4 A Retelling of Painter Drew a Stiff Corpse

Liu Yixian climbed the ladder to the upper floor of the house. The corpse was arrayed before him as he entered. Yixian shivered. He had long since gotten used to drawing corpses, but it felt different to be drawing a painter like himself. The man’s son had even laid him out with the tools of the trade—brush in his right hand, paper in his left. Painting a painter made him uneasy, because this would eventually be him, cold and stiff but still unable to drop his brush.

But musing was not getting the portrait done any faster, and Yixian wanted to be out of this room. He sat beside the dead man’s bed and held his brush and paper steady, turning his head to get a good look at the corpse before starting to paint.

The corpse which had just sat up. Yixian froze. The corpse didn’t move, but held its unnatural pose.

A laugh bubbled up in his throat as he stared at the corpse.

He’s dead and he still has better posture than me, Yixian thought hysterically. Laughter kept coming, his chest hurt, but he didn’t move. He couldn’t. He knew what this thing, this upright corpse was. But it didn’t move.

Experimentally, Yixian waved a hand. Not towards it. Even sitting at its bedside was too close. Just a vague motion of his arm, sideways.

The corpse followed his movement, waving vaguely as well. It seemed almost to gesture, but Yixian dismissed the notion.

It still made no motion towards him.

It mirrored his movements. As long as he didn’t get up, it would not either. He was trapped, but safe. Yixian shifted uncomfortably, and the paper he had been holding rustled in his hand.

There was nothing else to do. If he had studied more religion, he could have painted spells, driven it off. But he had studied painting. He raised his brush to begin the funeral portrait. The corpse raised its brush, the brush that a loving son had placed in its hand. Yixian flinched, images of the wood colliding with his head running through his mind, but other than a shudder that mirrored his own, the corpse did not move, brush still raised to paint. Yixian began to paint. The portrait was rough, nowhere near his best. His hands were shaking in fear, and painting the man that his family wanted to remember instead of the corpse that was returning his gaze took far more effort than painting a still subject. But more distracting was the motions of the corpse, as it too painted its own portrait, following Yixian’s movements.

But not exactly. The motions of the corpse were jerky, rough, the body not fully under the control of what inhabited it. But there was more than that.

Yixian had studied the motions of painting so long that it came as second nature to him, without thought. But somewhere, out of his past, he heard a voice reminding him. Any variation in motion created a different line. Elbow and shoulder were for broad, flowing strokes, wrists and fingers for finer detail. A variation in pressure could mean the difference between a clean stroke and a crude blot, but also between a heavy line and a thin one.

As Yixian painted, he watched the corpse. He watched because it was his subject, out of fear that it would suddenly lunge at him, but also with the observation and curiosity that had made him pursue art so long ago.

The corpse was painting. It had the instruments, laid out for the funeral in its hands, and it copied Yixian’s motions, but not quite.

The corpse was painting with intent. It followed Yixian’s movements, jerkily, awkwardly, but with the skill and attention of the artist it had once been, the corpse was painting something different.

Yixian’s shoulder, elbow, wrist, and fingers moved. The corpse’s shoulder, elbow, and wrist followed. The fingers moved, but out of turn, on their own course, just for a moment before falling back into the pattern dictated by Yixian’s brushstrokes.

Yixian painted, peering at the paper in the corpse’s hands. He had sat in such a way that he could not see what the corpse was painting, only observe its brushstrokes. It couldn’t—Yixian heard a noise and almost ruined his portrait by flinching again, before realizing the corpse hadn’t moved. The noise was coming from the ground floor. The door had opened and shut.

The corpse followed his movements. Would it attack him if he shouted? He tried to remember the ghost stories he had heard.

He called for help. Two pairs of footsteps responded, running to his aid. Yixian breathed a sigh of relief. He turned to look at the top of the ladder leading to this room, suddenly impatient to escape this strange purgatory.

The ever-filial son was the first of the two to ascend, concerned for his father. He rushed up, then stopped in surprise at the scene before him. A look of terror spread across his face as he stood, frozen. The other man, a servant hired to help with the funeral proceedings, reached the top just as he collapsed.

The servant caught the son, laying him carefully on the floor, then straightened up to see what had caused Yixian to cry for help. He too froze, the same look of terror on his face. He too collapsed.

Yixian stared. He was still in a room with a moving corpse. He was still trapped. He was suddenly furious. He had stayed in this room for far longer than they had! What right did they have to collapse? He had been through far worse! He tightened his fists, unwilling to move more than that, unwilling to disturb the corpse.

Paper again rustled under his clenched hand. Yixian looked again at the corpse. At the paper it held. The paper that he could not see, but which was positioned so that anyone coming into the room could.

The corpse had to be drawing a portrait. The large, sweeping movements that Yixian had used to outline the figure had been faithfully repeated. The corpse had made only minor alterations.

What, Yixian reflected, would he create as his last message to the world if he could? If he had one chance to express himself before moving on to the next world? What would he paint, if that one last message had to be encoded within a self portrait?

What had the corpse painted, that it could cause two grown men to collapse in terror? Yixian had continued to paint, mostly out of habit, and his portrait was nearly done. He turned it slightly, to get better light and check his work.

The corpse turned its painting slightly towards him. He turned his own painting a little more, and the corpse followed his motion. Just a little more, and Yixian would be able to see what the corpse had painted.

The door opened and shut again. Yixian stopped. He could look at the portrait when the corpse had stopped moving. He considered his words carefully. If he called for help, this unknown savior would collapse like the last two. He had to think.

Brooms. He had heard some story that the undead feared brooms. And the request was innocuous enough that his rescuer wouldn’t rush to his aid and look at the portrait. In a strained but calm voice, Yixian requested a broom.

Yet again, he heard footsteps coming up the ladder. As his rescuer ascended, the corpse suddenly jerked up, repelled by the broom, before falling back, inanimate. As Yixian got up, portrait in hand, he saw that the corpse had knocked over the ink, which had spilled over the paper. The image was smeared and stained beyond recognition. Ink dripped off the paper, and the drops sounded like blood as they fell.