It frightened them when Hessiana said she saw something, adding a more eerie feeling to the already spooky atmosphere. Nangong Sanba quickly drew his small crossbow and aimed it straight at the stairway. "Are you sure? But, I didn't sense it."
Vivian sent out a tiny bat to check out the upper floor without saying a word. The bat came back with nothing after going around for a while. Shaking her head, she said, "Nothing. Not even a faint shadow."
"You are giving me goose bumps," Hao Ren mumbled, rubbing his arm. He had had more dangerous situation, but sometimes, dangerous and spooky was not the same. This town was spooky, he felt it more intensely the longer he stayed. There was a surreal feeling where he could not make sense of the inexplicable atmosphere, not only because of the flame in the pit, but also the invisible things that lurked in the air.
Probably the ubiquitous spirits were giving him the goose bumps.
"Let's first check the house out," Vivian said. She sent out more bats and gave command to check out every corner of the big house. "There chances are high that the wizard had hidden in here."
"Then I should transform into human form first, the corners of the corridors in this old house are too narrow to manoeuvre." Nangong Wuyue waved to Hao Ren. "Give me my clothes."
Then they split up. Hao Ren and Vivian were in the same team checking the upper floor.
The interior of this big house was complicated, although looking from the exterior it was not that grand, the interior had a complex designs that the nobility of that era liked. The house consisted of a long main building and two separate wings on both sides. A large part of the building was built of thick wood. On the ground floor were lobby and several rooms for servants and livestock. More rooms and a straight corridor were on the upper floor where the seigneur and his family lived. The house lit up brightly with oil lamps that hung a few metres apart each on the dark wall. The flames here were the same, there was no heat and flame was floating a few millimetres above the lamp with no oil inside.
Hao Ren and Vivian slowly explored the upper floor. The wooden floor under their feet was squeaking in protest as they put their feet down, it sounded as if the floorboard was going to give way and snap. Hao Ren noticed that thick carpet was in front of some of the rooms in the corridor. Ashes was covering the carpets and objects in the surroundings but that did not hide the elaborate patterns on the objects.
Vivian bent down to check the carpet; she had a nostalgic look on her face. "Made in Italy, nice stuff. Even nobility in such a remote town had such a good life. Do you know that a blanket here is enough to feed a commoner family of five for six months?"
"More ashes here," Hao Ren picked up some ashes on his hand when he pushed the door of the other room. "It's just as bad as outside. The ashes is weird; this is not unnatural."
As he pushed open the door, he came into the room, which was not big and the decoration was nowhere near expensive. It did not look like this was a room for the seigneur nor his family. Vivian examined the furnishings. and she inferred based on her understanding of that era. "This must be a room for either the butler, consultant, or similar senior servant. Senior servant was in charge of all the affairs of the nobility's family, and they were hereditary, following and living closely to their master. But they didn't have a noble title, so they were not allowed to use the ornaments that were limited to the nobility."
Hao Ren nodded slightly. "Looks like you are comfortable with the atmosphere here. I have goose bumps all over by body."
"I didn't feel it though," Vivian said and laughed. "I used to live at the graveyard. As a Blood Clan, it's normal to dealing with these things."
Ashes was all over the room too. There was an oak bed in the southeast corner of the room but the fine bedding had mostly rotted away. Next to the bed was a writing desk with drawers, old stationeries and fragments of paper were still lying on the table. On the other side of the room was a small heater where an unnatural, heatless fire was still burning. In front of the heater was an old rocking chair where several pieces of rags was hanging down from it.
Hao Ren looked at the room and he started to reconstruct the scene in his mind: the warm little flame was burning quietly in the heater illuminating the small room. An old butler came back to the room after finishing the work his master had instructed. He settled in his favourite rocking chair and covered himself with a blanket to get warm. Firelight shone on him and cast a shadow on his wrinkled face. Suddenly, something seemed to cross his mind. He stood up, went to the writing desk, and wrote something on a piece of parchment. After he finished writing, he kept the parchment in the second drawer of the desk...
Hao Ren shook his head and came out of his stupor. He felt his heart was beating a little quicker. The scene that he saw—illusion or imagination—was still fresh in his mind. He squinted at the old rocking chair in the middle of the room; the feeling was so real, as if he had really seen with his own eyes the wrinkle-faced, old butler sitting on it, and all that happened subsequently. For a moment, the boundary between reality and illusion was blurred out. He felt his consciousness had left the current space-time and fell into a memory hundreds of years ago. Vivian immediately noticed the anomaly. "Hao Ren, what happened?"
"I think I saw something, but it's not the same way that Lily sees," Hao Ren said as he instinctively came to the desk next to the bed, noticing a rusty hook hanging on the second drawer under the desk. "I think I have seen a memory..."
As he spoke, he squeezed the hook in his hand, the hook just crushed into pieces. He pulled the drawer open, and saw parchments lying inside.
There were paper that seemed had rotten so much that it broken into pieces in the drawer too. But the parchment was well preserved. Hao Ren took out the fragile pieces of paper and put them on the table, and said to the MDT. "Scan it. Need high contrast. Let's see if you can find what's written on it."
The MDT hovered in the air and began scanning. A blue light from its belly ran across the paper as a holographic projection showed the parsed text. Some of the texts were completely missing, and technically, they could not be reconstructed. But other texts were still visible and it looked a diary:
"...The suspicion and temper of Heimerwin are getting worse. He is convinced of the superstitions circulating among the commoners, and even actively spreading them... I watched him grow up, but I started to not understand him. After Karina fell sick, he was like... maybe the 'scholar' was suspicious, but Heimerwin's trust in him was overwhelming, and the scholar touched the cross with his hand... I had better write it down, but for whom I want to write? I hope that these things will not be exposed someday…"
After deciphering the contents of the paper, Hao Ren let the MDT scan parchment too. He found that the record on the paper were more significant than he had imagined; the information could be the key to unlock the secrets of this town.
"...Who is that scholar? I cannot find his information about his background, but he has solid and credible evidence to prove that he is not evil. He touched the cross and cleaned his teeth with clean salt, neither was he afraid of the spices I have added in the fireplace. Maybe he has noticed I am testing him, so he chose to reveal the qualities himself... but doubts are still lingering in my mind. The rumours in town have not subsided, and they have become worse by the day. The witch who was expelled a few days ago was found dead near the river this morning. She seemed to want to steal a piece of clothing, but did not make it until the sunrise. Has her magic failed?"
"...the body of the witch was burned. The signs of the black magic are unmistakable. I should probably regret it. I had even once suspected she might be innocent. But when the fire rose, I only felt an intense fear. The corpse of the witch was trembling violently when it was ignited. Then huge smoke rose from the flame and it was a horrifying sight. The ash spilled from the smoke covered almost the entire square... The ash collected was heavier than three adult men were. Some people say it is the total weight of the children that the witch had eaten. They used sacred water to purify the ash and then sprinkled it into the bottom of a pit covered with lime...
"... After the witch incident, my doubts about the scholar remained because the disease did not end as he said. Despite of the expelling of the witch and the burning of her body, children in the town are still falling sick, and the adults are also starting to weaken…
"...One night, I saw that the scholar stopped in the place where the witch's body was burned. There was no one there, but his mouth was moving, as if he was talking to someone. I dared not got too close, but I could vaguely hear he mention something about 'the opposite side of the door' and a person named 'King of Blood'... I am sure he and the witch are related."