In the Yunwu Mountain Villa, Xue Huan and Xiao Jue were "admiring" a painting of a beauty in the pavilion in the middle of the lake. When the news came, they looked at each other and their first reaction was: Impossible.
Because the real murderer is not a human, but a monster - the painting monster, whose true form is the painting hanging in front of them.
Since the murderer, the Painting Demon, was already in their hands, how could he be caught by the Fourth Prince? The Painting Demon didn't have any clones.
Back to half a month ago, when Xue Huan learned that the emperor had issued an edict that "whoever catches the murderer first will be made the crown prince", she decided to help Xiao Jue catch the murderer as soon as possible.
She originally thought that it would take at least four or five years for Xiao Jue to become the crown prince. After all, he had been disabled for five years and had been isolated and decadent in the other courtyard for five years. He had lagged behind the other princes for five years. It would not be a matter of a day or two for him to catch up with and surpass them.
But now, things have taken a turn for the better, and Xiao Jue can use this opportunity to solve the case and overtake others.
The two met in the villa. Xiao Jue took out a copied file, and Xue Huan took it and quickly flipped through it. With the help of her spiritual sense, she could really read ten lines at a glance and remember everything she saw, so she flipped through the file very quickly.
After reading it, she had a general understanding of this serial skinning murder case.
The first victim was a scholar from a wealthy family. He read in the study until very late the night before and then went to bed in the study. The next day, when the servant went in to call the scholar to get up, he found that his master was dead and his face had been completely peeled off. He was horrified and immediately ran out to tell his master and his mistress.
According to the first witness, the book boy, he was on guard outside the room at night, but he did not find anything unusual and did not hear any movement. The doors and windows of the study were closed tightly.
This is very much like a locked room murder case.
The second victim was a classmate of the scholar, who was studying in the same academy. He came to pay tribute to the scholar and died on the third night after returning. His death was exactly the same as the scholar's.
After the government received this case, they immediately attached great importance to it, because it was obviously a serial murder case. If the case could not be solved as soon as possible, there would likely be a third victim.
Then, before the authorities could identify the murderer, the third victim appeared.
Almost one person is killed every two or three days.
These people, both men and women, of different social status, have one very obvious thing in common: they have outstanding looks.
The murderer may have been obsessed with the faces of people with outstanding looks, so he peeled off their faces after killing them. However, this alone is of no help in solving the case.
Xue Huan couldn't find out anything more from the records in the files, so she decided to go to the scene where the victims were killed. Maybe some of the victims were holding a grudge because they died unjustly and were unwilling to leave. In this way, she could talk to the ghosts and directly ask them who killed them.
Unfortunately, she did not find any of the deceased's souls at several crime scenes.
If she was strong enough and her cultivation was high enough, she could easily solve the case by simply casting a time-rewinding spell. Unfortunately, with her current cultivation level, she was unable to cast such a high-level spell.
After thinking about it, she could only use a stupid method and perform soul-searching on the first witnesses of this serial case one by one. The first one was the scholar's servant.
Perhaps when the servant boy discovered the scholar's body, he was so shocked that he ignored some clues, and then forgot them, or even his memory was confused, but in fact, the information he saw and heard was all well stored in his mind.
Under the soul-searching technique, the information will be presented in full.
Xue Huan's spiritual consciousness penetrated into the book boy's brain and entered his sea of consciousness. The sea of consciousness of ordinary people is pitch black, unlike that of cultivators, whose sea of consciousness will present different scenes according to each person's state of mind.
It is said that when one reaches a high level of cultivation, the cultivator's sea of consciousness can become a realm of its own, breaking away from it and becoming a real world.
It is said that one thought is the world.
Of course, Xue Huan is still very far away from that realm now.
Her consciousness was like a ray of light, moving quickly in the dark sea of consciousness of the servant boy, and came to the day of the crime, reading the memory.
When reading, she felt as if she was there in person. Everything in the study was restored and presented before her eyes. She walked around inside, not missing any small details.
What concerned her most here was a picture of a beauty.
The picture of the beauty was hung on the blank wall in front of the desk. If the scholar sat behind the desk and read, he could see it as soon as he looked up.
The beauty in the painting is graceful and charming, and her eyes are especially well-painted, bright and full of emotion, as if they were alive.
Xue Huan couldn't help but feel a little weird.
However, it's just a painting and doesn't mean anything.
She went to the second victim's home and conducted a soul search on the first witness.
What shocked her was that the witness also remembered a picture of a beauty! The beauty in the picture had changed, but strangely, she looked somewhat like the scholar.
Xue Huan felt that this painting must be related to this serial murder case.
Next, she searched the souls of the other first witnesses one by one, and sure enough, she saw a painting of a beauty at each crime scene. Although the beauties in the paintings had different faces, their aura was exactly the same!
After returning, Xue Huan drew portraits of several victims so far, copied the pictures of beauties, and placed the portraits of the deceased and the pictures of beauties side by side.
"The portraits in the top row are of the victims in this serial murder case, and the portraits in the bottom row are of the beauties who were originally at the scene. Do you see what I mean?"
Xue Huan asked Xiao Jue.
Xiao Jue looked at them one by one, and was shocked. The faces of the beauties in the beauty pictures below all bore some resemblance to the dead in the row above. For example, Beauty No. 2 resembled Dead No. 1, Beauty No. 3 resembled Dead No. 2, and Beauty No. 4 had similarities with Dead Nos. 1, 2, and 3, as if their faces had been blended together...
It’s really scary when you think about it!
Did the murderer deliberately let the portrait fall into the hands of the deceased in advance as a signal to kill them?
This was not mentioned in the case file because after the deceased was discovered, all the paintings of beauties that were originally in their room disappeared, and the officials had no way of knowing that there was a painting of a beauty in the room.
Even if some witnesses mentioned this, the government officials would not be able to completely restore the beauty painting based on the witnesses' oral accounts. If they could not completely restore it, the government officials would not notice the strangeness of the beauty painting and would not pay attention to it.
At most, I know that there was a painting of a beauty in the house.
There is no way to know what the beauty picture looks like.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
