Chapter 139: The Disappeared

Professor Maynard, alongside Kraft, left their seats, carrying a sobering tea to find Petrie. Out of concern for a colleague, Lin Deng joined them.

The three carried a single lantern candlestick and walked toward the corridor they had come from.

Pouring liquid into an unconscious person is somewhat dangerous and unnecessary unless under special circumstances, so everyone had chosen to first carry the drunken Petrie indoors to rest, waiting for him to recover on his own.

Thick clouds from the passing rain still hung in the air, obscuring the faint moonlight; the side hall and corridor were filled with empty darkness. They stepped slowly up the stairs in sequence, navigating around buried tables and chairs, their echoes returning from the far end of the space as if following each step.

【Honestly, I’ve been using Huanyuan App to read and keep up with updates lately—it supports switching sources and has multiple voice options. Available on Android and iOS.】

“We didn’t light a candle for Petrie. I hope he doesn’t bump into anything when he wakes up and looks for his shoes.” Maynard walked ahead, holding the candlestick, breaking the silence that had merged with the environment. “One, two, three—third room. I remember it’s here.”

He paused to listen, then politely knocked to announce their arrival.

In the quiet, dark atmosphere, everything felt distant. From the grand hall beyond, only the piercing note of a flute pierced through, intermittent in the damp, humid corridor, like the popping of bubbles rising from the end of a clogged airway.

For no particular reason, Kraft simply felt it—and the silent knock, unanswered, echoed like the dull, muffled thud of percussion over a consolidated air cavity.

“Have you smelled anything?” He sniffed, feeling a trigger in his memory, yet a fine, dust-like residue made his nose, accustomed to post-rain air, uncomfortable.

Professor Lin Deng, by reflex, lifted his sleeve to check himself, sniffing from cuff to front hem—his practiced motion was almost pitiable. He quickly ruled out the possibility of odor from an anatomical specimen: “Not me. I washed before coming today. This robe was washed by my wife—it’s clean.”

“I didn’t smell anything. Is it alcohol?”

After a long inhale, Maynard detected no scent matching Kraft’s. The rain had washed the airborne dust clean; if there was any odor at all, it was likely only the faint fragrance of plants.

That dust-like sensation passed quickly, similar to the gritty air that rushes out when opening a long-unused attic—soon dissipating.

A signal in the senses that does not change with breathing is proof it does not originate from olfaction.

“Let me hold the candlestick—it’s heavy.”

Taking the pure copper candlestick from Maynard was easy. Kraft weighed it in his hand, reassured by its solid heft, then stepped forward and pushed the two scholars aside. If anything were to appear before them, throwing this thing would be a decent option.

The door was, of course, unlocked. He gripped the handle warily, shielding the candlestick before him, and slowly pushed open the thick door.

Kraft disliked this action—subconsciously, it symbolized leaving a comfortable, known environment and placing himself into the unknown, where anything could await on the other side. Yet such situations kept recurring, and someone had to open the door.

The odor absent to the nose faded, replaced by the unsettling sensations that had troubled him—now intensifying along his left arm braced against the door, like dry lips suddenly touching water, awakening anew, speaking in words of pulsing pain between muscle fibers and shifting, alternating illusions of cold and heat.

【Listen】

But not with his ears. A faint chewing sound, soft or hard matter blending, something thin—perhaps fabric—torn and spat out, unpalatable metal falling, sinking into a thick, viscous, furry substance covering the floor—imprecisely, because it came from indirect feedback through a shielded spiritual sense, like fragments leaking through fingers pressed over lidless eyes.

An external, primal instinct from the depths urged consciousness, urgently demanding the spiritual sense—like needing to open one’s eyes after sensing intrusion into a safe zone, rather than stubbornly refusing to use an organ already present.

The deep called, in its own way, silently urging the one who had formed the connection to use its gift—to break the oldest, strongest source of human fear, and deepen the bond. Resistance required willpower equal to refusing to open one’s eyes upon waking or to swallowing when refusing food.

“No.” Kraft suppressed the subtle, fear-like signals stirring within his physical senses. He did not know what would happen if this connection deepened further—certainly nothing better than the twisted chaos that had spread across half the floor, and no one could guarantee the next loss of control would be stopped.

“What?” Maynard asked. He had noticed Kraft pause for several seconds, muttering to himself.

“Nothing.”

Light spilled in as the door swung open, sweeping across the interior: a small barrel, a round table, and an empty bed.

Entering the candlelit room, exposed rafters overhead supported this cramped space; the black furniture’s age likely matched that of the building itself. After all, this was not meant for daily living—it served only as a private retreat for guests who became unruly or had other needs during banquets.

The room’s interior was considerably drier than outside, yet far from dusty enough to stir airborne particles—making those who sensed it more certain that some non-worldly presence had visited here.

“He’s gone?”

There was no hiding place here. The single small window was mounted high above head height, barely allowing one to stand on a table and peer out. Maynard followed Kraft inside, and the room instantly felt too small to maneuver.

The impression of a human shape on the bed caught his attention—it was exactly where they had placed Petrie. The sheets were not disheveled as with other drunken guests; instead, they remained unnaturally neat, even lacking the crease left by someone sitting on the edge. The flickering candlelight cast this scene, contradicting his logical expectations.

Something resting in the shadow beneath the bed tripped him—he stumbled, kicked it, and it bounced off the wall. Maynard bent to pick it up: a pointed leather boot with a wooden sole, a popular style from Dunling, which they had themselves helped remove from its owner’s feet and placed there moments ago.

“Guard!”

Less than ten minutes later, Kraft saw Martin again—only two hours since they’d last met. Martin still wore his banquet attire, and a small red mark now marred his face.

He pushed past the armored guards before him. The corridor was now filled with members of the Medical College and searchers armed with torches and weapons—they had sealed every exit from the hall, combed every inch of this dead-end corridor, searching for the surgeon from Dunling—but found nothing.

A living man had vanished like evaporated alcohol, leaving behind only a pair of boots proving he had not walked out on his own.

Martin squeezed his way to Kraft’s side as Maynard recounted the events to the venue supervisor: “He drank that cup and collapsed—not drunk, more like unconscious—so we brought him here. But that doesn’t make sense; we all drank from the same pot...”

“The poison flask.” He cut Maynard off, his expression dark and shifting, tossing the object to the supervisor. “Double inner chambers. How did this get in?”

A silver flask with a floral-patterned handle. Kraft remembered it—the feel of it in his hand, the small amount of liquid sloshing inside.

【The best wine has already been divided among us】

“Damn it—we were so close!” Kraft realized he had missed the chance to act. No matter how vivid his memory, it could not replace the moment he should have connected the thought when Professor Feiernan said those words.

An event entangling human malice with something from the depths was slipping away silently—worse than the deadly belladonna that had nearly killed him.

“If you’ve truly secured every possible exit, I think I can help you identify at least one accomplice.”

“No need.” Martin refused Kraft’s help, staring at the supervisor with a predatory gaze. The voluminous banquet attire on his frame even overshadowed the gleaming armor of the man before him. “I just came from the kitchen. That fellow locked himself in the storage room after returning.”

“You caught him?”

“He vanished. Just like here.”