Green supported the tabletop and straightened his back, which was slightly sore from lying down for too long. His neck turned jerkily like a hinge that had not been oiled for a long time.
He must have been lying on the table and asleep for a while. The wax oil dripped from the blackened candlestick, solidifying and hanging upside down in the cold wind, and the remaining dim light of the candle wick was crumbling.
"Clinic recently..." The letterhead spread out in front of him said what he had just browsed. An oral drug that was said to be very effective was flowing out of the clinic. The scope was small and the formula was confidential.
A few drops of water mixed with the humid night wind floated into the house, carrying a smell like some kind of background sound.
It's hard to define it as a stink. Green has been to other cities, and most of them smell like metabolic products on rainy days. It's as if the entire city is a paraplegic giant composed of people, wood and stone, lying on the spot and eating everything around it.
.The larger the body, the more severe the pressure ulcer.
But Dunling is different. Things that are not suitable to appear on the surface of the city have been carried deep into the underground system by the water flow for hundreds of years.
Few residents think about what goes where and what it looks like, or simply think that there is an endless space below.
During the rainy season, the rising water level will lift up a certain kind of breath, emanating from every gap between the upper and lower parts. It is old and cold, reminding people of the bones buried in the underground cemetery.
A city built on a huge mausoleum, the parts abandoned by time have never really died, they are always under their feet, depositing and fermenting into shapes that no one can imagine.
That smell is the long breath of the dead body, passing through the stone passage, bringing a trill to the ears of those who are aware of its presence.
"..."
Green swung away quickly, pushed his chair to a corner of the room that was not illuminated, grabbed the knife from the unpacked plate, and hid it behind his back.
He heard it again, a sound coming from somewhere beyond the reach of the light.
The voice of a middle-aged man without warning seemed to have been standing in that position while he was asleep, waiting for him to wake up and make a sound indicating his existence.
The chair that was pushed away disappeared into the shadow outside the candlelight, collided with the wooden furniture, and the tea cup tipped over and fell to the ground, rolling to the foot.
Experience told him that there were no evasive footsteps involved, there was no figure sneaking into the room, or it was an invisible, intangible ghost that could not be touched.
Green rolled up the letter he had read, placed it over the weak candlelight, and pricked up his ears to catch any movement in the short darkness.
In an instant, as he felt the heat licking his skin, the light suddenly brightened, and the flames wrapped around half of the paper tube turned the entire room into a hazy yellow.
A simple bed, an overturned bedside table, water glasses scattered on the floor, and a cabinet that doubles as a bookcase and wardrobe. This is everything in the room, and there is no hiding place.
The door was locked. Brother Wadding should have taken it with him when he left. Only two people had the key.
The direction of the sound just now was from the bedside, just like in the dream, like sourceless water flowing out of the void.
"What..." Green shook the paper into the stove and added two more logs to make the room brighter and warmer, but the light did not bring the usual comfort.
My mind should have been awake long ago, but I still feel that there is something troublesome around me in a weird dream. Even though this place is less than two hundred straight steps away from the sanctuary, the blessing of the Heavenly Father can no longer touch it.
But this does not mean that all kinds of monsters and monsters can come and hang out. Heavenly Father’s servants will teach those who pretend to be gods or other things a lesson—if they have helpers.
Picking up the sword enshrined under the holy symbol, Green reached into his pocket to look for the key, but found nothing. The key was missing from the bag.
Using my memory, I quickly searched a few familiar places, behind the door, on the tabletop and in the drawer, and the only two small objects that could open the door just disappeared.
I can’t remember the last time I couldn’t find the key. For a person with relatively low material desires, it is very rare to add unnecessary clutter to life. The residence has been kept almost simple and simple for a long time, so that it is very difficult to find a key.
It's hard to imagine where such an important thing could be hidden from sight.
After patting the robe on his body for a while, he finally confirmed that the key was really lost. It was such a coincidence that he lost it at the worst time.
This also means that he is locked in this confined space. The nearest personnel who can provide force are two floors down. They are the church's own armed forces, and most of them are patrolling on fixed routes.
You can shout here and within two minutes the outside will be filled with heavily armed guards.
But there are still some concerns lingering in his mind. On the one hand, Green is not sure whether his actions will scare away potential enemies, resulting in a situation like an incompetent superior disrupting the patrol arrangement.
On the other hand, the apocalyptic talent is giving out a vague warning, a kind of mist-like warning - extremely hazy, permeating every inch of the body, and at the same time huge and boundless.
It seems that if you make the slightest move out of the blue, everything everywhere will turn towards this place.
The raindrops outside the window are getting denser, and there is a trend of developing from light rain to summer showers. The rainwater from high places accumulates in the drainage ditch and is directed into the mouth of the crouching gargoyle.
Columns of water gurgled down from high places and fell towards the square, making a melancholy sound like a small waterfall.
In the midst of a dilemma, the light and shadow of the window moved, and the color of the glass collage of the Virgin's window grille was imprinted on the roof. The blue skirt, the creamy yellow baby, and the bright light circle slenderly climbed over the beams, rotating with the movement of the light source.
Is there a night patrol team passing by outside? This is easy to handle. As long as someone raises his head, he should be able to signal to them directly with hand signals.
Green quickly walked to the window, pushed the desktop documents to a position where they would not get wet, and opened the window page.
Total darkness.
The icy raindrops pricked my face, so cold that I doubted the current season, causing an unavoidable sense of confusion.
Ignoring this discomfort, Green looked down, trying to find the vigil team that had just passed by, but the light source disappeared. Like a candlestick falling into a pool of water, it instantly sank into the bottomless rainy night without a trace.
Looking back...it was exactly the same way as it appeared, without any process, and then disappeared.
He couldn't tell if he was in a dream, it was so real, and nothing seemed to be right. But if so, what did he wake up from just now?
The water jets spewed by the gargoyles kept falling, and tended to expand further. The impact of the water below was not so noisy, as if it had fallen into a certain depth of standing water, rather than a hard surface. Even if it is a summer rainstorm, it is so heavy
can be regarded as the first few in memory.
A question emerged from my mind. It was raining so heavily. How could a patrol team pass by holding torches?