The skinny guy's parents weren't home, which made it much easier for the two of us to talk.
I unfolded Ye Zhengyi's painting and told the skinny guy his story.
The key point, of course, was the original painting's breathtaking beauty, enough to captivate anyone who saw it.
The skinny guy's expression seemed a little off. He stared at the woman in the painting for a long while without saying anything. He looked like he was listening intently to my story, but I could tell his mind was elsewhere.
"This painting was altered later." I had no choice but to spoil the story in advance and tell the skinny guy about this crucial twist.
The skinny guy wasn't surprised. "It was?"
"Yeah. Do you remember Liu Che?" I asked.
The skinny guy looked at me, puzzled.
"The one who raised ghosts. The first person to do so. Mo Wen's master, and the founder of Master Xuanqing's lineage," I added.
The skinny guy suddenly understood.
"It was his reincarnation who did it. He killed Ye Zhengyi and forced Ye Zhengyi's ghost to alter the painting. The beauty in the painting doesn't have the same effect anymore."
"What about the other paintings?" The skinny guy held up the painting.
"There's only this one. It's also the most important one." I chose my words carefully. Instead of talking about the spiritual power of magic, I planned to guide the skinny guy into imagining the power this painting held.
"Were all the others burned? I think you mentioned... Greenleaf had looked into this guy, and some of his paintings were still around... Was it the water park? There was a painting of a river..." The skinny guy spoke as he thought it over.
I was startled, but his words immediately brought back a memory.