Chapter 269

For a moment, Lu Mian suspected that he had hallucinated:

There was no couple at all, and there was no behavior of trying to blow out the candle flame!

If it weren't for the memory still being deep, and if it weren't for having a very clear understanding of the dangers of underground Trier, Lu Mian would definitely have looked for problems in himself instead of looking for traces of that couple's existence here.

The few guests who were previously behind that couple quickened their pace, caught up with the people in front, and filled the abrupt blank space that appeared in the team.

They were not surprised, not afraid, and not confused.

Everything was so normal.

Lu Mian, who was already being watched by countless invisible gazes, had increasingly obvious dense small bumps on the surface of his skin.

He subconsciously looked at the catacomb manager Kendall, who was walking in front of the two police officers, to see what reaction he had to what just happened.

Kendall, wearing yellow pants and a blue vest, was carrying an extinguished calcium carbide lamp in one hand and a white candle burning quietly in the other, walking along the road he came from toward the exit of the catacombs without looking sideways, seemingly not noticing what happened in the team next to him at all.

Suddenly, he turned his head, and his gaze collided with Lu Mian's line of sight.

"Is there anything?" Kendall's somewhat low voice echoed in the corridor with burial chambers on both sides, echoing in the empty holes of the nearby skulls.

Lu Mian saw no anomaly and replied quite calmly:

"Afraid of losing you."

Kendall nodded imperceptibly:

"Then I'll be slower."

He continued to walk toward the exit door hole, his pace slowing down quite a bit, slow, swaying, extremely silent, like the living corpses described in some horror novels.

Lu Mian held the white candle with a swaying yellowish flame, passed the group of people who were still laughing and making noise, occasionally deliberately staring at a white skull, and one thought after another flashed in his mind:

"They really didn't notice anyone missing...

"After they leave the catacombs, will the families of that man and woman discover their relatives are missing?

"I was thinking before, the catacombs are open to the public, and college students often come here to adventure and dance with skeletons. Will there really be no problems?

"Even if there are people who don't listen to warnings among visitors led by the catacomb manager, let alone young people who just enter the catacombs with a white candle...

"I originally thought there were safer protection measures, or the frequency of accidents was not high enough to scare those people. Now it seems that it is another matter..."

Lu Mian suspected that people "swallowed" by the catacombs would not only have their bodies disappear, but even the impression of their existence in the minds of friends and relatives would be erased!

"Why can I remember them? Because I have Termiboros sealed in my body, and my fate is connected to It to a certain extent?

"Why do the government and the two major churches still open such a dangerous place to the public? Do the catacombs need a large number of living people to come and go frequently to suppress something? Are those who don't listen to warnings just necessary sacrifices?" Lu Mian felt his hair stand up the more he thought about it, forcing himself not to analyze it deeply.

Lacking enough information, he couldn't analyze it deeply either.

Anyway, the catacombs had nothing worth his risky exploration. As long as he followed the rules, there would be no problems coming here occasionally!

From the moment he entered the catacombs, that "talkative" police officer Luo Beier fell into silence, seemingly not adapting to the environment here either.

He didn't speak, and no one chatted. The four of them returned to the natural door hole engraved with exquisite reliefs in the difficult silence and walked out.

As soon as he crossed that boundary, Lu Mian immediately felt the countless invisible gazes disappear.

His body no longer felt cold, and his skin quickly returned to normal.

"Whew..." Luo Beier exhaled a long breath, "Every time I enter the catacombs, I feel uncomfortable all over. Kendall, how can you manage to enter more than a dozen times a day and still be very happy?"

Kendall laughed:

"You think we are not affected? As long as we don't have to be on night duty, those with families will rush to find their wives, and those without will go to places like City Wall Street to warm themselves with the temperature of others."

"Seriously, after staying here for a long time, I feel like I'm slowly becoming a corpse."

During the chat, Kendall lit the calcium carbide lamp and extinguished the candle in his hand.

All the way back to the ground, Luo Beier glanced at the Market District Police Headquarters carriage parked outside the entrance building and smiled at his colleague and Lu Mian:

"I've been uncomfortable for a long time, and I want to pee. You guys wait for me, I'll go to the restroom first."

After speaking, he walked toward the mud-gray two-story building that sold tickets for the catacombs.

Lu Mian glanced at the dome covered with stone reliefs, stood by the pillar on the edge, and looked at the pedestrians coming and going in Purgatory Square aimlessly, while the other police officer got on the carriage and waited.

Just at this moment, Lu Mian suddenly felt a bit cold again.

This was very similar to his feeling after entering the catacombs, but not as intense.

