"What the hell?" Mu Chen almost thought there was something wrong with his ears.
Yun Chuan closed his eyes and grabbed his collar and pulled him down. The vines with claws and claws rubbed the hems of their clothes and smashed the wall. "Forget it, I'll tell you later. Grapevine is the last wave. I want to go to the bedroom with you."
The grapevine in the manor is a big killer in the dungeon, but no matter how powerful it is, it can't change the fact that it has wood properties. Since ancient times, wood has been afraid of flames, and the grapevine quickly turned to ashes bit by bit in Liu Ruoyu's flames. .
"Hiss." It left the last blood mark on Ning Ning's arm with force, then abandoned the carbonized branch and hid back in the darkness, and soon disappeared.
"Let it escape." Liu Ruoyu shook her hand and released a large number of abilities in a short period of time, which made her a little tired. Just now, several of their players were fighting with the 'food' that came to their door at night. In order not to disturb the servants, they specially lured the 'food' to the third floor of the West Tower to eliminate them together.
"Let's change places, don't fall behind. Mu Chen" she frowned and looked at the messy ground. Although this place was still far away from where the servant lived, the noise just now was indeed a bit loud. If the servant was recruiting It would be troublesome to come here.
"Yes." Mu Chen hugged Yun Chuan, who was lying in his arms and pretended to be dead, and followed Liu Ruoyu, and the group headed towards the fifth floor in the dark.
The housekeeper once revealed to them that the Duke could not hear any sound due to insomnia, so no one except the housekeeper was allowed to enter the fifth floor where he lived after nightfall.
As soon as they stepped onto the steps, the strong smell of blood rushed in, and the slippery and sticky touch tortured the soles of every player's feet.
"Blood oozes from this step at night. We encountered it last night, but it seemed like there was nothing unusual except for the smell." Mu Chen whispered to Yunchuan, biting his ear.
But even so, players dare not take it lightly. It wasn't until they saw a faint orange light and shadow ahead that the group quickened their pace.
Liu Ruoyu walked in the front. She carefully stretched her head and glanced around to make sure there were no servants standing guard before turning back and gesturing to the three of them.
Ning Ning quickly took out a few shoe covers and put them on the blood-stained shoes of several people.
"Okay, it should be safe now." Liu Ruoyu rubbed his eyebrows and finally found his mind to look at Yunchuan, who was pretending to be dead.
There was a large blood vessel where Yumikawa chose to pierce the grapevine. There was heavy bleeding but the wound was not large. After being repaired by medicine, he has basically healed, but his blood-soaked clothes look a little scary.
"Why are you on the fourth floor of the West Tower?" Liu Ruoyu started questioning mode. The strength of the "food ingredients" at night was not as high as it seemed. Although the grapevine was powerful, it was not enough to crush two C-level players.
"We were attacked on the second floor. Those things were much more powerful than last night... Hong was dragged away, and I was chased to the west tower by them..." Yunchuan lowered his eyelashes and told the story he had made up. The young man Because of his pale skin due to excessive blood loss and his long eyelashes as black as crow feathers with teardrops hanging on them, he huddled up and looked extremely fragile under the warm light.
"Where's the key?" Ning Ning asked softly.
Yunchuan pretended to be struggling and fumbled around his waist for a while before taking out a key soaked in blood. "Here, those things are coming towards Hong. I can feel that they are attacking Hong with much greater force than they attack me."
"Why only target Hong..." Liu Ruoyu raised her eyebrows. Could it be because of what happened in the morning... But it was the manservant who annoyed him in the morning, not...
"After searching the bedroom, go to the servant's room and take a look." Her voice was a bit brooking no resistance.
"Assessment." Ning Ning suddenly took a breath. "The assessment results haven't come out yet. It's possible that she failed the assessment..."
"But Fatty is already... wrong." Liu Ruoyu suddenly interrupted her, "The Duke is saying that Fatty is dissatisfied with the assessment... which is equivalent to letting him die in the name of abandoning the exam instead of failing."
"Well, yes. Some exams are not scored on the spot." Ning Ning nodded.
"Go to the bedroom now. You are injured. Come with me." Liu Ruoyu looked at Yun Chuan who stood up supporting the wall. Although she liked beautiful people, at this moment, she might be the black sheep. , then it is better to let this horse play some role before being a black sheep.
Why come with him if you are injured...Mu Chen suddenly understood that Liu Ruoyu wanted to use Yun Chuan as a shield.
"Just let me protect him." Mu Chen stepped forward and stood in front of Yunchuan. Although Liu Ruoyu's thoughts were very immoral, he still tried to save her life.
"Whatever, then protect him." Liu Ruoyu snorted and did not insist.
The corridor was empty, not a soul in sight. The warm lights cast long shadows behind the players.
The key entered the lock and turned gently, and the door opened in response.
