The fields in the rain were filled with the moisture of the soil. They closed their eyes and took a few deep breaths. Margaret said with a dazed look, "Smelling this scent feels like returning to the royal estate outside Paris."
"That's where you and Lamorale rendezvoused, right?" Lin Hai asked.
Margaret was like being electrocuted and stopped talking, and the atmosphere between them became tense again.
After a moment of silence, Lin Hai said, "I'm sorry, let's go."
"Where to?" Margaret asked.
"Of course, the bank - to open my grandfather's safe deposit box!" Lin Hai patted his backpack, where the "The Red and the Black" with the safe deposit certificate was located.
They took an umbrella and got on a bus back to the city. They changed buses twice and finally found the bank listed on the certificate at ten o'clock in the morning.
This is the place!
Lin Hai held Margaret's hand and carefully stepped into the bank's gate. There was indeed a safe deposit room inside that required a certificate to enter.
Although the certificate left by his grandfather was ten years old, it was still valid. Walking into the narrow safe deposit room, Lin Hai suddenly had a familiar feeling, as if he had entered the secret room where the painting "Margaret" was displayed in the Western Art Museum.
According to the number on the certificate, they quickly found the safe deposit box. It was at the bottom of a row of drawers that looked like urns, with the number "091313."
There was a small window outside the safe deposit box with a password, which had to be entered to open the box. However, Lin Hai could not find any password on the certificate.
What to do? Lin Hai scratched his head. His grandfather must have known or set the password when he opened the safe deposit box, but why didn't he leave the password behind?
Could it be that his grandfather's illness was too sudden and he didn't have time to tell his father the password before he passed away? If that was the case, the secret in the safe deposit box would have gone to the grave with his grandfather.
Margaret had never been to such a place before, and she didn't quite understand the meaning of the password. She could only stare at Lin Hai. The narrow safe deposit room was suffocating. If they stayed there too long, the bank security outside would certainly become suspicious.
No, they had to unlock the password quickly.
Lin Hai suddenly remembered the French version of "The Red and the Black" and quickly took it out of his backpack. He had already folded a corner on the page with the safe deposit certificate, so he quickly found it.
This page was the first chapter of Volume II, "Queen Margaret," which described the day De La Mole was beheaded in 1574 and Queen Margaret took his head to bury it. On the left side of this page was a date - April 30, 1574.
This was exactly the day De La Mole was beheaded!
Lin Hai looked at the context again. The sentence was something an academician said to Yu Lian. In Chinese, it meant, "Do you really not know what happened on April 30, 1574?" This was also the most relevant part to Margaret in the whole "The Red and the Black." Why did his grandfather put the safe deposit certificate in this page? Did the text on this page have some special meaning?
Lin Hai suddenly thought of a book with a similar plot of cracking a safe deposit box password. Yes, maybe his grandfather did leave the password in the book that was attached to the certificate! He carefully read this page again, and the most prominent number was still the date on the first line, "April 30, 1574."
If the date was converted into a number without the year, month, and day, and read in the order of the current Chinese way, it would be "15740430."
Could this number be the password?
Lin Hai couldn't be sure. He paced back and forth with his head lowered. What if the password was wrong? If they entered the wrong password three times, the security would certainly detain them. Should he take the risk?
But why did his grandfather put the certificate on this page if this important date was not the password? He looked at his watch. The second hand was ticking, and time was running out.
At this point, Margaret urged him anxiously, "What's going on? Norsidamus may find us soon."
They couldn't wait any longer. The bank security might come looking for them even before Norsidamus. Besides, this was something his grandfather left behind, and as his grandson, Lin Hai had the right to open it and take a look.
It was time to take a chance.
Lin Hai slowly squatted down, held his breath, and tremblingly entered the password-
15740430
The machine paused for about two seconds, and then the word "pass" suddenly appeared on the screen. They heard the sound of the safe deposit box door opening with a "clack."
Sesame opens!
Lin Hai and Margaret trembled as they stared at the safe deposit box door slowly opening like the door of an ancient tomb.
However, to their surprise, what was hidden in the safe deposit box was neither cash nor antiques but a letter.
A letter? Lin Hai was still a little skeptical of his own eyes. He carefully reached into the safe deposit box, and there really was no other item left. There was only one letter in the large safe deposit box.
The envelope was a yellow piece of parchment paper with a line of his grandfather's handwriting on it: "My grandson Lin Hai, open with care."
In an instant, Lin Hai's heart felt as if it had been pricked. His grandfather's face suddenly became clear in his memory, and he seemed to smell the smell of old paint again.
