secret message
The classroom where Huang Zixuan took photos was next to the Super Birthday Class. A group of students in bachelor's gowns and bachelor's caps were taking graduation photos. The classroom was filled with infinite joy.
The arrival of the illusionist could not break this joy. Amid the cheers, a strange female student asked loudly: "Classmate, are you from the study group? We will take a photo for a while and then leave. It may be a bit noisy. Sorry!"
"I'm here to look for someone!" The illusionist had to raise his voice.
"It was too noisy and I couldn't hear you!"
Without paying any more attention to her, the illusionist had already found his target.
The target Huang Zixuan was wearing a photography vest quite conspicuously, with lipstick, powder, highlighter and eyebrow pencil in her pocket. It seems that she is not only a photographer but also a part-time makeup artist.
"Someone, hold up the shading board for him and turn off the light on the left side of the blackboard!" Huang Zixuan shouted at the top of her voice, "Hold the shading board like this, watch me!"
Huang Zixuan was busy running back and forth between the tripod and the blackboard like an ant, and her subject's limbs were stiff and his hands and feet were not aligned, so Huang Zixuan had to help him pose.
It is estimated that even if the withered dynasty pollutes the entire school, it will take too long to finish filming. The illusionist interrupted them directly: "Is it Huang Zixuan? The key to the storage room on the first floor of the comprehensive building is in your hand."
"It's not in my hands. Can't you see I'm busy?"
"Important documents were stolen from the safe in the storage room. The school is considering calling the police."
Huang Zixuan finally turned around and looked at her: "There is no safe in the safe storage room."
"The empty safe is downstairs. Come with me to check it out."
Huang Zixuan straightened the hat tassel of the person being photographed. She was very unhappy: "I don't know what you are talking about. The photos I took before are still in my phone. There is no safe at all."
"I returned the key to Teacher Li from the Student Affairs Office as soon as I finished cleaning last week, and I got the key again last night. Even if there is a safe, it was put there by Teacher Li before last night, and it has nothing to do with me."
“Who holds the key?”
"Give it to my friend and ask her to help me clean it."
All the answers were frank and true, and there was no flaw to be found. The illusionist knew that it would not be easy to find the mastermind behind the arrangement of the Withered Dynasty. She patiently said: "Show me the photo."
The person holding the sunshade next to him was getting impatient: "Are you guys done yet? Hurry up and take the photos! My hands are sore from holding the sunshade!"
"I'll say one more word to her, just one word." Huang Zixuan quickly smiled ingratiatingly at the person she was photographing.
Pulling the illusionist aside, Huang Zixuan begged for mercy: "Classmate, I am following the order. People pay me to take pictures. I will definitely give you the pictures you want. Please wait until I finish taking the pictures."
Without waiting for the illusionist to answer, she ran back to the blackboard.
The illusionist sighed and sat in the back of the classroom to open the black package, which contained only a thin pink notebook.
Opening the first page of the notebook, I saw the following sentence neatly written in blue-black pen.
[My world seems to be forever stuck on September 14, 2004. That day seems to be the beginning of everything.]
September 14, 1994, the date of Wanting's death is wrong. Wang Yue said Wanting died five years ago. I tried the phone lock screen password with this date, but it was wrong.
There were words on the back of the page, scribbled in an ordinary black fountain pen.
[Wanting, they all say that you are a good child and will become a good person when you grow up. But what is a good person?]
[Wanting, I don't care what a good person is. I just want to be the good person that I think I am.]
The memory artist frowned. Even though she was not a professional handwriting examiner, she could tell that the three sentences on the front and back were written by the same person at different ages.
The sentence on the front looks like it was written by a beginner in fountain pen calligraphy. The first sentence on the back has some connected strokes, but the tip of the stroke can be seen at the end of the stroke.
The second sentence on the back was more connected, and the handwriting was a little shaky. She could imagine how Liu Tianyi looked when he wrote these words.
The second page is blank, and it is only from the third page that you can see that this is a notebook. There is a piece of yellowed letter paper pasted on it. The letter paper is well preserved and has no wrinkles.
