A hunting adventure [unlimited]

The counter divides the kitchen area, and some candles can only be placed on the countertop or higher than the floor. The layers are uneven, and the complete pattern they form cannot be seen at a glance from a head-up perspective.

Yu Zhen went to the dining room to move a chair, put it at the door of the kitchen, and stepped on it by herself; looking down from a high place, the distribution of the candles was clear——

In the center of the kitchen, more than a hundred white candles are placed in a circle around the corpse. The six sides of the circle have flame-like sharp corners, forming an abstract totem of a six-pointed star; at first glance, it looks like the sun, or It is a burning fireball.

Du Yu found a napkin, took out a ballpoint pen from his pocket, and drew the pattern according to his description.

Yu Zhen jumped out of the chair and leaned over to take a look—the simpler the figure, the better the water test. Du Yu's drawing skills are solid. On the soft paper that is not suitable for drawing, the strokes are delicate and steady, and the circles are drawn smoothly and correctly. , drawn with one stroke, the corpse in the circle is not written much, but the structure is detailed and the shape is precise; this was drawn with a tissue in the palm of his hand, so it can be seen that Du Yu said that he painted better than that postcard, and he was not blindly confident.

"You don't praise me?" Du Yu asked.

"The painting is really good, you are the reincarnation of Da Vinci." Yu Zhen praised hypocritically, and spread his hands, "Lend me the pen."

"I like Picasso." Du Yu handed him the pen.

Yu Zhen stepped over the candle on the ground and stood on tiptoe to the edge of the pool of blood. He squatted down while supporting his knees, his face was red and hot from the fire.

The corpse was bent over and lying on its side in a pool of blood. A kitchen knife had pierced its lungs. It had a ferocious expression on its face and its eyes were wide open.

The bloody water that soaked the corpse did not spill out of the edge, and it was perfectly contained in the round pool. Under the candlelight, the deep red oozes thick black.

The blood content in a normal person’s body is less than 8% of body weight. The victim’s height was about 178cm, her body was medium to strong, her weight was 75kg by visual inspection, and her total blood volume was 6L. However, this blood pool was three inches deep, and the bleeding volume of more than one person was definitely not enough.

It's like a dish.Yu Zhen thinks out of time, the white candle is the exposed white edge of the dinner plate, the corpse is the staple food, and the blood is the thick soup.

No, no, no... I can't eat if I think about it this way.

Yu Zhen put the absurd thoughts behind her, and focused on observing the content in front of her.

If the candles are simply side by side, no matter how small the gap is, the airtightness will not be enough to lock the flowing blood.He poked the inner layer of the wax candle ring with a ballpoint pen and tried to push one of them, but it didn't budge.

He understood that this circle of candles was first fixed to the floor by melted wax liquid, and then the cylindrical surfaces of each other were melted and adhered to each other through high temperature, filling the gaps, and finally formed a closed wax pool with the ground.

This is a job that requires patience and time, and blood will leak out if there is a slight mistake.

Such a huge amount of blood must have been taken out of the body in advance and prepared in a blood bag, and then poured in after the corpse lay in the candle ring.

The floor in other areas of the kitchen was very clean, and there were no obvious signs of fighting or murder. The possibility of being cleaned by the murderer cannot be ruled out.But the food he ate in the cafeteria at seven o'clock this morning was hot and fresh, indicating that the chef's death time was within five hours after it was prepared. Hours are obviously not enough, right?

He thought that when he and Zhou Lian were eating in the restaurant in the morning, the murderer was actually arranging corpses and lighting candles in the kitchen behind the wall?

The murderer was one of the tourists staying in the hotel?Or the missing Erika or other townspeople?

Yu Zhen frowned, pressed the top of the ballpoint pen repeatedly, and listened to the sound of the spring to relieve her anxiety.

If the crime was committed elsewhere and the body was transported here, the distance between the two places would not be too far, and there would be at least two murderers; but the deceased was still wearing a chef's uniform, and he did stay in the kitchen before he died.

There is another possibility that the chef committed suicide.

Arranging a candle array, pouring out blood, lighting the candles, lying down in the pool of blood with a kitchen knife, the blade pierced into his lungs, letting go of his hands and waiting for death to come; he had a lot of blood choking in his nose, and he must have died slowly and painfully.

