The 3D space structure map drawn by Jiang Pingce was very clear, and he marked the location of each space change. Everyone followed the original path, soon came to the 2nd floor, advanced to the room on the right, and saw the <Sunflower> oil painting.
When she came out of the room, the corners of the woman’s mouth in the entrance painting rose wildly, half of her face turned into a bloody mouth, and her mouth continued to emit strange laughter. The sharp laughter surrounded the dark castle and continued to drill into everyone’s minds.
Ke Shaobin rubbed the goosebumps on his arm and said, “This female ghost-like voice is simply a spiritual attack! You have a lot of nerve to copy three paintings with the distraction of laughter!”
Qin Miao said, “We found that she is just laughing and won’t come out of the painting, of course, there is no need to be afraid of her.”
Liu Zhaoqing quickly pulled a few pieces of gauze and handed them to everyone, signaling everyone to block their ears. Everyone took it to block their ears, Yue Xingwen typed in the chat channel: “Next, you guys entered the left room?”
Liu Zhaoqing nodded: “The room on the left is the three oil paintings.”
Yue Xingwen made a look at Jiang Pingce, and both of them entered the room together, and the other students quickly followed.
There were vines connecting everyone’s wrists, so everyone did not have to worry about being separated again.
After entering the house, Yue Xingwen found three paintings hanging on the wall. He turned his head to Xu Feixue, signaling her to take a closer look. The one that they saw before was copied by other classmates, so it might be different from the original drawing.
After Xu Feixue looked at it, she said, “In order from left to right, the first painting is the object of affection, the second is a wife and son, and the third is the mistress.”
Yue Xingwen pondered about the three paintings for a while and said, “The order is a bit strange, right?”
Jiang Pingce suddenly asked, “Can the paintings on the wall be moved?”
Yue Xingwen looked back at him. “You mean, these paintings could be the maze’s mechanism?”
Jiang Pingce said, “The theme of this course is ‘painting’. All the paintings may be related to the murder case, the paintings at the entrance will change their contents according to different spaces. Will we change into new spaces if we change the painting’s position?”
Yue Xingwen thought about it carefully and felt that it made sense.
The order in which the three paintings are placed, the young object of affection, the wife and son, and the mistress holding the ermine was not right. If the mistress wanted to replace her wife before killing the family, the order should be the object of affection, mistress, wife and son.
Yue Xingwen stepped forward and tried to take down the two paintings on the wall, exchanging their positions. To everyone’s shock, the wall in front of them actually cracked from the middle, and a door appeared!
Ke Shaobin said excitedly, “It’s really a spatial maze! Maybe there are also mechanisms on the painting in other rooms?”
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.
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The two walked into the door side by side, followed by other teammates.
As soon as they entered the door, everyone’s eyes widened in surprise—— Behind the door was not a room, but a strange illusion. They were obviously on the 2nd floor just now, and when they walked into this door, they suddenly appeared in the garden.
In the empty garden, there was a mother and son, very similar to the mother and son in the oil painting in the room. The little boy wearing a hat, the woman holding a parasol, and the mother and son were planting flowers in the garden.
The little boy was crouching on the ground, picking up a small shovel to dig a pit, planting a sprouted sunflower seedling into the ground, and then burying the surrounding soil with his hands, an the woman squatted down right behind him, spraying the seedling with water from a spray can.
The little boy asked excitedly, “Mommy, when will this sunflower grow?”
The woman said, “It will grow and bloom in two months, and in September this year, you can eat your favorite sunflower seeds.”
The little boy jumped up and down happily. “Great! We’ll plant sunflowers all over this place, and this fall, will I have an endless supply of sunflower seeds?”
The woman’s gaze was gentle as she gently reached out and touched his head. “Yes. However, the garden is so big, will it be hard for you to plant sunflowers yourself?”
The little boy shook his head, “No!”
Thinking of the endless sunflower seeds in two months, the little boy was full of motivation and continued to dig the hole with a shovel.
In early spring, the sun was shining, the breeze was gentle, and the image of mother and son planting flowers together was so beautiful that it seemed like a dream. Everyone standing next to them saw this scene with their own eyes and looked at each other.
Having just come out of the old castle that was pitch black and filled with eerie laughter, it turned out to be such a warm and gentle image. The sun was clearly shining, but everyone felt chills down their spines.
Yue Xingwen frowned and said, “Illusion. It should have been a replay of the footage from two years ago.”
Xu Feixue said, “The painting <Woman with a Parasol> found in the room is similar to the mother and son we see in front of us. Although the appearance and clothes are not the same, the artistic conception of the whole painting is very similar. That painting is also of a sunny spring, has blue sky and white clouds, grass flowers, fresh and bright style.”
The image in front of them was indeed reminiscent of that painting. In particular, the woman in front of them also held a parasol, and the little boy was wearing the same type of hat.
At this moment, the mother and son turned their heads and looked directly at Yue Xingwen.
However, it was as if they saw a cloud of air as the woman walked over towards where Yue Xingwen was, passing by Yue Xingwen, and then picked up a bottle of water on the table and walked back to the child. “Dean, drink some water and rest before planting again.”
The little boy asked while drinking water. “When will Daddy come back?”
