Margaret's Secret

Chapter 23 From Shanghai to Paris (15)
"The evidence is in the parchment. The professor and I have completely deciphered it. Those sixteenth-century texts are clearly recorded. Someone must have summed up the process. How did Margaret leave a secret message? She thought The court painter came to give her a chance to paint a portrait, so she invited a painter into the palace through her mother, and under the close supervision of others, the painter painted a portrait of a character for her. But we can be sure that she must be in that painting in which she left a precious message that could be passed on to her unborn child, so that that child might gain the secret and become master of France and the world."

"I see. In other words, the oil painting of "Marguerite" is actually a kind of code, which indicates the direction of cracking the 'Louis IX mystery'?"

Yu Li couldn't help clapping his hands and said: "Your analysis is too correct. I discussed it with the professor for a long time, but you made it clear all at once. When I painted the portrait of Margaret, I probably couldn't see it at all. It looked like she was pregnant, but after a few months, she gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Unfortunately, the baby was sent out by Queen Catherine immediately. No one knows where he went, Margaery Te didn't know, she could only wash her face with tears every day, and was soon taken to Naval by her husband."

I couldn't help being moved by that thrilling history: "What is the whereabouts of that child?"

"Don't worry, he grew up in the countryside. When he was a teenager, he finally knew his life experience, so he tried every means to find his biological mother. At this time, Margaret had already been taken by her. Her husband abandoned her, and she lost her former youth and beauty, and hid in Notre Dame for the rest of her life. According to this record in the parchment, when her son found her after many twists and turns, she was already seriously ill. alive, dying."

"It's really a touching story of looking for your mother a thousand miles away. Even Alexandre Dumas couldn't write such a story."

"Margaret gave the parchment scroll to her son before she died, and she said that whoever got the secret would rule the world. However, before she could tell the treasure location, she lay in her son's arms It’s my last regret to lose my breath.”

I finally couldn't help it, and sighed softly: "Is the secret interrupted?"

"No, the secret is hidden in the oil painting. Margaret's son knows it, but he doesn't know what the secret is, because the secret in the oil painting is too hidden. Margaret is dying. He didn't have time to say it, so that he guarded the oil painting all his life, and he didn't find out what the secret was until his hair turned gray."

"This is really a great irony."

"The illegitimate sons of Margaret and Lamour also have descendants. They reproduced in the south of France, did not interact with other branches of the Lamour family, and were completely isolated from the world. They guarded this oil painting for generations, and this The parchment. They keep adding things to the parchment, so we can decipher it. But I guess for more than 400 years, they haven't figured out the secret of this painting."

"Then how did the oil painting get lost outside?"

"Have you forgotten? Didn't we check the information on the oil painting "Marguerite" last time?"

I just remembered that the art database of the University of Voltaire recorded the collection history of that painting—before the French Revolution, this painting had been collected by a certain family in the south of France, presumably this family must be the Larmor family up.Later, the Lamor family may have participated in the royalist rebellion for some reason, and was suppressed by the revolutionaries. The oil painting "Marguerite" was confiscated by the government and later became Napoleon's private collection.The painting changed hands several times over the next few decades until, after the Paris Commune uprising, it was collected by the Saint-Louis Museum.

At this point, I finally let out a long breath. It turns out that the secret of the parchment is here. It records the secret about the oil painting "Marguerite", and the oil painting "Marguerite" 400 years ago hides " What is the important information about the mystery of Louis IX?

But the most important thing now is that the real 400-year-old "Marguerite" oil painting was stolen as early as the 30s. It was brought to distant China by Lin Hai's grandfather, and its whereabouts are still unknown.

If you don't see the authenticity of the painting, of course it is impossible to decipher the code in the painting!
But where is the real "Marguerite"?
Is it in China, or in France, or has it been destroyed long ago?In the vast world, where can I find that painting?The only hope now is in the hands of Lin Hai.

Can Lin Hai find the real painting left by his grandfather?
I can only sigh in despair, because the hope is so slim.

I can't stay here anymore, I want to leave Paris quickly and go back to China to help Lin Hai, who is in extreme danger now.

I bid farewell to the research room in a hurry, and before I walked out of the room, I subconsciously turned my head back, only to see the faint light hitting Professor Orleans' face, which seemed to show a hideous reflection.The professor is looking out of the window meaningfully, that look makes me shudder, as if something has attached to his body, and is lurking somewhere in the darkness, ready to devour everyone in this building at any time.

Twelve midnight.

The rain at night was overwhelming, and the cars passing by the road splashed water, which already wet Lin Hai's clothes.He held up an umbrella and yelled at Margaret. When she ran out of the Internet cafe without an umbrella, Lin Hai was worried that she might catch a cold in the rain.

