Greeting Father Augustus in a familiar manner, the middle-aged priest calmly hid the novel that looked like it shouldn't be in the church under the desk. After checking Shade's two documents, he asked them to wait for a while and then went out. But he came back soon and returned the land deed and house deed kept in the document bag to him.
"Later today, the church will send out ... a professional home inspector to inspect the current condition of the house and determine whether you can open the enclosed area."
Of course, when Shad left the church, the priest Augustus who was seeing him off whispered to Shad on the stone steps in front of the church that the "professional house appraiser" was the ring warlock of the Dawn Church.
Because he was thinking about Mia's dinner at home and the storybook he got from Miss Louisa, Shad didn't chat with Father Augustus anymore and went straight home. Because the Dawn Square where the Dawn Church is located is very close to the center of Tobysk, the sunset just appeared in the distant horizon when he got home, and on the St. Teresa Square at the doorstep, a group of young people were unexpectedly feeding the pigeons with bread crumbs with great interest.
There were many pigeons in the square in the summer, and sometimes they would even land on the second-floor bedroom windowsill of Square No. 6 in the early morning. Mia loved to look at the pigeons on the windowsill through the window, so Xia De never opened the window.
After dinner, Shad originally wanted to check the books he borrowed from Miss Louisa immediately, but the "building safety inspectors" from the Dawn Church came faster than he expected, and they came in the evening.
The security inspector was named Mr. French, an elderly gentleman who looked the same age as Father Augustus, wearing a somewhat outdated brown plaid coat. When the two shook hands, the whispering voice in his ear reminded him that the old gentleman was a ring wizard.
The so-called security check was just a walk around the areas that were to be opened. Mr. French walked from the first floor to the second floor with Shad while talking about what happened in the past in this house. He observed the blocked passage on the first floor, stood in front of the locked door on the second floor for a while, and finally talked about what happened when the church cut off the stairs to the third floor.
Mr. French did not find anything unusual in the house, so he signed the safety report smoothly.
Shad thought he would have to pay for someone to open the passage and repair the stairs, but he didn't expect that when Mr. French left, he asked about Shad's work and rest schedule, and brought a team of workers half an hour later.
While the blocked passage on the first floor has been completely cleared, the other two areas cannot be resolved for the time being.
The key to Room 2 on the second floor was originally kept in the church, but because the Holy Prayer Day was approaching, the church was checking the warehouse and did not allow sensitive items to leave during this period, so the key would not be delivered within a week. Mr. Frank asked Shad not to open the lock without permission.
The broken staircase on the third floor cannot be repaired for the time being. The problems on the first and second floors were caused by a curse from hundreds of years ago, and the third floor is not open to the public for safety reasons.
This requires Xia De to find someone to repair the house himself, and notify the church when the repairs are being carried out. The church can help connect the stairs free of charge.
By the time the first floor of 6 Saint Teresa's Square was reopened, the wooden boards of the windows were removed and replaced with glass, and the rubble was cleared, it was almost eight o'clock in the evening. Shade, who had been standing on the stairs holding Mia and watching the construction team work, came down to say goodbye to Mr. Frankie, who had also been here.
"If you find any problems with the house, remember to find me at the Dawn Church. Of course, since you know Augustus, you can go to him, and he can find me."
Mr. French was enthusiastic:
"Although you may find it strange that the Dawn Church is responsible for this, after all, it was the church that sold the house to Mr. Sparrow Hamilton three years ago. So this matter is reasonable and there is no need to doubt it. Yes, that's it."
Xia De could only nod in response.
After seeing them off, he finally had the chance to check the first floor of his house.
Because the gas pipeline on the first floor was cut off for safety when the passage was closed three years ago, there was no gas lamp on the first floor. Xia De held the cat and a kerosene lamp with a glass cover in his hand, and walked from the newly cleaned hallway into the large living room on the first floor. As expected, there was nothing inside.
The two windows in the living room had been closed with wooden boards for a long time, and the passage connecting to the entrance hall was tightly closed, so there was not even much dust on the ground.
But it was not very dark here. The moonlight and the light from the gas street lamps next to St. Teresa's Square poured into the room through the windows, and the gas lamp in the foyer behind also illuminated the place.
"are you still there?"
Xia De asked quietly in his mind as he checked the first floor.
Are you afraid of ghosts
"Of course not. I just want to ask, since you said my soul is sensitive, do you sense that there is a problem here?"
Not yet, but you can walk inside.
The area of the first floor is twice that of the house upstairs where Xia De lives, after all, the second floor is divided into two rooms.
But because of some past events, only the load-bearing walls and floors were left on the first floor, and Xia De had to prepare all the decorative walls and furniture that divided the rooms. It was empty here, but the good thing was that you could see the entrance hall when you turned around, so it wasn't that scary.
