Chapter 851 Tang Ze: Do you dare to move?
"Chess, armor statues, clocks...all are puzzles with the same elements as in the castle..."
Looking at the door in front of me being placed along with the armor The good position lit up again, Conan muttered quietly, and his emotions slowly calmed down.
He couldn't tell whether he was calming down by solving puzzles, or whether he was reacting extremely quickly because of his agitated mood. In short, he just naturally joined in to observe the mechanism and solve the puzzles, all the way. After walking through four or five rooms, it was only then that my head finally started to work, thinking about what was going on here.
This is certainly not the ordinary real world.
The ground and stairs made of paint, the sculpture-like decoration, everything that completely violates the rules of reality form an almost abstract world of oil painting according to its own inherent logic.
But this is not completely divorced from reality. Although the form is abstract, the decorative style and many decorations in the castle are exactly the same as the Mamiya family they saw during the day. After walking through each room, he can also see oil paintings corresponding to the Mamiya family's ancestors and information about them. Biography.
If this is the world that the Phantom Thieves "see", then he can probably understand how the Phantom Thieves of Heart found those targets, how they learned what they were doing, and how they accomplished the unthinkable. Change of heart.
"How do you feel? Do you like this world?" Seeing Conan stop in place, looking at everything around him, Tangze, who had been following behind him silently, took two steps forward.
“No wonder your actions are always successful.” Conan raised his head and looked up at the tall oil painting in front of him, “It’s like a mirror that reflects the world. You stand in the mirror and read the reflection of the world at will. The mirror Outsiders can’t detect or interfere. It’s simply cheating.”
Part of what he said was an exclamation, and the other part was a bit of resentful complaint.
The Phantom Thieves of the Heart are still active today, and there are many voices who use their existence to belittle the police and detectives.
But look at what these guys really do. Is it really fair to compare them? With such power to assist, as long as they find a way to enter here, this world has no secrets for the Phantom Thieves.
The detective wants to compete with such power, it is just like competing with an opponent holding a reference answer. He is not on the same starting line at all, and there is nothing he can do if someone tries to trick him.
"Well, the Phantom Thieves with my presence are indeed cheating." Brother Karasawa said pertinently, "But you can't just enter here if you want to, and you can get out if you want to get out. To get this The price to pay for the power is not small.”
Conan opened his mouth, and just as he was about to say something to complain about Joker's somewhat narcissistic tone, the wall around the oil painting suddenly surged.
Before he had time to react, the red scarf immediately wrapped around his waist and threw him backwards. He was caught in the hands of Narumi Asai who was standing behind.
"Ah, Asa..."
"Shh, call me Lunar." Asai Shimi pointed at the mask on his face, then put Conan at his feet, stepped forward, Keep people behind.
Conan looked towards the place where he stood just now and saw a pool of black paint splashed on the ground, which seemed to be corrosive and made a small hissing sound.
Karasawa turned around, looked at the portrait of a woman with a delicate and haggard face, and raised his hand: "Trigger, lend me a fire."
Hearing the code name of this hellish joke, Conan instinctively He turned his head and looked at the man in a black cloak standing behind him.
In his extremely shocked sight, a white sculpture rose up behind this guy covered in black. As he raised his hand, the chains tied to the sculpture made two crisp sounds. Crash.
A thunderous flame hit the oil painting in front of him accurately. The golden flames instantly shot up, and more black, sludge-like paint splashed outward.
Conan, who felt like he had watched some game cutscene, pointed tremblingly in the direction of Matsuda Jinpei: "That, that is..."
Before he could finish his question, as the flames rose, a piercing scream filled the room, almost instantly piercing his eardrums.
With the severe pain in his eardrum, another test tube was stuffed into his mouth.
"Stop talking, little detective." Miyano Akemi knelt down, covered his ears for him, and said in a gentle voice, "If you have any questions, you can ask them later. This world is too complex for ordinary people. "It's very dangerous."
Asai Shimi shook his head: "It's not just dangerous to ordinary people. If the leader hadn't been able to maintain our survival to the greatest extent, we would have been able to fight to this day without losing any strength. It’s a miracle.”
Miyano Akemi smiled softly in agreement.
With a drink-like reagent in his mouth, Conan, who had recovered, looked forward, staring in shock at what was happening in front of him.
As the firelight invaded, the woman in the oil painting was quickly burned to a charred black color. The entire painting began to twist and deform. The paint and cloth on the surface curled and blackened, and soon peeled off in the flames. .
However, what is shown in the picture frame on the wall is not the dilapidated posture of the ordinary painting after being ignited, but as if the person in the painting is really wrapped in the fire, the melancholy and elegant woman gradually changes in the flames. It turned into a charred skeleton, with thick white bones exposed from the charcoal-black embers, and the scene instantly became terrifying.
As the fire expanded, the walls around the painting began to twist and surge again, opening countless tiny cracks that made people's scalp numb. Eyes, lips and tongues opened along with the cracks. open.
The shrill screams gradually weakened, and then those crazily rotating eyes and constantly moving lips began to make their own sounds.
"...After so many years, something happened as soon as I came back. It's really unlucky..."
