"Do we know each other?"

Ed endured the rotten stench and climbed into the cellar along the thick and short ladder. It was in a daze, and only a lump of light shone brightly behind the wooden barrels piled with pickled vegetables and salted fish.

"Yes, ten years ago, in Xisang Workshop. You must have lost your memory."

The voice is just a statement, not surprised or curious, as if nothing is left to you.

His childhood background was unknown, and he was adopted at Xisang Workshop. Later, he was adopted by speculative businessman Ludwig Waikklow - Ed remembered the personal files he saw when he was in the police station.

He does know me.

In the darkness, the candles were almost dry, and the melting candle tears gathered on the ground into a small pool of irregular patches. The figure reflected by the candles - thin, haggard, and malnutritional sallow, like a skeleton wrapped in human skin.

The young man in front of him had a messy beard, his blond hair was as sloppy as moldy hay, his clothes were loose and torn, and his pants were stained with spots of urine stains.

The arms withered and curled like broken branches, at most only two fingers wide, as if they could break with a slight force. His right hand holding the brush could only be lifted to his chest with difficulty, while his left hand holding the palette was lowered and huddled above his navel, as funny as an upright mouse.

If I didn't look at his eyes, the whole scene would be extremely miserable.

But his eyes—as golden as his hair, but not as yellow as grass, shining with the richness of honey and gold.

The eyes were calm and cold, as if they were indifferent to their own tragedy. They just reflected the paintings in front of them.

The characters in the painting are twisted by their trembling arms, and the colors are distorted by inferior pigments, but their expressions are as if they were woodblock printing, and are imprinted on the canvas with no mistakes.

Whether loyal, cunning, noble, or hypocritical... No one has yet to portray real feelings in unreal bodies like this.

"My hair blocks the sight." His words did not seem to be pleading, but rather to be condescending orders.

Alas...why? Maybe because I am an acquaintance, I speak more casually.

Ed deliberately made himself ignore Buck's rudeness, and walked forward helplessly, pushing his sheep-like messy forehead hair to both sides.

"It's much better." He nodded slightly, without thanking him.

"Ed, are you okay?"

Miss Quinn's shout came from outside the cellar, as if she was worried about herself. She slid down the ladder quickly and fell to the ground, frightened the mice in the corner to flee around.

"Please don't bother me, Miss, you add unnecessary confusion to this small space." His weak tone was ridiculous.

"No problem." Faced with such humiliation, Quinn sneered, "Stone Kuntu, where is this person? I will leave immediately if I know."

"I'll say it. But you have to stop barking and leave my studio. The light on you is too strong and violent and will interfere with my color vision."

Buck said calmly, his eyes still staring at the drawing board, nothing could allow him to move away from there.

It seems that he is not friendly to strangers either.

Ed stopped Quinn, and Buck's physical condition could not be able to withstand any blow from her:

"You go out first, let me leave it here. He knows me, no problem." He persuaded him in a very small voice, trying to calm Quinn's emotions.

"Ha... OK, okay..."

Her smile became more and more ferocious and her teeth became more and more obvious. But in the end, she turned around.

But suddenly, she turned around and kicked hard on the wooden barrel containing pickled vegetables and salted fish-

For a moment, the barrel collapsed one after another like dominoes, crushing Buck's easel and shooting his paintings to the ground. The already foul air added a bit of filth, which was unbearable.

After doing all this, Quinn left and slammed the cellar door back with a "bang".

"Uh, I'm sorry..."

Ed said while moving the barrel pressed on the easel away. He was worried that Quinn's behavior would anger Buck and keep him silent about Mr. Kuntu's whereabouts.

"Why do you want to apologize? I fear her, she hates me, that's all. False respect is meaningless."

However, Buck didn't seem to be angry. He just stood up silently, knelt on the ground, trying to lift the easel up again. Ed was about to help him, but he smiled and said:

"You don't have to pretend to care about me anymore, old friend. Go and do what you really want to do. There is a small sunflower field in the western suburbs of Yinwu City. Kuntu's family cemetery is located further west of the sunflower field, and you won't be wrong."

"Buck..."

Ed didn't expect things to come so easily. He thought he had to be slack for a long time before Buck could tell the location of the Kuntu family's tomb.

Buck struggled to lift the easel up and continued:

"There are also spiritual pickers. Kuntu mentioned his family potion to me. He said that the memories of reviving the rotten flesh in his belly: 'Swallowing the black flesh and spitting out colorful colors.'"

"…this is all I know. Stone Kuntu believes in me and thinks I will keep his secret. He is a complete idiot."

Buck sneered, his eyes full of sarcasm. The dark indifference made Ed shudder.

"You can leave now."

He said at last, his eyes returning to the drawing board, like a nail nailed to the wall.

"Okay, take care of yourself."

