As they rolled out to search the church for an hour, the fainted Pastor Keith came to his senses.
After realizing that he was kidnapped by someone he hired, his poker face without waves did not cause any decent fluctuations.
Nan Zhou didn't plan to knock him out again.
Keith is arguably the only one who has the big picture.
They couldn't just knock him out if they wanted to ask him more.
It's a pity that Keith himself didn't have any desire to talk. He was lying on the bed like a zongzi, staring at the ceiling with dead fish eyes, putting the attitude of being slaughtered in place.
They left Hua Xixi behind and stared at him to prevent him from escaping.
Before leaving, Nan Zhou handed a wooden stick to Hua Sisi.
"If necessary, knock him out," he said.
Hua 偲 grinned: "It's too violent. What if you get killed."
Nan Zhou said seriously, "Then take it easy."
After sending Nan Zhou away, Hua Si Si sat beside the bed, holding a wooden stick in his arms, looking at Pastor Keith who was like a piece of paper on the bed.
He knew what the task Nan Zhou had given him was, and also knew why Nan Zhou had to speak harshly in front of Keith.
One sings the red face, the other sings the white face.
"It's okay, I'm a pacifist, and I don't hit anyone casually."
Hua Xixi was originally a lively and kind-hearted young man, and playing the role of comforter is also convincing.
He winked playfully: "Don't worry."
Pastor Keith rolled his dark eyes and looked at Hua Xixi.
Hua Xixi touched her cheek and grinned: "Do you want to chat with me?"
Pastor Keith stared at Hua Sisi's face and answered irrelevantly: "...you, it's not enough."
Hua 偲偲 touched the back of his head: "..." Huh
Although he didn't understand what Pastor Keith meant, he could vaguely guess that he thought he was not qualified to talk to him.
Hua 偲偲 is not depressed.
As long as the other party does not completely refuse to communicate, there is hope.
…
On the other side, Nan Zhou opened all the locked doors with the key he found from Keith.
Everyone felt that this was a simple copy, so they kept a happy and relaxed mood, and searched the past one by one, but the efficiency was not low.
However, strange
The thing is, they didn't see any weird magic circles, or the evil objects necessary for sacrifice.
Even Ban Hang's firm theory that "Keith might be a vampire" has not been able to find the slightest bit of evidence.
In the locked "mystery" rooms, there are either broken prayer chairs, rotten bookshelves, worn wooden ladders, or gardening tools that are not usually used.
And Pastor Keith's office, which is not easy to show, is only filled with theological books he uses every day.
Any evil images that had ever appeared in their minds could not be found in this chapel.
No secret compartments, no secret passages, no secret rooms.
The church was strangely clean and strange.
The more you search, the more confused everyone becomes.
Song Haining touched the slightly damp bookshelf in Keith's office, and whispered, "Isn't this NPC even providing us with any quest items?"
She believes that the essence of the copy is similar to the escape room or script killing they play in reality.
Why would you leave them some clue cards or quest items as a token
All the clues they have at hand are specious and give a headache.
They secretly observed the correspondence of these three days, and could only see a few things:
The Duke is seriously ill.
The pastor has a cure and is planning.
The relationship between the duke and the priest is very close, it can even be said to be ambiguous.
From inside the church, however, they couldn't find what Keith called "the cure."
... Could it be that those words were just casual remarks by the priest to relieve the seriously ill Duke Shelley
Song Haining thought, maybe, their relationship is not that good
Song Haining began to make up his mind.
Duke Shelley is a local lord, and his ruling power is extraordinary, so the priest has to pretend that he has a cure, but in fact he is just dealing with it casually
Combined with the status quo that they didn't find anything, Song Haining felt that his ideas were more reliable the more he thought about it.
Duke Shelley didn't send anyone to deliver the letter today. Maybe he was seriously ill again. The castle was too busy, and their teammates couldn't leave.
Maybe tomorrow, the Duke will send someone to ask the priest for a cure.
If the pastor can't come up with a way, that's for sure
To be charged with deceiving the Duke.
And as members of the church today, they must eat and hang with the pastor.
The copy clearly stipulates that they are not allowed to cross the bridge, perhaps it is a deliberate restriction to prevent them from escaping.
Unless they can kill everyone the duke sent.
At that time, this is a copy of the force level push.
