Life in North America, you call this an autopsy officer?!
Chapter 266 - 185: The Magical Landscape Painting, Curse Pattern? (April Extra - 1)

Chapter 266: Chapter 185: The Magical Landscape Painting, Curse Pattern? (April Extra Chapter 1)

"How is this painting?"

A bald, middle-aged white man wearing black-rimmed glasses walked in from outside.

This private reception room was enclosed by glass without any coverings, making it possible to see inside and out. However, the soundproofing was excellent; once the door was closed, hardly any noise from outside could be heard.

Brian turned his head to the newcomer, "Professor Mycroft?"

Mycroft nodded, "Yes, but I prefer people to call me by my name directly. How do you feel about this painting? It was a gift from a friend from Hua Country. He said that they prefer the ’sense of atmosphere’ in their ink paintings. I’ve never understood what that means, so I hung it up here in hopes of finding someone to interpret it for me."

"Sense of atmosphere?"

Brian thought for a moment and pointed to Mycroft’s tall, gorgeous secretary standing behind him, "Green, how would you approach her if you wanted to sleep with her?"

Green: "Ah?"

Everyone here was respectable; it wasn’t appropriate for Brian to say something like that.

The beautiful secretary, upon hearing this, showed no change in expression, as if the discussion did not involve her.

Seeing everyone looking at him, Green reluctantly said, "Maybe I’d say, ’Beauty, how about coming to my place tonight? My bed is quite big.’"

"More direct!"

"Okay, I’d say, ’Got time tonight to sleep together?’"

"Hmm," Brian nodded. "That’s realism for you—what you see is what you get."

Mycroft, intrigued, looked at Brian: "And what about the ’sense of atmosphere’?"

Brian approached the painting and said softly, "Lady, I would like to ’set sail’ with you and watch the sunrise."

Mycroft was stunned for a few seconds before he caught on, "A space for imagination?"

Brian nodded, "You could say that. A painting is merely a medium to display emotions; what it truly shows is the mood of the artist at the time, or things that can only be understood personally and can’t be accurately described."

"Oh?"

Mycroft pointed to a landscape painting on the wall, "Then what do you think this represents?"

Brian paused uncertainly, "Danger, unease, a goodbye before death..."

The mountains were tall and distant, yet overly steep.

The lakes and rivers flowed, but the water was too turbulent.

There were birds in the sky and an old man in a straw raincoat fishing from a boat on the water.

The birds looked down, and the old man looked up; their gazes met, yet one was in the sky and the other on the water, one flying towards the setting sun, and the other on the unpredictable waters, seemingly on a boat but actually not stable.

Seeing Mycroft deep in thought.

Brian added, "If you received this painting when you were in a turbulent environment, having lost the stability in your life, then my guess is probably right."

"Goodbye before death..."

Mycroft sighed, "That must be it. I haven’t seen him for over twenty years, and I seldom talk about this matter. Anyway, what did you come to consult me about?"

Brian glanced at the ink painting of the lake one last time, suppressing the surprise in his heart, "A case..."

..

Half an hour later.

Brian, with Green, bid farewell to Professor Mycroft.

The female secretary escorted them out and suddenly slipped a piece of paper into Brian’s hand without giving him a chance to ask questions, then turned and left.

Seeing this, Green looked curiously at Brian.

As someone who had never encountered such an incident, he was eager to know what was written.

Brian unfolded the paper.

It read simply:

"Sir, I’d like to get up and watch the sunrise with you.

- Vanessa

Phone: ..."

Green’s eyes widened, "One line and you’ve got this woman?"

He didn’t understand.

His bed was large, getting up to watch the sunrise with Brian—what was the difference?

Wasn’t it all just sleeping together?

Brian crumpled the paper, shrugged and said, "Don’t be envious, this trick only works on artistic young women. For a girl on the street, she’d just tell you to skip the nonsense, ’Twenty US dollars a time, pay up first.’"

Green: "..Brian, you really do have a way with life."

"Your description is also very emotionally intelligent."

The two exchanged glances and burst into laughter.

..

Back at the office.

Green took out his notebook, ready to call the list of researchers Mycroft had provided.

The blood exchange therapy, indeed, underwent further development after its discovery, transitioning towards beauty treatments, anti-aging, mainly because researchers, during this process, discovered in young men and women’s blood, several special substances that older people’s bodies reduce or cease to produce.

These substances were stimulating some kind of bioactivity in elderly test rats, achieving an effect akin to rejuvenation.

The only problem was that human bodies are not like those of test rats.

Humans are much larger in size.

And their body structures are also more complex.

Simply transfusing blood into a human body is risky, cumbersome, and the effects are not clear, full of variables, both good and bad, hard to control.

But those researchers, through continuous experimentation on rats, discovered and extracted a substance named C6.

This substance, according to Brian and Green’s understanding, could stimulate cellular metabolism and renewal.

It showed promising effects in reducing scars and aiding wound recovery to some extent.

However, C6 itself couldn’t rejuvenate cells and body tissues, which contradicted current biological understanding.

More usage meant shorter cell life, implying it could also affect lifespan.

Thus, this substance was still confined to the lab and wasn’t made available on the market yet.

Mycroft didn’t think anyone could indeed categorize human tissue age through blood exchange, but he still shared the contact details he knew of several research facilities with them.

...

Brian stopped Green from making the call, "There’s no need to call now. Before I left, I secretly placed a tracker in Mycroft’s car. Keep an eye on his location changes, and as long as he doesn’t go to a place with signal interference, we should be able to locate that facility."

