Chapter 18 Chapter Thirteen

12 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 used to completely believe in every word Marguerite said. The smiles, actions, words and deeds of this French princess four hundred years ago touched his heart. His heart was 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.The other person was a strange foreigner, wearing a black windbreaker, with a hooked nose on his pale face, which made people feel shuddering.

Margaret and the man were talking, but they didn't notice Lin Hai's approaching quietly.Lin Hai carefully hid behind a billboard and eavesdropped on their conversation.The man also spoke French, and said to Marguerite in a commanding tone: "Go back to that kid!" "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 had actually slapped Margaret, followed by another vicious curse.

But Marguerite didn't seem to back down, she just said stubbornly: "Je l'aime!" This sentence means - I love him. In an instant, "Je l'aime" pierced 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 ran to 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..." Margaret opened her rain-drenched eyes, her hair on her forehead clinging to the corners of her eyes, and said tremblingly, "Excusez moi!" "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 sanitation office. 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 is in very good health and does not appear to have a cold.

At this time Margaret looked a little embarrassed, she lowered her head and said, "You're also in the rain, go take a shower." Lin Hai nodded blankly, then went into the bathroom and took a shower.When the hot water was pouring over his head, his heart was blank. He didn't dare to think about it anymore. He would rather believe that Margaret was the person from four hundred years ago, and that Nostradamus was chasing him. Everything is still a dream. However, the reality is always cruel. After taking a shower, she changed her clothes and came out, only to see Margaret holding a small thing in her hand, which looked like a pocket microphone, only two or three centimeters in size, and 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 himself: "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." "Excusez moi!" said Marguerite, bowing her head in shame. "You 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 hissed: "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 four hundred years ago. She has long since died and turned into 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 carefully, then suddenly asked loudly, "Is it the Marquis La Mole's family?" "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 at the library gate that night, is he?" Lin Hai said without waiting for Margaret to answer, "Yes, 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 able to follow 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. They took away the real Margarita, and took away the ancient parchments." "So after nearly seventy 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 seventy 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, but your father didn't know the inside story. And you, Lin Danqing's only grandson, are also 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?" "Excusez moi!" she repeated, looking down, "they made me do this..." "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 from four hundred years ago, which caught the attention of the family. Since I was a teenager, I have become more and more like Princess Margaret. They even compared the Queen Maiden The portrait of the times, I found that I look exactly like her! This must be a genetic factor in the family, because our family is the descendant of the illegitimate son of Queen de la Moore and Queen Marguerite, and Marguerite's blood flows through us. blood." "I understand." Lin Hai nodded and said, "After several generations of reproduction, the appearance gene of Queen Margaret 400 years ago has been completely passed on to you. There is indeed such an atavistic inheritance. The phenomenon." "So the family decided to train me to be the second Queen Margaret. They strictly forbid me to leave the family, let me live in the environment of the 16th century, and educate me with the rules of a century ago, so that I know the court etiquette very well. The history of ancient France is so precious that they even spoke in a courtly accent. All in all, they 'copied' a Princess Margaret, making me exactly the same as Margaret in the oil painting in terms of appearance and temperament. " Lin Hai said loudly: "But you are you, your name is Marguerite La Moore, not Queen Margaret four hundred years ago." "It doesn't matter anymore, the family is firmly in control of me, the first word I learned was 'obey', I never doubted the orders my family gave me, they told me that the family is everything, it is the family that gives me life , I must unconditionally dedicate myself to the family." "So, you followed them to Shanghai and dug a huge trap for me?" Margaret lowered her head again, and said with a buzzing nose: "Yes, this is their carefully planned scheme. They want to use me to control you and find clues to the real painting of "Margaret." Lin Hai slowly closed his eyes, and replayed the scenes after that night in the art museum like a movie: he fainted mysteriously twice in the art museum, was locked in the toilet in the middle of the night, and found Margaery Te's ghost came out of the painting, together