Chapter 21 The Secret of Oil Painting
The art museum is very close to Southwest University. To be precise, it is at the junction of Southwest University and University of Political Science and Law.
"Before the two universities were built, this place was a suburb. This art gallery was originally an assembly line in an electronics factory. But after their boss ran away, our boss bought it out at a low price." The art gallery staff walked in front and introduced it to Wang Zheng and Huamei behind them.
The staff member is called Chen Bo, a middle-aged man in his forties. He is responsible for opening and closing the door of the art gallery and doing some daily maintenance when he has nothing to do.
"It does seem to be the case." Huamei looked at the scenery in front of him and made a relatively pertinent evaluation.
In front of the two was the main gate of the art gallery. The two mottled iron doors were sprayed with blue dye, and from a distance they looked like a butterfly spreading its wings about to fly. However, when they got closer, they discovered that the seemingly simple butterfly wings were actually made up of small butterflies of the same color.
"Which artist created this?" Wang Zheng walked quickly forward, reached out and wiped the iron gate in front of him, and found that the bottom of the butterfly was intentionally sprayed with a layer of transparent gel.
"I don't know." Chen Bo shook his head, motioned Wang Zheng to move away, then opened the door of the art museum and said, "There is no recent schedule. All the collections in the art museum have been taken away by everyone. Now there are only a few remaining items in the museum."
"Yeah." Wang Zheng nodded and entered the art gallery first.
The art gallery is not much different from what one might imagine. It was completely converted from a factory building, and the places where the exhibits are hung are made of cheap wooden boards. The empty glass cabinets next to the wooden boards prove that exhibitions have been held here before.
"Do you have the list of hosts for the last art exhibition?" Huamei asked.
"No." Chen Bo shook his head and said, "We organizers are in direct contact with the boss. Generally, apart from students, the rest of the people who come to hold exhibitions are some well-known figures in the province who use their names to sell their own small exhibits. There is no hard and fast rule for this."
"Understood." Wang Zheng nodded and asked, "Can we take a look around?"
"Okay." Chen Bo nodded and didn't refuse. He pointed to the small room next to the door and said, "Then you guys just watch first. I'm in the office next to the door. Call me if you need anything."
Wang Zheng thanked him and exchanged a glance with Huamei, and then the two of them began to check separately.
Since most of the artworks had been removed by everyone, Wang Zheng didn't look closely along the way. He walked all the way to the center of the factory, then stopped and thought about something.
In front of him was an oil painting.
The painting shows a charred tree with signs of burning all around it. In the distance, against the sunset, there is a very familiar office building.
Wang Zheng was stunned, then he lowered his head and carefully looked at the signature and price under the photo frame, but it was blank, with only two words written on the introduction of the work: "Redemption".
"Ah!" A cry of surprise came from the thrushes in the distance at the same time.
Wang Zheng was stunned and ran towards the direction of the sound. When he got closer, he saw Huamei also standing in front of an oil painting, covering her mouth, at a loss.
"Huamei, what's wrong with you?" Wang Zheng asked.
"Wang Zheng, look at that painting, it seems like there is..." Huamei was so shocked that she couldn't speak for a while. After a while, she gasped and said, "Hu Qiang and the others..."
"What?!" Wang Zheng was shocked and quickly ran to Huamei, then his body shook.
Just as Huamei said, there really were Hu Qiang and two other people in the oil painting in front of them. However, only the backs of the three of them were revealed. However, what really surprised the two was the background of the painting.
The background is obviously a classroom, and inside the classroom is a girl who is hooked on an electric fan. The girl's delicate face seems to feel no pain at all, and her smiling expression seems like she is enjoying it.
"This is exactly the same as what was written in Hu Qiang's transcript." Huamei said.
"Yes." Wang Zheng nodded and said excitedly: "This is the clue."
The case that happened a few years ago was now turned into an oil painting and appeared in front of the two of them. It went without saying that the author of this painting was the murderer!
"Isn't that too arbitrary? Maybe he is also a witness?" Huamei asked doubtfully.
"Unlikely." Wang Zheng shook his head. "In fact, the murderer may have known that it was Hu Qiang and the other two who were peeping outside the door, so he did not leave the scene at the time. Instead, he hid behind the three people and drew this picture."
The thrush was silent.
"Let's go ahead and take a look, maybe we can get something new." Wang Zheng made a decision.
The two continued to walk into the deepest part of the art gallery, and sure enough, they saw another oil painting after a while, and the content of the painting was still the case.
"This is Chen Shuai." Wang Zheng was stunned.
"There is another painting." Huamei pointed to the front and said in surprise.
Wang Zheng didn't think much about it and quickly followed Huamei forward. When they got closer, both of them unconsciously showed expressions of surprise on their faces.
This painting is indeed similar to the case YouTube, but the background in the painting made both people feel a chill down their spines.
"Jia Weiping...actually died here?!" Huamei screamed.
At this point, if you just look up slightly, you can roughly see that the way this oil painting was painted is obviously standing on a high place and looking down. The picture shows that it is exactly where the two people are standing, but the focus is on the back of the wooden board in front of them.
Because in the painting, there was a thin fishing line hanging on the factory beam behind the wooden board, and Jia Weiping was tied to the fishing line.
Buzz!
"Hello, what's the matter?" The sudden phone call startled Wang Zheng.
"Wang Zheng, where are you?" Gao Feng said anxiously, "We went to the power company to check. After excluding some registered commercial units with large electricity consumption, we found one place that is the most suspicious!"
"Where?" Wang Zheng seemed to have thought of something and asked quickly.
"Art Museum!" Gao Feng was silent for a while on the other end of the phone, as if he was looking up some information. After a while, he said, "There is something wrong with this art museum. The owner of the property registration of the art museum passed away a month ago, but the art exhibition has been going on for several months!"
"You mean, the property owner died a month ago?" Wang Zheng showed a surprised expression on his face.
"Yes." Gao Feng nodded on the other end of the phone. "Logically speaking, I think it's problematic to reopen the exhibition when the owner is no longer alive."
"The collections on display at the last exhibition are bone carvings?" Wang Zheng's face looked a little grim.
Gao Feng said "yeah" on the other end of the phone and fell silent. After a long while, he spoke again, "Be careful, I'm on my way to you now, and the SWAT team is on the way too."
When Wang Zheng heard this, he clenched the phone in his hand. He knew very well that they were now in the suburbs, and both the Electricity Bureau where Gao Feng was inquiring, and the nearest special police squadron, were in the Municipal Bureau. The fastest way for them to arrive would probably take an hour.
In other words, if it was really as he guessed, that hour would be very dangerous for him and Huamei.
"What's wrong with you?" Huamei asked quickly when she saw Wang Zheng's gloomy face.
"We are in danger." Wang Zheng put the phone in his pocket and said silently: "The murderer is very close to us, or he has been watching us all the time."
"What!" Huamei was horrified and looked around quickly. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw that there was no one around. She said speechlessly, "Wang Zheng, you are too nervous. How could the murderer..."
Before Huamei could finish her words, she turned around and saw Wang Zheng, who had moved next to the oil painting at some point, kicking the baffle in front of him hard.
Boom!
Wang Zheng kicked the more than two-meter-high baffle to the ground. The sudden gust of air raised the dust on the ground that had not been cleaned for who knows how long.
"Ah!" Huamei saw the scene clearly in front of her, screamed, and quickly covered her mouth.
Behind the baffle was a bright little room separated by someone. The room was carefully built with fist-thick beams, and hanging on the beams was a person covered in blood!