"Since Master Zhenzhao passed away, the noble young master took him away. Now that my wife is gone, who knows whether he is real or not. The noble young master..."
"...could it be Master Man's idea..."
"I heard that someone among the servants is the lady's lover..."
"...I'm not thinking about the old lady's legacy..."
All the conspiracy theories and gossips heard during the day's tentative inquiries, like a tide, poured into everyone's ears with the opening and closing of these lips and tongues.
The canvas is still burning, the charred bones hang high, and countless organs such as eyes, mouths, and ears fill the walls and ceiling of the room. The scene is horrifying.
Although the members of the Phantom Thieves who had expected this could not help but frown, their reactions were quite bland. Only Conan, who was constantly receiving the impact, could not help but swallow twice, and the last bit of coldness in his mouth was The liquid was also swallowed by him.
Almost the moment after drinking it, the weak stinging sound bombarded his ears together with those sounds, making Conan couldn't help but tremble a few times.
Miyano Akemi, who was paying attention to his situation, took the test tube back. After thinking about it, she simply took out a large flask from her bag, inserted a straw into it, and handed it to Conan.
"Keep drinking, the distortion here is quite serious. Don't worry, this is not real water. It's okay if you drink too much." Miyano Akemi said empathetically.
Matsuda Jinpei, who was standing in the back row, looked at the liquid in the flask and remembered the tube of stuff he drank unconsciously when he just woke up. Later, when he learned its origin, Feeling like that, he opened his mouth to say something, but when he saw Tang Ze in front of him without looking back, he suppressed the words that came to his lips.
Forget it, he’s not from the Phantom Thieves anyway, so he doesn’t have a chance to drink a few times. It’s quite fun to watch him slurp, so being kept in the dark is actually a good thing...
Tang Ze observed these noisy things and squinted his eyes. With the visual aid of his third eye, he quickly found the body that needed to be attacked and drew out the knife with his backhand.
"Lunar, lock the closed mouth, Shade, follow. Spy, prepare to attack."
Everyone in the Phantom Thieves has become very accustomed to following Karasawa's orders in battle. They have almost formed muscle memory, and they all started preparing without any pause.
Thus, under Conan's extremely shocked gaze, a fierce battle began with a painting style that was completely inconsistent with his expectations.
Many complicated and shocking thoughts were racing through his mind, but the first sentence that came out of Conan's mind was -
"So why on earth do you want to call them the Phantom Thieves? ! Is this deliberately misleading?”
——“A sneeze——”
"Xiao Ai, what's wrong?" Bumi, who happily pulled her companion downstairs, suddenly became nervous, "You didn't cover yourself with a quilt last night, did you catch a cold?"
" Hmm, no..." Haiyuan Ai looked at the foggy sky outside thoughtfully, "Maybe it's because I'm not used to the smell."
"It does smell. It smells very strange, well, it is an old castle after all..." Ayumi did not doubt him and quickly accepted this explanation.
Haihara Ai let her hold his hand and walked step by step up the stairs to the restaurant on the first floor. From the corner of his eye, he quietly noticed the direction where the Phantom Thieves' RV was parked.
One night has passed, have those guys finished their troubles?
Soon, the empty breakfast table answered her question.
"How many other people? Oh, they don't have the habit of eating breakfast." Faced with Mamiya Mitsuru's question, Tangze said nonsensically, "Only me and Senior Zhufu have a relatively stable schedule, so It's just the two of us."
"Is that so..." Mamiya Mitsuru looked at Karasawa and Morofuku Kagemitsu who were chewing bread slowly, and then cast suspicious eyes on the RV outside the window.
The Phantom Thieves' RV was specially made taking into account the needs of personnel and work. It was modified from a medium-sized bus, which is almost the same size as the original Fairy Bus vehicle. After simply making the interior soft decoration, it was made by a person who is proficient in mechanics. Matsuda Jinpei, who loves to study, completed it with the help of Noah. Just looking at the appearance, the size is already very impressive. It makes sense to say that there are many people living inside.
They didn't live in the castle at night. At this time, they couldn't break into someone's car to check because they thought the other person might be running around at home. Although Mamiya Mitsuru had some similar thoughts, they might have discovered something. There were clues, but he hid them out of selfishness, and his worries about quietly investigating could only be swallowed at this time.
"Today's young people have really unhealthy lifestyles." Mamiya Mitsuru could only sigh reluctantly.
“We college students are like this.” Karasawa nodded, not ashamed but proud, “As long as there is no early eight, there is no point in getting up early.”
Mamiya The corners of Man's mouth twitched, and he looked into his extremely calm and clear blue eyes. After holding his breath for two seconds, he had no choice but to lower his head and continue to eat his own.
Forget it, it only took half a day, a group of juniors should not be able to crack it so quickly...
"By the way, Conan is gone too." Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya, who finally waited for them to finish speaking, said quickly, "I didn't see him when I got up in the morning. I thought he went to the bathroom to wash up, but the doctor and Genta didn't either. I saw him..."
