The murals had gathered dust, and the carpets laid out in the hallways were not only curling at the edges but some were outright missing.
In the places where the carpet was missing, one could clearly see dark stains on the granite floor—Angel, with his keen eyesight, recognized at a glance that they were marks left by blood.
From this detail alone, Angel could imagine the gruesome events that had recently taken place in the castle.
From the upper floors down, the dust never disappeared. Even in the corners of the ceiling, Angel saw cobwebs. And all throughout, there were no servants to be seen, just as Jon had said before: part of the servants had been sent to Gru Town, and the rest… may have met with misfortune.
At this thought, several figures flashed through Angel’s mind, all servants he had been very close to during his life in Pat Manor, some of whom he even considered friends and family.
Angel felt like there was a thorn stuck in his throat, unsure of how to inquire about their current situation.
“The arrangement here is quite interesting,” Sanders suddenly said, breaking through Angel’s silent despair. “The patterns beneath this mural, and the blue and white porcelain with these strange symbols, the style is very peculiar.”
Lyon: “That’s the style of old Jon’s hometown, father liked it very much, so it was incorporated into the interior decoration.”
Sanders seemed to have guessed the origin of these items. Although the Goldfinch Empire had its own unique style, it wasn’t much different from the mainstream, yet these decorations displayed a completely distinct style.
Looking at these exotic styles, Sanders couldn’t help being intrigued by the “Otherworldly Human” whom they had yet to meet.
Soon, Lyon led them through the corridor to the annex building.
When they reached the darkest doorway of the annex, they stopped.
“This seems to be…” Angel looked at the door, his memories hazily drifting back to his childhood.
He was quite mischievous as a child, always keen on doing what was forbidden, the more the adults said no, the more he was compelled to do it. And this door, strictly off-limits as decreed by old Pat, was something Angel at the time would never obey. The so-called “strict prohibition” was essentially an invitation to “must check it out.”
So, Angel sneaked in during the night when the servants weren’t paying attention.
What he found after entering was that the door actually led to a sizable basement, housing some casks that were locked up tight.
Angel found it boring and decided to leave, only to find the door had been locked from the outside.
It was a silent and endless night, and young Angel shivered under the dim wall light, terror-stricken by the pitch-black world beyond the reach of the light.
He was very afraid at the time, always imagining monsters would emerge from the darkness. This fear lasted all night long.
Looking back now, it all seemed like a nightmare.
The next day, when the door was opened, Angel discovered that it was a trap set by his father, old Pat, intended to cure his rebelliousness and habit of doing the opposite of what he was told.
Indeed, it was very effective. After that, Angel became much more cautious and careful in his actions.
However, he had never stepped foot into that basement again; it had become a little nightmare of his own.
By the time he no longer feared the basement and was all grown up, he still didn’t enter it because he was busy taking care of the ailing Jon; later on, he left the Old Earth Continent, and the basement faded from his mind.
“This is old Pat’s wine cellar, don’t you remember?” Lyon said with a bit of tease: “You were locked in here as a kid. I sat by the door and listened to you cry all night.”
Angel’s face darkened, and he said somewhat defiantly, “I didn’t cry.”
Lyon was about to tease further, but at that moment, a mournful sound came from behind the door. Lyon froze, his facial expression shifting from jest to somber, and finally he sighed, “Alright, you didn’t cry, I must have heard wrong.”
“Time to get to business, you were asking about the effect of the red light, right?” Lyon pointed to the door with a heavy lock: “Inside here lies the answer.”