Chapter Fourteen: The Case Becomes Clear

  Zhou Ke and Ren Moji listened attentively. After Wang Tou'er finished telling the story of Hong Yi's kindness to his family, Zhou Ke said, "So it seems that your friendship is not ordinary!"

  "Yes, since then, we have been in frequent contact. We even set up a memorial tablet for Master Hong at home and make offerings to it every day. However, not long after that, Master Hong left this place to go to the capital, and I never saw him again. Unbelievable! How did Master Hong leave?"

  "He was stabbed in the back and killed by someone."

  "What? How is it possible! Lord An was such a good person, how could he be killed? Can you find out who the murderer is?"

  "We are currently investigating. Do you know who Hong Yiping usually associates with on a daily basis? Is there anyone suspicious among them?"

  "Hong En Gong was on good terms with Anfu Shi Hao Da Ren, so naturally he had a lot of exchanges with Hao Da Ren. As for others, I wasn't familiar with En Gong at first, so I didn't know much about him. But later when I got to know him better, I only saw him painting a lot and having little contact with people. The ones he did meet were either Hao Da Ren or his friends, or people from the military camp. There weren't any suspicious characters around!"

  "Speaking of painting, we came here today specifically for this matter. Hong Yi has been here for two years and should have painted many works, so why can't we see any of his paintings in his home or here? Did he not satisfy with them and burn them all away? Or did they get lost over time? Or did he take them all with him when he went to the capital?"

  "Oh, no, it's just that his painting is not here, but in my home!"

  "Ah?" Zhou Ke and Ren Moji never expected such an answer.

  "If you two gentlemen don't believe me, you can come with me to my home right now and see for yourselves. Master Hong had left in a hurry that day and specifically instructed me to help him gather his paintings, saying they were all bad drafts and telling me to burn them. But after thinking it over, I felt that they were Master Hong's belongings, so I couldn't bear to burn them. So I took them back home and stored them away as treasures, taking them out on holidays to pay my respects, feeling as if I was seeing Master Hong himself!"

  Zhou Ke and Ren Mo Ci didn't say a word, but let Wang Tou Er lead the way, following him to his home. Indeed, as Wang Tou Er had said, in the house, they were respectfully offering sacrifices to the memorial tablet of their benefactor, Hong Yi. Zhou Ke and Ren Mo Ci looked around, but couldn't see any paintings. Wang Tou Er understood, opened a cabinet next to the table where the memorial tablet was placed, took out a package from inside, and opened it, revealing a long cylindrical box. Wang Tou Er smiled and said: "We are illiterate, we don't understand painting, we just think this is our benefactor's belongings, we should keep them well, I don't know if the preservation method is correct or not, but you see, these papers have been here for eight years, they're still intact!" Zhou Ke thought he was a foolish commoner, his words were laughable, but he didn't have any ulterior motives, and it was all out of sincerity for Hong Yi, so he didn't mind.

  Zhou Ke and Ren Moji carefully examined Hong Yi's paintings, just as Xu Shun had said, there were many hills in the paintings. As a landscape painter, it was normal to paint realistic mountains without much water. After looking at dozens of Hong Yi's paintings, the two didn't find anything suspicious. Had they been thinking in the wrong direction? Was the problem not with the paintings after all?

  As they left Wang Tou'er's house, Zhou Ke and Ren Moji looked like deflated balloons, listless. After hearing Wang Tou'er say that Hong Yi's paintings were in his home, the two had thought they had found the key to the problem, and the mystery of Hong Yi's death might be solved. But things were far from being as simple as they had imagined, and they gained nothing from the paintings. Perhaps they still needed to go to Beijing to investigate further; perhaps ten years ago Hong Yi's acquaintance with Hao Daren and his painting in the military camp was just a coincidence, and they had overcomplicated things.

  Two people arrived at the Anfu Temple, stayed overnight, and prepared to report back to Qin Feng Road early the next morning. That night was uneventful. Zhou Ke had something on his mind and went out for a walk alone before dawn, thinking deeply. Later, when Ren Moci got up and found Zhou Ke missing, he also went out to look for him and found him contemplating in a corner of the military camp. Ren Moci said: "Deputy General, don't overthink it, since things are already like this, why don't we head back to Qin Feng Road first?" "En, that's all we can do." Just as Zhou Ke was about to leave with Ren Moci, he suddenly froze. Ren Moci followed Zhou Ke's gaze and exclaimed: "Ah! That mountain! Where have I seen it before? Ah yes, it's in Hong Yi's painting!"

