Mo Yi put the flashlight in his hand on the windowsill, his fingers trembling slightly, he quickly opened the zipper of his backpack, and took out the metal music box.
He lifted the lid of the music box, and slid his fingers around the velvet cushion with ease, making a clever move.
He only heard a light "click", and the cassette was opened by him.
The necklace lay quietly in the velvet shadow box, and the mottled silver chain and pendant that had not yet turned black shimmered under the light of the flashlight beside it.
Mo Yi picked the chain out of the box with his fingers, and the rusted hinges of the photo frame opened automatically with his movements, revealing the blurred black and white smiling faces of the two children inside.
He looked closely and was sure—it was indeed a black and white photo.
So... the hidden plot in this instance happened at least after the nineteenth century.
Mo Yi frowned slowly, with a thoughtful look in his dark eyes.
The last large-scale outbreak of plague in Europe was the Great Plague of London in 1665, during which the population of London was reduced by almost one-fifth.
After the seventeenth century, the Black Death basically disappeared in Europe. Except for a small number of small-scale cases of death due to the plague in a few places, no outbreaks spread to many countries and regions.
But... Whether it's the giant rats, the beak mask, or the nursery rhyme just now, they all point to this terrifying existence that once robbed one-third of Europe's population—the Black Death.
Mo Yi stared deeply at the silver pendant hanging in his palm, his lips pressed together tightly.
My mind is like a ball of intertwined and messy threads, I can't figure it out, and I can't find the key thread.
He took a deep breath, closed the lid of the music box, and put it back into his backpack, but kept the pendant in his hand.
For some reason, Mo Yi always felt that he should use it later.
But... It doesn't seem very appropriate to hang it around your neck.
Mo Yi hesitated for a few seconds, then rolled up his sleeve, ready to wrap it around his wrist.
But just as he rolled up his sleeves, he froze.
I saw that a silver ribbon had already been wrapped around his wrist, tightly attached to his pale skin that had not seen the sun for a long time, with a faint brilliance like running water, as if it was where it should be.
However, Mo Yi clearly remembered that after the end of the last dungeon, he left this cheating novice gift bag at home, and did not plan to bring it into the next dungeon.
—but it followed.
Mo Yi stretched out his fingers to touch the ribbon, it was covered with a faint temperature of body temperature, it seemed to have no weight or thickness at all,
He tried to move his wrist again, without any sense of retention at all, as if there was no such obstructive belt wrapped around his wrist.
Unexpectedly, he never noticed that there was an extra ribbon on his wrist that shouldn't have followed.
Although he didn't know what this novice gift pack was and what it was for, since it didn't hinder his actions, it wasn't his priority for the time being.
Mo Yi pursed his lips, put down his sleeves, and then wrapped the pendant around his other wrist.
He lowered his palm and picked up the flashlight that was set aside.
The circle of light stayed on the wall with blood written on it for a few seconds, and Mo Yi took a deep look at it, as if he wanted to engrave the contents above into his mind.
He took a deep breath, then turned his gaze, circled around the room, and looked at the room carefully.
There are a lot of sundries piled up inside the house, with thick dust accumulated on it, making it look extraordinarily dirty and decadent.
Mo Yi went closer to identify it carefully, and found that it was a pile of chopped wood fragments and iron pieces, piled up randomly on the ground, which seemed to be fragments of chairs or beds, scattered on the ground.
It was covered with a large gray sheet, half-covering the pile of debris, thick dust accumulated on the sheet, and the previous color could hardly be seen.
Mo Yi paused, stretched out his hand and lifted the sheet.
The dust was instantly raised up all over the sky, and he coughed repeatedly, and it took a while for the dust to settle. Mo Yi covered his mouth and nose with the back of his hand, frowned, and stared at the place covered by the sheet.
I saw that the middle of the small hill made of wood and iron fragments turned out to be hollow-but it was always covered by sheets, so I couldn't see the situation below.
Mo Yi took a closer look and couldn't help being startled.
Under the illumination of the flickering light of the flashlight, in the middle of the open space, there were countless bones, and there was a white coldness under the light.
A putrid smell mixed with the smell of dust rushed towards his face instantly, and the indescribable stench almost stopped breathing.
Mo Yi resisted the nausea rising from the bottom of his heart, and moved closer again, his dark eyes fixed on the pile of bones that looked particularly strange.
He picked up a slender piece of wood next to him, and gently fiddled with the white bones on the ground.
Those bones were very small and did not belong to humans.
Thanks to the relatively complete preservation of those bones, and thanks to the introductory book on anatomy that he flipped through when he was bored, he has not completely forgotten, Mo Yi vaguely recognized the shapes of the bones of cats, birds and frogs.
Why are these here...
And why are there so many
Mo Yi frowned tightly, a vague idea flashed across his mind, but it was fleeting, and when he recalled it, he had already disappeared, no matter how difficult it was to catch.
He put the wooden stick in his hand back to its original place, making a light crashing sound in the darkness.
Following his movements, the flashlight in his hand inadvertently moved upwards, and just fixed on the ceiling.