Ali’s tracker operated on wireless wave transmission for positioning.

This thing, one is a mobile positioning unit, constantly sending signals to the receiving station. Based on predefined reception time, time difference, radio wave entry angle, and other parameters, the receiving station will lock the position.

The locator in cop and robber movies is basically this type.

Green’s eyes widened habitually, "Brian, boss, are you saying that Professor Mycroft lied?"

Brian often made judgments that impressed him and were unexpected; Green was used to it, but that didn’t stop him from exaggerating his reactions.

This is called emotional value.

Being a little brother also requires some knowledge of psychology.

Brian indeed liked Green’s reactions, which inevitably made him feel the urge to mentor and found this satisfying rather than impatiently saying, "You’re really stupid."

He nodded, "Didn’t you notice something Professor Mycroft said unintentionally?"

"What did he say?"

Green asked cooperatively.

"He unintentionally revealed that the Hua Country landscape painting on the wall was given to him by a friend more than twenty years ago. The thing is, how old do you think Professor Mycroft is?"

Brian asked back.

Green, recalling Mycroft’s face, unsurely said, "Probably around forty years old, not too old, and not too young, exactly the age when a person’s energy hasn’t entirely faded, and he has ample experience."

"Okay, we’ll assume he’s forty-five. That means Mycroft knew that friend when he was in his early twenties or even his teens.

Green, you might not understand, that type of ink painting, to express emotions, requires sufficient life experience, which takes time to accumulate, years to settle.

It’s rare for people with rich experience to become too close to those much younger than themselves; they have different thought outlooks and perspectives, they might not even have the interest to chat.

So, I guess, like Mason’s wife, Mycroft used the same or even better technology."

Brian voiced his suspicions.

This was actually to bamboozle Green.

His real certainty about Mycroft’s deceit stemmed from the pheromone concentration he smelled; it didn’t match Mycroft’s relatively young appearance, almost as if there were old, decaying organs slowly rotting inside Mycroft.

Appearances can change, but the characteristics of the pheromones emitted by the body aren’t something you can change just because you want to.

...

Hearing Brian’s explanation, Green sincerely exclaimed, "Mycroft met his misfortune encountering you, you are so meticulous, Boss Brian!"

Brian...

rolled his eyes, ignoring Green, the simpleton.

Compared to the unfortunate Mycroft who stumbled into his hands, Brian was more curious about that landscape painting.

He was certain that the lake in the painting seemed to be subtly flowing, yet neither Green nor Mycroft seemed to have noticed it.

This made Brian think of how human eyes perceive computer or television screens and how cameras capture these screens; the difference might not be small.

This process is because the images on the screen are continuously refreshed at a high frequency, too fast for the naked eye to distinguish, but when the screen refresh rate is lower than the camera’s shutter speed, it results in screen effects resembling Moiré patterns..

Could that painting also have similar characteristics, only visible to someone with excellent vision, presenting magical imaging?

How is this achieved?

...

In the following time,

Green stared at the locator receiver, while Brian stroked his dog, his mind occupied with that landscape painting.

This feeling was uncomfortable.

The painting seemed to possess a certain bewitchment, unforgettable after just one glance.

This was a first for Brian.

After continuously being distracted, he faintly sensed something wrong.

That darn painting isn’t some breathtaking beauty.

Why did he care so much?

Thinking this,

Brian cautiously approached his station, pulled out some sketch paper and pencils from a drawer, and, without looking, let his fingers control the pencil, moving unconsciously like a printing machine.

Shortly,

a cluster of meaningless lines appeared on the sketchpad.

"Brian... there’s a call... hmm?" Old Hardenn, who came to call him, saw the lines on Brian’s sketchpad, his eyes widened: "That’s the Curse Pattern! Why did you sketch the Curse Pattern!"

As if he saw something terrifying, he continually backed away, attracting the gaze of others in the office.

Brian was startled by Old Hardenn’s reaction and snapped back to his senses.

"The Curse Pattern?"

Brian became interested, grabbed Old Hardenn, "It’s just a game, why are you so concerned? What was that about a call? Let’s go to the meeting room."

After saying that,

without waiting for Old Hardenn to react,

Brian, tall and robust, ’enveloped’ him in his arms, and they headed together toward the meeting room.

"Let me go, Brian, you’re being too forceful, I don’t want to talk about this," Old Hardenn tried to resist, but his old body seemed as if clamped in a vice, other than being able to shout, he was completely unable to control himself.

"I told you, play less, don’t get too absorbed, you never listen, look at you, starting to talk nonsense, where am I being forceful? This is just normal colleague interaction, right?"

Brian casually covered Old Hardenn’s mouth, leading him and the sketchpad into the meeting room, and closed the door.

People watched as Old Hardenn’s feet dangled and kicked in the air:...

Really curious about what it is.

Unfortunately, outside the door, Shi San hunkered down doggedly, glaring at everyone, baring his teeth threateningly at anyone who approached, completely disregarding the usual feeding from everyone, embodying Brian’s teachings in full force.

People:...

Why is Shi San the dog exuding more and more of a Brian-like vibe!

...

Inside the meeting room.

Reluctantly brought closer by Brian, Old Hardenn was ’placed’ into position.

"Pal, talk about it, what is the Curse Pattern?"

Brian pushed the sketchpad forward.

This was what he had seen, copied down one to one, relying on his robotic control over his body.

Old Hardenn had actually seen it before.

Brian was curious about the stories hidden within!