Solflare: The Painter's Secret-Chapter 81: I Danced With Death

"Uncle. What happened?" Feng asked, his voice low with immediate worry.

Mr. Lee wore a tight grin that didn’t touch his eyes and placed a heavy hand on Feng’s shoulder. "Are they up or asleep?" he asked, gesturing slightly with his chin lifted toward the stairs.

"Asleep. It’s the middle of the night. Uncle, tell me what is wrong." Feng straightened his posture and stood boldly, blocking the way to the living room.

"You only smile and shake your head when something is not right. And you have never entered their house unannounced, apart from the day you submitted the letter to him. So, tell me."

Mr. Lee’s smile faded, giving him a hollow look. "He’s the one."

"Who is the one?" Feng’s brow furrowed.

"Leon’s father, Andrew... wasn’t just a painter. Like we... knew, but worse. Far worse."

At the mention of the painter, a short, disbelieving laugh burst from Feng. He ran a hand over his chin. "I don’t know what you witnessed today, Uncle, but what I’ve recovered from his old books..."

He trailed off, his eyes gleaming with a mixture of dread and exhilaration as the laughter died into something graver. "It would shock you. It would shock the entire universe."

Feng turned sideways and gestured toward the living room’s already open door. "Come. Let me show you."

"Wait." Mr. Lee brushed his palm across his face and then sighed. "Lieutenant Hayes saw it too. He witnessed everything."

Feng chuckled in a cold, harsh sound and threw an arm around Mr. Lee’s shoulder. "Hayes is an ant to me, Uncle. You shouldn’t be bothered by what an ant sees."

"It’s not that Hayes knows that bothers me," Mr. Lee said as he pulled away slightly, then closed his eyes.

"Ren Jian Zhu’s son was there. He was caught in it and got erased."

Feng’s body went rigid, his arms dropping from Mr. Lee’s shoulders as if severed. All color drained from his face, his eyes widening with a dawning, visceral horror.

"What?!" His voice dropped to a bare, breathless whisper. "The son of the Lord of the Mortal World?!"

He walked slowly toward the window, closed his eyes, and inhaled sharply. The air floating in the room was thick with the smell of old paper and damp plaster.

Feng held his breath for a long moment, as if testing its weight, then cracked his eyes open slowly while tilting his face toward Mr. Lee.

"Let’s play both cards," he said in a low voice that was strained with humor.

Mr. Lee, who had been watching Feng intently, sank into the only good sofa and let out a faint, weary chuckle. "And how are we going to do that? The board is already burning, Feng."

"Don’t worry." Feng turned toward the small, rickety table at the front of the sofa, where a book lay beneath a shroud of dust and a fine tracery of cobwebs.

He picked it up, blew a cloud of dust from its cover, and handed it to Mr. Lee.

Mr. Lee’s finger played a frantic, silent drum on the cracked leather before stopping at the book’s frayed edge.

He looked up at Feng, chuckled, then shook his head sharply.

"You’re right," Mr. Lee conceded in a whisper. "Playing both cards will be the best."

He turned his gaze back to the book. With a careful motion, he opened the first leaf that seemed thick and yellowish with age.

Mr. Lee’s eyes scanned the first line of text written in red-colored ink:

I danced with death, walked through hell, and came back crowned with burning eyes and thunderous sounds.

With his eyes fixed on the writing, a cold finger traced down Mr. Lee’s spine. He snapped the book shut with a sharp clap that echoed in the silent living room.

His heart turned into a frantic drum in his chest as he stared at the blank, dark cover as if it were a closed coffin lid.

He closed his eyes as the memory of the expanding wall of gold energy pulled back in his mind for the second time.

He inhaled deeply, held it. Although his chest burned, he wasn’t ready to let it go. A terrible grin stretched on his lips as he cracked his eyes open and swallowed hard. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

"I’m heading to my place," he said in a rough voice. He pushed himself up from the complaining sofa.

He walked to Feng and placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. "We’ll get in touch."

He turned and lifted his gaze to the top of the dim staircase. There, hanging crooked on the strained wall, was a small, framed portrait of Andrew Storm in a painter’s outfit.

The face was smudged and faded, but the eyes, even in the poor paint, seemed to hold a quiet, knowing depth.

Mr. Lee stared at it with an unreadable expression, then sighed. He turned and walked out of the building without looking back.

The door clicked shut behind him, leaving Feng alone in the silent, watchful house, the heavy book in his own hands now feeling like a live grenade.

Outside, the midnight world greeted Mr. Lee like a forgotten tomb.

A cold, gritty wind snaked through the narrow space between the towering, skeletal buildings, carrying with it the scent of distant rot and wet concrete.

Discarded plastic bags and torn newspapers danced in spirals in the air as he moved to his BMW. He slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine, which hummed in an alien tone in the quiet stillness.

He drove off, the tires crunching over debris and bumping into small puddles.

The BMW moved at the speed of light as it left the cramped squalor behind and entered onto the high-arching bridge.

Inside the car, Mr. Lee’s face remained stiff as his mind replayed the words he saw in the dark, leather-bound book.

A cold breeze escaped from him as he squinted at the road ahead of him. He tilted his head slightly to the small rectangular screen that had a red location bar on it, then smiled.