He had been looking for it for more than two hours, ran all over the nearby roads, and almost lost his voice.But he knew that Margaret was not familiar with the place, and it was impossible to run too far. She must still be somewhere nearby.

In the boundless night rain, Lin Hai felt as if his heart was being pierced by a knife. The figure of Margaret kept shaking in front of his eyes, but he kept asking in his heart: "Why?"

He once completely believed in every word Marguerite said. Every smile, every move, every word and deed of this French princess 400 years ago touched his heart, and even a look of her eyes could make him Heart beating hard.But now it has become a dream, like a huge castle made of sand, smashed to pieces with just one wave.

"She is not a ghost in the oil painting at all, why did she lie to me? Who is she?"

Lin Hai asked himself silently, and walked back to the entrance of the Internet cafe with trembling steps, only to see two figures shaking under the neon lights that were always on all night.

He took two steps forward quietly holding an umbrella, only to find that one of them was actually Margaret. She was standing under the eaves trembling like a wounded deer.And the other person is a strange foreigner, wearing a black windbreaker, with a hooked nose on his pale face, which makes people feel shuddering.

Margaret was talking to that man, and they didn't notice that Lin Hai was approaching quietly.Lin Hai carefully hid behind an advertising board and eavesdropped on their conversation.The man, also speaking French, said to Marguerite in a commanding tone: "Go back to that boy!"

"No, he already knew that the painting was fake, and he saw through my lie."

"Then you should go back to him and continue to control him."

Margaret replied painfully: "I can't do it!"

Then, Lin Hai only heard a "slap", and it turned out that the man actually slapped Margaret, followed by another vicious curse.

But Margaret didn't seem to back down, she just said stubbornly: "Je l'aime! "

The meaning of this sentence is - I love him.

In an instant, "Je l'aime" stuck in Lin Hai's heart like a needle, and he could only bite his lips tightly to avoid making a sound.

The Frenchman could hardly believe his ears, and said aloud, "Are you crazy?"

Unexpectedly, Margaret rushed out, but one hand was firmly held by the man. Her body was exposed to the rain, and her hands were struggling desperately. The situation seemed extremely critical.

At this moment, Lin Hai couldn't bear it anymore, he jumped out from behind the billboard, pushed the man away, and then tightly grabbed Margaret's hand.

Lin Hai's sudden appearance naturally surprised Margaret. Before she could speak, Lin Hai had already dragged her across the road.

Marguerite ran with him subconsciously, crossing the street in the heavy rain, and suddenly passed through the alley opposite, leaving only the French man who cursed loudly behind him.

The umbrella was thrown somewhere, and they ran all the way in the heavy rain at night, the splashing water wet the clothes, and there was a strange sound on the ground.None of them intend to stop, just like slaves who have escaped from a cage, wanting to enjoy a moment of freedom to the fullest.Until Lin Hai hugged her tightly and repeatedly said in her ear: "Don't leave me...don't leave me..."

Marguerite opened her rain-drenched eyes, her forehead hair clinging to the corners of her eyes, and said tremblingly, "Je suis désolée!"

"Don't say I'm sorry, you see you are soaked, let's find a place to hide."

Lin Hai dragged her through the rainy alley, and called a friend under the eaves of a house, and finally asked the friend to give up an empty room after wearing out his words.

They then ran to the other side of the road, hailed a taxi and drove over.

The house of my friend Kongguan is very close to here. It is the fourth floor of a multi-storey house with one bedroom and one living room. It is going to be rented out next week.Lin Hai knocked on the door of his friend's room in the middle of the night, got the key and opened the empty room.

He dragged Margaret to the bathroom. Fortunately, the water heater was still working. He knew Margaret would use it, so he asked her to take a shower first, and then went out to buy some new clothes.

There was a 24-hour convenience store nearby. He bought some simple clothes and hurried back.Lin Hai stuffed the clothes to Margaret through the gap in the bathroom door, and soon saw her change into clean clothes and come out, her hair was steaming, and her face was much rosier. Thankfully, she was very healthy and looked Didn't have a cold.

At this time, Margaret looked a little embarrassed, lowered her head and said, "You are also in the rain, go take a bath."

Lin Hai nodded blankly, then went into the bathroom and took a shower.When the hot water washed over his head, his heart was blank. He didn't dare to think about it anymore. He would rather believe that Margaret was from 400 years ago, and Nostradamus was hunting him down. Still dreaming.

However, the reality is always cruel.

After taking a shower and changing clothes, she came out, and saw Margaret holding a small thing in her hand, which looked like a pocket microphone, only two or three centimeters in size. She said flatly, "Destroy it."

"why?"

"As long as there's something like this around, they'll find us anytime."

"What do you mean?" Lin Hai took the small thing in her hand, looked at it carefully and said, "Could it be an orientation sensor?"

