Tonight's rain was even heavier than last night's.
Most of the illustrations in this book are personally drawn by the author, so please look forward to them.
The downpour lashed against the museum's dome, raindrops spreading down the glass like the tendrils of some eerie entity shrouding the museum.
“This doesn’t seem to be… a pattern from the Western Zhou period?”
Lin You leaned close to the display case, his nose almost touching the glass.
Since the museum was already closed, Lin You wasn't worried about being seen like this.
He stared at the antique in the display case, labeled a “Western Zhou bronze jue,” and a faint golden light flickered in his left eye.
This was a special ability Lin You had only recently discovered within himself; his left eye could perceive any information carried by an object.
However, depending on the information, Lin You would suffer varying degrees of harm.
Although the nearby label claimed this item was a “Western Zhou bronze jue,” Lin You could guarantee, with his master's degree in history, that this thing was absolutely not from the Western Zhou period, and certainly not a “Jue”!
Even if others insisted it was a bronze jue, and they meticulously described its appearance to Lin You.
But Lin You knew clearly that what they saw was not its true form, and what he saw was its most authentic appearance.
Because at some unknown point, in Lin You’s eyes, the world had suddenly transformed.
Things that were perfectly ordinary to normal people appeared as distorted, eerie objects in his sight.
After realizing this, Lin You accepted a reality: although he still lived on the same Earth as others, they now possessed two completely different worldviews.
Lin You believed the reason for this situation was that he had transmigrated, but this transmigration seemed completely seamless.
As Lin You focused his attention on the bronze jue, a strange, twisted tadpole-like script floated above it.
The tadpole script was like the main body of a tree, from which countless bizarre, twisted tendrils extended, their ends forcibly intertwining to form the other information that completed this bronze jue.
While observing the tadpole script, Lin You felt a soreness in his eyes, and simultaneously, a dark red pattern suddenly spread across his left hand.
This pattern originated at the junction of Lin You’s hand and forearm, extending all the way to the tips of his five fingers.
While observing the bronze jue, a glow flickered at the pattern’s origin, seemingly wanting to spread across Lin You’s entire hand.
But it was clear that the power of this bronze jue was not enough to make the pattern spread that far.
The soreness in his eyes made Lin You withdraw his gaze from the bronze jue; this entire process lasted only a few seconds, but Lin You had already obtained the information he wanted.
The tadpole script meant 【Sacrifice】.
That is to say, this thing was an offering, or an item related to a sacrifice.
Upon receiving this information, Lin You observed the bronze jue again, and the more he looked, the more he felt it was a miniature “altar” reduced countless times.
The rain outside had lessened by then, and Lin You left the bronze jue's exhibition area, turned off the lights in that section, and intended to return to his office to pack up and go home.
With the disappearance of the lights, the museum instantly plunged into darkness, and some exhibits with human facial features, once cloaked in the “darkness,” inexplicably gained an eerie atmosphere.
Because he dealt with these things every day, even in such an environment, Lin You felt no fear.
However, for convenience, Lin You still took out his phone and turned on its built-in flashlight.
The flashlight's beam illuminated the path beneath Lin You’s feet, and out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed a ceramic Buddha statue smiling eerily at him.
Lin You turned his head and politely returned a smile to the statue.
It was a Tang Dynasty painted pottery Buddha statue; although its facial expression had become somewhat eerie due to the ravages of time, Lin You was certain it was just an ordinary antique.
Otherwise, Lin You would have run away long ago.
Ever since realizing he might have transmigrated, Lin You had been trying to understand the situation of this world in his own way.
He felt as if he was now living in a world where the strange and contained objects coexisted.
This was…
Quite interesting.
…
Reaching the office door, Lin You placed his left hand on the doorknob, and just as he was about to open the door, he suddenly noticed something unusual about his left hand.
The pattern on the back of his left hand had spread a bit further.
Noticing this, Lin You immediately became alert.
He quickly turned on the lights in the empty exhibition area beside him, and under the illumination, the museum's eerie atmosphere in the dark seemed to dissipate considerably.
Lin You’s gaze fell upon the display cases near him.
Being close to the office, there were few display cases here.
An old clock from the last century, a fake landscape painting in the Ming Dynasty ink-wash style, and a portrait by an unknown foreign painter were all that surrounded Lin You.
Lin You's gaze swept past the clock and the fake, finally settling on the portrait by the unknown painter.
To ordinary people, it was indeed a portrait by an unknown painter, and there wasn't even a description in the display case.
But in Lin You’s eyes, it was different.
The portrait, in his eyes, had transformed into a woman with the lower half of her face twisted into a grotesque smile, while the upper half was weeping.
The corners of the woman’s mouth on the lower half of her face had almost split to the outer corners of her eyes on the upper half, with eerie black viscous fluid oozing from the cracks, and deep within, bloody tissue was vaguely visible.
However, the smile on the lower half of her face, which seemed like “extreme joy,” appeared to have no effect whatsoever on the woman’s upper half.
The upper half of the woman’s face conveyed an extreme Sorrow, and this emotion seemed to affect all surrounding objects.
In an instant, faint, indistinct weeping sounds, centered on the woman, enveloped Lin You.
As if noticing Lin You’s gaze, the woman suddenly stopped crying and retracted her smile, her expression instantly returning to normal, and the crying sounds centered on her also abruptly ceased.
Seeing this, Lin You retreated while observing the woman’s face.
He kept feeling that her face looked somewhat familiar.
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration struck Lin You’s mind.
How could this person be so identical to the mona lisa?
If the mona lisa wasn’t still hanging in the Louvre, Lin You would suspect that the one in front of him was the real mona lisa.
The woman in the painting seemed to have stopped her eerie behavior, but Lin You did not leave immediately.
Golden light surged in his left eye, and as a slight soreness emerged, a twisted tadpole-like script also appeared above the “mona lisa.”
【Sorrow】
The golden light receded, and Lin You withdrew his gaze.
According to Lin You's understanding, 【Sorrow】 should be the mona lisa’s characteristic.
As Lin You's gaze moved away from the mona lisa, the eerie crying sounds began again.
Lin You felt annoyed; he turned and looked at the mona lisa.
The crying stopped, and the mona lisa in the painting returned to normal.
But as soon as Lin You's gaze shifted from the painting, the eerie crying would resume around him.
Lin You was getting annoyed.
He took a selfie with his phone, then turned around and aimed his selfie at the mona lisa with his hand.
The mona lisa seemed bewildered by Lin You’s action and didn't immediately start crying.
But in the very next moment, just as Lin You thought everything had settled down, an extremely piercing, mournful wail suddenly exploded in his ear.
Lin You felt as if his ears had been violated.
