Chapter 267 Cold

Chapter 267 Cold

Chapter 267 Cold

Holding a lit corpse oil lamp, Bai Zhi walked through the side door of the first-floor hall with the help of the light. What caught her eyes was a long stretch of gray stone steps that seemed to have no end.

The long stone steps arc upward, forming a huge U-shaped bend, connecting from the ground to the second floor.

There is a clock tower on each side of the long curved staircase, contrasting with each other. Looking down from above, you can see two huge "U"-shaped corridors guarding the two sides of the main body of the clock tower, which together constitute the core main structure of the building. This structure is marked as "Grand Corridor" in the developer's drawings of Grand Duke Vanessa.

Bai Zhi had not seen the developer's drawings. She stood in front of the first step and looked back. The door she had just entered had returned to normal because of the loss of light and turned back into a wall.

If Ning Zhe were here, he would be able to see the principle at a glance - during the third major renovation of Vanessa Castle, the side door of the bell tower was permanently closed with stone bricks, and to enter the grand corridor one must pass through another archway on the outside of the bell tower.

The door that Baizhi illuminated with the oil lamp was a structure that only existed before the third major renovation and was unique to the old Vanessa Castle.

Unfortunately, she didn't know this now. Bai Zhi stood at the starting point of the large corridor, looking at the wall with worry, a little hesitant. Although she had just witnessed Ning Zhe's death under the siege of ghosts, Bai Zhi still had some unrealistic expectations in her heart, hoping to see Ning Zhe miraculously survive, come out from behind that door, and follow her as casually as before.

The next moment, her hopes came true, but not completely.

An ancient wooden door with a carving of a ram quietly appeared on the wall, but when the door opened, the person who walked out from behind the door was not Ning Zhe, but a shriveled, skinny, pale, hunched figure. His skinny appearance looked like a dehydrated corpse in a glass cabinet. A dim candle was held in a palm as thin as a bamboo joint, and it slowly floated towards the direction of the corridor.

Bai Zhi's face turned pale instantly. She quickly pulled down the cover to completely cover the oil lamp in her hand, climbed up the stairs holding the lamp without daring to look back, and hurried upstairs.

Perhaps it was the flickering lights that broke through the colorful windows on the wall, and the cold air outside rushed into the empty corridor. The cool wind blew across the girl's thin shoulders, making Bai Zhi shiver. She looked back at the candlelight roaming at the bottom of the stairs, wrapped her clothes tightly, and continued to climb to the second floor.

Perhaps at the same time, perhaps at different times, a pair of rough hands pushed open the back door of the bell tower, and two figures, one tall and one short, entered the building one after the other.

The visitors were none other than Geza, holding a cross iron spear, and his wife Auror.

As the central core building of Vanessa Castle, this clock tower covers a very large area. Its first floor is composed of a vaulted hall, kitchen, warehouse, and other parts. Each part has its own independent entrance and exit to prevent distinguished guests from mistakenly entering the kitchen or warehouse and running into servants at work, which is considered indecent.

Ning Zhe had previously entered the reception hall covered with red carpet through the hole in the wall with Bai Zhi, and now he and Geza were entering the kitchen at the back of the clock tower.

The lighting in the kitchen is not good, and the environment is gloomy and quiet. The nobles who built the castle neglected ventilation and lighting for safety reasons, resulting in the interior of the building not seeing sunlight all year round, moisture accumulating, and being cramped and dark. This is a common problem in ancient European castles.

Geza walked in front with a flashlight, and Ningzhe followed behind him. In the dim light, he could catch a glimpse of potatoes filled with green sprouts piled in the corner.

The piled up kitchen utensils and the dusty oven looked like they hadn't been used for a long time. If one could light a corpse oil lamp here, perhaps one could see something different, but neither Geza nor Auror had any lamps.

It seems that the only ones who start with a corpse oil lamp as a benefit for novices are Spencer, Cynthia, Kaqiuya and the group of college students who accidentally entered here.

"I've heard from my grandmother that in the peaceful days before the war, every autumn, the master of the Mislet family would invite celebrities from all walks of life to come to the forest under Mount Leucion to hunt. They would hunt the fattest deer and the wildest pheasants and bring them back to Vanessa Castle. The servants would cook a variety of fresh and expensive ingredients into a feast, open endless wine, and have a party all night long in the banquet hall on the second floor of the castle..."

Geza walked ahead with a flashlight, passing through the silent kitchen, and said, "After the prey is transported back to Vanessa Castle, the chef of the Misret family will cook it into dishes here and then send it to the second floor."

The magnificent corridor is used to show the grandeur of the castle and the wealth of the Mislet family. Only guests from upper society and noble lords can walk up the graceful curved steps to the banquet hall on the second floor. The lowly servants are not qualified to walk that way. They can only serve the dishes quietly from out of sight to avoid polluting the eyes of the masters.

In other words, in addition to the large corridor, there must be another employee passage in the kitchen that leads to the second floor. Ning Zhe followed Gaiza silently without saying a word, and walked with him through the dark and cramped kitchen.

In the couple's memory, the large corridor connecting the first and second floors of the clock tower seemed to be a very dangerous place. Several players they knew disappeared after walking up the large corridor and never came down again.

Some people have tried to go up and look for him, but they all ended up with the same result.

"We can go through the staff passage in the back kitchen and bypass the large corridor to go directly to the second floor. There is nothing wrong with this idea, but..." Ning Zhe thought for a while and asked, "Has no one else thought of this way before us?"

"...Maybe?" Geza shook his head. "I'm not sure. It seems that everyone else took the large corridor."

To put it bluntly, he himself was not sure whether the path he had chosen was the right one.

But Ningzhe knew that Geza's path was probably right, because he later died in the library on the third floor.

The two of them wandered around the kitchen for a few rounds and found the 'staff passage' leading to the second floor.

Unlike the secret passage imagined, this employee passage is a vertical shaft with a round hanging basket with a diameter of about 2-3 meters suspended by an iron chain. At the end of the iron chain is wrapped a round shaft device shaped like a rudder, which is connected to a hand-cranked lever.

Rotate the circular shaft and tighten the chain, and the hanging basket will be pulled upwards through the pulley set at the top. Rotate in the opposite direction to loosen the chain and lower the hanging basket.

This is a device for transporting food, not an elevator for people to sit in.

"The masters in Europe are even more detached from the masses than I thought. Even the food served from the kitchen can only be pulled up in a hanging basket and they are not allowed to set foot in the banquet hall." Ning Zhe looked at the vertical shaft in front of him and suddenly laughed.

Geza handed the cross iron spear to Ning Zhe and said, "My dear, this device needs someone to turn the lever below to operate, but you probably can't pull me up, so I think I should let you go up from here first, and I will find another way."

"Okay." Ning Zhe took the cross iron spear and sat on the hanging basket that transported the dishes without any hesitation.

"Then, we'll meet upstairs." Geza walked to the circular shaft device and pushed the lever. "May God bless us."

"May God bless us." Ning Zhe smiled brightly.

Seeing his wife's smile, Geza felt full of strength all over his body. He pushed the pull rod wrapped with the iron chain with all his strength. The round axis slowly turned, and the basket began to rise, carrying Ning Zhe who was sitting in the basket and moving upward along the vertical shaft.

Clack… Clack…

The rusty iron chains and gears rubbed against each other. Ning Zhe sat in the hanging basket holding his weapon, watching the gray-white stone bricks on the wall of the shaft continuously falling down. His shoulders suddenly trembled for no reason.

"Hiss...it's a bit cold." Ning Zhe curled up his body, looking thoughtful.

(End of this chapter)