Agatha's expression changed instantly and she stared into the eyes of Winston Consul.
However, the latter was even more surprised than she was. Winston's eyes were full of astonishment: "You don't know? Then how did you get into this place?"
Agatha's expression became serious, and she realized that the situation seemed to be different from what she expected - when she realized that she could "enter" the stone wall, she thought that Winston, the Archon who entered here first, was with him.
He has the same existence, but now it seems that this Mr. Consul uses other methods.
He holds more secrets than he expected.
"I have my own way," Agatha said slowly, her tone unconsciously filled with pressure, "You just mentioned, 'What exactly is the key left by the Queen?"
Winston looked at the gatekeeper in front of him suspiciously, but after a moment of hesitation, he sighed with relief and reached into his chest pocket.
"That's fine, we've reached this point anyway, and there's no need to keep secrets anymore."
He took out a small thing from his pocket, which was a brass key with a gorgeous pattern. The key handle looked like a horizontal "8", or the infinity symbol in mathematics, but its head did not look like an ordinary key.
The common tooth-like structure is a round rod with grooves.
Agatha looked at the thing in the other person's hand curiously, and suddenly felt that it didn't look like a key for opening the door, but... it looked like the kind of thing that winds up a doll or other clockwork mechanism.
Clockwork key?" She subconsciously said, "You mean, this is something left by Queen Le Nora? Why is it in the hands of you, the consul?"
"It has been passed down from generation to generation by the consuls that this key is a gift from the queen to the rebels, and... a curse," Winston twitched the corners of his mouth, revealing a bitter smile that even contained fear, "
From the moment the first Archon took the key, the shadow behind Frost City has loomed over us, Lady Gatekeeper."
Agatha did not interrupt the rambling, almost murmuring words of the already frail middle-aged man. She waited patiently for the other person to finish speaking, and then spoke with a calm expression: "You actually know the truth about the Boiling Gold Mine.
situation, right."
"If you are referring to the fact that the Boiling Gold Mine has shown signs of exhaustion as early as the Queen's time... Yes, I know," Winston sighed softly and said calmly, "I'm sorry, I knew you found out from the beginning.
What happened to the door, but I thought there was still time to get everything back on track before the situation worsened. In that case, all you found was an abandoned mine tunnel. Hanshuang... is still that
The frost of prosperity."
"I need an explanation, Archon," Agatha said with a serious expression and a somewhat cold tone, "The boiling gold mine has been exhausted since the Queen's time, so what exactly is it that we have dug out and transported out in the past few decades?
Moreover, what is the connection between the city-state’s vision today, the actions of those cultists, and the depletion of the mines?”
"Boiling gold, it's still boiling gold. Madam Gatekeeper, what we dug out is boiling gold, and what we transported out is still boiling gold. It's absolutely true, it's true." Winston raised his head, with an unknown expression on his face.
Crying with a smiling expression, "That's not pollution. We have tested it, and the Queen's era also tested it. If something looks like boiling gold and is used as boiling gold, the effects and products left behind will be the same as those of normal boiling gold."
There is no difference between gold - then there is no doubt that it should be boiling gold."
"Is that really boiling gold?!" Agatha's eyes suddenly opened wide. This answer was particularly hard for her to imagine. "But the mine was exhausted decades ago, and the ore that appears in the mine now..."
"This is the most terrifying and weird thing, isn't it?" Winston smiled bitterly, "The veins have dried up, but soon there will be new ores filling up some corners that no one is looking at, as if there is a tower and reality.
The parallel, false 'Frost City-State' in the world is constantly injecting minerals into the real world, or... when the mine goes deep underground to a certain depth, we have been mining minerals from a mirror world, and those phantom-like
Something that goes against common sense... No matter how you test it after you mine it, it turns out to be true."
Agatha listened to all this with a stern face. These unbelievable truths impacted her mind, which was often muddled during these times, but in the end she remained calm and spoke softly: "Mirror Frost - One Ruler
Mr. Guan, your statement is correct. There is indeed a mirror-image frost. The fog that shrouds the city-state now, as well as the counterfeit products that constantly appear in the fog, all came from that mirror-image city. This mirror-image city-state is gradually eroding and replacing
Our real world."
