S.C.I Mystery Series Volume 5 Chapter 79

Countdown from the Murderer 09 – The Secret of the Painting

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Wang Meiyun's cousin and assistant, Li Linlin, accompanied by Jiang Nan, came to the SCI office.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang went to the interrogation room, sat down, and learned more about Wang Meiyun's situation from Li Linlin.

There were quite a few people gathered at the door of the interrogation room, all the SCI members who had nothing else to do came over to listen to what was going on.

Li Linlin continued to say what she didn't finish at the door earlier, "It's all because of that painting!"

Zhan Zhao asked, "What kind of painting is it?"

Li Linlin tapped on her cell phone, pulling up a picture and passing it to Zhan Zhao for him to see.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both leaned in to look at it.

It was an oil painting that was hung on a wall. Judging from the size of the fireplace below, the painting was not small and was probably almost a metre wide and about a metre six high.

Firstly, the colour scheme of this painting is very monotonous, browns, yellows and rusty reds... in other words, it was on the warm side.

But when looking at this painting, it did not give people an experience of warmth.

The composition of the painting is divided into two parts. The upper part depicts what seems to be the universe, with large red nebulae, and a few rust-red planets, some of which are surrounded by rings of stars. The lower part of the image is a large red desert, with a colour scheme and texture that looks like the coloured surface of Mars.

Between the different planets, there is a long, twisted band connecting them, which cuts through the planets and extends into the depths of the universe.

On this band, which runs through the whole picture, there are human faces one after the other.

To be precise, they were half-finished faces, some of them resembled the unfinished faces of clay dolls, with the outlines of human faces but without the detailed features. These faces have different expressions, showing joy, anger, sadness and happiness, but because the features are not clearly defined, they carry a mysterious and hazy feeling.

In addition, this painting cleverly exploits the visual illusions of the human eye. If you stare at the human faces on that belt, the picture is static. But if both eyes are looking at the background, the illusion that those faces are twisting and swaying with the belt will be created. If you look from top to bottom or bottom to top, you would even feel that those expressions were changing.

Zhan Zhao looked at the painting with interest, and even moved the phone from time to time to study the changes in the picture.

Bai Yutang took a look, then frowned and stopped looking... Probably because of his naturally sharper senses, this painting gave him a sense of disgust. He was unable to figure out why someone would collect this kind of painting.

The people outside the interrogation room were even more impatient, they couldn't see the picture and only heard the sound, it was simply torture.

Zhao Hu asked Chen Jiayi if she had seen the painting. Chen Jiayi shook her head and said she had never been to Wang Meiyun's house.

......

Zhan Zhao looked at the painting for a long time and eventually returned the phone to Li Linlin.

Although there were a lot of doubts, Zhan Zhao's mood at this time was relatively more relaxed than earlier.

Originally, it was the painting that hid the psychological suggestion and the name with a J. Although Zhan Zhao said that the style was different from Zhao Jue’s, in his heart, he still could not help but worry – What if it was really connected to Zhao Jue in some way? Like something left over from when he went crazy in the past.

However, after seeing the painting, Zhan Zhao was relieved. From the style and technique of the painting, it was certain that it was not the product of Zhao Jue.

At the same time, Zhan Zhao also felt that the so-called "psychological suggestion" technique in this painting was actually quite crude, and not as "professional" as he had imagined.

Instead of a suggestion, the painting creates a kind of intimidation. Psychological suggestions should be subtle, but this painting crudely makes people feel fearful and uncomfortable.

Bai Yutang asked Li Linlin where the painting came from.

Li Linlin then told the two of them the story about the painting in detail.

The painting, which was bought by Wang Meiyun, was not bought at an auction house.

The cause of the matter was that Wang Meiyun had an elder sister, a senior in the same company named Fang Qing, who killed her fiancé three years ago because of a love affair and then committed suicide herself. After Fang Qing passed away, the police and Fang Qing's family could not explain why she would make such a crazy move, not even the reason why she killed her fiancé was clear, and in the end can only be explained as depression, mania or some other psychological illness. Wang Meiyun and a few of her best friends held a small charity sale, where they sold some of the decorations in the house where Fang Qing lived, trying to raise some money to give to her parents.

This was supposed to be an act of kindness, and most of these friends were not short of money, paying high prices for a lot of decorations, while Wang Meiyun also bought quite a few things, including this painting.

This painting was hung in the living room of Fang Qing's house and was very conspicuous.

At that time, Li Linlin was still Wang Meiyun's assistant, and she felt creeped out when she saw the painting. Wang Meiyun herself complained about it, saying that it was just too ugly.

After buying the painting, Wang Meiyun casually threw it in the storage room and didn't care.

Soon after, Wang Meiyun purchased a new house. There was a fireplace design in the living room, and the wall above the fireplace was empty and not very nice, so Wang Meiyun wanted to hang a painting on it. Somehow, she found that painting and hung it in the living room.

At that time, there was a screenwriter who came to her house to talk about work, and when he saw her living room, he said that her taste was quite unique and that the most common thing that female celebrities hang in their homes is their own artistic photos. He also said that when he went to Chen Jiayi's home before, the various photographs hanging in her home were enough to publish a photo album, even the wardrobe door was a whole panel of artistic photos.

At that time, Wang Meiyun laughed and said that she and Jiayi were not on the same path. Jiayi was on the vase path, while she was on the acting path.

Outside the interrogation room, Chen Jiayi choked on a mouthful of milk tea and was dissatisfied, "Did I provoke her?!"

After saying that, Jiayi held onto Ma Han and pouted, "She actually said bad things about me behind my back!"

