Chapter 11 Chapter Six

It was early morning in Paris, and the rain from last night was pattering on the windows, and it still showed no signs of stopping.In this room on the top floor of the Department of History at the University of Voltaire, I was looking at the quiet campus by the window. The whole of Paris seemed to have entered the rainy season in Shanghai, and was always immersed in the misty mist and rain. I originally wanted to go to the Place de la Concorde and the Champs-Elysées today, but the weather in April in France disrupted my plan. I could only stay in the old house that was said to be haunted and survive the great Parisian spring.Yu Li didn't come to see me in the morning, so I went to the restaurant downstairs to have breakfast alone. The French's English level was as terrible as mine, but they could understand each other better by speaking dumb.

Yu Li and Professor Orleans are still studying the parchment together. I am stuck in the room and I have nothing to do. I simply open my laptop and plug in the phone line in the room to go online. The first thing I do when surfing the Internet is of course to open my e-mail. I haven’t been online for a few days. I have received more than a dozen new e-mails, most of which are spam, but one e-mail caught my attention because the sender is Lin Hai. . I immediately opened Lin Hai's e-mail, and he wrote hundreds of words in the text of the e-mail, telling me all his bizarre experiences in the past few days.

After reading this E-mail from China, I faced the laptop screen in silence for a long time——Lin Hai said that he entered the Western Art Museum again, but Margaret in the oil painting actually escaped. The French princess from four hundred years ago has returned to the old house, and there is also a ghost named Nostradamus who may threaten him at any time. Is it true that so many "miracles" happened to him within dozens of hours after I left Shanghai?Because I am sure: this is the story that the best novelist in the world can make up. However, Lin Hai has no doubts that all of this is true, it is all his personal experience that he has witnessed and heard with his own ears.Although he himself is well aware that these experiences are so unbelievable to outsiders that they will regard him as a mental patient or paranoid.

Marguerite escaped from the painting? The most unbelievable thing is of course this. If such a major event happened, the news media would definitely report it.Yes, just check the news, don't you know?I quickly entered a domestic news website, searched for news about the Western Art Museum, and soon found several similar news headlines - "Queen Marguerite's Strange Disappearance, Famous French Paintings Encounter "Metamorphosis"" The text of the news is as follows—— Report from our newspaper: On April 11th, a strange incident happened in the "Treasures Exhibition of St.Louis Museum, France" held in the Western Art Museum of this city. .The protagonist of the original painting was the famous French Queen Marguerite in the 16th century, but on the morning of the 11th, the staff of the Western Art Museum accidentally discovered that the protagonist in the oil painting "Marguerite" had disappeared!In the middle of the oil painting, where Margaret should have been, it turned into a mass of black, and the outer edge of this mass of black pattern happened to be the outline of Margaret in the original oil painting, which looked like Margaret from The oil painting went out, leaving only a black shadow in the original position.The curator of the Western Art Museum expressed disbelief about this incident, saying that this is a unique case of famous painting "face changing" in the history of world art.Relevant experts are conducting in-depth research on the oil painting, and it is not yet possible to come up with a reasonable explanation.This newspaper will continue to report in-depth on the famous painting "face-changing incident".

After reading this unbelievable news, I was stunned for several minutes. Many media have reported this news, and now it has even become a hot topic in academic research. Could it be that what Lin Hai said in the e-mail is true?Four hundred years ago, the French princess Margaret really escaped from the oil painting, and now she is hiding in Lin Hai's old house? I left the laptop screen and went to the window to look at the gloomy sky in Paris. I wonder what the weather is like in Shanghai now?I opened the window and listened to the sound of rain outside. I took a few deep breaths. In my writing experience in recent years, I have encountered several incredible and mysterious incidents, but this one is so unimaginable that I have never even heard of it. There is a saying of "the ghost in the painting".Not knowing how to reply to Lin Hai, I kept pacing in the room until Yu Li arrived at noon.

Yu Li took me to the restaurant for lunch. Seeing my preoccupied appearance, he tentatively asked, "Are you upset? Is it because I didn't go out with you?" Although I did feel this kind of unhappiness in my heart, it was mainly because of the E-mall I received in the morning. I shook my head and said, "No, this matter has nothing to do with you." Yu Li was obviously hungry. While eating his steak, he asked, "What's the matter?" But I didn't answer Yu Li. I didn't want him to know what happened there. This matter is too complicated to involve too many people.

I said that I don't like Western food, but Yu Li has long been used to life in Europe. He skillfully ate undercooked beef with a knife and fork. The more he looked, the more he looked like an ancient Gaul who drank blood.I can only order a spaghetti to fill my Chinese stomach with this food which is said to be brought back by Marco Polo from China's Yuan Dynasty. After we finished eating, we were all silent for a while, and I suddenly couldn't help asking a question: "Yu Li, do you believe that there are ghosts in the world?" "Ghost..." Yu Li was obviously frightened by my words, "What do you mean?"

