Time Pattern Pawn Master

The scent of linseed oil was the first thing that hit her nose. Elena's back was pressed against a metal cabinet in the Louvre's basement vault, the coolness of her shirt piercing her spine. She could h ear her own pounding heartbeat and the subtle scraping of metal as the man three meters away pulled the trigger. "Hand over the painting," the man's voice sounded like sandpaper. "You know we only want 'The Angel of Music.'" Elena's fingertips touched the edge of the frame in her arms. The lost Leonardo da Vinci sketch radiated a faint warmth through the acid-proof paper. Three days ago, when she first discovered the nearly invisible Latin text on the edge of the painting under ultraviolet light, she knew she had touched a secret she shouldn't have. The moment the barrel of the gun pressed against the frame, she suddenly caught a whiff of something strange—gun smoke mixed with her special restoration agent, a unique blend of linseed oil and frankincense resin. This detail threw her for a second, for her restoration tools were still locked in a box in the studio. The man's cuffs swayed slightly as he moved. Under the cold glow of the emergency light, the bronze cufflinks, adorned with twin snakes, gleamed with an eerie luster. Something seemed to flow within the ruby of the left snake's eye. "You don't understand what you're looking for," Elena heard herself say. Her fingers quietly reached for the restoration knife in her holster, but then froze. The man's irises suddenly became remarkably clear in the dim light. The subtle lines formed a pattern she knew all too well: the eyes of the angel with severed wings, as depicted in "The Fallen Angel," a painting by an unknown 17th-century artist. The sound of the bullet piercing the canvas was unexpectedly dull. Elena felt a burning sensation spreading through her chest. She looked down and saw a dark red flower blooming on the acid-proof paper. The edges of "The Angel of Music" were soaked with blood, and the tiny cracks she had spent 72 hours repairing were turning red again. In the final seconds before she lost consciousness, she saw the man's cufflinks fall off and roll to her bloodied fingers. The ruby reflected not her face, but an ancient Venetian mirror. Then the world fell into darkness. —until she opened her eyes again. A sharp pain in her left ring finger jolted Elena awake. She was sitting at the restoration table in her Madrid studio, morning light filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows onto the scattered tools. A tungsten repair knife lay on the table, its blade stained with fresh blood—the jagged wound exactly as she remembered it. "This is impossible..." She raised her left hand tremblingly, checking the time on the dial: March 14, 2024, 9:23 AM. Exactly three months before the Louvre incident. The computer screen lit up, displaying a newly received fax. But Elena's gaze was drawn to the antique mirror on the workbench—her reflection was looking down at the fax, while in reality, she had clearly looked up. She grabbed her phone and activated the slow-motion recording function. When she waved her finger in front of the camera, the image in the mirror indeed performed the same movement with a delay of about 0.5 seconds. Strangely, this effect disappeared in the playback. The signature on the fax paper froze her blood: "J.C."—the same codename as a mysterious patron mentioned in Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks. The tea stains on the edge of the paper were merely smudges to the average eye, but in her suddenly perceptive right eye, those brown marks gradually formed a map of the Venetian canals. Elena's temples throbbed, and unfamiliar images flashed through her mind: —In a damp stone alleyway in Venice, her finger traced a cracked mirror, her reflection smiling at her. —In a dark room, a wall covered in clocks, all hands stopped at 2:07. —A pair of hands, adorned with ruby rings, were mixing a potion that smelled of bitter almonds. She shook her head to dispel the illusions, but then noticed a nearly transparent indentation at the bottom of the fax. When she tilted the paper toward the light, she could faintly make out the letters: "Tempus... Fugit..." Time flew by. By the time the old attic clock struck ten, Elena had already tested twenty-seven antiques. The 1793 French gold coin burned under her fingertips. As she focused, her right eye suddenly saw seven fine golden lines emerge on the coin's surface, as if inscribed by an invisible chisel. Next to the brightest indentation, a series of numbers appeared: 1912.4.14 23:40. As her finger touched the indentation, a distant whistle rang in her ears, mingled with the salty smell of the sea. In a trance, she saw a man in an old-fashioned captain's uniform thrusting a handful of gold coins into a sobbing little girl. "Damn it!" She jerked her hand away, the coins clattering to the carpet. Elena slumped into an armchair, her breath ragged. She looked at her right hand, where a faint golden glimmer still lingered on her fingertips. This ability—if it was even a power—was like... "Time marks," a voice whispered in her mind. "You can see the marks of time." The next morning, Elena observed an even more terrifying change in the bathroom mirror. Tiny golden cracks appeared in her right eye's iris, like molten gold seeping through broken glass. Worse still, when she went to buy breakfast, she could see two overlapping marks on the body of the bakery owner, Sofia—one reflecting the traces of ordinary life, the other emitting the same golden shimmer as an antique. "Is it the same as usual today, Ms. Santos?" Sofia asked with a smile, handing over the croissant with a hand adorned with a ruby ring. Inside the gemstone, a faint twin snakes could be seen. As Elena took the paper bag, she noticed the wall clock, perpetually stuck at 2:07. "Your clock..." she pointed. Sofia's smile faltered for a moment. "Oh, that one? It's been broken for a long time." But she didn't explain why it wasn't repaired or replaced. Back in the studio, Elena placed the fax paper under the ultraviolet light. New words gradually appeared on the back of the paper, which had been blank: "When the person in the mirror separates from reality, seek the truth in the land of the seventh twilight." Just as she tried to memorize these words, the repair knife suddenly slipped from her fingers. In the light of the desk lamp, the knife's shadow cast a clear Roman numeral on the wall: VII. Elena caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, an expression she could never have: that "Elena" was smiling, her lips clearly pressed together. Outside the window, the first rays of morning light pierced the Madrid sky. The bakery oven pinged, and the aroma of freshly baked croissants drifted into the studio. Elena's right hand unconsciously touched the scar on her left, where it stung. In the corner of the fax paper, a microscopic symbol glowed—the symbol representing "time loop" from Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks.