curse

Chapter 58

This is a building built in the 20s, which used to be the seat of a foreign bank 70 years ago.However, this place has already been inhabited by many people. Walking into the door of the building, you can also see an old-fashioned elevator. When you take that elevator up, you can see everything outside through the iron railings during the ascent.In fact, the building is not high, there are only 5 floors in total, and the elevator stops at the highest floor.Walking out of the elevator, there was a dark corridor with closed doors on both sides. At the end of the corridor, he saw the young man assigned to him as his partner who had only entered the game for a few months.

In fact, the young man was only two years younger than him, but he was still called a teacher.Ye Xiao just said lightly: "Thank you for your hard work, how did you find this place?"

"It can't be regarded as my discovery. It was reported by the landlord. The landlord of this house found that the young female tenant had been missing for several months. He was worried that something might happen to the tenant, so he called the police. After the police here opened the door, they found I obtained some documents, and after being identified by the landlord, it was confirmed that the missing female tenant was Nie Xiaoqing, who is what you called Lanyue. After I knew the news, I rushed over immediately and notified you."

"Take me in and see."

They walked into the room, which was surprisingly dark. There was a sloped wall, and the outside of the wall should be a sloped eaves.There was only one window in the whole room, and it was opened very low. You had to lower your head to see the outside clearly. When Ye Xiao lowered his head, he saw that the rain outside the window had stopped.In front of you are rows of buildings from the 20s, and in the farthest distance are those buildings on the Bund.

The young man turned on the light, which enabled him to see clearly the furnishings in the room. Strictly speaking, it was more like an attic.The room is only a dozen square meters in size, and there is no toilet. Maybe you can get a public toilet in the corridor outside to go to the toilet.There is a small bed, a dresser, a wardrobe, a TV and a VCR, but no VCD.Probably these things already existed before Nie Xiaoqing moved in.Ye Xiao felt an indescribable feeling that Nie Xiaoqing, also known as Lanyue, had been dead for more than five months.But it wasn't until now that she found her place to live. Ye Xiao calculated the time in his mind, from when Lan Yue left the Archaeological Research Institute to when she died, there was only about one month in between.During this month, she lived in this shabby room, and finally fell to her death from the upstairs of Bai Bi's house.How did she live during this month?Suddenly, Ye Xiao seemed to smell something from the air in this room. It was the smell of a woman, a woman who had been reduced to ashes. go.

"Teacher, I have already done a simple survey, and I didn't find anything special." The young man said suddenly, otherwise, Ye Xiao would have continued to meditate on his own.

Ye Xiao looked at his watch, it was already past 5 o'clock in the afternoon, he said to the young man, "Go home and have dinner."

"What about you, teacher?"

"Don't call me teacher. I'm only two years older than you. I want to stay here to find some clues. You should go back first and see you in the bureau tomorrow."

The young man has finally left here, Ye Xiao really envies him for being carefree.Ye Xiao closed the door and stayed alone in this small room.The light coming in from the small window finally dimmed, and he knew that night had fallen.He opened the drawer of the dresser and saw some cosmetics, but they were very few.He opened the closet again, and there were some women's clothes hanging in it. He is not the kind of person who likes to peep, but he is very disgusted with it.But he was a police officer, and he did his duty anyway, checking the closet and finding nothing but the seductive smell emanating from the woman's clothes.He took a greedy breath, and the smell entered his trachea, and then into his lungs, filling his whole body.

Smelling this smell, the shadow of that woman and the last moment of smile seemed to appear in front of my eyes again.Suddenly Ye Xiao was a little secretly afraid, and he remembered what the forensic doctor had said to him - "Some viruses can enter the human body through the air, but they only invade the human brain, reside in the human brain cells, and then control the human body. thought and action, and ultimately death."And Lanyue (Nie Xiaoqing)'s special lesions in the cells, and the DNA arrangement and combination different from ordinary people, all made Ye Xiao feel a faint fear.He immediately stuck his head out, closed the closet door again, and rubbed his chest.

