Chapter 126 A Photo
Under the premise that no one had a clear impression, Tao Chengyue was subtly influenced to think that it might be his memory deviation, or the long time that had led to false associations.
Moreover, it is difficult to distinguish the truth from the false on the Internet. Who knows how different Lin Guantang’s real appearance is from his online image?
He and Lin Guantang didn't know each other.
Because of this reason, Tao Chengyue didn't even know that Lin Guantang was looking for relatives and friends in the blood relationship sense, so there was no way he could discuss related matters with him.
Even ordinary people would not disrupt their plans to meet a stranger, not to mention that Tao Chengyue is a celebrity and even has to squeeze out time several months in advance to attend the school anniversary.
After actually meeting him, Tao Chengyue confirmed that Lin Guantang in real life was much better looking than in those photos and videos. This also confirmed that he had definitely seen Lin Guantang in the old photos.
Well, it should be said that he must have met Lin Guantang’s elders, after all, he saw them in old photos when he was a child.
The fact that he had such a deep memory of it showed that the person in the so-called old photo must look very similar to Lin Guantang. If so, then there was a high possibility that the person in the photo was Lin Guantang's direct ancestor.
It is possible that it is treasured by the older generation. It is hard to say what kind of family photo it is. It can be speculated that it is possible that Lin Guantang and Tao Chengyue are related.
When Wen Tiange heard the news, he said excitedly that now Lin Guantang has changed from Shao Qingbai's fake sister to his own brother.
He also strongly condemned Tao Chengyue for concealing the matter by not telling him in advance.
Then Tao Chengyue asked sharply back - why should I tell you?
First of all, Tao Chengyue saw it in old photos, so of course he mentioned it when chatting with relatives and friends of the older generation;
Secondly, this is Kobayashi’s business, it seems to have nothing to do with you.
He didn't know that Lin Guantang and Wen Tiange had known about this for a long time.
Thinking about the reason why he knew Lin Guantang, Wen Tiange could only swallow his anger, pretend to be stupid and find an excuse to fool people, and then say that the main point was to help Lin Guantang find relatives.
But disappointingly, Lin Guantang has no blood relationship with them.
This means that even the Tao family where Tao Chengyue belongs, the Wen family where Wen Tiange belongs, and their grandfather's and grandfather's maternal grandfather's families, which are closely related by blood, have not found a match.
I haven't heard of any family having missing relatives.
As for the photo that Tao Chengyue mentioned, Wen Tiange and he went back to their hometown and looked for it for several days. They even turned out the honorary photos printed in books decades ago, but they couldn't find any photo that looked like Lin Guantang.
Even if there are a few people who look similar, when compared with Lin Guantang, the differences are completely apparent and they are not similar.
In the end, the clues were helplessly cut off.
Lin Guantang expressed his gratitude and did not force him to continue searching.
They weren't a very close relationship, but being able to do this was already the most he could do, which made Lin Guantang burst into tears of gratitude. He couldn't ask someone to dig three feet underground to find out if the person was buried there.
At that time, he had never imagined that today, Huo Shizhen would actually hire someone to dig deep into the ground for him.
[Cleaning up the relics of Zhou Wencheng's former residence] This task is extremely simple and can be taken on by first-year students. The reason why Huo Shizhen personally led the team here is -
Zhou Wencheng's only daughter is Tao Chengyue's grandmother.
So even if there was only a tiny hope of finding a clue, Huo Shizhen was not going to give it up.
But it was obvious to the naked eye that there was little hope. Huo Shizhen did not intend to inform Lin Guantang of this matter in advance until he found a definite clue.
Similarly, this is also the reason why "Wen Tiange" participated in this task without hesitation. After all, he and Zhou Wencheng are apparently related in some way.
It's just that the real Wen Tiange has another mission to complete, so he can rest assured that Sikong Tan came in his place. After all, he is one year older than him, and Sikong Tan's intelligence gathering ability is unquestionable.
