"Professor of nature worship, have you recorded the runes, ancient texts and murals you discovered at that time?"
Shade asked again, while Miss Denister pretended to record it.
The professor answered:
"Although the construction workers destroyed part of it, of course we recorded a lot. Unfortunately, according to the inspection rules for temple-type buildings, most of those records were taken away and sealed by the local Natural Church at that time, and a small amount of information was taken away by the instructor.
Back to school."
"Those small pieces of information won't be given to his friends abroad, right?"
Shade asked tentatively, expecting to hear Professor Tiris Manning's name again, but this time he didn't.
"Those materials were left to me after my mentor retired. I made a copy of them after my retirement. The original manuscripts are still in Willondale. I brought my manuscripts back to Ximu Town. They are now in the museum.
In the reference room, I will have someone take you to see them later. You can copy them, but you cannot take them out of here."
The professor replied that he was quite proud of this matter, and Shade gave a small compliment:
"This is really amazing. Your sharing spirit is the cornerstone for the development of history. Oh, professor, it is said that when inspecting this kind of ancient temple architecture, some unusual things sometimes happen. Did you encounter it back then?"
Professor Quinto laughed:
"You young scholars always like this kind of story. Well, I admit that I was also very curious about this kind of thing when I was young. But I'm sorry, young people, the inspection process was quite boring, and we were only in the daytime.
I only work when I'm here, and I go back to the town to rest at night, so I don't have the chance to encounter any unusual incidents."
Miss Danister, who was sitting across the coffee table from Shade, nudged Shade with her foot, which meant that Professor Quinto was lying.
"Is that so? Since it is an ancient relic, a lot of stone tablets and ancient sacrificial objects should have been unearthed, right? Are these things also in the museum now?"
The professor shook his head awkwardly:
"Construction had already started when we arrived. Due to insufficient early protection, the construction workers sold the antiquities they found here, leaving us with not many valuable antiquities.
However, it is said that this also gave them a curse. None of the construction workers who resold antiques lived past the age of 40. The few people who were over 40 during the construction also soon after the completion of the project.
Then he passed away, and it was all natural death."
The red-haired girl rubbed her foot against Shade again, which meant that this sentence was also a lie.
Of course, Shade himself also felt suspicious. If there were no special reasons, it would be impossible for a professor far away in Willendale to care about the time and cause of death of a group of construction workers. After all, according to him, natural death is
It was only a few people who died, and it was not a mass death. This should not cause much concern.
Shade nodded again and said to the professor according to the previous plan:
"I have an antique here that is said to have been exported from the local area. Please help me take a look at it."
Professor Quinto was a little surprised, and then he saw the red-haired young female assistant taking out a box. The moment the box was opened, the old professor's eyes immediately went blank, and he fell into a hypnotic state.
Miss Danister took out the piece of agarwood that was used as a spellcasting material in the box and put it in the incense burner that Shade had transformed from the toy form to ignite it.
After confirming that everything was OK, Xia De asked again:
"Professor, did any unusual events occur when you were inspecting this temple building?"
"Yes."
Professor Quintu replied expressionlessly that it would be difficult for an elderly man like him to wake up from deep hypnosis no matter how much his mood swings:
"Actually, this happened before we arrived. Some workers would sleep directly in the construction site at night. Many people mentioned that they had dreamed of many, many people in their dreams, and they even appeared in stories.
Elves, dwarves, etc., come to this temple to worship."
"Did you dream about it too?"
"Yes, my mentor and I have rested here. My mentor's dreams are normal, but I dreamed about it. I doubt that it was a scene from the past, because the temple in the dream was not just a simple building complex. It was in the center of the temple.
There is also a huge green tree growing, which is the same as the traces left in the ancient temple ruins."
"What about other than that?"
"Nothing unusual."
"What about the antiquities unearthed from the ruins?"
Professor Quintu was obviously silent for a moment before speaking:
"Most of them were sold by the workers before we arrived, but we found some underground antique dealers who were in contact with the workers - most of them are active near Willondale. In fact, they are not strangers, but there is something wrong with them.
wrong.
After they heard that we were looking for those antiques, they sold those antiques to us at a very low price. Because the price was too low, the professors paid for them themselves, so the ownership rights of these antiques became
us."
