Ch8 - Mirror and Notes

Edited by Ning

As he knelt on one knee to help Xia Xiqing untie the rope on his leg, Zhou Ziheng himself didn’t know what was going on, why he was bewitched by this person, and why he didn’t stand firm to refuse, instead he agreed to his request.

None of this is logical. odpJ3I

Maybe it’s because he is recording the show, he has asked himself, and it wouldn’t be nice to refuse. Zhou Ziheng found himself a step.

“Thank you.” The end of Xia Xiqing’s words sounded very pleasant, although his hands were still handcuffed. He got up from the chair, moved his ankles with his toes on the floor, and turned his head to observe the room. Zhou Ziheng took off all the white cloth covering the furniture in the room and placed it in a corner.

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The room was not too big, but according to the furnishings, it is a study room with a good style. The door they care about most has a code lock, and it can only be opened by entering the correct four-digit code on the touch screen.

In the room, light brown wallpaper with dark patterns covered the four walls, on which hung several paintings. There was also an oval mirror with a wooden frame. On the right side of the mirror was a mahogany closet against the wall, on which there was a phonograph with a vinyl record on it. Cn3kUj

These were not the focus of Xia Xiqing’s attention. He carefully looked for the camera distribution in this room. After all, it is a reality show, and all the puzzles are arranged, so there must be a close-up of the camera to film the complete decryption process.

After roughly counting the cameras, Xia Xiqing also knew a lot. Occupational disease made him look at the paintings hanging on the wall, and Zhou Ziheng also came over, but he wanted to check if there were clues behind the paintings.

“What do you think of this painting?”

Hearing Xia Xiqing’s voice, Zhou Ziheng paused with the frame in his hand. Art has never been his specialty. Although he’s been acting since childhood, there is still a big gap between the expression of painting and performing arts.

XsbWt

“I don’t know much about this.” Zhou Ziheng still said truthfully.

Xia Xiqing smiled, “This is Goya’s painting,《The Clothed Maja》. This painting actually has a very interesting story.”

Zhou Ziheng put the painting back and took a look at him. In fact, he was not interested in the story in Xia Xiqing’s mouth, but he remembered that they are in the recording process. It seemed not good not to speak, so he reluctantly agreed: “What story.”

“Spain in the eighteenth century was shrouded by asceticism for historical reasons. No nude images were allowed in the artwork of the entire country, anyone who dared to do so would be punished. Only《Venus With a Mirror》avoided punishment by direct protection from the king.” U8dIB4

Xia Xiqing stretched out his still handcuffed hand and slowly touched the edge of the picture frame. Zhou Ziheng looked at the woman lying softly on the dark green velvet in the painting, wearing a hazy white dress, the rose-colored wide belt around the waist outlines her soft waist.

“She is wearing clothes…”

Xia Xiqing’s hands paused, his beautiful eyes slightly raised glanced at Zhou Ziheng, “She didn’t wear it originally. Legend has it that this woman is a noble favorite in Spain, and Goya was ordered to paint a full-length portrait of her.” As he said this, Xia Xiqing suddenly chuckled, “Who knew that he was completely fascinated by the beauty and painted a nude portrait. After the incident was revealed, the nobleman was very angry. In order to calm his anger, Goya drew an identical 《The Clothed Maja》, these two paintings were finally taken away.”

Zhou Ziheng frowned slightly, looked at the woman in the painting, and said nothing. 3TumfE

Xia Xiqing put down his handcuffed hands and looked sideways at Zhou Ziheng.

“Are you imagining the other one?”

After hearing this, Zhou Ziheng frowned and looked at him, like a little tiger with all the fur raised on its body, “I am not.”

Xia Xiqing smiled and nodded, and replied softly, “Just kidding.” PONew3

It’s not a joke at all.

Looking at the fake smile on his face, Zhou Ziheng was even more unhappy.

Chrysanthemum Garden.

This guy is really, shameless.

Zhou Ziheng left his side without reluctance and walked straight back to the long table, checking for some clues on it. Xia Xiqing still stood in place, staring at the painting on the wall in a daze. 0DZtod

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.

Why did you put this one here?

Coafg rajcvlcu obg j ofk wlceafr, Wlj Wldlcu ibbxfv yjmx jcv obecv atja Itbe Iltfcu kjr rajcvlcu ja atf ibcu vfrx tf kjr ifjclcu jujlcra ja atja alwf, ibbxlcu ja atf vfrx jaafcalnfis. Lf jirb kjixfv bnfg. Ktfgf kjr j atlmx ybbx jcv j yijcxfa bo abgc cbafr bc atf vfrx.

“It’s shredded really thoroughly, the props team are so attentive.” Xia Xiqing teased in a gentle tone as he looked at the paper fragments like snowflakes.

