I froze in place: "Could the kidnapper be a relative of the young man who committed suicide?" "That's my only guess right now.

Li Jing didn't answer me, but just looked back at the unfolded works and muttered, "Maybe it's not the scenes they see but the memories?" ”

"You're saying that these missing artists are recreating the scene?" I heard Li Jing's self-talk and realized that there seemed to be other mysteries in his words, if the figure hidden in the shadow in the snow was the young man who committed suicide, then could it be that the truth of the young man's death was hidden in the other paintings?

I was about to look at the paintings on the table again when Li Jing suddenly interrupted me: "Xiaozhi, go check the satellite map of the art village." ”

"Do you want to compare the scenes in those paintings?" I started pulling up satellite imagery and looking in Street View for a similar location to the painting, but it didn't.

"When was the Art Village built?" Li Jing asked me.

"We started running it a few years ago." After thinking for a while, I added, "But then it seems to have been expanding, at first there was only one street, and then it became a park, and Mr. Guo's gallery should be the third phase of the project." ”

As if thinking of something, Li Jing hurriedly dialed the mobile phone, and after a short while, someone on the other end of the phone finally answered the phone: "Hey" is Mr. Guo's voice.

"Mr. Guo, have you always run a gallery there?" Li Jing asked directly without saying hello.

The person on the other side may not have reacted to what was going on for a while, and he didn't speak for a while, and only after a while did he suddenly respond: "Ah, you mean my gallery." Yes, all the time. We used to be a warehouse here, and I bought it down ten years ago, when this area was leased to some young people who returned to China to start their own businesses as consulting companies, and I just sold decorative paintings to them, and then rented them out for small exhibitions. Half a year ago, the developer assigned us to the third phase of the Art District. The developers didn't do anything, after buying this house, they just did a little bit of greenery in the place, painted the walls and stuff, renovated it and rented it out as a studio. Except for a few later studios. And I have been working here for a long time, and I have friends who have been working here for at least five years on the phone calls I gave you. ”

Li Jing said thank you on the phone, and asked if there was a lake in the original art village before the renovation.

Mr. Guo was amused when he heard it: "Ha, indeed, but it's not a lake, it's a big pool." Although I heard about it. But 20 years ago, we couldn't rent out here, no matter how low the rent was, and then the developer at that time invited a feng shui gentleman to come and see, and the feng shui gentleman said that there was a shortage of water here, and then he dug a big pond and raised some lotus flowers or something, otherwise how would I know that the lotus leaves grow best at the end of May. ”

As Mr. Guo's words became longer and longer, the light in Li Jing's eyes became brighter and brighter, and he interrupted Boss Guo's words in a timely manner: "Mr. Guo." Do you have the buyer's contact information? ”

Mr. Guo hesitated for a moment before saying, "He didn't leave any contact information." ”

"Didn't leave your contact information?" Li Jing's eyes instantly widened on the phone, and I was so shocked that I couldn't make a sound.

Although I couldn't see it, I could feel that Mr. Guo was smiling embarrassedly on the other side of the phone: "Ah." That's right, the buyer pays first, and after we receive his money, we will issue him an invoice and an IOU, and when the time comes, we just need to come to us with the IOU to get the painting. ”

"Then if he doesn't have to come and get it himself?" Li Jing asked.

On the other end of the phone, Mr. Guo may have been frightened by Li Jing's aggressive attitude just now, and muttered: "We have always been here to pick up paintings as long as we have invoices and IOUs." ”

Li Jing realized that his tone seemed to be particularly bad, so he slowed down his tone and asked again: "Is the buyer the same every time?" ”

Mr. Guo paused for a few seconds, as if reminiscing, and then said, "It's different. Every time someone buys a painting, it's different. But they all seem to have a common characteristic, that is, they don't like to take the paintings away at that time, and they like to leave them here for a week or so before they come to pick them up. And every buyer2 doesn't like to leave contact information. At first, I thought about the possibility of the painting being taken away, just like you, but nothing like this has happened, and nothing has happened in half a year, so I took this to heart. ”

Li Jing ran to the front of the work. I also confirmed with Mr. Guo some of the scenery before the renovation of the art village, and finally hung up the phone. "Similar to what I just speculated, the scenes in these works are like the original art village, so the hidden message in each work is the young man who committed suicide back then. In other words, what the artists witnessed, so obsessed with what happened back then, I suspect that the young man's death may have been a murder. ”

"So you think that these witnesses have chosen to be silent about the death of youth. And this silence angered the young man's closest relatives, so he kidnapped these people just because he hoped that these people would tell the truth? "That's too much, I swallowed my heart into my stomach.

Li Jing looked at me mockingly: "Have you read too many novels?" Although you really think this way in line with the logic of the case, it's so simple that it's called a movie. Remember, reality is always more bloody than movies. ”

Being able to joke with me shows that Li Jing is in a good mood now.

"Let's talk about painting." I said to Li Jing.

