The laughter from the woman in the painting was extremely harsh, and Liu Zhaoqing was not afraid of gods and ghosts, but this strange laughter drilled straight into his head like an electric drill, so noisy that he almost couldn’t think.
Xu Yishen covered his ears and frowned, “What’s the situation? Where are Xingwen and the others?”
Qin Miao said, “This painting is not right. You see, the woman in the painting is not the same as the Mona Lisa we saw at the beginning. Since this course is called <Illusion in the Painting>, could it be that we have come to an illusion space?”
The name of the course and the changes in the paintings were very connected to illusion. After all, it was impossible for the characters in the real-world paintings to smile and make strange laughter.
Qin Lu said, “Sister, you mean that we were pulled into the illusion space, so we were disconnected from Xingwen’s group?”
Zhuo Feng thought carefully and said, “Either we leave here and return to the original castle to find Xingwen; Or, Xingwen and the others come to this space as well. Otherwise, our two groups will be spatially separated and won’t be able to contact each other until the end of the exam. In which case the clues we find out and the clues they find out can’t be summarized, and the results of reasoning will be inaccurate.”
Lin Manluo nodded and said, “Maybe this is the biggest difficulty of the course? Because of the existence of the illusion in the painting, will the clues be scattered among different illusions and need to be collected separately?”
The six people looked at each other, and Qin Lu rubbed her forehead and said, “But Xu Feixue is not in our group. What if strange abstract paintings appear again and we can’t understand them?”
Liu Zhaoqing said, “Let’s take a step by step, let us see the situation of this painting first.”
There was still strange laughter around, but Liu Zhaoqing was not afraid at all. He leaned in front of the painting <Mona Lisa> and stared sharply at the woman in the painting. The corners of the mouth of the person in the painting were rising more and more, and it actually went all the way up to the corner of the eye area, and then, the lower half of her face suddenly turned into a bloody bowl of mouth, like a man-eating monster!
Xu Yishen was so shocked that he took a step back, and Liu Zhaoqing cursed in a low voice, and quickly retreated.
But the woman in the painting didn’t come out of the painting.
Everyone was on guard, and Liu Zhaoqing raised his right hand and summoned a sharp scalpel that could be shot out at any time.
The laughter that made people’s spine tingle continued to sound in the dark castle, as if entering a ghost movie set.
After a moment, Qin Lu calmly said, “Scare people, she isn’t going to attack us.”
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Qin Lu hesitated for a moment and said, “What should we do next? Continue to look for clues, or do we look for Xingwen first?”
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Zhuo Feng hated dragging his feet when it came to things. The current situation was bizarre in every way, and if they panicked and went around looking for Yue Xingwen, they would probably miss out on some key information instead.
Liu Zhaoqing nodded in agreement. “Okay, continue searching the other rooms.” He looked back at Xu Yishen and said, “Yishen, you just entered that room with a mitosis, did you see anything?”
Xu Yishen said, “There seems to be a painting on the wall, but I didn’t see it clearly. Finding that Xingwen and the others were not in the room, I was worried that the situation was wrong and immediately withdrew.”
“Painting?” Zhuo Feng paused and said, “Let’s go and see it.”
A group of six people entered the room and found it to be a drawing room.
In the middle of the drawing room, there was a large white canvas, next to it were trays of richly colored paints and a brush. On the walls hung three paintings, all of which were oil paintings if they looked by the style.
In the first painting, there was a woman wearing a veil, the woman’s hair was pulled into a bun behind her head, and she was wearing a silver hairpin and beige veil on her hair and a jewel necklace was worn around her neck. The beige dress she wore was very delicate, she looked rich, elegant and beautiful.
In the second painting, the style was completely different from the first. If the first was a realistic portrait, the second one paid more attention to the expression of artistic conception, a mother and son playing on the grass, blue sky, white clouds, green grass, flowers, fresh and bright scenery made people feel pleasant. The woman held a parasol, and a little boy stood next to her, and the whole picture looked vivid, both mother and son were surrounded by warm sunlight.
The woman in the third painting had a completely different style from the previous two, her facial features were three-dimensional, her hair was neatly attached on her head, she was wearing a colorful dress, a long black necklace around her neck, and she was holding a small animal in her arms.
Liu Zhaoqing touched his chin and walked to the painting and asked, “What kind of animal is this?”
Xu Yishen took a closer look and said, “It should be a ermine, a kind of mouse, which is different from the mice we use for experiments in the laboratory of the Faculty of Biological Science, which can be kept as a pet. This painting uses an exaggerated drawing method, real-life ermines aren’t that big.”
Liu Zhaoqing was puzzled, “What do these three paintings mean?”
Others were also at a loss.
Zhuo Feng speculated, “The second painting, the mother and son in the sunlight, is it the madam of this house and her son? The first girl in a veil looks very young, a bit like a wedding photo; The third… I don’t understand.”
