Chapter 427: The Living

Ainhorn? Though Lu Mi was a dropout, he had received Aurora's strict education and knew this surname belonged to the imperial family of the Forsak Empire to the north.

He had seen Aurora behave timidly and obediently before Puyfer Soren, assuming her father's family was obscure, even fallen, forced to seek refuge with their cousin—yet he never expected her to bear such an illustrious surname.

Know this: since the Forsak Empire's founding in the late Fourth Era, over a thousand years have passed, and the throne has always remained in the Ainhorn family's hands, while the Soren family lost the Intis throne nearly two centuries ago—whose status is higher is self-evident.

Albus Medich glanced at Aurora with mild surprise and said in a slightly provocative tone:

"You're an Ainhorn? I never would've guessed."

Aurora stared straight ahead, reverting to her meek, well-behaved posture.

She spoke without emotion:

"The Soren and Ainhorn families have long intermarried; even after the Sorens lost the Intis throne, the custom endured. My mother simply married one of the Ainhorn royal line."

The poet Elait asked with interest:

"So you're an Ainhorn. Why did you come to Triel? When I knew Puyfer, you were already living in the Red Tianebao."

"Six years ago, my father died in the war between the Forsak Empire and the Ruin Kingdom. My mother brought me back to Triel and moved into my maternal grandfather's home—Puyfer's father. Two years ago, my grandfather passed away. Last year, my mother died of illness." Aurora sighed lightly.

Is the frequency of these deaths too high? Hmm—Aurora once said that the four great powers of the North Continent, though sometimes allied and sometimes at odds, never stopped intermarrying among their royal and noble families, leading to frequent cousin unions… According to Flanka, the "Hunter" Path was once primarily controlled by the Soren and Ainhorn families—could Hunter-Hunter marriages ensure that descendants were better suited to the "Hunter" Path? Lu Mi carried his carbide lamp, walking down the corridor toward the exit of the wax figure room.

The wax figures on either side, lit by the lamp's yellowish glow, appeared with a yellowish hue, almost lifelike.

The corridor grew narrower ahead, the wax figures nearly piled into the middle of the path.

As Lu Mi walked, he brushed against one, scraped another—feeling their surfaces icy cold, limbs stiff, unmistakably real wax figures.

Finally, the four reached the room's end and opened the iron-black wooden door.

Just before stepping out, Lu Mi instinctively turned back and glanced.

Inside the dimming room, the wax figures' agonized faces flickered faintly in the reflected light.

Their eyes seemed to have turned toward this side, silently watching the exit.

Lu Mi once again recalled being attacked by the wax figures in the river; his naturally hanging wrist lifted slightly, silently giving the middle finger to the entire room of wax figures.

"I really wish I could burn this place down," Albus Medich remarked with regret.

Lu Mi paused, silently agreeing in his mind:

Good idea.

He suspected that if he could actually set fire to these wax figures, his potion would fully digest.

Aurora Ainhorn spoke calmly beside him:

"The Red Tianebao averages three fires per month."

Are you telling us to go ahead and burn it, without fear? Lu Mi muttered inwardly, stepping into the corridor behind the wax figure room.

The corridor sloped downward, leading deeper underground.

Lu Mi had wanted to pinch his lips and whistle in awe, but ultimately suppressed the impulse.

The four descended steadily until the corridor leveled out again.

No wall lamps glowed here—neither gas nor candlelit, all now dormant in darkness.

With the four carbide lamps' yellowish light, Lu Mi saw a wooden door slightly ajar ahead, from which drifted a faint, utterly ancient scent of blood.

He walked over and pushed open the door.

Light spilled in, revealing the room's contents to Lu Mi, Albus, and the others.

It was a small bedroom: the bed collapsed, wood rotted, table overturned, scattered debris littering the center.

The walls bore deep, sharp grooves—as if someone had clawed them with fingernails, until their fingertips rotted and bled.

Blood remained in those crevices, oxidized black over time, stripped of its original form, yet still retaining a faint metallic stench.

At that moment, a whistle sounded in Lu Mi's ear.

Albus Medich used this to express his awe.

He squeezed past Lu Mi into the room, running his fingers over the deep claw marks on the walls.

"I can imagine how terrifying the noise must've been," said Aurora, her round, babyish face showing oddly misplaced focus.

