Rules-related weird stories: 4016.

Chapter 630 The Super Pollution of "Starry Night"
However, with the mission at hand, Mao Feiyang did not give Lin Yi a chance to play in the mud in front of the stone wall, and instead buried himself in climbing the stone steps.

A gray mist swirled, and hazy light and shadows floated at the far end. A gentle breeze, accompanied by the drifting mist and the salty scent of the sea, caressed Lin Yi's face, constantly reminding him what the world beyond the portal would hold.

"The Star Observatory...we're finally almost there," Lin Yi murmured.

However, after Mao Feiyang had walked halfway up the stone steps, Lin Yi gradually noticed something strange and unusual.

The closer one gets to that portal, the more a sense of barrier, similar to that of a door, appears in the space. Behind this portal, which is filled with light and mist, seems to be another world.

One after another, dim, irregular ripples slowly spread out from the portal, stirring some rough stone carvings on the stone wall, causing the environment of this narrow passage to gradually shimmer with light and colorful hues.

A subtle, almost imperceptible sense of oppression washed over me like waves crashing one after another.

Mao Feiyang remained calm and without the slightest hesitation, he rushed to the door and plunged inside.

The instant Mao Feiyang passed through the portal, countless complex auras mixed together, surging in like a mudslide, causing Lin Yi's senses to fall into a brief state of chaos.

"Buzz...buzz..."

Lin Yi's vision went blank, and all he could hear was the irregular chirping of cicadas in summer.

His vision gradually returned, but the scenes that entered his field of vision became infinitely absurd and magnificent.

He discovered that what appeared before him was not an observatory at all, but a bizarre field of vision that flowed like liquid.

Beneath his feet lay a cold, solidified, pitch-black building; above him, a boiling, burning starry sky; fiery cypress trees stood like boundary markers separating life and death; everything in this world flowed and vibrated, emitting tremors and screams unbearable to humankind…

This is not reality, but a manifestation of some kind of mental prison!

"This is...?!" An indescribable sense of familiarity welled up in his heart. Although the scene was absurd, bizarre, and magnificent, it did not make him lose his way.

After a flash of inspiration, his mind suddenly cleared from its daze.

"Holy crap... is this really 'Starry Night'?!"

Lin Yi seemed to sense something, and at that moment, the entire world suddenly went dark again. The flowing liquid solidified, the boiling, burning starry sky slowly cooled, and everything before his eyes was like a curtain being slowly torn away, returning to some corner of the past...

Gradually, all the noise disappeared, and he began to hear the faint sound of the wind again.

His senses slowly spread outwards, gently dispersing across the standing sand dunes and gradually spreading out onto the ground.

Then, he began to notice the fine raindrops falling on his skin, bringing a cold sensation. He could also feel the damp, chilly touch of the stone bricks beneath him, and he could sense an indescribable, eerie feeling descending from an unknown void, as if he were being watched by something.

These complex feelings of feedback actually appeared all at once, and along with these feelings, his vision began to return to normal.

He found Mao Feiyang sprawled on the bluestone of the observatory like a dog face down in the mud, as if he had tripped over the doorway the moment he left and then tumbled to the ground.

"This is the observatory... then what was that hallucination that seemed to be 'Starry Night'...?"

Following the feeling he had just experienced, Lin Yi looked in the direction where the magnificent yet eerie sky was shrinking, and there he saw Van Gogh's masterpiece, "Starry Night," on the huge circular wall of the observatory!
The boundary of the observatory is a huge circular stone wall, covered with traces of wind and rain. Although the murals here are "indoors", the transparent dome of the observatory is thinner than a condom, and cannot prevent the rain and mist from seeping through the layers.

Therefore, this observatory, which is theoretically located in an enclosed environment, was now enveloped by a continuous curtain of rain, with fine raindrops filling the air with moss, moisture, and a faint smell of the sea.

On that vast circular stone wall, covered with strange murals, mythological reliefs, and mysterious stone carvings from different eras, "Starry Night," which was created two centuries ago, still occupies an extremely prominent corner, surpassing its predecessor.

