Along with that old but loud voice, Duncan heard a series of tinkling sounds coming from the hut, as if someone got up in a hurry and bumped into some debris, followed by the sound of approaching footsteps. An old man with a hunched back, sparse white hair, wearing a gray coat and wrinkles on his face appeared near the door.

The man called "Old Ghost" stood in his own administrator's room, bent over, and glanced outside with a slightly cloudy gaze. It was unknown whether he saw the figures of the people standing outside the door clearly, and he lowered his head and muttered hurriedly: "The Queen is here to inspect... I didn't prepare well... Those assistants are becoming less and less reliable, and there are also messengers..."

"Old ghost!" Nemo had to interrupt the old man's mumbling with a loud voice, "The queen didn't come! The queen is not coming back! There are guests today - they are distinguished guests arranged by Captain Tirian. Stop mumbling, they are here to see you."

As he spoke, Nemo turned around and said to Duncan with an apologetic look on his face: "I'm sorry - as you can see, he is a little neurotic and often suddenly recalls things from decades ago. But don't underestimate him. As long as he deals with pipes and valves, he will wake up immediately."

"Awake? I'm awake!" As he was talking, the "old ghost"'s eyes suddenly turned, as if he understood something all of a sudden. He looked at Duncan and the others, muttering, "Guest, it's unexpected that a strange face can enter here... Have you checked the token, and the secret code?"

"Yes, of course," Nemo said immediately, looking at Duncan carefully, "These are all distinguished guests. Just treat them as... just treat them as Captain Tirian himself."

"Oh, then come in. There's nothing interesting here," the old ghost muttered, and stepped aside. "They are all old antiques, if you don't mind."

Vanna turned to look at Morris, but Morris's eyes were always fixed on the "old ghost".

After a moment, Morris shook his head and said in a low voice: "It's hard to judge - his mental state is not normal, and his memory is intermittent."

Duncan heard Morris's quiet report without changing his expression. He just followed the chattering old man and walked into the abandoned manager's lounge.

The lounge was not big and was brightly lit by a gas lamp. As expected, it was filled with all kinds of things. Apart from a bed in the corner, the shelves and boxes on the ground that were almost bent and deformed as far as the naked eye could see were filled with all kinds of mechanical parts, spare valve kits, and work tools.

Even if a skilled acrobat comes here, he will be thrown out with a level 10 disability.

"What a mess," Alice looked at the mess in the room and couldn't help muttering, "I really want to clean it up..."

"Oh, I'm so sorry!" The old ghost who was walking among the junk immediately turned around and bowed, "Your Majesty, I have been negligent in management recently, and this place is a bit messy..."

Alice was stunned: "Huh?"

Duncan's eyes also changed slightly in an instant, but just when he looked at the old ghost and wanted to say something, the old man suddenly became absent-minded. He stood up and muttered to himself: "Strange, where is my kettle... How can the guests not even have a drink of water..."

Duncan and the others looked at each other.

"No need to look for your kettle. Several guests just want to know some information from you," Nemo said at this time. "They are here to investigate the current situation of the Second Waterway and your own situation."

"Investigate?" The old ghost stopped for a moment, turned around with a serious expression, "Does General Tirian need to investigate his troops? Is there a traitor? In our area? Or in the central city? I feel like they've been acting weird lately..."

"There are no traitors, but there may be other lurkers who are threatened by some kind of supernatural pollution." Vanna took a step forward and almost tripped over the debris on the ground. This messy hut was a very challenging place for her 1.9-meter height. "Have you contacted people from other areas recently? Is anyone showing abnormal behavior?"

"Abnormal? Not to that extent, but the contact in the central city has been saying recently that there are gurgling sounds in the abandoned pipes there, as if someone is going to activate the second waterway." The old ghost waved his hand, "As for the situation of the second waterway, you have all seen it. What the queen built at that time was solid, but after all, it has been abandoned for so many years. There are many areas below that cannot be approached. In addition, sometimes the underground river will penetrate into the cracks in the rocks, so it is normal to bring some strange noises..."

