Chapter 208: Scavenger (4) Birthday Gift
After returning home, Gao Mengtang projected the surveillance video onto the TV. Yue Fan and seven other people sat around the TV, staring at the screen without blinking.
The eye-protecting blueberries lost their effect, and Gao Mengtang gradually became blind. He lay on the sofa with his eyes closed to rest.
"What's so special about this thing?" After watching it for the fifth time, Tu Cheng was so sleepy that he yawned.
Wolanbei was wiping his gun absentmindedly, Helun and Bai Jie were playing poker, and only Wei Wei was staring at the screen intently.
10th time.
Wei Wei also lost his patience: "Maybe these surveillances are not important."
"Let's take another look." Gao Mengtang ate an eye-protecting blueberry, perked up, used his observation skills as when sketching, and stared at the screen intently.
There are 10 surveillance videos in total, from tourists entering the park, taking photos and checking in in front of the Torii Gate, to turning on the night photography mode after entering the haunted house. It was winter, and the tourists were shivering with cold, their cheeks flushed, and they were wrapped up tightly.
The low temperature could not dampen their enthusiasm for playing, and the park was crowded with people, making it very lively.
Another hour passed...
"Well, I can't see anything." Gao Mengtang lay back on the sofa, rubbing his eyebrows.
At this time, Lin Li, who had been wiping the crystal ball, slowly raised her head and glanced at the screen. She gradually stopped wiping the crystal ball, slowly stood up, and walked towards the TV step by step...
"I've seen it," Lin Li pointed at one of them and said, "I've seen it..."
The person she was pointing at was wearing a white down jacket, a fluffy white Russian winter hat with earmuffs, and two white fluffy gloves. He was spotlessly clean, like a large plush doll.
Gao Mengtang sat up and said, "Have you seen it? That was 20 years ago."
Lin Li sat back on the carpet, wiping the crystal ball with a distracted look, and refused to speak no matter how anyone asked him questions. His green-framed glasses slipped down to the tip of his nose, and he stared straight ahead.
They scrolled the progress bar and watched the video repeatedly. Sure enough, in every video clip, there was this tourist dressed in white. He was tall and thin, wearing a mask and a hat with the brim pulled down low. Most of the time, he had his back to the camera and his face could not be seen clearly.
However, the tourists in white are not the only ones who appear in every video clip. The tour route is fixed, and most of the people in the video clips appear from the beginning to the end.
They scratched their heads and looked at it five times again. There was nothing special about the tourist in white. He came here with two friends. When he was frightened, the tourist in white stood there without any reaction, while the two friends screamed and hugged him tightly.
"I can't tell anything." Tu Cheng yawned again. "The clothes of tourist Xiao Bai look expensive. He must be a rich man. I can only guess these. What about you?"
Some were playing cards, some were cleaning their guns, and Wei Wei was dragging the progress bar alone, freezing at a certain frame.
Tourist Xiaobai raised his head and the surveillance camera found half of his face. The mask and hat covered most of his facial features, leaving only a pair of eyes exposed.
Wei Wei enlarged the image, squinted his eyes and looked at it for a long while, half believing and half doubting: "Mr. Blind, this...isn't it you?"
"Eh?" Gao Mengtang sat up for the second time.
He Lun and Bai Jie threw the cards away and came to the TV, looking at it again and again, and were extremely surprised: "Really, Brother Mengtang, these are your eyes!"
At first glance, he looked very similar to Gao Mengtang, with big, round eyes, dark pupils, and a high nose bridge and brow bones. His teammates hurriedly put a mask and a hat on Gao Mengtang, and held his chin to make him look up. Tu Cheng jumped onto the table and took a photo of him from the same angle from top to bottom.
Compared with the surveillance footage, it is 70% similar, except that the surveillance footage is not clear, is far away, and is a bit blurry.
"Is that you in the surveillance video?" Tu Cheng looked at the photo, then at Gao Mengtang. "They look so alike. They really look so alike."
Gao Mengtang smiled helplessly: "The surveillance was in December of 422 New Year. I was not even born then."
"Then why does he look so much like you?" Wolanbei was so shocked that his mouth couldn't close.
