Chapter 455 Two Children
Ludwig stood in front of a wall painting adorned with doughnuts, his young eyes fixated on the artwork. Sensing someone watching him, he turned around and spotted Lumian.
Lumian smiled and yfully teased, “Running away from home again?”
Ludwig, this time with moreposure, replied, “No. I told my godfather that learning can’t be limited to textbook knowledge. It’s equally important to read more, hear more, and interact with other things.”
Lumian inquired, “And he brought you here to see the art exhibition?” However, he couldn’t spot Baron Brignais in the vicinity.
He noticed that Ludwig’s intelligence and knowledge seemed to have improved a bit, allowing him toe up with an excuse he had used before.
It appeared that learning was having a positive impact on him!
Ludwig nodded and added, “Yes. It’s important for a child to cultivate an appreciation for art from a young age.”
Lumian clicked his tongue and continued, “So, no textbooks, homework, or exams today?”
Ludwig responded, a joyful smile unknowingly stered across his face, “It’s incidental.”
Internally, Lumian noted, <nulli>There’s been some growth, but not much…
At that moment, Baron Brignais, donning a silk top hat and a ck suit, approached from the other side of the exhibition hall.
Lumian couldn’t help but make a mocking remark, “Aren’t you worried he’ll get lost?”
As a Conspirer, Lumian picked up on something unusual about this situation.
Given Brignais’s past anxiety when Ludwig ran away, he shouldn’t have left the child alone in the exhibition hall!
Brignais smiled and said, “Ludwig has been doing well recently and hasn’t tried to run away from home. He was engrossed in admiring the paintings, so I didn’t want to disrupt him when I went to the washroom.”
<nulli>Sounds like something an irresponsible parent would do, but Baron, you weren’t like this before. I suspect you did it on purpose… You deliberately left Ludwig alone in the exhibition hall to see what this strange child would do? Heh heh, you don’t have to worry about him. You have to worry about the surrounding visitors. If this guy gets hungry and you don’t provide food in time, I’m afraid someone will be eaten, Lumian criticized as he made a guess.
He sensed that Baron Brignais had an ulterior motive for arranging this visit to the exhibition. It was akin to leading an experienced hound to a specific asion, releasing its ropes to see if it would track down certain prey.
After answering Lumian’s question, Baron Brignais, clutching his bulging briefcase, looked at Ludwig.
“When you get back, write an essay regarding the art exhibition, detailing your feelings and the work that left the deepest impression.”
Lumian was not surprised. He had plenty of experience being thrown into such a situation.
Regrettably, Lumian’s exploration of the three small exhibition halls yielded no significant findings. Instead, Mullen’s “Café” drawing, which he had created with his buttocks, drew the attention of numerous tourists, sparking both admiration and criticism.
Standing in the final exhibition hall, Lumian contemted his next move. Retrieving his brown, gold-rimmed sses, he decided to give them a try.
Since his unaided vision and Spirit Vision revealed no discernible issues, he opted to test the Mystery Prying sses from the same pathway!
Carefully positioning the sses on his nose bridge, Lumian braced himself as the world around him seemed to spin and whirl. His focus remained on the scenes unfolding within his “vision.”
Each painting took on a life of its own, breaking free from the confines of the walls.
Some of the paintings seemed to regard Lumian with a chilling, prating gaze.
Initially taken aback, Lumian feared that something extraordinary was afoot with all the portraits, potentially cing him in a dire situation. However, he soon realized that he wasn’t under attack.
The figures within the portraits merely stared at him with silent and cold intensity.
It was as if they had attained a degree of consciousness and a sense of being, yet they hadn’t fully emerged from their canvas confines to walk among the living.
A revtion dawned upon Lumian.
Through the lens of the Mystery Prying sses, he was witnessing another reality.
Perhaps, in some parallel aspect of the world, each painting held a semnce of reality. However, they remained two-dimensional, t, andcking in depth, incapable of significantly impacting the human realm or the spirit world. There might be exceptions, moments where extended contemtion of certain works induced feelings of delirium or anxiety.
It urred to Lumian that Painters could potentially amplify the limited, t nature of these objects, opening a pathway to the realm of the real.
In essence, the characters within ordinary paintings might possess an iplete, condensed, and spiritually deficient existence in this two-dimensional, t world. With the aid of the Mystery Prying sses, they were unveiled in their true form.
