evening.

It was raining heavily.

This long and heavy rain has become the eternal background sound. The floods accumulated in the mountains continue to pour down. The rain makes the soil soft and muddy, and becomes mountain torrents, washing every tree in the forest.

This scene even makes people think that the steep cliff where the villa is located was formed due to years of erosion.

Inside the house, Byron was eating food from a bowl.

Broth and bread were the servants' usual food, and Byron was not picky. As a gangster, he could talk big at banquets or brag and chat with the cooks in the kitchen. He ate voraciously, making Xia hungry.

"Give me one, too."

Xia then asked the servant for a portion and ate it with Byron.

Byron tore the bread, dipped it in the soup, put it into his mouth, and sucked his fingers. It looked extremely delicious. Xia followed suit and started eating.

"This bread tastes like the one I had in the Black Forest. It was so comfortable to eat bread with soup in the tent over a bonfire on a rainy night."

Shia commented.

"When I'm hungry, this kind of staple food is the best way to satisfy myself."

Byron also nodded.

After they had eaten and drunk their fill, Byron ordered another glass of wine, which he gulped down without any grace. He burped, then closed his eyes in contentment and thought for a moment.

"God didn't actually tell me everything about this mansion in detail, but in order to make me act like a master, he still told me some of the secrets he discovered. You know, in addition to tricks, I must show a certain degree of foresight or extraordinary abilities, so that they will believe that I can successfully summon the spirits."

Byron spoke swiftly, like an insurance salesman.

"For example, the paintings in this building are not for display, but are used to suppress something. The reason why these paintings are used, uh, it's called Gu Du, right? The reason why his works are used is because the things that need to be suppressed are not consistent with the forces represented by Gu Du."

Stone didn't quite understand what Byron said, but Lu Ban and Xia looked at each other immediately.

They had experienced the [Mouth of a Madman] and knew that Gu Du's works were created to please a sealed god, and that those works were tainted with the aura of this Old One.

Now according to Byron, the Old Ones that the ancient capital pleases are not the same as the Old Ones suppressed in this mansion. They are even hostile to each other. This is worth savoring.

There are also different Old Ones in the Ruined City, and their existence may be clearer.

There are also several Old Ones in the foreign land where Lu Ban is located, but according to Lu Ban's understanding, they are all sealed. At least within Lu Ban's cognition, there are no Old Ones walking on the earth.

As for the abandoned city, Lu Ban couldn't say.

He once saw a woman wearing a cheongsam, hiding her face behind a fan. Although such attire was common in the Wasted City, Lu Ban clearly felt something was wrong that time. Thinking back now, that woman might be a high-ranking official.

And the countless eyes he saw on the ruler of the abandoned city did not match the Old One sleeping behind the door guarded by the ancient city.

The Ruined City may also have more than one Great Old One.

Moreover, based on Byron's words, Lu Ban guessed that the degree of awakening of these Old Ones was far higher than those great beings on Earth who were completely sealed and fell into a state of blindness and stupidity.

As for the existence that was to be suppressed, Lu Ban thought of the identity of Taoist Heming and felt that it was either Fang Geng, the lord of the mountains, or the sealed mud monster.

"…So, if I move a painting, I can let the power of that thing leak out and cause some special events. I should have used this method to make Mr. Browning's family abandon this mansion."

Byron continued speaking while Lu Ban was thinking.

His strategy was simple. By using the information given by Gode, he could move the paintings and release a little bit of the power of the suppressed guy. The slight contamination would cause people to have hallucinations. By then, the ignorant children of the Browning family would think that this was a haunted house. Gode would then offer to help sell it, and he could get the Stormy Villa at a low price.

It sounds suicidal, and it actually is suicidal.

Not to mention that the impact of pollution on humans is irreversible, it is arrogant in itself to think that you can control the power of those great beings.

Weakness and ignorance are not obstacles to survival, arrogance is.

No one can guarantee that these paintings have not been moved before, and no one can guarantee that moving them will only cause "a little bit" of contamination. What is more likely is that since the paintings originally collected by Browning here are already difficult to contain the spillover of contamination, this has led to the amplification of people's emotions, problems with rationality, and hallucinations like Lily wanting to strangle herself and Stone shooting himself in the head.

Thinking of this, Lu Ban had a new understanding of the goal of this mission.

I'm afraid that the nine days of summoning the soul are not a scheme to resurrect Browning, but that on the ninth day after Browning's death, the seal here will completely fail, allowing the evil god suppressed in the mansion to emerge.

Only in this way can it match the difficulty of [Alienation].

Obviously, if they had killed this very suspicious Byron directly, they probably would not have obtained this information. Everyone would only think that the people who caused the problem had been dealt with, and they would wait for the arrival of the ninth day with peace of mind, and then die directly under the pollution of the resurrected god.

But then again, if one really acted according to logic, after Stone obtained the location of Gold's internal organs, he would never believe Byron's words and would only treat him as a monster. In other words, the more rational a person is, the harder it is for him to find the problem, and only when one's rationality drops to a certain level will one choose this path.

What seems to be an unreasonable choice eventually becomes the most reasonable choice here.

I guess part of the difficulty of this task lies here.

Therefore, Lu Ban and his team's current mission actually becomes to find the sealed nodes in this mansion and complete them before the ninth day's summoning night.

And the sealed node is probably Taoist Heming’s “legacy” or “horcrux”.

Thinking of this, Lu Ban suddenly had an inspiration. He looked at Stone and suddenly asked a serious question.

"You said we were here to attend Browning's funeral, so... where is his body?"