Chapter 2019: The Wheelchair Man Is a Twin
Little Taotie turned around warily and saw that it was Hua Jinyan, which made him breathe a sigh of relief.
"Why did you come down too?"
"I was worried about you."
"What’s there to worry about? I’m perfectly fine."
"Then consider it as me being a bit scared up there alone, so I came down to find you."
"Just like Little Lion, you’re both so clingy." Little Taotie stuck out his tongue and ran to the other side to study the other murals.
The murals here resembled a series of comic strips, with a narrative.
Hua Jinyan frowned and examined them. The first painting depicted a man with an axe splitting the heavens and the earth, with the sun and moon shining together.
At first glance, one might think it was Pangu creating the world, but the second mural depicted the birth of twin brothers, with the man holding them in his arms.
The third mural showed a graveyard, with the man carrying the children to the graves.
Next was the fourth scene Little Taotie was currently looking at. In the picture, one boy was climbing a tree, while the other was sitting below looking up at the tree, or perhaps at his brother in the tree.
"Don’t you think this boy looks familiar?" Little Taotie pointed to the boy sitting in the chair.
Hua Jinyan nodded.
"You think he looks familiar too! Then it’s not just my imagination; this boy is definitely the wheelchair villain!"
"If this place truly holds his assets, the boy in this painting must be him."
"Right! I almost forgot I came here to find the treasure! No more looking."
Little Taotie stopped looking at the murals and started searching around.
The area here wasn’t that large, and you could take it all in at a glance.
Hua Jinyan didn’t search but continued to look at the murals.
The boy in the tree fell, and the boy sitting in the chair quickly stood up to help, only to see the boy who had fallen spring up energetically, proudly showcasing his sound limbs.
It could be inferred from the murals that the wheelchair boy’s legs were already not in good condition at that time.
The murals showed the wheelchair boy climbing a tree with difficulty, using a small saw to cut branches bit by bit, but not sawing them off.
The next day, the other boy fell from the tree again.
This time, he wasn’t so lucky. In the subsequent murals, the boy was lying on a sickbed until his death.
During this period, the murals showed the wheelchair boy talking to him, and you could see the boy on the sickbed growing more despondent, secretly hiding away medicine, ultimately unable to shake off a high fever until he died.
After the boy’s death, the wheelchair boy became the family’s only child.
Originally, because of his frail health and congenital foot impairment, his parents didn’t pay much attention to him, caring more for the other child.
But in the subsequent murals, the parents poured all their love into him, including the love that should have been for the lost child.
The scene stopped at a family photo.
In it, the parents had aged with white hair, while the wheelchair boy sat in a wheelchair, accompanied by another boy who looked like the deceased one, appearing exactly the same age as when he died.
Hua Jinyan felt a trace of eeriness, his frown deepening.
Little Taotie searched for a long time without finding any treasure; the place was empty except for the murals.
She knocked on the surfaces all around, the ground, the walls; all were solid.
Little Taotie wiped her hands with a wet tissue and said dejectedly, "There’s no treasure here at all."
"There is."
"Huh?"
Little Taotie’s eyes lit up, "You found it? Where is it?"
Hua Jinyan pointed at the murals.
Little Taotie blinked and stared hard at the murals, but couldn’t make out anything.
"Where’s the treasure? Are you messing with me?"