~ 💎 WEEKLY POWER GOALS 💎🔥 60→1ch | 100→2ch | 200→5ch ⏰ Resets Monday! Thanks!
Luo Wei packed the wooden box and checked it from every angle to make sure nothing looked disturbed. Then she crouched down and untied the rotten hemp rope from the iron bar.
"All set, Laura. Pass me the rope."
"Okay, one second!"
Laura dragged over a wooden stump, stood on it, and handed one end of the rope up to Luo Wei.
"I'll tie off the top section first. Once I've finished winding the loop up here, check how much is left below and tie off the counterweight."
"Got it."
Working together, they had the counterweight reinstalled in no time.
All five of them kept at it until past seven in the evening before the mechanical clock was finally repaired. By the time the student council minister came to inspect their work, the hour hand had already crept to eight.
A church bell tolled the hour somewhere in the distance. Not from here , from the South Church. The North Church bell tower had just been repaired, and no one had been assigned to ring it yet.
They'd been at it since noon. Tired, hungry, stomachs growling.
"I'm so hungry," Theodore said, head hanging, arms dangling at his sides like wet rope. "I'm genuinely going to starve to death."
"The cafeteria's closed," Laura said, pressing a hand to her own stomach. "There's nothing to be done about it."
"Well..." She lowered her voice. "We did catch a lot of rats up in the bell tower..."
"Absolutely not." Luo Wei shut that down immediately. "Rats carry bacteria. You really want to spend tomorrow doubled over with diarrhea?"
The light that had flickered to life in Theodore's eyes went out again. "So I can't eat the rats either. I thought they looked pretty clean while they were still alive."
"They're not bad," Laura said, warming to the topic. "Once you skin them the meat is actually quite tender. They just smell a little when they're dead."
"Really?" Gladys looked up, ice-blue eyes wide. "I've never had rat. Is it more tender than rabbit?"
"Depends on the rat," Hall offered. "Young ones are tender. Old ones are tough, but they've got more chew to them. And the bones make a really satisfying crunch."
A vein pulsed at Luo Wei's temple.
What was wrong with these people?
What kind of friends had she made?
"Everyone stop talking. No one is eating rat meat. The academy gates don't close for another hour — we can still make it out for a proper meal."
"All the shops on Academy Street will be closed by now!" Theodore wailed. "There's nowhere to buy anything. I'm going to die. I'm dying. I'm so hungry—"
"Who said anything about buying?" Luo Wei's face was flat and cold. "We're going to Star Luo Residence. My treat."
Hall's hands shot up instantly. "I'm in."
Laura licked her lips. "Yes!"
Theodore clutched his stomach. "Since you're paying — can I eat a lot?"
"Eat as much as you want," Luo Wei said. "On one condition: every single rat gets handed over to me. No one sneaks a bite."
"Not sneaking, not sneaking! When do we leave? Let's go now , the sooner we get there, the sooner we eat!"
Theodore was already pacing toward the door.
Luo Wei couldn't stand to look at him. She turned around. "Let's go. We eat fast and get back before the gates close."
That night, the kitchen of Star Luo Residence did not survive the encounter.
According to Butler Bella's later account, the four of them consumed twenty-seven eggs, fifteen pounds of beef, over thirty loaves of bread, two large earthenware pots of chicken soup, a pot of stewed beans, and an entire pot of bitter-greens porridge.
They ate and they took. Between the four of them, they wiped out every scrap of food meant to feed the dozens of estate workers for the following day.
While they were occupied with the carnage, Luo Wei slipped back to her room, changed clothes, and tucked the wooden box she'd found in the bell tower deep into the wardrobe. The rats Laura and Theodore had caught were already caged , she'd had Chris carry them down to the cellar.
After dinner, she walked back to the academy with the rest of the death penalty squad.
She didn't return to Star Luo Residence until the following noon.
She pulled the box from the wardrobe and set it on the table. There was a small lock on the latch. She didn't want to force it , if there was any kind of mechanism inside, she didn't want to find out by triggering it. Poison gas was a real possibility. So was something worse.
Maybe this was Pandora's box. Maybe whatever was inside was better left alone.
She took the box down to the basement. Fitted herself with full protective gear: glasses, earplugs, a mask, and finally a pair of waterproof gloves rubbed with tung oil. Then she bent a thin piece of iron wire into a hook and carefully picked the lock.
The box opened without incident.
No gas. No mechanism. Nothing terrifying at all.
Just stones.
A box full of them.
Magic stones, packed to the brim.
Luo Wei used chopsticks to lift one out. They were strange: barely the size of a pigeon's egg, every one of them ground into a smooth teardrop shape. About a dozen were black , dark-element stones. The rest were a muddy mix of dark purple and dark green.
She felt the energy inside them. The dark-colored stones held more than just dark elements. Several ordinary elements were layered in alongside, and the concentration of magical energy was staggering , easily ten times what you'd find in a natural stone.
Only smelted and purified magical materials packed that kind of density.
These were almost certainly inlay stones for a dark mage's wand. For some reason, they'd been left in that bell tower. Left there for years. Maybe decades.
She lifted them out one by one with the chopsticks, setting each on the table. When the last stone came free, she paused.
At the bottom of the box lay a folded piece of linen.
Something was drawn on it.
She moved the oil lamp closer, lifted the cloth out, and unfolded it slowly.
Black-inked lines spread open under the light. Luo Wei's scalp prickled.
Eyes. The cloth was covered in eyes , dense, overlapping, drawn in meticulous black lines across every inch of the fabric. In the center, written in thick deliberate strokes:
The left eye and the right eye illuminated Galan.
Several lines had been slashed across the words. Violent strokes, like someone had pressed down hard while something inside them needed an outlet.
Below them was another line of text. The ink had oxidized badly. She held it up to the lamp and studied it for a long moment before she could read it.
Lies! Lies! The eyes are not outside the heart!
Luo Wei's brow furrowed.
Not outside the heart , then inside it?
And the lies. What lies?
She read the upper line again. Was that what this was calling false?
The left eye and the right eye illuminated Galan.
It came straight from the Song of Aldrich. The Creator God had made the sun from his left eye and the moon from his right, and given them to humanity to drive away the cold and the dark.
Why would anyone call that a lie?
Lies. Lies. The eyes are not outside the heart...
Luo Wei's head snapped up.
Something tore open in her mind , sharp and sudden, like a blade slicing through a curtain to expose the raw red underneath.
She understood.
This piece of linen wasn't just carrying a drawing.
It was carrying a life.
Whoever had drawn this was almost certainly dead.
Luo Wei exhaled slowly and folded the cloth back the way she'd found it.
It was light. A scrap of fabric, nothing more. But she couldn't hold it anymore , the weight of it had moved somewhere she couldn't put down. She set it in the box and pressed a stone on top.
Maybe that would help. Probably not.
➤ Next: Demon Town
───── ⊹ ⊹ ─────
📖 Read up to 300+ advanced chapters on Pat reon
🔍 Search: p a t r e o n(.)com/BZDXG
───── ⊹ ⊹ ─────