"That incredibly realistic illusion just now... could it be the result of the corruption from the 'Starry Night'?"

That intense, indiscriminate, widespread pollution radiated outwards like a pollution source, and even with his current willpower and the depth of the pollution, despite being prepared, he was still affected.

Then, he noticed Mao Feiyang.

Mao Feiyang fell on the bluestone ground of the observatory, as if he had tripped when he stepped out of the gate, and then his whole body glided out with his face touching the ground, and finally fell there.

The observatory floor was paved with huge blue stones, the interlacing patterns of which seemed to contain some strange, mysterious fluctuations, like a series of ritualistic magic circles. Mao Feiyang, lying among them, looked like a sacrifice thrown into them.

The strangest thing was the fishy smell. On the way here, Lin Yi smelled a strong stench of rotten fish and shrimp, but he couldn't smell it here.

Seeing that Mao Feiyang did not respond for a long time, he couldn't help but call out, "Maozi, Maozi, are you alright?"

At this moment, Mao Feiyang's body twitched a few times, and then he slowly sat up, supporting himself with his hands on the ground.

"I feel dizzy..." Mao Feiyang shook his head, "It feels like someone took my soul out, shook it a few times, and then stuffed it back in..."

"Young Master Tian, ​​are you still there?"

Several seconds passed before Tian Bufan's voice finally rang out: "Here..."

The three remained united, and both Lin Yi and Mao Feiyang breathed a long sigh of relief.

"It was a false alarm, a false alarm..." Lin Yi quickly reassured him.

"Young Master Tian, ​​Maozi, I feel like I've just been corrupted by the 'Starry Night'..." Lin Yi quickly recounted what had happened to him.

Unexpectedly, Tian Bufan said, "I was also pulled into 'Starry Night,' and I think the Russians probably were too."

Mao Feiyang said, "The Trinity will definitely not contaminate you."

"Then..." Lin Yi asked in surprise, "How are you all feeling?"

Tian Bufan's voice rang out: "I casually looked up the approximate coordinates of the 'Principal's Office,' what about you?"

Mao Feiyang said, "We've looked too. Old Lin has the highest comprehension, so you should have realized it by now, right?"

"Uh, eh...emm..." Lin Yi was speechless for a moment. Just as he was about to put on a brave face, Tian Bufan interrupted him, "Alright, there's no need to force Old Lin to be included. The coordinates are still too unrealistic. We'll pinpoint them more precisely later."

"But speaking of which... it's amazing that such a fine, continuous rain is falling here..."

Tian Bufan squinted at the dome. Lin Yi, also looking at the continuous rain, exclaimed in surprise, "Is there any significance to this rain? I thought it was falling from the layers."

Tian Bufan then said, "The rain here is different; it must be seawater from the Black Sea."

"Theoretically speaking, regardless of whether it's a layer or not, rainwater shouldn't be able to get in..."

"However, judging from the erosion of this circular stone wall, such erosion does not seem to have occurred recently."

Lin Yi was a little confused. It seemed that the rain wouldn't have much of an impact on their actions.

But seeing Tian Bufan's serious and solemn expression, he swallowed his words.

The problem is definitely not simple.

Yes!

Lin Yi's eyes lit up. Rainwater naturally posed no threat to them, but if even rainwater could seep in, then... what about those other extraordinary creatures, those filthy things?
“What we really need to be wary of are the…dirty things that come with the rain?” he asked.

Tian Bufan nodded affirmatively: "The observatory is open-air. Although there is a transparent dome, as you can see, even rain cannot be blocked here."

"Some nocturnal creatures that feed on senses will come and ambush us while we're searching for the 'Principal's Office'."

“We have the bones of that guy in the well, so we won’t be exposed too soon, but it’s only a matter of time before we are.”

Lin Yi's expression hardened: "Then it seems we really need to hurry..."