There is not even a chair in the small room, Ye Xiao can only sit on the bed, a color TV is facing the bed, and a video recorder is under the color TV.He wondered why there was no VCD player, but only a video recorder.He walked to the TV, squatted down, plugged in the power supply, and the display light of the VCR turned on, showing that there was a tape in the VCR.Ye Xiao immediately pressed the OPEN button and ejected the tape from the VCR.There is no doubt that this video tape has been sleeping in this VCR for at least 5 months.The shape of the video tape was very ordinary, like the one used in the unit, and a name was written on the label on the front of the video tape——Jiang He.

Immediately, the face that resembled himself appeared in front of Ye Xiao again, his heart skipped a beat, and he looked at the videotape again.That's right, since Jiang He's name was written on the label, the content must be related to him. Ye Xiao thought of something again, but he didn't want to think about it.He immediately put the tape back into the VCR, then turned on the TV, then picked up the remote control on the VCR, and after rewinding the tape to the front, he pressed the play button on the remote control.

Soon, a white valley appeared on the TV screen, followed by graves, blue sky, and the corner of the car window, which was filmed in the car.After watching it for a while, Ye Xiao understood everything. This was a video shot by Jiang He himself.In the video tape found in Wen Haogu's office, most of the valuable content has been edited out, and Ye Xiao has been wondering where those cut out parts went.Looking at it now, the video in front of me is the part that was cut out, and some content can be completely connected with the video that Ye Xiao remembered.

Ye Xiao watched the video and continued to walk through a white wilderness valley, then looked at his watch, it was almost 7 o'clock in the evening.He pressed the button to pause the playback, lowered the volume again, took out his mobile phone and called home.Bai Bi had already returned home, and she said on the phone that she was having dinner alone.Ye Xiao didn't say that he was in the room where Lanyue lived, but that he was out to handle the case and might come back later so she could rest earlier.On the phone, Bai Bi said flatly, "Go home early."

After finishing the call, Ye Xiao resumed playing the video and turned up the volume.The scene of Wen Haogu arguing with Yang Xiaolong suddenly jumped out of the screen, but the voice at this time was very clear. Ye Xiao heard Yang Xiaolong arguing loudly with Wen Haogu: "Director Wen, I am afraid we are not qualified to bury such a large tomb without permission." Carry out excavation. I think we should immediately contact the superior cultural relics department and obtain formal approval before proceeding. I think we should retreat now."

"What did you say? Retreat?" Wen Haogu got a little angry, and he scolded loudly, "Xiaolong, I have always valued you very much, don't let me down on you. We are archaeologists, and protecting cultural relics is our bounden duty , Now the ancient tomb has been dug out by tomb robbers. Judging from the situation described by the locals, there have been many tomb robbers active nearby since the road was opened. If we retreat now, it is likely that tomorrow night Then another group of desperadoes will come and steal all the cultural relics in the tomb, and at that time, we will be the real sinners."

Yang Xiaolong wanted to defend something, but was interrupted by Wen Haogu, who said loudly: "Everyone get ready, go down from the robber's cave first, and see if the tomb robber has entered the tomb." Then, Xu Anduo volunteered and was the first to enter the robbery cave. He held a special lamp to shine in front of him, and Jiang He's camera followed behind him.Then came the long corridor. Ye Xiao could even clearly hear the sound of footsteps in the video. The sound echoed in this small room through the speakers of the TV, giving him a strange feeling. Like myself also walked into the ancient tomb with the archaeologists.

While walking, the camera suddenly jumped to a wall with a hole opened, and at the same time, Wen Haogu's voice came: "The words just now are usually written by the owner of the tomb in order to prevent future generations from robbing the tomb, so the reason for the announcement Doubt. I think everyone understands this, so don’t be afraid, come, follow me in.”