Ma Han asked her, "Between acting and looking good, which do you want?"

Jiayi didn't even think about it, "Of course I want to look good!"

Ma Han nodded, "Then it's fine, she's praising you."

Jiayi thought about it and leaned against Ma Han in a happy state, "So that's how it is!"

Ma Xin glanced at her older brother with a cup of milk tea – Hurry up and marry this woman! What are you waiting for?

Inside the interrogation room, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang were both still wearing their earpieces, and they glanced in the direction of the one-way mirror together – Going out in love!

Jiayi immediately covered her mouth and stopped talking, holding her boyfriend and continuing to listen.

......

According to Li Linlin's description, ever since that painting was hung in the living room, Wang Meiyun's character slowly began to change.

Li Linlin said that she had always taken care of her cousin, just like a half-mother to her, having to worry about everything. But after that painting was hung, Wang Meiyun gradually became suspicious, she always asked Li Linlin what she was doing, but also thought that Li Linlin was too meddlesome. After that, she began to lock her bedroom door and eventually evolved to collecting the keys to her home from all the assistants and vendors. From the cleaning aunts not being allowed to enter the door, to the final development was that even her own mother was not allowed to enter. Simply put, she changed from a person who wanted Li Linlin to think about everything down to what to eat for dinner to a person who doubted whether the food her own mother gave her was poisoned or not.

After Bai Yutang heard this, he frowned at Zhan Zhao – Was the suggestive effect of a painting that strong?

Zhan Zhao couldn't quite pinpoint it either, he rubbed his chin and shook his head – indicating that he wasn't sure if it was just because of that painting.

Wang Meiyun's character became mean and suspicious day by day, and even abnormal phenomena appeared.

Li Linlin said that soon after that, Wang Meiyun started spending a lot of money on this painter's works. She used to spend money on bags and shoes and jewellery, but since she became obsessed with this artist's paintings, she was not interested in any of these things and she asked people to look for paintings every day. Moreover, she not only hung the strange painting in the living room but also hung it directly in the bedroom. She didn't sleep every night, but sat on the bed and stared at the painting.

After a period of time like this, Wang Meiyun became quite withdrawn and had less contact with her family and friends, and began to seemingly have many secrets.

After some more time, she became more than just paranoid, she also became irritable.

The reason why Li Linlin quit her job and stopped working as her assistant was because of an argument.

Wang Meiyun's change naturally caused her family to worry, and of course Li Linlin, as her cousin, cared for her from the bottom of her heart. She told Wang Meiyun's parents about the paintings when they asked what exactly happened to their daughter.

Wang Meiyun's mother then told Wang Meiyun to throw those paintings away.

As a result, Wang Meiyun had a huge fight with her mother and even kicked her out of the house.

Li Linlin later wanted to take advantage of Wang Meiyun's absence to take down all the paintings and dispose of them, but in the end, Wang Meiyun found out. Wang Meiyun picked up a vase and smashed it, hitting Li Linlin's head and nearly busting her face. She had to go to the hospital for stitches.

As she said this, Li Linlin lifted her bangs and showed her wound to Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang.

Both of them saw that the scar was very long and deep. Li Linlin's bangs were there to cover the wound. If it was said that her own cousin had smashed it out with a vase, that was indeed too much.

Li Linlin sighed and said that she had suffered such a serious injury, and not only did Wang Meiyun not offer a single ounce of apology, she was also forbidden to go back to her house or go near those paintings, which was why she resigned and left.

Zhan Zhao asked if she knew anything about Wang Meiyun and Qian Fu.

Li Linlin said that she had just learnt about this recently and that there were indeed a lot of rumours going around in private, saying that Wang Meiyun had seduced a married man and so on, and that she hadn't believed in it originally. It all should have happened after she had left her job, so she wasn't very well-informed about it.

But Li Linlin was convinced that Wang Meiyun was mentally ill because of the influence of that painting and that she wasn't such an evil person.

After hearing what happened, Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang certainly found it strange.

Jiang Nan seemed to know something about it as well, so she interjected and said, "Qian Fu is a businessman, and his main business is an auction house and art investments."

Bai Yutang and Zhan Zhao both frowned – Could it be that Wang Meiyun would be involved with him because of the paintings?

"Wang Meiyun said that she wanted to kill Qian Fu because he played with her emotions and didn't want to get a divorce to marry her..."

Zhan Zhao originally wanted to ask Li Linlin what she thought of this reason, but before he even finished speaking, Li Linlin shook her head, "This is definitely not true. The most common thing my cousin says is that she wants to be in a relationship for the rest of her life but doesn't want to get married or anything like that... She's been in a lot of relationships, and she usually tells the guy beforehand that she'll only engage in a relationship but won't get married or anything like that."

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang also felt that Wang Meiyun's excuse for that murder was actually a bit far-fetched.

Zhan Zhao asked Li Linlin, "Are all of Wang Meiyun's paintings still hanging at home? I want to go take a look."

Li Linlin took out her cell phone and contacted Wang Meiyun's mother, her aunt. After discussing the matter, Li Linlin said that her aunt could help open the door and that she also had something she wanted to tell the police.

Zhan Zhao and Bai Yutang both got up and decided to go to Wang Meiyun's house together to see what secrets were hidden in those paintings.

‿︵‿︵ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ・❉・ ʚ˚̣̣̣͙ɞ‿︵‿︵

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Translator Notes

Please feel free to comment any mistakes I made so I can improve and do better as I go through the book.

Translated: March 11, 2024 by Angel

Edited: June 27, 2024 by Angel