Li Jing once again disrupted the order of the paintings. I looked at him curiously, and he smiled slightly: "The order of the story was misread by us at the beginning. Because memories are not in order, people who have not first taken over professional counseling like the police cannot guide others to recall the causes and consequences of the incident step by step. So these painters are all scattered fragments, and the snow scene depicts a young man standing in the snow. If we go through the archives, we will see that the child must have committed suicide in the winter, so in the first picture the shadow is the outline of a person. In chronological order, this is the second month of work that Mr. Guo has received. Let's look at what the first kidnapper found in the first month. ”

Li Jing found the first work that Mr. Guo received, observed for a while Li Jing took a pencil to sketch it, and pointed it out to me when he was finished: "When I painted the first painting, this kidnapped man didn't anticipate what happened to him at all, so you see that he just painted an ordinary landscape painting, and asked Mr. Guo that this scene should also be what the place looked like before it became an art village, but it was just an ordinary cry for help, he just used the bleak branches of the trees in winter to compose the irregular 'SOS' letters." So it's just a meaningless painting. ”

However, the kidnappers were able to send the painting to Mr. Guo. Aren't you afraid that he will see it and call the police? "It seems that the kidnappers have a lot of conceit.

Li Jing pouted and smiled: "Xiaozhi, if I don't sue you, will you find out?" The kidnapper is not stupid either, he does not visibly call for help. He should have been sure he wasn't in danger but was just being imprisoned, so he was just trying his luck, he knew he was facing a protracted battle and he had a lot of opportunities. ”

Li Jing began to paint other paintings as before, and the other one was also a snow scene. It's just that this one is no longer a scene in the snow, and it hides the distress signal of 'SOS' in another style. In one of the other months, there was a work that signaled this, and Li Jing said that this was the panicked action of the newly abducted person, and that once he accepted his environment, or had been taught and threatened by the painting, he would never think about the same thing again in his next work, but would tell the story they had seen. And these paintings are sold at the lowest price, and compared to the price of other skins, it is like a 'buy one, get one free' add-on. After picking out these paintings with obvious distress implications, all that remains is the story of the young man we want to know.

After Li Jing sorted out the paintings, he glanced at his watch, and it was already past ten o'clock. He urged me to rest. I forgot to mention that after I changed jobs, I moved next door to Li Jing, so that even if I changed jobs, I could still be late for the dinner cooked by Li Jing every day, and Li Jing would not have to worry so much about whether I didn't eat on time, although the rent was much more expensive, but because the current salary is indeed much more than the original, it basically did not affect my quality of life. I took the contact information that Mr. Guo wrote to Li Jing, and I was going to see if I could contact the operators of these studios during my lunch break tomorrow.

When I went to work on Monday, I was basically caught off guard by a customer who suddenly talked about cooperation. The meeting in the conference room is held until one o'clock, and the boss goes out to eat with the customer. It was almost two o'clock in the afternoon after I had put together the minutes and other materials, and my stomach was so hungry that I began to cramp. I went downstairs to the convenience store and bought bread and called those studio people as I did yesterday while biting on the bread. It's basically not that no one answers. Even if I answered, I was told that the phone number had already changed hands. Finally the last call came through.

"Hello, are you Mr. Song Binsong?" I didn't expect it to be able to get through, and I was a little confused.

"It's me. Who are you? The tone of the follow-up was very polite.

Thinking about Li Jing's instructions yesterday, I said cautiously: "I saw a particularly beautiful oil painting at a friend's house, and I said that I bought it from you, so I wanted to find an opportunity to visit your studio." Where is your studio located in the Artist Village? ”

The other party hurriedly explained: "Ah, I'm not in the art village for a long time, we've moved elsewhere now, if it's convenient for you now, you can take notes about our new location, if it's not convenient, I'll send the specific location to your phone later." ”

"Don't be that troublesome." I picked up a pen from the table and tried it on sticky notes, "You can just say it." ”

After reporting the location and asking me about my orientation to the painting, we hung up the phone to say goodbye. As soon as I registered the phone, the boss came in from outside, and said to me with a gloomy face: "You can't talk about personal topics in the office. ”

"Okay." I knew I was wrong, and I cowardly responded.

"How is Mr. Guo's affairs handled?" Because the company is also a studio, the boss sits in the studio like us, and the previous boss room has been changed to a mechanical-physical room. I shrugged my shoulders: "No substantial results have been investigated. ”

"It's not like your style." The boss glanced at me and began to look down to deal with the text on the table.

I looked at my boss and didn't seem to want to deal with me, and the phrase 'what kind of style am I' stuck in my throat.

I don't know why the boss's face was gloomy for an afternoon, I carefully avoided touching the boss's bottom line, and spent the afternoon in fear. When I got off work, my boss offered to send me back. I was bent on refusing, but my boss glared at me and swallowed the 'thank you boss, no need' that I had just put on my lips.

"I happened to be passing by your neighborhood today, so I can drop you off." The owner said to me in the elevator.

