The Shepherds Are Dense – Chapter 1017

Chapter 1016
“The Author Is Dead”
Before reaching the Mirror Hall, Eivass knew he would encounter wild Phantom Demons.
After all, this area almost completely covered the domain of The Path of Beauty. With the direct influence of an entire Pillar God and two Heavenly Envoys, and connected to the thoughts and subconscious of all art creators in the Material Realm… it was impossible for there not to be something strange here.
Artists, to some extent, are a bit mad.
Being too mentally normal and stable is actually detrimental to continuous creation—as the idiom “writings express the author’s suffering” broadly suggests.
“—But even so, these things are too damn weird!”
Eivass blurted out as he walked briskly. Arsen nodded repeatedly, strongly agreeing.
The first few rooms were familiar territory for Eivass. He was too familiar with them, even knowing where the hidden paths were when he traversed them. If necessary, even if his movement speed was certainly not as fast as Arsen’s, the phantom thief, Eivass was still confident he could easily shake him off.
However, after following the related recommendation of “The viewers watching this painting are also watching” for four rooms, he finally entered rooms Eivass had never visited in his past life, and Eivass’s “map traversal speed” noticeably slowed down.
Because to understand a painting, one cannot simply look at the image but must also analyze its inner meaning.
For example, a burning Holy Candle Chapel was certainly not as simple as “there was a fire here”; and if one saw people sitting in a small boat, it might not be a group out for a picnic, but rather they had just escaped from a shipwreck.
Seeing two armies clashing might mean the painting depicted the brutality of war; but if one could recognize that both armies actually belonged to the same country, and it was a misunderstanding or rebellion that should not have happened, then the painting would contain a degree of satire and criticism.
—If Isabel were here, it might be much better.
But Eivass’s artistic cultivation was truly insufficient.
Although Eivass could speak eloquently when he first met the camera spirit, that was actually the correct answer given by Janis in the future. Eivass was merely copying answers; he had seen very few paintings himself, let alone analyzed their inner meanings or found connections.
Fortunately, this was not entirely “paintings,” but videos, or even a game—every part of this painted world was explorable. The “NPCs” coming and going, ignoring them, were all available for conversation.
In this way, even without knowing the meaning here, one could roughly understand the meaning and rules.
There was just one point…
If one stayed in the same space for too long, the “NPCs” within would turn into monsters.
Because when a painting is not observed or appreciated by anyone, it is just a painting. But if this painting is being observed, investigated, or studied… then it becomes an information collective where meaning is flowing and decompressing.
—This is the so-called “author is dead.” And this is the core concept that constitutes the Mirror Hall.
When a work is completely created, the author loses the right to interpret it. A modern artwork cannot be entirely original; it must be built upon some established culture or cultures, drawing nourishment from them.
Just like the painting “The Holy Candle Chapel Destroyed,” to understand its meaning, one must understand the Church of the Nine Pillar Gods, the Candlemaster, the relationship between the Iris people and the Church, the political status of the Grand Chapel, the existence of the Child of the Moon, and how the Iris people view the relationship between the Church and the Child of the Moon… only then can it be fully understood. And these “prerequisites” are the cultural foundation upon which this painting was born.
Therefore, in other words, because of the different cultural backgrounds, life experiences, races, ages, and standpoints of their respective interpreters, their interpretations of the same artwork would naturally be, and inevitably be, different. So, who would be the “absolutely correct interpreter”?
The author is naturally the most qualified to be one. But the least likely is the author—because even the author, after creating the artwork, undergoes changes themselves and becomes significantly different from before the creation. It is like how one cannot step into the same river twice.
Similarly, it cannot belong to anyone. Thus, from another perspective, it can belong to everyone.
Therefore, all art interpreters are actually reconstituting the work using their own lives, culture, knowledge, insights, emotions, and interests, thus giving birth to a new dungeon that is independent of the original.
In this process, the interpreter of beauty is that mirror!
Some mirrors are perfect, some are flawed; some are clean, some are dirty. Some mirrors have a misty haze, some are just polished metal, and some are even distorted funhouse mirrors. They reflect different images of the same real object… just as interpreters give different understandings of the same artwork.
When any “outsider” not belonging to this painting stays in this space for too long, distortions will begin to occur.
But although some “monsters” appeared, it was not that these “NPCs” transformed into Phantom Demons—to be precise, these spaces themselves were a kind of Phantom Demon. And the individuals within were merely a part of this artwork. They were not individuals with independent souls, but rather the hands and feet, the eyes and mouths of this painting.
Now, “this painting” has put on a different expression to look at you, thus giving birth to a type of phantom monster called “Art Spirit.”
—The first Phantom Demons that Eivass and his group encountered were the guests fighting at a court funeral.
They were already outwardly harmonious but inwardly discordant, and after Eivass and his group stayed too long, they seemed to finally lose patience and started fighting—
Perhaps because of Eivass and Arsen’s understanding, these Iris nobles and ministers suddenly began to fight at the funeral. It even affected them.
But fortunately, the Phantom Demons at this stage were still relatively easy to deal with. Without Eivass and Viness needing to act, they were easily eliminated by Arsen.
The second wave of Phantom Demons turned into a fairy-tale-style court. The soldiers wearing playing card armor began to chase them after they investigated for too long. At this stage, Arsen’s strength was clearly insufficient, forcing Eivass to intervene.
In the third wave, they appeared in a manor mansion.
The guests were feasting and drinking with their own hidden agendas, while outside a storm raged. Before Eivass could investigate, they suddenly turned into a group of Child of the Moons, overturned the tables, and attacked them—this was undoubtedly the subconscious influence of Viness.
When she thought things would develop this way, that is precisely how events unfolded.
Mind-reading becomes reality!
The strength of these Child of the Moons was further enhanced compared to before; each of them had almost the strength of a first-generation Red Phase—this was naturally impossible. If they were truly that strong, the Iris would have fallen long ago. However, the strongest Child of the Moon in Viness’s memory was around this level, and when she doubted, they gained power from the Mirror Hall and manifested.
—From the fourth wave onwards, the situation began to become bizarre.
Besides the artwork itself transforming into Phantom Demons due to this uncontrolled “mind-reading becomes reality,” there were even external Phantom Demons that had infiltrated out of curiosity.
The awakened candy house turned into a man-eating giant beast, ghosts emerging from a dilapidated castle, a pianist playing a flesh and blood piano, a swordsman in ancient Chinese style disguised as a flute player with a sword at his waist, a solo chorus’s high-pitched part with one male and two female heads, a skeleton drummer with four arms, a Lizardman diligently playing a guitar that spewed fire, a fairy singer no larger than a butterfly, a perverted painter using a sword as a brush and a human body as canvas, a conductor without a head, and a rock band of three ordinary-looking individuals whose art style was completely different from everyone else’s…
The more they ran, the more people appeared.
Eivass even suspected that half of the Phantom Demons in The Path of Beauty had gathered here!
(End of Chapter)