Historias de fantasmas

Capítulo 11

Of course, such speculation is likely wrong; Xu Xu may have simply fired a shot as usual, and Wen Zhenhe's resolute refusal was unrelated to this. However, Sun Jing is at least certain of one thing: Xu Xu is not as simple as she appears.

He let out a soft sigh, a growing suspicion creeping into his partner's mind. Continuing to work together would turn it into a highly challenging intellectual game.

The world of con artists is all about playing mind games.

As darkness fell, Xu Xu stood by the car, glanced back at the Shanghai Museum shrouded in twilight, and suddenly said to Sun Jing, "I'm sorry."

She tilted her mouth to the left, seemingly unable to speak, and after a moment of hesitation, mumbled, "I messed things up again, it's all my fault."

"You're too confident in your talent and have too much of a desire to show off."

Xu Xu pursed her lips and remained silent for a moment before saying, "How about we try to find a breakthrough with the curator?"

Sun Jing shook his head: "Then we'll need to design a background for you that can withstand scrutiny and even verification. That will be a huge undertaking, and it's easy for leaks to occur. The consequences of leaks will be severe. Okay, let's find a place to have dinner first."

Xu Xu stood stubbornly still, staring in the direction of the Shanghai Museum, as if determined to find some way to make up for his mistake.

"Wait a minute." She suddenly remembered something, said this, and ran quickly towards the museum.

"Where are you going?" Sun Jing called out from behind, but received no answer. He frowned and walked towards Shangbo as well.

From afar, Sun Jing saw Xu Xu heading towards the gift shop. A thought struck him, and he guessed what Xu Xu was planning to do.

As he leisurely walked to the entrance of the gift department, Xu Xu came running out with a beautiful paper box in her hands, beaming with joy.

"Guess what this is?" Xu Xu asked.

"A model."

"Correct." He slowly opened the lid, revealing the bronze model inside.

A model of a wizard's skull.

The Shanghai Museum's gift shop sells mostly replicas of its precious artifacts. Many national treasures are available as replicas, mostly scaled-down versions of paintings and calligraphy. The only replica of oracle bones is a shaman's skull.

The standards for these replicas are extremely strict; aside from size, their shape is completely identical to the original. Many replicas of bronze artifacts can even perfectly match the color of the genuine article.

However, this bronze fake wizard skull differs significantly from the one in the picture: it is a complete human skull. The reason is that the photo found online was taken earlier, while in the 1990s, the Shanghai Museum commissioned experts to restore the missing lower half of the skull, making it appear as a complete skull. The replica was made based on the restored model, with markings indicating the joints.

"We can find the dimensions of the original, and then compare them with the scaled-down replica, so you can..." Xu Xu didn't finish her sentence because they hadn't left the museum yet.

"If Wen Zhenhe had agreed to let me see the actual object in the storeroom, the effect might not necessarily have been better than having this thing." Sun Jing weighed the fist-sized bronze skull in his hand and put it back in the gift box. By this time, the two had already left the museum and come to the square outside.

"But," he glanced at Xu Xu, "this request is only the first step in a series of steps. The subsequent steps are now impossible to complete, and even if this thing replaced the effect of the first step, it would be completely meaningless."

"How could it be meaningless?" Xu Xu didn't want her efforts to be ignored. "Things are done step by step. If you can come up with one plan, you can come up with another."

"So you placed all your hopes on me." Sun Jing shrugged.

Xu Xu's phone suddenly rang. She glanced at it, then immediately looked up at Sun Jing and said, "It's Wen Zhenhe."

Sun Jing was secretly delighted. It turned out that the old man was just making things difficult for him. He was only offering a sweet treat now in order to gain more attention and benefits.

Xu Xu said "uh-huh, okay, thank you" into the phone.

"What did he say?" Sun Jing asked after Xu Xu hung up the phone.

"He said that if I were to establish this museum, I should visit Ouyang Wenlan, the collector of oracle bones. He said that Ouyang Wenlan's collection is very rich and of high status, and that the wizard's skull was donated to the Shanghai Museum by him."

"Of course I know that. What else did he say?"

"No." Xu Xu gritted her teeth in anger. "I thought he had given in."

"I admit defeat," Sun Jing said, shaking his head slightly. "Let's go find somewhere to eat."

He quickened his pace, then suddenly stopped and asked, "Ouyang Wenlan?"

"Yes, that's the famous collector of oracle bones. He must be over ninety now. Why?"

Sun Jing smiled: "The second plan."

"What?"

"You'll hear about the second plan during dinner later."

"Ou...Ouyang Wenlan." Xu Xu's voice trembled slightly. She coughed and said loudly, "Ouyang Wenlan was born in 1912 and is 95 years old this year. In the field of oracle bone collecting in China, he ranks first among living people in terms of both seniority and reputation."

"Hmm," Sun Jing responded.