Margaret nodded in shame.

Lin Hai couldn't believe it: "You've been hiding this thing on your body? No wonder Nostradamus kept finding us. It turns out that he didn't smell your scent, but received the electromagnetic signal of this thing."

"Je suis désolée!" said Marguerite, bowing her head in shame. "Destroy it quickly, or they will come again."

After hesitating for a while, he found a hammer from the room and smashed the sensor into the aisle.

Margaret finally let out a breath: "They won't find us again."

Lin Hai was silent for a moment, then suddenly turned around and asked, "Who are the 'they' you are talking about?"

"They are..." Margaret took a step back, lowered her head and said softly, "My family."

"Your family? Then who are you?"

She paused for a long time before answering, "I'm Margaret."

"No, Marguerite was the French princess and queen 400 years ago. She was dead and turned to ashes."

"Marguerite is my first name, and my last name is Larmor."

Lin Hai froze for a moment, and slowly read out her name: "Margaret Lamour?"

"Yes, that's the name my parents gave me."

"La Mole?" He pursed his lips and thought about it, and suddenly asked loudly, "Is it the Marquis La Mole family in "The Red and the Black"?"

"No, we are not the Marquis family, but we are direct descendants of de La Mole and Queen Marguerite."

"By the way, in the letter my grandfather left me, I also wrote about that family living in seclusion in the south of France. Are you the Lamor family?"

Margaret finally nodded: "Yes, the man you saw just now is my uncle, and his name is Victor."

"I remembered, the person who wrote 'Aider moi' in the palm of my hand that night at the entrance of the library, is he?" Lin Hai didn't wait for Margaret's answer, and said to himself, "That's right. , it must be that person. Then he was the one who pretended to be Nostradamus to scare us, right?"

"You guessed right, the reason why he has been following us is because of the orientation sensor hidden on my body."

Speaking of this, Lin Hai had already guessed a few points. He stared at Margaret's emerald eyes and asked, "Enough, tell me, what's going on?"

"Don't you understand? In 1936, our Lamor family stole the oil painting "Marguerite", but the patriarch's daughter, Mathilde, eloped with your grandfather Lin Danqing and went to China. The original "Margarita" was taken away, and the ancient parchment scroll was also taken away."

"So after nearly 70 years, you are going to take advantage of the opportunity of the St. Louis Museum to hold an exhibition in China, and come to Shanghai to find the real "Marguerite"?"

She shook her head: "Not only that, but also because several experts recently suspected that the painting collected by the St. Louis Museum is a fake. In addition to looking for the real painting, we also need to steal the fake painting to prevent The scene 70 years ago has been debunked."

"Since it's a stolen fake painting, why did you find me?"

"Because you are the key to finding the real painting. Our family conducted a secret investigation and found that your grandfather passed away ten years ago, and your father didn't know the inside story, and you, Lin Danqing's only grandson, are from the French department. College students are just our breakthrough.”

"So you chose me, arranged a huge trap for me from the beginning, lured me to the Western Art Museum, and used you to lure me into the bait, making me really think that you escaped from the painting , I believed the nonsense of the ghost in that set of paintings, and thought that Nostradamus was really coming to kill me, which made me hide and almost have a nervous breakdown!" Lin Hai trembled in pain, "Why, Margaret? , why did you deceive me like this?"

"Je suis désolée!" she repeated, bowing her head. "They made me do it..."

"Don't hide it anymore, tell me everything, and I will do everything in my power to help you."

Marguerite blinked her translucent eyes, said with trembling lips: "I was born in a remote valley in the south of France, where the entire Lamour family lived almost in isolation for hundreds of years. When I was very young, I was very much like Princess Margaret 400 years ago, which caught the attention of the family. Since I was a teenager, I have been more and more like Princess Margaret. They even compared the Queen's girlhood I found that I look exactly like her! It must be a family genetic factor, because our family is the descendant of the illegitimate son of Queen de La Mole and Queen Marguerite, and Marguerite's blood runs through us .”

"I understand." Lin Hai nodded and said, "After several generations of reproduction, the appearance gene of Queen Margaret 400 years ago has been completely inherited to you, and there is indeed such a phenomenon of atavistic inheritance. "

"So the family decided to train me to be the second Queen Margaret. They strictly forbade me to leave the family, let me live in the environment of the sixteenth century, educated me with the rules of 400 years ago, and made me understand court etiquette. They know the history of ancient France like the back of their hands, and even spoke in a courtly accent. All in all, they 'copied' a Princess Margaret, which made me look like the Margaret in the oil painting in terms of appearance and temperament. Exactly the same."

Lin Hai said loudly: "But you are you, your name is Marguerite La Moore, not Queen Margaret 400 years ago."

(End of this chapter)