As for the reason why Sikong Tan came for him, one reason was because of Lin Guantang, and the other reason involved his good friend Ge Xihe. He wanted to come and meet Huo Shizhen in person to ask him for some private spies.
A few days ago, Ge Xihe disappeared.
It was not because of a mission error, nor was it because of encountering any enemies. It was just an ordinary afternoon when Ge Xihe sent Sikong Tan a location in Fugan District for no apparent reason.
Sikong Tan sent a question mark, and "Ge Xihe" replied him with a "^^" symbol.
That was the symbol Sikong Tan usually used, but Ge Xihe didn't know how to use it. He once complained that he had joined the Intelligence Department, but why did he still retain this obvious personal habit? Wasn't he deliberately leaving a loophole?
So after seeing this symbol, Sikong Tan became suspicious almost instantly, thinking that Ge Xihe was not showing off to him that he had gone to Fugan District for vacation as a bad friend, but was afraid that something had happened and he was abducted to Fugan District.
This message was a provocative message deliberately sent by his kidnappers.
After this idea came to his mind, Sikong Tan immediately looked for Ge Xihe's whereabouts in recent days.
Sure enough, he hasn't been in school for several days.
But it was normal to be missing from the military academy for several days when on a mission. Ge Xihe did not show any abnormal behavior before leaving, so his roommates did not take his disappearance seriously at all.
If Lin Guantang hadn't asked, he wouldn't have even noticed that Ge Xihe had been out of contact for several days - but to be honest, it's not uncommon to be out of contact for ten days or half a month when encountering an emergency mission.
What's more, it is summer vacation again. The only thing that can prove Sikong Tan's guess is that Ge Xihe's system account has been frozen by the main system of the military academy.
But that was because Ge Xihe submitted a terminal loss application, which caused the system to freeze and restrict it.
Terminal loss is a common occurrence.
Ge Xihe's signature is also very straightforward: [I am in my hometown, communication is poor, please don't worry if I lose contact.]
No one else would think there was anything wrong if they asked him to look, but Sikong Tan was very sure that Ge Xihe had been captured.
Moreover, he even sent him a symbol that could easily arouse his vigilance. Sikong Tan couldn't help but suspect that it was because of him that Ge Xihe was targeted and taken to Fugan District.
That even made Sikong Tan feel that the other party created the illusion that Ge Xi was in normal condition for everyone, and only left a loophole for him, so that only he could know that his friend was in trouble.
If he doesn't care, doesn't pay attention, and doesn't go to the appointment, then his good friend will truly be replaced by something unknown, and no one will know that the real person has disappeared.
Sikong Tan was not afraid of this provocation, but he just didn't understand what the other party's intention was.
Why do you do this now instead of earlier or later?
Was Ge Xihe captured to take revenge on me, or was it to capture me as well and pry information from me?
If you want to solve these mysteries and rescue Ge Xihe, it seems that you can only go to Fugan District and find the person to explain everything.
But the Fugan area is not so easy to sneak into.
The Fugan District has completely different operating rules and social conditions from the Empire, and even has an independent operating system.
As early as several years ago, Fugan District had fully realized everything within the system planning area.
Much earlier than the imperial capital.
This is also why Fugan District despises the Imperial Capital, because Fugan District thinks that its own development has already surpassed the Imperial Capital by a long way.
More importantly, based on the clues we have, there is almost an 80% chance that the headquarters of Eden is in the Fugan District.
The information gathered together made Sikong Tan even suspect that it was Eden who kidnapped Ge Xihe. If his guess was correct, then that would be the real nightmare coming and the devil attacking.
Although the students in the military academy usually secretly called Huo Shizhen the "Big Devil" because of his ruthless training, it was just a verbal nickname, a venting nickname, not a real reference.
However, Fugan District and the Imperial Capital have always looked down on each other, and Eden probably regards the Central Military Academy as a thorn in its side.