He turned his body instinctively and guardedly, and saw the catacomb manager Kendall standing behind him, watching him without expression.

"Is there anything?" Lu Mian asked quite calmly.

Kendall, who had a thick brown beard, asked in a low voice:

"What were you looking at just now?"

Lu Mian's heart sank, and he asked half-sincerely and half-acting:

"Which time are you referring to?"

"On the way back, when passing that group of people." Kendall's tone had no ups and downs.

Lu Mian made a sudden realization look:

"I am very interested in weddings held in a pile of dead people. They don't seem to be afraid at all and are having a lot of fun."

Kendall stared at him for two seconds and nodded:

"Don't learn from them."

After speaking, this catacomb manager carried the unlit calcium carbide lamp and walked step by step toward the mud-gray two-story building that belonged to them.

Not long after, police officer Luo Beier ran over, and the carriage returned to the Honest Market District.

Market District Police Headquarters, inside the "Relic Room" deep in the first-floor corridor.

Luo Beier walked to the wooden shelf divided into multiple grids and pointed to one of them:

"Here, Flamant's relics."

A dark suitcase, pens, paper, ink bottles, and several thick books were stuffed there.

Lu Mian pulled out a book and flipped through it simply, finding that it was a mineralogy textbook about the underground rock layers of Trier. For a dropout youth like him, the content was very difficult, and there were even a large number of words he didn't recognize, which were specialized terms belonging to mineralogy.

The other books also belonged to mineralogy, some were basic textbooks, and some were more complex collections of papers.

After confirming, Lu Mian took out the suitcase, put it on the ground, and opened it.

Except for two sets of clothes and necessary daily necessities, the suitcase was occupied by one small gray-white cloth bag after another, with different names written on them with a pen:

"Flower," "Papyrus," "Sheep"...

These are the names of different underground rock layers in Trier that Flamant mentioned... Are the mineral specimens corresponding to them in the bags? Lu Mian recalled roughly and probably guessed what was in those cloth bags.

After Flamant went mad, he didn't forget to carry his research objects!

And these had no meaning to Lu Mian. He began to consider letting the Police Headquarters handle them himself.

Just then, Termiboros's magnificent, overlapping voice rang in his ears:

"The cloth bag on the far right."

Yo, you loser finally spoke again? Lu Mian's first reaction was to mock Termiboros, and then he looked at the cloth bag prompted by that evil god angel with surprise and suspicion.

That cloth bag was located on the far right of the suitcase, with Flamant's socks on top and his razor below, and a combined specialized term written on its surface with dark blue ink:

"Earth Blood"

Earth... Blood... Lu Mian, who was already squatting beside the suitcase, muttered silently while picking up the cloth bag very calmly in front of police officer Luo Beier and opening it.

Inside the cloth bag was a flake-like stone, brown on the surface, with many pits, and in each pit there were star-like dark red spots, as if the earth had seeped out blood.

For some reason, Lu Mian felt quite irritable just by seeing this thing.

He didn't touch the mineral specimen with his hands, tied the cloth bag again, and put it back in the suitcase.

Immediately after, he quickly flipped through the mineralogy material about the underground rock layers of Trier.

Because the purpose was clear, he quickly found the answer:

"'Earth Blood' rock layer is located between 55 meters and 56 meters underground in Trier, about 0.76 meters thick... This is the deepest mineral we can collect. Further down is the ancient relic protection area, which is not allowed to enter..."

Beside this textbook-style description, Flamant's familiar handwriting added a few records:

"A small amount of ore in the 'Earth Blood' rock layer is more special than the rest, suspected of containing volatile toxins, which can make people irritable until they suffer from a mental illness called mania."

"Some researchers suddenly went mad and slashed their colleagues."

"Must wear corresponding protective equipment to contact specific mineral specimens of the 'Earth Blood' rock layer."

"Earth Blood" is the rock layer close to that Trier in the Fourth Epoch? It has obvious peculiarities itself... No wonder Termiboros asked me to pay attention... Lu Mian pondered, and police officer Luo Beier urged:

"Do you want it or not? Make a decision quickly!"

"Want." Lu Mian stood up.

Although what he wanted was only the mineral specimen of the "Earth Blood" rock layer and the mineralogy textbook about the underground rock layers of Trier, in order not to arouse suspicion, he still signed and took away all of Flamant's relics.

After returning to room 207 of the Golden Rooster Hotel, Lu Mian couldn't care about washing off the arcane makeup on his face now, and asked Termiboros in a low voice:

"What is special about this mineral specimen?"

Termiboros's voice rang in Lu Mian's ears again:

"You don't think it's normal that the Monsuri ghost never came to kill Flamant, do you?"

(End of chapter)