Winston's expression changed slightly, and then he was silent for more than ten seconds, and finally let out a long sigh: "Ah, it seems that this is the price of those boiling gold."
"Price? You were too understated when you said this word - now it is not just you and me who are bearing the price, but also the people of the entire city-state, most of whom have no idea what happened..."
··
"But the vast majority of them are using everything brought by the boiling gold trade - in this extremely cold city, it is boiling gold that allows everyone in the city to have warm homes and sufficient food, allowing us to
After the sea cliff collapses, it can still maintain a relatively wealthy level, Ms. Gatekeeper." Winston said this, paused for a few seconds, and then waved his hand.
"You should know that I never live extravagantly, buy no real estate, and leave no private wealth - I don't even have an heir. Madam, everything I do is not for selfish desires."
Agatha looked into the consul's eyes, but from the depths of those eyes, all she saw was fatigue.
"Don't they all have a choice..."
She spoke softly as if talking to herself.
"No one has a choice," Winston shook his head, "I know what you mean, today's road and today's price are not chosen by the citizens of the city-state - but they are not chosen by me either.
No one has any other way to go.
"The city-state is only so big. There is no second frost on the boundless sea to give us a foothold. We need food, fuel, houses and clean fresh water. We need boiling gold - even if it comes from the weird shadow world. Without boiling gold,
In just one winter, a quarter of the people in the city-state will die, and the remaining people will gradually return to the dark city-state era before the great industrial development within a few years, and continue to lose a quarter or even more of the population...
"Ms. Gatekeeper, take a rest. You, like me, are tired enough. Maybe we should accept the fact now - the city-state is a steam locomotive heading towards the abyss, and everyone is sitting on the car, the protector of the city-state.
The only difference between us and ordinary people is that ordinary people eat and drink with their eyes blindfolded, while we... just open our eyes."
Agatha ignored Winston's self-defeating speech. She just stood in the darkness without saying a word, feeling the unbearable cold coming from all around again, feeling the blood in her veins gradually
cool down.
Then, she broke the silence: "Someone made other choices."
"...Yes, there was one. The Frost people once called her 'Queen,' but the history books called her 'Mad Queen,'" Winston laughed, but he didn't know whether he was laughing at the Queen or himself, "A
Great mortal, she even wants to fight against this sea and the terror in the deepest part of the sea."
"The Hidden Abyss Project..." Agatha said softly. All the clues she had mastered in the past finally came together little by little in her mind and turned into a clear context. "So, the Hidden Abyss Project is not just a simple project in the records.
The exploration plan...the queen wants to uncover the secrets deep in the city-state?!"
"We don't know why she thought that the boiling gold that kept appearing in the mines was related to the 'deep sea,' but she was obviously on the right track - the loss of control of the Abyss Plan and the terrible fate she later faced just proved that she had touched the real truth.
The source, the most ironic thing about our world is this." Winston changed his position next to the tree stump. He raised his head and looked at the endless chaos and creeping shadows above. He said slowly, "The truth points to
Crazy, crazy points to failure, every step you take towards your goal is heading towards the abyss.
Winston sighed.
"She wants to find out the truth about the Boiling Gold Mine, she wants to solve the hidden dangers behind the city-state, and she wants to use her wisdom and strength to fight against the sea itself... This is good, but the facts prove that
, she just consumed her own destiny in advance."
"So, you 'successors' decided not to follow her old path - you pretended to be blindfolded like everyone else, and rushed into the abyss with this car, while the queen who once tried to apply the brakes or change the track ended up
Defined by history books as a lunatic who was bewitched by subspace."
"Frost's ancient saying - the dead must make way for the living," Winston slowly turned his eyes and looked into Agatha's eyes, "A once great ruler, if the identification of her can make Frost in turmoil
Then it quickly returned to normal, so she must not mind."
Agatha wanted to say something, but in the end she said nothing.
For a long time, she could only shake her head gently.
"How did that key... come into the hands of the first-generation Archon?" The transcoding has been serious recently, which makes us more motivated and updates faster. Could you please use your little hand to exit the reading mode. Thank you