"Director Wen, let me go in first." It was Xu Anduo again, he was the first to enter the cave, Jiang He's camera and Wen Haogu's back followed closely behind him.After a few bumps, although the camera was still looking at the backs of Xu Anduo and Wen Haogu, Xu Anduo exclaimed: "My God."

"It's like entering Tutankhamun's tomb." Someone interrupted.

"Shut up, you're going to be a bitch." Someone reminded again, probably because they were afraid that what happened during the excavation of Tutankhamun's tomb would happen again.

Wen Haogu said in the camera: "It's a miracle that it is well preserved. Tomb robbers did not enter this tomb. I estimate that this ancient tomb has a history of at least 1600 years."

At this time, there was no one else in front of the camera, and the camera captured everything in the tomb with the light Xu Anduo carried.In the center of the tomb is a coffin, which has a strange shape and looks like a ship.The camera slowly focused on the coffin and gradually zoomed in. There were colorful patterns on the coffin, like a work of art.

"Look, the coffin lid is not sealed." Xu Anduo shouted.

"Director Wen, since it's not sealed, let's open the coffin and have a look." Lin Zisu appeared in the camera.

I didn't hear Wen Haogu's answer, but Xu Anduo and Lin Zisu had already started to do it.Yang Xiaolong was holding a lamp beside him, holding a paper and a pen to record the process in words.Xu Anduo and the others wore gloves and carefully lifted the lid of the coffin. Suddenly, a puff of smoke drifted out from the opened coffin.Xu Anduo and Lin Zisu immediately turned their heads and covered their noses, and even Jiang He's camera shook several times.

"What smell?" Xu Anduo covered his nose and waved his hands to disperse the smoke.

"Don't be afraid, this kind of thing happens all the time." Wen Haogu said.

Then, the light shone into the coffin.Ye Xiao, who was sitting on Lanyue's used bed, looked at the picture on the TV, and suddenly felt as if he had fallen into a coffin.

The first thing to appear in the camera is the blanket, a tightly wrapped blanket lying in the coffin.

"The body was wrapped in a blanket, so take it out first." This was Wen Haogu's voice.

Xu Anduo and Lin Zisu were a little hesitant, but they still carried out the rolled blanket and its contents together.They began to unroll the blanket carefully, and it took a long time before the body wrapped in the blanket appeared in front of the camera.

A mummy, or mummy, with a golden mask on its face.

Ye Xiao still remembered this golden mask, and Lin Zisu died wearing this mask.

"Tutankhamun!" Someone suddenly called out.

"Nonsense, the remains of ancient people wearing masks have been found in many ancient tombs in Xinjiang." It was Wen Haogu who dispelled the panic of the team members.

Wen Haogu's gloved hand appeared in the camera. His hand touched the mask worn by the mummy, and with a light pull on the edge of the mask, the whole mask was removed from the face of the female corpse.

Finally, Ye Xiao saw clearly the face of the 1600-year-old female corpse in Jiang He's camera. There was no doubt that it was the one he saw in the warehouse of the Archaeological Institute.The female corpse just out of the coffin was better preserved than the one Ye Xiao saw in the glass case of the Archaeological Institute. The facial features could be recognized, and the eye sockets were not collapsed. Ye Xiao could even see from the video that the female corpse had died. There was still a faint smile on the corner of his shriveled mouth.

The last smile.He thought of Lan Yue's last smile on the rooftop.

The female corpse wore a turban on her head, a linen dress on her body, and a piece of silk covering her chest.Suddenly Wen Haogu's voice sounded: "Okay, don't touch it anymore, or it will be damaged. We will take it back and study it slowly. Now hurry up and try to finish all the work before dark. The legend here is that no one can walk out of this valley after dark. Although I don't believe this, I don't want to take risks. Do you understand? Lin Zisu and Zhang Kai, you survey and map quickly. Clean up the artifacts on the ground with Xu Anduo. Oh my gosh..."