If this is the case, they don't have to be afraid at all.
They have Nanzhou, and there will not be too powerful long-range firearms in this era...
However, she had just said to Jiang Fang, who entered the study, "Nothing of value was found." Jiang Fang asked her directly, "What about the letters between them?"
Before their arrival, they were apparently communicating on a one-a-day basis.
So what about the letter
Song Haining is specially responsible for searching Keith's study.
Hearing this, she was stunned for a while, and affirmed: "I didn't find it."
Jiang Fang continued to ask, "What about the letters for these three days?"
Song Haining also continued to shake his head: "I didn't find it."
Jiang Fang did not doubt Song Haining's judgment.
Song Haining has always been as careful as dust.
She said that she couldn't find it, that is, she had touched all the seams on the floor.
Jiang Fang turned his attention to a small fireplace in the room.
He walked over, leaning over and groping in the silver-white ashes.
Song Haining: "I have touched it, but there is nothing hidden in it."
Jiang Fang blew the dust off his hands: "Touch again."
Song Haining obeyed the instructions obediently, and groped around again.
But she really didn't find anything in the loose ashes.
She looked at Jiang Fang inexplicably.
Jiang Fang said, "There is ashes."
Song Haining: "..."
She was puzzled at first.
Of course there is ashes in the fireplace.
This question is as confusing as "why is there garbage in the trash can".
But after her eyes stayed on the ashes in the fireplace for three seconds, her eyes slowly changed.
It's summer, and even if there's ashes in the fireplace, it's from a few months ago...
Jiang Fang reminded her: "Church log."
Song Haining woke up like a dream, trotted out, and took several large piles of materials.
These days, all they can get in touch with are some obvious church affairs.
The church log was one of the pieces of information they had access to, which faithfully recorded the affairs of the church every day for several months.
This log can be said to be stinky and long, and reading it means not reading it.
At first, Ban Hang yawned without turning two pages.
Song Haining endured boredom and read all the logs for the past year.
In the end, she only got a boring message—
Before, the Duke would come to church every week.
Since the beginning of the winter last year, the Duke has been ill and has not come back.
After getting the log, Jiang Fang just flipped through it, and did not regard it as an important prop for research.
But he noticed a detail early on.
- In the log, according to the temperature table in the church, the daily weather and the temperature in the morning and evening are recorded faithfully.
Pastor Keith's character is quite straight-forward, and he has never missed a day of this boring data record.
Song Haining hurriedly flipped through the records of the past six months at a very fast speed, and found that the climate here is humid, the winter days are extremely short, and even at the coldest times, it is above six or seven degrees below zero.
Not to mention that it is already the midsummer with lush vegetation.
It stands to reason that as early as February, there was no need to burn charcoal for heating in the church at all.
Especially this study room, with no sunlight and no windows, is a suffocated cage.
The ashes in the fireplace were probably long overdue for agglomeration due to the rich moisture brought by the lush vegetation around.
Like the bookshelf that smells of wood because of the dampness.
However, the ash in the fireplace is loose in structure, and it is obvious that it has been used all the time, and it is not clumped together.
And this gray color reveals a clean feeling.
Not the color of firewood or charcoal.
It's more like... paper.
Song Haining's thoughts turned sharply, and he already understood what Jiang Fang meant.
After inspiring Song Haining, Jiang Fang got up and gave a succinct instruction: "Look again."
Song Haining said quickly: "No problem, boss."
Jiang Fang walked out and said at the same time, "Also, don't think of Keith as an nppc who can provide you with clues, but people will hide and destroy clues, and treat him as a person..."
Having said this, he suddenly paused and thought of something.
He touched his lips with his fingertips, but said nothing, turned to look for the next person.
…
Song Haining was not the only one who was in trouble.
Ban Hang found a small attic that was locked up.
The entrance to the attic is on the ceiling of a room, which is firmly locked by a baffle of the same color as the ceiling.
The bell-like lock hangs in the air, as if hiding a secret that needs to be explored by others.
The locks are embedded in the ceiling and have long since decayed.
Strangely, in the whole church, only this small attic has no keys.
Ban Hang found a side of the bench and pulled it again and again. Since he couldn't find a point of leverage, he simply used brute force and slammed it hard, pulling the entire baffle off.
