12 Shadow Play 12‖ Stage

In the room, Xiao Zhang's old man's leather was placed on the desk without any time to be cleaned up.

Yan Shuang glanced at it quickly and looked away. Now was not the time to be sad. Three minutes passed quickly. If the problem could not be solved quickly, then everything would be in vain.

He took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down.

Yan Shuang glanced around the room. The room was not big, and a desk and a few boxes almost filled the entire room.

"Why is there nothing?" Xu Yaoyu said anxiously after looking around.

Yan Shuang wiped the sweat that slid down his cheeks with his hands. He was also anxious. He pursed his cracked lips and quickly recalled in his mind if there was anything he had missed.

But the room is so small, and Yan Shuang has searched every corner, so where else could she be?

I had expected to find some valuable clues here, but the scene before me was disappointing.

There is only one window in the room, so I can't see Lin Haichen's current situation, but the old man hasn't come back, so there shouldn't be any big problems.

He looked at Jing Ning's back and saw that he was still calm and composed, as if he was just here for a visit.

At this moment, Jing Ning said, "Let's go out and meet up first."

Then the three of them climbed out of the window. Jing Ning made a gesture at the corner and then quickly left the yard.

The group found a relatively open area, and seeing Lin Haichen panting and striding towards them, Yan Shuang's heart finally settled down. Lin Haichen wasn't bragging. While three minutes wasn't a long time, it was fast. And since one could easily die, he only needed a short break to recover fully.

"This old man is a monster." Lin Haichen walked forward. "When he was chasing me, I looked back and saw that his body was gray and his mouth was almost stretched to his ears."

"Huh, the whole village can't have this thing." Xu Yaoyu's face changed instantly.

"It's hard to say, but it's possible." Lin Hai pondered for a moment and said, "It's strange, though. Logically, he's very fast and should be able to catch up with me, but his running movements are very stiff, like a paper man."

Paper figure?

--I see!

Yan Shuang instantly understood what Lin Haichen meant and exclaimed, "A shadow puppet!"

No matter how skilled a shadow puppeteer is, the movements he performs with the shadow puppet props will be more or less stiff. In other words, the entire village is a stage.

"Did you find anything in his room?" Lin Haichen asked.

"Yes." Jing Ning said and spread out what he was holding, a piece of paper with many creases.

Perhaps sensing Yan Shuang's surprised gaze, Jing Ning explained, "The painting is under the table legs. Old-fashioned wooden table legs, due to age or uneven ground, are usually padded with something to prevent the tabletop from shaking."

Looking closely, I saw some mud stains on the drawing paper.

Jingning unrolled the painting, but when it was fully unfolded, they discovered that some of the images had become blurry and difficult to discern. The passage of time had caused the colors to fade, the lines to blur, and even some areas to become damaged.

"Is this... a drawing of... a person?" Xu Yaoyu carefully examined it. "It looks like a child's drawing, one of those stick figures."

Yan Shuang nodded: "A bit similar, but they have the same expression and are about the same size."

"It's still different." Jing Ning looked at him, his slender fingers drawing circles on the paper. "Look, aren't these people taller? And do you remember this dress?"

"The red costume in the room." Yan Shuang said.

"Yes. Although the drawing is not clear, according to a child's thinking, there will be no mistakes in beautiful clothes, colors and distinctive features. The cuffs of the clothes in this drawing are very large, and so are the costumes." Jing Ning said.

Yan Shuang suddenly realized: "You mean, these slightly older ones are the villagers, and these... are children."

"That's so many!" Lin Haichen exclaimed. There were at least twenty of them on a piece of paper.

Jing Ning nodded. "I guess the people in this village used to be a group. The village chief accidentally discovered that shadow puppets made of human skin were very realistic, so he started using children's skin. As for who painted this picture, it must be a child who was very close to the village chief."

"The little girl next to the village chief in the photo?" Lin Haichen asked.

"Yanshuang, take out the photos." Jing Ning said in a deep voice.

Yan Shuang immediately pulled the photo out of his pocket and handed it to him. Jing Ning took the photo and carefully compared it with the painting. After a moment, he slowly said, "The adults in the photo and the number of people in the painting are exactly the same."

Hearing this, Yan Shuang's eyes lit up and she said excitedly, "So, this painting was really drawn by that little girl! Is it really revenge?"

At this moment, Xu Yao on the side suddenly said: "Wait, I feel that there is something wrong with the texture of this photo."

She took a corner of the photo and poked it on her finger.

Xu Yaoyu became a little nervous when she realized that everyone was looking at her: "I have a lot of old photos like this at home. This photo is a little thicker than those at home, just a little." After she said that, she compared with her fingers.

"Could it be a problem with the photo paper?" Lin Haishen said.

Xu Yaoyu shook his head, "No."

"Go find some water and separate it." Jing Ning decided immediately.

After the four of them returned to their residence, Yan Shuang quickly found a basin of warm water and placed it on the table, while Jing Ning threw the photo directly into the water without hesitation. They stared at the water intently, waiting for the result.

As time went by, the photo gradually became soaked by water, but there was no sign of anything unusual. Just as everyone began to feel puzzled, suddenly, the back of the photo began to separate from the top.

Jing Ning was quick to pull the paper out of the water. By then, some faint handwriting was visible on the paper. He carefully placed the paper on the table to dry and examined it carefully.

After some effort, I finally saw the crooked words on the paper:

Father, I really want to call you that. You've always asked me to call you Uncle Li, but in my heart I've long considered you my father. You named me Zhiyi, hoping that I would always be gentle, kind, and innocent.

Life was hard at that time and every family wanted a boy, so girls who could not be raised by their families would be ruthlessly thrown on the roadside. When you picked me up from the roadside, I was really happy because I had a home again.

You always take me with you to every performance, and Aunt Xiu looks so beautiful in this red costume. I also want to wear this dress when I grow up.

But later, the villagers invited you to more and more places, and picked up more and more children. At that time, I thought you were the most awesome father in the world, and that was also my happiest time.

As I grew older, I began to remember things. It seemed like everything was different from what I remembered. I didn't know where those children had gone. I asked you to teach me shadow puppetry, but you refused.

Until one day I accidentally walked into a dark room. I had never seen that place before. There were many children of my age locked up there, some even younger...

Jing Ning closed the envelope, and the contents behind it were similar to his analysis.

She wanted revenge, she wanted them to pay the price, and be trapped here forever as a shadow puppet.

"So this Zhiyi is the little girl in the photo." Yan Shuang said, "The dark room..."