Zhou Ziheng flipped through the book in silence, and a bookmark fell out of it with a line written on it. bsA4t9

Whatever I touch crumbles to pieces. ——Kafka

 

Xia Xiqing leaned over, “An excerpt from Kafka’s poems.”

Feeling that Xia Xiqing was close to him, Zhou Ziheng felt a little uncomfortable. He put the book aside, picked up one of the small torn pieces, turned it over and looked at it. He thought for a moment, eyebrows in a frown and then said nothing, he started to put it together one by one. Xia Xiqing didn’t like doing this kind of piecemeal work. He walked to the phonograph, flicked his fingers across the tone arm, and gently placed the stylus needle on the vinyl record.

With the rapid rhythm of notes, the unique empty inspiration of vinyl records quickly infiltrates into this stuffy confined space. Xia Xiqing leans against the cabinet and looks at the similarly stuffy young man. Ko7 3e

“Have you heard this tune?”

Zhou Ziheng didn’t raise his head, looking at the desk attentively. “I’m not very good at music.”

He has no interest in art, and he has even less preference for the prodigals who engage in art.

Xia Xiqing smiled, obviously his hands were still handcuffed, but he stood in front of the mahogany cabinet like a professional music connoisseur for a while, and then slowly said, “This is Ravel’s piano suite《Miroirs》. The first song was inspired by moths fighting fire in the dark.” ohBMjy

He turned his head, looked at the slowly rotating record, and chuckled, “Although music critics think that this kind of tiny semitone is like fluttering butterfly wings, but it sounds like a broken mirror on the floor to me.”

As soon as he finished speaking, he regretted it a bit. It seemed that he shouldn’t have said so much in the show, but Zhou Ziheng, who had been working hard with the paper pieces, suddenly raised his head and looked at Xia Xiqing.

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Maybe it is because he thinks his analogy is quite appropriate. Zhou Ziheng, who was originally not paying attention to the sound, was also distracted by the flowing music, trying to appreciate it. He didn’t straighten up until the shredded note was restored accurately.

“Have you done it? You are amazing.” qC0E9l

Xia Xiqing was a little surprised. The note was shredded into many fragments which gave him a headache just by looking at it, and he was not a patient man. As he walked to the desk, Zhou Ziheng used the scotch tape on the desk to paste the pieces into a complete piece of paper.

He took a look and found that all the letters on the note appeared and recovered, but it was a disordered piece of letters.

PGOEUDEAENHNRD

It’s obviously a code. Xia Xiqing frowned slightly. He is now more curious about how Zhou Ziheng put these pieces together so quickly. oNRxYk

“So fast, how did you do it?”

Zhou Ziheng turned the piece of paper over, there was a complete sentence written in a beautiful handwriting at the back.

[See you at Sophia restaurant at ten tonight.]

“The information on the back is much easier to restore than the information on the front.” r5Rlge

Xia Xiqing nodded. Even if you can see that there is a complete sentence behind it, it will take a while to distinguish the front and back.

Wait, the front and back.

Xia Xiqing stretched out his hand and picked up the note and touched it. Sure enough, this piece of paper was specially processed and looked no different, but it had a different feel. The front was very smooth to the touch and the back was much rougher.

“You are so meticulous.” Xia Xiqing put the paper back on the table with his handcuffed hand, smiling to Zhou Ziheng, “As expected of Zhou Ziheng.” v4Mj98

These were clearly words of admiration but Zhou Ziheng found them hard to believe. He responded slightly stiffly, “This kind of special paper is very common in secret rooms. If you were not distracted by music, you would have found it.”

“Can’t help it, art is life.” Xia Xiqing’s arms were a bit sore, he moved his shoulders, looked down at the paper, somehow, the originally ethereal and clear music on the phonograph suddenly became choppy and appeared strangely lagging, it’s unpleasant to hear.

“Your ‘art’ looks a little old.” Zhou Ziheng seldom uses a sarcastic tone. Choppy music makes his brain unable to concentrate, so he was ready to go and turn off the music.

At this time, Xia Xiqing stood still, not knowing where to look, as if in a daze. EydI2n

“Wait a minute.” The moment Zhou Ziheng was about to put his hand on the tonearm, Xia Xiqing called to a halt, “Don’t turn it off yet.”

“What’s the matter?” Zhou Ziheng looked at him with some dissatisfaction, and found that Xia Xiqing had found a pen on the table and wrote something on the previous piece of paper.

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Did he find anything? Zhou Ziheng slowly retracted his hand, and began to listen to this strange discontinuous piece of music.

The stuttering in the music sounds almost irregular at first, sometimes there are short stutters, and sometimes they last longer. But if you listen carefully, you will find that at the end of every two bars, the stuttering will stop for a few seconds and then appear again, even the stuttering time is the same. ULNIMd

Like some kind of a loop…

Zhou Ziheng quickly reacted, repeating the code again at the beginning of each cycle.