Shade has already foreseen the direction of the next story:
"And then something went wrong?"
"Yes, within half a year after that expedition, all the professors who took away the antiques went crazy. I was just a student on the team, and luckily I didn't participate. I don't know much about it.
, but when the church asked me about the original situation afterwards, I heard that the surface of their skin began to look like wood.
The church strictly prohibited me from talking about this matter to anyone, and those antiques were eventually taken away by the church. Experiencing such a thing in my youth made me very cautious in my subsequent academic career, which is why I was able to live healthily until retirement.
important reasons."
Shade sighed. If this is really the case, then it seems that the clues provided by Professor Quinto have been checked by the church half a century ago.
But there is another thing that the church of half a century ago absolutely did not know:
"After experiencing this kind of thing, why did you return to Ximu Town after retirement? Still want to work in this ruins?"
The red-haired girl cast an approving look at Shade, and Professor Quintu replied:
"I want to find an answer. Over the years, I have often returned here in my dreams, wandering unconsciously in my dreams. I have seen a psychiatrist, but the doctors just said that I was too impressed with this place.
As for being unable to escape the past.
I don’t believe the nonsense about ‘look forward, don’t look back’, I feel like there is still something here that attracts me. So I came back.”
"So what did you find?"
"No. But it doesn't matter. I have made up my mind to live my whole life in Ximu Town. Even if I find nothing in the end, dying here is still a good thing."
"So among the antiques unearthed that year, have you seen any arrows?"
Shade finally asked this question, but the old professor's impression of the antiques from that time was already very shallow, and they only recovered some of the antiques, not all of them.
Later, under the guidance of Miss Denister, Professor Quinto explained his dream to the two of them. The location where he appeared in the dream was a random corner of the renovated golden music hall, and then the inexplicable attraction made him
He wandered around the building, but couldn't find where the attraction lay.
Ordinary people's memories of dreams are often not very comprehensive, so Professor Quinto's description is not particularly detailed, so Miss Danister thought of a way:
"Since he always sleepwalks in his dreams, how about we let him sleepwalk in reality?"
This sounds difficult, but it is just something that a sorceress can solve by casting a spell.
The action went quite smoothly. Professor Quintu stood up from the sofa in a dazed state, ignored Shade and the other two, and staggered toward the door of the reception room.
Shade and Miss Denister followed immediately to ensure that others in the exhibition hall would not notice the professor's abnormality.
However, the professor did not just wander around the exhibition hall, but quickly came to the concert hall through the small door connecting different areas of the building. For this reason, Shade and Miss Denister had to use illusions to hide the three of them to prevent them from being discovered.
People discovered it, and Shade didn't forget to record the professor's wanderings.
This kind of wandering in dreams continued until 3:30 in the afternoon, and Professor Quinto still had not reached his destination. Looking at the time, it was almost time. Shade nodded to Miss Denister and asked her to release the professor's sleepwalking state.
Then he took the professor back to the museum's reception room.
After simply compiling the memory of the afternoon conversation for the professor, the hypnotic state was also lifted. After waking up, Professor Quinto felt a little tired, as if he had been walking for an hour or two, but he only thought it was because he had been walking all afternoon.
They are all talking.
"It's getting late. We also want to take a walk around the museum and then go see the materials and documents you mentioned. Then, professor, we'll see you later. Thank you very much for your help."
Shade and Miss Denister stood up to say goodbye to the professor, and Professor Quinto happily sent them to the door of the reception room. However, when the two parties said goodbye, Professor Quinto asked again:
"Since you are from Tobesk, do you know Professor Tiris Manning?"
Shade had been waiting for this name to appear for a long time, and he nodded without surprise:
"Of course, Professor Manning is an academic leader in the history of the North. Why, do you know Professor Manning too? Professor Manning has also been to Vista City?"
Professor Quintu then said happily:
"Of course I know him, but he didn't come to us. I met Tiris Manning when I went to Tobesk to attend an international conference more than 30 years ago. He was a little younger than me, but our conversation was very
Pleasant. I'm the kind of scholar who likes to be in offices and classrooms, but Manning has been to many, many places."