Wen Haogu's voice suddenly stopped, and he pointed his hand in the direction behind him, Jiang He's camera immediately moved over together, and the light also shone on the wall behind the tomb.The camera gradually zoomed in, and several murals appeared in the video.

Jiang He's camera scanned the entire tomb again. It turned out that there were murals painted on the walls of the entire tomb.Wen Haogu said: "Look, these murals are in order, well, the first one is here." He pointed to a mural in the corner.The camera immediately zoomed in on the mural.The light hit the mural, and Wen Haogu said, "The light should not be too bright, otherwise it will damage the mural."

The lighting was a little dim, but it was just enough to be seen in the lens.It was a colorful mural, the colors were bright and barely peeled off.The first mural is very large, almost as high as the entire wall. The upper layer of the mural depicts the sun, moon, stars, and clouds. In the mural, there is a ship flying in the air.Ye Xiao always thought of something when looking at this picture, the camera moved down to the lower part of the mural, there was a painting of a woman who seemed to have gotten off from the ship above.The woman has a very beautiful appearance, but she doesn't look like a native of the Western Regions, nor does she look like a Han Chinese. I don't know what race she is.She seemed to be floating down in the sky.The whole mural in the camera gives Ye Xiao the feeling that it is not the ancient times, but the future.

Jiang He's camera focused on the second mural. This mural was not as large as the first one. The background was a tomb and a valley. The content of the painting turned out to be a woman giving birth, that is, the woman in the mural just now.In the third mural, the woman just now is no longer visible, but a pair of little girls. Both of them have fair complexion, wear the same clothes, and look very similar in appearance, just like a pair of twins.

twin?Ye Xiao was startled, but he didn't have time to think about it, the video had already switched to the fourth mural.The fourth painting is very large, divided into two parts, one on the left and one on the right, with a portrait of a woman on each side.When the light illuminated the mural, Jiang He's camera visibly trembled violently, and then slowly focused on the mural.When Ye Xiao saw the face of the woman on the left in the mural through the video, he couldn't help being stunned, as if he had been slammed by someone, and then his whole body was sent into the air before falling down.Oh my god, he couldn't believe his eyes, Lan Yue (Nie Xiaoqing)'s face appeared on the TV.

That's right, it's Lanyue, exactly the same. The woman in the mural is wearing a long white dress like that of an ancient Western Region woman, with braids on her hair, and her eyes are looking straight ahead.Ye Xiao couldn't imagine that the painters of ancient Loulan would draw such realistic paintings 1600 years ago. The lines completely followed the rules of perspective, and the images of the characters were restored to the murals.What made it even more difficult for him to imagine was why Lan Yue's face appeared in the ancient tomb of Loulan, which had been closed for 1600 years?
Now Ye Xiao is sitting on the bed where Lan Yue once slept. In this small room, he is watching a mysterious video tape quietly, and the outside of the room is already full of night.He looked at the face of the woman painted on the mural in the video, as if the blue moon had returned to him.

Would she come out of the TV and come back to her room?Ye Xiao was suddenly stunned.

However, what is even more surprising is that the camera in the video shifted to the right side of the mural.Ye Xiao finally saw the face of the woman on the right side of the mural clearly again, it was——

Ye Xiao didn't dare to look at it anymore, he thought there was something wrong with his eyes, or he had hallucinations, so he pressed the freeze button.The tape stopped, staying on this shot.He watched carefully, there was no mistake, it was indeed her, not a hallucination, but the fact recorded on the video tape.What Ye Xiao saw was his wife—Bai Bi.

The woman on the right side of the mural does have the same face as Baibi, but she is wearing a gorgeous dress and a hat inlaid with various beautiful decorations.Ye Xiao instantly felt that he was going to be swallowed up by this room.

The camera trembled again. Jiang He must have been deeply shocked at that moment. His camera zoomed back until the entire mural appeared.Ye Xiao looked at the camera on the TV screen—the blue moon on the left and Baibi on the right. The two of them stood together, appearing in an ancient mural from 1600 years ago.

