Chapter 267 Leng
Hold the lit corpse oil lamp and use the light to illuminate the side door of the hall on the first floor. What immediately caught Bai Zhi's eyes was the long stone steps that were full of gray and seemed to have no end.
The long stone steps arc upward, showing a huge U-shaped bend, connecting from the ground to the second floor.
There is a bell tower on the left and right sides of this long curved staircase, which contrasts with each other. If you look down from top to bottom, you will see two huge 'U'-shaped corridors guarding the bell tower. The two sides of the main body together form the core main structure of the building. This structure is marked as the 'Grand Corridor' in the developer's drawings of Grand Duke Vanessa.
Bai Zhi had not seen the developer drawings. She stood in front of the first step and looked back behind her. The door she had just entered had returned to normal due to the loss of light, and had returned to the appearance of a wall. .
If Ning Zhe were here, he would be able to see the principle at a glance - during the third overhaul of Vanessa Castle, the side door of the bell tower was permanently sealed with stone bricks. If you want to enter the grand cloister, you must Go through another arch on the outside of the bell tower.
The door that Bai Zhi illuminated with the oil lamp was a structure that only existed in the old Vanessa Castle before the third overhaul.
It's a pity that she doesn't know this now. Bai Zhi stood at the starting point of the large corridor and looked worriedly at the wall where she came from, with some hesitation. Although she had just witnessed Ning Zhe die under the siege of the ghosts, Bai Zhi still had some unrealistic expectations in her heart, hoping to see Ning Zhe miraculously survive and come out from behind the door. Follow him as lightly as before.
The next moment, her expectation came true, but not completely.
A simple wooden door with a carved ram quietly appeared on the wall, but when the wooden door opened, it was not Ning Zhe who walked out from behind the door, but a shriveled, skinny, rickety figure with pale skin and bones. The head looked like a dehydrated mummy in a glass cabinet. A dim candle was held in a hand as skinny as a bamboo, slowly drifting toward the grand corridor.
Bai Zhi's face suddenly turned pale, and she quickly pulled down her skin to completely cover the oil lamp in her hand. She climbed the steps without daring to turn back even with the lamp head in hand, and hurriedly ran upstairs.
Perhaps the swaying light broke through the colored windows on the wall, and the cold air outside rushed into the empty corridor. The cool breeze blew over the girl's thin shoulders, making Bai Zhi shiver from the cold. She looked back at the candlelight roaming below the steps, wrapped herself in her clothes, and continued to climb up to the second floor.
Perhaps at the same time, or perhaps not at the same time, a pair of rough palms 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, who was holding a cross iron spear, and his wife Aurore.
As the central core building of Vanessa Castle, this bell tower covers a very wide area. Its first floor is composed of a vaulted hall, a kitchen, a warehouse, and other parts. Each part has It has its own independent entrance and exit to prevent distinguished guests from straying into the kitchen or warehouse and bumping into the servants at work, which is considered unseemly.
Ning Zhe and Bai Zhi had previously entered the reception hall covered with red carpet through the hole in the wall. Now, Ning Zhe and Geza had entered the kitchen at the back of the bell 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 the sake of safety. As a result, the interior of the building does not see sunlight all year round, and the moisture accumulates, making it cramped and dark. This is Europe A common problem in ancient castles.
Geza held up a flashlight and walked in front. Ning Zhe followed behind him. Through the dim light, he could catch a glimpse of the sacks piled in the corner, which contained potatoes and had already sprouted green seedlings. .
The kitchen utensils stacked together and the dusty oven look like they have not been used for a long time. If you can light a corpse oil lamp here, you might be able to see something different, but Geza and Aurore didn't even have a light in her hand.
It seems that only Spencer, Cynthia, and Katyuya, the group of college students who entered here by mistake, were the only ones who brought a corpse oil lamp as a bonus for newbies at the beginning.
"I once heard my grandmother say 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 hunt in the forest at the foot of Mount Liuxiang. They would bring the fattest meat to the forest. Deer and the wildest pheasant hunts At Vanessa Castle, servants cook a variety of fresh and expensive ingredients into a table full of feasts, serve endless amounts of fine wine, and party all night long in the banquet hall on the second floor of the castle..."
Geza walks ahead with a flashlight, walking through the silence The chef said: "After the prey is transported back to Vanessa Castle, the chefs of the Mislet family will make it into dishes here and then send it to the second floor."
The magnificent grand cloister is Used to show the grandeur of the castle and the financial strength of the Myslet family. , only those guests from the upper class and noble lords can walk up the beautiful curved steps to the banquet hall on the second floor. The humble servants are not qualified to walk that way. They can only quietly walk out of sight. Serve the food so as not to stain the eyes of the gentlemen.
In other words, in addition to the large corridor, there must be a staff passage in the back kitchen that can go up to the second floor. Ning Zhe silently followed Geza without saying a word, walking with him through the dark and cramped kitchen.
In the memory of the couple, the corridor on the first and second floors of the China Unicom Bell Tower seemed to be a very dangerous place. Several players they knew disappeared from sight after walking into the corridor and never came down again.
Some people also tried to find someone, but they all ended up with the same result.
“If you take the staff passage in the back kitchen, you can bypass the large corridor and go directly to the second floor. There is nothing wrong with the idea, but...” Ning Zhe thought for a while and asked: “Before us , No one else has thought of this way?"
"...Maybe?" Geza shook his head and said: "I'm not sure, it seems that everyone else took the big corridor."
To put it bluntly, he himself was not sure whether the path he chose was the right one.
But Ning Zhe knew that Geza was probably on the right track, because he later died in the library on the third floor.
The two wandered around the back kitchen for a few times and found the 'staff passage' leading to the second floor.
It is different from the imagined secret passage. This employee passage is a shaft. In the shaft, a round basket with a diameter of about 2-3 meters is hung with an iron chain. The end of the iron chain is wrapped with a A round shaft device shaped like a ship's rudder, with a hand-operated pull rod connected to it.
Rotate the circular shaft and tighten the iron chain, and the hanging basket will be pulled upward through the pulley group at the top. Turning in the opposite direction will loosen the iron chain and lower the hanging basket.
This is a device used to transport dishes, not an elevator for people to take.
"European masters are more isolated from the masses than I thought. Even the food in 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 shaft in front of him and suddenly smiled.
Geza handed the cross iron spear to Ning Zhe and said: "Dear, this device needs someone to turn the lever below to operate, but you shouldn't be able to pull me, so I think you should start from Go up here, I'll find another way."
"Okay." Ning Zhe took the cross iron spear and sat on the hanging basket carrying the dishes without any hesitation.
"Then, let's see you upstairs." Geza walked to the axis device and pushed the lever: "May God bless us."
"May God bless us." Ning Zhe Smile sweetly.
Seeing his wife's smile, Geza felt that his whole body was full of strength. He pushed hard the pull rod wrapped with the iron chain, the circular axis slowly rotated, and the hanging basket began to rise. Ning Zhe, who was sitting in the hanging basket, also followed the shaft. Keep going up.
Kuola...Kuola...
The rusty iron chains and gears rubbed against each other. Ning Zhe sat in the gondola holding the weapon and looked at the continuous falling water on the shaft wall. Gray and white stone bricks, shoulders suddenly trembled for no reason.
"Hiss...it's a bit cold." Ning Zhe curled up, looking thoughtful.
(End of this chapter)