"I'm thinking about a question now, can a person travel through four hundred years and reach another time and space through a certain medium?" "Are you talking about time travel?" "No, I'm just talking about a phenomenon, assuming it really exists." Yu Li suddenly lit a cigarette, and the light blue smoke wrapped around his bare head, as if the bearings were turning inside. He frowned and said, "I'm sorry, I can't think of it. Why do you ask these questions? Isn't it related to the parchment?" "I can't tell you that either." I turned my head and looked outside the restaurant. The rain in Paris was still falling. From time to time, a French girl passed through the rain. It's time to talk about that question. " Yuli, can you do me a favor?"

"Let's talk about what you need, aren't we brothers and sisters?" "Please find an oil painting for me. It is the work of a French court painter in the 16th century. It is called "Marguerite". The character in the painting is Princess Margaret of France at that time." "Princess Margaret? Is that the Queen Margot described by Alexandre Dumas?" "Yes, that's her." "That is a famous figure in French history. She is the daughter of Queen Catherine, the sister of Charles IX and Henry III, and the queen of Henry IV, the founder of the Bourbon dynasty." Yu Li suddenly said ambiguously. Laughed, "Marguerite is known for her dissolute life, but the desperate love between her and De La Mole has made countless French girls shed tears in later generations."

"I know all of this. What I want to check now is the oil painting called "Marguerite". The author of this painting is unknown, but I guess it should be the court painter in the era of Henry III. This painting is collected In the Saint-Louis Museum in France, it is currently on display in China." But I didn't tell Yu Li about the "Metamorphosis" that this oil painting is currently encountering. "Since it is a 16th-century court oil painting collected by the St. Louis Museum, it must be a famous painting in history. It must be recorded in the art database of the University of Voltaire. I can check it for you."

