Hearing Qiong's words, Fan Ning's scalp suddenly became numb and the hairs all over his body stood up.
"It looks like a door."
Fan Ning's stiff body softened again.
"Can you please stop splitting one sentence into two sentences?" He glared angrily at the girl squatting above him.
"I didn't dismantle it on purpose..." Qiong explained softly, "I wanted to remind you out loud as soon as possible... Then, it did take a few seconds to slowly confirm what it was."
Fan Ning and Sheeran held on to the escalator and turned around.
In the dimness, you can see that the masonry near the side opposite the escalator is recessed inward in a transitional manner, and then protrudes in a circle, forming a ring similar to a threshold. Further in, there is indeed a double door.
Fan Ning wondered: "Isn't it just a door at first glance? Are you sure it will take a few seconds?"
Sheeran took the "Alert Record" out of his clothes and took a look at it. After confirming that there was nothing abnormal, he put it back: "...Yes, you can't tell what an ordinary object is at a glance. I'm not asking you to do harmony questions...
Joan, you will scare him so much that he falls."
"But that's the fact." Joan continued to explain softly, "When the fire started to light up, I just felt that it was different from the same well wall before, so I was cautious and reminded Caroln... Later I saw clearly that it was a man.
It was dented, and then it turned out to be a hole, and finally it was confirmed to be a door..."
"Maybe the candlelight is too dim?" she finally guessed.
After listening to Qiong's detailed description, Fan Ning still felt strange. Even if the candle was dim, the flame would light up instantly. There was no process of change in visibility. Either it could be recognized or it could not be recognized...
Unless something else changes...
It is also possible for a knowledgeable person to have too much inspiration occasionally, just like Fan Ning felt that there were eyes on the railway tracks that day in Gogol Town.
He didn't dare to think about such things in detail. The more he thought about it, the more inspired he became. He turned on the flashlight. Under the stronger light, the three of them found that the material and style of the door did not seem to match the deep well.
The masonry of Shenjing is simple and neat, with the blocks tightly fitting and the textures fine and smooth. However, this door has a sense of ancient erosion. The bronze-like texture shows that there used to be many delicate reliefs or geometric patterns, but they have long been rusted.
The details are unclear, and the door shaft has basically fallen off, exposing a very wide door gap, and the worn floor tiles of the archway can be vaguely seen inside.
"Do you feel that these two are like two completely different things?" Sheeran, who was higher up, leaned forward and tried to organize his words.
"Two completely different things spliced together?" Fan Ning added.
This is indeed the feeling. Just by looking at the wear and tear of the material, you can tell that there is a time difference of at least several hundred years. And in terms of style,
Fanning glanced again at the spot where the tallow candle was.
The complex style of the relief patterns on this double door is close to the decoration of the candelabra's grooves.
Especially this door has a spherical protrusion in the upper middle position, which makes people think that it is a pair of eyes.
"So, Carol, have you gone to the end?" Sheeran asked.
Fan Ning shined his flashlight downwards, and in the center of the bright white halo was a deep black hole.
"No," he asked after turning off the switch, "Which way?"
Being able to have a flat place to stay and feel more secure is naturally better than endless climbing down, so the three of them unanimously chose this door.
Fan Ning slowly pulled out the crowbar from behind, inserted the metal head with a faint cyan halo at the front end into the crack of the door, hooked it, and pulled hard.
Unexpectedly, the degree of decay was far beyond imagination, and I felt almost no resistance. With this pull, half of the double-fold door fell off directly, and the whole fell into the darkness below, raising large swathes of dust and rust.
The sound of banging and banging along the way echoed on the well wall, and the volume of the sound was getting smaller and smaller in general, but they were superimposed together for a long time, and it was difficult to judge well whether there was a sound of hitting the ground among these echoes.
The foothold has been vacated, but the diameter of the well is quite long. The posture will be a bit distorted when crossing from one end of the escalator to the other. For safety reasons, Fan Ning tied the rope in a tight knot on the escalator and tied the other end around his waist.
between.
He lowered his body, stretched his legs against the door, kicked his other leg hard, and threw himself towards the door. He accidentally slipped during the process, but he managed to stand firm.
