Though they were supposed to start work the day after tomorrow, Shen Le threw himself into the job that very evening, beginning to study the materials he had brought back from the [Dark Ancient Residence].
As soon as he began, he immediately noticed something wrong:
"Professor, look at this main beam. There are some strange marks on it!"
"There really are." Professor Han adjusted her glasses and squinted hard, trying to make her presbyopic eyes see more clearly. "These marks... Shen Le, what do you think they look like?"
"Hard to say..."
Shen Le first examined them closely, then traced them along the screen with his hand. Finally, he simply printed out the photo and used a pen to outline them bit by bit.
On the enormous beam, dark and dull as iron, thin marks wound their way downward. At first glance, they looked like flowing water, but on closer inspection, they resembled branding iron marks, deeply seared into the wood.
Where the marks extended to the bottom of the beam, they even gathered into a slightly larger circle, corroding a small depression into the wood.
Shen Le propped up the photo and traced the vertical marks on the beam with his hand. A moment later, something stirred in his mind. "It looks like water flowing down... No, not water. It looks like... blood?!"
He suddenly turned and stared at his mentor. Professor Han's expression was grave as she stared at the computer screen before her. After a long while, she sighed. "It looks like blood to me too. Blood and water have different viscosities, so they leave different traces when flowing across wood. And..."
She enlarged the image, then enlarged it again, and again. Raising her pen, she tapped several spots along the outer edge of the blood trail.