【My god, who is this artist? Why are they anonymous? Their fundamentals are solid enough to chop right through the earth—what terrifying skill! If they had a platform, they'd easily have over a million followers.】
【Such tension in this artwork! What a god-tier artist!】
...
A9 closed its eyes in despair.
The focal point of the artwork was a shattering wooden board. The wood exploded from the very center like a piece of brittle candy, wood chips spraying outward in a radial pattern. A few small glass fragments still clinging tightly to the window frame shattered completely, scattering like tiny stars.
A body hovered midair, hands reaching out beyond the window as if grabbing at something unknown. Her entire body leaped through the window, the wind pulling her hair back into several straight black lines that bisected the image.
The artist used a massive block of black to fill half of her face, rendering her features unreadable and leaving only a crushing sense of pressure. On the readable half of her face, there were only scars, drawn in a chaotic mesh of lines.
The entire drawing radiated a violent horror, as if a malevolent deity had crawled onto the page, hurling itself straight into the viewer's eyes wrapped in thunder and wind, delivering an overwhelming shock.
【Such incredible tension! The last one to get this kind of treatment was Bian Linxu.】
【This is total flex-level skill. Could this really be rushed out in half a month? Just this one page must have taken half a month! Both the speed and quality are beyond praise.】
【I fully understand why updates are so slow now. Consider me totally won over! Keep drawing well, artist—we're going down in comic history. As long as the plot doesn't fall apart, this is guaranteed to become a masterwork among masterworks.】
...
A9 felt ruined the moment it saw the illustration. It didn't even need to look at the comments to know how many people would be blown away. Painful tears streamed down its face because it knew there was still another one.
Since the artist had drawn this scene, there was no way the other scene would be missing.
Sure enough, after a few pages of plot, there was another panel drawn with extraordinarily delicate brushwork.
The border was endless darkness, with only a single vertical bolt of lightning striking down from the zenith in the center, tearing the image vertically into bright and dark halves.
A pair of arms was raised high overhead, both hands gripping an axe. The edges of the silhouette were drawn with jagged, rough lines, while the axe blade cut a razor-thin, brilliant silver arc through the lightning.
A9 was perhaps the only one dissatisfied with the artist's skills. It was utterly shocked. Why did the artist add their own embellishments? It remembered clearly that there had been no lightning at that moment!
Ahhh! Do you even know how to draw?! Do you?! Ever heard of realism?
The woman's face hung between light and shadow. Below the panel was that massive, twisted Grey Mark, depicted as grotesquely distorted.
Stream of consciousness.
Surprisingly, the artist didn't draw a bloody scene this time...
Yet the distorted figure seemed to emphasize the theme of horror even more—it was the final moment before death arrived, a split second where all despair and fear condensed.
Looking at this artwork alone, no one would ever guess Lin Mo was there to save someone...
Under the influence of technique and emotion, the visual impact of the artwork was immense, like a red-hot iron branded deep into the brain.
Viewing it from Chen Xijian's perspective, A9 realized this was even more terrifying than what it had witnessed in person.
Scrolling down.
Oh my god, there were two of them.
Why was there even a close-up of Lin Mo flipping her hair? Artist, are you a Lin Mo fan or something?
It was furious!!
It was dead meat now.
【Holy crap, that scared me to death.】
【After reading this chapter, I jumped right off my bed. To be able to draw something this terrifying without a single drop of blood—if I didn't know better, I'd think the author drew an incomprehensible cosmic horror instead of a human.】
【Actually, there were two people in that panel. Don't ignore the deceased—show some respect to the dead, okay?】
【A jump scare right at the start! Why didn't the author include a high-intensity warning? Pointing fingers! Whatever, looks like I'll have to leave a bullet comment to warn those coming after me.】
【I sincerely suggest printing this scene out as future merch and selling it with the tagline 'wards off evil spirits.'】
【If anything, monstrous Lin Mo is the one attracting evil spirits...】
【It really is terrifying. I'm crying from fear. I feel like there's someone everywhere in my room right now...】
【Help me!】
【So amazing! To create such a composition just by varying the density of simple lines... As expected, black-and-white manga is the goat! The tension in this scene is off the charts. I'm going to frame it and study it to copy.】
【You artists are truly insane.】
...
