Before the doorbell rang, Jania was dreaming of a strange sun.

The sun is alive, the star that hangs in the sky, and at the same time the head of a wrinkled old lady with pearl hairpins.Her curly brown hair was greying, her cheeks were dark and rosy, and her eyes shone with a shrewd but suspicious gleam. She hung high in the endless blue sky and looked around to see who didn't notice that she was shining everywhere.

When she did this, the pearl hairpins that radiated from her bun were all twinkling, releasing a bright threat to the lower world.Such a unique hair accessory made Jania recognize the sun head as one of Malcolm's distant aunts.She lived in the south of France all year round, and only visited Regenberg a few times when Jania was very young.

Grandma Sally!She yelled into the sky - not sure she got the name right - you gotta come down from the sky!what do you want to do there
The old lady's radiant head shook twice in the air.Now she is the sun in the heaven, the grandmother of the world, and no one can fly up to pick her off, or say "Can you show me your driver's license" to her.She is now a purely free old lady, free to do whatever she wants.And just as Jania had dreaded, the old lady was soon doing what she loved most in Regenberg—she was talking to the world about the relationship between grammar and culture.

language!The old lady said loudly, it is the best mirror of civilization.It is a metaphor for all the qualities a society possesses, be they virtues or vices.This is more important than anything else, more important than toy guns and those messy woolen novels. It is what a young girl like Jania needs to learn most.When she lived in Regenberg, Jania was always mischievous and never paid attention to her lectures.Well now, there is no place in the world that escapes the teachings of the old lady.This makes perfect sense, since grandmothers are some of the brightest and most respectable people in all of human civilization.She would have a good time explaining to Jania the subtle differences between French and German.

Do not!Jania yelled in despair.I know how to talk!

Oh, you don't know, little girl!said Grandma Sally in the sky.You're just imitating your parents, which doesn't mean you really understand what the words you're using mean - let's start with the word "sun", which is a masculine word in French, and in It's feminine in German, do you understand why?In your mythology, the sun god is Sur who drives the chariot of flames, and after the Sirius swallows her, the doomsday war will come.But that's not the end, when the world recovers, her daughter Suna will be the new sun.A more gentle and creative Sun, which is just like your mom and you.

I will never be a lawyer!Jania said angrily.I won't get paid to say things that disgust me!
Grandma Sally looked down at her disapprovingly from the sky, as if she was looking at a kitten waving its claws at a mirror.This attitude towards the child annoyed Jania even more.She decided not to endure the nagging of the old lady as she did when she was a child, but to find a place in this wilderness that could be isolated from the sun.She is willing to go anywhere, even the underworld.

die.Grandma Sally said solemnly.It's a feminine word in French, but masculine in German.What you have portrayed is a male Reaper, a thin, cold and brutal man. der Tod!Some say it points to Thanatos.It is true that myths of all kinds are mingled in your language.Don't disobey the granny, little girl!Your hair needs a good comb.If your hair is disheveled, the thoughts in your head will also be slack, and you will be in a daze all day long.You have to remember to always let the mind organize itself in the form of language, and let it strictly abide by the grammar.If you don't, dear ones, you're going to invite bad luck sooner or later!
I've brought on bad luck.Jania thought dejectedly.If I can't get out of this ghost place, it's the worst bad luck.She doesn't like being judged by adults.She even started digging a tunnel to Hades with her fingers.This matter was not so difficult, because the soil was so soft and warm that she could knead it like dough.In the blink of an eye, she had dug a big hole, and this made Grandma Sun Sally very angry.She shouted threats into the ground in the loud voice of a hard-of-hearing old man, begging Jania to stop her terrible and rebellious ways or let the beast take her.

Jania didn't care one bit about the threat.Spiders, mice, maggots, witches... She was not afraid of things that adults used to scare children since she was a child.Grandma Sally can't threaten her when she's sitting in her living room, let alone 1.5 million kilometers away.

grim Reaper!Grandma Sun Sally yelled.Your evil deeds will surely lead to death karma!
You babbling vicious stupid annoying old fool.Jania thought as she dug.She didn't dare to really say this, because her mother would never allow her to speak to the elders in the family like this.But Grandma Sally, who was promoted to Eternal Planet, was obviously crazy.She was just retaliating with fire, so let this annoying old guy go to the west as soon as possible!

Suddenly, Jania was disturbed by the thought she had just had.Even though she was vaguely aware that she could think about anything here, it still seemed immoral to curse a familiar old man.In fact, Grandma Sally is much cuter in reality, and of course she doesn't want anything to happen to the old lady.Would that be her responsibility?
But it was too late.As soon as she felt the slightest hint of guilt, celestial Grandma Sally disappeared.Night fell, but there was no moon.The hole she dug was suddenly deep and long, and many strange claws with sharp nails protruded from it.They pulled her toward the abyss, and Jania had to cling desperately to the ground at the edge of the pit.The soil was too soft and slippery, she couldn't hold it firmly, and deep down she knew that she would not be able to escape the pursuit of the underworld, and she made a big mistake.Her curse actually destroyed the sun.Although she hadn't done it on purpose—and the mistake was too easy to make, she complained so secretly—it was hard to undo it.