Ed left an unspeakable look, and he climbed up the stairs and left Buck's dark studio.

"Have you found the location?" Father Dylan, who was pinching his nose, continued when he saw Quinn still angrily.

After saying that, he covered his mouth and took a deep breath, fearing that the flies lingering around him would take the opportunity to fly in.

"Yes, the logging farm in the western suburbs. Kuntu is likely to have taken potions and is carrying out some dangerous ritual. Should we call for some support?"

"No need. The three of us can handle it."

Quinn replied in a deep voice. From the last incident, it can be seen that she has never been very interested in "team action".

"If it were just a single-player ritual, the threat would not be too great, not to mention that Mr. Kuntu was not even an extraordinary person. There was a level 3 extraordinary person and a quasi-level 3 extraordinary person present, and I think it was enough to deal with most emergencies." Dylan also gave his own analysis.

Miss Quinn's crystallization energy level should be between level 2 and level 3, on the verge of transformation. So Father Dylan should be a real level 3 extraordinary person?

"Oh well……"

Ed nodded in agreement. No one knew what consequences would be caused by the Kuntu ceremony. He had to go to the site to deal with it as soon as possible to minimize the damage.

He has always been curious about the strength of the more advanced extraordinary people, and maybe he will have the honor to witness it today...

...

Before the invention of steam power, people could only rely on waterwheels to produce sawwood. The industrial revolution made the location of sawmills no longer have geographical restrictions. The hundreds of horsepower steam engines led the sawmill to decompose the logs into wood and then transport them to the city along the railway.

Walking west along the sawmill, the roar of steam gradually dissipated in the wind, and they soon found the sunflower field. At this time, the sunflowers had just sprouted and were far from blooming. The upright stems swayed slightly in the wind, as if they were boundless dreams.

The sunflower is the national flower of the Leriya Kingdom and the family emblem of the royal family.

Ed remembered the sunflowers in Buck's paintings again, the twisted and spiraling, bright yellow liquid fireballs exuding an ancient and fanatical vitality, just like the reflection of the sun.

"By the way, is it true that you said that the painter without arms knows you?" Dylan interrupted his thoughts.

"Maybe it. I have limited memory of the past."

"What do you think of him as a person? He is really as talented as mentioned in Kuntu's diary?"

"Buck is indeed very talented, but it is also terrifying. There is no subtext in his language and he will project his thoughts directly into his words, which scares me." Ed frowned.

"What is a subtext?" Quinn asked suddenly.

"For example, a young man wants to sleep with a beautiful girl." Dylan had an indecent smirk on his face. "He would praise the girl's taste, her kindness, and how willing he is to spend the rest of his life with her and grow old together. But in fact, we all know that he just wanted to get into the same bed with that girl."

Under Quinn's contemptuous look, he had to finish the conclusion in a serious tone:

"But if he speaks out his true thoughts directly, it will definitely scare everyone."

"Yes. That's why no agent is willing to deal with Buck." Ed commented, "He can't deal with anyone except as crazy as him."

"I think it's probably because the backyard is too smelly." Dylan said with disgust.

The Kuntu family's cemetery was originally protected by a tall old stone wall, but now it is empty and broken. They entered the cemetery without even opening the door.

The artistic stone statue is left with only a broken body, like a painful soul. The stone door of the tomb is closed tightly, and some mysterious and colorful unknown thing is like a fish at the bottom of a pond, surging in it.

Quinn tried to push the stone door open. She tried her best, her teeth trembled but she could not move the stone door half a step. Then she stabbed the sharp butterfly winged knife into the crack of the door and tried to force the stone door open, but she only collapsed the stone door into a gap.

"Have the 'Great Painter' told you how to open this damn door?" In the end, she had to look at Ed helplessly.

"He didn't..." Ed recalled every word Buck said, and suddenly realized:

"Wait, I get it."

He walked to the stone gate and whispered softly:

‘Swallow the black flesh and blood and spit out colorful colors.’

Boom-

After some kind of loud noise that was not like a mechanical one, the stone door opened with a bang. Ed reached out and sent the one-eyed spider into the tomb, and his consciousness drilled into it:

The passage stretches straight and long, like a staircase leading to hell. The end of the staircase is covered with mossy-like, colorful mucus, wriggling and growing, as if it has life.

Mr. Kuntu's desperate and crazy eyes were deeply trapped in his eyes, his tongue was swollen and black, drooping from his copper-rusted lips. His clothes and hands were covered with oil, becoming bright and bizarre, like the person in the painting.

And the dreamy and rich colors like oil paintings slowly poured out from his eyes, nostrils, ears and throat...

In the direction facing his eyes was a work hanging on an easel but framed with a rectangular picture frame.

In the portrait, a woman stares at Mr. Kuntu with calm and gentle love...
Chapter completed!