Ghost Detective Records

Chapter 59

"Uncle, Uncle!" Suddenly, a dark-skinned little boy popped out from behind Old Wang and blinked timidly at me.

"What's wrong, little one?" Li Hai bent down and patted the little boy's head, then smiled and asked Old Wang, "Is this your grandson?"

"Yes." Old Wang looked at the child beside him with affection and said, "His parents are both working in the city and can't take care of him, so I, an old man, have to take care of him."

"Uncle, please play with me!" the child tugged at Li Hai's sleeve and pleaded.

"Xiaoshan, don't bother them." Old Wang smiled apologetically at us and tried to pull the child away, but Li Hai stopped him immediately.

"It's nothing, the child is very cute and doesn't bother us at all," I chimed in.

"Uncle! Then come and play games with me!" Encouraged by us, the child's face turned bright red with excitement. He pulled us to the bedside and then carefully took out a cloth bundle from under the pillow.

What is it? Why is it being protected so carefully? I looked at Old Wang with some doubt. The old man smiled kindly and explained, "This child cherishes the toy his father brought him from the city last time. He won't let any other child touch it!"

"Oh, a toy!" Li Hai and I exchanged knowing smiles. Kids always have a special fondness for toys, and this one was brought to him by his dad. No wonder he treasures it so much!

Watching Xiaoshan carefully unpack the cloth bag, I took a closer look and realized it was just a pitifully small jigsaw puzzle, probably a promotional gift from a large supermarket.

"Uncle, let's play!" Xiaoshan looked up and proudly showed us his beloved toys.

"Okay!" I smiled and scrambled the puzzle pieces, but my heart suddenly skipped a beat. I said to Xiaoshan, "Uncle will help you put the puzzle back together, okay?"

"Okay~~~!" The child excitedly started to work on a piece of the puzzle, but no matter how he tried, he couldn't put it back together. Seeing Xiaoshan sweating profusely with anxiety, I smiled and put one of the puzzle pieces in front of him, explaining, "Xiaoshan, don't worry. As long as you remember what the pattern originally looked like, you can slowly put them back together piece by piece. Look, like this."

Yes, just like that, it seems like there's a voice in my head saying the same thing to me...

As I spoke, I pieced the puzzle pieces back together, and the face of the little dog on the original picture immediately took shape. Looking at the puzzle that was already taking shape, Xiaoshan's face lit up with a smile again. Perhaps, for a child, this puzzle was the most perfect toy in the world.

“Come on, Xiaoshan, look,” I pointed to another puzzle piece and said, “These puzzle pieces are actually connected and related. As long as you find what they have in common, you can put them back together!”

What was the original state? What was the true original state...?

I felt increasingly agitated...

"Hey kid, you're pretty good at jigsaw puzzles!" Li Hai nudged me from behind.

"Of course! I'm a famous puzzle master at university!" Without turning my head, I continued my great project of teaching Xiaoshan the secrets of puzzle-solving. Xiaoshan was indeed very smart. In just a few minutes, he understood what I meant and soon finished the puzzle.

"Wow, Uncle, I finished it! I finished it!" Xiaoshan proudly showed off to me. I happily patted his little head. Children are always easily satisfied. A small puzzle can probably make him happy for half a day!

Amid Xiaoshan's adoring gaze and Lao Wang's honest laughter, Li Hai and I stepped out of Lao Wang's house. Looking up at the sky, it had darkened again, with a sense of downward pressure. The gray clouds seemed to be brimming with surging rain, and the humidity in the air was constantly increasing, making us feel a biting chill.

The pebbly path leading to the mountain temple was gradually covered with fine raindrops, making it so slippery that I almost fell straight down the mountain. I quickened my pace, hoping to reach the temple before the rain started, but the image of me and Xiaoshan doing the puzzle kept replaying in my mind, as if something was stirring within me. The chilly air didn't clear my head; instead, it made me feel dizzy and my steps became even more unsteady. I shook my head vigorously, hoping to shake away that strange feeling.