Fan Ning untied the rope from his waist and threw it to Qiong: "Be careful, come over and I'll catch you."
After the remaining two people jumped over, everyone entered the archway behind the door.
There is nothing worth paying attention to here. The gray masonry is quite loose and creaks when stepped on, but the arched supporting walls every few meters seem to have played a role in ensuring the stability of the passage.
During this period, Fan Ning looked back.
"Caron, what are you looking at?" Sheeran asked.
"I'm looking at the direction." Fan Ning thought in his eyes, "The window of the mobile exhibition hall is on the east side, the secret door opening is on the south side, the escalator on the well wall is on the side close to the secret door, and on the north side, this door is opposite the escalator.
, or the south”
"So, we are now more than 300 meters deep under the mountain behind the Turner Museum of Art?"
After walking for a while, everyone found that an upward slope gradually appeared under their feet, and an arc appeared at the same time.
"Do you feel that the stench seems to have become lighter?" Fan Ning suddenly stopped and sniffed his nose carefully.
"Is it possible that the nose is getting used to it?" Qiong said.
"It's not like that." Fan Ning shook his head, "We spent so much time going down the shaft and didn't realize this trend. Why are we suddenly adapting now?"
"Could it be that the source of that stench is still further down the deep well?" Sheeran guessed.
The three of them frowned tightly. They all instinctively resisted going deep into the unknown darkness below. When they had just climbed all the way to the later stage, everyone was a bit reluctant to support it. Fortunately, they suddenly discovered this door.
Everyone obviously hopes to find some source or secret at the end of this passage, and then return to the ground safely with the harvest.
But at least for now, this channel is basically bare.
After walking for about ten minutes, the three of them saw another door in front of the passage. Its system was the same as the one on the well wall, but it was relatively well-preserved. Fan Ning used the loose wall tiles around it as a gap to open it under Qiong's door.
With help, it took some effort to get it open with a crowbar.
What everyone sees is an empty and open hall, with slightly different circular curved edges. The floor is paved with heptagonal floor tiles in different colors ranging from white to yellow to brown - six.
There is only one word difference between heptagon and heptagon, but the look and feel are very different. When they are spliced on the ground, they will inevitably cause confusion in shape and size. Even in dim light, it makes people feel a little dislocated and dizzy.
The stench here has faded to the point where it's almost non-existent, but the air is a little stuffy.
The three of them each brought a flashlight, but due to the short time of use, only Fan Ning turned it on. The other two were holding candles. Where the light shone, Fan Ning saw several lights hanging from a height of four or five meters.
Candlesticks, and a few scattered windows of an unfamiliar and ancient style.
They have already used glass, but the texture is turbid and yellow. Through it, you can vaguely see the soil and rocks clinging to the window.
This can’t help but make people wonder about the purpose of building windows. It is said that the function of windows is not only to provide ventilation and lighting, but also to broaden the field of vision to reduce the sense of oppression. However, in such an underground building, ventilation and lighting naturally have no function. As for letting people see the soil outside the window...
This seems to be more uncomfortable than looking at the airtight wall.
There was a hollow echo in the footsteps. After taking a few steps, everyone realized that the area of the hall was not large. It was estimated that it was a little smaller than the rehearsal hall of the Conservatory of Music. At first, they thought that its openness was entirely due to the comparison -
—I have been in shafts and tunnels for too long.
But the place is still empty, there is nothing worthy of attention, not to mention antiquities, not even rags.
After looking around for a short half, the three of them finally became interested in some patterns on the walls of the hall.
The material of the wall looks like both ceramic and plaster, but what is engraved on it is not a mural, it is just a complicated decorative pattern. The reason why the three of them are attracted is because there is no other view of the place.
point.
It must have been too long, and these decorative lines were deep and shallow, and even many places were completely blurred, weathered together with the wall to the point where they were indistinguishable from each other. However, as they observed, the three of them still discovered something special.
"I think there seems to be some pattern in these patterns..." Fan Ning said thoughtfully.
Qiong nodded: "Yes, have you noticed that these dense lines are combined in twos and threes, and it is easy to think of human faces... Just like this, a big face is placed on a small face, the front face is against the slanted face, and
Different faces share certain facial features...it feels like the whole wall is covered with faces..."
