Mr. Guo pondered for a while, took down a small book from the bookshelf behind him, flipped through it for a while, and then copied down a few phone numbers for us on a blank piece of paper. "Here are a few people I can find, but I haven't contacted them for a long time, and I don't know if they're still in this business, and if they are, maybe I can find them and ask you what you want to know, but you've also said that it's hard for someone who has always wanted to get out of the relationship with you to be completely honest with you. So don't get your hopes up, they move out from here in the hope that they won't get into trouble again. ”

Li Jing nodded, took the printer paper in Mr. Guo's hand, and got up to say goodbye. "I'll go to the police station to report the crime, but I still hope that too many people don't know what happened here." Don't worry, Mr. Guo told us again before we left. Li Jing nodded, didn't speak, and pulled me away. When he went out, he had to pass by the gallery, Li Jing casually picked out a copy of the painting and booked it, saying that he didn't bring enough money to come and pick it up in a few days.

When I left the art village, I saw a unicorn stone sculpture at the entrance of the art village, I asked Li Jing to stop, took out a candy from his handbag, got out of the car, and put it in front of the stone unicorn. Back in the car, Li Jing asked me what I was doing.

"Haven't you heard that story when you were a kid?" I looked at Li Jing in surprise.

Li Jing restarted the car, looked at the front and said that he wanted to hear the story I said.

"When I was young, maybe five or six years old, I was very afraid of big stone statues, and for no reason I felt very scared, and in today's parlance, when I was small, I had a little bit of a phobia of giants because they were relatively small compared to those statues. But I'm very fond of small statues, such as the little carp statue in the fountain. "I remember what happened when I was a child, "The strictest thing is that I will unconsciously faint when I see the big stone statue, and I will cry when I hug the adult next to me, which makes the people around me very headache." So my father told me that these stone statues were not very obedient immortals, and they were demoted to mortals, and they stood here to be the guardian saints of the prisoners, because they were immortals. It also has a mission to protect, so it will look particularly majestic. He just stood there silently every day, no one talked to him, and no one played with him. He will be very lonely, so he will slowly forget how to communicate with others, forget how to speak, so it will make people, especially more afraid of them. In fact. They are not scary at all, and they are friendly, because they are guardian saints, and if they are good children, they will also help good children make their wishes come true, but if they get their wishes, they have to share their favorite sweets with them to express their gratitude. ”

"How do they know if it's a good kid who has come to make a wish?"

I smiled proudly: "Look at whether the candy you put has been taken away, if you take it away, it means that you are a good child with a good heart, and the stone carving guardian is willing to help you." If you don't take it away, I'm sorry that your wishes are unreasonable, and the stone guardian is not willing to help you. ”

"Have your wishes come true?" Li Jing asked me.

I recalled, and suddenly my head began to hurt faintly again, but it was only for a moment, and after a few seconds, I got better, and I relieved myself and said to Li Jing with some pride: "Of course, my wish has basically come true." After listening to that story, I was still a little scared, but I still tried to touch the statues. At that time, there was a bank near our house, and there was one kind of white marble lion in front of it. When I was young, every time I had a wish that I wanted to fulfill, I would take candy to find it, put a candy and talk about a wish, I remember my father said that I can't be too greedy if I don't know how to make a wish. Basically, for example, if you want a Barbie doll and beautiful clothes, you can get your wishes. The only wish that I couldn't get was that it never helped me erase the amnestics in my teacher's mind after I got into trouble, and it didn't make the next day's exams disappear. Basically, there is a half chance that your wish will be fulfilled. ”

"Exams and accidents are things that you need to work on yourself, okay? Even if you are an immortal, if you take the initiative to die, the immortal will not be able to help you. Li Jing silently complained about me while driving.

"I know." I replied impatiently, "But half of my wish has come true." It shows that I am still a very kind person. ”

"So you're going to make a wish today?" Li Jing asked me.

I nodded: "Yes, I hope that the Qilin can bless those missing artists to come back safely, and the next time we go, we can see if the candy is still under the Qilin, if it is not there, it means that the Qilin God is willing to help us find those missing people together." ”

The traffic light in front turned red, and Li Jing stopped the car and rubbed my hair: "It's really like a child." ”

I patted his hand on my head: "Not really." There will really be gods to help us. ”

The green light turned on, Li Jing smiled helplessly, and started the car again.

Back at Li Jing's apartment, we set out to study the paintings. Including the painting that was still hanging in the store and not sold, Mr. Guo received a total of 21 Impressionist oil paintings before and after, one increment every month, and there were already six in the last month, if one was incremented to represent a painter's painting, then now Mr. Guo has six friends missing. I glanced at Li Jing, and Daxian was just looking at the painting in his hand seriously.

"Xiaozhi." Li Jing called me.