The old man's words would go off topic from time to time, so Duncan had to speak up to bring the topic back: "The central city you mentioned... is it the area where the boiling gold mine is located?"

"Boiling gold? Ah, yes, boiling gold, they are all there - the cathedral is there, the Queen's Palace is there, and the mine is there. The mine is very deep, it must be several hundred meters deep." The old ghost sat on his bed and suddenly slapped his leg. "Oh, right, it should be the sound coming from some level of the mine. The second waterway over there is quite close to the mine... I said that the contact person over there is too nervous and weird..."

The old man began to talk to himself again, but this time Duncan did not interrupt him - he was already lost in thought.

He recalled the first time he came to Frost, and the first body he used here - a worker who slipped and fell to his death in the boiling gold mine, fell to the bottom of the mine, and was finally brought up by the search team, but it was a fake made of "elements".

And now, Lao Gui mentioned that the "contact person" lurking in the central city had heard a strange sound coming from the pipe of the second waterway, and it sounded like something was surging inside - the second waterway in the central city was very close to a certain layer in the boiling gold mine.

Considering that they are both "antiques" left over from the Queen's era half a century ago, Duncan even suspected that the two were more than just "closely" related.

Maybe those pipes are interconnected!

He quickly wrote down the clue, and then asked, "Is there a way to go directly to the underground of the central city from here? How do you usually meet with the contact person?"

"From here? That won't work. There's a completely black road in the middle that has long been polluted. The other roads have also collapsed. We have to go from the ground, but the ground is now full of rebel minions. We have to be very careful..." The old ghost muttered, but suddenly shouted again, "Queen's Guards! The rebels are coming, blow up the shaft quickly!"

The old man suddenly stood up from the bed and looked around nervously, as if the rebels would attack this place in the next second, but suddenly he stopped and his eyes fell on Alice.

"Oh, I was wrong, the Queen is safe and sound..."

Alice was a little flustered and waved her hands quickly: "I... I'm not the queen..."

Duncan looked at the old man standing next to the bed with a deep gaze. The old man was in a trance again. After a few seconds, he looked at Alice dully: "Girl, who are you?"

"Old Ghost, you are really getting confused. This is not just because you smoked too much drugs back then, but your eyesight is also problematic!" At this moment, Nemo's voice suddenly rang out, interrupting this strange moment. The informant nodded to Duncan apologetically, "I'm sorry, although Old Ghost is usually a little bit weird, he seems to be more serious today. He may not have dealt with outsiders for a long time. He was a little excited to see you, so he mixed up everything that happened back then."

"...It doesn't matter." Duncan said lightly, slowly withdrawing his gaze from the old man.

He didn't really care whether the old man really saw the shadow of the Frost Queen in Alice after she was disguised. Was it a moment of clarity in his muddled mind? Was it seeing through the disguise? Or was it just a confusion of memory? It didn't matter.

It would be a good thing if this crazy old man really saw a little bit of the illusion of the Frost Queen in Alice and felt a moment of peace in his heart because of it.

At this moment, Nemo seemed to suddenly remember something and frowned: "Strange, why hasn't the crow come back yet?"

"Crow? He went to check the northern corridor," the old ghost waved his hand, "that guy is a slow person, every time he would hang out outside for a long time before coming back."

Nemo's frown didn't relax at all: "...No, even if he dawdles, he should be back by now. The lights over there often break down, and his lantern can't last that long...Old ghost, when did he leave?"

"Two or three hours?" The old ghost thought about it and seemed to become a little serious. "Now that you mention it, it seems like he really has been gone for quite a while."

"I have a bad feeling that Crow has been in the deep waterway for too long," Nemo's tone finally became serious, and he looked up at Duncan and the others, "I have to go look for him."