Chapter 786 Historical Memory
The atmosphere of this town was already so eerie and eerie that it made people shudder. Hesiana's words made everyone tremble. Nangong Sanba immediately raised his small hand crossbow and took aim at the stairs: "Are you sure? Why don’t I feel anything?”
Without saying a word, Vivian threw out a small bat to check what was going on on the second floor. The bat fluttered around in a circle. Vivian shook her head: "There is no one up there, not even a ghost."
"Tsk, tsk, I'm a little scared now." Hao Ren rubbed his arms and muttered. He has experienced many things that are a hundred times more dangerous than here, but sometimes danger and scary are not the same thing - this town The atmosphere and weirdness all gave people a creepy feeling. When they first came in, they were not too impressed, but as they stayed here longer and longer, Hao Ren also felt more and more uneasy. Everything here exudes an inexplicable and weird atmosphere, including not only the flames floating out of thin air in the fire pit, but also something invisible and intangible in the air.
Maybe it's the presence of spirits everywhere that gives people goosebumps.
"Check this house first." More bats slowly appeared around Vivian, and she began to direct these sentries to check every corner of the mansion. "There is a high possibility that the wizard has hidden here."
"Then I'll turn into human form first. The corridor in this old house is too narrow and the tail can't turn around." Nangong Wuyue waved to Hao Ren, "Give me some clothes."
The team dispersed to check the condition of the abandoned house. Hao Ren and Vivian went to the second floor of the house to check.
The interior of this mansion is very complicated. Although it is not very grand when looking from the outside, the interior still has the complicated structure that the nobles of that era liked. The entire house consists of a longhouse and two independent small buildings on both sides. Most of the building materials are thick wooden boards. The first floor of the longhouse is a hall and several compartments for servants and animals to rest, while the second floor of the longhouse is There are straight corridors and many rooms, which should be where the lord and his family live. There are lights everywhere in the entire mansion, and there are oil lamps hanging every few meters on the dark wall panels. The oil lamps are all in the same dry condition, and the lights are floating in thin air a few meters above the lamps without fuel. Millimeters have one thing in common: no temperature.
Hao Ren and Vivian slowly explored the second floor. The wooden floor creaked under their feet, as if it was overwhelmed and ready to collapse at any time. Hao Ren noticed that there were thick carpets at the door of some rooms in the corridor. Those carpets were stained with a layer of gray-black like the surrounding things, but their original gorgeous patterns could still be vaguely seen in these dark colors.
Vivian bent over and checked the patterns on the carpet, showing a nostalgic look: "It looks like high-end goods from Italy. Nobles... Even nobles in such a remote town have to use this kind of product." A level of luxury, such a blanket should be enough for a family of five in the town to spend for half a year."
"There is also dust everywhere here," Hao Ren touched the dust while pushing open another door next to him. "This is inside the house, but the dust accumulation is just as serious as outside. It looks like the dust is very unusual. …I’m afraid it’s also an unnatural product.”
Behind the door is a room that is not too big, and the decoration is not gorgeous. It does not look like a place where a lord or noble relative lives. Vivian looked at the furnishings in the room and made an inference based on her knowledge of that era: "It should be a place where housekeepers, advisors or similar high-level servants live. This kind of high-level servants are in charge of all the affairs of the noble family, and They follow the family they are loyal to and serve as servants from generation to generation, so they are qualified to live so close to their masters. However, they do not have noble titles, so they are not allowed to use some status-limiting decorations."
Hao Ren nodded slightly and muttered as he walked into the room: "You seem to be quite adaptable to the atmosphere - I feel like my back is getting hairy."
"I don't feel anything," Vivian laughed, "I used to live in tombs a lot back then. As a vampire, it's normal to deal with these things."
The house was also covered with soot. An oak bed was placed in the southeast corner of the house. The once high-end bedding on the bed was full of rotten holes. There is a desk with drawers next to the bed. Old and broken writing tools and some scraps of paper can also be seen on the desk. There was a small stove on the other side of the room. An unnatural flame without any temperature was burning quietly in the stove. There was an old rocking chair in front of the stove, with a few rags hanging down from the rocking chair.