Art exhibition, abstract paintings, An Yi, three dead men, and me—it all seemed like a coincidence. The art exhibition I'd visited before didn't seem particularly special; the strangest thing was probably the almost identical blue abstract paintings. But why would An Yi arrange this exhibition? And he'd said these abstract paintings actually had another meaning. Although I'd followed his instructions and gone to that website, I still hadn't found the true meaning in the paintings. Then came the series of murders and the skeleton in the unfinished building. One thing after another seemed premeditated, leading me to this small village far from the city. The deaths of An Zhengxi and An Yi were too sudden. These events stimulated my entire being, and the days flew by, leaving the initial questions unanswered…

What is the true meaning of this painting?

Looking up at the sky, the gray clouds seemed ready to spew out a torrent of rain at the slightest touch. I took a deep breath, my mind seemingly blocked by something, a strange restlessness washing over me—the helplessness of knowing the answer was right in front of me but being unable to access it.

Those blue oil paints...

The mask of the dead...

Goddess of the Underworld...

The gouged-out, bloody left eye...

They all played back in my mind like close-ups...

But I always feel like something has been overlooked...

I tapped my head, trying to stop thinking about it; my head was throbbing so badly, it felt like it was going to burst...

His dark, thin face and Xiaoshan's smile suddenly began to waver before my eyes. Gradually, his features began to blur, and what was becoming incredibly clear was that simple jigsaw puzzle, which seemed to assemble, disassemble, reassemble, and disassemble again before my eyes, like an animation...

Yes, I'm finally getting it. The pattern on that puzzle is no longer just a cartoon dog; it's actually... it's those abstract paintings that I've never been able to understand!

With a soft patter, large raindrops landed on my shoulder. Looking up, I saw tens of thousands of raindrops rushing into the embrace of the earth.

An unprecedented feeling of liberation welled up from the bottom of my heart. I tilted my head back and let the rain hit my face. Although the idea was a bit strange, it wasn't unreasonable. If I thought about it this way, then it would explain why each page in the picture book was only printed on one side, wouldn't it? As soon as I thought of this, I immediately started running. Right now, all I wanted to do was get back to the temple as soon as possible. I needed to turn my idea into reality.

"Lin Xiao, why are you running so fast?" Li Hai must have found it unbelievable that I suddenly had a big smile on my face.

"Quick, I have a lead!" I shouted excitedly, waving at Li Hai and quickening my pace.

I rushed back to the temple at almost the speed of a 100-meter sprint. I was so excited that I didn't feel tired at all. On the contrary, Li Hai, who had been running wildly behind me for no reason, was so tired that he almost collapsed on the spot.

I rushed into my room, ignoring my soaked body, and dumped all my luggage onto the bed. With a clatter, all sorts of things were immediately laid out on the bed, with that strange picture book lying in the center.

"What do you want to do?" Li Hai watched as I used a travel knife to cut open the first page of the picture book.

"It's a jigsaw puzzle!" I explained, already deftly cutting out several pages. "Look, there's nothing printed on the back of these pictures. Isn't that strange? Generally, every page of any book should be printed double-sided!"

"But does this have anything to do with puzzles?" Li Hai watched as I cut faster and faster, and in no time I had cut out all the pictures in the entire picture book.

"Don't you think that almost every painting of hers is based on a blue tone? Do you think it's possible that An Ran actually painted a single, meaningful painting, but in order to hide some secrets within it, he cut it into several pieces, making them appear meaningless and thus misunderstood as abstract art?"

“Your guess makes some sense, but where’s the evidence?” Li Hai also became interested and helped me lay the paintings out on the floor one by one.

“There are some things you’ll never be able to prove!” I said, placing the last painting on the floor. Now, fifty seemingly unrelated blue oil paintings were neatly arranged on the floor of the not-so-spacious room. “And don’t forget, An Ran is good at portraits and landscapes. If there’s any meaning in these paintings, he should be painting what he’s best at.”

"So..." Li Hai frowned and asked me, "Do you think these paintings can actually be pieced together to form a portrait or landscape painting?"