"How would I know?" Gao Mengtang held his forehead weakly. "Maybe, good-looking people are 70% similar? A Wei even confused me with Li Mo."
That makes sense.
They patiently watched the surveillance video five times, but still could not find the face of the tourist in white.
With only one unclear screenshot, they dared not draw any conclusions and recorded two clues in their notebooks:
1. The mysterious tourist in white.
2. She is very rich, pretty (at least her eyes are pretty), and looks very much like Gao Mengtang.
When I was about to go to bed, the phone rang like a life-threatening sound. As soon as I pressed the answer button, I heard the driver say:
"Get out of here quickly. I'll take you to the dark clouds."
Gao Mengtang: "What's wrong?"
"What's wrong?!" The driver exploded, shouting like a powder keg, "Thunder God is going to die!!"
After hanging up the phone, Gao Mengtang and others were not in a hurry and put on their clothes slowly.
So what if Lei Gong is going to die? They are not an ICU, and even if they arrive in time, they can’t save his life.
As they went downstairs, the driver honked the horn frantically, urging them to get in the car.
"What happened to Lei Gong?" Gao Mengtang was fastening his seat belt when the driver stepped on the accelerator and the car rushed into the night.
"It was the man you captured alive," the driver said. "Lei Gong took off his mask, and the madman suddenly broke free of all restraints and directly broke Lei Gong's neck!"
*
South of the ancestral city, Cactus Mountain, the headquarters of the dark clouds.
Wuyun is a branch of Tanhualing. The decoration style of the headquarters is 70% similar to that of the Black Tower Laboratory in Tanhualing. The rabbit-faced craftsman was locked in a cylindrical glass container, running around like a monkey.
The glass was intact, and it was obvious that an indestructible magic circle had been cast on it.
They went into the third underground floor, disinfected their bodies, and then followed the medical staff. Through the window glass, they saw Lei Gong lying on the hospital bed.
He was wearing a neck brace and had tubes inserted all over his body.
"This is Lei Gong. He is so ugly." Wolanbei said in a low voice.
The person on the hospital bed had dark skin, a pointed face, exaggerated buck teeth like a bird's beak, and was thin and short, looking exactly like a monkey without its hair.
"Don't say that," Gao Mengtang frowned, "Don't judge people by their appearance."
Wo Lanbei chuckled: "Don't judge people by appearance? Wei Wei, if Gao Mengtang had the appearance of Thunder God, would you still follow him wholeheartedly?"
Wei Wei looked at him as if he were a lunatic.
"He won't," Wolanbei shrugged, "Humans are visual animals."
Gao Mengtang quickly changed the subject and asked the doctor in the distance: "We are deeply sorry that Lei Gong was injured, but why did you ask us to come here?"
"Lei Gong originally planned to attend Chen Yuan's coming-of-age ceremony tomorrow," the doctor said, "but now he's so sick that he can't go. He wants you to take the gifts and celebrate Chen Yuan's birthday."
Gao Mengtang: "Who is Chen Yuan?"
"You'll know when you get there," the doctor wrote something in the medical record, "Come with me, the gift is here."
They went down one more level and entered the vault on the fourth underground floor.
In the middle of the empty room, there was a large object about 1.6 meters tall, covered with black velvet.
The doctor pulled off the black velvet cloth: "This is a gift."
When Gao Mengtang saw the gift, he gasped in surprise and subconsciously took a half step back.
It was a black sculpture, made of stone, but under the light, a faint colored light flashed on its surface.
A man knelt beside the throne, one arm resting on it, the other hand tightly grasping a slender staff. The tip of the staff pierced into the man's eye socket and passed through the back of his head.
Isn’t this the sculpture of the Twelve Wise Kings gouging out their own eyes?
"Deliver the gift unharmed, say 'Happy 18th Birthday' to Chen Yuan, and then come back." The doctor said, "Do you understand?"
Gao Mengtang calmed down and said, "I understand. But why did you give me this gift? I'm sorry... In my opinion, this sculpture is not suitable for a birthday."