Then, the camera switched to the previous painting, that is, the one of two twin-like little girls.Is this a story like a comic strip, telling us that this is a pair of sisters?
The camera turned to the fifth mural. In this mural, there is a man and a woman. The man is the image and attire of the Han people, while the woman is the one with the white face in the previous painting.The two of them looked at each other, their hands intertwined, looking affectionate.

It is the sixth mural, also a man and a woman, the man is still the one just now, but the woman is replaced by Lanyue's face.Their expressions looked more like a pair of lovers, while the Han man put his arms around her waist.

The camera is facing the seventh mural, there is only one woman, crying in pain, that woman has a white face.

In the eighth mural, the woman who looks like a blue moon is sitting on an altar-like place, holding a dagger in her hand, which is inserted into her chest, and her clothes are stained red with blood.Looking at this scene, Ye Xiao felt shuddering.

In the ninth mural, the Han man and the woman with the white face are lying on the same bed.

In the tenth mural, the woman like Bai Bi fell to the ground, seemingly dead.And the Han man was holding a pair of twin babies in his arms, crying beside her.

This is the last mural. Jiang He's camera has actually circled around the tomb for nearly a circle, and finally turned to Wen Haogu's face.Wen Haogu's face was pale, and he said tremblingly, "What did we see? This is an old story, about a pair of twin sisters who look different. The twin sisters fell in love with a Han man at the same time, and one of them With her own death, she fulfilled the other. And the woman who survived gave birth to a pair of twins with the Han man and then died."

"This story is too bizarre. Looking at the ships flying in the sky in the first painting, I even doubt whether they are human beings." That was Xu Anduo's panicked voice.

Wen Haogu said: "Don't think about it anymore, Xu Anduo, quickly take pictures of these murals with a camera. Lin Zisu, quickly draw the patterns of the murals. We are not Western robbers, and we cannot take these murals away , but we need research."

Then, the camera focused on several people working on the ground, collecting cultural relics and many ancient documents and scriptures.The video continued for a long time, recording all these tasks, but some of it was cut out, perhaps because the length of the video tape was not enough.Finally, they left the ancient tomb with the cultural relics and the mummy.

The last few minutes of the videotape was the dusk in the valley. Ye Xiao didn't understand why Jiang He didn't shoot anything else, but wanted to shoot the dusk when he came out.In the vast white valleys and tombs, the dusk was indeed terrifying. However, at the end of the camera, there was an incomparably magnificent desert sunset, which shone with golden light and filled the whole picture.

That's how the video was played.Ye Xiao was immersed in a strange atmosphere, as if he was also dragged into the ancient tomb, and was sealed in the tomb forever.He trembled and stood up from the bed where Lan Yue had slept, afraid that he would suddenly fall on the bed and never get up again.He looked around again, his heartbeat quickened immediately, he turned off the TV, and took out the mysterious tape from the VCR.This video tape has been kept in the video recorder, which means that when Lan Yue lived in this room, she often watched this tape, and she might be able to get some special information from this tape.Where did she get this tape?Yes, she had been an intern at the Institute of Archaeology for a while, and it was after the archaeological team returned from Lop Nur that this video was edited by Jiang He. Maybe Lan Yue and Jiang He also had some kind of special relationship, at least Jiang He’s murals in the ancient tomb I have seen that face that resembled the blue moon before.Therefore, this tape finally fell into Lan Yue's hands. As for whether it was given to her by Jiang He or she took it for herself, it is unknown.

He carefully thought about everything he had just seen.Another heart palpitation, why did the faces of Lan Yue (Nie Xiaoqing) and Bai Bi appear in the murals of the ancient tomb from 1600 years ago?Could it be that there was such a story 1600 years ago, the person who painted the mural painted it based on the faces of the two women in the story.And those two women from 1600 years ago just look exactly the same as Lan Yue (Nie Xiaoqing) and Bai Bi?Could it be such a coincidence, unless—unless the ancestor of Lan Yue (Nie Xiaoqing) and Bai Bi is the woman who gave birth to twins with Han.

