HLnovel Chapter 1072 Spreading
Chapter 1072 Spreading
The moment the desk lamp went out, Lin Lan reached for her phone and flicked on the flashlight. The beam pierced the darkness of the archive room, illuminating the abruptly halting handwriting on the desk. "Be careful with that cufflink, it can..." The ink behind it was abruptly torn off, as if erased by an invisible hand, leaving only a crooked streak, like an unhealed wound in the pale light. She took a deep breath, her fingertips running over the silver cufflink she had brought back from the modern crime scene. A crooked "J" was engraved on the cool metal, its edges slightly worn, and the inside, as expected, bore several teeth marks of varying depths—a perfect match for the handwriting description left by Shen Yanqiu. Lin Lan returned the cufflink to the evidence bag. The soft click of the zipper closing was remarkably clear in the silence, as if locking away a secret about to be revealed. For the next three days, Lin Lan spent time in the archives of the Municipal Bureau and the History Museum of Nanhua University, searching through the piles of old papers like a hound with a keen sense of smell, searching for any trace of Jiang Mingyuan. She discovered an interview with Jiang Mingyuan published in the Nanhua Education Weekly in 1950, accompanied by a photo of him working in the ancient book restoration room. The man in the photo was tweezing a yellowed book page, his gaze focused and gentle behind his gold-rimmed glasses. Half of a silver chain peeked from his left wrist, the pendant just obscuring his cuff—where a cufflink should be. "In March 2015, Jiang Mingyuan went to the University of Paris as a visiting scholar, and the following year he joined the Oriental Department of the British Museum." The old curator of the school's history museum adjusted his reading glasses and pointed to a worn directory of overseas alumni. "There's no record after 1905. He should have retired..." Lin Lan's fingertips paused below the three characters "Jiang Mingyuan" on the directory. There was a small line of pencilled text: "Also known as Jiang Yuan." The name made her heart skip a beat, and she immediately retrieved her entry records from ten years ago. Sure enough, in , an elderly Chinese man named Jiang Yuan returned from London and settled in Zhulinwu, a suburb of Nanhua. Even more shocking was that according to the immigration records, Jiang Yuan was born in , making him a full years old this year. His physical examination report noted that his blood pressure, heart rate, and even bone density were far above average. Despite requiring regular nutritional injections of an unknown ingredient, his physical condition was comparable to that of a middle-aged man. "That's impossible," Lin Lan stared at the birthdate on the screen, her fingertips unconsciously tapping the tabletop. The natural human lifespan is around years, but maintaining such a healthy state is unheard of. Unless... she remembered the elixir formula Shen Yanqiu had mentioned, and her heart sank. On the morning of the fourth day, Lin Lan drove to Zhulinwu. As they left the city, the asphalt road gradually gave way to a winding concrete path, and the sycamore trees on either side gave way to vast stands of bamboo. The morning mist had not yet dissipated, and the green shadows of the bamboo trees were faintly visible through the haze. The air was filled with the scent of moist earth and the delicate fragrance of bamboo leaves, yet it carried a sense of detached silence. The old house is hidden deep in the bamboo forest. Its black tiles and white walls are covered with ivy, like an old coat embellished with green lace. A faded copper ring hangs on the gate, and the outline of the two characters "Jiang Mansion" can be vaguely seen on the lintel. The dark red wood is exposed where the paint has peeled off, as if it has frozen the traces of time. Lin Lan pressed the doorbell three times. The copper bell echoed dully in the empty yard, but no one answered. She walked around to the back of the house and found a carved wooden window ajar. The bat pattern on the window frame was blurred. When she pushed the window, it made a "creaking" sound, startling a few sparrows from the bird's nest under the eaves. A mixture of musty smell, sandalwood and old book paper hit her face, reminding her of the Republic of China files in the archives. The house was tidier than she had expected. The dark wooden floor was covered with a worn Persian carpet, and the bookshelves were filled with ancient thread-bound books from the floor to the ceiling. Sunlight filtered through the window lattice, casting diamond-shaped spots on the floor. Amidst the floating dust, a silver object gleamed coldly on the third shelf of the bookshelf. Lin Lan stood on tiptoe to retrieve the book. It was a printed edition of Baopuzi from the Guangxu period. Tucked between the pages was a silver cufflink with a clear "J" engraved on it, exactly matching the description of the crime scene and Shen Yanqiu. "Officer Lin, are you interested in my collection?" An old but powerful voice came from the inner room, with a barely perceptible smile. Lin Lan quickly replaced the cufflink, gripped the pistol at his waist, and turned. The door curtain to the inner room was lifted by a bony but powerful hand, and an old man in a navy blue double-breasted jacket emerged. His hair was as white as snow, neatly combed back into a bun. His face was covered in wrinkles, yet the traces of time etched through it like the rings of an ancient tree. The most impressive thing was his eyes, his pupils were as clear as mountain spring water, flashing with an all-seeing light in the dim room. The old man sat on a pearwood armchair with a dark gray woolen shawl draped over the back of the chair. His left hand was resting on the armrest, and on his wrist was a string of red sandalwood Buddhist beads. On his right ring finger was a jade ring, and around his neck was a silver cufflink, the chain passing through the collar, looming. "Mr. Jiang." Lin Lan did not relax her vigilance, her eyes sweeping over the furnishings in the room. On the wall hung a painting of "Fishing Alone on a Cold River", and the profile of the old man in the painting was somewhat similar to the archival photo of Shen Yanqiu. There were several bronze artifacts on the antique shelf, and a copper stove in the corner was emitting curls of sandalwood, with smoke rising straight up to the beams, as if time had frozen here. "Call me Jiang Mingyuan." The old man smiled slightly, and the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes spread out like ripples. "Since you have found this place, Officer Lin must have known a lot of things." He gestured to Lin Lan to sit on the rattan chair opposite. "Try my pre-rain Longjing tea. It's twenty-year-old tea, older than you are." The tea in the purple clay teapot was amber in color, and made a crisp sound when poured into the celadon cup. Lin Lan didn't touch her cup, but asked bluntly, "Did you kill all those old men?" Jiang Mingyuan paused, holding the teacup, then shook his head and chuckled. "My old bones would struggle to even kill a chicken." He set the teacup down, his fingertips tapping lightly on the table. "But their deaths are indeed connected to me." The sandalwood incense slowly flowed between them. The old man's gaze drifted toward the bamboo forest outside the window, and his voice seemed to come from a distant time and space: "In , I joined the 'Classic Guarding Society,' a group of lunatics obsessed with ancient books. We collected rare and valuable books scattered among the people, especially those rare books known as 'forbidden books.'" He took a rosewood box from the bookshelf and opened it with a soft click. Inside, covered with dark red velvet, were several thread-bound books, their covers blank. "This is the 'Nanhua Secret Classic,' a compilation of silk manuscripts from the Warring States period. It records the alchemy techniques of pre-Qin alchemists, including... a formula for immortality."