Fan Ning's face changed: "I wasn't talking about this originally, but when you said it, I have lost my ability to think normally."
He closed his eyes, and after a long time, he finally let the state return: "I discovered before that they seemed to be complicated and stacked, but they were actually composed of several main geometric shapes."
"I'm also thinking about this..." Sheeran stood on tiptoes and held the candle lantern closer for a closer look. "You see, they are all a combination of straight lines. There are no curves or more complex units. Regular quadrilaterals... regular hexagons... regular octagons.
The shapes...are just different in size, angle, and position, so they are superimposed to form intricate geometric patterns. Well, there seems to be more edges on the periphery..." She started to count as she said this, "It seems like there are
With twenty sides and a scale of two to three meters high, the carver described it quite accurately..."
"Quadrilateral, hexagon, octagon..." Fan Ning thought, "Does this have any special meaning?"
"Maybe it's just some special aesthetics of the owner of this underground building." Joan said firmly, "Don't think too much, it's just some patterns, just like the decorations we just saw on the candlesticks and doors on the well wall, just like
Just like the hollow pattern on the handrail of the stairs at your door, why don’t you think about the message it contains every time you see it..."
"Caron, there is nothing here, and the smell is gone. Should we leave here and continue exploring underground? Hey... Sheeran, why are you getting more and more excited as you look..."
"Look, there is another symbol mixed in here..." Sheeran suddenly said, "Huh? This is really strange. Why is it this symbol...?"
Fan Ning and Qiong hurried over and saw that among the straight-line decorations of various regular polygons, there was an "open space" with relatively sparse lines, and a symbol only the size of a palm was engraved in it.
The circle is concave in the middle, and the periphery is radiating like a flame.
The Lord of Witness "Unfallen Fire"?
"This is indeed strange..." Seeing this symbol, Fan Ning had great doubts in his heart.
Is it possible that there is an ancient church of the Holy Sun Church hidden under the secret door of the Turner Art Museum?
...This, I can only say that this is a possibility. When Fan Ning was stunned, Sheeran called him again: "Carolen, come and look here... I found the second symbol again, and I really can't figure it out.
Understood."
The three of them once again gathered around another "open space" with lines, and the flashlight light illuminated a tower-shaped pattern with cracks.
"...The Lord of Witness, the 'Tower Builder'?" Fan Ning was really confused now, "I heard President Viadlin say that the 'Tower Builder' guides some high-level experts in the school to study more profound things.
The Lord of Witness...How come his image and symbol appear in this strange empty hall at the same time as the 'Unfallen Fire'?"
Because they had some "experience", everyone turned on their flashlights and began to look for empty spaces with sparse lines on the wall. In fact, there was nothing in most places, or because the carvings were seriously damaged, it was not sure whether there had been symbols, but such targets
Sexual search has greatly improved the sweep efficiency.
A few minutes later, Sheeran discovered three irregular arcs that were generally smooth but had curled ends.
"There is also the image symbol of the Lord of Witness 'Winter Wind' here." She did not stop walking, her eyes continued to search.
Fan Ning, who was standing next to Xilan and looking in the other direction, nodded in understanding after hearing this. However, after half a minute, he suddenly felt that there was something wrong with this.
What was the original purpose of the three people?
What happened just now was so normal, everyone started looking for the symbol of the Lord of Witness?
This sudden sense of alarm made Fan Ning quickly remind the two girls: "Stop, stop looking."
The three sets of referents found so far are all known to everyone, and in the past occult practice, no witnesses with overly dangerous characteristics have been found. However, from a human perspective, there are only a small number of gentle witnesses.
, who knows what strange things we will see if we continue searching like this?
As soon as Xilan heard Fan Ning's words, she quickly turned off the flashlight she was holding.
But at the same moment when Fan Ning spoke up, Qiong, who had never gained anything, seemed to have finally discovered something. She said with confusion and surprise: "Look what this is."
Then the sound suddenly stopped.
－－－－－－Digression－－－－－
Thanks to the book friend's tail number 6576 for the reward on August 6~Thanks to He Moro, the book friend's tail number 6576, Mangshan Hujiu, K1ffer, and Luo Feng 3 for the monthly passes~