radicalducati Chapter 113 Resolution—The Destruction of the Famous Painting
Chapter 113 Resolution—The Destruction of the Famous Painting
White exhibition lights shone through the gaps in the paintings, bathing the artist, detective, and police under the brilliant starlight. Despite the dazzling white light, they could not look away for a long time.
“Like a miracle,” Sera murmured.
"This is a work I've been conceiving for half my life. If there really is a god who governs art, I would really like to have it come here and give its evaluation."
Mr. Yati was not modest either; his gaze seemed to pierce through the zenith, looking towards the distant universe.
I wonder if I'll be able to create something even more amazing in the rest of my life?
Finally, it was Detective Hugo's words that brought everyone back to reality—
"The idea for this Zenith Pavilion is great, but aren't you worried that the aftershocks of gym battles might damage the exhibit?"
"It's alright," Yati shrugged, looking unconcerned.
"There is a gap between the battleground and the exhibition area, so they generally won't affect each other. Also, I'll leave a weaker team to guard the gym, so the battle should be almost over before the challengers get serious and start breaking down the walls."
Hugo looked at the dojo leader, who was not doing his job properly, with pity: "Then you'll have to prepare a few dozen more of the dojo's specialty beetle badges in the future."
It is foreseeable that from now on, the claim that "Bug type is the weakest Pokémon type" will become even more true.
“I also have an artistic suggestion.” The detective pointed to the orange-yellow walls around them. “It would be best to change the form of the maze. It just doesn’t feel quite right with the color scheme of the exhibition hall above.”
"Wow!" Gym Leader Arti's eyes lit up. "As expected of a detective who saw through the truth of the matter, you certainly have an eye for talent! I was just planning to renovate the Flying Cloud Gym and build an elevator-shaped teleportation maze based on the cocoon-like structure of the workshop in the battle arena. The complexity of this maze is astounding..."
"Wait a moment!"
Officer Sera jumped between the two men who were enjoying a conversation over drinks, interrupting their impending art discussion.
"Hugo, tell me in detail what you've discovered about the incident! What exactly is Mr. Artie's purpose in sabotaging his own debut work?"
The detective and the artist exchanged a glance; the latter shook his head. Hugo, therefore, had to step aside and explain the artist's "criminal motive" on his behalf.
“Unlike yarn or synthetic fibers, the threads spit out by Bug-type Pokémon are so fine that they are almost invisible to the naked eye. At this scale, transparency and color are almost indistinguishable. Especially when Mr. Artie was drawing me, the audience’s attention was almost entirely focused on the gradually taking shape of the picture, and even those with keen observation would not notice the colored threads that were being drawn into the sky.”
—That's how the detective began his story.
“I know that the curator of the Yati Pavilion used insect silk to create the mechanism, but even if the transparent insect silk has now turned into colored silk, it doesn’t change the fundamental nature of the case.” The policewoman spread her hands in confusion.
“No, the nature of the case has fundamentally changed,” Hugo said, shaking his head. “Those colored threads are what Artie truly wanted to achieve. The curator’s real crime wasn’t vandalism, but theft!”
Steal? Steal a painting that rightfully belongs to you?
Sera scanned the detective and the artist back and forth, noticing not a hint of joking, and then confirmed that she hadn't been tricked.
“Remember the ‘regeneration’ I mentioned before? Mr. Yatti is planning to rebuild the dojo, integrating his past artworks into a huge ceiling painting. And how could this work be complete without his debut piece, the one that holds such great significance for Mr. Yatti?”
“Recycling…colored thread…the significance…could it be?” The policewoman adjusted her glasses, as if she had guessed the truth.
"Could it be that some of those threads actually came from old threads in the painting 'The Four Virtues'?"
