After much thought and undecided, Wei Ran finally returned to the door of the undecorated castle, easily pried open the heavy door, and stepped into the empty room.
I have to admit that although this castle doesn't look big from the outside, it is definitely quite large and a bit luxurious for living in, especially in its pre-renovation state. The space you can see at a glance from the first floor is enough.
Three or four sizes of the villa Dalia lent him would be fine.
It's a pity that this exaggerated building has no decoration at all, so Wei Ran can see at a glance the sandstone strips used to build the walls, and he can also see the solid materials used in building this house.
But the more this happened, the more strange it seemed to him. After all the hard work, it was built but not decorated, and he didn't even want people to discover it. So what was the point of building such a castle?
With doubts, he walked along the wide retro stairs to the second floor, walked around the corridor on the second floor, carefully observed each divided room, and then continued to look upstairs.
go.
As for what he was looking for, he didn't know, but he was looking forward to finding something different.
Wandering to the third floor, the transparent dome made of colored glass above the head makes the lighting on this floor slightly better than that on the first and second floors. The surrounding rooms are also larger than the last.
"What's this?"
Wei Ran walked to a room facing the church and stopped. This room was also not decorated, but there was a table by the window. Although there was no
There is nothing to put there, but under the table, there is an old-fashioned safe with an eagle emblem cast on it.
However, this eagle emblem is not the eagle emblem that Mustache is used to, but the national emblem of the Second Empire. Or according to Professor Alexei’s habit, the eagle emblem of the Second Empire will definitely be labeled as a "matryoshka doll BMW"
The name "Eagle".
There is no other reason. There is a shield-shaped mark on the chest of this eagle. Within the shield, there is an almost identical eagle, and on the chest of this eagle, there is also a shield-shaped mark. In this shield shape
In the logo, it is really divided into four parts like the BMW logo.
I remember when I was taking professional courses at university with a professor, Wei Ran remembered the differences between the First Reich, the Second Reich, the Weimar Republic and the Third Reich by relying on the eagle emblem that the professor gave him various nicknames.
Even now he remembers the "double-headed eagle where the holy couple quarreled and each slept on one side", the "second matryoshka BMW eagle", the "Weimar African eagle without clothes" and the "lightning eagle that brought wreaths to Poland"
These are nonsense but impressive nonsense.
After recalling the cute and funny foreign uncle in college class, Wei Ran discovered after some observation that not only was there such a conspicuous "matryoshka doll BMW eagle" cast on the safe, but also cast at the four corners.
There are fleur-de-lis patterns used as decoration.
"Is it possible that he is really a noble?"
Wei Ran muttered secretly, checked the old-fashioned safe, which was not that big, and then easily pried open the door of the safe.
As the cabinet door opened, when he saw what was inside, he swallowed subconsciously. On the bottom tray of the safe, there were stacks of gold coins!
Are you kidding?
Wei Ran murmured to himself as he picked up a few gold coins and looked at them. What he didn't expect was that one side of these gold coins were all engraved with Hindenburg's head.
If we insist on saying that the only difference, apart from the fact that some of them are larger, it is just that some have Bernhardt's initials written on the neck, and some have Karl Goetz's initials written on them.
But without exception, according to the minting information on these gold coins, these coins seem to have been minted around 1928.
Putting the gold coins back in place, Wei Ran looked at the middle floor. There was only a hard-cover book on this floor, but this hard-cover book was bigger than the largest photo album that Suisui helped him get not long ago.
It's a lot bigger and about the same thickness as a brick.
Taking out this hard-cover book, there was no text or pattern on the dark red cover.
When I opened the metal-edged cover, there was an old-looking newspaper attached to the first page.
Gently unfolding it, Wei Ran was surprised to find that it was a newspaper called "Cologne News", but the publication date was actually 1926!
On the front page of this newspaper, there is also a presidential decree circled in red handwriting: President Hindenburg decided to return all the properties of Wilhelm II and the deposed German nobles to them, and compensate them for "
Losses suffered during the November Revolution.