As a result, he was so fascinated by the splash of ash that came down from his head that he jumped on his feet, and was hit on the head by the retractable wooden ladder that fell automatically.
However, he worked hard and busy, and there was nothing of value in the attic.
Except for the dense spider silk, there is nothing.
Ban Hang hunched his waist in disgrace, and drilled around in the attic, coughing and coughing, but couldn't find anything.
He didn't give up and stuck his head out of the baffle, just in time to see Nan Zhou walking to the door and appearing ten paces away.
"Brother Nan, come up and take a look." He was in chaos, "I can't trust myself."
Nan Zhou stepped on the creaking stairs, took a candle from Ban Hang's hand, and looked around the cramped and dirty hut.
A small square window let in some light.
The thin moonlight lifted the same thin dust with a few rays of light.
Nan Zhou lifted away the dust that danced around the beamline, and walked to the only source of light in the attic like a flower and a willow.
Nan Zhou supported the rusted window edge with one hand.
Looking out the window, Nan Zhou judged that this should be the highest point of the entire church, or even the entire east coast.
Of course, as long as you climb up the outer wall and climb the Gothic spire, you can reach the highest point.
But there, only to see further.
It will not be like this, just to see a window of the gorgeous castle that perched like a dove deep in the forest on the west bank.
…and the figure who is facing this window, fixedly watching here.
Nan Zhou was shocked and suddenly blew out the candle in his palm.
This distance is too far, even if he tries his best, it is impossible to see whether the person over there is Duke Shelley.
Nan Zhou was hidden in the darkness, looking at the figure over there, his heart tightened inch by inch.
Ban Hang, who was waiting under the stairs, noticed that the light from the attic disappeared, so he could not help but leaned his head up and asked, "Brother Nan, what's the matter?"
Nan Zhou stepped back, and every time he took a step back, a thought popped into his heart.
Ban Hang opened the abnormal noise in the attic, and they could hear it clearly, and it didn't even exceed five minutes.
Why did the other party stand in front of the window of the opposite castle, as if waiting to meet him
Or, is there any telepathy on both sides.
Or, someone has been waiting there, looking at this window, waiting for a light to come on here.
Nan Zhou took another step back and sniffed the faint smell of rotten dust here.
… But what is the need for attention here
According to the degree of its ash fall, it has not been activated for at least half a year.
Why would Shelley send someone to stare at a room where it's almost impossible to have lights on
What is this room for
Nan Zhou did not know.
But he felt they had stepped into an elaborate trap.
Pastor Keith usually stayed in the church, never leaving.
If they hadn't got Reverend Keith under control, they wouldn't have been able to open this completely enclosed roof chamber without alerting him.
There are no lights at all here, and to search, you must turn on the lights.
If the light is on, the opposite will immediately find that there is someone in this attic.
It's like... sending some kind of signal to the other side.
If they do nothing, they may fail the level because of the lack of clues at hand.
But if they take action and try to control the church, they will inevitably find this attic that cannot be opened, and they will inevitably come up to check the situation with the lantern, and they will definitely be discovered by the people on the east coast who are staring here.
This is a dead end.
Those who can answer the endless questions in Nan Zhou's heart, at this moment, only saves one person.
Nan Zhou ignored Ban Hang's question and got off the escalator.
Just as he was about to find Keith, he heard a commotion outside.
Immediately afterwards, there was a cry that changed its tune.
"Brother Nan!! Ban Hang!! Come here!!"
It was Guan Junliang's voice.
When Nan Zhou heard the sound and rushed to the room where Pastor Keith was imprisoned, Jiang Fang was squatting in front of Pastor Keith's bed, and his hand had just withdrawn from his nose.
Jiang Fang's voice was filled with inexplicable doubts.
"… he died."
Nan Zhou stepped forward quickly.
Simultaneously entering his nose, there was a pungent bloody aura.
Reverend Keith, in his dark uniform, wore a cross that was inserted deep into his heart, leaving only a little silver tip exposed.
As you can see from the swirling folds of the clothes, the killer also twisted the cross several times as it sank into his chest, making sure to crush his heart.
Pretty brutal method.
Nan Zhou looked around the crowd, and a heavy cloud rose up in his heart: "Where's Hua 偲偲?"
Jiang Fang said solemnly, "...he's gone."