Chapter 268: Fire in the Banquet Hall

Chapter 268: Fire in the Banquet Hall

Chapter 268: Fire in the Banquet Hall

The time in the dream was chaotic. Ning Zhe didn't know what season it was in Vanessa Castle at the moment, but when Spencer, Cynthia and others accidentally entered the castle, it was the transition between autumn and winter.

These missing college students were all wearing down jackets, and the skin that Ning Zhe had used to cover the corpse oil lamp was made of the hoods of the down jackets.

Auror is now wearing a bright red cashmere coat with a sweater inside. Under the sweater is a close-fitting thermal underwear, which can be said to be quite thick, so she will not catch a cold even if it snows a little.

But Ning Zhe now felt cold.

Ning Zhe reached out and touched his chest. There was a dark red stain on his off-white sweater. It was the wound caused by Auror when she committed suicide in the lecture room. The blood on it had dried, but the heart pierced by the spear in his chest was beating strangely, boom, boom, boom.

Seeing this scene, Ning Zhe couldn't help but think of Bai Zhi who had been poisoned by mercury at the gas station. Her situation at that time was very similar to Auror's current situation.

Clack… Clack…

The pulley set turned slowly, pulling the basket under Ning Zhe to continue rising. Wrapping his coat tightly around him, he lowered his eyes to look at the clear texture of the stone bricks on the wall and exhaled lightly.

There is no wind in the vertical shaft, and there is little air circulation in the small enclosed space. Logically, it should be less likely to feel cold, but at this moment, Ning Zhe is sitting in the rising hanging basket, and his perceived temperature is lower than that of the open air outdoors. As the altitude increases, the temperature is gradually getting lower.

"What...is going on?" Ning Zhe felt a little confused. Some details that he had not paid much attention to before seemed to have new meanings when he recalled them now.

Click.

The machine stopped working.

Ning Zhe looked up and saw that the basket had not yet reached its highest point. The iron chain pulling the mechanism seemed to be stuck by something and stopped in the middle of the shaft and no longer rose.

Was the mechanism broken? Or was there something wrong with Gaiza, the guy downstairs who was driving the mechanism?

Ning Zhe knocked on the iron chain several times, but got no response, but he didn't dare to shout here. He tied the cross iron spear to his waist with a rope, and stood up unsteadily in the hanging basket, clamped the iron chain with his legs, and began to climb up with his hands and feet.

Auror had good physical strength and was a housewife who could lift a lawn mower with one hand. Ning Zhe climbed up the chain and barely reached the end of the shaft before he ran out of strength.

Outside the shaft was a small round room with a curtain. When you pushed aside the curtain and walked out, you would reach the banquet hall on the second floor. Two rows of quiet candles were swaying on both sides of the long wooden table. Figures of people were looming in the firelight, including men, women, young and old, of different heights and weights.

Ning Zhe took off the iron spear and held it in his hand. He looked up at the wooden door at the end of the long table that was slightly open. He took a deep breath, lifted the curtain and walked out of the small room where meals were served.

The candlelight in the banquet hall was dim. Ning Zhe half-crouched and hid in the shadow of the corner. Following the gaps where people were walking, he lifted the tablecloth and quickly got under the long table.

"Ok?"

A light exclamation came from a narrow gap that did not belong to this world. A slender transparent shadow suddenly stopped, turned its head mechanically, and stared motionlessly at the place where Ning Zhe had just passed by, as if it had noticed something unusual. The other figures nearby also gathered around at the same time.

"Calm down...Calm down." Ning Zhe tightly grasped the iron spear in his hand, knelt on one knee, and stared through the gap in the tablecloth at the red carpet on the ground and the pairs of feet stepping on the red carpet.

The time that passed by minute by minute was like solidified ice. A drop of cold sweat slid down Ning Zhe's temple. After a long period of stagnation, the feet on the red carpet finally moved, took a step and disappeared from Ning Zhe's sight.

"Hu——" Ning Zhe let out a sigh of relief and crawled forward carefully.

The wooden dining table is long and wide, with lights shining on both sides of the table. From time to time, the sound of conversations and clinking glasses can be heard from the gaps in the tablecloth. The footsteps coming and going are light and gentle, as if this feast has been going on from more than a hundred years ago until now.

Ning Zhe carefully bent his body and moved his steps, slowly crawling to the end of the long table under the cover of the tablecloth. The main entrance of the banquet hall was just behind a curtain.

Lying on the ground with his face pressed against the carpet, Ning Zhe looked out from the gap between the tablecloth and the ground. There was a distance of about 3 meters from the dining table to the door. There was no obstruction in this open distance. There were two one-meter-high brass candlesticks on both sides of the door. Once the tablecloth was lifted, he would be directly exposed to the lights surrounding the ghosts.

Ning Zhe looked at the tablecloth in front of him, then at the iron spear in his hand, and a dangerous idea came to his mind.

"Maybe I can try to put out the candlesticks on the table first, and then take the opportunity to draw the attention of the ghosts in the banquet hall to pull off the tablecloth and put it on myself, and then rush out the door directly."

This is undoubtedly a very dangerous approach, but with ghosts surrounding him, Ning Zhe couldn't think of a more comprehensive solution in a short period of time. He lacked the means to deal with the weirdness now. Except for the rules of Taiyi and Jueyuan, he was basically no different from ordinary people.

"Okay, 3, 2, 1..."

Counting down in his mind to zero, Ning Zhe held the cross iron spear and threw it with all his might through the gap in the tablecloth. The heavy sound of metal clashing was heard in the quiet banquet hall, followed by a dull thud, and a brass candlestick on the side of the long table fell onto the carpet.

The empty and quiet hall suddenly became extremely noisy, with screams, laughter, shouts, and curses... The sound of hurried footsteps and broken glasses rang out one after another, and the sharp and dull noises mixed together, like a pot of boiling water. Ning Zhe hunched his body and walked quickly back to the end of the long table, quickly reaching for the tablecloth, ready to take advantage of the chaos to escape the banquet hall.

But suddenly, a snow-white, slender hand reached in from outside through the gap in the tablecloth.

Ning Zhe's body froze in place.

Pulling aside the tablecloth, a head with loose golden hair sneaked under the table, followed by the girl's thin and delicate body. One wanted to get out, and the other just got in. The two looked at each other under the table.

The footsteps in the banquet hall became more and more hurried. Ning Zhe blinked at the blonde girl in front of him and whispered, "Did Spencer protect you well?"

Bai Zhi was slightly startled. The next moment, the blank expression on her pale face visibly brightened up: "Ning Zhe? Is it you? You're back?"

"Come with me." Ning Zhe grabbed Bai Zhi's slender wrist. A wave of heat came from behind, and the red carpet on the ground was lit by the candlesticks.

Bright yellow flames jumped on the carpet and ignited the dining table along the hanging tablecloth. The fire climbed up to the ceiling along the lavender curtains and burned through the arch beams of the roof. The heavy chandelier fell straight down like a flaming meteor, smashing the dining table with a click, and the fire raged.

Perhaps it was the scorching flames that overshadowed the light of the candles, or perhaps it was the raging fire that left the ghosts in the hall with no time to spare. Ning Zhe pulled Bai Zhi and hurriedly ran through the burning fire, quickly crossing the last distance from the dining table to the main door, and rushed out of the banquet hall without looking back.

Bai Zhi took Ning Zhe's hand and looked back, and saw a translucent illusory human figure rushing out right behind them, but as the candlestick at the door was engulfed by the flames, the figure disappeared quietly again.

"Is that Spencer?" Ning Zhe asked in a low voice.

"Yeah." Bai Zhi nodded.

(End of this chapter)