Chapter 2241

A long black dress trailed on the slightly damp floor. When Talia landed, she looked toward the densest part of the greenery, but didn't see Pamela's figure.

"What's going on? Didn't we agree to meet in the garden?" she muttered somewhat confusedly, stepping out of the garden.

But just then, her nose twitched slightly. The breeze blowing from the corner of the south side of the garden brought a trace of imperceptible bloodiness.

Talia's first reaction was that someone might be preparing food in the kitchen. Although she was a battle-hardened female assassin, her sense of smell wasn't sensitive enough to distinguish between human blood and pig blood.

Unlike what many people imagine, even a banquet of this upper-class society isn't completely fragrant. Various ingredients' smells will drift from the back kitchen. The smell of blood and the fishy smell of offal are usually the heaviest. Women during their menstrual period will also carry a bloody smell, which isn't a very uncommon smell.

But Talia turned her head and looked. The manor's building was in the north, and the south was the manor's back door. Besides the large garden, there was nothing else. Obviously, it was impossible for anyone to be processing fresh ingredients there.

Standing in place for dozens of seconds without seeing Pamela's figure, Talia knew she must have been held up by something else, but what was worse was that the bloody smell might be coming from her.

Although according to Talia's understanding of Pamela, this possibility wasn't high, she still decided to go take a look. After all, completing their plan couldn't be done without Pamela's help.

Talia walked forward along the direction the wind was blowing, bypassed the tool room next to the east wall of the large tree in the center of the garden, and arrived at the southwest corner of the garden.

This place looked somewhat desolate, obviously not yet developed. The road built with bricks looked like it was intended to enclose some more fertile soil. Talia looked at the shape of the ridges and felt that Schiller might be planning to grow vegetables here.

Continuing forward, crossing this small vegetable garden, she arrived at the back door of the garden. However, the back door was locked tightly at this time. Behind it was a quiet old manor area, and only the firelight of the Gotham River could be seen on the distant horizon.

The bloody smell here was getting heavier, but still faint. Talia wandered around here for a long time and finally, relying on her rich experience, deduced that the bloody smell might be coming from underground.

In fact, there was no other possible answer. The area nearby was full of low bushes and ridges, and there was no place to hide things. The only possibility was the cellar.

Talia knew that such a large manor couldn't be without a cellar. Cellars are usually under the garden because the construction technology of the era when the manor was built wasn't mature enough. Wood and stone buildings are different from reinforced concrete buildings; the foundation's support isn't that strong, and building a cellar under the main building easily leads to ground collapse, so placing it under the garden is a common choice.

Talia started looking for the cellar entrance nearby. Finally, she found an old, rusty iron door in the middle of a square bush that looked like a decoration at the crossroads of two small paths.

This camouflage made good use of optical illusion, making people think the square bush was closed, but in fact, there was a small gap near the wall, which couldn't be seen unless one turned completely to the back.

And because looking from the front, the back was already a wall, most people would feel there was no need to turn around. The mud there was exceptionally loose, and even Talia, who was searching with a purpose, hesitated for a few seconds about whether to go over because she was worried about getting her shoes dirty.

Fortunately, she was very cautious. She finally chose to go over and discovered the cellar entrance.

As soon as she entered the center of the square bush, the bloody smell became rich. Talia cautiously put on gloves, took off her high heels, stood barefoot on the edge of the cement platform, and squatted down to check the rust on the door.

If no one has opened the door for a long time, rust will accumulate on the door's hinge. But if it hasn't been used for a while, and was suddenly opened recently, there will be friction marks on the rust. Through the depth of the marks and the degree of rust reappearance, one can roughly judge how long ago the door was opened, and how many times it was opened recently.

Talia observed and found that the last time the door was opened should have been today, but it hadn't been used for a long time before that, so this shouldn't be a storage room for banquet ingredients, because if it were, the door should have been opened frequently in the last week to prepare banquet dishes.

Talia looked at the lock on the cellar door again and found that the door was locked from the inside, which meant that the cellar must have another entrance, very likely leading to the inside of the manor.

Talia thought for a while. She took out a small lighting device from her bag, but didn't dare to shine it directly into the crack of the cellar. She just walked to the direction where the manor building was, imitating the manor's lights, and shone it from afar.

Very good, it's the simplest and most practical door bolt, which means Talia has a way to hook it open from the outside.

Talia was familiar with this kind of work. Her earrings were in the shape of peacock feather eyes, with a circle of fine metal wires on the outside and a golden sequin on the inside. After the sequin was removed, the remaining fine metal wires became a wire ring.

