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SummaryElara, now fully aware of the portrait's sentient nature, finds her new "companion" is a cruel critic. The painting responds to her daily failures and humiliations with increasingly sarcastic and mocking grins, feeding on her frustration. After a particularly devastating professional rejection—losing a client's heirloom to Julian's new gallery—Elara confronts the portrait, which now wears a look of triumphant hilarity. In a moment of rage, she screams at it, and the painting's expression shifts instantly to one of cold, dark approval, revealing its true desire: not her misery, but her anger.The Laughing Portrait: Chapter 2The Sarcastic GrinThe portrait, which Elara