“Exactly.” The detective snapped his fingers at just the right moment—
"The truth of the case is that Mr. Artie was responsible for diverting the audience's attention, while the nanny worm, who acted as his attendant and provided the silk threads, was the most important executor of the operation. One end of the silk thread was connected to the end of the 'Four Virtues,' and the other end was pulled by the nanny worm. If the plan went smoothly, by the time Mr. Artie finished his sketching and returned home, the four exquisite paintings would have been unknowingly placed into the nanny worm's leaf where the silk threads were stored."
“Yes.” Mr. Yati, the party involved in the case, nodded in agreement.
"The initial plan was this: to let the artwork return to the silk threads, and then transform it into a better piece with the same theme. That's the performance art I'm preparing. Just like how insect Pokémon evolves from a cocoon into a butterfly, the original organs completely disappear and dissolve in the cocoon, and then become a newer, more beautiful, and more imaginative work—that's my regenerative art!"
"But if that's the case, then there are even more things that don't make sense."
Even though the parties involved had agreed, Sera still didn't blindly follow the detective's reasoning; she continued to focus on the logical contradictions in the case.
"Since the nanny worm is manipulating the threads, what was Mr. Artie doing gesturing with his brush while painting? Also, why did 'The Four Virtues' end up like that? If the theft were carried out according to this plan, the scene should have been empty."
“Alas.” Mr. Atti let out a long sigh, pressing his index finger to his temple in regret.
“We had rehearsed countless times, but this time an accident still happened. It was probably because the threads from ten years ago had aged, and the threads controlled by the babysitter broke in mid-air. I tried to wave my paintbrush to catch the threads in mid-air, but I missed completely... That's why we only managed to dismantle the painting, but we couldn't retrieve it, which resulted in that terrible situation…”
Sera was dumbfounded. She had guessed that there might be countless conspiracies and tricks behind this sabotage, but she never thought that the reason would be such a ridiculous accident!
The mess in the art museum was not the result of a supervillain's malicious desecration, but rather an artist's failed attempt.
"No. Even so, why didn't Mr. Atti simply retrieve the painting from the museum, instead of resorting to this method?"
The policewoman remembered another important point of doubt and asked Hugo and Ady.
"Didn't I already tell you the reason?" This time, the detective lazily revealed the answer, "It's because this gym is going to be renovated."
"What do you mean? What does this have to do with Feiyun Dojo?"
Hugo raised an arm, his index finger pointing directly at the magnificent art ceiling, and asked Sera, "Miss Sera, do you think that after such an unparalleled art museum appears in Flying Cloud City, anyone will still go out of their way to visit that art museum that has lost its crown jewel?"
Perhaps some people will still go, but running the business will definitely become more difficult.
Having witnessed the vastness of the ocean, why would viewers linger over the trickling stream?
Sera thought about it, but still didn't understand Aya's actions: "Does stealing the paintings really get tourists to visit the art museum?"
"Whether it's a museum or a work of art, part of the value of these tangible objects lies in the stories behind them. Imagine if the plan succeeds, what headlines you'll see tomorrow—Mr. Art's masterpiece has vanished silently from the museum, while countless observers watched from inside and outside the doors, and even the artist himself was sketching on the opposite street, yet no one witnessed the master thief's presence—what exciting story could compare to such sensational news?"
Hugo said with a relaxed expression, "In this way, the museum that lost the work and the dojo that was reborn can be connected through this case—after Mr. Artie's new dojo opens, when people see the magnificent ceiling inside, they will definitely be more curious about Artie's missing debut work, and then they will have the idea of visiting the Feiyun City Museum of Art. Some of the Feiyun Dojo's popularity can be shared with the museum."
"This is Mr. Yati's way of repaying the museum for exhibiting his work day after day for ten years—it's quite humane, isn't it, Mr. Yati, the greatest insect artist?" The detective looked at Yati with a teasing expression.
The latter sighed regretfully, "It's a pity that we didn't succeed in the end, and it even brought a bad influence to the art museum. Sigh, we succeeded when we tested with the babysitter bug using older and more worn-out silk threads, but I don't know why we failed today."
Detective Hugo turned his face away from the wall, pretending not to hear.