[Fifth Personality] Escape from the manor

Qiao Yan didn't want to stimulate her already dysfunctional heart.So she chose to leave the bedroom and went to the front hall.

With Joseph gone, it was a good time for her to check things out.

29

It is still the same room where the walls are covered with portraits, and the pink roses in the white porcelain vases in the corner exude a faint fragrance.A whole day has passed, but the bouquet of pink roses is still as fresh as it was just picked.Qiao Yan reached out and touched its petals. Those petals were soft, and there was no feeling of water passing away.

After Qiao Yan touched the bouquet of flowers, she turned to look at the portraits on the wall.Every portrait was so lifelike, as if Joseph of different ages looked at her together, she couldn't help but feel a little chill in her heart.

After turning around in the living room, she sat on the sofa where Joseph used to sit, and then found a few black-covered photo albums from the drawer of the low table beside her.

Qiao Yan opened those photo albums to check, and every photo on it was a portrait, with a black and white background, and a colored portrait.The expressions of the people in each photo are very strange, there is a feeling that they were smiling one moment but froze instantly the next moment.

Qiao Yan flipped through the photos quickly, trying to find her own photo, but she didn't find her own photo in any of the albums.

She also understood that her photos might not be so easy to find, so she could only sigh and close the album.The moment before the album was closed, she seemed to see a person in a photo in the album move from the corner of her eye.

Qiao Yan's hands trembled slightly, and the photo album almost slipped from her hands.But she still grabbed the photo album and re-looked at the photo she just saw:

The scene just now was not an illusion.

The movement of the person in the photo has changed, and the expression has also changed.The person in the photo looked up at her with his mouth open, as if asking for help.

Qiao Yan touched the photo, trying to communicate with the person in the photo, but the person in the photo didn't move again, as if time was frozen again after posing for help.

Qiao Yan put away the photo album, put it back in its original place, and began to explore the various rooms here.

The door on the left side at the end of the hall was opened, and there was a familiar dressing room—the one she had been to last time.There is nothing special about this room.

Close the door of this room and move to the right. After the door is opened, there is a semi-open-air ballroom with a glass roof. The carved pillars around the ballroom are still wrapped with vines.The rain outside the manor stopped at some point, and the skylight poured down through the glass on the roof of the hall, leaving beautiful spots of light on the exquisite stone floor.

Qiao Yan also remembered this room, it was the place where Joseph invited her to dance last time.She opened the door and went in to investigate. Except for a careful fountain, a few indescribable statues of Azrael and some Western musical instruments, she found nothing special.

After leaving this room and walking a certain distance to the right, another door appeared in front of Qiao Yan.When you open the door, you can see the wooden bookshelf and the rows of books on it.There is also a camera on a tripod next to the bookshelf.

This is the room Qiao Yan has never been in.

There are many books on the bookshelf, half in English and half in French... There are also some photo albums hidden in it.Qiao Yan found all the photo albums hidden on the bookshelf, rummaged through them one by one, and put them back when she didn't find her own photo in them.

……

When Joseph returned to the room, Qiao Yan was playing with a violin curiously.Her posture for holding the violin is not standard, and it can be seen that she is not familiar with this instrument.

"Like the violin?"

Joseph reached out from Qiao Yan's back and half-circled her, holding her hand to correct her posture of holding the piano:

"Music brings a good mood."

His laughter was soft and warm.

"What song do you like?"

His face was right next to Qiao Yan's, and his breath when speaking could easily create an ambiguous atmosphere.

"It's all right."

When Qiao Yan turned her face to look at Joseph behind her, her lips brushed his face without hesitation. The person behind her smiled softly, then held her hand and put the bow of the violin on the strings:

"How about a serenade? It's perfect for the violin."

The music gradually sounded, the rhythm was soothing, the melody was beautiful and somewhat lingering, much like the whispers between lovers at night.

……

As time passed day by day, Qiao Yan almost searched everything here, but she didn't find anything.The photos that belonged to her seemed to never exist.

She even suspected that her photo was actually carried by Joseph.

The life here is peaceful and smooth, there is nothing necessary to do, so it seems leisurely and boring, like entering the old life after retirement in advance.That strange gardener, Emma Woods, didn't appear in the garden every day, so Qiao Yan stayed alone more often.

Joseph was afraid that she would be bored, so he would teach her musical instruments and painting when he came back from the game.In Joseph's words: art can always decorate life.He always knows a lot about art, after all, this is the advantage brought by time.

