Chapter 276 Taiyin
Chapter 276 Taiyin
The pipe from the ground floor to the boiler room on the underground floor is not long, but it is very tortuous, with three right-angle turns in a distance of less than 5 meters.
Fortunately, Auror's body was flexible enough, and Ning Zhe was able to successfully get down to the end of the pipe, and then he climbed out of the pipe, covered in dust, holding the corpse oil lamp.
Click, light the lighter.
Bright tongues of fire danced in the darkness. Ning Zhe looked up and saw the pipe opening where he had just slid down. There were as many as eight such pipe openings, evenly distributed on the arched walls and ceiling.
The coal cinders under his feet felt crispy and the smell of burnt charcoal lingered in his nostrils. He was now in the center of the huge furnace in the boiler room, and a few unburned black coal blocks could be seen in the corner of the wall.
Ning Zhe walked to the stove with a lighter in hand, pried the door open with his sword, and walked out.
Just after I walked out of the furnace and took two steps forward, a line of words carved on the floor suddenly caught my eye:
[They said it was a dead end, why are you still going forward? 】
Ning Zhe was stunned for a moment and looked back at the stove behind him. The stone slab with words engraved on it was located right in front of the stove door, about three steps away. It could be seen just when he walked out of the stove, and it was almost impossible to miss it.
Is this message written for all the players who go down to the underground area, or... specially for me?
After thinking for a moment, Ning Zhe squatted down and carved a line of words on the floor with his sword:
【Who are you. 】
After carving the words, Ning Zhe lit the corpse oil lamp and began to observe the situation in the boiler room.
Under the light, there was a layer of water in the boiler room that was above the calves. The turbid water was full of mud and sand, and water droplets kept dripping from the ceiling above. A few coal shovels and rattan baskets were floating on the water, but there were not many coal blocks piled in the room.
——In order to eliminate the potential fire hazard, the warehouse where coal is stored is separated from the boiler room, and servants are required to transport it back and forth using wheelbarrows.
The boiler room had two doors, both of which had been washed open by the flood. Ning Zhe came to the first door with the corpse oil lamp. Before he went out, he saw a line of words engraved on the door frame:
[Don't go any deeper, there are ghosts under the castle. ]
When I walked to the second door, I saw the same words engraved on the door frame:
[Don't go any deeper, there are ghosts under the castle. ]
"You are really trying to persuade me..." Ning Zhe looked at the Chinese characters carved on the wall and felt a little confused. Who carved these words here and for what purpose?
After thinking for a while, Ning Zhe did not leave the boiler room rashly. He returned to the stove with the corpse oil lamp. On the floor with two lines of words engraved on it, a third line of words appeared without him noticing:
[At the Royal Military Academy in Danzig, there was a pair of cousins who cheated in the initiation ceremony of the Holy Order. Who were they?]
The moment he saw this sentence, Ning Zhe's pupils suddenly contracted: "How... is it possible?"
Royal Military Academy of Danzig, Corpus Christi Brotherhood, initiation ceremony, cheating, cousins... Ning Zhe instantly thought of that incident when he linked several key words together.
Van Dyke and his cousin, Edie Dyke, both attended the Royal Military Academy in Danzig and joined the student organization called the Corpus Christi Brothers. Van Dyke shined during the initiation ceremony, ignoring his own wounds and forcibly cutting off the steel sword in the hands of his opponent, thus becoming a recognized man of the brotherhood.
His opponent at that time was his cousin Edie Dyke. The two had colluded with each other in advance. Edie deliberately used a tampered sword to fight against his cousin, artificially creating the heroic feat of cutting off the opponent's sword.
This matter was a secret between the two brothers, and only Van Dyke and Edie Dyke themselves knew the inside story.
After Van Dyke died in Yundu, two more people in the world knew about it. They were Ning Zhe, who stole Van Dyke's identity, and Lan Shiwen, who was listening nearby at the time.
"Among the four people in the world who know about this, Van Dyke is dead, Edie Dyke is in the Yundu Consulate, and I am sleeping on the Dyke family's airship. The only one left is..."
Ning Zhe thought for a moment and carved two words on the floor:
【Xiaolan?】
After carving these two words, Ning Zhe squatted there motionless, holding the corpse oil lamp, staring at the floor in front of him without blinking.
After a while, a scratch made by a sharp tool slowly appeared below the two words "Xiao Lan". It seemed that someone was writing on the stone slab stroke by stroke:
[It is you after all. 】
【Why did you come to this damn place? 】
[Vanessa Castle is the prison where the Flim family imprisoned the "disqualified". If you stay here for too long, you will suffer. Find a way to leave quickly.]