  This got the two of them excited, and they hurriedly went to find Wang Tou again, asking him to lend out Hong Yi's paintings. The two of them spent a few more days in the military camp, comparing the mountains and hills in Hong Yi's paintings with their actual locations, and finally confirmed several dozen painting points by Hong Yi, including multiple angles of the same mountain. But what does this prove? Their thoughts stalled again. A painter can choose to paint whatever they think is beautiful, and it's not uncommon for them to paint from multiple angles. So why are they so fixated on the purpose of his painting points? When they discovered that the actual mountains were the ones in Hong Yi's paintings, why did they get so excited? Even they themselves couldn't explain it clearly. Maybe they were wrong again! If they had returned to Qin Feng Road earlier and made plans to go to the capital city, perhaps by now they would have found even more valuable information.

  The two stood in front of the painting, in front of which they had also marked out a rough map of the location, and fell into deep thought again. Helplessly, they went to the military camp again, and according to Hong Yi's angle when he painted, they all stood through one by one.

  Ren Mo said, "Deputy General, this is already the tenth time. We have turned ten times according to the angle of Hong Yi's painting. I'm afraid it's just a painter who casually chose an angle to paint."

  "No! Not at all!"

  "What did the vice general discover?"

  "Maybe he chose the angle casually, but when choosing the location, it was not casual!"

  "Deputy General?!"

  "Look, he's painting mountains, but he's chosen different angles. Have you ever noticed that there's a common point in all the angles he's chosen?"

  "What's in common?"

  "That's right, all the soldiers are on guard! Look, he drew this mountain the most, and here is exactly where the Anfu Shuai Da Ren is located. And from this location, he drew twice, which is exactly where the secret file library is located. He must have a purpose, he is grasping the arrangement of all the soldiers through painting, alternating!"

  One remark made Ren Mo suddenly enlightened, "The deputy general is indeed brilliant! But what's his ultimate goal? He and Lord Hao aren't on good terms, are they? Even if he had some purpose in mind when contacting Lord Hao, couldn't he have done something about it then? Why did he need to investigate the situation of all the soldiers before taking action?"

  "He's close with Lord Hao again, and Lord Hao wouldn't give him confidential documents! He wants to steal them!"

  "What? What kind of document is it?"

  "Then I have to go into the library and take a look!"

  The two men asked the pacification commissioner and entered the library. Zhou Ke and Ren Moji inquired in detail to the guards responsible for guarding the library, if they still remembered that ten years ago there was a painter named Hong Yi who often came and went from the military camp? Two older guards said vaguely that they still remembered that there was such a person, because he had a close relationship with the former pacification commissioner, Mr. Hao, so he often came and went from the military camp, but they were not familiar with him, only greeted each other when they met, and often saw him painting in the back of the mountain, so they didn't bother to care about him.

  Zhou Ke and Ren Moji exchanged a look after hearing this. At this time, Zhou Ke took out the two repeated paintings by Hong Yi and asked Shou Bing if he still remembered when Hong Yi painted the same painting twice before. Shou Bing thought for a long time, it was obviously something that happened a long time ago, they didn't understand the painting nor cared about it, so naturally couldn't remember very clearly.

  After a while, one of the old soldiers seemed to suddenly remember something and said: "Right! It seems there was such a thing! At that time, I was on duty and passing by Mr. Hong's side, out of curiosity, I went over to take a look, and found that it was almost the same as the previous painting, so I asked him, 'Why paint this again?' He seemed to say, 'The previous painting wasn't good, today feels good, let me repaint it once.' I looked at it for a while and then left."

  "What time is your shift change?"

  "Every day at dusk."

  "You're painting at dusk?" Zhou Ke and Ren Moji couldn't help but pause, don't most painters usually choose to paint during the daytime? Why did Hong Yi specifically choose a time close to evening! They became even more suspicious.

  At this time, only the old man said: "It was summer at that time, and it was still bright at 5 pm."

  "Did he arrive at dusk to start painting?"

  "That's not true, every time Mr. Hong paints for a very long time, he has never stopped painting."