"It looks a bit scary, doesn't it?" the doctor said expressionlessly, "but Chen Yuan will like it, he worships the twelfth wise king. If there are no problems, we will set out at nine o'clock tomorrow morning. You will have to sleep on the floor here tonight."
When he returned to the ground, he passed by the place where the rabbit-faced craftsman was imprisoned. Wolanbei knocked on the glass and teased him like a monkey.
The rabbit-faced craftsman was furious. He rushed over and smashed the glass wildly, baring his teeth at Wolanbei.
"Fuck!" Wolanbei quickly dodged. It was not because he was afraid of the rabbit-faced craftsman, but because the rabbit-faced craftsman was too ugly!
Although Lei Gong was ugly, at least he looked like a human being. The rabbit-faced craftsman was ugly in that his nose was crooked and his eyes were slanted. He did not look like a human being at all. His ugliness was horrifying and eye-opening.
Wo Lanbei ran away in small steps, as if ugliness was contagious: "Did this thing fail in plastic surgery? It scared me."
They rested in an empty room covered with dark clouds. When they opened the door, they first saw thousands of colorful paper cranes hanging from the ceiling, decorating the room like a fairy tale paradise.
Wei Wei clenched the bracelet in his pocket. It was the bracelet he had snatched from the rabbit-faced craftsman, and the top bead was a thousand paper cranes.
"So many paper cranes," Wei Wei said calmly, "Who made these?"
Doctor: "Chen Yuan. He likes paper cranes. This child has some mental problems. He can only calm down when he folds paper cranes. Lei Gong adopted him and found a psychologist for him. He finally got better."
He brought the bedding and placed it on the bed, and continued, "But Chen Yuan is an ungrateful child. Because Lei Gong didn't let him play computer games, he beat Lei Gong up."
Lei Gong and Chen Yuan are foster father and son. There is a thousand paper cranes on the bracelet of the rabbit-faced craftsman.
Could it be that the rabbit-masked craftsman is Chen Yuan's subordinate, and that Chen Yuan is the mastermind behind the tragedy in the haunted house?
Why did Chen Yuan do this?
There is another clue: the paper figurine amusement park is the property of [Inari]. Inari is a person that even the god of thunder cannot afford to offend.
"Um, Inari," Gao Mengtang said hesitantly, "Where is he? Will he show up at Chen Yuan's coming-of-age ceremony?"
"You also know Inari," the doctor smiled like a kind father on his serious and old-fashioned face when he heard the name. "Inari may come. I heard that he likes to join in the fun. He is the core figure of Epiphyllum Ridge, but he has a very cute personality... Although I have never met him, I think he is very cute after hearing those little stories..."
...Your smile is too erotic!
The Wuyun Organization is a branch of Tanhualing, with a lower status than Tanhualing, and they don't know much about Tanhualing. Gao Mengtang couldn't get any other clues.
The floor was laid and there was underfloor heating, so they quickly got into bed.
It's already 4 a.m. and I have to get up in 5 hours.
System: "You have accepted the task decomposition task 2 [Gift]"
Mission objectives: 1. Give the birthday gift to Chen Yuan
2. Leave Chen Yuan’s home.
Leaving Chen Yuan's home was actually a task.
Thinking with the eye protection blueberry, he knew that there would be an accident during this coming-of-age ceremony. After all, they were Thunder God's subordinates, and Chen Yuan was hostile to Thunder God.
Lin Li and one girl slept on the bed, and the rest slept on the floor. Gao Mengtang didn't want to sleep yet, so she excitedly took out her phone album and looked through the photos they took in front of the Torii.
"Do you also think there's something wrong with these torii gates?" Wei Wei lay on his back, his posture perfect as if he was going to be put into a coffin.
Gao Mengtang: "...I just think these photos are pretty and can be posted on WeChat Moments."
Wei Wei was silent for a long while, showing profound meaning.
"The torii gate has a problem," Wei said. "There is no reason to use precious wood to create the landscape in the playground."
"Yeah." Gao Mengtang responded. Then he selected a group photo that he was most satisfied with and clicked to save it.
[000 Blind Man] issued a side quest to himself: Nine-square grid of friend circle.
Progress: 1/9
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