As a student of the Central Military Academy of the Imperial Capital, Sikong Tan has his own debuffs when he goes to Fugan District. If he adds the Garden of Eden, he will really be entering a devil's den.
You have to go.
Ge Xihe was his best friend. It was impossible for him to remain indifferent after speculating that the other party was killed because of him.
But he was not so panicked as to go to Fugan District alone without making any preparations.
Even Sikong Tan had already made the worst-case scenario plan and formulated an infiltration plan for this worst-case scenario.
The worst assumption is that Ge Xihe was really captured by Eden and taken to Fugan District to wait for an opportunity, and Fugan District was really the base of Eden.
In this case, we have to give up the secret line of the military academy.
Just as he knew how many secret agents Eden had in the imperial capital, Eden probably also knew how many secret agents the military academy had in the Fugan District.
Under this premise, he had no choice but to go to Huo Shizhen and ask him for some of the private power belonging to Young Master Huo to borrow.
After Huo Shizhen listened to the whole story, he did not reject Sikong Tan's request, but the way he looked at Sikong Tan was no different from looking at a dead person.
It was an obvious trap, a jar and basin that had been prepared long ago, just waiting for Sikong Tan to jump in.
Huo Shizhen didn't think he could escape unscathed if he went there. Even if he got the help he had given, being captured was still his fate.
There is no need to think about what will happen after he is captured - kill him, use some means to extract military academy intelligence from him, or simply transform and assimilate him. There are only three possible outcomes.
Sikong Tan understood everything, but still decided to go.
That was his good friend, the only friend he grew up with, and because he was in trouble, he had to take this step even though he knew it was a dead end.
Huo Shizhen had no interest in persuading others. If Sikong Tan wanted to die, then he could go, but some necessary warnings still needed to be given in advance:
"If you are transformed and assimilated and become a traitor, killing you is part of the process. There won't be any surprises."
It was a straightforward narrative without any emotion, simply telling him that it would be best if he was prepared to be killed in the future.
And he was not killed by foreign enemies, but was listed as a target for execution by the military academy.
This sentence shows absolutely no friendship between classmates and vividly displays the cold and cruel side of the military academy.
If it were anyone else, they would have inevitably started to feel resentment towards Huo Shizhen and the military academy for their falling out, but Sikong Tan could understand the unspoken meaning behind it.
It is much better to be informed of the worst possible scenario in advance than to reach out to the military academy for help in despair, only to be killed by the academy instead.
At the same time, Sikong Tan also sensed from Huo Shizhen's attitude that the Fugan District was more dangerous than he had imagined.
It’s really curious... What did Huo Shizhen see through the highest-level system that they didn’t know about?
Finally, Sikong Tan just said:
"I'm not that easily defeated."
Huo Shizhen didn't say anything more.
There was no need for any further discussion on this matter.
But we didn't set off immediately.
As the saying goes, since we are already here, Sikong Tan still has some time before leaving to help find clues related to Lin Guantang's life experience.
Although not hopeful.
There was indeed no gain. After thoroughly cleaning both yards and the basement, no clues related to Lin Guantang were found.
Finally, Huo Shizhen asked to turn the soil in the yard again, and only then did he find an iron box that looked like it had been discarded from under the corner of the wall where the vines were planted. It was not known whether it was because of rust, filling with mud, or other reasons, the box was integrated from top to bottom and could not be opened with just fingers.
After cleaning it up, I found out that someone had deliberately glued it shut.
After struggling to pry it open, I found more sealed layers of different materials inside the box. After opening them layer by layer, I found that there was only one photo in the box.
A group photo in which "Lin Guantang" actually participated.
As to whether Huo Shizhen had really discovered something that led him to mobilize all the enforcement personnel to dig the entire yard, or whether he simply wanted to torture them, that is another topic.