Only those with strong willpower and determination can choose this method of death.

The disappearance of people outside has something to do with this corpse?What do these candles and figures symbolize?What special meaning does it have?

Yu Zhen shook off the sticky blood on the pen and said, "We need an expert in semiotics."

Du Yu said: "Is it necessary? It's fine if you can't check it online."

"Alright." Yu Zhen stood up, tiptoed cautiously back to the door, "The candles can last until night, we lock the door and don't let others in."

"Aren't you going to tell them?" Du Yu took his pen and wiped off the blood with a blank tissue. "In this way, when the police arrive in the evening, no one will be able to leave."

"Yes." Yu Zhen scratched his face. The mysterious incident developed into a murder case with religious elements. The townspeople disappeared collectively. The rest of them happened to live in the same hotel, and everyone was suspected of a crime.

"What do you think?"

Du Yu put pens and sketches into his jacket pocket, put his hands together and said, "I have a suitable candidate."

***

Ye Yingting listened to music in the room, and told five or six good buddies about the weird experience on the island through social software, and gained hundreds of "Damn it!?"

They were originally a group of people, but the other friends felt that there were few entertainment activities on the island, so they wanted to have fun in the port city where the cruise ship stopped first; but Liu Min was eager to see the blue lake in the snow-capped mountains, so she insisted on leaving, and Ye Yingting refused. Rest assured that she is alone, so she followed.

As a result, now, the little friends are playing beach volleyball and surfing at the beach, drinking cocktails to soak up beautiful women, and he is thrilling on this cloudy and foggy island.

The wooden door of the hotel is thin and brittle, and the ashes will fall off after being knocked twice.

Ye Yingting took off his earphones, got out of bed and opened the door.

There were two men standing outside his door. They were both young and considered acquaintances.

A male model with long hair, tall stature, and aura like a magazine page, but his appearance is far more refined than a flat model. In Liu Min's words, he can flirt with anyone he wants when he looks like this.Ye Yingting's impression of this person is: he doesn't like to talk, but he is very good at winning money.

Last night at the poker table, he lost all his pocket money for three months to the opponent.

The other is slightly shorter, with broken black hair, slightly curly hair, white skin and big eyes, like a ceramic man in a glass case alive, very fragile, often doing strange things, Liu Min said that this man bad temper.

Ye Yingting was furiously stared at by them, and said, "Are you looking for me?"

"I want you to do me a favor." Yu Zhen grabbed Ye Yingting's neck and invited him out of the room, "Little friend, have you ever seen a dead person?"

Ye Yingting was hijacked for no reason, and he saw Du Yu behind him kindly helping him close the door.

"I haven't seen it." He said honestly.

Yu Zhen smiled and said, "Then you will see him soon, so be mentally prepared."

……

Ye Yingting never thought that he would be so close to the corpse one day.

He was nauseated by the smell of wax oil and blood, and when he saw the corpse soaked in blood in the middle of the candle ring, he was about to faint.

The first reaction is to run away!

Du Yu dragged him back by the collar and said, "Take a picture and call the police."

"Ah, who the fuck is that—" Ye Yingting grabbed the door frame in fright, "What are you trying to do!?"

"It's the chef." Yu Zhen booed him with his fingers, "Why are you arguing? The murderer will be called later, and he will kill you to silence you."

Ye Yingting covered his mouth, his eyes were still terrified, he trembled, and said in a trembling voice: "Why did you call me here? Don't you yourself call the police? Could it be that you killed the person? The thief shouted and caught the thief. Use me to call the police as a witness to remove my suspicions..."

Yu Zhen was startled, and said, "You have a big brain."

"We are not murderers, we found this body half an hour ago." Du Yu said, "I called you here because you were the first person to contact the police, and you are also the one who will go to the pier to meet you later. It is necessary for you to learn more about the situation and inform the outside world of what happened here; it is best to let the police arrive as soon as possible, otherwise more people may die."

"Oh, oh..." Ye Yingting nodded hastily, admitting that he was thinking too much.He let go of the door frame, moved his feet two steps forward, wrinkled his facial features and fiddled with the corpse for a few minutes, then ran to the restaurant and dialed the number of the police station.