He quickly opened his "Vision Insight" and released his sensory tentacles, letting them spread wildly across the observatory, rushing towards the location of "Starry Night".

However, a strange scene unfolded. As Lin Yi's sensory tentacles extended towards "Starry Night," the originally limited space of the observatory stretched infinitely. "Starry Night," which was once so close, was now far away in the sky!
"What's going on? Why can't I get close to 'Starry Night'... Could it also be hidden in some layer, and the murals on that circular stone wall are just a representation, not a concrete image?"

With his perception abilities, the harder he tried, the further he strayed from the location of "Starry Night"!

He thought that once he arrived at the observatory, he would be able to experience the "Starry Night".

Wasn't "Starry Night" supposed to be a mural painted on the observatory?

It should be accessible once you arrive, so how could this be?
No—"Starry Night" is indeed a mural, but it shouldn't be inaccessible!

Even more bizarrely, although he could not perceive "Starry Night" in terms of his senses, he could easily see it with his naked eye.

This closeness on a real level and the alienation on a layer level seem to create an indescribable sense of contrast and absurdity, as if Van Gogh, who was creating this painting, longed for people to see the mural, yet did not want to involve other people's perceptions.

If that's the case, he can understand. After all, it's a work by Van Gogh, and there should be some threshold to seeing it.

Tian Bufan replied, "There's no need to waste time. Our goal isn't the 'Starry Night' depicted on the stone wall."

"Huh?" Lin Yi was taken aback and couldn't quite process it for a moment.

Tian Bufan continued, "Our goal is to find the coordinates of the 'Principal's Office' hidden within 'The Starry Night,' not to analyze all the clues Van Gogh hid in 'The Starry Night.'"

Lin Yi suddenly realized.

Just like making a precision device, they only need to take out a complete part and use it, instead of starting from scratch and making it by hand.

The difficulty level increases exponentially between the two.

They don't need to waste this time.

"So what do we do now?" he asked quickly.

"Maozi, go over to the armillary sphere," Tian Bufan commanded.

"An armillary sphere?" Lin Yi was taken aback. "This armillary sphere is actually related to the 'Starry Night'?"

He was very surprised.

He had noticed that armillary sphere long ago.

He even noticed it when the will arrived last time.

Even more so, he wondered if this armillary sphere might have some wonderful use, but... he didn't connect it with "Starry Night" at all.

He then followed Mao Feiyang's movements and looked at the armillary sphere again.

The observatory is now empty, like a vacant open-air space, with nothing but an armillary sphere whose foundation is connected to the bluestone.

The armillary sphere was cast from bronze, a material that was actually quite rare in the "Black Moon Outpost." Given the "divine craftsman's" skill level, he could easily have chosen extraordinary materials that would not be easily corroded as the materials for forging the armillary sphere.

Of course, it is also possible that the "divine craftsman" originally chose that kind of material, but over the long years, the armillary sphere was still eroded.

Lin Yi had no idea about this.

However, in reality, this armillary sphere is now completely corroded. The copper rust covering its body appears dark green under the dim light. The closer you get, the clearer you can observe its intricate gear and ring structure inside, like something pieced together from countless dials in multiple dimensions.

This armillary sphere seems to be a time machine eroded by time...

Tian Bufan corrected him, "The logic is reversed, Lao Lin. It's not that the armillary sphere is related to the 'Starry Night,' but rather that the 'Starry Night' is related to the armillary sphere."

Regarding the era in which it was created, the armillary sphere existed as early as the construction period of the "Black Moon Outpost," but "The Starry Night" was created by Van Gogh in a mental hospital in Franz in the 19th century.

As Mao Feiyang walked toward the armillary sphere, Tian Bufan slowly said, "Isn't it strange that Vincent van Gogh, as one of the most outstanding figures in the history of art, did not leave behind any groundbreaking painting techniques?"

"In reality, it wasn't because he truly left nothing behind, but rather because what he left behind was a painting technique that is not easily mastered by ordinary people—'dimensional reduction and rewriting'."

(End of this chapter)