"You could say that, but we still need to look at the facts!" I squatted down and began to examine the paintings carefully, as if they were a huge jigsaw puzzle without any original images to compare them with.

"But you don't even have the original picture to refer to!" Although Li Hai didn't like jigsaw puzzles, he still knew the common sense that jigsaw puzzles need a reference picture. Without the original picture, he had no idea what kind of pattern he was trying to piece together, which made it too difficult.

"Didn't I just tell you that I used to be a famous puzzle master in college? I've tried to solve blindfold puzzles before!" I answered Li Hai's concerns without looking up.

"Blind map?" Li Hai asked, puzzled.

"It's about doing the puzzle without the original image as a reference," I explained. Puzzle work actually requires a gradual process. First, you try to piece together patterns you've already solved several times without a reference. Then, after receiving a new pattern, you observe it carefully for a few minutes before attempting to solve it without a reference. Finally, the highest level is solving the puzzle without ever having seen the original image. This requires immense patience and imagination, almost a sixth sense. Although I've only successfully completed a few small puzzles myself, I don't have much time to practice now, so I'm just giving it a shot.

"Then...do you need any help?" Li Hai asked enthusiastically from the side.

"No need, too many people will only make it harder to put together. Let me try by myself!" I declined Li Hai's offer. Puzzles are better done alone.

"Alright, I'll just watch from the sidelines!" Li Hai shrugged helplessly and sat down on the edge of the bed.

Yes, just like that, slowly, don't rush. Once you find the commonalities in these paintings, you can piece them back together. But…

What was it like before?

******

Author's note: My training was postponed for some reason, and I'm currently abroad. So I asked a friend to help with the updates. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule! :)

Volume Two: The Devil's Left Eye, Chapter Thirty-Six: The Cliff - The Mask of the Dead

Volume Two: The Devil's Left Eye, Chapter Thirty-Six: The Cliff - The Mask of the Dead

Time slipped by silently, yet seemed to freeze around me. All that remained was the howling of the torrential rain and the barely audible breathing of Li Hai and me. My heart was still. The familiar yet strange fluctuations in the air seemed to surge towards me again, but this time I felt no discomfort; instead, I felt a profound, soul-stirring resonance. The mountains, the trees, the rain… all seemed to possess a soul, revealing their spectral depths to me. My previously hesitant thoughts began to clear, and I put down the pictures faster and faster, as if guided by something, following its lead to rediscover the original order. When I put down the second-to-last picture, the previously chaotic pages had been pieced together into a 7x7 square!

"What is this?" Li Hai's voice rang out behind me, but I was so focused that I had almost forgotten about him.

"I don't know, but it looks like a landscape." I tilted my head and looked at the pattern on the floor. It should be a mountain, but there were some strange things about it. The bigger problem was that I still had another picture that I hadn't put together!

"Is this considered finished?" Li Hai squatted down next to me and asked.

"It looks like it should be finished." I looked at the last picture in my hand with a strange expression and found that this picture seemed a little different from the others. Although the other pictures were also composed of large areas of blue and occasional black, this one had black taking up most of the paper, a completely opposite use of color.

"Could this be just a random drawing that An Ran did on a whim?" Li Hai asked, looking at the drawing in my hand.

"That can't be right. Why would someone add another painting for no reason? There must be some significance to it!" I compared the painting to the one on the floor and realized that it seemed impossible to add it to either side. Besides, it was originally a perfect square, and it would look really ugly if a piece were forced to stick out from one side.

"Then it seems the key is this already pieced-together pattern." Li Hai stroked his chin and asked me in a slightly strange tone, "Don't you think this picture looks familiar?"

Familiar? At first, I didn't think much of it, but after Li Hai mentioned it, I really felt like I'd seen it somewhere before! But where? For a moment, I couldn't remember!

Suddenly, with a loud crash, a violent storm blew the previously closed window open again, bringing with it icy rain. The mountain wind immediately scattered the painting spread on the ground.