with Margaret to avoid Nostradamus' pursuit—— Although all of this is so absurd, only mental patients would believe it to be true, but Lin Hai really fell into the trap and believed it like a paranoid. Why? He opened his eyes tremblingly, stared at Margaret's face, and in an instant he finally understood that it was all because of her, a woman who was exactly the same as Queen Margaret four hundred years ago. Yes, at that noon ten years ago, in the sunshine of the attic of the old house, this face has been deeply imprinted in my heart.On that dark night ten years later, when she appeared alive in front of his eyes, all his rationality had already collapsed. He could not but believe, and had to believe, because she always lived in his heart—he loved this person , whether it was four hundred years ago or four hundred years later, maybe fate has long destined their encounter. The room was silent for a long time, it was already past 8 o'clock in the morning, and there was still heavy rain pouring outside the window.Margaret finally broke the silence: "When I saw you for the first time, it was in the art gallery at night, we faced each other, breathing the air from each other's mouth. You may not believe it, this is my first time. This is the first time that I am so close to a man outside the family. At this moment, I feel a tremor in my heart. But I know that I must complete the task assigned to me by the family. I asked you to take me out of there, so you dragged me and ran wildly in the dark When we walked through the famous paintings in the art gallery, I suddenly felt that I had really returned to four hundred years ago. I am Princess Margaret, and you are my de La Mole. We eloped and escaped together. The dreadful Louvre, with the king and soldiers after us." "Is this true?" Lin Hai was really stunned, and he said to himself, "I also felt the same way at the time." "Then there are a few days and nights with you. I have never left the family, nor have I had contact with men outside the family, but I have vowed to complete the mission given to me by the family. But I found that I could not control myself , Maybe I was too involved in the performance, I even forgot what I was going to do, and took the role I played as myself." "You must be in pain, right?" "Yes, it's very painful. But what's more painful is that I found myself gradually falling in love with you." Margaret finally opened her eyes wide, staring at Lin Hai and said, "I was imprisoned in the family's prison in the past, I never knew what love was, but when I was with you, I found myself so vulnerable, I longed to smell your scent, longed for you to put your arms around my shoulders, longed for..." "do not talk!" But Margaret continued stubbornly: "I also can't believe that in just a few days and nights, people can love someone ecstatically—but it all happened like this." "Like my grandpa and Mathilde?" Lin Hai nodded to himself. Could it be that what happened to the previous generation will happen to them again? Although the Lamor family's plan was so seamless, they ignored the most important point—the girl's heart. As a bait, Margaret firmly controlled Lin Hai, but at the same time she fell into a vortex of emotions.In the end, between family and love, she chose the latter. Yes, this is the biggest mistake of the Lamor family. They did not take into account the lessons learned: Seventy years ago, Mathilde betrayed the family and eloped to China with Lin Danqing. Not only did she lose her daughter, but she also lost her real painting and parchment. "Lin Hai, please don't leave me. I have betrayed my family. They will not forgive me. I can only be with you." But Lin Hai didn't know how to answer, he took a step back and said, "Wait a minute, all of this happened so suddenly, let me calm down and think about it." "What are you waiting for? It will be too late." But Lin Hai looked at it and asked, "It's already early morning, you must be extremely tired, right? Go to sleep first." Besides, it was almost dawn, and Marguerite did not continue to argue, and she lay down on a small bed in the middle.Lin Hai, on the other hand, sat blankly on the sofa in the small hall, listening to the sound of raindrops hitting the window glass. One leaf, one sound, the empty steps dripped to the bright... Maybe it was because he was too tired from tossing and tossing, and he slept until noon the next day. Lin Hai was so hungry that he opened his eyes, and saw that the rain was still falling outside the window. He shook his head vigorously, then ran inside and saw that Margaret had already gotten up.She looked haggard, and her eye circles were a little red.Lin Hai recalled everything from last night, and what stood in front of him was no longer the ghost in the painting, no longer the French princess four hundred years ago, but a living modern person, her name was Marguerite Larmor. Lin Hai washed up briefly, then ran out to buy lunch and came back. They were all very hungry, and they ate them all without saying anything. Lin Hai sat down after eating, he didn't know what to do now.Margaret is by her side, what should she do?Her uncle or someone else from the Lamor family must be looking for them everywhere, but fortunately he has smashed the bearing sensor. What to do next?Now that everyone has read Grandpa's letter, there is one last thing that must be done - to find the real oil painting of "Marguerite". It is said that there is a big secret hidden in that