Painter

The Painter is the first student of the School of the Afterlife and a Top Red Specter whose art can take memories, abilities, and identities from its subjects. Although he wears the appearance of the living Fan Yu, the two are distinct people. His attempt to turn the school into a painless painted heaven makes him both a protector and a jailer, and its failure sends him in search of a larger canvas.

Biography

The first student and his painted heaven

Number One is remembered as the School of the Afterlife’s first student and one of the principal reasons the institution assumes its later form. He adopts Fan Yu’s face, gathers the approval of many abandoned students, and builds two interlocking campuses from their memories. Through that construction he becomes the school consciousness’s leading spokesperson, even though the consciousness itself—not the Painter—remains the true owner of the door. (Chapters 826–832, 861–883)

His project begins with a recognizable motive: he wants to create a home for people who have nowhere to return to. The method turns protection into control. Students live inside scripts and reconstructed memories, while pain that does not fit the promised heaven is removed, buried, or transformed into material for the world. The result consoles some children but also prevents them from confronting the lives and choices that made them individuals. (Chapters 829–832, 861–890)

The thirteen human-skin paintings and their associated Red Specters extend that authority throughout the school. Creations such as Lin Sisi, Zhou Tu, and the blindfolded man enforce his arrangements, while the Painter studies the school’s despair as both subject and paint. His calm conviction makes compromise unlikely: he treats the campus as an unfinished work whose inhabitants can be revised whenever their actions threaten the whole composition. (Chapters 826–845, 879–885)

Succession, collapse, and departure

Chang Wenyu rejects the painted paradise and tries to destroy the movable door rather than let the Painter become its next pusher. Her attack cracks the memory mirror, exposes the two campuses to the red city, and releases sins that the Painter had hidden. As a Top Red Specter, he answers by using the school consciousness, his canvas, and the approval of half the students to fight Chang Wenyu and the intruder concealed in the blood fog. (Chapters 883–891)

The battle forces him to undo part of his own design. He destroys his reflected body in the lake and returns stolen memories to the students, turning their recollections into rain that lets him see through the battlefield. His painting ability defeats Kindness and cripples Evil, but each use demands a sacrifice and only a few subjects can be painted in quick succession. He therefore cannot simply redraw every rival threatening the school. (Chapters 888–898)

When Zhang Ya awakens, the school consciousness recoils from her and the Painter gives up its power rather than be overwhelmed with it. The same heart that recognizes Fan Yu through Chen Ge keeps him from killing Chen, despite their opposing plans. He abandons the struggle for stewardship, takes willing followers into the red city, and leaves the gentler old headmaster to guide the students who remain. (Chapters 902–908)

Painting the Cursed Hospital director

Long after the school battle, Chen Ge finds the Painter’s unfinished picture of himself sitting beside Fan Yu and uses it while preparing to seek his aid. During the assault on the Cursed Hospital, Bai Qiulin carries the broken painting through a blood door and the Painter answers. He arrives with a new human-skin canvas, stronger and more frightening than before, and immediately accepts the hospital director as his next subject. (Chapters 1156–1157, 1198–1199)

Completing the director’s likeness strips away a portion of the enemy’s power and helps free Zhang Ya from his grasp. The feat gives the allied Red Specters time to defend the door and lets Doctor Gao continue breaking the hospital’s defenses. The Painter can then hold back other high-level enemies and join the final attack, but his greater force is never accompanied by an explicit, completed promotion beyond his confirmed Top Red Specter rank. (Chapters 1199–1205)

After the director falls, the Painter does not settle at the restored school or the House of Horrors. He takes the unfinished portrait, asks Chen Ge to care for Fan Yu in the living world, and leads his followers deeper into the black fog. His old ideal survives in altered form: instead of imposing one heaven on the school, he intends to attempt a paradise on a new canvas beyond its door. (Chapters 1205–1209)

Appearance and personality

The Painter has a pale young face closely resembling Fan Yu’s, but his posture and presence make the distinction immediate. His dark eyes are compared to a night sky, and in battle the pupils can turn completely black. Blood covers his fingers, black arms and vessels emerge from his wounds, and he habitually carries a foul-smelling human-skin canvas that makes his artistry visibly inseparable from death. (Chapters 883, 887–891, 1198–1199)

