Soul Painter

Ding dong.

The doorbell at 23 PIPE Street rang.

The date is May 12, 1915.

A night on Midsummer's Eve in Paris.

The landlady opened the door and saw two Orientals standing under the street lamp.

They are two young men, a man and a woman, with jet-black hair and brown eyes, revealing an exotic temperament.

"We've come to ask for the help of Detective Vidoc."

"He's on the second floor, please tell him to stop yelling there, and hope you pay him enough to pay off the rent he owes."

The landlady seemed a bit wordy, but she was also very enthusiastic. When Gao Fan and Anna entered the detective's residence on the second floor and took their seats together, she brought two cups of tea and felt very self-conscious that she was sitting by the side and knitting a sweater. She was very similar to She is a character in the movie "Sherlock Holmes", an old woman with a bit of a broken mouth and a boring life, but very involved in various cases.

And Mr. Detective in front of Gao Fan and Anna, with a well-groomed curvy beard, wearing a decent suit, sitting on a comfortable armrest sofa, playing with a sharp paper knife in his hand, after two questions The name of the person, and after the two answered truthfully, the detective fell into a long silence.

After a while, the detective said, "Am I dead?"

Although the two painters went deep into the hall of inspiration and entered the painting they were creating to tell the characters in the painting the fact that 'you are dead', the two painters were really surprised when they were told by the detective.

"Mr. Vidok, how did you discover this?" Gao Fan asked in surprise.

Anna acted as his translator. .

Gao Fan's question was equivalent to answering the big detective's question, so the big detective showed a mischievous smile.

"First of all, you two are obviously not from this country, including your clothes, spoken pronunciation, and tea drinking habits, and secondly, you two are not like people from my era.

In my time, those respected ladies, they were not allowed to wear trousers, nor were they allowed to speak in formal conversations, are you two oriental? In my memory, in Eastern countries, in order to restrict the travel of ladies, they even make them disabled, so it is impossible for you to come from the East..."

After the detective finished speaking quickly, he seemed to be a little impatient with his overly lengthy expression, and the final inference made him a little anxious.

"Besides, my paper knife is too new, and in the whole room, only my hat and my pipe are familiar to me, and everything else is strange.

Including the landlady, she was obviously too silent and kind tonight, so it is not that you have reached my time, but I am in your time. If you deduce it in this way, you can use other obvious clues such as the position of the stars , There is only one result, that is, I am dead. "

"Dear Sir and Miss, are you demons? Is my soul already your property?" asked the big detective.

"We are painters, from 100 years later." Gao Fan introduced, "We intend to create a painting of the city of Paris in your era, but in this painting, there needs to be a soul as a guide and coordinate, so we chose You, a legendary detective."

"Oh?" The detective lit a pipe for himself, and he began to puff. "What can I do to help you?"

"First of all, I need you to help me find someone." Gao Fan took out a photo, which was an old man who was aging, "His name is Wu Haoxue, he is my apprentice, his soul is lost in this city .”

Before Anna translated this sentence, she took a serious look at Gao Fan, and Gao Fan nodded to her.

"Very well, this is a job I can accept." The big detective took the photo.

...

In the painter's studio.

"Gao, I don't understand." Anna looked at the unfinished 1.2-meter by 1.8-meter Paris painting, and then looked at Gao Fan, "What are we painting?"

Now, the completed part of this painting, centered on PIPE Street, has drawn four or five streets, but it is already about one-eighth the size of the city of Paris in the 20th century.

The scale of the city of Paris 100 years ago was much smaller than that of 100 years later, so the workload of drawing the whole city will be reduced a lot. This is not the point. The point is that Anna is full of doubts. Why did Gao Fan say " Go find Wu Haoxue' such words.

"AA, do you know what we are painting?" Gao Fan asked in a low voice.

"We are painting a city that is alive in history," Anna said.

Up to now, she has figured out that when the two painters with the highest skills of the Demon Sect used the magical colors of 'Sakura White' and 'Paris Blue' to paint cities with historical figures as indexes, they were born in What they describe is a 'living' city.

In other words, they drew a living city that exists in a two-dimensional world.

"But I don't just want it to exist in the painting, I want it to be connected to the real history!" Gao Fan's eyes were shining brightly. At this moment, Gao Fan, like a fanatical scientist, is conducting a game that violates ethics and morals. experiment of.

In his eyes, the butterfly is fluttering.

"But... aren't we drawing pillars?" Anna wondered.

The secret of the pillars was told to Anna by Gao Fan in front of the painting of the pillars of Japan. I hope that as long as paintings exist, the spirit of resisting demons will never be cut off.

"It's useless to draw pillars!" Gao Fan shook his head, his voice was a little impatient and mocking, "Humans don't lose in spirit, but in strength. If you think of a painting of pillars, you can win the victory. It's a delusion, unless there are a hundred Minase Harumen, with the power of a hundred old days, ordering all the demons to die!"

"So... Gao, what are you going to do?" Anna asked with a frown.

"I don't know." Gao Fan shook his head, "Han Meimei said that I will end this war, but I don't know what I should do. If I follow my thinking, what I want to do most now is to send Wu's studious soul to Go to 1920, where he may be rescued, and at the same time, the city of Paris in history can also accommodate the souls of all Parisians and become a pillar, making them more determined."

"So you asked Mr. Detective to find Wu's studious soul...?" Anna frowned, "But in the creation of the first "Fort of Racine", you can already directly depict Wu's studious soul, let him and The protagonists in the painting are in the same room."

"This is the wonder of my design~" Gao Fan pointed to a white soul in the painting and said, "After the previous creation, I found a problem, even if I put Wu's studious soul into the painting , nor would he really exist in that history.

I think Wu Haoxue should be integrated into history and discovered by the characters in the painting, so that he can really enter that period of history, so now I design Wu Haoxue as a missing old man, and then send the task of finding him to the protagonist in the painting... ..."

...

100 years ago.

Paris in paintings.

in an apartment.

Wu is studious and tied to a chair.

I feel like I'm going to pee again.