"Actually, I can make this book more vivid, you know?" ∈ volunteered, "Animate it, add dubbing and narration. If you are not satisfied, I can even change the ending! That’ll be fun for sure! Let me do it!”
Luo Binhan rejected his enthusiastic recommendation. The last interpretation of the history of the Yongguang clan had left a deep impression on him. And now he was no joke.
"There's a mystery in this book," he said. "It came from the guy in the warehouse."
His excitement reached a new peak when he announced that his online database has hundreds of millions of answers to puzzles, enough to deal with any challenge in the world. During this period, he might have also talked about some other things, such as the infinite facet mutual projection hypothesis or the triple information pollution mutual effect phenomenon, but Luo Binhan didn't hear much of it. He studied this strange children's picture book with intense concentration and felt ice slowly forming on his back. He shuddered vaguely, recalling that he had filled out "The Complete Guide to Dating for Beginners" before falling into the devil's ocean, but had not been able to read the last page of it.
But in fact these children's drawings are not scary. They do not seem to contain any hint of blood or fantasy, nor are they some malicious imitation of a childish style, nor are they the horrifying images in horror stories in which mentally ill children paint large swaths of red and black ink. Although the style of these simple paintings is childish and simple, they have roughly demonstrated a kind of trained proficiency, and the pigments used are rich and bright, and the tones are gentle. That might be a wrong judgment based on inherent prejudice, but Luo Binhan intuitively believed that their creator was a little girl. He could at least believe that these paintings were created by a child, but the stories in the paintings were not necessarily true.
It's not some dark fairy tale, unsettling story, although it seems a bit inexplicable. The second story Luo Binhan saw was the story of the hunter. There are not many words accompanying this chapter, and Luo Binhan is not sure that he has interpreted everything correctly, but in his opinion the story goes like this:
The hunter took his beloved daughter to hunt in the forest and taught her how to survive in the forest. On the way they encountered a ferocious tiger. A tiger, more cunning than its kind, eats an experienced hunter. The daughter has since given up hunting. She walked towards the forest with a torch, but there she met a motherless tiger cub. So she threw away the torch and adopted the tiger cub. They became a happy family.
"Oh, this is still a happy story." Luo Binhan heard ∈ and lay on his lap to comment again, "But it's a bit weird, isn't it? I think this work lacks emotional rendering. But what kind of puzzle is this? I think it's like A religious allusion."
Luo Binhan shook his head. Unlike the first story they read, he had no idea what the hunter and the tiger meant. Nonetheless, he noticed that the hunter's daughter was wearing a pair of red shoes against the dark green background of the forest. That might not have any profound meaning, but it just reminded him of Li Li's coat.
He passed this more difficult chapter and moved on to the third story. This time he saw the story of a farmer: a big family with many children. During the dinner, all the children sit at the table from tallest to shortest. The tallest father sat on the main seat, but the mistress of the family was not seen. The family works hard every day to raise shrimps and crabs, but one of the children particularly likes flowers and plants. He saw a peach tree beside the pond, but it was too tall. So he walked into the forest to find his favorite flower. He slipped and fell off a cliff and found a beautiful red water lily. The boy was so happy that he took the red water lily back to the pond at home and planted it big and lush. From now on the whole family can enjoy the beautiful flowers.
"I can grow bigger than him." ∈ declared with high spirits.
"You can just plant some cabbage." Luo Binhan said. He stared at the last picture of the story for a long time. The boy lying by the pond stretched out his hand towards the red flowers in the water. The bank of the pond was so high that the boy seemed to be plunging into the water. Luo Binhan didn't have much clue about this story, but for some reason he was particularly concerned about it. "Touch of the red lotus" - he even gave this scene a name in his mind.
"Why are you always staring at this painting?" ∈ asked, holding his chin, "Are you in love with him? I've heard that you guys will fall in love with toys. Is that fun? You know, if you insist, I can Restore a three-dimensional image to him! I can also make him move and talk to you! What else do you want?"
Luo Binhan quickly turned the page before he came up with a worse idea. At this point he noticed that the book was nearly halfway through and estimated that there were about six stories in the entire book. What he saw next was the story of the herbalist.
The herbalist picked up the injured wolf. He kindly healed it and then let it go. One day the herbalist was bitten by a poisonous snake while walking in the garden. He fell to the ground dying. Then the wolf he had rescued appeared. It bit open its front foot and stained the herbalist's lips red with wolf blood. The herbalist suddenly recovered and was as healthy and fast as the wolf.
He stared at the herbalist's lips for a few seconds, then continued to read the next chapter. By now he had mastered the rules of telling stories in this set of children's picture books, and it was no surprise that he discovered that the protagonist of the fifth story was a carpenter.
A carpenter lives in the mountains with his sick child. He used his superb craftsmanship to create a wooden heart for his child, but it made the child as callous and callous as a dead tree. The carpenter's tears of grief spilled in front of the door all day long, pouring out a rose. A butterfly was attracted. It fell first on the flower, and then on the heart of the carpenter's child. The wooden heart of the carpenter's child suddenly came to life and turned into a bright red, beating living heart.
Now the only unread parts left in Luo Binhan's hand are a dozen thin pieces of paper. He estimated that he had only the last story left to read, so while he was chatting perfunctorily, he secretly wondered what kind of job the last protagonist was engaged in. He guessed the woodcutter, the barber, the doctor, the cook, the gardener and the toilet cleaner, but the result was still beyond his expectation. He saw a full page of blackened paper, as if to isolate the last story from what preceded it.
That's a little unusual. Therefore, Luo Binhan was not surprised when he found that this story has a lot of text. On the first page he saw a standing monster: its torso looked human, its head resembled that of a lizard, but its exposed hairy skin and long tail were reminiscent of those of an ape. Although it also wears the same clothes as the protagonists of the previous stories, it is difficult to determine the occupation of this spliced monster.
"Weird." He murmured and began to read the words written next to it. Just to the right of the lizard-headed monster, he read the following three lines of densely written introduction:
Mr. Lizard is a policeman. It is investigating the widely circulated disappearance of Little Red Riding Hood in the forest.
In order to find the murderer, it visited all the residents in the forest. It tracked the sea snake, questioned the children in Little Red Riding Hood's neighbor, the Hunters and Farmers, and tracked the herbalist and the carpenter.
Now it has a great plan to catch the killer.