It really was a letter written by his grandfather to him. Lin Hai buried his head deeply between his knees, and his heart was filled with a faint sorrow.
Margaret gently patted him, "What's wrong? What is it?"
Lin Hai stood up tremblingly, took a deep breath, and said softly, "Let's leave here quickly." He took Margaret's hand and ran out of the bank, holding the letter left by his grandfather.
On the street outside the bank, Lin Hai looked around helplessly. He knew he couldn't stay here for long. He had left a trace, and Norsidamus might find them soon.
In hesitation, Lin Hai stopped a taxi and took Margaret into it. The taxi drove in the rain for more than half an hour and finally stopped at the back door of Lin Hai's university.
But he didn't want to go back to school, because having Marguerite with him was too conspicuous, and he couldn't let his teachers and classmates see her. Lin Hai went to the underground café across from the back door of the school. This café had been mentioned in the author's previous two novels, and many important plot points had been revealed here.
Lin Hai chose the most inconspicuous corner to sit in, even if classmates came to the café, it would be difficult for them to notice their presence. He ordered two cups of coffee and some snacks. In sixteenth-century France, coffee was not a common drink, so Marguerite wrinkled her brow as she drank the first cup, unaware that Europeans had loved this beverage for centuries.
After hastily eating some snacks as lunch, Lin Hai had the table wiped clean and slowly took out the letter. The envelope was still tightly sealed, and he carefully opened it, taking out a stack of manuscript paper from inside.
Although ten years had passed, the safe had kept these papers as fresh as new. The blue ink handwriting was clearly that of his grandfather's. What important information was hidden in this letter that made his grandfather keep it such a secret? Lin Hai took a deep breath and began to read the letter, which was ten years late.
"Lin Hai, my grandson:
By the time you read this letter, I will have been dead for many years, but I will be watching you from another world, watching everything that you will experience today.
Yesterday, I saw the hospital report and knew that I wouldn't live for long. Death has never frightened me, but there are other things that I fear, things that have been kept hidden for many years, secrets that are so important that some people will never be content until their last breath. I have kept these secrets for decades and have never revealed them to anyone. When I enter the grave, these secrets will be buried with me forever.
But should I really bury these secrets forever? For the rest of the world, this might not be fair, and I have no right to take these secrets to the grave. So, I will record these secrets in this letter, believing that you will have the chance to read it.
Lin Hai, I have never spoken of my past, and you do not know the experiences of my youth. In my early twenties, I spent four years studying in France, and it was an unforgettable experience. In 1932, I graduated from the Shanghai College of Fine Arts and took a ship to France for work-study. Shortly after arriving in Paris, I was fortunate to be admitted to the Fine Arts Department of Voltaire University, but as a poor student without any connections, I could only attend school during the day and work in taverns or coffee shops at night.
Living in the environment of Paris forced me to quickly learn French. I suddenly found myself fond of French literature and frequently bought French novels at second-hand bookstalls. Sometimes, I would go to Montmartre and often ran into people like Picasso, but I was learning classical realist oil painting, which was not accepted by modernist painters. I felt that I was born in the wrong era, and I loved the works of the masters before the nineteenth century. Therefore, I put my focus on museums and often went to the Louvre to see classical oil paintings.
Once, I went to the famous St. Louis Museum because they had a collection of French court paintings, including one called "Margaret". It has been almost sixty years, and I still can't forget that moment when I saw the painting for the first time. It was as if I was facing a living, breathing person, named Margaret! Yes, I was deeply moved by this oil painting. It was not just a painting, but a blazing fire that had never been extinguished for over four hundred years, captivating anyone who saw it.
At the time, I stood dumbfounded in front of the painting for several minutes, as if some magic held me spellbound and stole my soul. When I came to, I read the painting's description and learned that the woman depicted was Margaret, the queen of France in the late sixteenth century. I was deeply drawn to the woman in the painting and immediately went to the library at Voltaire University to spend a whole day researching books about Queen Margaret and came across the book "The Red and the Black," which also mentions her and a man named de la Mole.
For the next few days, the image of Margaret from the painting remained in my mind. I found myself mesmerized by her and went back to the St. Louis Museum. It was already late, and I stood in front of "Margaret" for half an hour. When the museum closed and I was walking out, I saw a black figure flash by in a nearby alley. Without thinking, I took a few steps forward, and the figure came toward me. There was a gas lamp nearby that illuminated her face, and to my surprise, it was a beautiful French woman.