Likewise, Lumian’s perception unveiled deeper truths—the artist’s most profound creative intentions.
One painting depicted the future of Trier, a divided realm. On the surface, men and women reveled invish banquets, adorned in opulent attire. Beneath the surface, ragged individuals dwelled in dark tunnels, subsisting on earthworms, rats, and moss. Yet, through the Mystery Prying sses, Lumian glimpsed fat, glutinous pigs with oil oozing from their mouths on the surface. Below, grotesque, contorted visages and decaying hands reached upwards.
This was the true message the artist sought to convey.
In the next instant, Lumian spotted Baron Brignais and his godson Ludwig.
The former appeared unremarkable when viewed through the Mystery Prying sses, but there was a faint, brassy aura emanating from his form. As for thetter, something chilling unfolded as he abruptly turned his head, seemingly locking eyes with Lumian across two exhibition halls.
Ludwig’s chubby face took on an unsettling transformation; his skin seemed to writhe, as if it were on the verge of shedding, and something from beneath the surface attempted to burrow out.
Lumian’s heart tightened, and he instinctively removed the Mystery Prying sses,
instantly restoring the scene to its normal state.
He had always sensed that Ludwig was far from ordinary, but this encounter had sent his danger instincts into overdrive.
The true nature of the innocent-seeming human skin concealing the boy beneath remained an ominous mystery.
<nulli>Ugh… Lumian had worn the Mystery Prying sses for an extended period this time, and his difort was overwhelming. Despite the diminishing dizziness, he felt profoundly nauseous, with a painful ache in his stomach, a pressing need to vomit and tend to other bodily functions.
Even a Conspirer’s constitution couldn’t withstand this.
Taking a deep breath, Lumian made his way to the washroom adjacent to the three exhibition halls.
It was situated at the end of a long corridor adorned with statues and paintings, perfectly in line with the Trier Arts Center’s ambiance.
Once inside the washroom, Lumian attended to his urgent needs, and after washing his face with cold water, he gradually regained hisposure, with the difort dissipating.
Exiting the washroom, Lumian’s gaze naturally drifted toward the opposite wall, where a series of paintings were on disy.
One particr painting drew his attention, a macabre and enigmatic piece that gripped his senses.
It was an oil painting set against a vividlyyered background, with a focal point on a naked woman.
Her face remained blurred, as if the painter had intentionally left it nk. On her body, distinct faces emerged, each bearing a different emotion—anger, hatred, malice, joy. Some of these faces resembled those of cats, others of dogs, and some appeared to exist solely in the realm of fantasy. What united them was their eerie, translucent yet lifelike quality.
As Lumian stared at this unsettling painting, a thought dawned on him.
During Gabriel’s visit to the art exhibition, he had seemed perfectly normal, at least as per the ounts of the authors. But they couldn’t have monitored his every move, especially during mundane activities like visiting the washroom!
…
Avenue du Marché, Théatre de l’Ancienne Cage à Pigeons.
Jenna had just stepped out when she spotted a familiar figure standing beneath a gas streetmp on the opposite side of the road.
It was a young boy, dressed in a white shirt, silver vest, ck coat, and a mercury bow tie, his light-yellow hair neatlybed.
<nulli>The child who brought me good luckst time… that formidable Beyonder! Jenna eximed inwardly, taken aback. She instinctively crossed the street and approached the boy.
With a slight bow, she greeted him with a smile, “Were you waiting for me?”
The boy nced at her and muttered, “I wasn’t waiting for you. You were waiting for me. You met me earlier than any other choice.”
<nulli>What’s the matter this time? Are you offering me good luck for the impending catastrophe and getting me to discover something? Jenna’s thoughts raced as she casually asked, “Didn’t you say that this direction was a little dangerousst time? Why are you here this time?”
The boy’s response was measured and earnest, “That day was that day, and today is today. Just because it was a little dangerous that day doesn’t mean it’s dangerous today.”
“Alright…” Jenna probed with a probing smile. “Do you need my help to buy you an ice-cream?”
The boy, however, responded with a long, almost adult-like sigh.
“It’s something else; I’ll pay you.”
<nulli>Pay? Giving me good luck? Jenna had a vague idea, but she didn’t inquire about the reward. She decided to cut to the chase, asking, “What’s the favor?”
The boy reached into his pocket and retrieved a gleaming golden coin, sidestepping her question.
“This will be your reward—a lucky gold coin.”