Chapter 1713: Keep a Level Head
This was just the beginning. There would be more such places later, places where even truth and falsehood couldn't be distinguished. To put it bluntly, even if they dug a hole and stuck a sign in it now, people who came later would still believe that this was a place where Master Solan once played and frolicked.
But such futile work still had to be done.
During this time, they ran into others who were also searching for clues—some familiar faces from yesterday, some new faces who had just arrived today. In short, whenever they met, they could see two lines written on each other's faces: "Doubting myself" and "They can put up a sign for this too?"
"I finally understand why the people of Zone 019 don't dislike clearance players. They just have to put up signs to lead us around by the nose," the curly-haired female player said, quite speechless.
"Maybe it's because so many people asked that they had no choice but to put up the signs," Xu Huo said with a smile. "If they didn't say anything, someone would definitely ask."
"That's true, but this is way too many," the curly-haired female player said, observing the surroundings before taking out several mechanical pangolins the size of a human head. "These things are expensive. I bought them specifically for this instance, but they're a bit hard to control. To ensure the machine's flexibility, I can only control one at a time."
She handed the remote controls to Xu Huo and the scarred player. The fingernail-sized remote, once attached to their clothes, would project a virtual screen in front of them. Through the screen's instructions, they could control the mechanical pangolin, with the camera and sensor devices switchable at any time.
"Places that have been mined might have underground cavities. If Solan really hid the painting inside, it wouldn't be far from the mine shafts even if it's not in them."
Xu Huo and the scarred player exchanged a glance, acknowledging this reasoning. They might as well give it a shot; you never know what you might find.
The mechanical pangolin was highly efficient. It burrowed into the ground in an inconspicuous spot and quickly found a nearby buried mine shaft. Once inside, there was enough space for it to move. When the lights came on, the situation inside was fully visible.
The isolated mine shaft had grown quite a few mutated plants, their fuzzy forms blocking the pangolin's view, making the vision unclear. But this didn't affect the machine; the pangolin's speed remained unaffected, and it continuously analyzed scattered items nearby.
The curly-haired female player set it to search for "paintings." These instruments had a clear fix on "paintings," so the beeping scan prompts never stopped.
The pangolin needed manual control to move. It could dig through obstacles, and based on feedback from the sensory devices, it would detect gaps or cavities near the mine shaft and automatically stop to await further instructions.
The machine was good, but it was a bit exhausting for the person operating it.
A small mountain, and the three of them crouched at its base for five hours.
And they found nothing.
The curly-haired female player's hands were starting to shake. Finally, she had to say, "I can't do it anymore. I need to rest."
Xu Huo and the scarred player weren't much better off. Improved physical fitness didn't mean they wouldn't get tired from maintaining the same posture.
They hadn't managed to avoid the attention of other players. At first, some people were lurking nearby, but after five hours, not a single one remained.
"Does this make us look a bit stupid?" the curly-haired female player realized the problem.
The scarred player was starting to lose interest. He turned off the virtual screen and said, "Let's narrow down the scope. If we keep searching like this, no amount of time will be enough."
The three discussed it, ruled out some situations with a lower probability of hiding a painting, and set a more detailed search mode for the pangolin before starting again.
Good. By the time the afternoon sun began to set, they had finally managed to search an entire small mining mountain.
"If you don't try it yourself, you really won't believe what others say," the curly-haired female player remarked, patting the dirt off the pangolin.
"Should we go to the second mountain?" the scarred player asked at this point.
Xu Huo looked up at the sky. "Let's go back for dinner. We have forty days to clear the instance. No rush."
The three returned empty-handed and covered in dust. As soon as they entered the bar, they were met with ridicule. Many people had witnessed their "clever behavior" and were now making jokes at their expense.
Nothing too harsh. Xu Huo and the others laughed it off and moved on.
After fruitless searching, everyone had calmed down.
"Anyway, the environment in Zone 019 is nice. It's like coming on vacation," a player who had arrived earlier joked.
Some agreed, some remained silent. There was no more discussion about how to clear the instance like yesterday.
After listening to some meaningless chatter, Xu Huo greeted the scarred player and the curly-haired female player and headed back to the bakery from yesterday.
The owner welcomed him warmly, generously giving him some bread, and at his request, talked about some of Master Solan's past events, also sharing some of his favorite paintings.
Solan's paintings were full of emotion, but for Xu Huo, unless the style change between different periods was too obvious, he couldn't grasp the feeling, so he had to ask the owner for guidance.
"Little Solan wasn't someone who got angry easily, but you can still tell from some paintings," the owner said, pulling out a landscape painting. It depicted a lake under the setting sun, with a few fish in the water. It seemed like a painting conveying a joyful emotion.
"Those art critics talk with such authority," the owner said. "They say this was painted during Little Solan's honeymoon, that she was very happy. That's absolutely not the case."
"Look at the black in the distant lake water. There are fish in it."
Xu Huo looked closely, but could only see that the water ripples had some unusual patterns.
"This is it!" the owner clapped his hands. "They don't know this, but Little Solan didn't like painting living things into black. If she painted them in, it meant she was in a bad mood. That's why I say she wasn't happy when she painted this."
It was hard to convince people with just this point, and the owner clearly knew that. He added, "I've told many people, but they don't believe me. Even the news interviews wouldn't write about it, thinking I'm just trying to get attention."
"The painting was indeed done during Little Solan's honeymoon," Xu Huo said.
"So that's why people are even less willing to believe it," the owner said, a bit sad. "I wonder if Little Solan was really happy after she got married."
"It's normal for couples to have small conflicts. If she was truly unhappy, she probably wouldn't have had several children," Xu Huo said. "Master Solan was a very strong-willed person."
The owner cheered up again. He then pointed out some subtle habits Solan had while painting. Without enough supporting evidence and being very minor details, it sounded more like the owner's own imagination.
But Xu Huo still listened to the end. Afterwards, he went to the old lady's house and asked if she also knew some of Solan's little habits.
The old lady didn't have a deep understanding of painting, but she believed that Solan didn't like her mother, even though she had painted many works with her mother as the theme.
"The information released on the Message Collection Terminal says they had a deep bond."
"She died so early, what bond could there be," the old lady recalled. "Besides, she was a selfish woman."
(Chapter End) Source: /txt/35960/32889448