Subconsciously looking at the gold coins at the bottom of the safe, Wei Ran folded the newspaper, which could be regarded as an antique, again with a strange look on his face, and carefully turned back a page.
However, what he didn't expect was that the second page of the book turned out to be a piece of wax paper. When he turned over the translucent wax paper, a folded blueprint appeared!
He carefully opened the blueprint, and when he saw the castle drawn with lines on it, he noticed that this turned out to be the architectural drawing of the castle!
I temporarily put the blueprint away and continued to flip through it. There was a blueprint sandwiched between every two pieces of wax paper at the back. These blueprints are the details of each building part, which not only include every floor of the main building under my feet, but also
Including churches that have been visited before.
Even, according to this blueprint, the castle should have two rings of walls built along both sides of the moat and corresponding towers. But I don’t know whether it is due to financial resources or because the walls have lost their defensive role in this era. Nowadays
The castle at your feet did not build walls on both sides of the moat.
Of course, through these blueprints, he also noticed that before entering the castle, the concrete building that he thought was a fortress was marked as a water injection port in the blueprints. Even if the city wall was really built, it would be blocked by the wall outside.
It is surrounded by a slightly shorter city wall.
Not only that, he also discovered that both the main building under his feet and the church he had visited before had a basement.
However, the basement entrance and exit of the main building is located inside a tall tower connected to it. The basement entrance and exit of the church are located on the floor in the center of the church and the bell tower connected to it.
Secretly memorizing the locations of the entrances and exits to the basements of the two buildings, Wei Ran restored the blueprint to its original shape and put it back in its place, and then looked at the top floor of the safe.
This floor is also covered with red velvet cloth, but there are only a necklace and a rank military ring placed inside.
The pendant of the necklace itself is a silver deer head smaller than the size of a bottle cap. The eyes of this deer head are even inlaid with rubies.
The engraving on the rank military ring worn on it is a man named "Letz Cape".
Wei Ran took a close-up of each of the ring and necklace, and after placing them back in place, re-locked the safe and left the room.
After rummaging around on this floor, he finally found the corridor leading to the Arrow Tower, then pried open the wooden door of the Arrow Tower, followed the spiral staircase inside, and entered the basement of the building.
The news is both good and bad. The good news is that this staircase also has a secret door leading to a room on the first floor. However, when he looked outside, the door was locked from inside the arrow tower.
There is no way to open the other side.
Not only that, although the basement has an iron gate that looks very old, it is not locked at all.
But the bad news is that except for a few cells-like rooms, there is nothing in the basement.
And judging from the sunlight coming in from the small windows around it that even cats have trouble getting through, it can be seen that although this is a basement, it is actually on the ground. It is only because of the platform at the outside entrance that it becomes a basement.
Although he found nothing, Wei Ran was not disappointed. After returning the same way, he once again slipped into the church by picking the lock, got into the room behind the icon, and climbed up the stairs of this room to the bell tower.
The most conspicuous thing on the top of the bell tower is naturally the large copper bell. Directly below the bell, there is also a copper plate inlaid on the floor, on which is engraved the pattern of the Second Empire's matryoshka doll and BMW eagle emblem.
In addition, a large number of wild pigeons live in this ventilated space.
After closing the iron door behind him, Wei Ran observed for a while and then opened another iron door next to the stairs. At the same time, he also took out the flashlight from the Zhaoxian Battlefield from the metal book.
When the dim light beam shot out, the first thing Wei Ran saw was a staircase that could only allow one person to pass.
Not only was the width of this staircase pitifully narrow, but the height was also extremely oppressive. He had to bend down and bend his knees to ensure that he would not hit his head.
After passing four 90-degree corners in a row, Wei Ran was able to figure out that this secret staircase was hidden inside the square cylindrical bell tower. He even remembered that he had been walking around in circles.
The center of this bell tower is hollow.
I patiently walked to the bottom, and I found that the place was much more spacious. Not only was it large enough to fit a double bed, but it also had a window the size of instant noodles.
