Escape From the Library

【Phantom in the painting-02】

Yue Xingwen pressed the course selection button, and after a few minutes of countdown, 13 people were collectively sent to the examination room.

The environment of the examination room this time was at night, with a bright moon hanging high in the sky. Through the moonlight, you could see a strangely shaped building in front of you, a bit like a European castle in a Western fantasy movie.

Zhang Xiaonian took a closer look at the building and said, "This is a typical Gothic style, with a thin shape and a towering tip, which symbolizes that people can get closer to heaven."

As soon as the words fell, a group of crows suddenly flew by. In the silent night, the piercing quacking of the crows startled everyone.The shadows cast by the branches on the ground are swaying with teeth and claws, like shaking ghosts.

Ke Shaobin hurriedly took a step back, rubbed the goosebumps on his arms, and said in a low voice, "This environment is too gloomy. Why do I feel like we have stepped into a vampire movie and come to a vampire castle?"

Jiang Pingce said calmly, "Go in and have a look."

Everyone followed Jiang Pingce and Yue Xingwen to the castle.

There is a garden at the gate of the castle, which is full of roses, but the strange thing is that these roses are all black.Yue Xingwen thought it was because the light was too dark, so he turned to look at Xin Yan: "Xin Yan, borrow a light."

Xin Yan summoned a string of alcohol lamps to surround the surroundings. Yue Xingwen took a closer look and asked doubtfully, "Is it really a black rose?"

Lan Yarong said: "The roses sold in the market are usually red, white, pink and yellow. Is there any particularity about black roses?"

Qin Miao said calmly: "The flower language of the black rose is - you are a devil, and you belong to me."

Everyone was silent for a moment, feeling a chill down their backs.

Most of the roses in the flower bed have already bloomed, and the layers of black petals look very strange under the moonlight. Yue Xingwen leaned over to observe for a while, but found nothing special, and the arrangement of the rose flower bed is not regular. He said: " This class may be a survival class or a reasoning class, everyone should be careful after entering, and don't touch anything in the castle."

The students nodded in unison, and carefully pushed open the gate of the castle.

The interior of the castle is luxuriously decorated. You can see it through Xin Yan's alcohol lamp. The hall on the first floor is a vaulted structure with a floor height of more than 5 meters. It is very grand. There is a spiral staircase leading to the second floor.

There are European-style sofas and coffee tables in the hall, and several paintings are hung on the surrounding walls.

Seeing the hanging paintings, Yue Xingwen immediately became vigilant: "Since this course is called "Phantom in Painting", we must pay special attention to the decorative paintings on the walls, they may be important clues."

Lin Manluo said, "Let Feixue go and have a look."

Xu Feixue nodded, and walked to the front of the painting with everyone.

The content of the first painting is a blackboard. On the blackboard, white lines are used to paint 6 rows of extremely messy circles. It looks like dense mosquito coils connected together.

Yue Xingwen looked confused: "What does this mean?"

Xu Feixue said: "This painting is a representative work of abstraction. It is called "Blackboard" and the author is Selttenberry. There is an allusion to the birth of this painting. It is said that the author sat on his friend's shoulder and let him shake his body freely. , he writes randomly on the canvas, so the drawn lines are so messy."

Everyone: "..."

This painter is also quite individual, and he still paints like this!

Liu Zhaoqing couldn't help complaining: "Abstractism is indeed very abstract. To me, this painting looks like something a kindergarten kid scribbled. I don't understand what he wants to express."

Xu Feixue said with a smile: "Abstract art is indeed like this. Out of 1000 people, 990 people can't understand it, and the remaining 10 people can see different meanings. The main reason why abstract art style is popular in the painting world is that these paintings are full of imagination. Don't look at this "Blackboard" like a child scribbling with chalk, but its price is tens of millions of dollars."

Ke Shaobin opened his mouth wide: "Just scribbling on this blackboard? Can it be sold for hundreds of millions of RMB?"

He has obviously been refreshed.What will refresh the Three Views is yet to come.

Xu Feixue pointed to the second painting and said, "This one is called "Exchange". It is also a representative work of abstract surrealism, and the price is as high as several hundred million dollars."

I saw a large number of messy color blocks spliced ​​together in the painting, white, orange, blue, green, black, irregular in shape, like a painting made by cutting a pile of rags, I couldn't understand what it meant.

Yue Xingwen helped his forehead helplessly: "No wonder the course information said that abstract paintings are difficult to describe—it really is too abstract, and I can't understand it at all."

Xu Feixue walked in front of the third painting, and everyone could only see four simple black lines drawn on the pure white background, which looked a bit like the profile of a person at first glance, but looked nothing like it at a closer look.

Xu Feixue said: "This painting is called "Dream", a masterpiece of minimalist abstraction."

Ke Shaobin was very curious: "Draw four lines on white paper, how much can you sell for?"

Xu Feixue said: "About 1-2 million US dollars?" Ke Shaobin: "..."

The last painting, a solid red canvas with a vertical white line in the middle.If it wasn't for Xu Feixue's introduction, everyone wouldn't even think it was a "painting". It looked like a picture made by a computer, and it was an extremely lazy drawing.

Xu Feixue said: "This painting is called "Anna's Light". The straight lines in the middle and the red background were drawn by the author himself, without the aid of rulers and other tools. This painting is also priceless and can be sold for hundreds of millions of dollars."

