The Mystery of the Inner Demon

Chapter 313 Black Swan and Blue Velvet

Compared to Xu Ziheng, this person had a neat short haircut and looked much more "normal".

"Ge Ming?"

"That's me." Ge Ming got off the stool, his face full of doubt. "I don't know you. What do you want with me?"

"I am Qi Fei from the Criminal Investigation Division of Nancheng Police Station. I would like to ask you about the situation regarding Wu Xingzhou's death."

After Qi Fei finished speaking, he observed Ge Ming's expression. Unlike Xu Ziheng's surprised and shocked reaction, Ge Ming seemed to have been prepared. While wiping the paint off his hands, he said, "Xu Ziheng reported me, didn't he? I knew he couldn't be trusted."

"It seems that what he said is true."

"Hmph, so what? I may hate Wu Xingzhou, but his death has nothing to do with me. You police officers should be based on evidence, right?" Ge Ming retorted to Qi Fei, then tossed the rag used for wiping paint aside and said.

Where were you the night Wu Xingzhou died?

"I'm here alone, working on my graduation project."

"Is there anyone who can vouch for this?"

"I'm all alone. I don't know if anyone has seen me passing by. It's hard to say."

“That means no one can prove it,” Qi Fei said. “Besides, weren’t you all working on your art in that rented room in Sanwu Town? Why did you go back to the school’s art studio?”

Ge Ming glanced at him and sighed impatiently: "I didn't want to talk about this. Actually, since the Youth Oil Painting Competition, I've decided not to work with Wu Xingzhou anymore. That guy is too insidious."

"Insidious?" Qi Fei was somewhat surprised. Ge Ming's evaluation of Wu Xingzhou was completely different from the previous two groups. Wu Xingzhou's family thought he was rebellious, Xu Ziheng thought he was righteous, but Ge Ming said he was insidious.

“He plagiarized my work, but I can’t provide sufficient evidence. I think his purpose in renting houses for everyone in Sanwu Town was to steal our creations.” Ge Ming was a little agitated, and his speech became faster involuntarily.

"Oh? So you're not falsely accusing him of plagiarism?" Qi Fei said.

"Heh, who has the time to falsely accuse him?" Ge Ming said dismissively, pulling a painting from a corner of the studio. The painting depicted a black swan swimming amidst dazzling light and shadow, but instead of water, it was swimming on a blue velvet cloth. The details were exquisitely rendered; the swan's feathers and the texture of the velvet were lifelike, demonstrating the artist's superb skill. Qi Fei looked at the painting with appreciation, his tone softening slightly as he asked Ge Ming, "Did you paint this?"

"Otherwise what?" Ge Ming seemed to get angry just looking at the painting. "You can go and see Wu Xingzhou's award-winning work, and you'll understand why I said that. You can find it online!"

Out of curiosity, Qi Fei opened his phone and searched for the gold medal-winning works of the Youth Oil Painting Competition. After clicking on them, he was surprised to find that, just as Ge Ming had said, although the composition and details were different, it was immediately obvious that the main characters of the paintings were black swans and blue velvet. It was indeed very strange that the two of them had chosen this uncommon combination.

"Since the similarities are so obvious, why was your report against Wu Xingzhou unsuccessful?" Qi Fei asked, his questions tinged with suspicion.

Ge Ming said with a wry smile, "Because when he submitted that oil painting to the competition, my painting was not yet finished. It's all my fault for being too meticulous and falling behind in the progress."

"Uh, does that mean he plagiarized you?" Qi Fei blurted out.

These words indeed provoked Ge Ming, who slammed his fist on the table and shouted, "If I plagiarized that guy, may I die a horrible death! In fact, everyone has seen who it is who will die a horrible death!"

"Weren't you two creating art in the same room? Didn't you have any idea he was painting this?"

“Because since the end of last year, he would often disappear for a period of time without any reason. We didn’t know where he went. When we asked him, he wouldn’t say. He was very mysterious. Now that I think about it, it was a conspiracy. He was completing that painting behind my back!” Ge Ming became angrier and angrier as he spoke, and he was already gritting his teeth.

Qi Fei hadn't expected that Ge Ming could provide a reasonable explanation for every question he raised, and that this emotional outburst didn't seem like an act. This made Qi Fei question his opinion of Ge Ming. Could he be right? Had Wu Xingzhou really plagiarized his work?
“At the end of last year…” Qi Fei murmured, recalling that Wu Xingzhou’s sudden interest in Shiva was also at the end of last year in Xu Ziheng’s memory. It seemed that something special had happened to Wu Xingzhou during that time. He then asked Ge Ming, “Can you think of any special events that might be related to Wu Xingzhou’s frequent disappearances?”

Ge Ming frowned and said, "To be honest, at the time I just thought he had a falling out with his family and wanted to be alone. I felt quite sorry for him. It was only after the competition results came out that I suspected that his disappearance was related to plagiarizing my painting. If you ask when he started acting strangely, well..." He thought seriously for a moment, "Perhaps... it was the night I got the inspiration."

"Getting inspiration? That's so mysterious! Tell me more?" Qi Fei couldn't help but be curious.

"It's not that mysterious..." Ge Ming's face turned red for some reason as he said this. "That time, a few of us good friends had just finished a pretty good exhibition, so we went to a bar to celebrate. I remember we played Werewolf that day and had a lot of fun. Actually, if it weren't for the plagiarism issue, Wu Xingzhou and I would be the closest among us. The others used to joke that we were as close as twins. That day, we kept playing that joke, calling me Wu Xingzhou and him Ge Ming, and we were having a blast."

After that day, there was a short holiday. We all left school and didn't come back for a week. When we returned, he was acting strangely. He started avoiding us, as if he was hiding something.

Qi Fei noticed the problem: "I don't understand how you can get inspiration from going to a bar. I won't comment on art matters, but logically it doesn't make sense. Even if you had the idea to create this work that day, it was still in your mind and hadn't been drawn yet. No matter how good your relationship with Wu Xingzhou is, he can't read your mind. How could he immediately know that you were going to draw Black Swan and Blue Velvet?"

Ge Ming himself clearly hadn't figured this out, but he still stubbornly argued, "We were all drunk that day. Maybe I let something slip while I was drunk, and Wu Xingzhou overheard it! Creation is a very personal experience; otherwise, how would you explain him painting such similar pictures?!"