***
In the living room, Lin Guantang looked at the person in the photo who looked so similar to himself, and his heart was beating like a drum.
My heart and mind are filled with only one question: Who is this?
He looked down and fortunately, the corresponding names were marked below the photo according to their positions in the photo.
For example, the photo had Mr. Yuan's name written on it, as well as the surname "Huo". Lin Guantang looked at Huo Shizhen thoughtfully, and Huo Shizhen gave the answer directly:
"Grandfather's name."
And he said:
"But my grandfather denied having seen you, and I've never seen this photo in the Huo family."
The implication is that Huo Shizhen also asked his grandfather the same question about Lin Guantang, but received a negative answer.
But Mr. Yuan still remembers it, so is it true that Mr. Huo's memory is not as good as his, or is he pretending not to know him for some reason?
Lin Guantang let out a breath and put the question aside for the time being - he couldn't see Old Man Huo now, so it was useless to think about it. Besides, his own grandson Huo Shizhen died of illness, so he didn't think he had more face than Huo Shizhen.
Besides, now that I have the photos, why bother looking for something far away?
But the bad news is that there is no name written in the corresponding position of "Lin Guantang" in the photo, only the four words "Friends by Chance" are written.
This can solve a doubt -
If they were relatives or friends of Mr. Yuan or this senior, no one should have had any impression of Lin Guantang after meeting him.
But if it is just a stranger you meet occasionally in an unfamiliar place, you get to know each other quickly and then part ways quickly, just like a leaf or duckweed, then of course your relatives and friends will not know about it.
We met by chance decades ago. It is not easy to salvage that piece of duckweed decades later.
However, this photo also provides considerable clues.
Although the names of the people in the photo were not written, there was a line of words at the bottom of the photo list, indicating the purpose of this photo.
It is written:
[On July 15, 13th year of the Empire's New Era, during the Empire's ABO status survey, I encountered a folk genius and took a photo with a friend as a souvenir.]
On the back of the photo, someone had written a few lines of words in charcoal. They were already very blurry, but one could still make out what they said:
Evolution or destruction
It's actually a cat's lie
Do not open the box]
Lin Guantang stared at the lines of words for a few seconds, then his eyes fell on a box on the table.
A pitch-black iron box with a lot of dirt and cotton wool still on the outside. It must have been dug out from the ground.
There were also layers of bedding in the box, not just lining cloth, but also various materials that Lin Guantang couldn't recognize at once.
The only thing that is certain is that if this photo is placed in this box, and if the layers of sealing are just to cover up the existence of this photo, it shows the importance of this photo.
But why?
It's just a photo, is it necessary to go to this extent?
There were also these words behind the photo, which made Lin Guantang feel a little nervous after realizing it:
"Don't open the box. This is the box you're not talking about."
But now not only was the box opened, but the layers of seals inside were also completely removed.
Sikong Tan noticed his nervousness and comforted him with a smile:
"Don't worry, Huo Shizhen opened the box yesterday. If there really was a problem, it wouldn't have been nothing until now."
That's not necessarily true, there are delay settings for bombs.
Lin Guantang only trusted Sikong Tan's words 50% because he knew very well how much water was in his words.
So he simply looked at Huo Shizhen and asked him if he felt anything unusual.
Huo Shizhen only said four words:
"Mystique."
Well, this is the expected answer.
Lin Guantang had a rare headache.
How should I put it? Senior Sikong was just there to watch the fun and not mind getting involved. His words were half true and half false, making it hard to tell. Huo Shizhen was even more straightforward and didn't care at all, so he didn't reveal anything.
In the end, Lin Guantang had to guess what it meant.
But even if you can't guess the meaning of the following lines right away, just based on the previous photo and the questions under the photo, combined with the information you have found before, it is enough to infer a lot of things.
Since this kind of photo has the date, Mr. Yuan, and "Lin Guantang", we just need to look for the content he recorded during this period in the past materials left by Mr. Yuan. I don’t believe that we can’t find the corresponding person.
