Rather than inspecting the building separately to save time, the two planned to inspect the building together, starting from the basement.
Of course, Shade did not forget to use "strong spatial perception" to first determine the internal structure of this building with three floors above ground and one floor underground, and make sure there was no secret passage connecting the outside.
Although the baronial mansion in the past looks almost the same as it did a hundred years ago, it is still dilapidated. The splendor seems to be only on the surface. If you look carefully, there is dust everywhere on the floor and walls, and spider webs are also in the inconspicuous corners.
Everywhere.
The basement is quite large, and it was used as a wine cellar in the past. Even now, there are still more than ten bottles of red wine stored on a row of shelves in the wine cellar, but after Miss Winslet's inspection, the red wine was not valuable:
"They are all red wines from recent years, produced by the large winery in Huntington. Probably old Bennet stored them and planned to wait until his four daughters got married before taking them out. There is this tradition in the middle of Carson Creek.
.”
The silver ball of light was summoned by Shade, illuminating the surroundings around the two of them. She stuffed the red wine she had drawn back:
"Speaking of which, Carina gave me a bottle of delicious red wine at the end of the year last year, and she was so mysterious that she refused to tell me which winery it was from. Doesn't this matter also have something to do with you?
?”
The walls of the basement are all made of stone, which reminds Shade of the damp chapel in the basement of the "Avora Manor" in Coldwater Port. Fortunately, there is no cultist chapel in the old Bennet house, and it is only used by Shade.
After "Echoes of the Past", I actually heard a sound here.
He raised his finger to signal the witch beside him to keep quiet. Then, following the faint breathing and footsteps he heard in his ears, he turned around the straw-covered shelves in the wine cellar and arrived at the southeast corner of the basement:
"There is a secret room here, but the area is not large."
He pointed to the corner, but because the area was too small, the "strong spatial perception" did not detect it.
The man in "Echoes of the Past" seemed to have turned some kind of mechanism to open the darkroom. Shade and Miss Winslet looked around and found that the support legs of the shelves on the side could be rotated.
Then the keyhole was exposed on the stone wall of the basement. Shade reached out and knocked again. A series of clicking sounds came from inside the stone wall, and then the stone door opened to the inside.
The hidden darkroom is indeed not big, or it can be said that it is just a hidden compartment on the wall.
Neatly arranged picture frames and some scattered harmonicas, pens and other sundries were lying inside. The picture frames were all wrapped in waterproof tarpaulin. Miss Winslet frowned immediately after taking out one of the pictures and inspecting it.
:
"This is my god, "The First Breakfast"?!"
"What?"
Shade asked curiously, and the witch explained in a low voice:
"This is a masterpiece by Heinz Konsa, a famous painter from the Kingdom of Delinauer before the southern territory was unified. It was stolen about two hundred years ago. I didn't expect it to be here."
"Is it genuine?"
Shade asked, and Miss Winslet nodded slightly, not even daring to touch the oil painting directly with her hands:
"I am a professional painter, and I dare say that there is a high probability that this is the real thing."
"So how valuable is this painting?"
Shade asked again, and the witch frowned and thought for a moment:
"According to another painting by Master Konsa that was sold by Cassandra Auction House some time ago, the painting in my hand can probably be worth any floor of your house in Saint Teresa Square (note).
"
She quickly checked the remaining paintings, and as expected, they were all antique oil paintings. Although the most precious one was "The First Breakfast", the value of the remaining paintings was also an astronomical figure.
As for other sundries other than paintings, Miss Winslet checked and found that they were also antiques. Those pens and harmonicas were all works by masters, and they all had unique numbers and marks on them, making them easy to identify:
"If you add these things together, even the powerful Duke of the royal capital Willondale will be tempted."
She sighed softly and thought of the same question as Shade:
"If these things belong to the Bennet family, where did they get all these antiques?"
"Maybe someone else used this place as a treasure room? But it's not very likely."
After checking to make sure there were no other clues, Miss Winslet recorded all the antiques one by one, planning to investigate whether they had anything in common before they disappeared.
In order not to disturb the owners of these antiques, after putting everything back, Shade asked the witch to take a step back while he put on the [Lord of Immortality Ring] and took a deep breath:
"Breath of Time!"
When time goes back, everything returns to its original state, and even the opened door closes automatically.
"Go back in time? So what are you good at? If you have the gift of time, why do you want to learn the moon's spell from her?"
The witch felt that she was even more curious about Shade, but because there were no clues about the "Time Chosen One" yet, she didn't think of this:
"The month your teacher lived with me, he just kept praising you for being so powerful. I didn't expect you to be able to master the spell of reversing time."
