NOVEL NEXT Ch. 28
Chapter 28: Coordinates
After midnight tonight, the Evil Spirit would begin its second attack...
Lu Feng glanced at the quartz clock on the wall—it was already one in the afternoon.
There were eleven hours left...
Everyone sat silently in a circle inside Lu Feng’s room, each thinking about the meaning behind those three numbers.
However, this line of thought had already continued for an hour.
Lu Feng knew that if they kept going like this, they probably would not get any results.
“Alright, alright, everyone go back and rest for now. After midnight tonight, no one can sleep, so you’ll need to recharge your energy beforehand,” Lu Feng said.
The group responded a few times before getting up one by one to return to their rooms.
Before leaving, Yu Mo paused in her steps.
She turned her head to glance at Lu Feng, who was frowning deeply at the three bones on the table.
She sighed inwardly, then turned and left.
……
Lu Feng walked out of the old mansion, pacing slowly in the courtyard before the residence.
He reached the iron fence and looked out through the bars, only to see a stretch of dense white fog.
Lu Feng thought of a movie called The Mist.
In that movie, all sorts of terrifying alien-like creatures roamed within the fog.
Once a person entered the fog, they were doomed to die without even a place to be buried.
Lu Feng did not know what lurked in the fog before him, and he had no interest in finding out.
When he turned back, the huge, aged mansion filled his entire vision.
From its exterior, one could tell that the mansion was built in a strong Baroque style.
This European architectural style, popular in the 18th century, was characterized by extravagance, luxury, bold colors, with walls and sculptures decorating every inch of the structure.
Although dilapidated, one could still see the glory it once held.
But regardless of the particular European style, there seemed to be a strange obsession with symmetry.
Most early European buildings preserved today displayed almost perfectly mirrored facades.
The mansion before him clearly shared that feature.
Using the front entrance’s centerline as the central axis, one could perfectly divide the mansion into symmetrical left and right halves.
Wait... the central axis...?
Axis?
Lu Feng rubbed his chin in thought.
He seemed to have faintly grasped an important clue.
Then, suddenly, he understood the meaning of those three numbers—
So, that was it.
……
The group gathered again on the third floor, from where they could overlook the entire first-floor hall.
“I’ve figured out what those three numbers mean.”
Seeing the surprise on everyone’s faces, Lu Feng continued,
“These three numbers actually represent a three-dimensional coordinate—”
As he spoke, Lu Feng pointed toward the hall.
“European-style buildings generally have symmetrical axes. So if we use this symmetry axis as the y-axis, the skirting board along the door side as the x-axis, and the extended line beneath the central axis as the z-axis, we can easily establish a three-dimensional coordinate system.”
Lu Feng spoke as if casually, but the faces of the others behind him grew increasingly strange—
Was this really something one could “easily” think of?
“And look at the marble floor tiles in the hall. They’re also laid symmetrically from the central axis outward—”
“Suppose we use the length of a single floor tile as the unit of measurement for the three-dimensional coordinate system. As long as we know the size of each tile, we can determine the coordinates represented by those three numbers.”
Finishing, Lu Feng turned to look at the others, only to find their gazes strange, leaving him confused,
“What? Do I have something on my face?”
“No... how should I put this...”
Lin You scratched his head.
“It’s just... really impressive? Anyway, I’m certain, Feng Feng, that normal people don’t think the way you do.”
The others nodded in agreement.
“Alright, enough of that nonsense. We need to make the most of our time now.”
……
After rough measurements, the marble floor tiles were found to be standard one meter in both length and width.
The first-floor hall contained fifty tiles horizontally and forty vertically, forming an almost perfect rectangle.
With that, their calculations became straightforward.
“But there’s another problem... How should the numbers 12, 18, 20 be ordered?”
Zhang Tong noticed the issue, since different sequences would result in completely different coordinates.
But Lu Feng had already thought of that.
“The order of the rooms is based on the doorplate numbers of the rooms where the three bones were found.”
Thus, the final coordinate was determined—
(12, 20, 18)
“On the right side of the central axis in the first-floor hall, 12 meters across, 20 meters deep, and 18 meters vertical height...”
Immediately, everyone almost spoke in unison at the location that surfaced in their minds,
“The dining hall!”
That’s right.
The location matched a certain point within the dining hall, the very place they had subconsciously overlooked earlier—
Because they went there every day, the dining hall felt familiar, and familiar places were the easiest to ignore during exploration.
Now that the location was determined, everyone felt some relief.
At last, their first task had seen progress.
However, just as they were about to head to the dining hall to search for the precise spot, a heated quarrel suddenly erupted from the far end of the third-floor corridor.
“Zhang, I dare you to say that again!”
“Heh, so what if I do? Xiao Zhiquan, you’re just an idiot! Lu Feng already warned you not to do that the other day, yet you still stupidly led a group to their deaths! If I hadn’t trusted Lu Feng’s words, I might have gone along with you. And then, maybe it wouldn’t have been Su Qi who died, but me!”
Zhang Yifeng sneered coldly at Xiao Zhiquan.
“Didn’t you say you’d protect Su Qi? I heard all about how embarrassing you were! You’re nothing but trash who can’t even protect the woman you like!”
“You!!!!”
Veins bulged on Xiao Zhiquan’s forehead as he roared and lunged at Zhang Yifeng.
“Today I’ll kill you!!!”
But the burly, fat Zhang Yifeng and the scrawny Xiao Zhiquan were not remotely in the same weight class.
As Xiao Zhiquan charged, before he could even touch down, he was swatted aside with a slap, then kicked viciously.
Xiao Zhiquan rolled several times along the ground.
Zhang Yifeng’s gaze at him brimmed with disdain.
“With trash like you, and you still dream of being the boss every day? I even pity Su Qi, for believing in an idiot like you!”
That kick from Zhang Yifeng’s heavy body had been no light blow.
Xiao Zhiquan knelt on the floor, panting harshly for a long while before he could finally catch his breath.
His face turned grim and vicious as he lifted his head.
His bloodshot eyes blazed with hatred.
Suddenly, with a growl, he charged Zhang Yifeng again.
Zhang Yifeng sneered with contempt and reached out to grab him, but Xiao Zhiquan twisted his body at the last moment and dodged.
Lowering his stance, Xiao Zhiquan grabbed both of Zhang Yifeng’s thick legs with all his strength and heaved upward.
The fat man’s body immediately toppled backward.
But just a few steps behind him was the long staircase that led down to the first floor.
In Zhang Yifeng’s terrified gaze, his round, bloated body rolled down the stairs—
Thud, thud, thud, thud—
Until he crashed onto the final step, where his body finally came to a stop, lying motionless on the floor.