Though it was just a passing moment, I was captured by her because of her captivating eyes. As she walked past me, our eyes met, and her bold and stern gaze made me feel embarrassed, so I stepped aside to let her pass. She had long black hair and wore a black dress, like a ghost that had just run out of the Louis XIV era, on this cold and deserted Paris street.
Many years have passed, and I still can't accurately describe my feelings at that moment. I felt like I had lost control of myself and followed her like a shadow into an alley. I had lived in Paris for several years and knew that these alleys were not safe, as there were often muggers who robbed single women at night. Just as I was nervously considering what to do, two black figures appeared in front of her and blocked her way. The two muggers began to attack her, but I didn't hesitate and rushed forward, yelling and punching one of them in the face. The two muggers were frightened and immediately ran away.
The woman, who was named Mathilde, seemed scared as well. Although I couldn't see her face clearly in the dark, I could hear her breathing heavily. I asked her where she lived and if she wanted me to take her home, and she shyly nodded. I led her through the alley, which was a shortcut from the museum to the nearby main street. She told me her address, which was a hotel. We walked for several dozen minutes and arrived at her room.
She said she was from a small town in southern France and thanked me for saving her. Suddenly, I became a bit shy and didn't know what to say. She said she had never met a Chinese person before, so she had been staring at me for a long time. Although she was staying in a small hotel, she spoke very elegantly and soon captivated me. We chatted for a long time without realizing it, and I left her room.
That night, I didn't sleep well and went to see her again the next morning. We quickly became acquainted, and she even came to visit me while I was drawing at the University of Voltaire. I found myself uncontrollably falling in love with her. I forgot about the differences in our race and nationality, and she accepted me without reservation. She asked me to go with her to her hometown, and I immediately agreed to accompany her south.
We arrived at a small town in the south of France, where her family lived in a very remote and ancient mansion in a valley on the outskirts of the town. Her father, who looked like an aristocrat, warmly welcomed me and seemed not to mind that I was Chinese. That was when I learned their family name - Lamorel, which reminded me of the Count de Lamorale in "The Red and the Black." I felt that this family looked strange and rarely interacted with the outside world, and even their speech had the characteristics of Old French.
On the second day of my arrival, we heard that the Palace Museum's painting exhibition had come to a nearby city. Mathilde took me there on a dark and stormy night. She brought me to the back of the exhibition hall where an iron door had been opened by someone. We broke into the exhibition hall and found "Margaret," an oil painting. I brought my easel, brushes, and paints with me, and under Mathilde's guidance, I lit a dim kerosene lamp and started copying the painting.
I didn't know why she wanted me to do this, but I loved her deeply and followed her every word. Copying "Margaret" in the dark night felt like having a conversation with someone from four hundred years ago. I copied it with full concentration, and it seemed that every stroke carried the imprint of that era. The difficulty of copying this painting was very high, and it was impossible to complete it in one night. As dawn approached, Mathilde urged me to leave quickly and not leave any traces of our intrusion.
The next night, we did the same thing and broke into the exhibition hall to copy "Margaret" again. We continued like this for about a week, and I finally completed a nearly perfect copy of "Margaret," so much so that I could hardly tell the difference between the original and my copy. I gave the completed copy to Mathilde's father, who said he needed to process it further to make the paint look older and indistinguishable from the painting four hundred years ago.
At this point, I began to understand that they wanted to create a counterfeit "Margaret," and I became their tool for counterfeiting. A few days later, my copy of "Margaret" disappeared, and the Palace Museum's exhibition had ended, with no apparent errors. It was then that Mathilde showed me the real "Margaret," and I realized that they had switched the paintings, and my fake copy was being exhibited in Paris instead of the real painting. The museum was completely fooled, and the real "Margaret" from four hundred years ago remained in the Lamorel family estate.
I was filled with fear upon realizing that the Lamorel family were actually thieves! And my beloved Mathilde had been using me all along! Just as I felt lost and helpless, Mathilde appeared by my side with the real painting of "Marguerite" and told me she was tired of the dull life in her family and was willing to follow me to the ends of the earth. Her eyes conveyed such sincerity that I couldn't help but believe her, and I was overjoyed to the point of almost dying. So we left the estate with the real "Marguerite" and quietly boarded a train to Marseille.
Mathilde not only took the real "Marguerite", but also stole a scroll of ancestral parchment from the Lamorel family, claiming it held a great secret that could be useful to us in the future. I knew that the Lamorels would soon come after us, and that we needed to escape Europe quickly. Mathilde was willing to elope with me to China, and we hid the real "Marguerite" in a large portfolio as we passed through customs and boarded a ship from Marseille, setting off on our journey to the East.