"If I didn't have the gift of time, how did I get you back?"
Shade asked, taking off the [Lord of Immortality Ring]. Among the current "Seven Rings of Mia", this is the one he uses most often:
"Let's get back to business, the Bennet family must have problems now.
Even if only half of these antiques are genuine, it will be enough for them to leave Ximu Town, buy a steam factory in a big city like Willondale or Yuewan, and become a real rich man in the country."
"Even if there is a way, it is not impossible to become a noble again. I know the value of these antiques very well, and the Angevin royal family will not mind awarding a title to the generous businessman who dedicated "The First Breakfast"."
Miss Winslet added that although she does not stay in the Royal Capital all year round like Miss Sylvia, she knows a lot about it:
"I originally thought that the appearance of the cabinet in the hotel and this mansion was just a coincidence, but now it seems that investigation is really necessary. I have a hunch that the owners of these antiques are definitely related to time travel, but I don't know exactly.
Not a Bennet."
The study room where the cabinet was placed a hundred years ago is located on the first floor of the mansion. After the two opened the door and entered, they saw that the furnishings inside were not much different from those back then. Some furniture and oil paintings disappeared, and the place where the original bookcase was now stood
A floor-standing gas lamp covered by a white cloth.
The magnificent solid wood desk is still placed in front of the window, but there is nothing on the table. The window is closed, and the window where the owl and cat rushed out is now locked from the inside. There are three flower pots on the windowsill.
There is only hardened soil inside.
"Everything looks normal, let's search carefully"
Shade was startled, and immediately looked at the witch beside him. The latter met Shade's eyes suspiciously, then lowered his head and saw that his body was becoming transparent:
"What's wrong with me? I feel something is wrong."
The surrounding light and shadow alternately change, and the phantom of the study room in the midwinter of a hundred years ago is superimposed on the modern study room. And Flora Winslet's transparent body is clearly being pulled back to the past bit by bit.
era.
She looked at the scene in front of her in astonishment, and then subconsciously extended her hand to Shade, who also extended his hand to her:
"catch me!"
The two hands were held together, and while the witch's hand became solid, Shade's hand became illusory. This scene was exactly the same as when Shade brought them back in the broom room, and when Shade tried to bring her back,
While pulling it towards him, he once again felt like he was dragging a mountain peak.
The life ring appeared behind Sha De, and the spiritual light of [Time and Space] illuminated them. Sha De, who had already experienced it once, said the time point like last time:
"Sunday, the 21st of the Harvest Moon, 10:51 a.m.!"
She fell into Shade's arms, but the phantom of the midwinter study did not disappear, and the pulling feeling from the past still existed.
Shade held her in his arms and tried to rush towards the corridor, but at this time the air seemed to turn into a viscous liquid, and resistance from all directions made it difficult for them to move forward.
Seeing that Miss Winslet's body was about to become transparent again, Shade closed his eyes to sense the spatial position, then hugged her and jumped:
"Raglai's Leap!"
The casting materials were prepared before entering the manor, and this casting was also the most difficult space movement for Shade to master this magical technique.
In the past, the space jump was only a moment, but this time he felt like he was squeezed into a narrow water pipe. After shaking like a spin, he finally appeared in the bedroom directly above the study, panting.
"Ugh~"
He held his chest and retched, then hurriedly dug out the bottle of umbilical cord from his pocket and wanted to hand it to the witch. Even if her contact with the umbilical cord now would deepen the curse, it would be better than going back a hundred years ago.
"It's okay now."
Also because of the obviously wrong space movement just now, the witch shook her head and avoided the umbilical cord, with a rather ugly look on her face:
"The other me told me that I cannot stay in the place where I stayed for a long time in the past, such as the study, otherwise I will be pulled back to the past time.
I don’t understand the specific principle, but I can’t get close to that study no matter what.”
Shade was sensing the current time, and then he let go of her hand after confirming that it was still "now", but he didn't notice that the witch quietly glanced at his hand, that kind of warmth
"It doesn't matter. At least we should all be happy that you just stayed in this place for most of your time a hundred years ago."
The umbilical cord was turned back into a toy by Shade. He took out a bottle of diluted No. 3 holy water and handed it to Miss Winslet, and drank a bottle himself:
"Let's take a rest here. I'm a little glad that I didn't eat too much this morning. This investigation has yielded results now. There are treasures in the basement and extra time rules. Don't worry, we can take our time."
PS: This painting is equivalent to a masterpiece by a master like Picasso, and Xia De’s house is equivalent to the courtyard house next to the Imperial City of Forty-Nine City.