I'm Already the Richest Man, Why Did My System Just Arrive?

Chapter 260: Chapter 166: Contention for the Deceitful Object

”Wrong. Paint it again.”

”Alright.”

”Wrong. Paint it again.”

”Alright.”

High atop Yunhe Village, beneath the white clouds, the conversation between Xie Luohe and Zheng Xiu had been reduced to this simple back and forth.

You tell me to paint, and so I paint.

If you think it’s wrong, I’ll simply paint it again.

Zheng Xiu knew very well that the current scene had long since departed from Gongsun Mo’s memory. Based on his understanding of Gongsun Mo, ancestral precepts were as weighty as Mount Tai; he would never have defied them and submitted to Xie Luohe’s domineering presence to paint her portrait.

Perhaps the Xie Luohe of the past had fallen for Gongsun Mo’s foolish stubbornness for some inexplicable reason—who knew? But now, the story was developing more and more in the direction Zheng Xiu had hoped for.

Zheng Xiu had a vague idea of the key to cracking the Cannibal Painting.

”Stop painting.”

At some point, Xie Luohe had gotten down from the rock and was now standing before the Scholar, who painted with his own blood.

As dusk approached, Xie Luohe stood with her back to the setting sun. A golden radiance gathered around her, lending her silhouette a dreamlike and unreal quality.

Without realizing it, Zheng Xiu had been painting for the entire day.

He had just opened his mouth to reply when he spat out another mouthful of fresh blood. Although Xie Luohe had shown some mercy, he was now truly powerless. How could he have withstood her beatings? He was already covered in wounds.

He swayed, his vision turning black. His palm slammed down on the still-wet ink. Blood and ink mixed, oozing from between his fingers. The two colors, red and black, were particularly jarring on the white paper.

Seeing the Scholar’s miserable state, Xie Luohe snatched the brush from Zheng Xiu’s hand and, with a reverse grip, stabbed it into the wall.

The brush stuck fast in the stone wall.

Zheng Xiu shook his head and smiled, treating it as if Xie Luohe were just throwing a tantrum. Without a word, he reached out to pull the brush from the rock.

He pulled.

And pulled...

It didn’t budge.

Annoyed, Zheng Xiu picked up another brush. Just as he was about to start painting again, Xie Luohe repeated her previous action.

Next to the first brush, another brush tip was now embedded, its shiny black bristles trembling slightly in the wind.

Zheng Xiu said angrily, ”What are you doing? Weren’t you the one who told me to paint?”

Xie Luohe: ”You painted it wrong. Since you can’t do it right, don’t paint at all.”

”If it’s wrong, it’s wrong. I’ll just paint it again.”

”You’d rather die than stop painting?”

”Don’t worry, I can keep painting for another whole day.”

”Heh. Killing you would dirty my hands.”

”Is that so?”

Zheng Xiu looked into Xie Luohe’s eyes. Xie Luohe said nothing more.

The two of them just stared at each other in silence.

As they stared,

Zheng Xiu suddenly burst out laughing.

Xie Luohe frowned. ”What are you laughing at?”

”I just find it funny. I pretended to be Zheng Shan in front of Feng Bei for so long, but she actually suspected I was Zheng Xiu all along, she just didn’t have any proof. No, wait, it’s over...” Zheng Xiu slapped his forehead, annoyed. ”Zheng Er has probably been exposed too.”

After speaking, Zheng Xiu smiled at Xie Luohe. ”That’s right, isn’t it?”

Xie Luohe was silent.

Zheng Xiu continued, ”No wonder you brought me to Yunhe Village. It was because I called out ’Feng Bei’ back at the teahouse.”

A nearly imperceptible ripple appeared in the silent Xie Luohe’s left eye. A hint of disdain entered her gaze as she chuckled, ”Do you really think I can’t bring myself to kill you?”

Zheng Xiu smiled and shook his head without answering. He maintained his posture, sitting at the table and looking up to meet Feng Bei’s gaze.

”What I’m more curious about is, since you have all of ’Feng Bei’s’ memories, why do you believe you’re ’Xie Luohe’?”

Xie Luohe: ”It’s merely a matter of seeing through the prenatal mystery and knowing my past and present lives, nothing more. How dull. You, on the other hand, are shackled by a ’past life,’ living like a wretched Actor.”

”’Past and present lives? The prenatal mystery?’” Zheng Xiu seemed surprised for a moment, then his expression cleared with understanding. ”’So that’s how it is.’”

’It seems turning Feng Bei’s perception around is going to be a bit difficult.’

”That was a dream.”

A confident smile reappeared on Xie Luohe’s stunningly beautiful face.

Zheng Xiu smiled but said nothing.

Xie Luohe’s smile widened. ”You don’t believe me?”

”I don’t,” Zheng Xiu said, coughing twice and spitting up another mouthful of blood. He then pulled open the front of his robe. First, he held two fingers together and touched his left shoulder. Then, he slowly drew his fingers diagonally downward to the right, tracing a path across a shocking expanse of swollen, bruised skin, all the way to his upper right abdomen.

After slowly completing this gesture that mimicked ”slicing open my chest,” Zheng Xiu smiled. ”Unless you kill me.”

”Boring.” With her hands clasped behind her back and her face devoid of expression, Xie Luohe turned and walked toward the small wooden cabin.

”You’re getting flustered.”

Xie Luohe’s steps came to a sudden halt.

She was flustered.

Seeing her stop, Zheng Xiu became even more certain.

”Let’s just say you have seen through the prenatal mystery. But I’m very sure you won’t kill me.”

”You see this as an entanglement from a past life, and you refuse to acknowledge it. But I have no grievance or enmity with you. If you kill me, it’s the same as admitting that this entanglement is real.”

”Kill me, and you lose.”

Xie Luohe clenched her fists.

Zheng Xiu continued, ”Even if that weren’t the case, you still wouldn’t kill me. Because in your eyes, I am the only one in the entire world who knows the secret of Nie Gong’s Treasure Vault. And clearly, you care about that secret.”

”Yes.” Only then did Xie Luohe turn back, nodding calmly.

She didn’t agree with the first half of Zheng Xiu’s statement. But the second half seemed to offer her a way to save face, and she took it, tossing three ancient painting scrolls before Zheng Xiu.

Zheng Xiu unfurled the scrolls and finally understood why there were three.

As its name suggested, the Four Seasons Map painted by the Gongsun Painting Saint back then was divided into four scrolls: Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter.

Among them, the Late Fall Maple Scene had been torn in half during a struggle between the two Manor Masters of Pear Blossom Manor and Meihua Manor. These were those two scrolls.

Zheng Xiu opened the third scroll and was instantly stunned.

The scroll depicted a clear pond where lotus flowers were in full bloom. To one side grew a crooked pagoda tree, its clusters of blossoms like specks of starlight, complementing the vibrant green of the lotus leaves.