Chapter 2276: Late Autumn in Golden City (Forty)

A long black dress fell on the slightly damp floor. When Talia landed, she looked towards the most dense green, but she did not see Pamela.

"What's going on? Didn't we agree to meet in the garden?" She muttered a little puzzledly, and walked out of the garden.

But at this moment, her nose moved slightly, and the breeze from the south corner of the garden brought a subtle smell of blood.

Talia's first reaction was that someone might be preparing food in the kitchen. Although she was a battle-hardened female killer, her sense of smell was not sensitive enough to distinguish between human blood and pig blood.

Unlike many people imagine, even this kind of upper-class banquet is not completely fragrant. The back kitchen will also have the smell of various ingredients. The smell of blood and sewage is usually the heaviest. Women who are menstruating will also have the smell of blood. It is not a very uncommon smell.

But Talia turned around and saw that the manor building was in the north, and the south was the back door of the manor. There was nothing except the big garden. Obviously, it was impossible for someone to handle fresh ingredients there.

After standing there for dozens of seconds without seeing Pamela, Talia knew that she must have been tripped up by something else, but what was worse might be that the bloody smell came from her.

Although this possibility was not high according to Talia's understanding of Pamela, she still decided to go and see, after all, Pamela's help was indispensable to complete their plan.

Talia walked forward along the direction of the wind, bypassed the tool room next to the east wall of the big tree in the center of the garden, and came to the southwest corner of the garden.

This place seemed a bit desolate, obviously it had not been developed yet. The brick-built road seemed to want to enclose some more fertile soil. Talia looked at the shape of the ridges and thought that Schiller might be planning to grow vegetables here.

Continue walking forward, cross this small vegetable garden and come to the back door of the garden, but the back door is locked at this time. Behind it is an old manor area with lights dimmed, and only the fire of the Gotham River can be seen on the distant horizon.

The smell of blood here was getting stronger and stronger, but it was still vague. Talia walked around here for a long time and finally speculated that the smell of blood might come from underground based on her rich experience.

In fact, there was no other possible answer. There were only low bushes and ridges around here, and there was no place to hide things. The only possibility was the cellar.

Talia knew that such a large manor could not have no cellar. The cellar was usually under the garden. Because the construction technology was not mature enough when the manor was built, wooden and stone buildings were different from reinforced concrete buildings. The supporting force of the foundation was not so strong. It was easy to cause the ground to collapse when building a cellar under the main building, so it was a common choice to put it under the garden.

Talia began to look for the entrance to the cellar nearby. Finally, she found a dilapidated and rusty iron door in the middle of a square bush that looked like a decoration at the intersection of two paths.

This camouflage made good use of the optical illusion, making people think that the square bush was closed, but in fact there was a small gap close to the wall, which could not be seen unless you turned completely to the back.

Since there is a wall behind the door, most people would think there is no need to turn around. The mud there is particularly loose. Even Talia, who was looking for it with a purpose, hesitated for a few seconds because she was worried about dirtying her shoes.

Fortunately, she was very cautious and finally chose to go and found the entrance to the cellar.

As soon as she entered the center of the bushes, the smell of blood became stronger. Talia carefully put on gloves, took off her high heels, stood barefoot on the edge of the cement platform, and squatted down to check the rust on the door.

If no one has opened the door for a long time, rust will accumulate on the hinge of the door, but if it has not been used for a while and was suddenly opened recently, there will be traces of friction on the rust. By the depth of the traces and the degree of the reappearance of rust, it can be roughly judged how long ago the door was opened and how many times it has been opened recently.

Talia observed and found that the last time the door was opened should be today, but it had not been used for a long time before, so this should not be the storage room for banquet ingredients, because if it was, the door should have been opened frequently in the past week to prepare banquet dishes.

Talia looked at the lock on the cellar door again, and she found that the door was locked from the inside, which means that there must be another entrance to the cellar, which is likely to lead to the interior of the manor.

Talia thought about it, and she took out a small lighting device from her bag, but she didn't dare to shine it directly into the crack of the cellar. She just walked in the direction of the manor building and imitated the lights of the manor and shone it from a distance.

Very good, it is the simplest and most practical bolt, which means that Talia has a way to hook it from the outside.

Talia is familiar with this job. Her earrings are in the shape of peacock feather eye spots, with a circle of metal filaments on the outside and a golden sequin inside. After the sequins are removed, the remaining metal filaments become a wire ring.

