Solving the case: Combining the police dog's olfactory genes at the beginning

The building is clearly not newly constructed; it's at least fifty or sixty years old. In Japan, you can count on one hand the number of buildings that have preserved Tang Dynasty architectural style so well.

He spoke much faster when he said this, the kind of speed you'd expect after having a lot to say and finally finding an opportunity to show off.

Luo Fei glanced at him and noticed that the young man's eyes lit up when he talked about the bracket sets. The light was completely different from when he was trembling with fear in the city earlier; it was a heartfelt love for cultural relics.

"You studied artifact restoration?"

Luo Fei asked a question.

"Correct!"

Wen Junjie nodded vigorously, pointed to his nose and said, "I'm an exchange student from the Department of Archaeology, Kyoto University, majoring in cultural relic restoration, sent here by the Great Xia government."

Don't let my current disheveled appearance fool you; I got in through proper exams, with a TOEFL score of 105, a perfect score on the Sakura Japanese Language Proficiency Test N1, and ranking in the top ten of my major.

Originally, I could have gotten my degree in another year and gone back to work at the museum in Daxia, but now, with this volcanic eruption, I don't even know if I'll get the degree anymore.

His voice trailed off at the end, his earlier excitement largely dampened by the blow of reality. But he quickly looked up again, his eyes brightening once more, and pointed to the museum's closed doors, saying to Luo Fei, "Brother, shall we go in and take a look?"

Luo Fei glanced at him, then at the museum's main entrance.

The main gate consisted of two double solid wood doors painted in a dark brown lacquer. Several rows of brass nails were inlaid on the door panels. Above the door frame was a plaque with several gilded Japanese characters. The characters looked similar to the Chinese characters he knew, but he couldn't understand their specific meaning.

"You want to go in and take a look?"

Luo Fei asked.

"miss you!"

Wen Junjie's answer was resolute: "Brother, think about it. These private museums that are not open to the public contain artifacts that are 100% from the Great Xia Dynasty that flowed to Japan. If we go in, we might see some national treasures."

Besides, weren't you looking for that Kamikaze Bureau? This place doesn't look like an ordinary museum at all; maybe what you're looking for is inside.

His words coincided perfectly with Luo Fei's own plans.

Luo Fei had originally planned to go in and take a look. On the one hand, he wanted to confirm whether the entrance to the Divine Wind Bureau was hidden inside this museum. On the other hand, if there were really artifacts from the Great Xia Dynasty inside, he wouldn't mind taking a few with him.

He's become quite proficient at using the spatial ability he possesses since he used it once with Sato. Putting things away only requires a thought. He hasn't yet figured out the upper limit of its size and capacity, but it's definitely more than enough to hold a few artifacts.

"Walk."

Luo Fei only said this one word, and then walked towards the museum's entrance.

The museum doors were unlocked. Luo Fei pushed them open, and the two solid wood doors silently swung inwards.

The door hinges had clearly been recently oiled, turning without any resistance or noise, which was completely different from the abandoned building he had imagined—although the museum looked deserted from the outside, its internal maintenance had never stopped.

The two entered the museum and were greeted by a high-ceilinged hall. The hall floor was paved with bluish-gray flagstones, the seams of which were carefully filled with black sealant, making it smooth and solid to walk on.

In the center of the hall stood a huge screen, on which was painted a landscape painting. The brushstrokes were vigorous and powerful. On the painting, the top of a snow-capped mountain was emitting wisps of white smoke, and at the foot of the mountain was a pine forest covered with white snow.

Wen Junjie stopped in his tracks as soon as he saw the screen. He took off his glasses, wiped them on his clothes, and put them back on. He stared at them for a long time before letting out a gasp of amazement.

"My God—this is a genuine work by Sesshū Tōyō!"

Wen Junjie's voice changed tone. He pointed to a vermilion seal in the lower right corner of the screen and said to Luo Fei, "Brother, look at this seal. It's Sesshū's seal. It was painted by the top master of landscape painting in the Sakura Country during the Muromachi period."

If this screen were put up for auction, the starting price would be in the hundreds of millions, in US dollars.

Luo Fei had no particular interest in landscape paintings, but Wen Junjie's reaction confirmed one thing for him—the museum was indeed filled with genuine artifacts, and their value was exceptionally high. He shifted his gaze from the screen and scanned the layout of the hall.

Two corridors on each side of the hall lead into the depths of the museum. Wooden directional signs are hung on the walls of the corridors, with Japanese characters written on them, and the locations of the corresponding exhibition halls are marked with arrows on the signs.