He briefly narrated the basic information and said that he was a tourist who reported to the police in the morning. He asked the operator to transfer the call to the police and turned on the projection video mode so that outsiders could understand the situation on the scene more intuitively.

Yu Zhen and Du Yu stood silently aside, they drew circles on the small floating screen projection, searched for the patterns of candles and their corresponding meanings, but all they found were tattoos and embroidery; Curse, suicide and other keywords, still nothing.

Yu Zhen said: "We really need someone who understands religious symbols."

Overcoming the nausea and discomfort, Ye Yingting hopped around the candle array with one foot, conveying details to the police on the other end of the video.

A cold female voice came from his terminal device: "Got it, we have a general understanding of the situation. Officer Reina will arrive at the island with the first ferry at [-]:[-] pm. Please remind the rest of the passengers to pay attention to personal safety and gather the crowd as much as possible. Stay together, don't disperse or leave alone. Also, please leave the scene of the crime immediately, don't destroy or touch any evidence, repeat, please leave immediately..."

"Di-"

The notification sound of the end of the call pops up, the screen turns black, and the signal lights of the earphone and the terminal turn red.

Ye Yingting clapped his bracelet and shouted, "Ah, why can't I connect?"

The situation on Du Yu's side was the same, the projection was automatically turned off, and all signals were interrupted.

The three waited for 5 minutes, but the signal has not been restored.There was some commotion downstairs, people all asking the same questions.

"It seems that everyone is the same."

"It's 01:30. I'll go outside to have a look. If it doesn't work, I'll go to the pier and wait for the boat to arrive. Anyway, the police said they can arrive at [-]pm."

After Ye Yingting finished speaking, she rushed out of the restaurant in a hurry.

Yu Zhen locked the kitchen door, went to the fresh-keeping cabinet to get a piece of fresh fruit, walked to the window of the restaurant, he poked his head out, Ye Yingting downstairs just ran out of the yard and went straight to the pier.

He leaned against the window, poked a raspberry with his index finger and put it in his mouth, and asked, "What if the police can't come?"

Du Yu picked a grape from his plate and asked, "Why didn't you come?"

"Intuition." Yu Zhen poked another dirty finger, "If the general communication tools fail, it means that someone or a force wants to trap us."

"Well, if you don't come at three o'clock, wait until six o'clock. If you don't come at six o'clock, just think about how to spend the night." Du Yu ate the grapes, his expression changed, "...so sour."

Yu Zhen tasted the leftover grapes and said, "It's okay. By the way, I remember that downstairs is a museum?" His eyes lit up, "I'll go and have a look after I finish eating."

After eating all the raspberries, he habitually sucked the juice his finger dipped in, but was interrupted by Du Yu, "No, it's dirty."

"Oh." Yu Zhen didn't deny it, and went to get a napkin to wipe her hands.

Du Yu said earnestly, "Stop licking your hands from now on."

Du Yu didn't know if it was his fault or what, anyway, as soon as he saw Yu Zhen licking his fingers, he wanted to feed him something else.

***

The museum on the first floor of the hotel is called the museéd'Ancy, and it's where the painting on the postcard is located.

The glass door at the entrance was unlocked, and there was no one at the ticket office. They pushed the door open and entered smoothly.

Passing over the publicity display board at the door, Du Yu turned on the light on the wall.This is an ultra-small museum, remodeled from a house, the walls are painted red, and the carpet is pure black; there is almost no design at all, and the living room is converted into an exhibition hall by directly using the original house pattern. The paintings in the collection are without glass covers and guardrails Occlusion - probably unnecessary.

There are less than [-] exhibits in this exhibition hall. Yu Zhen did not see the "Sleeping Snow Peak" printed on the postcard. The first thing he saw was a mirror on the left wall.

The thick purple carved wooden frame, with gold lacquer corners, is generous and rich; it is out of place in a small hotel room, but it complements each other when hung in a museum exhibition hall.

It was the mirror in their room, an exact replica, if not the same.

The author has something to say:

Du Yu: Ahhh, don't lick your fingers! ! !

Yu Zhen: =. =