"He had one son and two daughters, all of whom have passed away. Most of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren have settled overseas. He now lives alone in an old Western-style house with a garden on Fuxing Road in Shanghai. Logically, he should have employed caregivers and gardeners."

"Hmm." Sun Jing adjusted the position of the sack on his shoulder, and the things inside made a slight clinking sound as he moved along, stumbling along.

"In fact, over the past few decades, he has donated most of his early collection to the country, and they are now scattered in major museums across the nation. Finding the weaknesses of such an old man is not as difficult as many people think. What the old man fears most is death, which we are of course powerless to change, but there is so much we can do in other ways."

"uh-huh."

"Can't you say anything other than 'uh-huh'?" Xu Xu said angrily.

"Be careful when you walk, don't fall."

"Hello!"

"What you're saying is something we've already analyzed. Of course, I know you're scared, but please continue."

Xu Xu straightened his neck and said, "I was just sorting out my thoughts. I...I...Where was I?"

"The weaknesses of the elderly."

"Oh, right, the weakness of the elderly. To be precise, the weakness of an old man. I'm best at making men dizzy, even at a hundred years old. Twenty-year-old women like men older than them, thirty-year-old women like men younger than them, and forty-year-old women like men who can settle down and build a good life. Compared to that, men are always very consistent; they will always like young, tender, and beautiful women in their early twenties with good figures."

"You're absolutely right," Sun Jing agreed.

"So as long as I step in and act gentle and obedient, I'll get full marks. Besides death, the other thing old people fear is loneliness; loneliness makes them think about death. Especially for someone like Ouyang Wenlan, whose children have all passed away before him and whose grandchildren are far away overseas, having a young woman to talk to and keep him company will lower his judgment and vigilance to the minimum. Besides, we don't intend to deceive him about anything; everything we do is in his best interest."

"uh-huh."

"Next, let's analyze his character weaknesses. He's donated so many things, even national treasures like a wizard's skull, which is why he has his current reputation. This behavior certainly earns him high moral praise, but on the other hand, examining each of his donations, regardless of the amount or value, always results in reports in the local media, and the recipients hold special ceremonies. This isn't something that happens naturally; there's an element of the recipients catering to his tastes. Therefore, Ouyang Wenlan is definitely not someone indifferent to fame and fortune. He craves fame and seeks it, but he does so in unconventional ways."

"So," Xu Xu cleared his throat, "so, targeting this weakness of his, well, actually, the old man prefers a good reputation. People can't resist death, but a name can be passed down, so..."

Xu Xu's words became slightly incoherent. She suddenly took two deep breaths and asked, "How much further? How much further do we have to go?"

"Soon."

As soon as Sun Jing finished speaking, a shrill scream rang out from the darkness where the flashlight beam hadn't reached, followed by a rustling of leaves.

Xu Xu let out a scream, jumped up as if her feet were on springs, and hopped to Sun Jing's side, grabbing his arm tightly with both hands. Of course, the flashlight also fell to the ground.

This was somewhere near Songjiang in Shanghai, but Xu Xu wasn't sure exactly where. She checked her watch when she got off the highway at the Songjiang University Town exit; it was just past eleven. Then Sun Jing drove around in a maze for a while before finally stopping in a completely deserted area. It was a black Volkswagen Santana; with the lights off, it would disappear into the darkness if you drove a little further in this unlit area. As for the BMW, the rental fee was very expensive, so they only rented it for half a day.

They walked down the ridge from the field and into the grove. The grove wasn't dense, which only made it seem more desolate. The moonlight was bright tonight, casting pale, eerie patches through the leaves. This was largely psychological; in another setting, Xu Xu might have found it beautiful, but now she knew what Sun Jing intended to do with her.

Digging up graves.

Without Sun Jing's prompting, Xu Xu immediately realized that what had terrified her was an owl, and she awkwardly let go of Sun Jing's arm.

"This is pretty much the area." Sun Jing stopped, took the sack off his shoulder, and threw it on the ground with a clattering sound.

Xu Xu shone her flashlight around and saw small, uneven mounds of earth. The trees were scattered sparsely, their branches thin and weak, growing crookedly and lopsided. She felt a chilling coldness beneath her feet, as if the earth itself was draining the trees of their life force.

"In the late Qing Dynasty, this place was called Duantoupo (Headless Slope), supposedly because it was where many headless prisoners were buried. Later, as the world deteriorated, people who starved to death or died in battle nearby, if no family members came to collect their bodies, were dragged here and buried in a pit."

Sun Jing shook open the sack, took out a shovel, and handed one to Xu Xu.

"Look where there's a raised patch; dig down, and you're sure to find something. The top layer of soil won't be very thick. Let's split up and dig."

Such a mass grave would naturally contain no burial goods, only bones. Sun Jing was after the bones; he needed a skull that resembled the wizard's skull. No matter how sophisticated the forgery, one still needs suitable materials.

