Chapter 428

Poet Yilaite subconsciously took a step back:

"No, no need."

He then came back to his senses, looking at the man in the gray robe coloring the doll in the darkness, and asked curiously:

"Are you the wax figure master serving Count Pu Yifu?"

This Count had a hobby of making wax figures for friends.

The man with a face full of bright red beard withdrew his gaze and continued to color the semi-finished doll in front of him.

Lu Mian, who had returned to the passage, turned his head to look at Abus Medici and asked the strange man in the messy room before he could open his mouth:

"How should I address you?"

Lu Mian was absolutely sure that the "wax sculptor" in front of him had a problem, just not knowing whether the problem was big or small—they had observed just now that there was no light overflowing from this room, which meant the other party was coloring the doll in pure darkness!

The man with iron-black eyes and a face full of bright red beard raised his head again and said in an illusory, drifting voice:

"My grandfather went crazy, went deep into the underground palace, and never came back...

"My father went crazy, went deep into the underground palace, and never came back..."

"So, have you gone crazy too?" Abus Medici interrupted the man's babbling.

The man was stunned for two seconds:

"I, heard the call from the deep underground palace..."

Speaking of this, his gaze swept across the faces of Lu Mian, Abus, and Miss Ailuo, and the corners of his mouth, surrounded by beard, tilted slightly, as if revealing a not-so-obvious smile.

His iron-black eyes became more and more empty, and his voice had a few more points of urgency:

"You, go to the deep underground palace quickly, go to the deep underground palace quickly..."

"Why isn't there me?" Poet Yilaite muttered in a low voice.

Lu Mian's thoughts raced, looking for the common ground between himself, Abus, and Miss Ailuo.

Just as poet Yilaite said, the "you" in the words of the strange man didn't include him. Combined with the current environment, this inevitably had some problems.

I am a "Hunter," Abus is a "Hunter," could Miss Ailuo also be a "Hunter"? While Lu Mian was thinking about the reason, Abus Medici didn't mind the terrifying meaning hidden in the "wax sculptor's" words at all and asked with a smile:

"Do you need us to go to the deep underground palace to bring your grandfather, father, and brother back, or help you send a blessing over?"

The aggressiveness is a bit strong... Logically speaking, he is at least a "Pyromaniac," and the kind whose potion is almost digested. There is no need to keep provoking, every sentence is provoking... Is he trying to mislead others that he is just a "Provocateur"? Lu Mian looked at Abus's contoured side face and grumbled a few times in his heart.

The man coloring the doll didn't pay attention to Abus and continued his work.

"Sorry to bother you." Lu Mian didn't give Abus a chance to play deeply, reached out his right palm, grasped the handle, and gently closed the vermilion wooden door.

Then, he gave up searching the room with tin soldiers, worried about triggering unnecessary anomalies.

In the dark environment, Lu Mian carried the calcium carbide lamp and went down layer by layer along the mottled stone steps.

In the echoing sound of footsteps, Miss Ailuo Einhorn suddenly said:

"That person just now looked like a lion..."

Lu Mian recalled the appearance of the "wax sculptor" and found that because his bright red hair and beard were long and dense, he really looked like a human-shaped lion.

Abus Medici shook the calcium carbide lamp in his hand lightly and looked at Miss Ailuo:

"This is your maternal grandfather's castle. You have lived here for almost six years. Don't act like us visitors, knowing nothing and understanding nothing."

"I really don't know who that person just now was." Miss Ailuo shook her head, "I rarely enter the underground palace. The furthest I've walked is to that room full of wax figures."

That is to say, in the few explorations you had, you chose the same route as me, and in the three large doors of "Hope," "Madness," and "Death," you also chose the "Door of Madness"... Why didn't you continue to go deep at that time, what were you worried about? Lu Mian inferred some information from Miss Ailuo Einhorn's short answer.

Abus sneered:

"Then have you heard the legend of Solon family members going crazy, entering the deep underground palace, and never coming back?

"For example, my grandfather went crazy, went deep into the underground palace..."

This member of the "Iron and Blood Cross Order" began to imitate the babbling of the man just now. Whether it was the voice or the tone, it was very realistic and vivid.

Very good, asked the question I wanted to ask... Lu Mian felt that although Abus Medici was annoying, he also had value.

He seemed to have no scruples and was sharp enough, always able to ask questions that others couldn't ask well based on various reasons.

With such a team member, Lu Mian could better hide in the "dark" and not expose his true thoughts and attitude.

The mottled stone steps seemed to have no end. Miss Ailuo went down carefully and sighed:

"I have always known similar legends.

