Chapter 036

Who knows if there are any traps or something like that in here? He doesn't want to die before he succeeds...

After the door of the secret room was opened, Cheng Hui did not go in immediately.

Who knows if there might be some kind of mechanism in here, and he doesn't want to die before accomplishing his mission.

He closed the door of the secret room again and walked out.

The battle between Meng Lang, Ye Qi and Xuan Tan is about to end. Meng Lang was greatly affected by the lightning and thunder just now, and is now being suppressed by Ye Qi and Xuan Tan.

Seeing this, Xin Erniang was also eager to try, but under Ye Qi's stern gaze, she still didn't dare to make a move.

"Where is that old Taoist priest?" Cheng Hui asked.

"Isn't it there? I just fed him medicine. Don't worry, it's not a big problem." Xin Er Niang didn't even turn her head. She stared at the three people fighting, trying to learn some experience from them.

"Where?" Cheng Hui wondered.

Xin Erniang said impatiently, "Oh, isn't it just... um? Where are they?"

Looking at the empty yard, Xin Erniang was also confused. The old Taoist priest was vomiting blood just now, how could he be gone in such a short time?

"You bastard! I knew you had bad intentions! You want to use me to delay them? Dream on!" Meng Lang also heard their conversation and yelled at them.

He took the palm strike from Xuan Tan, and his body suddenly jumped up and quickly disappeared in the air.

After Ye Qi came back, he looked at the place where the old Taoist disappeared and said solemnly: "Something is wrong."

Xin Erniang looked confused. "Why do I feel like we've been in such a mess since we entered here? It's really overwhelming."

Master Xuan Tan and Ye Qi also had grim expressions. The inexplicable disappearance of Madam Xie and the old Taoist priest, coupled with the words Meng Lang left behind before he escaped, made them feel that the situation seemed to be becoming very dangerous.

"I just found something in there. Come and take a look." Cheng Hui felt that it was useless to think so much, so he simply told about his discovery.

As expected, everyone was attracted and followed him back into the room to see those things.

"Evil creature!" Master Xuan Tan cursed angrily after reading the book.

"Bah! This bastard is not worthy of being a human being!" Xin Erniang cursed.

Ye Qi remained silent, not because he was not angry, but as a member of the Demon Suppression Division, he had seen many cases and naturally witnessed the greed of humanoids.

Painter Xie, for example, murdered his own unborn child, using it as paint. He once encountered a case where the head of a family, a man in his seventies, secretly slaughtered all of his bloodline to refine them into tonics in order to achieve immortality. That was sheer utter depravity.

Cheng Hui had been angry just now, but now he was not so angry anymore. He opened the door of the secret room and Ye Qi walked in first.

Cheng Hui followed closely behind. After entering the secret room, they lit the candles on the table. The secret room was not large, and various paintings were hung on the four walls.

These paintings include landscapes and portraits, but the landscapes obviously lack a lot of charm compared to the portraits.

The feeling it gives people is that the scenery is dead, but the portraits... are alive.

“Who is it?”

Just when everyone's attention was focused on the portrait, Cheng Hui suddenly felt a cool breeze blowing on his back. He turned around abruptly and saw a dark shadow squatting in the corner behind the secret room door.

The others also saw the dark shadow and became alert instinctively.

The shadow didn't move, as if he hadn't heard anything.

Cheng Hui looked for a while and felt that the black shadow seemed to be the 'Miss Xie' who had just been comforted by Mrs. Xie.

He asked softly, "Miss Xie Wan?"

The shadow didn't move or respond.

The rest of the people looked at each other. The sudden disappearance of Madam Xie and the old Taoist priest meant that their words were most likely lies. Then it was hard to say who this black shadow was.

It could be Miss Xie, but it's more likely some unlucky ghost.

Seeing that the shadow didn't react, Cheng Hui thought for a moment and asked tentatively, "Thank you, painter?"

Hearing his words, the black shadow actually moved. He raised his head and slowly stood up. The black mist outlined a human figure, which was an adult man.

Cheng Hui let out a long breath. After wandering around the yard in confusion for so long, they finally found some clues.

"you……!"

Before he could finish his words, he saw the remaining soul of Painter Xie suddenly walk towards him.

"Be careful!" Aqiu reminded quickly.

Cheng Hui didn't say anything. He didn't sense any malice from the black shadow, and the other party's movements were very slow, so they were able to react in time.

He winked at the other three people, and they moved slowly to avoid being blocked in the secret room by the shadows.

Painter Xie slowly walked to the wall, reached out his hand and gently stroked the words.

Even if you can't see his facial features clearly, you can feel his obsession with those paintings just from his movements.

He stroked his works one by one, as if recalling his achievements in the past.

Everyone watched quietly as Painter Xie walked from one wall to the other, touching each portrait on the wall.