A hand was offered to her from the edge of the pit.It was a normal and white hand, Jania grabbed it without thinking, and crawled out of the pit vigorously.She wanted to express her gratitude to this kind man, but what was exposed outside the hole was a round, slightly immature boy's face.When he smiled at her, there seemed to be a dark green light in his eyes.Jania instinctively said a dirty word.Do not.Mom can't control her anymore.She's leaving this damn place now.

She turned and jumped into the bottomless abyss.The feeling of being determined to fall wasn't really scary in the dream, and when she landed in the air, she even flipped over neatly so she could at least get a first look at what hell looked like - until her cheeks and chest hit hard on the carpet.

Jania groaned.She was dizzy for a few seconds before she realized that the pain and feeling of falling was not from falling to pieces, but from rolling off her bed again.again.She wasn't the type to sleep well, and she stayed up late last night.

The door creaked open.Hearing the noise, Leo trotted in from the door, wagging his tail enthusiastically, and slobbered on the little master's face.It is already a very old dog, and since it was given to Yu Qingshu by the neighbor when it was two years old, it has always been loyal to the mother and daughter--Malcolm's situation is a bit exception, Leo seems to be very fond of this A man who disappears with a strange, strange smell is suspicious.It allowed him to join the family as a peaceful gesture, but if Malcolm pretended to do something to Jania, he would yell all he wanted and take the opportunity to tear down something he didn't like.

Jania pushed Leo aside and staggered back onto the bed.Since she has spent so much time checking the information on Friday night, she is fully qualified to sleep in on Saturday morning.She falls asleep more easily during the day, perhaps because most of the daytime noise comes from outside the house.She buried her face in the sheet first, and then tried to cover her face with a pillow, neither of which was very comfortable.Her goggles had probably been secretly buried by Leo.

Leo didn't bother her anymore, maybe because he wasn't tired of playing with the butterflies in the yard yet, and he wasn't in a hurry to urge Jania to take him out.During the days when Yu Qingshu was on a business trip, it often left many muddy footprints in the corridor unscrupulously, and even quietly rubbed on the bed to sleep with the little master.No one in the family didn't know he was quite a crafty dog, despite his prowess at wagging his tail with innocent glazed eyes.

Dogs take every opportunity to benefit.Jania thought with her head buried in the pillow.Canines aren't the best, they're not the smartest, but they're surprisingly resilient and patient.Canines kill far more people than cats, and dogs outnumber wolves—though they're still trailing mosquitoes, viruses, and ourselves in this feat.From this point of view, the god of death for humans is certainly not a dog... so how to explain Anubis?She really shouldn't think about these things.Sleep on weekend mornings is more valuable than anything these days.She has to try her best to catch the sweet aftertaste of the dreamland, even if there is a grandma Sun Sally in the dream.

That's when the doorbell rang.It echoed throughout the house, and Leo barked in seconds.It was a bravado, menacing cry, and it was clear that the man wasn't a regular visitor, but he wasn't on the do-not-list, and Jania wondered vaguely that her mother might have ordered something online.It doesn't matter, the courier will call her mother and leave the stuff at the door.In a small place like Regenberg, where almost everyone in the neighborhood knew each other, no one would steal from her doorstep—and Leo, too.It's not exactly a cute angel sweetheart.

Jania poked her face out of the suffocating quilt and breathed in the fresh air vigorously.But the light outside the quilt was so bright that she shaded her eyes with her arms annoyed.But it's also not a good position for relaxing into sleep.

As a child she never bothered how to fall asleep during the day.Jania thought dejectedly.It was strange that before she had always had a sharp ear and a lively mind at night, and slept peacefully by day in the brightest sunlight.She really believed that she might be some kind of naturally nocturnal creature.But at some point, what sunlight brings to her is no longer relaxation and security, but the anxiety of being left behind by daily life and society.This is the grown-up world, honey!
She flung her arm away from her face, and her arm hit a rough orb.Jania suspects that Leo sneaked the toy into bed again.She fumbled to grab the sphere, and looked at it with sleepy eyes.Not a tennis ball or a rat doll, but a crumpled ball of newspaper.She unfolded it in a daze, revealing the square hollow in the middle of the page.Behind the hollow, the sea-snake skin that Miss Anty had generously gifted was hanging from the top of the cupboard, looking at her with life and menacing.