The time was marked next to the letter paper: September 19, 2004. Liu Tianyi was in junior high school six years ago, and her handwriting was very immature.
【Wanting, you are such a genius. You can come up with such an interesting method!
You are the team leader responsible for collecting homework, and I am a team member. I put the secret letter in the thickest homework book, and you took it out secretly.
When you finish writing the reply, put it in the homework book that the teacher has marked and return it to me. The teacher can't find it, the classmates can't find it, the parents can't find it, we are like secret agents, you are so awesome!】
Turning back, it was September 20, 93 years in the new calendar, in beautiful blue small characters.
【I had no choice but to choose this method. ** (This part is crossed out with a pen) She has been like this since elementary school, forming gangs to bully people. I was also bullied by her when I was in elementary school. I understand you the most. Just ignore her. If it doesn’t work, tell the teacher!】
September 21, 93rd year in the Gregorian calendar.
[Wanting, did you watch the new episode of the animation last night? That Akita is so cute, it......]
There is a poorly drawn Akita dog in the lower right corner of the letter.
September 22, 93rd year in the Gregorian calendar.
[Of course I watched it, so you watched it too! I don’t dare to say that I watch anime in class, because they all watch TV series and will laugh at people who watch anime. Great, I......]
There was an unusual "swish" sound, and the memory teacher's scalp tingled. She looked up and found that the students were fighting for the blackboard eraser. She didn't know whose nails scratched the blackboard.
The male student who grabbed the eraser proudly erased the words "Happy Graduation". He held his girlfriend with his left hand and wrote a few large and flamboyant characters on the blackboard with his right hand: September 17, 2006, my baby and I met during military training.
Incredible changes happened quietly, and the illusionist couldn't help but open his eyes wide.
She saw that the students' bachelor's gowns seemed to be blown by the breeze, and the color gradually changed to dark green camouflage patterns.
In a blink of an eye, the whole outfit turned into a military training uniform, and the students became black and dusty.
They seemed unaware of the changes in themselves. One student howled loudly and blessed the two people hugging each other on the podium in a strange way.
The male student holding the blackboard eraser loudly announced that he would get married after graduation, pushing the atmosphere to a climax again.
The extremely happy atmosphere was destroyed by the sound of angry high heels.
"Who is the counselor for your major? Do you know that there are still classes next to you? You can just ignore it after you graduate." Professor Shen slammed the door open, successfully quieting everyone down.
"Teacher, I'm sorry..."
"We're leaving now."
The students fled in panic, and Huang Zixuan deftly put away the tripod under Professor Shen's stern gaze.
The opportunity has come. The illusionist greeted Professor Shen politely, reached out and picked up Huang Zixuan's sunshade and a pile of sundries: "I'll help you."
Huang Zixuan wanted to refuse, but under the intimidation of Professor Shen, he dared not speak, and was accompanied by the Memory Master out of the classroom.
"Add me on WeChat and I'll send you the photos." Huang Zixuan took the initiative to say after walking out of the classroom.
"Don't send it to me, my phone is out of battery, just take a look at the photo."
Huang Zixuan was very cooperative: "I'll show you the chat records between me and Teacher Li from the Student Affairs Office. Every time I finished cleaning, I sent Teacher Li a photo of the scene. There was no safe as you said."
The illusionist looked carefully at the past chat records and found that Huang Zixuan did not lie.
"It's time to give me my things." Huang Zixuan's eyes were glued to his visor.
"Your folding sunshade is quite professional. You must have spent a lot of money on it." The illusionist had no intention of returning the item. "You really have never given the key to anyone else."
"Really? Do I have the guts?"
The illusionist sneered: "Tell me the truth, why didn't you go to clean the storage room today? You told your friend that you got a part-time job as a photographer this morning. She believed me or not."
"How can there be a rush order for graduation photos, especially for such a large group of people? They are about to graduate, how can they get together without making an appointment in advance?"
"You really came up from the storage room downstairs! Then you asked me who I gave the key to. You obviously met my friend."
"Tell the truth." The illusionist emphasized, "If I can't find the things, the next person who asks you will be the police. Think it over carefully."
