681: Two hundred.
Return ho.
681: Two hundred.
Return ho.
Not long after passing Himfast, the fog rolling over from the other side of Sugard Mountain enveloped the carriage.
If the carriage had stopped at the edge of the mist, one might have seen it creeping like a living thing, slowly advancing and swallowing everything bit by bit.
It wouldn’t take long, at most a few days, for the Mist of Strangeness to reach Himfast.
The oil lamp hanging outside the carriage dimd as if about to be snuffed out by the mist.
However, Amber didn’t need the light to illuminate the path, and Anna released her more obscure aura to hide Lu Li, declaring her identity.
The strange pair encountered no disturbance in the mist.
At midnight, the carriage climbed over Sugard Mountain, passing through the pitch-black Watch Town.
Occasionally, Lu Li would see a few dim points of light flickering like the oil lamp outside the carriage, unknown whether they were people unwilling to leave the town or terrible traps luring passersby closer.
Leaving Watch Town and moving on for a while, the solid dirt road was replaced by a broad stone pavent.
They had returned to the Ruins of Belfast.
Anna suggested waiting until daybreak to pass through the city ruins and instead spend the night at Aileen’s Manor House, and also to retrieve those books.
The current state of Belfast was more dangerous than the wilderness, with Evil Spirits, Evil Gods’ minions, and the Heretics all wandering above these ruins.
To enter the Manor House’s main gate, they had to pass by the Shore of Agate Lake.
After so uncanny existence took over there, it was clear that passing by the lake was not a good idea, so Anna directly grabbed Amber and the carriage, vaulting over the manor fence and entering the back garden.
They inevitably passed an area of overturned and uneven mounds of earth.
Aidanvoya didn’t know what the mound that Anna gazed at blankly ant, and Anna seed to see two withered trees intertwined, inseparably sprouting from the cracked crevices.
Perhaps this ending was sowhat better…
At least the lovers would not experience the pain of becoming enemies.
Navigating around half of the manor, Amber stopped at the steps next to the fountain.
Lu Li picked up the oil lamp and ascended the steps with Anna and Aidanvoya.
In the dim light’s edge, the half-open mansion door appeared.
The survivors should have closed it…
Lu Li realized sothing and headed straight for the room where Aileen’s books were kept—the door there was also half-ajar, with darkness and silence oozing through the gap.
Anna, who was carrying another oil lamp, pushed open the door and walked into the library.
The corner hearth was a ss with sleeping bags, clothing, and canned food scattered everywhere.
In an empty space, a vortex-like uncanny pattern was painted with blood-like paint, seemingly a kind of symbol.
The fate of the survivors who hid here was clear: the Heretics had co to the manor, found them, and took them away.
Anna looked towards Lu Li, waiting for his next decision.
Lu Li shook his head lightly.
The paint had dried, suggesting that they had been taken away for more than a day, “No clues, let’s rest upstairs.”
The second floor still had many clean guest rooms.
Anna loaded the books she had picked out a few days ago onto the carriage.
There was still plenty of space in the carriage, so she selected so more books and the survivors’ leftover canned food to put into the carriage.
Aidanvoya chose to stay on the second-floor corridor, sitting in a chair and gazing out.
But apart from the thick darkness and the fog, she couldn’t see anything.
The direction she looked was that of her and Tesla’s Ho.
In another bedroom, Anna tucked Lu Li in, walking to the fireplace to build up the fire.
“Rhode and Aidanvoya, one of them is lying,” Lu Li said in the bedroom that was becoming increasingly warm and bright.
“What’s wrong?” Anna looked over.
“Rhode once said that he knew Aidanvoya when Tesla was a Mortician, but Aidanvoya said they t during an investigation,” Lu Li said.
“Is Tesla’s nephew lying?” Anna’s hostility toward Rhode made her prejudiced.
“I don’t know,” said Lu Li.
“We can’t confirm it unless we make contact with Tesla.”
Tesla’s forr butler might have known sothing, but he had died while escorting Aidanvoya.
“I’ll keep an eye on her,” Anna said.
The blanket that had covered Lu Li was no longer cold, and in the warmth, he felt tired and gradually fell asleep.
“Goodnight,” Anna whispered softly.
In the morning, Lu Li was woken up by the sound of Anna and Aidanvoya’s conversation in the hallway.
It was just getting light outside, the Mist of Strangeness had not yet dissipated, and there were dark red charcoals burning in the fireplace.
Lu Li sat up, and the woolen blanket slid off him.
At that mont, the door was pushed open, and Anna, hearing the noise, ca into the guest room.
“Did you sleep well?” she asked tenderly.
“It seems I had a dream,” said Lu Li as he put on his overcoat, the contents of the dream already forgotten.
“I’ll go prepare breakfast,” Anna said.
The cellar of the manor house was stocked with lots of food including vegetables, but due to the passage of ti and the extravagance of those survivors, only the long-lasting spices, beans, yams, and cabbages were left.
Anna moved them all up to the cart, leaving so by the bedroom fireplace to prepare food.
Lu Li watched her skillful cooking movents: “Did you learn this from Sara?”
“Hmm, they have bodies, although they don’t feel hunger, they still need delicious food …
So, Sara practically made food for almost two hundred years.”
Even without formal training, two hundred years of cooking would suffice to make Sara one of the best chefs in the world.
With all of Sara’s mories, it wasn’t too difficult for Anna to learn.
Praised by Aidanvoya for the great food Anna was cooking, by the ti Lu Li finished eating, the Mist of Strangeness was about to disperse, and visibility improved enough to glimpse the rippling edge of Agate Lake.
They left the manor house, a whole cart full of books and food, and passed by Tesla’s Ho.
At Aidanvoya’s request, Lu Li stopped the cart to let her return ho to reminisce about the past.
A few minutes later, Aidanvoya ca back, holding on to a picture fra tightly.
The faded picture inside showed her posing with Tesla.
The carriage continued, leaving the manor estates around Agate Lake and officially entering the Ruins of Belfast.
Anna had Lu Li hide inside the cart, and then she climbed out of the carriage, releasing her aura to drive away the lurking shadows in the dark corners.
…
Elm Forest.
This forest was becoming a forbidden zone that so creatures hesitated to approach, much like the Shipwreck District and the Ashes District—creatures often disappeared near Elm Forest, and soon after, their bones would appear at the edge of the forest, silently telling of their fate.
That morning, a sinister creature with thick, armor-like exoskeleton akin to a centipede, crawled through the burnt remnants of Elm District and stepped into Elm Forest.
The forest’s negative emotions swirled towards them.
Aidanvoya felt uneasy, but for Lu Li and Anna, the emotions felt almost like a welcoming of their return.
The closer they got to the cliff top, the more the emotions tended towards neutrality…
and the positive.
As a corner of a wooden hut ca faintly into view ahead of the road marked by carriage tracks, the surrounding Elm trees’ sentints had turned joyful and affectionate, wrapping gently around them like invisible tendrils.
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