Jania woke up suddenly at the hole in the paper.It was a very sudden change, as if some kind of switch was pressed, and she immediately forgot about Grandma Sun Sally and the German god of death she summoned.Of course, Leo would not cut out such a precise piece of report from the newspaper with a carving knife in his mouth.That was what she did last night.The cut newspaper clipping now hangs on her "detective board" - at least that's what Malcolm called the thing.Every detective game needs a board like this, he said, because it's the perfect time to get players into the puzzle.

Of course Jania has her own "detective board", and it is a classic, elegant and unparalleled "detective board".It comes from Malcolm's wonderful idea, and the materials are collected from the fallen wood of the surrounding forests and the velvet, carvings and paints donated by the neighbors at the bazaar.When these unremarkable odds and ends fell into the artist's hands, they became an exquisite tool in deep red suede, framed in pale gold and studded with four-leaf clover and wildflowers.Then he wrapped it with wrapping paper full of question marks and a magnifying glass, making it a birthday present for his beloved daughter.A pure Regenberg product, he had said cheerfully, for the most famous detective in Regenberg!
Even now that Jania has a more realistic and less romantic understanding of detective work—such as the fact that not many detectives are still using such outdated and ineffective tools for cognitive mapping today, they can do it on the computer. Safer, more private, more detailed mind maps, and then type out a thick stack of case briefs, or simply turn on the projector and smart TV—but she still likes this beautiful hanging board.She hand-tapped it to the empty wall opposite her bed and used it to track down the mystery of a schoolmate who disappeared between classes, or why her neighbor kept sneaking out in the middle of the night.She also once grabbed a thumbtack, pinned a photo of her ex-boyfriend to the fleece, and tied the photo with a red string to a news story about local drugs.The results afterwards proved that although her idea was not completely correct, she still grasped the key to some extent.

This had been the most important clue carried on the information board, and Jania's interest in the game had slowly waned since then.It wasn't because the ex-boyfriend frightened her mother and brother, she gave up on her own initiative.When the world was exposed to her in the form of reality instead of fantasy, she, like all those who were once strongly obsessed with detective novels, realized that her reasoning was just child's play after all.There will no longer be true detectives active in reality, this is the age of technology and information.What's more important is reality - reality will never provide the perfect reasoning environment that fiction does.It won't give you all the intelligence, just let you try to make sense within your own experience.It's easy to take a guess at face value...but you may never know if you're right.

The "detective board" has since been left out by her.The red string hangs empty from the rusty thumbtack, like the ukulele under the bed.Until yesterday, its owner was once again prowling in front of the wall, pinning a scrap of newspaper clipping or an old printout of a photo into the fleece.Her eyes glowed with thought again, exploring and searching in the dense forest woven by imagination.

At the bottom of the "Detective Board" is affixed a printed photo.A pre-jail Lenny Collein stares right into the camera with his ogre-like eyes.It is hard to find the paper reports about his imprisonment that year. Jania downloaded this photo from a news website, reminding herself that there are such a pair of devil's eyes spying in the dark.Pinned next to Klein's photo was a small clipping of a new newspaper that still smelled of printing ink.Jania had gone to great lengths to find such a copy—space was at a premium in lawyers' files, and her mother had long since given up reading paper—and she cut it out herself, pinning it with secret excitement and apprehension.

In this little piece of the story, which was originally a fairly neglected section of the newspaper, the writer lightly told readers about a prison that had collapsed due to termite infestation.The whereabouts of several prisoners are unknown as a result.The answer the article was trying to imply was that they all died under the rubble, waiting for an inefficient construction team to dig up their remains, but Jania didn't think so.She couldn't figure out why termites should take an interest in concrete buildings, and whenever she gazed at a water-holding sink or a rain-filled hollow, Lenny Collein's ghoul-like eyes loomed in the shadows of the water.

It's an unsolved mystery, Jania thought, lying in bed, and an extremely dangerous one at the same time.She's thankful that Anti-Pierre didn't tell her mother about the night she disappeared on a beach vacation, saving a major family incident (and even grounding and censure!).But she is not a kid anymore, she has long understood that there are things in this world that are more terrifying than angry parents.If Lenny Collein showed up at her door...

The drowsiness had completely faded from Jania.She stared wide-eyed at the detective board, wondering if she had a chance to visit the prison.Not a particularly good idea, there was probably nothing there, and she didn't have much free time.Maybe she shouldn't have started with Klein.There was another, more definitive lead that would lead her to figure out what was going on.

She didn't put a picture of "that person" up.It's not because she can't find a suitable picture—it's on the homepage of her brother's social account anyway. Although they are all old group photos from her student days, her keen observation skills can help her easily pick out the photos from many school uniforms. Find the familiar one among the sluggish faces. "Mr. Glove" didn't look much different, she thought, looking at the photo, but her brother looked very different, more or less suspicious.But people are supposed to change, right?Maybe Mr. Gloves just doesn't look old—skinny little Judith doesn't look at all like her classmates, but she still insists he's suspicious.She wouldn't be particularly surprised if he showed no signs of aging after more than ten years.

