NOVEL NEXT Chapter 199: Cleaned Out
After securing the wooden box and ensuring it wasn't visible from the outside, Luo Wei crouched down to untie the rotting hemp rope from the iron bar.
"Ready, Laura. Hand me the rope, please."
"Okay, just a moment!"
Laura moved a wooden stool over, stood on it, and handed one end of the rope to Luo Wei.
"I'll tie the top first. After I finish wrapping the loops at the top, check how much is left at the bottom, then tie the weight."
"Got it."
The two worked together and quickly reinstalled the weight.
The five of them worked until after seven in the evening before completing the repair of the mechanical clock.
By the time the student council director finished inspecting their work, the hour hand was already pointing to eight.
The church bells rang on the hour, but not from here—from the South Church.
The North Church bell tower had just been repaired, and no bell-ringer had been assigned yet.
The five had been working since noon, and they were exhausted and hungry, their stomachs growling.
"I'm so hungry," Theodore drooped his head, his arms swinging limply. "I'm really going to starve to death."
"But the academy cafeteria is closed. There's nothing we can do about being hungry," Laura said, rubbing her stomach.
"What if..." she suggested quietly, "we caught so many rats in the bell tower..."
"No way!" Luo Wei quickly dismissed their idea. "Rats are covered in bacteria. Aren't you afraid of getting diarrhea?"
The light that had just appeared in Theodore's eyes dimmed again: "Then what am I supposed to eat? You won't even let me eat rats. I think they were quite clean when they were alive."
"Yeah," Laura chimed in, "Rat meat is quite tender once you skin them! It's just that they smell a bit after they die."
"Really?" Gladys asked with her ice-blue eyes. "I've never eaten it. Is rat meat more tender than rabbit meat?"
"It depends on the rat," Hol interjected. "Young rats are tender, old rats are tough, but the older ones have more chew to them, and their bones make a crisp crunch when you bite them."
The veins on Luo Wei's forehead throbbed.
What kind of people were these?!
What kind of friends had she made?!
"Shut up, all of you. No eating rat meat. There's still an hour before the academy closes. We can still go out to eat."
"The shops on Academy Street must be closed by now. We can't buy anything even if we go out. I'm so hungry! If I don't eat rat meat, I'll starve to death. I'm hungry!" Theodore wailed in hunger.
Luo Wei's face turned cold: "Who said anything about buying? We'll go to Star Luo Residence. My treat."
At the mention of Star Luo Residence, Hol immediately raised both hands in agreement: "Great, let's go to Star Luo Residence."
This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Laura licked her lips: "Sounds good!"
Theodore tightened his belt: "You're treating us? Can I eat a bit more?"
Luo Wei: "Eat as much as you want, on one condition—you all have to hand over the rats to me. No one is allowed to sneak a bite."
"No sneaking, no sneaking. When are we leaving? How about now? The sooner we go, the sooner we eat!"
Theodore was already pacing, unable to wait any longer.
Luo Wei could hardly bear to watch. She turned around and said, "Let's go. The sooner we finish eating, the sooner we can get back before the academy gates close."
That night, the kitchen of Star Luo Residence was cleaned out by four teenagers.
According to Housekeeper Bella's recollection, they consumed a total of twenty-seven eggs, fifteen pounds of beef, more than thirty loaves of bread, two large pottery jars of chicken soup, a pot of stewed beans, and a large pot of bitter vegetable porridge.
Between eating and taking, they devoured all the food meant for dozens of workers in the backyard for the entire next day!
While they were eating, Luo Wei went back to her room to change clothes and took the opportunity to take out the wooden box she had picked up from the bell tower, hiding it in her wardrobe.
The rats that Laura and Theodore had caught in the bell tower were also placed in cages and given to Chris to throw into the cellar.
After the meal, she returned to the academy with her companions from the death penalty squad.
The next day at noon, she returned to Star Luo Residence and retrieved the wooden box from the wardrobe to begin deciphering it.
There was a small lock on the box. She didn't dare open it rashly, fearing there might be some mechanism inside—what if it released poison gas? She would have fallen into a trap.
Perhaps it was Pandora's box, and opening it would release something ominous, bringing disaster to those outside?
Luo Wei took the box to the basement, fully equipped herself with protective gear—glasses, earplugs, a mask, and finally waterproof gloves coated with tung oil—before carefully using a bent thin wire to pick the lock.
Unexpectedly, the box didn't contain anything terrifying; it was just filled with stones.
—A whole box of magic stones.
Luo Wei used chopsticks to pick up one of the magic stones. These stones were peculiar, only the size of pigeon eggs, all polished into teardrop shapes.
About a dozen of them were black dark element magic stones, while the remaining stones were of mixed colors, appearing dark purple and dark green.
She felt them with her hand and discovered that the dark-colored magic stones contained not only dark elements but also several common elements, and the magical elements were extremely concentrated, more than ten times higher than natural magic stones.
Only magic materials that had been melted and purified would contain such powerful energy.
These magic stones were likely meant for a black mage to inlay in a wand. For some reason, they had been placed in the bell tower and left there for many years.
Luo Wei picked up the magic stones one by one with chopsticks and placed them on the table. As she reached the last one, her gaze fixed on the bottom of the box.
Inside was a folded piece of burlap with something drawn on it.
She moved the oil lamp closer, took out the burlap, and gently unfolded it.
The pattern drawn in black lines was exposed under the lamplight, making Luo Wei's scalp tingle.
The cloth was covered with densely packed eyes, and in the middle, written in thick strokes, was a sentence: The left eye and the right eye illuminate Galan.
Several angry lines had been fiercely drawn across the words.
Below was another line of text, the writing severely oxidized. She held it up to the light and struggled to make it out for quite a while before she could see clearly.
It read: Lies! Lies! The eyes are not outside the heart!
Luo Wei frowned deeply. What did it mean?
The eyes are not outside the heart? Could they be inside the heart?
And this "lies," what lies?
She read the sentence above again. Was it referring to this one?
The left eye and the right eye illuminate Galan.
Was there something special about this sentence?
In "The Song of Aldrich," it was recorded that the Creator God transformed his left eye into the sun and his right eye into the moon, dispelling cold and darkness for humanity.
Why would the person who drew this picture call it a lie?
Lies, lies, the eyes are not outside the heart... Luo Wei suddenly lifted her head, a tearing sound in her mind like a sharp knife cutting through a curtain, revealing the crimson backside.
She now understood what the sentence meant.
Perhaps this piece of burlap carried not just a pattern but a human life.
The person who drew it was probably already dead.
Luo Wei exhaled a long breath and put the burlap back.
This light piece of burlap had become too heavy for her to hold in her hands. Perhaps only with stones weighing it down would her heart feel a little lighter.
"""
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
patreon.com/BZDXG - Unlock a HUGE stash of advance chapters now!
Dive deeper into the story ahead of everyone else!