The woman smiled and said, “Daddy went on a business trip and will come back tomorrow.”
The mother and son rested for a while and continued to plan flowers.
In the blink of an eye, the garden was full of sunflower seedlings, neatly arranged. The woman patiently took the child to water each seedling, then wiped the sweat from her forehead and said, “If you want to eat anything in the evening, let Auntie Leah make it for you.”
The little boy said, “I want to eat steak.”
The mother and son walked into the castle while chatting.
Suddenly, Jiang Pingce gently thumped Yue Xingwen’s arm and whispered, “Look over there.”
Everyone followed Jiang Pingce’s gaze at the same time, and saw a woman standing by the window on the 1st floor. The woman was beautiful, wearing a very simple dark cloth, her hair was simply pulled up. She was wearing a long black necklace around her neck, and she was holding a white kitten in her arms.
The moment Yue Xingwen looked over, the woman turned to leave, and her back quickly disappeared by the window.
Yue Xingwen was keenly aware that the woman had been staring at the mother and son in the garden just now, with an indifferent gaze, and even with a… resentment? Yue Xingwen was stunned and asked Jiang Pingce, “Has she been staring at this mother and son?”
Jiang Pingce nodded. “En. I noticed her from the beginning. She stood motionless by the window, staring at the mother and son in the garden with a somewhat strange gaze. Her location should be the nanny’s room on the 1st floor.”
Ke Shaobin speculated, “She is holding a cat in her arms. Does it correspond to the <Lady with an Ermine> oil painting that we found in the drawing room?”
Xu Feixue said, “Yes. With a beautiful appearance, holding a small animal in her arms, and her clothes are similar to the characteristics of the woman in the painting. Just now, the madam called her ‘Auntie Leah’, and if I remember correctly, the name of the heroine of that Leonardo da Vinci painting was Cecilia Gallerani, and she was the mistress of the Duke of Milan.”
Yue Xingwen said, “Nanny, corresponding to the mistress in the painting? Could it be that the nanny had an improper relationship with the man of the house?”
Jiang Pingce followed up and said, “In the painting <The Last Supper> before, the key word we analyzed was ‘betrayal’. In that painting, Judas betrayed his master, Jesus; If it corresponds to the relationship of this family, it’s likely that the nanny betrayed the madam, and this nanny was hired by the madam?”
Xu Yishen narrowed his eyes and looked at the garden full of seedlings, and said, “Judging from their living conditions, single-family villas, Gothic-style architecture, and a large garden in front of the entrance, the man who owns this house must be very rich. The madam may have found her friends and relatives to work as a nanny at home, but the nanny and the mister had an affair, betrayed the madam, and finally killed her in order to replace the madam?”
Listening to Xu Yishen’s summary, Yue Xingwen carefully thought about the logic before and after, and said, “This logical line that senior brother Xu said, whether it’s the motive for the crime or the theme of the painting we found, it all matches up. But the most crucial point is not right.”
Jiang Pingce asked, “The corpses?”
Yue Xingwen nodded. “The bodies we found were a man and two women, one young woman and two others were elderly. Assuming that the nanny killed the family, the body should be a young man and a woman with a young boy. Although our speculation can match the clues in the painting, it’s completely inconsistent with the corpses, so this speculation must be wrong.”
Liu Zhaoqing touched his chin and said, “Where did the little boy go?”
Ke Shaobin said, “Will there be other corpses?”
Jiang Pingce said calmly, “At present, the clues are not complete. Just now, we moved three paintings, opened the mechanism to see the illusion, corresponding to the two paintings of a woman holding a parasol and the one holding the ermine. The young girl wearing a light veil did not appear.”
Yue Xingwen’s eyes lit up. “Perhaps, there will be other clues if the three paintings are arranged in a different order.”
Jiang Pingce said, “Let’s go back.”
Everyone returned the same way they had just appeared through the door and went back to the drawing room on the 2nd floor, with the eerie laughter of the woman with her mouth wide open ringing in their ears once again. Yue Xingwen frowned and rubbed his ears as he walked over to the three paintings, taking down the painting <La Donna Velata>, exchanging places with the one in the center once again.
Sure enough, the wall next to it cracked from the middle again and another door appeared!
Ke Shaobin said excitedly, “It’s so much fun, just like the mechanism maze in a single-player game. Every time we change the position of the hanging paintings, a door and an illusion appear!”
Xin Yan said with an expressionless face, “Fun?”
A strange old castle, a moving woman in a painting, and an eerie laughter, Ke Shaobin described it as ‘fun’?
Liu Zhaoqing didn’t know whether to laugh or cry and said, “Classmate Ke, this is not the time to play games, we might fail the course if we can’t solve it.”
Ke Shaobin coughed lightly and said, “I know! I believe that as long as we open the mechanism of this spatial maze and find all the illusions, we will definitely be able to find the right murderer.”
Jiang Pingce said lightly, “Let’s go in and take a look.”
The moment he walked through the door, Yue Xingwen stopped in surprise.
There was a long red carpet under his feet, and a lavishly decorated auditorium in front—— He walked in side by side with Jiang Pingce, and it was actually a wedding scene.
They are married, again.
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