"Three more masked men."
For a moment, it was difficult to tell whether the expression in Old Man Gamel's eyes was helplessness or ridicule.
"Please come in..." The old man spoke as if he was talking to himself, "It's very cold standing outside."
After thanking each other, the three of them entered the elderly man's home.
It could be seen from the moonlight that Jamel's face was a little red, obviously he had just finished drinking.
The old man's home is very simple, but very warm. Oil paintings of the same style hang on the walls, mostly of natural scenery covered with snow.
Sean also saw a painting depicting Mistani Lake. However, the scenery in the painting was very different from that outside Ivan's cabin. It seemed to be looking at the lake from another direction.
Thinking of that wooden house, Sean's chest felt tight again, as if he had been punched.
On a small coal stove, water in an iron kettle was boiled.
While looking for something in the kitchen, the old man muttered in a low voice: "I usually drink a little tea before going to bed..."
As he spoke, he found a few old-looking but clean tin cups and placed them on the polished wooden table.
In order to liven up the atmosphere in the room, Yueguang, who had already sat down, looked at the paintings on the wall: "Are these all painted by you? Mr. Gamer?"
The old man who came over with the iron pot hummed, put the pot on the table, and turned to look at the paintings.
For a moment, Sean felt that the other person was standing alone outdoors, looking at the snowy scene in the forest.
Sean suddenly discovered something.
The old gentleman's paintings all have a sense of pure beauty, as if they were just like Jonyer's winter, but...
He seemed to paint only one subject - winter woodlands.
The simplicity of this subject matter made Sean feel like he was going in circles and never came out of that forest.
After a while, the old man turned his head and, with a relatively steady hand, made black tea for the three uninvited guests.
Then he sat down himself and tinkered with the fire in silence.
The temperature of the hot tea is transferred to the hand through the tin cup, which makes people feel at ease.
In a much softened atmosphere, Sean said directly: "I took the liberty to visit the old gentleman this time to ask you questions about a piece of work."
Gamer didn't say anything. He placed the iron hook for holding the fire at his feet and gently pushed his thick glasses - woolen gloves with holes in them. There were still many traces of paint on the gloves.
Moonlight felt that Gamel did not look as confused as Mrs. Berg said.
"It's the painting hanging in the Berg's tavern." Sean glanced at Olivia, who sat a little further away from the fire, always being elegant while maintaining appropriate alertness, "We want to ask you , was that a scene you witnessed with your own eyes?”
The old gentleman held the tin cup, blew it gently, and took a sip of the tea. His chapped lips became brighter: "Yes." His voice was very soft, but Sean and the other three heard clearly, "Yes. I saw it with my own eyes...
The old man's eyes paused: "I didn't have the courage to draw it before, but now that I'm older, I just..."
He took another sip of tea. You can feel the moonlight, and the old man seems to enjoy being visited and chatted with.
Upon hearing Gamer's answer, Sean's heart beat slightly faster.
He didn't expect that witnesses could be found for a secret incident that happened more than sixty years ago.
As if he finally opened up the conversation, the old man cleared his throat: "Many people thought it was a scene I imagined. After all, many people have never seen that strange thing clearly..."
For ordinary people, witnessing evil directly would cause an almost unbearable psychological impact.
Fortunately, Gamel didn't seem to have any serious symptoms, he just kept drawing snowy scenes.
Sean breathed a sigh of relief, realizing that the rest of the interview would go very smoothly.
With luck, they might even learn the secret behind Ivan's death.
"Old sir, under what circumstances did you see the three explorers fight off the monster?"
The old man's expression suddenly became a little strange - he frowned and looked at Sean with puzzled eyes.
It seems that Sean said something very strange...
"Is there any problem?" Sean asked quickly.
The quiet atmosphere in the room lasted for a while, and the old man's brows suddenly relaxed a little, and a smile suddenly appeared on his face: "Repelling that monster...?"
"So this is how the people in town understand the painting?"
Sean and the other three didn't understand what the old man meant, and they frowned at the same time.
Gamel lowered his head, his entire shoulders began to shake, and a strange sound came from his throat.
Yue Guang, who was a little nervous, realized after a few seconds that the old man was smiling.
The old man raised his head, grinning his chapped lips, revealing his yellow-brown incomplete teeth...
His smile was low and hoarse, and continued, as if he had remembered a joke that only he understood.
The bowstring in Olivia's body has been tightened, ready to make any movement at any time.
Sean just waited quietly, like a flame dancing quietly in a furnace.
After a while, the old man who was smiling really weirdly came back to his senses, accelerated his breathing to replenish oxygen, and the change in the expression on his face made him seem to be a different person. He gasped and said: "Repelled the monster?
"No, no, no, it's all wrong..."
Sean saw that Gamal's pupils were fixed.
He knew that what appeared in the vision of the person in front of him was the scene of that painting.
"It's not that we defeated the monster," the old man said with a cynical tone, as if he had seen through the ugliness of everything.
"That painting depicts the scene where they created the monster."
The room fell into an excessive silence, and anyone could understand that the air that seemed to be solidified at this moment was called "doubt".
Moonlight blinked a few times and looked at Sean.
Although Sean was breathing evenly, he was obviously still digesting what the old man said.
"If," Sean put his hand quietly on the table, like an elegant sleeping cat, thinking in his heart, "as Mrs. Berg said, Mr. Gamer is a bit demented, then what he just said is completely It might be nonsense, don’t think too much about it…
"However," Sean looked at Gamal who seemed to be still smiling, "What if it is because others are unwilling to understand what this taciturn old man said, and therefore think that he is confused?"
That means that no one is willing to listen to what he said after seeing an incomprehensible scene, and no one is willing to understand it.
After all, the arrival of the Wendigo, the mass cannibalism incident, the accusations and suspicions from all over the world... all of this is chaotic and crazy enough. He doesn't think the people of Rongyel still have the mental space to understand what Gamel is saying. What.
However, they inadvertently stood in front of the truth of the incident more than sixty years ago.
According to what the old man just said, the Wendigo appeared not because of the combination of cold and hunger, but because the explorer summoned it.
An incomprehensible scene.
Sean finally let out a breath:
What happened in the snow forest back then?