"This..." Mu Chen was slightly startled. The scene inside the door was completely different from what he had imagined.
"Is this the Duke's room?" Ning Ning checked the house number on the key with some uncertainty.
Although this room is large, it seems too empty. Even the players' guest rooms are much more luxurious than the Duke's room.
A set of mahogany tables and chairs and a two-meter-wide bed can be said to be the most decent furniture in the entire room. The rest are picture frames with nightingale paintings hanging all over the wall and two rows of towering bookshelves.
"This is more like the Duke's study room than a bedroom." Liu Ruoyu walked to the table and saw the seal on the table at a glance, "It's just this seal..."
The official seal lay carelessly on the table, and the ink pad beside it was dry, obviously it had not been used for a long time.
Mu Chen took down a nightingale illustration hanging in the center of the wall and carefully touched the frame. 'The frame is new but the painting is not. ’ He opened the photo frame and took out the slightly yellowed drawing paper.
［1900.11.23 Morton Nadal］
A name is written in red ink on the edge of the back of the scroll.
"This is the name of the Duke?" he asked in a low voice, Yunchuan, who was leaning aside and looking half-dead.
‘This is his original name. He came here to replace the Duke, just like I replaced Lin Qing before. ’
"Look at the bookshelves." Ning Ning poked her head out from behind a row of bookshelves.
"What's wrong?" Liu Ruoyu just took out a stack of documents from the drawer.
"The books on this bookshelf look weird." Ning Ning pulled out a few books from the bookshelf to show them to everyone.
""Human Behavior", "Human Psychology", "Human Anatomy"..."
"More than that, I just read it. Half of the books on the entire shelf are about human beings, half are about nightingales, and there are also a few handwritten books." Ning Ning opened a book, and the words on it were densely covered with pens. It's sketched, and there are very detailed handwritten annotations.
"And he is studying very seriously."
"Wait." Mu Chen suddenly stopped Ning Ning who was turning the pages of the book. He took the book and started to open it from the beginning.
The marks on the first few dozen pages of the book are particularly confusing, and there are even large areas of ink splashed on them. The traces of the pen tip tearing through the pages can be clearly seen under the check marks, and the blank spaces of the pages are full of crooked black marks. Wire.
Turning back further, the marks are obviously much better, but the fonts are still crookedly piled together.
As the pages of the book were turned quickly, the handwriting became more and more neat and beautiful. When the last few pages of this book of several hundred pages were turned, strings of beautiful cursive characters were spread out on the paper like printing.
"This handwriting looks like...it seems like you have slowly become a calligrapher from being unable to write." Ning Ning opened other books and found that every book was like this, with fine and dense handwriting covering almost all the free space.
"Do you know the Duke's name?" Mu Chen looked at the pile of documents in Liu Ruoyu's hand.
"Morton Nadal. This name is written on the documents, but the handwriting on these documents is not consistent with that on the books."
"I think we all overlooked one thing." Mu Chen pinched the bridge of his nose. "How old do you think the Duke is this year?"
"His appearance looks like he is only in his early twenties, but nobles are generally well-maintained, so he looks much younger than his actual age."
"According to the fairy tales we are familiar with, the king should be very old when he gets the nightingale. And according to the butler, the current development of the story is already after the fairy tale ends." Mu Chen pulled out a book from the bookshelf nearby.
"Looking at the "Illustrated Nightingale", the lifespan of a nightingale is roughly eight years. If raised in captivity, it may live longer. In addition, the housekeeper said that the imitation bird has been locked up for many years. If we push back, the Duke should be Still a little kid.”
"We don't know how old Nightingale was when the Duke met her. Isn't that a bit far-fetched?"
"Because the real problem lies in the paintings." Mu Chen returned to the wall and took off several picture frames.
Opening the frame, several pieces of yellowish drawing paper were signed on the back.
［1901.1.03 Morton Nadal］
［1901.12.15 Morton Nadal］
……
"Look at the documents in your hand again." Mu Chen took the pile of documents and drawing paper and put the books together.
"The date on the document is October 2, 1906, which should not be much different from the current date."
"It's paper." Liu Ruoyu immediately realized that the paper in these books was fine when separated. Once put together, he could immediately see the problem. The paper in those documents was too fine and completely different from books.
"In five years, papermaking technology could not have advanced so fast. This white paper is better than the paper I use today."
"Time can be forged." Mu Chen pursed his lips, "I was still wondering why we arranged so many rooms of different styles and invited guests wearing dresses from different eras. This is too deliberate and of no use at all.< br>
Now it seems they did this just to confuse us. ”
"Confuse...confuse the times?" Liu Ruoyu was a little surprised.
"Because the Duke met the nightingale, got the nightingale, and left the nightingale. It didn't happen in just a few years"
"Don't you think the decoration time span in this manor is too cluttered?"
(End of chapter)