Chapter 181 Casefile 6: Twin Kings' Tombs (2)
Jiang You is very familiar with this.
She had read numerous tomb-raiding novels and had visited numerous museums with her eldest brother. Naturally, she knew that in ancient times, the craftsmen who built imperial tombs were often executed to maintain secrecy. The most convenient method was to seal them in the tomb. This approach not only protected the secret but also provided a new batch of "human sacrifices" for the deceased emperor.
The best way to keep a secret is to let everyone who knows it go to the grave with it. Well, in this case, of course, it means going to the grave in a literal sense.
Therefore, the smarter craftsmen would leave a secret passage for themselves to escape. As for those who were not so smart, they would have died in the tomb long ago.
Ancient civilizations often have particular rites of passage regarding funerals, and the Egyptian pyramids bear a similar pattern to the Chinese in this regard. The Huntington Principality's funeral culture isn't as complex, but in some ways, it's more imaginative.
"Legend has it that the Twin Tombs were built to suppress evil spirits," Andrei said. "Prince Abrey rebelled for his own selfish gain, causing countless deaths, disasters, and misfortunes to the Kingdom of Delman. Many escaped through tunnels and other means, but even more perished.
"Eastern Eston remains abandoned to this day because the land is stained with too much blood and resentment. The undead linger, unable to enter the netherworld, and instead remain in the human world, nourished by this blood and resentment. King Franz of Lorraine was unable to purify these souls, so he could only bury the remains of those who caused all this here. After the Twin Kings' Tomb was built, the undead in Eastern Eston seemed to be confined to a restricted area, unable to leave the mausoleum."
Bound here are the vengeful spirits of the victims, the soldiers who protected the royal power back then, the remains of the murderer, and even Rudolf, the true heir to the throne and the one who aroused Abrey's deepest desire, was sealed in the twin royal tombs. These parties are destined to waste eternity in this cage until their souls are shattered and their resentment disappears, and only then will they have the possibility of reincarnation.
"The reason the Kingdom of Delman deeply detests twins and considers them a curse is because the fratricide between the brothers, which nearly devastated the entire nation, left a profound psychological scar on them. Half the kingdom was destroyed in the war, a vast amount of wealth disappeared, and countless lives were lost, with rivers of blood flowing."
"Wait, there are undead here..." Jiang You subconsciously rubbed her humerus and shuddered.
Even though she was now an undead creature, it didn't mean she wouldn't be afraid when she saw or heard of the undead! Especially those who died tragically in war and whose resentment was so strong just by hearing them... Hiss, just thinking about them made her back shiver!
"Yes, rumors of haunted East Eston started after the war, almost two hundred years ago!" Tux chimed in. "I heard that anyone who strays into the ruins of East Eston doesn't even have to wait for the Nether Festival; they can see ghosts day or night! Furthermore, these undead spirits lack much rationality and are completely incommunicable. Covered in blood and black smoke, they wander the mortal plane every day, attacking anyone they see!"
"Huh?!" Jiang You was caught off guard by this and shrank his head suddenly: "You can even attack people?!"
"Yes," Andrei said calmly, "but don't be afraid. My mother taught me the art of soothing the dead. Although I can't send them to the netherworld, I can still put them into a short sleep."
He paused, then added, "Besides, I think the existence of these undead spirits isn't a bad thing for us in capturing Evil Eye Moon."
Jiang You thought about it for a moment and understood. Andrei had previously concluded that while Evil Eye Moon used East City as a treasure trove, it didn't make it her permanent base. She was still a little puzzled.
After all, there was such a vast expanse of unattended land, so close to the capital. If she had, she would have definitely chosen this auspicious spot as her home base, even if someone chased her away. There was no reason for Evil Eye Moon to simply abandon her treasure here, without even a caretaker, and allow Baron Neumann to exploit it.
Now that the missing piece of the puzzle has been filled in, the things that she couldn't figure out before have become logical.
——East City of Eston is haunted.
This wasn't some superstitious haunting, a place you could believe in or not, but one that could actually be attacked physically and magically. The Evil Eyed Moon used these indiscriminately attacking undead to protect their treasures, but their own people couldn't stay here for long.
"Actually, before I took up my post here with Baron Neumann, I heard from the High Priest of the Moon Worship Cult in West Eston that Baron Neumann had a good relationship with him. Baron Neumann donates a large sum of money to the church every year and receives a talisman to repel the undead from the High Priest."
As the son of the high priest of the Lunari Cult, Andrei had no trouble obtaining this secret inside information: "I was previously curious as to why he, an old-school noble from the Delman royal family, was such a devout believer in the Lunari Cult, until I connected the assets of East Eston City and the Evil Eye Moon with Baron Neumann's fraudulent counterfeiting.
"I suspect the higher-ups of Evil Eye Moon must have some way of avoiding the undead. Judging by their secret research and experiments with liches, I think the leader or higher-ups of Evil Eye Moon are likely liches themselves, perhaps even full-fledged liches. Mi You's message of 'beware of liches' was probably a warning to us to be wary of them.
"However, that ghost-faced man was still alive. He likely still had wounds that hadn't healed when he fled West Eston. Living human flesh is a huge temptation for undead spirits who have lost their minds and harbor deep resentment. I don't think he'll stay in East Eston for long. He probably just uses it as an escape route."
"So we are not going there to catch anyone this time?" Jiang You said confusedly.
"Catch them! We absolutely must!" Andrei said. "If the Evil Eye Moon's people are here, we'll round them up, both the people and the money. If they're not, we'll find their treasure vault and take away all the genuine gold and silver that hasn't been tampered with. Thanks to our earlier acquisition of Baron Neumann's dirty accounts, once we find the vault, we'll be able to accurately determine which treasures are genuine and which have been replaced by Baron Neumann."
Andrei's green eyes sparkled, and he grinned like a Doberman who had stolen a bone. "Now that I think about it, I hope the Evil Moon's men aren't there. That way, after we leisurely empty their treasure trove, we can leave their leader with a huge surprise!"
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