Almost everyone who came to Paris visited the Louvre Museum. Tourists poured in from all over the world like seawater, then vanished as if absorbed by a sponge into its 60,000 square meters of exhibition halls.
They wandered about with guide maps in hand until the sun slanted westward and their feet ached, yet vast sections of the galleries remained unexplored.
Yet the exhibition halls were only one part of what the Louvre Museum showed the world. Behind its many palace chambers lay more than 100,000 square meters accessible only to staff. Some compared the Louvre Museum to an enormous block of Gruyère cheese, full of beautiful-looking windows that could not be opened and basements that could not be seen from the surface but undeniably existed.
Countless pipes, cables, and water conduits twisted together in a tangled web. Numerous rooms were linked by crisscrossing corridors and tunnels, forming a maze.
Without someone to lead them, outsiders could never reach the Louvre Museum's roof unless they followed its exterior facade.
The view from here was entirely different from the one atop the Eiffel Tower, and this was one of the Louvre Museum's "reserved programs." When Gong Saiyi and Severus followed Eugene through the complex corridors to the roof, they were stunned by the sight before them. In the distance, the courtyard around the Louvre Pyramid was shrouded in a golden "cloud." Light shining out from the Louvre Pyramid illuminated the "cloud," beneath which were countless people. Water from the courtyard pool had already overflowed, forming a "river," and a boatman was poling his little boat in the middle of it.
"What do you think?" Eugene asked Severus.
"It's like watching the great animal migration in Africa," Severus said. "Is that boatman the ferryman of the Styx?"
"He doesn't accept gold," Eugene