There are also material records of Chi Zhongsu, the author of Heart of the Mist. When several items are added together, I can’t believe that I still get nothing.
All of this information is stored in Lin Guantang's terminal system, and can be integrated and searched in a very short time.
Finally, two results were selected.
According to the materials left by Mr. Yuan, during the 13th year of the New Era, when he was visiting a village in the mountains, he met a barefoot doctor, a young man with blue eyes, young and handsome, with superb medical skills.
He can even remove the gland with his bare hands without causing any sequelae.
Moreover, he was quite smart. After only spending less than a month together, he completely understood all the advanced equipment that Mr. Yuan and others had brought with them, as if it was an innate talent.
But at that time, Mr. Yuan was participating in the imperial census and could not stay in one place for too long, so this genius eventually passed through his life like a shooting star and was never seen again.
Of course, Mr. Yuan felt it was a pity that such a genius was buried in the mountain village, but when he finished his inspection and turned back to look for the boy, he was told that the boy had been taken away to Fugan District.
After that, there was no more news about this young man.
However, in Mr. Yuan’s information, there is a whole book recording all the strange people and things he encountered, including many geniuses and beauties.
If it were not taken out from a specific date, then the content recording this talented young man would not seem to be anything special. Even the text recording it was ordinary and there was nothing particularly memorable about it.
This is also the reason why I didn't find any abnormalities when I reviewed the information before.
Moreover, Mr. Yuan said that he had met "Lin Guantang" sixty years ago, but it was already sixty-seven or sixty-eight years ago in 2013 of the new era. There is a gap of nearly ten years in between. How can they be connected?
According to Chi Zhongsu's records, he had seen this beautiful blue-eyed boy in 2016.
That was also the last year of Chi Zhongsu's life. He was extremely poor and spent most of the day sitting in the corner of the wall or on the beach as a beggar. One rainy night, he saw a god-like boy walking past him and handing him his umbrella.
And sighed:
"The earthly body is always so heavy and burdensome, dragging down the free and brilliant soul, isn't it, great writer Chi?"
He did not despise Chi Zhongsu's dirty and smelly body, which was like a beggar's, because he saw a brilliant soul through the dirty appearance.
After saying this, he left.
Chi Zhongsu couldn't help but ask him where he was going, thinking that they might meet again one day. He just replied that he was going to Fugan District and disappeared in the rainy night.
But Chi Zhongsu never saw him again until his death, and only mentioned him once or twice in his last words.
But that's also very obscure -
I see the woman who leads my soul to a land of freedom, floating on a sea of purple leaves, free from this long-suffering worldly shell. I shall go to pursue my unfinished freedom.
Qianli Purple Leaf Forest Road is a famous scenic spot in Fugan District, so it is no different from referring to Fugan District.
Similarly, Chi Zhongsu also recorded countless people of all kinds he had met. The records about this person were just a drop in the ocean in the vast record of his life.
Especially in Chi Zhongsu's later years, his writing became more and more bizarre. Even an ordinary passerby could be described as strange by him, and any random words or actions could be written as if they carried some unique mission.
The several thousand-word will was full of confusion and bizarreness, and was interpreted by many people, but they all attributed it to his mental problems. Therefore, compared with writing about real people and events, the will was more like his fantasy world.
Who would have thought that this sentence was related to Lin Guantang's life experience.
Fugan District, Fugan District——
Both of their records mentioned this name. Lin Guantang was eager to take action and almost without thinking, he wanted to say that he wanted to go to Fugan District to find out what was going on.
Who knows, maybe he will find the answer he wants this time.
He was so excited that he was almost completely focused on the clues that were connected together in front of him, but he didn't notice the changes in the expressions of the other two people in the living room.
——Both Huo Shizhen and Sikong Tan obviously saw the result and instantly understood Lin Guantang’s thoughts.
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