It was actually Lan Shiwen... Looking at the sentences and familiar tone that appeared on the ground, Ning Zhe felt like he had seen a ghost.
After thinking for a while, Ning Zhe carved a question on the floor:
【I died here? 】
Lan Shiwen's reply soon appeared:
【right. 】
Ning Zhe was about to ask something else, but new strokes immediately appeared on the ground.
[Are you deliberately trying to torment me? With your ability, even if you accidentally entered this place, it shouldn't be difficult to escape, right?] [You have some ability to avoid death, and you have money to buy your life, why did you die in this place for no apparent reason? Is there something here that you have to go to?]
[If you love to die, then die by yourself, don’t drag me into this. ]
Looking at the words that kept appearing on the ground and the cursing tone, Ning Zhe was stunned for a moment, and then he quickly understood what Lan Shiwen meant.
The previous guess was correct. He was indeed trapped here and died, and Lan Shiwen was also unlucky with him.
——After the previous trip to Yundu, Lan Shiwen's identity was also recorded by Taiyi. Although it was not his complete understanding of himself, it was enough to drag this unfortunate child over to die with him.
However, under normal circumstances, Ning Zhe would not choose to let Lan Shiwen die for him, because once Lan Shiwen died, the rule of death return would be triggered, and Ning Zhe's own memory would be forcibly reset.
"In other words, I encountered some kind of danger underground in the castle, forcing me to drag Lan Shiwen over to die with me?"
After thinking for a while, Ning Zhe picked up the sword and carved a line of words on a piece of floor next to him:
[How much do you know about Vanessa Castle? ]
[For some reason, I must know all the inside information of this castle, otherwise I will be trapped here forever. ]
Ningzhe is now enslaved by Jueyuan.
There was no way he could leave here until he 'solved the mystery of Vanessa's castle'.
After waiting for a while, Lan Shiwen's self-deprecating reply appeared on the floor:
【What the fuck is wrong with you...】
【It's my bad luck to have you. 】
[You know the 'disqualified', right? ]
Ning Zhe held the sword and carved the word "know" on the ground, and Lan Shiwen's reply began to appear before him stroke by stroke.
The so-called "disqualified ones" are the complete opposite of the "promoted ones".
Those who are promoted are those who master the rules.
Those who are disqualified are those who are controlled by the rules.
The core rules of each upgrader have their own unique fatal flaws. If the upgrader fails to master new weirdness in time to make up for this flaw, only death awaits him.
If Ning Zhe had not controlled Jueyuan and anchored himself in time, then this ascended being named Ning Zhe would have been lost in the vast waves of memories, losing all his personality and will, and degenerating into a disqualified evil ghost.
Ning Zhe in this state is called a 'disqualified person'.
Wutong who was attached to Ji Bochang's corpse, Jueyuan who thought he was Yu Ziqian after Yu Ziqian's death, Zhaoyou who was brainwashed by Jueyuan and thought he was Ningzhe... These terrifying beings who were corrupted from the extraordinary Ascenders are collectively called "Disqualifieds".
[Vanessa Castle is the prison where the Flim family imprisoned the disqualified.]
[This prison is built from the core rules of two ghosts. ]
[The two ghosts are Taiyin and Xizhao.]
[The rule of the Moon is 'stillness'. The closer you are to it, the slower the speed of an object will move.]
[The 'movement' here refers to all movements, whether it is the movement of macroscopic objects, the activity of microscopic particles, or even the rotation speed of electrons rotating around the nucleus. All material movements will slow down synchronously.]
[The Moon itself is absolutely still. With the Moon as the center, the farther out you go, the closer the speed of matter moves to normal speed. It appears to the outside that time in this area has slowed down. But the Moon itself does not affect time. It only affects the speed of matter, which indirectly creates the illusion that time has slowed down.]
[The Flimmisret family has stored a large amount of 'Yin' in this castle, which has affected the speed of material movement in the castle. You can regard these 'Yin' as the empowering props of the Taiyin ghost, but the whereabouts of the Taiyin itself is still unknown. ]
Ning Zhe looked at the long words that appeared on the ground and fell into deep thought.
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I originally wanted to add a few more chapters to solve the puzzles, but some readers have already started saying they are bored, so I just turned to the back of the summer homework to look at the reference answers.
The Vanessa Castle instance is about to end.
(End of this chapter)