"Damn it!" I cursed, frantically pressing the painting on the ground down with my hands and feet. It seemed that my hard work of several hours was about to be blown away by the wind. In a panic, I shouted to Li Hai, "Quickly, close the window!"

"Okay." Li Hai rushed over. The storm made the window shake violently, banging against the wall and making an annoying sound. The rain that hit his face instantly soaked his clothes that he had just dried. Li Hai couldn't help but frown. Because he was near the window, the sheets on the bed were also soaked in no time.

"Hurry up!" I urged Li Hai, my head down as I worked on the painting. Why was it taking him so long to close a window? What was he doing? I looked up with a reproach, only to see an incredibly bright bolt of lightning streak across the sky. In the blinding white light, I could clearly see Li Hai's extremely surprised face.

"Wh...what's wrong?" I asked blankly, surprised by Li Hai's expression.

"There... there!" Li Hai just pointed blankly out the window. The lightning from earlier still seemed to have lingered on the horizon. Under the gloomy sky illuminated by the white light, a strange green mountain scene appeared. The howling wind and rain made me feel as if someone was wailing or sobbing in my ear. Ignoring the raindrops lashing my face, I quickly walked to the window and looked in the direction Li Hai was pointing...

Boom...

A deafening clap of thunder exploded right above us, accompanied by the rustling of trees. I saw a familiar yet chilling scene: the cliff, ravaged by wind and rain, with countless black hanging coffins—wasn't that the scene depicted in An Ran's jigsaw puzzle-like oil painting?

Is this... this it? I glanced back at the painting that had been scattered all over the ground by the wind. Even though it had only just been pieced together and I hadn't looked at it closely yet, I was absolutely certain that it was the scenery of the mountain cliffs outside the window. There was no mistake!

But……

Why?

This is just an ordinary landscape painting of the area around the temple, so why did An Ran go to such lengths to break it down into incomprehensible parts? What was he trying to hide, or rather, what was he trying to tell us?

No! This is definitely not just a simple cliff painting! I gripped the painting in my hand tightly, the one that hadn't been pieced together yet and seemed superfluous. There must be some important details that we haven't thought of or overlooked. This painting was definitely not something An Ran added on a whim!

Looking up again at the cliff amidst the wind and rain, the black hanging coffin still stood alone on the precipice, perhaps having stood for a hundred years, enduring the erosion of the storm. I stared intently at the entire cliff...

A black coffin...

The gray rock surface...

Lightning flashed across the sky, sometimes visible, sometimes hidden...

It was like a thunderclap exploding right next to my ear...

Sudden……

A sudden realization struck me; I heard myself and Li Hai gasp simultaneously, and then…

"A mask of the dead!?" Li Hai and I exclaimed at the same time!

Yes, a mask of the dead! Although the erosion of wind and rain had blurred its original appearance, its eerie form still deeply shocked Li Hai and me. The ancient Moonshadow Clan had actually managed to carve the entire cliff face into the shape of a mask of the dead using natural rock as the material! What's even more astonishing is that they cleverly used hanging coffins to embellish the blank cliff surface, creating eyes that weren't originally on the mask and eerie smiles drawn to the temples. Perhaps due to its age, some parts of the cliff have grown grass and vines, obscuring its true appearance and making it difficult to discover its true form.

"The Moonshadow Clan, truly admirable!" Li Hai exclaimed, gazing at the cliff. The awe it evoked made us forget that it was raining, and we didn't even care that we were soaked to the bone.

"Wait a minute, something's not right!" I looked at the cliff. If this mask of the dead not only had eyes made of hanging coffins and a smile, there was something strange about it: it only had a right eye and no left eye!

"Why is there no left eye?" I asked Li Hai.

"The left eye?" Li Hai looked at me and said, "Could it be because the Moonshadow Clan has a clan rule of gouging out the left eye, so they deliberately omitted the left eye?"

"It can't be that simple! Something just doesn't feel right!" I tilted my head and thought for a while, then looked down at the painting in my hand, and then held it up in front of me.