"Actually, when I got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, Conan's bed was empty." Mota Kojima scratched his head and expressed worry, "It might have been early in the morning. Two or three o'clock..."
"Could it be that he got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and got lost when he came out?" Mamiya Takato frowned and guessed the situation, "The structure of this castle is quite complicated. "Compared to the size of the castle, the place where we and the servants live is not large. Many places are unused and it is easy to get lost."
Especially when a child is running around in the dark, pointing. You might fall through a gap, or get trapped in an unused room. That would be troublesome...
"Is that so? Let's give it a try..."
Just as Ayumi was about to say that she could use her detective badge to contact Conan, Haihara Ai, who was sitting next to her, immediately pulled her hand and stopped her from continuing.
"Conan will not get lost. He has a compass on his body, and he is very smart." Haiyuan Ai raised a smile, pretending to be innocent and cute, "He is a powerful reasoning maniac, maybe , I found clues to the chessboard puzzle and couldn't help but pursue it."
"When you say that, it feels like something Conan can do..." Motojima thought for a few seconds. Zhong, crossed his arms and nodded affirmatively.
“You actually didn’t ask us to come together. This guy is too childish sometimes.” Mitsuhiko Tsuburaya snorted.
You are still children yourself...
Dr. A Li looked at the children dumbfounded. After thinking about it, he asked tactfully: "Is there any place here that is particularly easy to get lost? Let's go look for it after dinner."
"I have to. It's probably that tower." Mitsuru Mamiya touched his chin and said tentatively, "It's the tower on the left side of the castle that caught fire four years ago, but the door was always locked two years ago. There was a new servant who said he was going to look for something in the tower. We immediately rushed over to look for it and found that although there were indeed signs of entry, there was no sign of anyone."
"What happened next?" Dr. Li had a bad feeling when he heard this opening statement.
"Later, we called the police and searched the castle and the surrounding forest. We found him in the forest four or five days later." Mamiya Mitsuru said this and sighed, "Found him By that time, he had been starved to death, his stomach was empty, and his whole body was so thin that it was quite scary."
"How could this happen..."
"Anyway, because of this accident, we completely sealed off the tower, but strange rumors started to spread among the servants, saying that maybe too many people died in the tower and the resentment was too heavy, and that he was bewitched by ghosts. He was killed in the end." Mamiya Mitsuru waved his hand, "It's nonsense, but something may happen over there."
Hearing such terrifying rumors, the children couldn't sit still.
"Then let's go find Conan quickly. In case, he also starves to death..."
"It's too, too pitiful. Then, pack my bread first. ..."
"Do you need our help?" Tang Ze said at the right time, "We will also split up to help find someone."
"Okay, it's best to find him before lunch. He should be hungry by now..."
The dining table was noisy, and it was very lively for a while. Sitting on the main seat, he looked like a sculpture. The silent Mamiya Masashiro raised his eyelids and looked at Tang Ze and Zhu Fu Jingguang gloomily, his heart full of fear.
Will the appearance of these unexpected young people cause any obstacles to her?
The missing kid, could it be that he touched some mechanism and ran into the secret passage of the castle?
No, she has to hurry up and check. There are still secrets in the secret passages of the castle that cannot be discovered by others...
Feeling her gaze, Tang Ze lowered his head and observed the fake old lady who was obviously a little anxious with his peripheral vision, with a slight smile on his lips.
A missing child is found by you. It is unlucky for the child. A missing child and a group of young men and women are missing. Do you dare to find them?
Then you better really dare.
Behind the wall, in another world different from the surface of the castle, there are still ghosts who died in the fire, ready to drag you, the evil ghost, down to feel the pain at any time...
————
"Cough, cough, cough, cough..."
Conan, who was carried out of the room, choked and coughed for a long time before spitting out the burnt and strange stench that seemed to have filled his lungs. He straightened up and wiped his face stained with black ash in great embarrassment.
"Why is it so easy to catch fire in the world of oil painting?" Conan couldn't help complaining, "Even if there has been a fire here, that would be too exaggerated, right?"
"Because of you As I said, this is the world of oil paintings." Shimabukuro Kime, who was carrying him out on tiptoes, jumped over several steps lightly and placed him in front of the door leading to the next area, "This is a world of oil paintings. The memory of the fire, pain and fear that killed more than a dozen people will always remain here. However, this is still an "isolated" castle, and the truth will be remembered for a long time. The unknown fire naturally became a topic of conversation after dinner. "
Although this place looked like someone's palace, Shimabukuro Kimie did not forget that they did not use any keywords when entering here. It can be said that. It was really through physical means that we broke in.
Therefore, the nature of this world is naturally very clear. This place, like her island, is a "partial public space" in the Mamiya family castle area.
In other words, this is an area with commonalities.
"Okay, so you brought me here to check out this oil painting. Do you want to investigate the truth about the fire?" Conan asked this question that he was very confused about. "From these messy Among the public opinions, find the answer that points to the truth?”
“But as for the reason, you also know that we are more concerned about the crimes that are happening now than the truth in the past. "Shimabukuro Junhui smiled and pointed to the door in front of Conan, "Guess where it leads to?"
(End of this chapter)