"It's nice to see you again, friend,"
Stone Kuntu said weakly and happily, and dark blue pus flowed from the pierced crystal in his right eye, trembling slightly with his voice.
He thought he would never see his confidant again in this life. At this moment, he really needs a partner with whom he can really chat.
"You're making rapid progress."
Buck was silent for a while, then sat down on the edge of the bed and commented. He was the only person Kuntu had ever seen who didn't care at all about the lingering stench in the room.
"They gave me a pencil and a drawing board to calm me down."
Stone Kuntu gently touched the wall covered with drawings with his palm. Although he was blind, he could still copy down the vague visions that flashed in his mind - even though they once made the nurse express displeasure. scream.
"...I have never been so full of thoughts as I am now, but it's a pity...it's too late." Stone Kuntu closed his left eye and gasped, just a few words had exhausted his energy, "I'm afraid I've already Time is running out.”
"I can see that."
Buck said bluntly, "Before you die, I need to confirm one thing: I have seen the painting you mentioned."
"Whose hands is it?" Stone Kuntu suddenly trembled and asked in a low voice.
"Do you really want to know?"
Buck suddenly asked back. This was the first time Kuntu had seen him use this sentence pattern.
"You're right...I don't care anymore." Stone vented.
He hated this surname and spent half his life avoiding it and forgetting it, only to fall into the abyss with it in the end. What a blessing in disguise:
"I would tell you everything I know, my friend. But there is nothing in that picture that you need, only disaster and misery. I beg you to turn away while you still have the chance, and let I take this secret with me to my grave."
"Say it, Stone."
There was no hesitation in the young man's voice, like a stone falling into the water. Stone couldn't help but sigh:
"'Curtain' - the real name of that secret text is 'Curtain', the curtain of eleven doors, the intersection of thousands of shortcuts." Kuntu warned in a low voice, "Don't try to find information related to it from official channels. , the crows will be watching you.”
"What else do you know about that painting?"
"I have never seen that painting with my own eyes... Maybe there are clues in that black book, and I can tell you the prayer that awakens the words above... But, can you satisfy my small selfish desire?"
"Please tell me," Buck replied calmly and sincerely.
Stone Kuntu took a deep breath, sat up from the bed, and fumbled for the rectangular portrait that had been hanging on the bedside:
"The effects of the elixir are wearing off. My Margaret, I can feel her fading and disappearing day by day... I don't understand that I have given everything I have to only give her more. How many days will you stay?”
"Just accept it, Stone."
Buck's voice was like a thunder, tearing Stone Kuntu's heart to pieces:
"She is gone. Just like the most common things in the world, such as flowers and leaves falling, there is no way to keep her."
Tears flowed from his skull-like cheeks, one transparent and the other dark blue. Stone rushed forward desperately and grasped Buck's dry palm, just like a drowning sailor grasping the life-saving plank:
"Buck, you are the most outstanding genius I have ever seen. Please do something, even if it is just one more day..."
"If you wish, I can recreate the exact portrait. But will it still be your Margaret that I depict?"
The light and shadow in front of him disappeared, and the ringing in his ears temporarily quieted down. Stone Kuntu froze in place, as if he had forgotten to breathe.
He thought again of the short but happy wedding day with Margaret, or the extremely boring trivial matters in daily life, or even the meaningless quarrels——
If I die, will even these memories disappear with my physical death? Stone Kuntu felt uncomfortable in the silence.
"what do I do……?"
he muttered. In the darkness, Buck's voice answered him:
"We will all die eventually, my friend, and forget everything. There is nothing sad about this. This is why mortals despise the gods. Pick up your brush and keep painting-"
“…Don’t paint what you see, don’t rely on light, shadow, or the illusions that whisper in your mind. Paint what you believe in, paint what you still remember—even if it is as fleeting as life.”
Stone Kuntu opened his right palm, and for some reason the pencil as thick as his little finger still stayed in his palm. He held the end of the pencil and let out a deep sigh:
"Until death do us part, my dear..."
…
The next morning, when Ed was delivering medicine to Charlotte, he found a piece of simple manuscript paper the size of a postcard in front of the vase on her table——
There are no borders or packaging, just scrawled and incoherent line drawings.
It was a bouquet of blue forget-me-not flowers. The petals are soaked in an inexplicable blue pigment, flowing along gravity like paint, drying, fading, and finally disappearing like dew.
"Is this—?" he asked.
"Mr. Buck has just sent it over." Charlotte replied slowly, which proved that she was in a good mood.
"How do you like it?"
"Of course, it's a very precious gift."
While she was talking, a gust of draft blew across the balcony, causing Charlotte's forehead hair to flutter slightly without realizing it, revealing her covered left eye, and making the blue of the petals dim even more.
"That's good. Remember to drink the medicine later. I'll go out for a while."
Ed put the pills and water glass on the table and gently closed the door.
Stone Kuntu…
He guessed the original author of the painting. I originally wanted Buck to paint a painting of flowers that would never fade, but the painting in front of me looked like it would turn back into a blank piece of waste paper in less than a month.
But after thinking about it, he had to admit that Buck might be right——
The shelf life of watercolor paintings is only a few decades, oil paintings will be eclipsed in thousands of years, and even ancient rock paintings that have not decayed for thousands of years will weather out in even longer years.
Maybe there was no eternal thing in the world at all...?
One day not long after that, out of concern, Ed contacted the hospital to inquire about Mr. Kuntu's situation, but learned that Mr. Kuntu had passed away - just the day before the frontal lobotomy surgery.
He was always conscious before his death. He just calmly thanked the doctors and nurses for their care over the past few days, and then passed away.
According to regulations, contaminated crystals and Beyonder remains must be cremated. Burnt with it was the rectangular portrait of Lady Margaret, which had turned pale and faded during his stay in hospital.
At Father Dillon's suggestion, Mr. Quintu's body was reburied back to the Green Church, and buried in Lady Margaret's empty tomb——
…