"The owners of the Red Tianebao and the Solon family members living here, regardless of gender, have the possibility of gradually becoming violent, manic, and finally going crazy, walking into the deep underground palace after self-mutilation, and not returning. Such things sometimes happen once every few years, sometimes two or three times a year.

"Except for the part of the family members who most desire to restore the glory of their ancestors, other Solons have stayed away from this ancient castle, not wanting to go crazy.

"This has a certain effect, ensuring the reproduction and inheritance of the Solon family, but that madness seems to be a curse, a curse rooted in the bloodline. Solons living in other places also occasionally return here suddenly and repeat the experiences of their ancestors."

Is this the surface truth of the Solon family's decline? If the core members of the family go crazy one after another, enter the deep underground palace, and do not return, then this family will indeed decline bit by bit... Why does Miss Ailuo want to tell us in detail about these things circulating within the Solon family... Does she feel that we can't live out, so she just satisfies her sharing desire? Lu Mian recalled the nightmares he had once had due to the King Cake game.

The Red Tianebao in the nightmare was full of lunatics, lunatics who dug out their own eyeballs and self-mutilated in different ways.

Now it seems that those might be the different Solons who went crazy in more than two hundred years.

Of course, this definitely wasn't all Solon family members. In Lu Mian's nightmare, the participants of the King Cake game like novelist Anoli also all went crazy, harming themselves or others, and they clearly didn't have the bloodline of the Solon family.

Abus Medici smiled and asked Miss Ailuo with a tone that lacked a beating:

"Did your maternal grandfather also go crazy like this and enter the deep underground palace?"

"No." Miss Ailuo's state was peaceful, not provoked, "He passed away in the torment of long-term headaches. Not every owner of the Red Tianebao will eventually go crazy."

"What are the common points of those who didn't go crazy?" Abus pressed.

Miss Ailuo's face was illuminated by the calcium carbide lamp from the side, and her voice answered as usual:

"This is the secret of our family."

Her implication was "I won't tell you."

Lu Mian, who was walking at the front, felt a bit angry.

If Miss Ailuo had said "Don't ask about the Solon family's affairs" at the beginning, he wouldn't have had any emotional reaction, but Miss Ailuo told a bunch of useful information, aroused everyone's curiosity, and then cut it off at the most critical part, not telling everyone the answer. Anyone would have emotional reactions like annoyance, as if they were provoked.

Abus was silent for a few seconds and turned to smile:

"Then what about your mother?"

"She died of illness normally." Miss Ailuo didn't hide it.

Abus laughed and continued to ask:

"Then what about you? You also have the bloodline of the Solon family. Will you suddenly go crazy?"

Miss Ailuo swept a glance at this rude guy and revealed a smile that was hard to understand:

"In the long run, we will all go crazy."

Who are the "we" you are referring to? Lu Mian's forehead jumped. He felt that the "we" Miss Ailuo said wasn't just the members of the Solon family.

After a brief silence, poet Yilaite sighed sincerely:

"A family's fear, a curse that continues for generations, ancestors who constantly walk into the dark underground, is really an excellent writing subject. It can give people inspiration. If Anoli knew, a classic novel would definitely be born. Even for me, I have the urge to write a long poem."

While speaking, the four finally finished walking the long stone steps.

What appeared before their eyes was a wide hall. In the hall, gray-white stone pillars stood, and they together supported the dark top above.

As the light of the four calcium carbide lamps shone in, Lu Mian and the others saw several piles of white bones. They were located behind some stone pillars, partially covered and partially exposed.

"Quite a few people died." Abus Medici laughed and sighed, walking toward one of the piles of white bones.

Just then, Lu Mian heard a rustling sound.

He looked up suddenly and aimed the front of the calcium carbide lamp at the top.

In the yellowish light, a huge black shadow crawled quickly on the dim and mottled ceiling, disappearing into the shadows on the other side.

That black shadow was a creature shaped like a spider.

Compared with other peers, it had only one pair of eyes, but each eye was filled with dense, tiny single eyes. These single eyes turned in different directions, flashing with cold light.

On this giant spider, countless bristles were thick and long, surrounding a withered, fist-sized, shriveled heart on its back.

Lu Mian suddenly shuddered, and a noun popped into his mind:

Hunting Black Spider!

This was one of the main materials for the "Conspirator" potion.

In this past month or so, although Lu Mian hadn't collected any materials related to the Hunting Black Spider and the Human-Headed Lion, he had roughly figured out the situation of these two supernatural creatures, knowing what they looked like and what abilities they had. He had already been considering whether to "teleport" to other places to find the traces of the Hunting Black Spider and the Human-Headed Lion.

But compared to the Hunting Black Spider in the data, the black giant spider that just crawled past was more peculiar. Many details were not the same. It even had an externally embedded, human-like withered heart!

(End of chapter)