He is quiet, exacting, and emotionally remote. Even while his campuses collapse, he studies the destruction as a painter confronting a ruined work and speaks with unnerving calm. He does not fit conventional good or evil: he shelters rejected students yet edits their memories, kills for his composition, and later honors a fragile connection to Fan Yu. His final request reveals concern without changing his austere manner. (Chapters 829–832, 884–904, 1156, 1209)

Skills and supernatural abilities

Human-skin painting

The Painter can render a person or ghost onto human skin and impose the finished painting on the subject. Successful use can deprive the target of power, identity, or other essential qualities, as shown when painted Specters become controlled works and the Cursed Hospital director loses strength after his outline is completed. The ability is especially dangerous because its effect can bypass a straightforward contest of physical force. (Chapters 826–829, 888–891, 1198–1201)

The technique has severe conditions. He must see or otherwise fix the intended subject well enough to paint it, a completed use exacts a personal sacrifice, and he can perform only a small number of major paintings within a short period. Concealment, fog, misdirection, and interruption can therefore waste or prevent a use. At the hospital, surprise and allied protection are crucial while he completes the director’s image. (Chapters 888–901, 1198–1202)

Painted worlds, memories, and creations

Using the school’s collected memories, the Painter constructs mirrored campuses and populates them with scripted versions of students. He can take memories, hide suffering, return recollections as rain, and use every drop as an observing eye. His authority also supports painted Red Specters and lets him reach through the memory mirror, making the school itself function as a vast canvas while its consciousness approves of him. (Chapters 826–832, 883–891)

That scale depends on place and consent. His strongest school-era control comes from the approval of roughly half the students and the consciousness behind the door; when that approval fractures, the campuses blur and his position weakens. Restoring stolen memories also undermines the painless world he created. His creations can follow him willingly, but they are not proof that he can permanently rewrite any community without resistance. (Chapters 885–904)

Combat and spectral resilience

Beyond painting, the Painter can channel negative emotion through his body, manifest black arms and blood vessels, move through mirrors, and endure attacks from other Top Red Specters. He uses himself as a conduit to force the school’s accumulated sin into Evil, then continues fighting after his arm and body are badly damaged. Within the school, memory rain and reflected surfaces expand his sight and reach. (Chapters 887–898)

His later state is powerful enough to contest the Cursed Hospital’s highest combatants for limited periods, especially while school Red Specters protect him. He is still vulnerable to curses and mass attacks: Patient Number Five’s detonation injures him along with the other top combatants, and stronger opponents can hold him away from his preferred target. His art remains the decisive advantage, not limitless durability. (Chapters 1199–1205)

Power progression

Relationships

• Fan Yu: The living child whose appearance the Painter copies. He regards Fan Yu as his self outside the door, preserves an impossible picture of the two together, and asks Chen Ge to protect him. They remain distinct individuals. (Chapters 861–904, 1156–1157, 1209)
• Chen Ge: Initially a rival claimant whose plans threaten the painted school. The Painter’s connection to Fan Yu keeps him from killing Chen, and he later answers Chen’s call to help destroy the Cursed Hospital. (Chapters 883–908, 1156–1205)
• Chang Wenyu: His ideological and political opposite. She seeks escape and the door’s destruction; he tries to preserve a world behind it, making their conflict the trigger for the school’s collapse. (Chapters 829–832, 883–904)
• Lin Sisi: A painted follower who protects the dormitories, fights for the Painter’s succession, and leaves the school with him after he changes canvases. (Chapters 885–905)
• Zhou Tu: One of the thirteen painters and a creation caught between the Painter and Chang Wenyu. After recovering his memories, Zhou Tu ultimately follows the Painter out of the school. (Chapters 826–832, 905)

Items

• Human-skin canvas: The medium for the Painter’s defining power. He uses successive canvases to capture subjects, appropriate power, and impose a finished image on an enemy. (Chapters 826–904, 1198–1205)
• Thirteen human-skin oil paintings: Works tied to the school’s painters, deaths, and Red Specter creations; their transformation announces the struggle over the campus. (Chapters 826–829)
• Unfinished portrait: A picture of the Painter and Fan Yu sitting together under the sun. It survives when his other school paintings turn to ash and later accompanies him into the black fog. (Chapters 1156, 1198, 1209)