Chapter 874: Sixty-seven. Secret Room
The warm glow of the fire in the fireplace radiated throughout the room.
A desk and bookshelf were neatly arranged, with two unopened letters on the desk, a bed in the corner, and a dining table with pastries on it.
Compared to a prison cell, the term secret chamber was more accurate here.
Lu Li even discovered that the handcuffs weren’t secure, with gaps allowing him to remove them like a bracelet.
He observed the runes engraved on the handcuffs and the tarpaulin; they seemed to share the same origin.
Loose restraints and a study-like secret chamber—
Was some superior forcefully bringing him here?
Did they not think Lu Li was an impersonator?
Was someone watching from somewhere?
The truth was shrouded in a mist called strange.
Lu Li walked over to the desk, his gaze landing on the two letters on the desk.
[To His Excellency Lu Li]
The half-folded letter read.
He opened the letter, but it did not contain answers; instead, it was information on the investigations of the “Shadow of the Maiden” and the “Merchant.”
The former, due to the closed-off news in the Weird Times, and because the “Shadow of the Maiden” hadn’t ravaged the towns, her latest news still stopped at the Hillevig Mountain Range.
This meant Lu Li would have to go to the Hillevig Mountain Range to search for Anna.
The latter, as a partner of the exorcist from the old times, the merchant vanished when the exorcist disappeared from this land, and their once wealth was also missing, except for a treasure the Earth Dwellers’ Guild seemed to have unearthed in the Barren Lands.
And the Vena Ice-Free Port Museum preserved the body of a merchant.
Lu Li re-read the investigation information on the “Shadow of the Maiden” and placed the letter back on the desk.
The bookshelf was filled with books, but they all belonged to “useless” knowledge. The only useful work, the Geography Records, was only for reference due to the great changes brought by the Weird Times.
In any case, someone brought Lu Li to a secret chamber, and the purpose was evidently not to imprison him.
Lu Li waited for the moment the person behind the scenes would appear.
He waited longer than expected, with no clock in the secret chamber, and felt time passing for almost a day before indistinct sounds could be vaguely heard coming from outside the secret chamber.
Another half-day passed, and Lu Li, sitting in front of the fireplace, raised his head while flipping through a book on botany.
The stone door was pushed open with friction, and a knight dressed in dark gold armor appeared at the door.
They came to take Lu Li away.
Lu Li returned the book to the shelf, took the two letters, and followed them out of the secret chamber.
This time, they no longer used the mysterious tarpaulin and handcuffs to restrain Lu Li, only leading him along a sloped, upward-extending corridor.
Underground?
Lu Li quickly guessed the answer, as cells appeared on one side of the corridor after walking some distance.
It was indeed a dungeon, except for the anomaly that was the secret chamber.
Many of the cells were empty, or shrouded in strange gray fog, making it impossible to see inside.
But as they gradually moved from the deeper levels to the shallower ones, the cells began to change.
All the cells were covered with tarpaulins, and an unmistakable smell of blood permeated the narrow corridor.
“What’s happened to these cells?”
Lu Li saw some blood stains. They weren’t too old, seemingly dried not long ago.
The silent knight suddenly spoke to answer Lu Li, “Heretics invaded here.”
“Heretics?”
“Heretics, conspirators.”
Lu Li vaguely sensed their purpose and the source of the sounds outside the secret chamber half a day ago.
After a long walk, they seemed to have reached the upper levels of the dungeon, where there were no longer cells, only a relatively wide corridor.
At the end was an archway formed by solid mist.
The knights brought Lu Li to the mist archway, instructing him to walk inside.
“Where exactly is it?”
This time, Lu Li’s inquiry received no answer.
He could only step into the mist archway, passing through the tangible gray mist—
The gray mist in front of him gradually dissipated, and Lu Li found himself in a confined space surrounded on three sides, with a knee-high threshold in front.
Beyond the confined space was a spacious, boundary-less study, with pale blue crystal walls encircling it, giving a bird’s-eye view of the entire Midnight City.
Except for the part obscured by the giant tree trunk enveloping half the city.
Two figures sat on a sofa in front of the crystal walls, with an empty sofa nearby.
They were waiting for Lu Li.
Lu Li stepped over the threshold and looked back at the door he had walked through.
It was a wardrobe.
“We call it ‘the Door,'” one of the figures, an old man, said. His hair and beard were a sickly white, dressed in a pale green robe, with the insignia of Giant Tree University on his chest.
“The Door?”
This term piqued Lu Li’s interest.
Strangely, since he left the underground 24 years ago, “the Door” hadn’t appeared again.
“A mystic tool developed by the academy,” the old man replied with a smile. “The dungeon had no external exit. ‘The Door’ is the only way in and out of the dungeon.”
“I am Ernie Hamilton Wayne, a Mysticology professor at Kleinse University. She is Meg, from the Midnight Church.”
“Is this the Alchemical Tower?” Lu Li looked outside the crystal walls.
Below was high, almost parallel to the distant branches of a giant tree.
“Reis Alchemical Tower, one of the five Alchemical Towers,” Professor Ernie Hamilton Wayne said.
“Did you rescue me, or are you here to reveal the truth?” Lu Li calmly looked at him.
“As expected of a legendary exorcist,” Professor Ernie Hamilton Wayne said kindly. “You’ve guessed the truth.”
“Which kind?”
There was no chaos or thick smoke in Midnight City, so it was unlikely a faction conflict.
“The latter.”
Midnight Church’s Meg remained silent, so Professor Ernie Hamilton Wayne told him the truth: Kleinse University, meaning well, made a mistake.
Letting a hero receive the deserved honor is indeed the right thing to do. Klein Manifested University tirelessly promoting this was indeed not wrong, even though they had their own interests in it.
But the idealists in the Ivory Tower were too optimistic about Midnight City’s situation, having been detached from reality and the real world for too long.
Heretics attempting to abduct Lu Li, conspirators weaving a plot around him, aiming to destroy Midnight City and its hero’s anomaly, and the city hall and noble factions trying to sway Lu Li.
Thus, the neutral giant tree, Midnight Church, and some city hall councilors devised a plan to hide Lu Li, then draw out all the conspirators and deal with them.
“Is Yenada Mathews also part of the protection?”
“No, he is the replacement we created,” the wise Professor Ernie Hamilton Wayne smiled mysteriously, looking at the wardrobe.
“Please sit down and wait a moment, he will be here soon.”
Lu Li sat in the only empty sofa, and soon, a figure appeared in the “wardrobe.”
Yenada Mathews.
He no longer wore his never-fading confident smile, but nervously emerged from the wardrobe and stood before them.
“Now we can tell our Excellency Lu Li the answer,” Professor Ernie Hamilton Wayne indicated to him.
Yenada Mathews stood straight, raised his head, and said, “My name is Stan Rosano, a stage actor.”