I looked at him, and he pointed to these paintings and said to me: "You see, the missing painter still has clues in the paintings, you look at these paintings, although color is a characteristic of Impressionism, but if you look closely at these darker colors, you will find that he is actually relying on the layering of colors to reveal information to us, you look at this work." Li Jing picked up the pencil on the table and lightly sketched on the paper, "Xiaozhi, although you see that although you are painting a snow scene, the shadows are emphasized with blue and purple, highlighting the three-dimensional sense of learning, and the outline of a person is also depicted. "I followed Li Jing's handwriting and connected the frames of those shadows, as if I could vaguely see the shadow of a person. According to the chronological order, this should be the second month of Mr. Guo's work, and it should still be the weather of the ninth in late winter, and according to the thickness of the snow on the picture, it should be a scene in the north. Were they locked up somewhere in the north at that time? But with only this vague silhouette of a person and a snowy scene, we still don't get much information. Li Jing began to study other paintings again.

In the third month, there is still snow in the first month of the lunar calendar, probably for fear of exposing the place of detention, all the works depict landscapes, if we depict characters, I am afraid that we will soon be more familiar with the face scanning technology of the police station, and find out the location of their detention in the identity database. However, as long as there is information, there must still be flaws, although at first it may be because of lack of proficiency and can only be outlined. However, there may be shadows and specific images or hints later. With this in mind, we didn't let go of each of our works. It's a pity that all the works have been flipped through and there is still no big gain, and it seems that the figure just now is just a coincidence. I sat on the sofa with some disappointment, and Li Jing put away the words. Ask me to prepare dinner together.

"Disappointed?" Li Jing asked me when he was cutting the ingredients.

I nodded, "Sort of." I thought I would be able to find useful information, but I didn't expect it to be just a coincidence. ’

"Not necessarily, maybe it's afraid of being discovered, so he told us in another way, after all, it's too risky to draw it directly. Or are we looking in the wrong direction? But tomorrow you'll have to find time to help me call the owners of those studios. Li Jing didn't take this matter to heart, "Don't tell them about our purpose, just say that we want to buy some distinctive works to decorate the new home, and ask them if they still want to do this business, if they are still working in the studio, just ask for the address." ”

I nodded in agreement, "Okay." But wouldn't it be more appropriate to directly ask Shi Hao to check what these people are doing after they move out of the art village? He can directly check the current situation of these people in the system. ”

Li Jing glanced at me, smiled and shook his head: "If it's just a change of the company's address, we can still find out their current situation." However, if they cancel their original company and re-register it after the Banli Art Village, it is difficult to guarantee that they will continue to be a corporate legal person. It's more of a hassle to look up. So this time it's more convenient to ask directly and skillfully. ”

I agreed, and let Hou look at Li Jing very strictly: "But there is another particularly important reason why I am unhappy now." “

"What is the reason?" After a rare confused expression.

I put the washed celery in my hand on the board and said, "I hate celery the most." ”

"Huh?" Li Jing was a little stunned for a while, and after reacting to the reason why I was angry, he smiled very brightly, and finally evolved to the point that he couldn't stop laughing, which made me very helpless.

"I really don't like celery." I was chattering again while Li Jing was chopping vegetables.

"I guess I hate eating celery." I continued to complain when Li Jing put the ingredients in the pot.

"Celery doesn't taste good at all." When Li Jing put the food on the plate, I nestled next to me and continued to express my dissatisfaction.

"Taste it." Li Jing put a pair of chopsticks into my bowl.

"Don't." I frowned and refused.

"You don't know if it's good until you taste it. Besides, it's already in your bowl, so don't waste it. Li Jing stared at me, and he didn't put down his chopsticks.

After a stalemate, I reluctantly ate the celery in the bowl, although I still didn't like it very much, but the taste of Li Jing's fried was indeed acceptable: "You did your best." I comforted him, "It's delicious." But I don't like to eat. ”

Li Jing smiled and began to eat with chopsticks: "This sentence is like you are rejecting a boy, although you are very good, but you are not the type I like at all." "When it comes to this. Li Jing stopped suddenly.

"What's wrong?" I asked him.

He blinked, regained his normal appearance, shook his head, and let me continue eating.

"Did you think about the case?" I asked tentatively.

He nodded in agreement: "Yes, there are indeed some associations but I haven't verified my idea yet, and it doesn't have much connection with the information we're looking for in a moment." ”

"What's that?" I still asked curiously.

"The reason for kidnapping them. If the kidnapper is not killing for money, then what is he trying to achieve? There are only two situations in which a person can speak out beyond his daily actions, one is extremely sad and the other is extremely angry. And after being imprisoned for so long, I don't want my family to ask for money. Rather, the kidnappees kept drawing their works, most likely so that we could see the works of these people. ”

"Because of appreciation?" This kidnapper's train of thought is so strange, I thought to myself.