Looking at this scene, Hao Ren seemed to have a scene from the past in this house in his mind: a warm little flame was burning quietly in the furnace, illuminating the small room, and an old housekeeper was completing the work assigned by the owner. Afterwards, he returned to the house and sat in his favorite rocking chair covered with a blanket to rest. The firelight shone on his face, casting shadows on the wrinkled face of the old butler. Then the butler suddenly remembered something, stood up and went to the writing table, wrote something on a piece of parchment, and he put the parchment in the second drawer under the table...
Hao Ren suddenly shook his head and regained his clarity. He felt his heart beat a few beats faster, and the hallucinations he didn't know were imaginary or appeared before his eyes still hadn't completely subsided. He stared at the old rocking chair in the center of the room. At that moment, he seemed to really see an old housekeeper with wrinkles sitting on it. Even what happened next was as clear as if he had seen it with his own eyes. In my own mind. For a moment, the boundary between reality and fiction seemed to be shaken. Hao Ren felt that his consciousness was pulled away from the abandoned house in the current time and space, and fell into a certain memory hundreds of years ago. Vivian immediately noticed something was wrong with him: "Hao Ren, what's wrong?"
"I seem to see something, but it's different from the way Lily saw it," Hao Ren said as he subconsciously came to the desk beside the bed. There was a knife hanging on the second drawer under the desk. The rusty hook, "I seem to have seen a whole memory..."
As he spoke, he casually crushed the hook on the drawer. After opening the drawer, he saw a lot of parchment scattered inside.
There are still some severely weathered fragments around the parchment. It should be that ordinary paper has failed to resist the erosion of time and turned into debris, but the parchment is basically still well preserved. He carefully took out the already fragile pieces of paper and put them on the table, and took out the data terminal: "Scan it, increase the contrast, and see what is written on it."
The terminal made a sound and floated over the table to scan. A blue light shot from the lower part to the paper, and the holographic projection above it displayed the parsed text. Some of the handwriting has completely disappeared and cannot be restored by technical means, but other handwriting can still be seen, which looks like a diary:
"... Heimerwin's paranoia and irritability are getting worse. He believes deeply in the superstitious statements circulated among civilians and even actively spreads them... I watched him grow up, but I began to not understand him. Since then, After Karina got sick, he was like... Maybe the 'scholar' was suspicious, but Heimerwin trusted him beyond measure, and the scholar touched the cross with his hand... I'd better write this down, but Who are you writing it to? I hope these things don’t have to be circulated in the future..."
After deciphering the contents on this piece of paper, Hao Ren placed other parchments in front of the terminal and asked the latter to arrange the order of all the texts. He found that what was recorded on these papers was more important than imagined: it seemed possible Unlock the secrets of this town.
"...Who is that scholar? His origins cannot be traced, but he has solid evidence that he is not evil. He touched the cross and cleaned his teeth with cleansing salt. He also did not Afraid of the spices I added to the fireplace—perhaps he had noticed my few attempts at testing and was willing to display these qualities...but the doubts still lingered. The rumors in the town did not abate at all, and became more and more intense. , the witch who was expelled a few days ago was found dead near the river beach this morning. She seemed to want to steal a piece of clothing, but she still couldn't wait until the sun rose. Didn't her magic work?
"...The witch's body was burned. There were unmistakable signs of black magic. I should probably repent. I had even doubted whether she was an innocent girl before - but when the firelight rose, I only felt extremely scared. , the witch's body trembled violently the moment it was lit, and then huge smoke arose from the flames. It was a terrible sight. The ashes splashed out from the smoke almost covered the entire square... The collected ashes were more than three times the size of the square. The weight of a grown man was even greater. Some said it was the weight of the child that the witch had eaten before. The ashes were purified by holy water and scattered into the bottom of the pit covered with lime...
"... After the witch incident, my suspicion of the scholar has not diminished, because the disease has not ended as he said. No matter whether the witch is expelled or the body of the witch is burned, the children in the town are still getting sick, and the adults are also starting to Get weak...
"...One night, I saw the scholar staying at the place where the witch's body was burned. There was no one there, but his mouth was moving, as if he had been talking to someone. I didn't dare to get too close, but it was vaguely I heard him mention 'the other side of the door' and a man named 'The Blood King'... There is no doubt that he and the witch are related."