real painting. But how can I find that painting?When Grandpa and Mathilde brought the oil paintings to China, they must have been hidden in a secret place. After so many years, where can we find them? Lin Hai found out the letter from his grandfather again. At the end of the letter, there was this sentence: "So, I decided not to tell you the answer, but I can give you a reminder - she has returned to the mother's womb." What is "returning to the mother's womb"? He lowered his head and thought for a long time, but he couldn't figure out why.Suddenly, he turned around and asked Margaret, "Did anyone in your family tell you the secret in that painting?" "No, they wouldn't have come all the way to find the painting if they had known. But the secret must have been left by Queen Marguerite in 1574 to her unborn child of La Moore A gift, as a capital for him to avenge his father and ascend the French throne in the future." "The fake painting my grandfather painted back then must be different from the real painting in some places, at least the secrets can't be seen in the fake painting, so they have to find the real painting. It must be a very subtle difference, Because no one has discovered the secret of that forgery for decades." Margaret suddenly said coldly: "There is indeed a slight difference, because according to people in our family, the forgery originally had your grandfather's signature on it." "My grandfather's signature? But since it's a fake, how could the counterfeiter write his name on it?" "Because your grandfather didn't know that he was making a fake when he was copying it. He just followed Mathilde's instructions. It was only later that he realized that it was a fake fake. In order to cover up the truth of the fake, the family members The signature was subtly obliterated, the identification technology at that time was not high, and there was no accurate photographic record, so no one noticed that small detail, and it has been kept in the museum for sixty or seventy years." "But since it has been altered, it will definitely leave traces." "Yes, in recent years there has been a German expert who specializes in using computer photography technology to analyze famous paintings from all over the world, especially to identify authenticity. He analyzed all the collections of the St. Louis Museum and found that "Ma The painting "Gretta" is most likely to be a fake, because in the lower left corner of this oil painting, there is an extremely small trace of alteration, which is difficult to distinguish with the naked eye, but it is revealed under the computer image analysis gone." It was only then that Lin Hai suddenly realized: "So, you should take advantage of this opportunity to come to China for an exhibition, and try to steal that painting in every possible way, so as to cover up the conspiracy of stealing beams for pillars back then. At the same time, you should also use that fake painting to give me To lure them out into the trap is really a plan to kill two birds with one stone." Margaret stopped talking, she walked to the window and looked at the rain outside, just like Margaret who was under house arrest four hundred years ago. Lin Hai was bored in the room all afternoon, thinking about the words his grandfather left him—she had returned to her mother's womb. It was getting dark soon, he went out to buy dinner and came back, the two of them had a simple meal.He thought how wonderful it would be to be with Margaret forever if there were no such annoying things, but this was just his wild idea, and no one knew what would happen tonight. After dinner, Lin Hai continued to think about that sentence, and even Margaret helped him think about it. The rain outside the window was still ticking, but it was much lighter than last night. Just as the two were racking their brains, Margaret suddenly patted Lin Hai on the shoulder and said, "Didn't your grandfather learn painting in the past? Then, could the 'matrix' be a painting?" "A picture?" Lin Hai nodded. This is indeed very possible, but he has never heard of such a painting as "The Matriarch".And grandpa has painted so many paintings in his life, it is impossible for Lin Hai to remember so many names. However, a certain lightning flashed into Lin Hai's mind like a call from the heavens - the small auditorium! Yes, didn't he pass by the small auditorium of the school a few days ago?There is a painting that my grandfather drew in the 1950s. Lin Hai clearly remembers the name of that painting——. Isn't "mother" the same as "mother"? It turned out that this was the hint left by his grandfather that the real "Margaret" should be in the small auditorium of the school! He jumped up suddenly, grabbed Marguerite's hand and said, "Let's go quickly, I think I already know where "Marguerite" is!" Before Margaret could react, she was pulled out of the room by Lin Hai.Holding their umbrellas, they ran out of the building in the rainy night, called a taxi and rushed to the university. The taxi stopped at the gate of the university, and Lin Hai rushed in with Margaret.There were not many people on campus, and no one noticed their appearance. Turning around a few rows of houses in the night rain, and finally ran in front of the small auditorium, Lin Hai suddenly stopped and took a deep breath, looking at this Soviet-style house in the dark, he thought of his grandfather again. "Grandpa, here I come!" Lin Hai read silently, then dragged Margaret into the auditorium.After