Yu Fan said made sense. “Probably, right? It can’t be that lucky.”
He wasn’t some famous detective, causing problems everywhere he went.
Besides, it was just a small town, there couldn’t be that many ghosts.
He followed Yu Fan out of the exhibition hall, not really paying attention to the conversation, and casually asked, “If there were a ghost in the painting, it must be the spirit of the artist, right?”
“Probably. I heard that a few days ago, an artist passed away.”
They both stopped in their tracks, looking at each other.
“It couldn’t be that lucky, could it?” Yu Fan scratched his head. “That artist committed suicide because of depression. If he had some kind of unfulfilled obsession, it makes sense that it would have been finished after his death.”
“Besides, I heard the artist committed suicide while on a trip in the countryside. It wasn’t even here.”
“That makes sense.”
But Li Mu had been tricked by Yu Fan so many times that he instinctively didn’t believe him. He turned around and quickly walked back into the exhibition hall.
However, when he arrived at the painting, he was stunned to find that the huge painting was gone.
Yu Fan followed closely behind, looking just as shocked. “Did it grow legs and run away?!”