What are these exhibition halls for?

Luo Fei pointed to the sign and asked Wen Junjie.

Wen Junjie walked over and looked at all the signs, then turned back to translate for Luo Fei: "The left corridor leads to the bronze ware exhibition hall and the ceramics exhibition hall, the right corridor leads to the calligraphy and painting exhibition hall and the lacquerware exhibition hall, and the straight one in the middle leads to the comprehensive exhibition hall, which contains the museum's most prized artifacts."

"Go to the main exhibition hall."

Luo Fei said.

Wen Junjie, of course, had no objections.

He followed Luo Fei along the central corridor, looking around as he went. He couldn't help but take a few more glances at the decorative paintings and porcelain pieces hanging on the walls on both sides of the corridor, muttering to himself, "This is priceless" and "That is a unique piece."

At the end of the corridor was a double glass door, the glass frosted, through which the light emanating from the display cases inside could be faintly seen. Luo Fei pushed the door open and walked in, but the scene before him made him involuntarily stop in his tracks.

The exhibition hall is one-third larger than the main hall. The arched dome ceiling is at least six meters above the ground, and the ceiling is covered with a dense array of spotlights, each of which precisely illuminates a glass display case below.

The display cases are arranged at certain intervals in the exhibition hall. The base of each display case is made of dark walnut wood, and the glass cover is made of high-transparency tempered glass with a thickness of at least eight millimeters.

The temperature and humidity inside the display cases are clearly precisely controlled, as each case has a small electronic display screen at the bottom that shows real-time readings of temperature, humidity, and light intensity.

The museum was completely empty.

As Luo Fei and Wen Junjie walked among the display cases, all they could hear was the echo of their own footsteps on the stone slabs.

The lights in the exhibition hall were on as usual, and the electronic displays were functioning normally, but the security guards who should have been sitting in the corner watching the monitors, and the staff in uniforms patrolling around with walkie-talkies, were all nowhere to be seen. "Everyone's run away."

Wen Junjie said quietly, then pointed to a surveillance camera above the entrance that was still flashing a red dot, "The surveillance is still on, but no one is watching it. It must be because after the eruption of Mount Fuji, the people here received the evacuation notice and all ran away."

These Japanese devils always talk a good game, about putting tourists first and providing the best service, but the volcano hasn't even reached their doorstep yet, and they're already neglecting the cultural relics.

Luo Fei didn't respond to that. He walked from one glass display case to another, his gaze sweeping over the carefully arranged artifacts.

He hadn't seen many cultural relics, and his knowledge in this area was almost zero, but even so, he could still tell the significance of the exhibits in front of him.

One of the display cases contains a uniquely shaped bronze vessel, which is shaped like a you (a type of ancient Chinese vessel). The vessel is covered with intricate patterns, and each end of the handle is decorated with a beast head, with a movable bronze ring in its mouth.

The surface of the bronze artifact is covered with a layer of dark green patina, but under the light of the spotlight, the patina makes the patterns appear more three-dimensional and vivid.

When Wen Junjie saw the bronze artifact, he froze on the spot as if he had been electrocuted.

He leaned close to the glass display case, his nose almost touching it, staring intently at the bronze artifact inside for a good half minute before uttering its name in a low, trembling voice.

"A vessel inscribed with the image of a tiger devouring a man."

He repeated it again, this time in a much louder voice, filled with undisguised shock and excitement: "Brother, this is a tiger devouring a man bronze vessel! It's a bronze artifact from the late Shang Dynasty, and only one such vessel has been unearthed in the entire world. The decorations cast on it depict a tiger eating a man."

This artifact is mentioned in every edition of Daxia's archaeology textbooks, but all the accompanying illustrations are photocopies, because the original was bought by a Japanese person during the Republic of China era and its whereabouts have been unknown ever since. To this day, no Daxia scholar has ever seen the original—and it's now in this dilapidated museum!

Luo Fei glanced at the bronze artifact, then made a move that caught Wen Junjie completely off guard. He clenched his right fist and slammed it down on the tempered glass display case.

A muffled thud.

The eight-millimeter-thick tempered glass shattered into countless tiny fragments under Luo Fei's fist, scattering them all over the ground with a clatter.

The glass shattered completely; the cuts weren't clean, but the glass didn't shatter too far either. Clearly, tempered glass breaks differently than ordinary glass. Luo Fei reached into the display case and took out the Tiger-Eating-Man Vessel.