Looking out the window, you can just see the trunk of a pine tree planted in a flowerpot inside the castle, and a squirrel looking for something to eat on the pine tree.
In addition to the only window, there is a door in this small room, and a one-meter-square copper sheet inlaid on the stone wall opposite the door.
It was through the German engraved on this piece of copper that Wei Ran finally learned the origin of this castle.
According to the introduction on this copper sheet, this castle was actually built by a small nobleman named Carl Capet when the German Empire was at its most powerful, and he named it Elk Castle.
It's a pity that after the outbreak of World War I, most of the adult men in this small aristocratic family, which was not prosperous in the first place, were lost on the battlefield.
Especially when the November Revolution broke out in Germany, the castle was confiscated and used as an ammunition depot for the artillery stationed nearby. Later, an accidental ammunition explosion even turned the place into ruins.
The turning point was precisely the antique newspaper Wei Ran saw in the safe upstairs in the main building.
In 1926, President Hindenburg issued an order to return all the properties of Wilhelm II and the deposed German nobles to them, and to compensate them for the losses they suffered due to the "November Revolution".
It is precisely because of this that the last heir of the Capet family at that time was "Letz Capet" engraved on the ring in the safe. Not only did he regain the ruins of the Elk Castle, but he also
In addition, he received a considerable amount of compensation.
However, the compensation was not enough to repair the castle that had become ruins, so Leitz Capet simply spent only half of the compensation to rebuild the church.
Continuing to look down, according to the records above, in the autumn of 1944, bombs dropped by the Americans once again destroyed the rebuilt church.
This time, it was not until 1975 that a person named Sophie Capet completed the reconstruction of the place again.
But compared to the content engraved on this piece of copper, the name written on this piece of copper is Dominique Loew!
Sophie Capet is a woman's name, right?
Wei Ran couldn't help but frowned. Compared with this unfamiliar name, he was more concerned about the fact that Mr. Dominic's last name at the registration address was not "Cape", but "Loew".
A surname that was never mentioned.
After some hesitation, he turned around, pried open the iron lock on the only iron fence door here, and then pushed open the wooden door inside.
This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading! However, when he waited quietly for a moment, holding a burning kerosene lighter in one hand and a flashlight in the other to shine the beam, he couldn't help but raise his eyebrows.
The basement is almost as big as the church above, but there are more than a dozen sarcophagi inside!
The outsides of these sarcophagi are carved with complex and exquisite patterns. In front of each sarcophagus, there is a marble tablet, on which the name of the person lying in the sarcophagus is clearly carved, as well as the time of birth and death.
This includes not only the "Karl Capet" seen on the copper sheet before, but also the last heir named Letz Capet!
However, according to the introduction on this stone tablet, the man named "Leitz Cape" was born in 1905, but he died in January 1945! In other words, when he died
Just 40 years old! And the photo inlaid on this stone tablet is of a man with a Prussian hazelnut hair, wearing a German uniform, and a serious and cold face.
Looking further back, the name written on the stone tablet in front of the last sarcophagus in the basement is "Sophie Capet".
This stone tablet simply states that she was born in 1926, and the inlaid photo shows a girl who looks to be about seventeen or eighteen years old at most, wearing a dress.
However, there is no time of death written on the stone tablet. Not only that, even the lid of the sarcophagus has not been closed. There are no bones at all in the sarcophagus, just a dusty corpse.
ppk small pistol.
He bent down and took out the pistol and wiped it on his clothes. To his surprise, the pistol's handle was actually made of a pair of pink wooden patches. The centers of the two patches were also divided into two.
Carved with iris and deer heads.
He looked up and saw a long gap directly above the basement. He knew that as long as he lifted up the marble floor in the center of the church, he could see this long gap from the other side. Even,
He could guess that both these sarcophagi and the people lying in them were probably transported into the basement through that gap.
So what about this pistol? Is it also a tomb sent down from above according to the funeral ceremony?
After a moment's hesitation, Wei Ran checked the pistol and made sure there were no bullets in it, then put it into his pocket, turned around, cleaned up the traces of his past, and returned the same way he came to leave.