Long time freeze-short time freeze-short time freeze-short time freeze-music

Short-term freeze-long-term freeze-short-term freeze-music LnF 9m

short freeze-music

long-short-music

long-short-long-music

The long and short pattern is Morse code. JDxb4F

He stood in front of the phonograph and listened to a few bars. Xia Xiqing, who was still leaning over the desk just now, straightened up, looked at the draft that had just been calculated, and finally walked to Zhou Ziheng’s side.

“You solved it?” He was a little surprised. After all, as far as he understood, Xia Xiqing’s major was Art, how could he solve Morse code so quickly?

Xia Xiqing nodded, his brows frowned slightly, and he walked to the mirror he had seen before, stared at it for a while, and then said to Zhou Ziheng, “You should stand further.”

Zhou Ziheng was puzzled, but he stood a little away. He saw Xia Xiqing take the tonearm away, and the sound of music stopped abruptly. He was about to ask what kind of information Xia Xiqing had obtained after decoding, but he was a step too late. Xia Xiqing took a step back with his right foot, put his fists in front of his chest with his handcuffed hands, using extremely skilled postures and movements, he raised his leg and made a sidekick. MoXFNq

With a bang, the oval mirror suddenly broke. He gently retracted his legs, and the fragments of the broken mirror, reflected in the light, fell on the wooden cabinet and the floor, making a cracking sound. At the moment of falling, the original appearance of the carved frame finally appeared.

In the gray chassis of the mirror frame, a silver key was pasted.

“Please unlock this for me.” Xia Xiqing turned his head to look at Zhou Ziheng and extended his cuffed hands to him.

To be honest, Xia Xiqing’s intelligence was beyond Zhou Ziheng’s imagination. QeXFWn

Under this second of thinking, he even considered whether to take the key as his own while he relaxed his vigilance, so as to use it as a counterweight to blackmail Xia Xiqing in the future. After all, this is a very cunning person, and there is a huge possibility that he may be the killer.

But he finally gave up this plan. Zhou Ziheng glanced at the wrists that were reddened by the handcuffs, and felt that his thoughts were really a little disgusting.

Story translated by Chrysanthemum Garden.

If he would be plotted by him later, he could only admit that he was unlucky. Zhou Ziheng stepped forward and took down the key. The props team were really attentive. The key was so firmly glued that it took him a lot of effort to take it off.

Xia Xiqing obediently put his hands in front of Zhou Ziheng and watched him lower his head to unlock the handcuffs for himself. This scene greatly suited his aesthetics. 6weVCR

Zhou Ziheng’s tall nose and angled corner eyes are more delicate from such low angle. It is a kind of exquisite carving full of male hormones. The brow bones are connected to the roots of the mountain, and the graceful lines rise, like a quiet mountain falling to wild winds. With his drooping head and concentrated eyebrows, Xia Xiqing couldn’t help thinking of Paolo in Auguste Rodin’s sculpture《The Kiss》.

If he is not recording a reality show, Xia Xiqing will surely whisper beside his ear.

[Your face is really suitable for kissing.]

※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※ auBVpS

The author has something to say:

I post the photo of the sculpture “The Kiss” to Weibo, and those who want to see it go to wb [crazily hinting!

If you are interested in solving this Morse code, you can give it a try~ For hint, it is letter decoding.

You can also try to translate this code, PGOEUDEAENHNRD, but now there are not enough clues, you may be able to solve it after reading the following chapters. cdEnAS

※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※※

TL’s Note:
The Clothed Maja 

Venus With a Mirror

 

Miroirs

  y2JrOS

The Kiss

 

 

Translator's Note

it’s a step off/onto the stage, usually used to refer to an excuse given for someone (by someone else) to make a scene less awkward

Translator's Note

18th Stanza from the Fifth Octavo Notebook of Franz Kafka’s The Blue Octavo Notebook

Whatever I touch crumbles to pieces.

The year of mourning was over,
the birds’ wings were limp.
The moon bared herself on cool nights.
Almond and olive had long been ripe.

The benefaction of the years. MdmPDc

Kafka, Franz

Leave a Comment

9 comments

  1. I’m glad they included real art! That is not my favorite art piece of a kiss, but I adore it. Also, Venus With a Mirror <3

    Thanks for the chapter! <3

    • I think maybe author typo or remember wrong. Because yes from this code we get brenk not break.

      Long-short-short-short = B

      Short-long-short = R

      Short = E

      Long-short = N

      Long-short-long = K

      A is short-long.

      If the code is break, so it means break the mirror.

      Btw, sorry with my english. English isn’t my first language. 😁