Sun Jing adjusted the flashlight to diffused beam and propped it up between the branches of a nearby low tree. Actually, the trees were quite far apart, and the moonlight was bright enough. If it weren't for Xu Xu, he would have turned off the flashlight.

With a "snap," Sun Jing shoveled it into the ground at an angle, stepped on it, and then lifted it out, scooping out a large clump of soil. The soil here was very loose and not dense.

The second shovel stroke felt different. As it came out of the ground, a tiny spark of phosphorescence suddenly appeared, floating in the air.

Xu Xu had just inserted the shovel into the ground on the other side when she felt a chill creeping up her neck, making her shiver. She pulled out the shovel and ran to Sun Jing's side.

"Let's dig together, two people," she whispered.

Sun Jing scooped down for the third time, then poked around a few more times. He had already put on rubber gloves and squatted down to probe the small pit.

Xu Xu saw him touch a white, gleaming object in his hand, but before he could get a good look at it, he threw it back into the pit.

"It's a child. Let's dig somewhere else." Sun Jing turned to look at Xu Xu, whose face was deathly pale in the moonlight.

Are you alright?

"No," Xu Xu replied succinctly. In reality, she didn't know if she could say something longer or more complete.

"Then you can fill the soil around here back in. I'll dig it up and you fill it in. If you do the follow-up work properly, the wronged spirits won't haunt you anymore," Sun Jing said with a smile.

Upon hearing this, Xu Xu felt a transparent hand seep into her body and squeeze her heart hard.

In reality, the bones were dug out by Sun Jing, so they couldn't have been wrapped around Xu Xu's body.

"It won't be that easy to find a suitable one. I reckon we'd have to dig up a dozen or twenty heads," Sun Jing said.

Xu Xu imagined the scene of twenty skulls laid out before her and deeply regretted agreeing to come and dig up the grave with Sun Jing. Seeing how relaxed he was, it was clear he didn't need her help and could do it all by himself.

He wasn't afraid because he was surrounded by skeletons all day. He told himself slowly. Even though they were just turtle skeletons.

"Why is this guy's head so pointed, like an onion? Bury him."

"Damn it, I got shot in the head, otherwise I would have chosen him. Bury him."

"Ha, this guy has a huge brain capacity. Even with a huge brain, he'd still be food for maggots if he died. Bury him."

"Almost...that should be fine," Xu Xu said.

"That won't do. We need a perfect piece. It needs to be so realistic that it's indistinguishable from the real thing at first glance after being swapped with the genuine article, and it also needs to withstand subsequent authentication meetings."

"Alright." Xu Xu had no choice but to agree, since the plan was based on Sun Jing's forgery skills, and everything had to be done according to the technicians' instructions.

Of course, Sun Jing's claim of withstanding the authentication meeting didn't mean he could create a fake that could fool any expert or instrument—no one could do that. His goal was to stir up controversy surrounding the authenticity of the Shanghai Museum's wizard skull at the opportune moment, then induce a re-authentication. At the future authentication meeting, the fake wizard skull would naturally be exposed, but the test of Sun Jing's skill lay in making everyone believe that from the moment the Shanghai Museum acquired the skull, it had been a fake. In other words, Ouyang Wenlan acquired a fake and then donated it to the Shanghai Museum as a genuine artifact.

Clearly, they are orchestrating a major scandal for the Shanghai Museum. If they can succeed, then when the real skull appears publicly overseas, its provenance will not be questioned.

Fortunately, the wizard skull in the Shanghai Museum has never been dated. This is because, from its excavation to Sven Hedin, and then to Ouyang Wenlan, its history of ownership is documented. This is a term used in the collecting world, meaning that the artifact's provenance has been traceable throughout its history, thus a documented provenance is considered a guarantee of authenticity.

When a well-documented wizard skull is identified as a fake, the aim is to divert people's attention from the idea that it was "switched during its time at the Shanghai Museum." In addition to Sun Jing's forgery skills, the most important factor is to create problems in a previous part of the collection process.

Is there anyone more suitable to frame Sven Hedin than him? He once claimed that Stein's attempt to smuggle the wizard's skull out of China was thwarted, so he had a replica made to cover his tracks and secretly transport the genuine article overseas. Therefore, the dating of the wizard's skull in the Shanghai Museum indicates a death date of only about a century. The bones in this mass grave are the perfect age to pin the blame on Sven Hedin.

In that era, countless national treasures were smuggled overseas through various means. When the investigation pointed to Sven Hedin, the public was easily inclined to believe it and could easily imagine the outrage that would ensue. It happened nearly a century ago; who could possibly verify the facts? Besides, Hedin did indeed attempt to investigate. The phrase "fabricated charges" has always been deadly in China.

Moreover, Sun Jing and Xu Xu, those two con artists, have plenty of ways to fabricate clues and confuse the public.

Having resolved the aftermath of stealing the wizard's skull, this seemingly impossible task became remarkably simple—simply lacking only a chance to switch the items.