Ke Shaobin gave a thumbs up: "It's amazing, the world of art is really too profound to appreciate."

Jiang Pingce said calmly: "These paintings are expensive, firstly because they are old and have collection value; secondly, their authors are very famous, and they were all masters of a certain genre at that time. It is understandable that the posthumous works are expensive. .”

Yue Xingwen nodded and said: "That's right, the posthumous works of our Chinese painting masters can also be auctioned for sky-high prices. The key lies in the value of collection. The few abstract paintings we saw are definitely not genuine."

Xu Feixue turned around in surprise: "Xingwen, can you tell the real thing from the fake?"

Yue Xingwen smiled and said: "I can't tell. I only know that the owner of this castle cannot collect so many famous paintings of great value at the same time. Not to mention that a single painting is worth hundreds of millions. These paintings belong to the collection of cultural relics. It’s not something money can buy.”

It turned out that he judged from the price that these were imitations.

Xu Feixue nodded in agreement: "It makes sense, these paintings should be copied works, hanging here, it is likely to be a clue item. What do they represent?"

The content of the abstract paintings is really incomprehensible, even Xu Feixue from the Fine Arts Department can hardly describe the meaning of these abstract paintings, even when the authors draw by themselves, they are full of wild thoughts and free strokes, it is difficult to say what they want to express.

Then, the name of the painting becomes the key.

Jiang Pingce said calmly: "First write down the names of the four paintings, there should be some logical relationship among them."

Ke Shaobin read it in a low voice: "The blackboard, the exchange, the dream, and Anna's light, why do I feel like a story line? The blackboard is usually related to the school, right? But here is an old castle, too strange."

The entire castle was empty.The moonlight streamed in through the arched windows, and occasionally crows flew past the windows. The atmosphere was extremely gloomy, and I always felt that some ghosts and ghosts would rush to attack them at any time.

Lin Manluo had a hairy back, and she said, "Should we all split up and look for clues?"

Yue Xingwen nodded: "Well, let's divide into three groups."

Yue Xingwen and Jiang Pingce took Xu Feixue, Ke Shaobin, and Xin Yan to the bedroom next to the living room. The four girls went to the bathroom in groups, and the rest went to the kitchen.

The bedroom on the first floor should be used by the nanny. The layout is very simple. There is an independent bathroom. There is also a workshop next to the bathroom. There are mops, brooms and other cleaning tools in it, and there is a door leading directly to the kitchen.

There was nothing special about the nanny room. Yue Xingwen quit and asked his teammates, "Have you noticed anything?"

The girl group quickly reported: "There are no special clues in the bathroom or utility room."

At this moment, Liu Zhaoqing's voice came from the kitchen: "The refrigerator is empty, and it looks like it hasn't been used for a long time. There are no traces of cooking left on the kitchen stove - this castle is very strange, like No one lives there?"

Ke Shaobin was also puzzled: "There is no clothes in the closet in the nanny's room. It feels like this family has moved to another place long ago, leaving only an empty shell?"

Jiang Pingce said: "Don't draw conclusions lightly, we haven't finished searching here yet."

Yue Xingwen agreed: "Yes, there is nothing in the refrigerator and kitchen, which only means that this family does not eat here. Let's search the whole castle first."

At this moment, Xin Yan suddenly whispered, "Look here."

Everyone followed the sound, and saw Xin Yan squatting next to the carpet in the living room, holding an alcohol lamp to illuminate the area around the edge of the carpet. Following his gaze, there seemed to be a pool of dark red liquid traces on the carpet.Liu Zhaoqing walked over quickly, squatted down and observed carefully for a moment, and said, "It should be blood."

Xin Yan said, "Has there been a murder case in this ancient castle?"

Yue Xingwen was silent for a moment, and said: "It seems that we were teleported to the scene of the murder. The murderer must have escaped long ago. Where is the body? Was it taken away by him, or was it hidden in this old castle?"

Liu Zhaoqing asked: "After you came in, did you smell the rotten smell of the corpse?"

Everyone shook their heads: "No!"

There is no bloody or rancid smell in the castle, but because the garden outside is full of roses and the windows are open, the fragrance of roses can always be smelled in the nose.

Liu Zhaoqing analyzed: "The temperature here is not low. If the corpse is left at the scene of the crime, it will rot and stink for more than a day. There are three ways to prevent the stink of the corpse. One is to freeze it in the refrigerator, but the refrigerator is empty; The second is to seal it into the cement wall, this method has appeared once on the construction site of the School of Architecture, so it should not happen again, right?"

He paused, and said, "The third is to bury it underground."

Hearing this sentence, Yue Xingwen immediately turned his head and looked out the window.

Under the cold moonlight, in the large rose garden, black roses are competing to bloom, as if they have absorbed enough nutrients.He fixed his eyes and said in a low voice, "Rose Garden."

Jiang Pingce immediately said, "Go dig it up and have a look."

Several people jumped out of the window, Zhang Xiaonian summoned the excavator, and carefully started digging the ground.After a while, the excavator seemed to touch something hard, Zhang Xiaonian immediately slowed down and said, "There is something underground."

Yue Xingwen reminded: "Be careful, don't break it."

Zhang Xiaonian changed the direction and started digging from the surroundings, and soon a big hole was dug out.

I saw three complete human bones appearing in the pit.

The dense white bones glowed coldly under the moonlight, and the three skulls were facing the direction where everyone was standing.