Qin Lu said, “I think these three paintings should be the works of three painters, and the styles are very different. The first is realistic, much like a portrait sketch; The second is bright, kind of like a cartoon; The third picture has a dark and yellowish in tone. By the way, this third painting is a bit similar to the <Mona Lisa> hanging in the entrance?”
Qin Miao said calmly, “Perhaps, this painting is also the work of Leonardo da Vinci, and the style is indeed similar.”
Qin Lu said, “What is the connection between the paintings we found in the study next door and these paintings?”
Xu Yishen touched his chin thoughtfully. “I know the painting in the next room, it’s Van Gogh’s classic <Sunflowers>, maybe we can associate it with the black rose in the garden. What is the flower language of black roses?”
He turned his head to look at Qin Miao, who reported the meaning of the flower language at that time, and the latter said calmly, “The black roses symbolize paranoid love, you are a demon and you are mine.”
Xu Yishen nodded. “Is Qin Miao very knowledgeable about flowers? Do you know what the sunflower means?”
Qin Miao said, “Sunflowers can also be given to a crush to represent ‘you are the center of my heart’ or ‘my eyes have always followed you’, that kind of love.”
Qin Lu said, “Sister, sunflowers and black roses can both represent love, but the love of the former is more sunny and upright, and the love of the latter sounds a little twisted and paranoid?”
Qin Miao nodded. “If these two flowers are related to the murder case, it is possible to say so. Moreover, the garden outside is not necessarily full of black roses at the beginning, and I think it’s rare for normal people to have gardens full of black roses in front of their homes.”
Xu Yishen said, “So, it’s possible that sunflowers were planted in the garden at the beginning, and then the murderer killed people and buried the bodies in the garden before planting black roses?”
Upon hearing this, everyone looked at each other.
Zhuo Feng frowned and said, “There is another problem, when we are not separated yet on the 1st floor, the abstract paintings that everyone saw were the same. We lost contact with them after we separated the groups, and we don’t know if the paintings we saw in the two rooms were the same as what Xingwen and the others saw? If it’s different, won’t you have to combine all the clues in order to reason?”
Lin Manluo nodded. “That’s right. Since we can’t find Xingwen in this dimension, what we see is likely inconsistent with what Xingwen sees. We have to find a way to meet up with them as soon as possible.”
When several people were discussing, the strange laughter in the castle kept ringing.
Zhuo Feng frowned and said, “Unfortunately, our team doesn’t have Ke Shaobin, so we can’t take photos of these paintings with Xiao Tu. How can I tell Xingwen what’s in the paintings? Relying on words alone, I’m afraid that we as amateurs will overlook some details.”
Qin Miao suddenly said, “Copy all the paintings we see and take them away.”
Qin Lu’s eyes lit up and said, “Yes, isn’t there blank paper and brushes in the drawing room? Although we can’t make it look real, we can still draw a general idea!”
Xu Yishen immediately began to work. He picked up a piece of paper and a brush, covered the painting of the wall and said, “Everyone hurry up, each copy one, it’s good enough to clearly draw the outline, the color… we don’t know how to mix colors, so let’s draw a rough picture.”
For example, the color of the skin and clothes of the people in the painting. They didn’t study art, it was difficult to be consistent with the original painting, but it was still possible to roughly paint the outline, and when the time came, they could show it to Xu Feixue, maybe she could see more clues.
Xu Yishen, Liu Zhaoqing and Lin Manluo began to copy the pictures quickly.
Qin Lu, who was helping with the tools, craned her head to look out the window, then stared in amazement. Qin Miao had a spiritual link with her and immediately asked, “Xiao Lu, what’s wrong?”
Qin Lu pointed downstairs and said, “Sister, look outside!”
Everyone looked at her gaze, and Zhuo Feng’s face changed slightly, “Sunflowers?”
Under the cold moonlight, the garden outside the castle was not a strange field of black roses, but a large field of sunflowers.
Qin Miao said, “Our speculation may be correct, the garden outside this villa was originally planted with sunflowers, but unfortunately it was later replaced by black roses. Since both flowers are related to ‘love’, the murderer’s motive to commit murder is likely to be because of love and hate, killing the loved ones, or killing the love rival and taking their place.”
At the same time, a group of 6 of Yue Xingwen and his group of 7 people came out of the study and returned to the entrance.
The <Mona Lisa> hung in the entrance, the woman in the painting looking at them quietly, nothing changed, and Liu Zhaoqing’s group still did not reply in the chat channel.
Yue Xingwen looked back at Jiang Pingce and said, “Senior brother Liu and the others haven’t get out yet?”
Jiang Pingce said, “It’s possible that they can’t get out.”
Yue Xingwen frowned and said, “You mean, after entering the illusion world in the painting, unless you use the ‘Golden Cicada Shell’ to release control, you’ll be trapped there forever?”
Jiang Pingce was silent for a moment and said, “This is just my speculation, it’s not certain, let’s wait and see.”
Thanks for the update ☺️
pls the illusion team is calmly collecting clues and painting while the non-illusion team is panicking over their whereabouts