Ye Xiao suddenly remembered a Sherlock Holmes mystery novel "The Hound of Baskervilles" that he had read in the past.Holmes identified the murderer based on an ancient portrait, because the criminal looked exactly like the character in the ancient portrait, so Holmes determined that he was the descendant of the character in the ancient portrait, and the truth came to light.In the process of human inheritance, there may indeed be examples of offspring looking exactly like their ancestors. This is another atavistic phenomenon, but we usually don't have the chance to see the respect of our ancestors.

So, could it be that both Lan Yue (Nie Xiaoqing) and Bai Bi have ancient Loulan elements in their blood, and the pair of women in the mural should be twins, even though they don't look much alike.So, what should be the relationship between Lan Yue (Nie Xiaoqing) and Bai Bi?Ye Xiao thought hard, he was very anxious, Bai Bi still had his child in his womb, and they were also a pair of twins.Lanyue (Nie Xiaoqing) was adopted. No one knows who her biological parents are. It is assumed that there is Gu Loulan in her blood. Yes, the forensic doctor said that she may have one-fourth or one-eighth of the blood. Indo-European descent.What about Bai Bi?Ye Xiao suddenly remembered that Bai Bi's father had been to Lop Nur for archaeology, and he had gone there twice before and after Bai Bi was born. Could it be——he carefully thought about Bai Bi's eyes and the lines of his face, and indeed There are some places that are not like ordinary people.In this way, perhaps the two of them are really like the twins described in the mural, and they have inherited the genes of their ancestors.And somehow, the pair of sisters separated, and did not meet again until recently, but Lan Yue (Nie Xiaoqing) was already dead.After the woman who looked like Lanyue in the mural died, a woman like Bai Bi lived with a Han man and gave birth to a pair of twins. Isn't this the same as Bai Bi and Ye Xiao now?The more Ye Xiao thought about it, the more he was shrouded in a sense of fear.

In the video Ye Xiao watched just now, Xu Anduo said something that stuck in his memory—"Looking at the ships flying in the sky in the first picture, I even wondered if they were human beings." Are they human beings?The forensic doctor also said that Lanyue's DNA arrangement is very different from that of ordinary people, even surpassing the differences between different human races, and entering an unknown realm, and even the forensic doctor can't imagine which realm it is.But hasn’t the ship flying among the sun, moon and stars in the first mural already told us this realm?Ye Xiao began to understand.

No wonder Jiang He didn't want to see Bai Bi again after returning from Lop Nur, because he didn't dare to face a woman he had seen in the murals of an ancient tomb 1600 years ago.When Jiang He later met Nie Xiaoqing, who was a graduate student, his fear and surprise might have been even stronger.Poor Jiang He, how could he endure such psychological torture?Including everyone in the Institute of Archaeology who has seen the mural.God knows whether the "curse" they suffered came from the ancient virus that may be hidden in the smoke emitted when the coffin was opened in the video just now, or from the fear of the woman in the mural.

Ye Xiao didn't want to think about the dead people anymore, he only cared about the living people - Bai Bi, and the twins in Bai Bi's womb.Is there really a genetic gene that enables women in a certain family to give birth to twins?No matter whose appearance and genes the twins inherited, and no matter whether the DNA is human or not, at least Ye Xiao is the father of the twins. He loves them and his wife.

He looked at his watch, it was late, he put the video tape in his bag, and then took a last look at the room, he smelled the blue moon again.No, he shook his head and walked out of the room quickly.

The old-fashioned elevator had stopped, and he took the stairs down to the ground floor. The road outside was already shrouded in darkness, and the air was filled with the humidity after the rain.He called a taxi and hurried home.

The night outside the window is still blurred.

(End of this chapter)