Then she took out a fishing line from her bag, tied it to the wire ring, and put it in through the gap of the cellar door. After trying a few more times, she could use the wire ring to cover the iron rod of the bolt.

After confirming that it was in, she used the friction between the uneven wire and the iron rod to slowly pull the iron rod out. Talia adjusted it several times and found the fastest and most silent angle.

But then she took out the wire ring again and changed the direction to cover the handle of the bolt, because the bolt is equivalent to a lever. When it is inserted, both ends are equally heavy, but once it is about to come out, the handle must be heavier.

If you just cover the front half of the bolt and open it, when the bolt falls off, the handle will definitely fall down with the entire iron rod. Although it will not fall, it will hit the iron ring that fixes the handle and make a sound.

If Talia changes the direction at this time and slowly pulls the handle side, the handle can always be kept from hitting the iron ring that fixes it, and there will always be no sound.

Talia adjusted for a while, and after hearing a slight click, she finally opened the door without any danger.

She took back her tools, turned around and hid her high heels under the grass nest, and held the door of the cellar door with her fingers, and slowly lifted the door at a very slow speed.

To prevent the door from being blown down by the wind, Talia's hand never left the door, but her body twisted flexibly, and after turning around, one foot stepped on the ladder.

After the first foot landed, she decisively turned to face the inside of the cellar to prevent leaving danger behind her, and then she held the cellar door in one hand and walked down slowly.

It was pitch black in the cellar, and Talia didn't dare to turn on the light. Her feet felt some damp water vapor, and the smell of blood became stronger and stronger.

Going further, Talia found that this didn't look like a cellar, but like a specially opened underground fortress. The corridor was not narrow, but as wide and magnificent as an underground ruin.

Talia carefully looked at the floor tiles and walls here, and then determined that this was neither the cellar of an ordinary manor nor a building built by Schiller later.

Then there was only one possibility left, that the original owner of the manor built this place.

Talia didn't know much about the predecessor of Rodriguez Manor, but she knew that, judging from the geographical conditions of the East Coast of the United States and the overall strength of the United States, the owners of the manor should not need to dig complex tunnel mazes like the castle owners in Europe to station troops or escape.

So why build such an underground fortress is worth thinking about.

Going further in, Talia heard heavy breathing, she thought, this should be the source of the bloody smell.

Sure enough, a little light revealed at the corner at the end of the dark corridor illuminated the scene in the room. A figure was lying on the ground, pressing his abdomen, breathing long, and his chest rising and falling very slowly.

Before Talia walked over completely, she felt a bone-chilling chill. With the help of that light, she saw that the walls of the cell where this person was imprisoned were covered with fine ice.

The glowing blue blood flowed into the corridor, which made Talia hesitate. If the other party was not human, she was not 100% sure that he would not attack and hurt people.

In the end, Talia chose to approach.

There was no other reason. If Schiller chose to capture rather than completely destroy a certain alien race, it proved that this non-human existence must have its value. Talia always liked valuable things.

If the other party lost consciousness, she would take some blood and then leave. This blood obviously had a strong ice power and might be the raw material of something. If the other party was still alive and could communicate, she might be able to figure out why Schiller locked him up here.

Talia quietly approached along the other side of the corridor and walked lightly to the opposite side of the cell. Under the dim light, she saw that this was a handsome young man.

He had a handsome face that was slightly feminine and melancholy. The blue skin color at this time did not affect his facial features. Under the dim light, it became a hazy oil painting.

For a moment, Talia was mesmerized by the picture, because when this creature with blue skin and cold air fell in the dark cage, it looked like a captured beast or a piece of broken ice.

At this moment, Talia's heart beat violently, and she suddenly realized that she seemed to have no right to say that Pamela's habit was strange.

Humans always have their own strange habits. If you think you don't have them, then it must be that the time has not come yet. Talia now deeply understands this.

If she had to summarize it, she thought she liked things that were like people but not people. For many people, this was an extremely terrifying existence, but for Talia, she liked their fragile, crazy, and uncontrolled moments.

She walked to the other side of the cage by some strange force.

The moment the green eyes looked at her, Talia's words in her heart were settled.

It was him.

But at this moment, the strange creature suddenly showed human panic on his face, and he opened his dry lips and mouthed to Talia.

"Run!"

The bright light flashed by, and the shadow at the corner only appeared for a few tenths of a second. When Talia realized it, the extreme danger was hidden in the darkness, and then quickly emerged from the darkness.

Bang!