Huang Zixuan was so anxious that she almost cursed: "I really didn't give the key to the messy person! This matter has nothing to do with me!"
"Okay, you didn't give the key to the wrong person, I believe it." The illusionist waited for Huang Zixuan to relax visibly, and then asked relentlessly, "So why don't you go clean the storage room?"
After a moment of silence, Huang Zixuan said tiredly: "It's okay if I don't clean the storage room and the safe and lose things."
"How do you know it's okay?" the illusionist asked back, "The truth is hidden in the little things that say 'it doesn't matter'. How would I know it's okay if you don't tell me?"
She softened her tone and said, "I can see that you really like photography. Save up some money to buy a stabilizer, and stop carrying a tripod around."
"A stabilizer cannot completely replace a tripod." Huang Zixuan realized belatedly, "Forget it... why am I telling you this?"
There was another silence, and the Memory Master waited patiently.
Huang Zixuan touched her sun visor: "Taking photos after cleaning is not a job requirement, but a little idea of mine."
"It's hard to understand, but this is the only life skill I learned from my mother."
"My mother is a cleaner. She fell from the second floor while cleaning the outside of the window. She wanted to ask the company for compensation, but the company told her that the camera was broken and there was no surveillance video, so it couldn't prove that her leg was broken at the company."
"She wanted to sue the company. The company said something was lost in the area she was responsible for and they suspected she had stolen it."
"How could she steal? From then on, she took a photo before cleaning and again after cleaning. She kept these photos in her photo album forever, ready to prove herself at any time."
The illusionist interrupted her: "So you found out that something was missing from the storage room, and you were afraid of being held responsible."
"It's worse than that." Huang Zixuan's face turned pale, "I broke something."
The photos she had just seen were clearly suspended in the memory artist's mind, and she suddenly realized: "You broke that vase"
"I shouldn't have shown you the photos." Huang Zixuan sighed.
"When I first got this job, the senior who was in charge of cleaning the storage room took me in. She said there was nothing delicate or valuable in the storage room, so I could work without worrying about it. Then Teacher Li said something."
"Teacher Li said: 'Who says there are no valuable things? This vase was given by a famous alumnus of the Academy of Fine Arts.' I have been careful enough, who would have thought..."
The Memory Master interrupted her again: "So last week you avoided the vase and took the photo from a different angle. This week you asked your friend to clean it so you could put the blame on your friend."
Huang Zixuan's face turned even paler: "No, Teacher Li should have discovered it last week."
“Why do you say it ‘should’ be discovered?” The Memory Master keenly grasped the word “should”.
"I cleaned up the broken pieces of the vase and took the photo from a carefully selected angle. Just as I sent the photo and before I had time to lock the door, Teacher Li appeared behind me."
"He said he wanted to check the hygiene, walked into the storage room and looked around, then asked me to give him the key, and then he didn't say anything."
The Memory Master asked: "He didn't notice that the vase was missing."
"I don't know. I don't know whether he didn't find out or he found out but didn't want to say."
"Are you sure it was Teacher Li who came in to get the key?" The memory master stared at Huang Zixuan's eyes.
Huang Zixuan panicked: "Of course it's Teacher Li, how could he be wrong? Why don't we check the surveillance camera?"
"Your mother taught you that security cameras are always broken when they want to be broken."
After stuffing the sunshade into Huang Zixuan's arms, the Memory Master gave his final instructions:
"The person you saw is most likely not the teacher Li you know. Take my advice, don't follow the filming, it's safest to go back to the dormitory and sleep well."
Huang Zixuan looked at her from the side of the sun visor: "What about you, are you going back to the dormitory too?"
“I want to go back in time.”
The illusionist gently closed the door of the classroom, isolating Huang Zixuan from the door. The only sound in the suddenly quiet classroom was her own footsteps, and she wrote a line of small words at the bottom of the blackboard.
[September 14, 2004]
The moment she wrote down the last number, the memory artist experienced a wonderful sense of weightlessness, as if her whole body was out of the control of the earth's gravity. Accompanied by a dizziness, she floated up to a fixed position.
In front of him was the young and immature Liu Tianyi.
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