“Wrong answer?”
Looking at the somewhat stunned expressions on both their faces, I could not help but find it amusing.
Perhaps it was the rare sight of Evin looking so defeated, or maybe it was seeing this new side of Cecilia.
“I already told you it could not possibly be that simple. And isn’t it normal to get zero points if you do not pay attention to the question?”
“Then what exactly is the answer, An An?”
Evin pouted, looking thoroughly unconvinced.
Cecilia wore an even more curious expression.
I handed the book in my hands to them.
“First, since this book was placed in such an obvious spot, it has a major connection to these puzzles. Or rather, all these puzzles were designed around it.”
Cecilia reached out and took it. Evin leaned in close and read the title on the cover aloud, immediately guessing the key point.
“‘Paintings and Art of Sienato.’ So these puzzles are related to painting?”
I nodded. “What you two guessed earlier was actually quite close. But you still have to combine it with the question stem. ‘The radiant sun and firefly moon reflect each other’s glow, forming day and night.’
Think carefully—what painting terms do ‘radiant’ and ‘firefly,’ or ‘day’ and ‘night,’ resemble?”
While Evin was still thinking, Cecilia had already reached the answer. “Warm and cool colors?”
“Correct.” I clapped my hands.
Evin showed an expression of sudden understanding, then thought of something. “But An An, how do we determine the positions?”
“There are hints in this book.”
As soon as I finished speaking, seeing the two of them hurriedly flipping through the book to search seriously, I could not help twitching the corner of my mouth.
Actually, the pattern on the base of the stone pillar was also a hint. How long would it take you if you kept searching by flipping pages like this?
A circle surrounded by five outer rings, divided symmetrically into two parts by six line segments—one side blue, one side red, differing only in area.
The previously overlooked pattern now had a new interpretation. Under my guidance, the three of us removed all the books from the first-floor shelves and rearranged them onto the correct shelves according to the pattern’s hints.
Once every bookshelf was properly arranged, the pattern itself seemed to serve as a guide. The inner circle and five rings lit up with a faint glow, as if announcing that the first puzzle had been solved.
“Wow, An An is so amazing!” Evin clapped her hands in excitement.
“So this is An’s strength? It’s just using the quest hints.”
I coughed awkwardly and pushed away the little face that had gotten too close, using the quest as my excuse. “Alright, it’s time to move to the second floor now.”
With the first-floor puzzle solved, the barrier at the staircase entrance disappeared. We smoothly climbed the stairs to the second floor.
Compared to the first floor, there were far fewer bookshelves here—only three symmetrically arranged rows built into the walls and displaying outward. What they displayed were not books, but paintings.
These paintings were all different. Some showed indoor corridors, others open-air plazas. From small depictions of tea sets and fruit to large scenes of brightly lit cities at night, they varied widely, making their meaning hard to grasp.
Just looking at Evin and Cecilia’s blank expressions made it obvious.
Although there were far fewer shelves than on the first floor, the number of paintings was several times more than all the actual books on the first floor combined. It felt as painful as doing a Chinese reading comprehension exercise.
Still, the two little ones were not the type to give up easily. Cecilia roughly scanned the paintings and hesitated for a moment before guessing, “Since it’s related to painting, is it about color gradients this time?”
Before I could even speak, Evin objected. “No, no, Yaya. An An said we have to pay attention to the question stem. Your guess has nothing to do with the second part about ‘the God King stands alone.'”
I felt somewhat gratified. “Not bad, Evin. Then what’s your idea?”
“I don’t know.” Evin shook her head honestly.
“Then how do you have the face to criticize Cecilia!”
Cecilia also shot her a strange look that carried a hint of disdain.
Seeing that she had drawn all the aggro, Evin put on an innocent face and acted cute toward me. “But we still have An An~”
What she received in response was a smack to the face.
“Never mind, I’ll explain it to you.”
I sighed helplessly.
“This passage actually buries three allusions. In the mythological system of Sienato, the God King descended from a special planet called the Chalk Star. Because that planet occupied the most central position in the star map created by Sienato at the time, it symbolized the God King’s supreme status.”
Hence the phrase ‘the God King alone occupies the central court,’ simplified here to ‘the God King stands alone.’
“As for the ‘twin stars’ afterward, they refer to the Lyre Star and the Mast Star. They sound like two unrelated constellations, but Sienato astronomers back then accidentally discovered five third-magnitude stars aligned in a straight line between them, connecting the two. So they were called twin stars—though modern astronomy has since ruled out this view.”
“The final ‘the world shifts’ comes from a famous Sienato proverb, meaning things appear vastly different when viewed from different angles.”
“Occupying the center alone, arranged in straight lines on both sides, multiple angles. Combined with the key point about painting, you can probably reach the conclusion.” I finished the long explanation in one breath and looked at the two with expectant eyes.
Evin and Cecilia did not disappoint me—or rather, they had never disappointed me in the area of letting me down.
“Then?”
“Then?”
“…Perspective! It’s perspective!”
That is, the one-point perspective, two-point perspective, and multi-point perspective (also called scattered-point perspective) that most people know.
‘The God King stands alone’ refers to parallel perspective, with only one vanishing point usually concentrated in the very center. ‘Twin stars appear’ refers to angular perspective, with vanishing points arranged left and right in a line. Scattered-point perspective has the most varied viewpoints, perfectly matching ‘the world shifts.’
It just so happened that there were only three rows of bookshelves here, perfectly corresponding to the three different perspective methods. Therefore, the key to solving the second-floor puzzle was to group paintings drawn using the same perspective method onto the same bookshelf.
Carrying two elementary schoolers to an easy win sure is hard.
I sighed inwardly while sorting through the many paintings.
However, this was not the hardest part yet. What tired me out even more was that the moment we stepped onto the third floor, two pairs of eyes immediately turned toward me without the slightest hesitation—like students waiting first thing in the morning just to copy homework.
…At least try a little, you two.