Some movement downstairs interrupted Jania's thoughts.Her keen hearing told her that there seemed to be some unusual movement downstairs.Leo would sometimes play a game of tumbling with his beloved rag doll, or give a lunge and bite at the back of the couch (although Jania thought he was pretty good among hounds anyway).Jania had learned to distinguish the entertainment that different noises suggested, but this time was a little different.She thought she could vaguely hear the sound of rollers scraping across the rough ground.Did someone pull back the creaking wooden chair in the living room?Or is that just noise from outside in the yard?She was mistaken sometimes, after all a well-developed imagination is not always harmless.

She didn't hear Leo's voice.Whether it's welcoming a favorite acquaintance or a suspicious stranger, Leo is always willing to express his opinions and emotions at the top of his voice, even if it's a hungry raccoon who just wants to scavenge the trash can.But now, the living room downstairs is so quiet.Jania sat on the bed and listened, feeling the hairs on her back stand up like a cat.Now it's all right, she has to go and see for herself.

There was no shortage of potential murder weapons in this room that belonged entirely to Jania.Baseball bats and basketball trophies, Malcolm's "human bone knife" made of resin (sharp enough to cut bread, Jania promised her mother would never find out), and the dusty A large box of pointed darts.But it was all somewhat childish, and Jania knew there were at least two pistols in the house, and even at the height of her career's external pressures, her mother would only carry one of them in her handbag.
She got out of bed with bare feet, and tiptoed skillfully to the stairs, the wooden floor did not make any unnecessary movement.This is also a trivial matter for people who are used to sneaking out in the middle of the night.She considered going to her mother's bedroom to dig around, but she didn't know the combination to the safe, and it was too easy to make a fuss.So she changed her mind and had to find out where Leo had gone first.If it was lying in the living room in good condition, it would mean that she was dreaming again.

A small statue of Cooper stood on the banister of the stairs, holding a broom and looking at Jania encouragingly.The sculpture, also associated with Malcolm, was a gift from a friend to celebrate Jania's cultural coming of age (even though her mother never agreed that a 14-year-old girl could be called an adult).Malcolm suggested placing it on the landing, facing Jania's bedroom, as a way to remind her that taking part in the household chores is a mature family member's duty - otherwise you could use it as a prop for a puzzle game !He corrected it just in time before Jania got mad at the joke, saying that following the elf's guidance would lead to the secret base of the local detectives.

There are so many of them in this home.Jania knew each of them so well that she could almost outline the topography of the entire house through them.She could probably blindfold herself and live at home for a week just by feeling for the markers.When Jania put her hand lightly on the Cooper statue's wings, she knew she was facing the entrance-side wall of the living room, with family photos and her mother's favorite painting on the wall.If she looked down to the left of Cooper's statue, she could see across the living room and into the kitchen through the little round mirror on the bookshelf.She took a deep breath and pushed out the fragments of the horror story from her mind - the dead dog hanging from the chandelier, the stranger standing outside the window wearing a mask, the doll sitting on the sofa in the living room for no reason - in the It's almost impossible to encounter these plots in a true crime case.There's no way it's going to be quiet to set them up.

But what if a ghost did it?she asked quietly in her heart.This annoying question has been popping up in her head from time to time during these days, interfering with her judgment on various daily affairs.She can no longer pretend that the world is perfectly rational, and what can a detective good at reasoning do if the killer can fly through the sky and pass through walls invisible?Her life is really messed up by these nasty things.

But when she put her head over the rail to Cobb's left, Jania realized that maybe her life wasn't so bad.At first her heart beat violently a few times, because there was a figure standing in front of the oil painting.She saw the back of someone's head that seemed to belong to a man, with the neckline of a floral shirt exposed at the neck.This stranger who suddenly appeared at her house did scare her, but then she realized that the back of the head was somewhat familiar, and, anyway, not many people would wear such a striking and silly dress. Forest print shirts for trespassing.The pattern looked so familiar, as if Malcolm had designed it for an environmental protection festival one year.And while the townspeople love the passionate artist, not many really love him enough to wear such a dress.

She felt a sudden burst of joy.Before her conscious thinking came to a conclusion, it seemed that some kind of instinct figured out what was going on.Something like telepathy.She didn't really believe in this ability - but, how wonderful, when she stared straight at this figure (she could swear that she never made any movement, let alone twitch like in the novel Take a breath or step on dead branches or leaves), the other party suddenly turned around.They looked at each other for half a second, and an overly exaggerated smile quickly appeared on the blank face downstairs.

"Fluffy!" her older brother in the stupid forest flower shirt yelled cheerfully.

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