Lu Mi suspected someone from the Red Tianebao had gone mad, locked here—these marks were their final act before death.

After a brief search yielded nothing, they pressed on.

At a three-way junction, they chose the right path and found another slightly ajar wooden door.

Inside, the room was in ruins, stained with blackened blood, and the walls seemed embedded with what looked like decaying chunks of flesh.

Albus Medich studied it a moment, then muttered:

"Some guy exploded here—from the inside out. Blood and flesh splattered everywhere."

Lu Mi gave an almost imperceptible nod—his own assessment matched.

A "Pyromaniac" losing control and dying?

The poet Elait, holding his carbide lamp in one hand, struggled to draw a puff from his cherrywood pipe and offered his opinion:

"I don't know why this happened, but it sounds poetic."

Is explosion art? Lu Mi grumbled, entering the room to search.

In this environment, his emotions were more agitated than usual, violent impulses clearly strengthened.

The ancient blood and decaying flesh seemed to emit an aura affecting mental states.

After another dozen meters, they saw another slightly ajar wooden door on the corridor's side.

This room emitted no faint scent of blood, yet as Lu Mi approached, his skin prickled as if dozens of sharp blades pressed against it, every hair standing on end.

Sharpness.

That was the single word that surfaced naturally in his mind.

As the carbide lamp's light flooded in, Lu Mi and Aurora saw all furniture reduced to tiny fragments—bed, desk, all stacked in finger-sized cubes, half-collapsed.

"Impressive swordsmanship," Albus Medich chuckled.

Lu Mi wasn't interested in that—he noticed this room, unlike the previous two, held no trace of ancient blood or rotting flesh.

Where had the original occupant gone? Lu Mi examined it carefully, then turned and walked away.

Soon, they saw a stone staircase descending, its bottom swallowed entirely by darkness, as if endless.

On either side of the stairs stood a slightly ajar wooden door, each room dark and heavy, as if swallowing all light and sound.

Lu Mi chose the left by instinct, pushed open the door, and extended his carbide lamp inside.

In the direct yellowish glow, he saw an intact bed, a table and chairs undamaged.

On the wall ahead hung two cold, gleaming straight swords; on the table lay a pile of colorful, differently shaped blocks and a row of tin soldiers no taller than a candle.

These tin soldiers wore blue coats edged with gold thread, some holding spear-like branches, others black rifles—popular toys in Intis for one or two centuries, beloved by children.

Lu Mi walked over, set down his lamp, picked up a tin soldier, and expertly wound the spring on its back.

With a squeaking creak, the soldier moved, swaying forward, raising its spear.

Lu Mi remembered, as a child, before his mother fell ill and his grandfather went bankrupt, he owned a set just like this.

"There's no sign of damage here—items from childhood to adulthood are all present," Aurora said after circling the room.

Albus Medich laughed:

"I wonder where the room's owner is now—he didn't go mad clawing the walls, nor did he explode from within."

As they spoke, Lu Mi extended his right hand, attempting to pull open the drawer of the natural-wood table to see what lay inside.

Suddenly, he heard a phantom, drifting voice:

"My grandfather went mad, descended into the deep crypt, and never returned…"

Lu Mi tensed, half-turned, scanning the surroundings for the voice's source.

Albus, Aurora, and the others mirrored his movements—they had heard it too.

"My father went mad, descended into the deep crypt, and never returned…"

"My brother went mad, descended into the deep crypt, and never returned…"

"I… heard the crypt's call from deep within…"

Lu Mi, Albus, Aurora, and Elait all turned their gaze to the wooden door across the corridor.

The phantom voice had come from there.

With a snap, Elait, standing in the corridor, pushed open the door behind him—ignorance is fearlessness.

The yellowish light instantly flooded in, revealing two figures and scattered objects.

One was a pale-white doll, mounted on a metal stand, still hairless, its features crude.

Around it lay various molds, strands of hair, clay, and pigments in containers.

A man in a gray-black robe, his bright red hair falling naturally, held a brush and carefully painted the doll.

Sensing the light, he slowly raised his head, revealing a rugged face thick with beard and black iron eyes.

He saw Lu Mi and Elait and others, speaking slowly, his voice drifting:

"You… want to make wax figures?"

(End of Chapter)