Refusing to give up, A9 scrolled down until it finally reached the main character's plotline. Thank goodness—it hadn't accidentally clicked on a Lin Mo fanfic after all.
However, its mood didn't improve much. Even if only half a page created such waves, it was more than enough to draw heat onto it.
Lin Mo had plotlines in two consecutive chapters—was the artist trying to kick the main character aside?
To its surprise, A9 realized that what it had once hoped for Forsiman—to become the ultimate villain and a stumbling block for the main character—seemed to be coming true through Lin Mo instead.
The frequency of Lin Mo's appearances in the comic was now hurtling at full speed toward popular-character status. Although the main character in the mid-stage was already absurdly strong, if Lin Mo maintained her current level of attention and growth rate, it wouldn't be impossible for her to become the big villain when the time came.
It did want Lin Mo to do well, as that could help it to some extent, but it hadn't wanted her to do this well.
A9 disengaged from the comic and opened the panel.
【Lin Mo, I have good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear?】
"The bad news?"
Noticing that her response was a question rather than a statement, A9 immediately changed its tune. 【Actually, no! Your stat exploded this time, jumping into double digits! It's at 11 now, and it's all Strength.】
【Do you know what 11 means? Every character with a name has a double-digit stat panel! We finally made it to double digits! Ahhh!!】
【However, because you were just too scary—blame the artist, why did they have to draw you so terrifyingly?!—the readers' impression of your Strength is far greater than your Constitution...】
Lin Mo seemed to have never been on the receiving end of a beating. If she couldn't gain the readers' recognition for taking hits, wouldn't her Constitution remain stuck forever...?
Her current injuries were constantly piling up. Sooner or later, her body wouldn't be able to withstand the pressure and would collapse.
Yet her Constitution didn't grow even a bit.
【Also, I don't know what got into the artist, drawing out all of your recent plotlines. Our current situation is very dangerous. I'm afraid other managers might notice something abnormal and come looking for us.】
Lin Mo thought for a moment before asking an entirely unrelated question: "What about Chen Xijian?"
【What?】
"You said you'd tell me about her," Lin Mo said. "I still don't know what she did."
A9 muttered, 【What's there to look at? Isn't she just a pervert?】
It had no idea Lin Mo was someone with such an intense curiosity and desire to explore.
It collapsed back into the comic to read it out for her.
...
In the past, my family was by no means wealthy. We lived in the countryside. As far back as I can remember, my family consisted of only my mother, three older sisters, and one younger sister. The courtyard was large, constantly echoing with the pitter-patter of cloth shoes, slippers, and sandals of all sizes.
Some said our family was like a nest of sparrows huddled together.
My mother's back was always slender and narrow. My oldest sister held me in her arms every night as we slept, her hair carrying the scent of sweet osmanthus oil. My second sister went into the city. My third sister was two years older than me; I didn't like her much because she always squeezed me when we shared a bed.
I didn't have a father. When I was little, I didn't even know what kind of family member that was.
My mother and sisters didn't like me going outside either. They said there were madmen out there, and if I heard a madman's laughter, I had to shut the door tightly. I was obedient and did so every time.
When I grew a bit older, I went to a girls' school. The dingy gray walls were so high you couldn't see their top, with sycamore trees overhead blotting out the sky. Life was dull and ordinary.
I thought the world was just like that—living quietly with my family, as clean and clear as the stream outside our house.
Until the day I was eight, on my way home from school, I saw a naked man. He stood in the river while a few people on the bank gathered around, pointing at him.
The man was bare-chested, his belly covered in dark hair like a piece of moldy meat. He stood straddle-legged, wiggling his fingers and making strange sounds as water dripped between his fingers and trickled down his stomach...
The people on the bank mocked him and threw stones at him.
He saw me and smiled at me.
That sound was intimately familiar—it was the madman I had feared since I was little.
Rate on N.U.