On some rare sunny days, Joseph even took her to the garden to paint.

Sunny days here are indeed rare, and it is just that the clouds that block the sun are a little thinner, allowing those not-so-bright sunshine to shine through.

After the drawing board is set up, it will be an intimate painting class.Joseph is very good at painting, whether it is a portrait or a flower, he can always draw very realistically.The interlacing of color and light and shadow leaves beautiful traces on the white paper.

But Qiao Yan was different. She only learned a little sketching in junior high school. If she wanted to draw, the pencil sketches were barely passable, but once she colored them, it was all ruined.

Joseph sat beside her, smiling at her with a paintbrush, teaching her how to color.Occasionally, Qiao Yan would let him stand in front of her as a model and draw his appearance on the drawing paper.

After drawing out the basic outline of the boy's face with the pencil, Qiao Yan began to add wrinkles to the boy's face little by little.

"Ok?"

The boy standing in front of her drawing board raised his hand to cover the light sunlight on his forehead, and then asked her.

The gray-black pencil added a beard to the person in the drawing, and Qiao Yan answered him very normally:

"No, don't move around."

Joseph sighed slightly and continued to stand in the same posture as before, but he was really curious about what Qiao Yan was painting, so he went up to take a look at her drawing board.

Qiao Yan was coloring the old man on the drawing paper with a brush, and was startled by Joseph's sudden approach, and then the pen with the paint in her hand scratched across the drawing paper in a mess, leaving a lightning-like crack.

"..."

Qiao Yan looked at Joseph and said nothing, and Joseph looked at the old man she drew for a few seconds before smiling and saying:

"Not quite like it."

It's really not very similar, the portrait of Joseph's old age hangs on the wall of his room, and Qiao Yan, who doesn't have amazing talent in painting, can only draw three or four similarities.

Then Joseph asked Qiao Yan to stand in front of the drawing board as a model, and he expressed his desire to draw a long portrait of Qiao Yan.

"...You don't want to paint me old, do you?"

Qiao Yan, who judges others by herself, stared at Joseph's faint blue eyes, trying to see his intentions.

Holding a paintbrush, the beautiful young man in an elegant sitting posture smiled very tolerantly and gently:

"of course not."

Qiao Yan didn't believe it. After all, she deliberately painted him as an old man. She didn't believe that Joseph didn't take revenge on her like this.She always felt that Joseph was very cautious.

So during Joseph's drawing of her, Qiao Yan stepped forward from time to time to see his progress on the drawing paper.

She was always moving around to make trouble, and Joseph didn't say anything, still maintaining that helpless and tolerant attitude.

Qiao Yan didn't see Joseph's "revenge" until the painting was finished.

In the painting, she is wearing an exquisite rococo dress, her hair is coiled, and she is wearing a pearl white gauze hair accessory, holding flowers in her hands, like a bride about to have a wedding.

"very beautiful."

Qiao Yan stared at Joseph suspiciously, while the boy sitting in front of the drawing board with a paintbrush still looked at her with a smile.

Qiao Yan reached out to take off the drawing on the drawing board and replace it with blank paper, but Joseph stopped her:

"It's not finished yet."

With a smile, he picked up the pencil again and sketched another human figure on the drawing, but after a while a groom dressed in a black tuxedo with roses pinned to his chest appeared on the drawing paper.

He has painted his own face countless times, so now he can draw what he looks like without a mirror.

He was painting himself, but in his old age.

It's weird and ironic to paint a young bride and an old groom.

Qiao Yan stared at Joseph, and the handsome young supervisor was still responding to his gaze with a smile.

"I don't like the picture."

Qiao Yan is now showing willfulness and pampering like a spoiled child.

Joseph smiled indulgently, and then said:

"Then don't want this painting."

A gorgeous French saber appeared in his left hand, the edge of the blade flashed, and the white paper turned into pieces like snowflakes and gently fell to the ground.

Qiao Yan looked at the pieces of paper and didn't speak.

She painted him old, mocking him as an old man; he responded to her irony by painting a young bride married to an old groom.

Joseph drew another picture:

Under the cold moonlight, the delicate and beautiful silver-haired boy danced with his arms around the carefully dressed black-haired girl. The girl's flying skirt was embroidered with patterns of white roses.

——That was the night they had spent.

The sun is setting, and the setting sun is dyed a little bit in the sky