Mo Yi raised his head subconsciously, his eyes also fell on the place illuminated by the aperture of the flashlight, and he couldn't help being slightly stunned.
He twisted his wrist and fixed the slightly shifted aperture on a point on the ceiling.
It was an iron ring hook, firmly embedded in the uneven ceiling. Looking carefully, there were four black gaps on the surface that was so dirty that the previous color could not be discerned, and it was tightly blocked by dust. In fact, you can't tell the difference unless you look carefully.
Mo Yi's eyes lit up—the secret door.
He leaned close to the wall, quickened his pace and walked around the room, eagerly searching for something on the surrounding walls.
Finally, in the deep shadow cast by the crooked window frame, Mo Yi found what he was looking for.
It was a long iron hook with a crooked handle more than one meter long. At the top was a small iron hook hooked on an iron nail on the wall beside the window frame, hidden deep in the dark , which happens to overlap the edge of the shadow.
—If you don't look for it deliberately, you may never find its existence.
Mo Yi took the iron hook off the wall and raised it above his head. The tip of the iron hook happened to be caught in the raised iron ring on the ceiling.
He pulled down hard.
Along with the toothache sound of wood rubbing and rusting metal, the ceiling framed by the four gaps loosened, dust fell down, and then it was pulled away abruptly.
The wooden ladder that should have been lowered slowly with the opening of the secret door, or because of the long time and the loose bearings could no longer bear its weight, fell suddenly under the action of gravity, and it was aimed at Mo Yi. Hit it on the head.
If he hadn't reacted quickly, he would have been smashed to pieces.
Looking at the heavy wooden ladder, Mo Yi's breathing couldn't help being a little short, and he had the illusion of escaping death.
Fog, who was standing not far behind him, slowly retracted the legs that had already been stepped out, and the half-stretched hands, and silently breathed a sigh of relief, and the tense jaw line also relaxed.
He retreated back into the darkness, as if it belonged to him.
A pair of light gray eyes stared at the tall and straight figure not far away seriously and intently, as if seeing the only light source in the darkness, with a palpitating paranoia.
With his back facing the mist, Mo Yi was ignorant of the sight behind him, but looked up seriously into the hidden door on the ceiling.
The inside of the dark secret door was pitch black, and the scene inside could not be seen at all from the ground, only the cold and gloomy wind faintly sent from the secret door echoed hollowly in the ears.
This kind of secret door is actually found in many houses abroad, and it usually leads to the attic responsible for storing sundries.
—And in the dungeon... it will definitely not be as simple as just loading sundries.
Mo Yi sighed secretly, then stretched out his hands to support the wooden stairs, arched his waist and slowly climbed up.
The icy air blows over the top of the head, bringing the smell of rotten wood, mixed with a light smell of blood, the wooden ladder under the feet makes a piercing groan, trembles because of the overwhelmed by years of disrepair, and dust falls down .
The higher you go, the darker it gets.
Half of Mo Yi's body has been fully stretched up, and everything in front of him seems to be frozen by the real darkness. Even with a flashlight, he can only see the fuzzy outline of the ups and downs in the darkness.
There was a dead silence around my ears.
He supported the wooden ladder beside him with his palm, and then continued to climb up, and the whole person entered the attic.
The moment his feet landed on the floor of the attic, without any warning, several small lights suddenly lit up in the attic, which startled Mo Yi.
Candles firmly fixed in several corners of the attic were lit, and the dim candlelight illuminated the entire attic.
The attic is not big, and the strangely shaped narrow roof is squeezed inward, which not only makes people almost unable to stand up straight, but also greatly restricts people's sight, making it impossible for Mo Yi to see the whole attic.
The sense of oppression in the closed space is getting stronger.
After Mo Yi bent down and took a few steps forward, the space above his head suddenly became wider.
He straightened his sore waist, but his head hit something hard.
Mo Yi was caught off guard, and couldn't help groaning in pain. He took a few steps back and looked closely——
I saw a huge goat skull hanging on the wall, and the black hole looked down at him coldly. Beside the skull, dozens of complete bones of small animals were hung on thin threads. The white bones reflected the firelight. There was a slight clanging sound of jingling bells.
The windows of the attic were wide open, and from this angle one could see the boundless darkness outside.
It's like a tomb.
With the help of the weak candlelight, Mo Yi saw several pieces of yellowed paper covered with dust scattered on the ground, with handwriting densely written on it, which was extremely blurred under the candlelight.
Mo Yi held his breath, bent down to pick up the paper, and when he was about to read it carefully, he caught a glimpse of the countdown outside the window
— Three minutes to the end of the hour.
Mo Yi's heart tightened involuntarily, his breathing stagnated slightly, and then he quickly picked up a large stack of papers on the ground, without looking carefully, he hurriedly stuffed them all into his bag.
He quickened his pace and walked towards the wooden ladder.
If his big guess before is not wrong...
The nursery rhyme is about to start again.
The author has something to say:
A useless little science:
During the Great London Plague in 1665, all universities in London were on vacation, including Cambridge University, so an ordinary college student returned to his hometown from London—his name was Newton.