Chapter 11 Wu Xie’s Story (Part 3)

It wasn’t easy for him to find one person missing from the photos, because most of them were taken during the bonfire party, and there were many people in the chaos. Wu Xie was able to find it because among the stack of photos he was shown before, Lan Ting took a large number of photos with another woman, but in this stack, there were none.

“Why’s the illustrator missing,” he asked, “What’s her name?”

“Daodao.”

“Yes, why did she disappear? Did she quit halfway?” He looked at Lan Ting and asked. He had a bad feeling that something had happened to her during their trip, but Lan Ting was smiling so brightly in the photos. If she still smiled like that when something happened to her best friend, then he would have to reconsider her personality.

Lan Ting bit her lower lip, but said: “She didn’t leave, she was in our team.”

He looked at the photo and made an incomprehensible gesture.

Lan Ting said: “Or, to be more precise, she’s in these photos—”

He continued to look at her: “She’s not here.”

“She is, she’s in most of the photos. She’s someone who likes having her photo taken very much. When I took these photos, I focused on her several times.”

Wu Xie suddenly understood what she was trying to say, but he couldn’t believe it. He looked at her and waited for her to continue.

She continued: “But after I developed these photos, I found that she didn’t appear in any of them. Even those I’m absolutely sure were taken of her didn’t show her.”

He took a deep breath and looked at the photos, not wondering if it was possible, but wondering whether she had been playing with him from the start.

It was often said that authors who wrote mystery novels would write themselves crazy. Had Lan Ting’s rush to write her manuscript caused her to completely collapse, and now she couldn’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality?

But he couldn’t see any confusion when he looked into her eyes.

“Could it be that you made a mistake and your friend deliberately avoided the camera? I’ve read a novel before, in which a man’s friend disappeared. When he looked for a picture of that friend for a missing person’s advert, he found that the man had never left a positive image. In all the pictures, the friend had deliberately avoided the camera, or only showed his side profile.” Wu Xie said, trying to convince himself that it was true and avoiding the urge to leave. “In the end, they found out that the friend was actually an agent and had been trained to avoid cameras.”

“I wrote that novel.” Lan Ting looked at him. “It’s only a novel, and it’s not just a side profile here. It’s actually quite difficult to completely avoid all the shots.”

“But…”

Lan Ting suddenly made a gesture: “Lao Guan, I know you don’t believe me. I didn’t tell you all this to make you believe me, either. I just want to ask you, in photography, under what circumstances will this phenomenon occur?”

Wu Xie wanted to say ‘”when you’re dreaming”, but he refrained and thought for a moment, before saying to himself, Forget it, I’ll accompany you to the end. He asked Lan Ting seriously, “Is your friend herself normal? Can you see her?”

“Of course.” She nodded, “Or I would’ve gone crazy first.”

“What about the other people who were with you at that time, did you ask them? Did you all see Daodao at that time?”

Lan Ting said calmly, “I asked, but their memory of that night is very vague. No one can be sure that she was with us, which I also found surprising.”

Wu Xie thought for a moment and said, “In theory, camera photography and people’s eye perception are similar principles. Therefore, what human eyes can see should also be captured by cameras. The image of a person is produced because the light shines on that person and then is reflected into the photosensitive device. To make a person invisible in the photo, their reflection must be prevented from being exposed in the photo.”

Lan Ting’s eyes lit up: “Is that possible?”

Wu Xie shook his head slightly: “Some special lenses can do it, for example, the perspective camera that’s caused a lot of noise for some time. But the kind of lens used in these photos is unlikely to achieve the effect of penetrating the human body, because it has to penetrate the layer of pure cotton fabric of the clothes you’re wearing, plus the very complicated human body with its bones, skin, fat and muscle. If you can penetrate the human body, then the background, books, chairs, sand, and so on behind you can also be penetrated, and then nothing would be photographed. Besides, there’s no difference in the camera lens. If your friend didn’t show up, then others wouldn’t either.” He said decisively, “So, the phenomenon you mentioned is physically impossible.”

Her eyes suddenly darkened and she sighed, but she didn’t show too much disappointment.

Wu Xie continued: “These photos look normal and there’s no problem. I don’t think they could have been tampered with. If you insist on saying that there was someone there, then it must have been in spirit, which is even more incredible. Besides, you also said that none of the other people present at the scene were sure that she was there, so it’s possible that you made a mistake.”

She tucked her hair behind her ear and took a sip of her tea. “There’s really no possibility of achieving this effect, even if it’s very complicated?”

Wu Xie shook his head: “You must have made a mistake.”

She smiled wryly: “I also hope so, but it was something I personally experienced. I still believe in what I’ve experienced even if you say I made a mistake.”

Wu Xie suddenly felt like he was being teased, and was even a little angry. He looked at Lan Ting’s serious face and thought about how to get rid of this matter.

Lan Ting continued, “Teacher Guan, don’t worry about it. Just think of it as a joke. But I hope you can do me another favor, can you help me contact your friends? I want to go to Badan Jilin again.”

Wu Xie frowned: “Go again?”

“It takes too long to wait for another group of tourists. You just said that you had a very good relationship there. I think you’ll be able to introduce me to some reliable people who would be willing to take me there. I want to go back to Gutong Jing so that I can say that I’ve tried everything. It doesn’t make sense why something happened to Daodao, but nothing happened to me. There’s only one thing I can think of that she did but I didn’t. There was a stone mountain in Gutong Jing that was so steep, we dared not climb it as a group. We only talked about climbing it, but she actually did it. That’s why I think it was probably related to the stone mountain. This time, I’ll climb it to see if there’s anything on it that would cause this kind of problem.”

Wu Xie felt she was being very unreasonable, actually asking for help for such a puzzling thing. He hesitated for a moment and summoned up his courage. “Miss Lan, I think you’d better see a psychologist. Long-term writing can lead to poor judgment. I’ve experienced this process and think you’re a little obsessed.”

He thought Lan Ting would be angry, but she just sighed, as if she had suddenly lost interest in talking with him, and looked a little pale. Wu Xie watched her pick up the photos and then say in a very low voice, “Thank you, Teacher Guan. I’m sorry for keeping you.” With that, she was about to get up and leave.

Wu Xie felt a little uneasy and asked, “Do you need me to take you back?”

Lan Ting shook her head as if her mind was no longer with him. Wu Xie thought for a moment and then asked, “By the way, why don’t you just ask her what she saw. Why do you need to enter the desert again?”

Lan Ting walked out of the tea shop without looking back, and said, “It’s impossible.”

<Chapter 10> <Table of Contents><Chapter 12>

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TN Note: So with Wu Xie telling his story, this was the only place that I could italicize thoughts. If there are any more in the next few chapters (might do more today, might not. Depends on how I feel lol) I’ll italicize them and you all can tell me if you want me to keep doing it or go back to quotation marks. Though it seemed like most were in favor of italics lol. Also been wondering where Wu Xie had the time to become a photography expert. Or maybe he’s just spinning a tale for Li Cu’s sake?