Mia's eyes were shining in the darkness. The timid cat was afraid of the unfamiliar environment at first, but after being carried by Xia De for two rounds, it got used to it. It struggled to jump out of Xia De's arms, but Xia De saw that there was no danger here, so he put it on the ground.
The small cat ran around on the floor, making a sound of stamping and stomping. But soon, Mia disappeared from Shade's sight.
After searching for a while, I found that when I opened the passage on the first floor, I finally revealed the door leading to the basement behind the stairs.
Xia De was of course happy about this. He couldn't live in such a big house himself, and he had long thought about renting out part of it. If the basement was large enough, he could divide it into partitions and rent it out to poor people... ...
"How could I do this? Am I crazy about pounds?"
Xia De patted himself, bent down and picked up little Mia who kept scratching the wooden door of the basement.
There was no furniture on the first floor, and the walls had been carefully maintained before, so they looked OK, with no signs of aging. But I don't know how long this door has been standing here, the wood veneer is severely rotten, and even the claws of a small orange cat can leave marks.
When I tried to push the door, I almost pushed it down completely. But because the door was not solid, the air circulation between the basement and the outside world was very good, so there was no need to worry about the lack of oxygen.
When Father Augustus talked about this house, he did not mention that there had been any problems in the basement, so after pushing open the door with a creaking sound, Shad boldly walked down the stairs holding the cat.
The basement ceiling was only about two meters high, a bit low. Standing on the steps holding up the oil lamp, there was only rotten air except for the rusted steam pipes piled in the corner.
"The church was very careful and really removed all suspicious items, not even a single stone was left behind."
The orange cat Mia curled up in Shade's arms, curiously looking at everything in the dim light. But because the floor of the basement was not clean, Shade did not put it down this time.
Thinking of walking around the basement to see if there were any burrowing mice making their home there, I walked down the stairs. But the moment my shoes touched the ground, a whispering voice rang in my ears:
You have come into contact with a miracle.
"Miracle?"
Miracle elements are related to God. Shad stopped moving and raised the oil lamp in his hand higher, trying to see the strange traces:
"I knew that this place would not be peaceful, but what happened was a 'miracle' element, which was not in my plan at all."
Fortunately, the whispering sound only appeared once. If it was a repeated reminder factor, Xia De would definitely turn around and leave.
But after walking around the basement with the oil lamp, he found nothing except that he would have to spend money to install gas lamps there.
He even examined the walls carefully, trying to discover the strange unknown language, but there was nothing here. If there was, there was no way the Church could not find it.
"This is interesting. A hundred years ago, two Nine Ring Warlocks died on the first floor. After that, the owners of this place kept dying suddenly. It seems that it was because of these miracle elements. These elements are harmful to ordinary people..."
As he thought about it, the life ring in his soul turned, and the first thing he heard was the echo of the past magic.
All he could hear were his own footsteps and Mia's unhappy meow.
"If the sound is not good..."
The pupil of his right eye turned blood red. Even though the oil lamp could only illuminate a small area, in Xia De's field of vision, the dark part also revealed extremely faint traces of blood.
These traces were probably left over from a hundred years ago. They looked like footprints and were spread almost throughout the entire basement, from the basement all the way to the entrance.
"There was no blood stain from the entrance to the room, which means the blood stains must have occurred inside the basement."
He thought to himself.
Xia De started from the basement steps, and followed the order of the man's walking a hundred years ago, following the direction of the intertwined footprints to find the end point. The final stop was in front of the wall facing the basement steps.
The footprints stopped in front of the wall, and there were deep bloodstains on the wall and the ground. At the same time, the owner of the footprints seemed to have wandered around for a long time, causing the bloody footprints to overlap, and then set off towards the exit of the basement.
"Why is there blood so high up on the wall? It doesn't look like it was splashed there, it looks like it was smeared there... And why are they lingering here? What happened here? Even if they were considering something, there's no need to be in the basement... Is there space behind the wall? No, there's no way the church wouldn't be able to detect this trick."
Xia De frowned, held the cat in one hand, put the kerosene lamp under his feet, and then stretched out his hand to press on the wall. At this moment, he only felt a cold feeling, and when he knocked with his fingers, there was no hollow echo.
"Should I find a hammer to knock this open?"
Xia De thought about it, stared at the wall for a while, and before giving up, he had a new idea:
"It won't cost a pound to try it."
Thinking in his heart, he summoned his life ring. Mia was frightened by the bell and whistle, and she lay on Shade's shoulder with wide amber eyes and looked back. The orange cat had never seen such a thing.
The life ring slowly rotated, and Shade controlled the core rune space and time, and by manipulating the flow of spirit, made the rune glow slightly. The light shone on the wall in front of him.
Then, part of the wall disappeared like a phantom, revealing a long and narrow passage...
Xia De believed that his expression should be the same as the cat who was looking at the life ring at this moment.
There is a hidden wall in front.
She said with a smile.