finally finding the switch in the darkness, he turned on a row of lights against the wall, which just illuminated the huge oil painting on the wall. Both he and Marguerite held their breath, staring at the two-meter-long and one-meter-high oil painting on the wall. The name of the painting is. In the oil painting, there is a golden wheat field, and a middle-aged peasant woman is sitting on the field ridge, holding a two or three-year-old child in her arms.Under the light, the wheat waves are so dazzling, like the sea under the sun, and the mother is a reef standing on the sea. Lin Hai trembled and said, "This is the 'matrix'!" He moved a table aside and stood on it just within reach of the top of the picture frame.The frame was fixed by a hook. Lin Hai carefully took the frame off. The oil painting was indeed very heavy, weighing at least forty or fifty catties. Lin Hai's hands were shaking, and he put it on the table with all his strength. superior. "My God, why is it so heavy?" Lin Hai gasped for a few times, then looked at the wall, there was only a black circle where the original picture frame was, and the white lime wall behind it, he touched it with his hands a few times, but there was nothing unusual. He just climbed down from the table and carefully looked at the painting by his grandfather. From the surface of the oil painting, there was nothing special about it. At this time Margaret reminded: "You said this painting is heavy? Could it be..." Lin Hai's heart skipped a beat, and he immediately thought of it—picture-in-picture. Yes, he quickly checked the picture frame. Although fifty years have passed, the wooden picture frame is still very strong, without any signs of cracking or mildew. Lin Hai and Margaret worked hard together and turned the whole oil painting over again so that the back of the frame was facing up.Then he tapped it with his knuckles again, and sure enough, he heard that there seemed to be a sandwich inside.He nodded excitedly, looked carefully at the back of the picture frame, and found that there seemed to be a bulge at the bottom of the picture frame. He immediately took out a fruit knife that he carried with him, and said softly, "I'm sorry, Grandpa." Then he used a knife to cut open the bulge, and sure enough, the space inside was exposed, and he continued to cut carefully until the entire back of the picture frame was torn away. Finally, the back of another picture frame was exposed inside, and it really was a picture-in-picture in the interlayer. Lin Hai was so excited that he almost screamed. He tore off all the outer frames, and then took out the painting inside the interlayer. At this time, what they saw was the back of the frame, which was about 60 centimeters long and 40 centimeters wide, exactly the size of the "Marguerite" that Lin Hai saw in the Western Art Museum. After a few seconds of silence, the two of them held their breath, and together they carefully turned the painting over. In an instant, time went back, and the time four hundred years ago reappeared, and they saw the real "Margaret". "Praise God!" Lin Hai was shocked. It really was that oil painting. Queen Margaret at the end of the 16th century. Eternal sadness seems to be watching everyone in the world. The feeling of being in the Western Art Museum came to mind again. This French princess and queen four hundred years ago, a stunner from that era, was sitting in front of him through time.The real Marguerite has more charm than the fake one, as if she is waiting for someone to take her away and tell the big secret. And Margaret was even more shocked when she looked at the person in the painting. She seemed to be facing a mirror, seeing herself imprisoned in this ancient oil painting wearing clothes four hundred years ago. The fabricated lies have become reality, and she will still stay in the Louvre until the eternity of time. Yes, this is the real oil painting "Marguerite", which was brought by Lin Danqing and Mathilde from France in 1936—her body carries great secrets and too many conspiracies, So she must be hidden here, sealed in the "matrix" for fifty years, until tonight Lin Hai and Margaret have gone through untold hardships and finally revealed her to the world. Lin Hai was too excited to speak. He just stared blankly at the oil painting, as if he had seen Margaret herself four hundred years ago. Suddenly, Margaret let out a low moan, and Lin Hai looked back vigilantly, and saw a figure standing behind them. The light in the small auditorium illuminated the man, revealing a typical French man's face, and Lin Hai softly read his name: "Mr. Wenger." Yes, he is Lin Hai's foreign French teacher Wenger, staring straight at the oil painting on the table. Seeing Teacher Wenger here, Lin Hai was obviously very surprised. He asked in French: "Teacher, why are you here?" here?" Teacher Wenger didn't speak, he turned his eyes to Margaret again.Only then did Lin Hai realize that Margaret's expression had completely changed, and she took a step back in fear. Is there anything wrong?Will Wenger be here?Lin Hai's mind turned rapidly in an instant, and before he could figure it out, he suddenly heard Margaret screaming! In an instant, Lin Hai only felt a gust of wind in the back of his head, and just as he was about to turn around, something hit the back of his head violently. Like a knife inserted into his brain, he couldn't feel anything, and slipped into the night in the oil painting in an instant.