Li Jing shook his head: "It's the opposite. If it is appreciation, they will definitely not kidnap, but will buy these works at a high price. Have you observed the quality of the images and the paint on them? They are definitely good goods with a lot of money, and the cost of imprisoning these people is definitely not a small amount. The kidnapper has plenty of money, but he doesn't buy paintings but lets these people paint, so what is his purpose? Contrary to our previous assumptions, it is likely that the kidnappers asked them to reveal information in their work, which is exactly what he wanted the public to know. I'm sure some of these abductees must have seen something. And this incident is the fuse of the kidnapper's anger, so if you want to find out where there is information that the kidnapper wants us to know, or the knowledge that we are given, maybe the kidnapper just wants us to know the truth step by step.

I glanced at the words on the coffee table. Quickened the pace of eating. Li Jing widened his eyes and said exaggeratedly: "Look, celery is still delicious." ”

"It's not tasty at all." I puffed out my mouth and was not happy.

"And you still eat so much?" Li Jing looked at me amusedly.

"I'm hungry!"

After dinner, Li Jing and I began to study the connection between these words, and the only thing I could think of was the environment, but the scenery presented in the paintings was beautiful. It shouldn't be that kind of problem, and it won't kidnap a group of artists for it.

"Look at the light and dark control of the picture can find out the hidden information inside, a bit like the color card we look at when we check our eyesight, use color to hide numbers or images, so that you can identify and test whether you are weak color, I think if my guess is correct, the kidnapper seems to be using the strength gradient of color to hide the information from us." Li Jing looked at me with a frustrated look and guided me on the side.

"Why would he do that? Doesn't he find it troublesome? "Again, I was patient and studied the work at hand.

"Maybe it's important for him to tell us what he wants to tell us, so he wants us to take it seriously. It can be said that the opponent we encouraged this time seems to be a very calm person, but the only consolation is that this opponent does not seem to have any intention of harming the kidnapper, and his actions so far seem to be only hoping to get our attention. It's just that we don't know his purpose yet. ”

"If it's a kidnapping of an artist. Could there be any artists who are not artists from the Art Village going missing? It occurred to me that I said, "If it's just the artists of the Artist Village who are missing, then it's likely that the information they want to tell us is what happened to the Artist Village." ”

Li Jing's eyes lit up after hearing my words: "It's so smart." He opened the search engine, typed in the information of the art village, and apart from the noisy disappearance, we didn't find any valuable news, and instead called Shi Hao. Shi Hao's slightly hoarse voice came from the hands-free, it sounded like he had just fallen asleep, Shi Hao was a little impatient by Li Jing's call, and discussed whether he could check again tomorrow. But Li Jing's resolute attitude made Shi Hao quite helpless, and then he heard the familiar boot music on the phone: "Say, what do you want to check." ”

"Has there ever been a case in the Art Village?" Li Jing asked him.

Shi Hao grumbled like a machine gun while tapping on the keyboard: "Can you hope for world peace." Eldest brother. I didn't reply to you calling me except for the case, which is the case, and finally gave you a meal, and when it came to the dinner table, the first thing your old man said was, 'Shi Hao, help me check the case', and then said the key words to me. That's a meal. Your bloody keywords really make me swallow. I think we may really have to work happily together and not have fun anymore. ”

Li Jing didn't reply when he knew that he was wrong, but only said a few words occasionally: "That's enough." "Scare Shi Hao.

The specialization in the art industry definitely played a role at this time, and Li Jing and I didn't find out for nearly an hour, and it only took Shi Hao more than ten minutes to give us the answer: "There really is, but I found it from the bureau's system, you shouldn't have seen it on the news." When the village first started operating, a child committed suicide by jumping off a building, the cause of the suicide is unknown, and the police have been sealing the case for a long time. Why do you have a clue to this case? ”

Li Jing didn't answer him: "Transfer all the information of the case to me, I will say hello to Team Xiao, I need help with the information of that case here." And tomorrow there may be someone security guard saying that someone is missing in the art village"

Li Jing's tone was very strict, and Shi Hao, who was listening, also put away his joking attitude, and after confirming some details, Li Jing hung up the phone. "Xiaozhi, we still need to contact Mr. Guo again."

"He's hiding something from us?" I asked Li Jing.

Li Jing shook his head: "I want to confirm the buyer's information with him." ”

"Buyer's information?" I repeated Li Jing's question, and I was very puzzled.

Li Jing's eyes darkened and said: "It may be a play directed and acted by the kidnappers, and only by increasing the circulation rate of those paintings can the owner of the gallery realize that these painters cannot be contacted, isn't it?" (To be continued.) )