When he reached the last wall, he touched all the paintings and suddenly disappeared.

Cheng Hui and the others were stunned for a moment. Master Xuan Tan took out his magic weapon, looked around, and shook his head.

"This is impossible." Ye Qi frowned.

He had just tried to use the method of the Demon Suppression Division to find the remnant soul, but in the end he found nothing.

"Hmm... Painter Xie's remaining soul should want to tell us something." Cheng Hui felt that Painter Xie definitely did not appear for no reason.

He hadn't communicated with Mrs. Xie before, which showed that he had a bad impression of her. This also indirectly confirmed that there was definitely something wrong with this Mrs. Xie. It was hard to say what role Mrs. Xie played in the tragedy that year.

"Ah Hui, did you notice that most of the paintings that Painter Xie touched just now were portraits, and only three were landscapes." A Qiu suddenly said.

"Um."

Cheng Hui had indeed noticed this: Painter Xie was obsessed with portraits, but dismissive of landscapes. He didn't know much about painting, but he could tell that the three landscapes favored by Painter Xie were definitely not masterpieces. It could even be argued that they wouldn't even rank in the top ten of all landscapes.

So the question is, why does Painter Xie particularly appreciate those three paintings?

According to the book, the portraits painted by Painter Xie have a special magic. It is understandable that Painter Xie is obsessed with his portraits, but why does he show the same obsession with landscape paintings, or even not-so-outstanding landscape paintings?

What Cheng Hui noticed would naturally not be missed by the two big guys, Ye Qi and Xuan Tan. After some discussion, they decided to take down the three paintings and check them.

Xin Erniang refused. Ever since she read the book, she felt that all the paintings in the secret room exuded a foul odor. It was obvious that the paintings collected by Painter Xie in the secret room must have been painted with special pigments.

However, no matter how disgusting Xin Erniang felt, she still had to do her job.

After Ye Qi took down the three paintings, she took the initiative to move over to take a look and sneered, "A painting of this quality can be bought by any poor scholar on the street for a hundred coins."

"Oh?" Cheng Hui didn't know much about paintings. He could only tell that the painting was very ordinary, but he had no clear idea of ​​how ordinary it was.

Xin Erniang sneered and said, "If that painter Xie was at this level, I would really suspect that those people who admired him in the capital were blind."

Ye Qi and Master Xuan Tan both looked at the three paintings thoughtfully.

The painting is a very ordinary landscape painting, with mountains and water, and clear distinction between near and far. There is really nothing special about it.

Ye Qi suspected that there might be something fishy in the contents of these paintings. In short, these three paintings that could win the favor of the remaining soul of Painter Xie must have something special.

Several people looked around the painting several times but found nothing.

Cheng Hui looked at it for a while, and suddenly remembered the book he had found before. He picked up a painting and looked at it from the side.

"really!"

"Huh? What did you find?" Xin Er Niang asked curiously.

"The thickness of this painting is wrong. The paper is too thick."

Ye Qi suddenly realized: "There is something else hidden in this painting!"

"The young donor is indeed discerning." Master Xuan Tan said, stroking his beard.

Cheng Hui smiled politely: "It mainly comes from experience. That's how I handled that book just now."

Everyone understood immediately. They had seen some remaining traces on the pages before, but they had not thought of it for the time being.

With a direction, the few of them quickly found a way to split all the paintings in the middle, opened the front and back layers of rice paper, and the other three paintings hidden inside were revealed.

"This is..." Ye Qi frowned, and Xin Erniang continued: "Isn't this that Meng Lang?"

She looked at the other paintings again. "If I'm not mistaken, these three paintings are of Meng Lang, Mrs. Xie, and Miss Xie. Why did Painter Xie paint these three people?"

The four of them were a little puzzled. It was obvious that these three paintings were specially shown to them by Painter Xie, but what was the purpose?

"Ah Hui, look at the portraits on the wall and ask them if they know the people in the portraits?" Ah Qiu reminded.

Cheng Hui asked, and Ye Qi and Master Xuan Tan looked at each other in bewilderment. These portraits included both men and women, dressed in different social classes, but to say they knew them... wait, Ye Qi suddenly stood up, walked to a portrait, frowned and thought for a moment: "This one seems to be... the wife of the Minister of Rites?"

Seeing everyone looking at him, Ye Qi explained that he had met the Minister of Rites a few times and had visited his home and met his wife. He vaguely remembered that she looked like this. However, the Minister of Rites' wife had passed away many years ago, and the cause of death was illness, so there should be no suspicion.

"When did the wife of the Minister of Rites fall ill?" Cheng Hui asked. He also asked this question on behalf of Aqiu.

Ye Qi was stunned for a moment, and tried hard to recall: "It seems to be... more than ten years ago."

"Was it after Painter Xie left the capital?"

Ye Qi vaguely understood something: "It was indeed at that time."

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