"That's great! But what about Professor Orleans?" "Professor Orleans went out to check the information this afternoon. Because there are some words in the parchment that are difficult to decipher, and they haven't been fully deciphered yet, so the professor went to a research institute in Lyon. He needs some medieval documents collected there. Compare it with the parchment, hoping to decipher the rest of the text." Then, Yu Li took me to the art database of the University of Voltaire, which was a brand new three-story building with a post-modern style, which seemed extremely inconsistent with the surrounding 19th-century buildings. Here is a collection of detailed information on most works of art from ancient Egypt to contemporary times. Looking for an oil painting here is simply looking for a needle in a haystack.Yu Li and I searched from the computer together. In the search system of the database, we changed more than a dozen keywords, and every time hundreds of information popped up.In this way, we spent a whole afternoon and finally found the records about the oil painting "Marguerite". Yu Li translated this passage from French into Chinese and read it to me—— Oil painting "Margaret", completed around 1574 AD.The author is unknown, but it is suspected to be a court painter in the era of Henry III of France.This painting flowed out of the court very early. According to records, before the French Revolution, this painting had been collected by a certain family in southern France.When Robespierre was in power, because the family belonged to the royalist party and participated in the royalist rebellion in the south, it was suppressed by the revolutionaries.The oil painting "Marguerite" was confiscated by the government and later became the private collection of Emperor Napoleon, hanging in the Palace of Fontainebleau. It is said that this painting was deeply loved by Empress Josephine. In 1815, Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo and exiled to St. Helena in the Atlantic Ocean. This painting became the collection of the restored French Bourbon royal family. In 1830, the July Dynasty replaced the Bourbon Dynasty, and the painting was collected by the new King Louis-Philippe. In 1852, the Second French Empire was established, and this painting was collected by Napoleon III. In 1871, during the Paris Commune uprising, the painting flowed out of the court and has been collected by the Saint-Louis Museum to this day. After listening to this passage, I was silent for a long time, then nodded and said, "It turns out that the spread of this painting is so twists and turns that even Napoleon's Empress Josephine liked it." "Well, here's another picture." It turns out that the computer still stores the information picture of the oil painting "Marguerite". Although the picture on the computer is not very large, it is enough for me to see Margaret in the oil painting clearly - this is the first time I saw her s face. Both Yu Li and I leaned our heads in front of the computer screen, watching Margaret sitting in the oil painting.After about tens of seconds, I suddenly let out a long breath and said, "It really is a beauty in the world, no wonder three French kings bowed down for her." At this time, Yu Li's eyes suddenly became strange, and he said coldly, "I think this painting is a bit strange." "Where is the blame?" "I can't tell, it's just a sensitive intuition. Maybe it's because I've been with Professor Orleans for too long, facing some ancient documents and artworks all day long, so I have some kind of telepathy." Yu Li said His head was shining under the lamp, as if he was thinking about something intensely, "There seems to be a secret hidden in this painting." "Secret? How do you know?" Yu Li didn't answer right away, but stared into my eyes for a while: "Why do you want to check this painting? Could it be related to the parchment?" This question overwhelmed me all of a sudden, and I really didn't know how to answer it.All I could say was, "No, I don't know." Fortunately, Yu Li didn't continue to ask, he looked at the computer again and said, "Okay, that's all there is about this painting in the art database, let's go." Dinner is still in the school restaurant, and I am completely disgusted with the western food here.I asked Yu Li if there were any Chinese restaurants nearby, and Yu Li replied that there were a few Chinese restaurants nearby, but the dishes there were inferior to domestic box lunches, and the price was equivalent to a three-star hotel in Shanghai.This immediately dispelled my desire to go out for Chinese food, so I could only eat undercooked beef with Yu Li. After eating this dinner like being tortured, I looked outside at the rainy night in Paris, and suddenly thought of a certain name, so I turned around and said hesitantly: "Yu Li, have you heard of this person? Nostradamus S..." "Nostradamus? Of course, I also wrote a paper about him. Nostradamus was a famous French prophet in the 16th century. He wrote a book called "The Centuries", which is said to be accurate. He foretold many of the most important events in history." "Do you think it's possible? I mean the ability to predict the future." Yu Li frowned again: "Your question is really difficult for me to answer, because when we evaluate the so-called prophecy, we must first do two things: one is to judge the authenticity of the materials that record the prophecy; Confirm the era when the prophecy was made. If the so-called prophecy is forged by later generations, it is of course meaningless." "Is Nostradamus's "The Centuries" a forgery?" "There must have been an original version of "The Centuries", and the prophecy of this version has been confirmed by later generations. But there have been many forged "The Centuries", or prophecy books in the name of Tonostradamus. Among them Many very bad people, they arbitrarily tampered with the original text according to their own needs, hoping to use Nostradamus' reputation as a prophet to serve the conspiracy planned by certain groups." I shook my head: "Why is it involved in conspiracy theory again?" "For example, Hitler attached great importance to Nostradamus's "The Centuries". It is said that because the wife of the notorious Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels, she read a four-line Nostradamus The poem aroused the strong interest of Goebbels and Hitler. During World War II, German planes dropped a large number of prophetic poems that were said to be Nostradamus, telling people that Nostradamus had predicted the victory of Germany long ago. In fact , These so-called Nostradamus prophecy poems were all forged by Nazi Germany in order to carry out psychological warfare against the French.” "I still don't understand. Was Nostradamus a real seer, or a liar? Or some wizard with magic, an immortal ghost who lives in the dark?" "No one can easily deny Nostradamus, and no one can easily affirm Nostradamus." At this time, almost all the people in the restaurant were gone, only me and Yu Li, two Chinese, were left. After being silent for a long time, I suddenly asked: "The so-called 'prophecy', is there such a possibility that when Nostradamus predicted that someone would die at a certain time, he was predicting the time when someone died, secret Perform magic to cause that person to die, so that his prophecy will not be 'fulfilled'?" "I understand what you mean. For example, I predict that you will be unlucky in the next minute, because I am already planning to punch you in the next minute." But Yu Li shook his head immediately, "But that's not right, "Zhu Century" Most of the prophecies in the book were basically realized after the death of Nostradamus, so can he still intervene in history after his death?" "Maybe he never died - he was not the same human being as us, but a strange species with magic! He is immortal, ruthless, forever hovering between the human world and hell, intervening for hundreds of years Human history, in line with his shocking prophecy?" When I said this, I suddenly found myself a little bit out of control, which made me look very embarrassed, and it also silenced each other for a while. Yu Li kept shaking his head, and his head became more and more bright under the lights of the restaurant: "What you said is just a possibility, that is, assuming that ghosts really exist in the world. But if you understand it in a philosophical sense, you will have New discoveries." "I'm sorry, I was a little excited just now, please express your understanding." "Eternal present——" Yu Li has clearly thought it over, "Do you believe in eternal present? Einstein recognized eternal present, and the mystics in the ancient East and West also believed in eternal present." Although I only reminded one sentence, my brain seemed to be enlightened in an instant: "If 'now' is forever, then we are sitting in this restaurant now, no matter how far forward time goes, it is possible to return to Here, because there is an 'eternal present', then for the future, there is also an 'eternal present'. That is to say: the past, the present, and the future may exist at the same time." "Yes, the future of multiple possibilities that run parallel to each other and can be selected is the concept of the multiverse." Suddenly, I thought of Lin Hai, thousands of miles away. Is the Margaret he saw more than 400 years ago also some "eternal present"?If that's the case, then the painting is a multiverse in which Margaret can choose her own future—god, such a hypothesis is so bold that I dare not even say it. Yu Li didn't notice the change in my heart. He continued: "Although each of us has our own will and may change our own destiny. But from the perspective of the process of the objective world, there is a mathematical probability problem. , combined with the so-called mysterious prophecy, it is difficult to explain clearly at once." "But at least it can provide a direction of thinking." I took a long breath, walked to the window and looked at the campus in the night, the rain outside was splashing on the glass, "Thank you, Yu Li, for helping me today. So many questions answered. Let's go." When parting, Yu Li seemed to have something to say, but he didn't say it after all, so he hurried into the rain. I ran all the way against the rain and returned to the old history department building. I was the only one left in the whole building.The sound of the rain outside and the sound of the planks under my feet accompanied me back to the attic room, a trick many horror film directors have used. I don't know what Lin Hai and his Margaret are doing in China thousands of miles away at this moment.