Then she took a fishing line from her bag, tied it to the wire ring, and could put it in along the crack of the cellar door. As long as she tried a few more times, she could hook the iron rod of the door bolt with the wire ring.

After confirming that it was hooked, she used the friction between the uneven wire and the iron rod to slowly bring the iron rod out. Talia adjusted it several times and found an angle that was the fastest and most silent.

But then she took the wire ring out and changed direction to hook the handle of the door bolt, because the door bolt is equivalent to a lever. When inserted, both ends are of the same weight, but once it is about to come out, the handle side must be heavier.

If she just hooked the front half of the door bolt and opened it, when the door bolt fell off, the handle would definitely drag the entire iron rod down. Although it wouldn't fall off, it would hit the iron ring fixing the handle and make a sound.

And if Talia changed direction at this time and slowly pulled the handle side, she could always keep the handle from hitting the iron ring fixing it, and thus always be silent.

Talia adjusted for a while, and after hearing a faint click, she finally opened the door without any danger.

She retracted her tools, turned around to hide her high heels under the grass, hooked the door panel of the cellar with her fingertips, and slowly lifted the door at an extremely slow speed.

To prevent the door from being blown down by the wind, Talia's hand never left the door, but her figure twisted flexibly. After turning around, one foot stepped on the ladder.

After the first foot landed, she decisively turned to face the inside of the cellar to prevent leaving her back to dangerous things, and then walked down slowly while holding the cellar door with one hand.

The cellar was pitch black. Talia didn't dare to turn on the light. Her feet felt some damp water vapor, and the bloody smell became stronger.

Walking further forward, Talia found that this didn't look like a cellar, but like an underground fortress specifically opened up. The tunnel wasn't narrow, but rather wide and magnificent like an underground ruin.

Talia carefully examined the floor tiles and walls here, and then determined that this was neither an ordinary manor's cellar nor a building later built by Schiller.

Then there was only one possibility left: the original owner of the manor built this.

Talia didn't know much about the predecessor of the Rodriguez Manor, but she knew that given the geographical situation of the US East Coast and the overall strength of the US, manor owners shouldn't need to dig complex tunnel labyrinths like European castle owners to station troops or escape.

So why build this kind of underground fortress is worth thinking about.

Walking further inside, Talia heard heavy breathing. She thought this should be the source of the bloody smell.

Sure enough, a bit of light revealed from the corner at the end of the pitch-black corridor illuminated the scene in the room. A figure was lying on the ground, pressing his abdomen, breathing long, his chest rising and falling very slowly.

Talia hadn't walked over completely when she felt a bone-chilling cold. Borrowing that light, she saw that the walls of the cell holding this person were covered with fine ice crystals.

Blue blood emitting a faint light flowed into the corridor, which made Talia hesitate. If the other party wasn't human, she didn't have 100% certainty that he wouldn't suddenly attack people.

Finally, Talia chose to lean over.

No other reason: if Schiller chose to capture rather than completely eliminate a certain alien race, it proved that this non-human existence must have its value. Talia had always liked valuable things.

If the other party lost consciousness, she would take some blood and then leave. This blood obviously had powerful ice power and might become a raw material for some things. If the other party was still alive and could communicate, perhaps she could figure out why Schiller locked him here.

Talia silently leaned over along the other side of the corridor, walked on tiptoe to the opposite side of this cell. Under the faint light, she saw that this was a handsome young male.

He had a handsome face that was slightly feminine and melancholic. Even the skin color that had changed to blue at this time couldn't affect his facial features. Under the illumination of the dim light, it became a hazy oil painting.

For a moment, Talia was fascinated by this scene, because when this creature full of cold air and blue skin fell into the dark cage, it was like a captured beast, and also like a piece of shattered ice.

At this moment, Talia's heart beat violently. She suddenly realized that she didn't seem to have the qualifications to say that Pamela's hobbies were peculiar either.

Humans always have their own strange hobbies. If you think you don't, it must be that the time hasn't come yet. Talia now deeply understood this point.

If she had to summarize it, she thought she liked things that were human-like but not human. For many people, this is an extremely terrifying existence, but for Talia, she likes their fragile, crazy, and uncontrollable moments.

She walked to the opposite side of the cage as if possessed.

The moment the green eyes met hers, the words in Talia's heart settled.

It was him.

But just then, a human-like panic suddenly appeared on the strange creature's face. He opened his dry lips and made a mouth shape to Talia.

"Run!"

Bright light flashed by, and the black shadow at the corner only appeared for a fraction of a second. By the time Talia was startled, extreme danger was hidden in the darkness, and then quickly emerged from the darkness.

Bang!