The bronze artifact was heavier than he had expected, and it felt cool to the touch, with a fine granular texture on the surface of the patina.

Wen Junjie was startled and instinctively took a half step back before realizing what Luo Fei was doing. He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could speak, he saw the tiger-devouring wine vessel in Luo Fei's hand vanish into thin air.

Yes, it simply vanished into thin air. No sound, no light, no smoke or special effects. Just moments ago, Luo Fei was holding that heavy bronze artifact, and in the blink of an eye, it was gone—nothing at all.

The bronze artifacts disappeared as if they had been erased from the canvas of reality with an eraser, leaving not a trace.

Wen Junjie's mouth gaped open even wider than when he saw Luo Fei break the iron lock. His eyes widened behind his glasses, and his lips moved several times without uttering a complete sentence. Finally, he managed to squeeze out a few words from his throat: "Where's the stuff?"

"It's a secret of the National Security Bureau," Luo Fei said calmly, without even turning his head. "Don't ask."

Wen Junjie stood there for several seconds, his mouth agape, like a fish that had been pulled ashore, before finally swallowing back the thousand questions that were about to burst from his throat.

In front of an agent who claimed to be from the National Security Bureau, it didn't seem like a big deal that the agent possessed some advanced technology that ordinary people couldn't understand.

Luo Fei continued walking forward. Having gained experience from the first display case, he became much more adept at handling the subsequent ones.

Wen Junjie was in charge of identifying the artifacts. Whenever Wen Junjie said, "This is from the Great Xia Dynasty," Luo Fei would smash the glass with a punch, retrieve the artifact, and store it in his spatial storage. The two worked together at an increasingly faster pace and with greater efficiency.

The second display case contained a calligraphy work. The paper was yellowed and brittle, with obvious signs of insect damage along the edges, but the ink was still clear. The characters on the paper were written in a flowing, graceful style, with the strokes turning freely and possessing an indescribable elegance and freedom.

Wen Junjie leaned closer to take a look, and his eyes instantly reddened.

"Wang Xizhi's Mourning and Chaos Scroll".

Wen Junjie's voice was already a little choked up, "This is an authentic work by Wang Xizhi, the Sage of Calligraphy. It was introduced to Japan during the Tang Dynasty, more than a thousand years ago."

The calligraphy community in the Great Xia Dynasty dreams of bringing this piece back to see it, even if it's just for a loan exhibition, but the Japanese have never agreed.

Look at the brushstrokes here. The destruction of the ancestral tombs is depicted with profound sorrow, a grief so intense it's almost unbearable. Wang Xizhi was writing about the grief of losing his ancestral graves; every stroke of the brush is alive, imbued with emotion.

Luo Fei smashed the glass with a punch and carefully took out the Mourning Scroll. The paper felt light and weightless in his hand, but he could feel its fragility, as if it would break at the slightest pressure.

He was much more careful when he put the Mourning Calligraphy into his spatial storage than when he put the bronze artifacts in earlier.

The third display case contains a portrait of a monk sitting on a meditation chair with his hands folded on his knees and a kind and peaceful expression.

The portrait's lines were simple yet powerful, the ink tones perfectly balanced, and the folds of the monk's robe were depicted with just a few strokes, yet appeared remarkably lifelike. Wen Junjie recognized the portrait.

"The portrait of Master Wuzhun is from the Southern Song Dynasty. This painting is a national treasure of Japan, but it was actually painted by a painter from the Southern Song Dynasty of the Great Xia Dynasty, depicting the patriarch of the Great Xia Zen sect. The people of Japan regard this painting as a national treasure, but the patriarch they worship is a person from the Great Xia."

Luo Fei smashed the glass with a punch and put away the portrait.

The items in the fourth display case brought tears to Wen Junjie's eyes.

It was a scripture, written on yellowed hemp paper, with the edges of the paper bound with blue silk. The scroll was made of sandalwood, and the ends of the scroll were inlaid with two small pieces of silver that had oxidized and turned black.

The scroll was densely covered with scriptures written in neat regular script, with each stroke meticulously executed.

"The Sutra of the Bodhisattva's Womb"

Wen Junjie wiped the fog off his glasses with his sleeve, his voice already hoarse, "This is the oldest existing handwritten Buddhist scripture on paper in the world, dating back to the sixteenth year of the Datong era of the Western Wei Dynasty, more than 1,400 years ago." (End of Chapter)