"Do you know where my home is?" I looked at my boss in amazement.

The boss glanced at me: "Didn't you tell your colleagues that you had moved, and complained that the convenience store near the place where you moved didn't sell the kind of lemon gummies you liked." ”

"Ahh I remembered that I did complain to my aunt who was in charge of cleaning after I moved. I smiled and explained to Boss He: "That's a limited-edition snack of the month, and I can't buy it even if I haven't moved." But it's really delicious. ”

The boss suddenly handed me a small bag. It turned out to be the limited-edition lemon fudge: "That's it, right?" ”

I clutched the lemon candy tightly and looked at the boss in surprise: "Where did you buy it from?" ”

The boss gave me a disapproving look and motioned for me to get in the car: "Ah, basically no one in my convenience store downstairs will buy this." So for the rest, I took a bag. ”

"The boss is really a male god who is sympathetic to his subordinates." I sighed, and instantly felt that the boss who scolded me every day didn't seem so terrible.

"Stop slapping on the back, get in the car." The boss turned red.

"Thank you, boss." I got in the passenger seat.

"You live alone?" The owner asked me while driving.

"Hmm." I replied, "But the one who lives next door to me is Li Jing, who took me with him this time to deal with Mr. Guo's entrustment." He usually takes good care of me. Boss, do you want to eat sugar? "I tore open the gummy package.

The boss regained the iceberg temperament just now. However, when I drove out of the underground garage and waited for the red light, I suddenly turned my head and said, "Give me a candy." ”

Oh, I immediately handed over the bag, the boss looked at me and took one and put it in his mouth, the boss didn't take this candy for me and wanted to bite me to death, right? I looked at the squirming of my boss's cheeks and thought in horror. The boss looked at me and looked at him, frowned and asked me what I was thinking, of course I couldn't tell him the true activities of my heart, I could only make up the reason: "Ah, boss, how did you meet Zheng Min?" "As soon as I said that, I wanted my own tongue. Didn't you already know that he was Zheng Min's former colleague?

The boss didn't expose me, but restarted the car at the green light and said to me: "Zheng Min and I used to be colleagues, but we are not colleagues in the publishing house. ”

"Does Zheng Min have any other jobs?" I asked the boss curiously.

"Sort of, but that was a long time ago." The boss's expression seemed to be a little unhappy, he glanced at me, turned his head and continued to stare ahead, "At that time, I was doing that job as a part-time job, and then I went abroad to Germany, and after I came back, I set up this machine qì people are really yàn room, and there is just a shortage of people, so I asked you to come over and help." ”

I looked at my boss's side face and asked him, "Aren't you curious about how Zheng Min and I met?" ”

"I know." The owner didn't give me a chance to tell the story. "Aren't you two small? They were together from elementary school to college, and they didn't separate until they worked. I know all of that. ”

"Oh." I answered. I felt as if my boss knew me very well, and I instantly felt ** insecure. I looked at the boss, who was young. The skin is also very good, the eyelashes are very long when viewed from the side, more beautiful than the eyelashes I brush myself, and when I am quiet, I look like a prince, but when I usually criticize me by saying my name viciously, it is like a monster, a good-looking monster.

I suddenly found myself getting closer and closer to Li Jing's hospital. I looked at my watch, and if I was lucky, I should be able to meet Li Jing who was off work, "Boss, can you trouble parking here?" ”

The boss slowly turned the car to the side of the road: "What's wrong?" ”

"I have a friend who works here, and now I should be able to wait for him to come home from work. So just send me here, thank you boss for buying me candy today. "I'm ready to open the door.

The boss glanced at the side of the road, and his expression became ugly: "The friend you said is Li Jing, right?" ”

I nodded: "We are neighbors now, and I will go to his house to eat in the evening, so when we go home to the vegetable market, I can adjust my favorite dishes, or I will eat celery again." "I think back to what happened to me yesterday.

The boss didn't say anything, turned his gaze back, and when I opened the door and got out of the car, the boss suddenly grabbed my arm: "Xiaozhi." ”

I looked back at my boss, who let go of his hand and was stunned for a few seconds before saying, "Don't be late for work tomorrow." ”

Maybe I've been late too many times lately and made him very upset, I hurriedly agreed, and watched the boss drive away, I turned around, but I didn't expect to bump into someone as soon as I turned around, and I looked up and saw that it was Li Jing.

"Your boss sent you here?" Li Jing's face was not very good when he spoke.

"Hmm." I nodded, "Our boss is very nice, he still has something to do, he wants to drop me home, I saw passing by the hospital and got out of the car and wanted to walk back with you." You see, he also bought candy for me to eat. It's the limited edition that I've been complaining about not being able to buy. I waved the candy in my hand, "Would you like one?" ”

"The best fool is a child." Li Jing said for no reason, "It's not good to eat sugar, and you will have tooth decay." ”

"But it's really delicious." (To be continued.) )