Firelight flickered, casting shifting shadows.
The corridor carved with epic tales stretched endlessly into the distance. The illuminating torches blurred one's sense of distance, making it seem, in a daze, as though this road had no end.
The tiger carried Qi Si and Nian Fu as it raced down the long corridor, never slowing, its strides whipping up biting gusts of wind.
The scene ahead gradually changed, and their field of vision opened up. A Greek-style marble structure stood at the end of the corridor, where the narrow passage unexpectedly led the Players into a vast and magnificent underground complex.
The enormous hollowed-out space formed a typical European courtyard, as large as the square before a cathedral. At its center stood a pure white statue holding a book, veiled in gray by the dim light.
Covered walkways supported by colonnades encircled the courtyard. Beyond the alternating shadows stood rows of houses with tightly shut doors and windows, sealed and oppressive like tombs storing coffins.
"I've been to a place like this. It really looks exactly the same..." Nian Fu looked around, her expression dazed.
A damp, moldy odor lingered in the air. Dust kicked up by the wind fell wetly to the ground after drifting only a few inches, as if restrained by some force.
A hissing cacophony rose from underground, ebbing and swelling, as though some abnormal creatures were about to burst from the earth.
"This layout was modeled after the orphanage where you grew up?" Qi Si stared at the dark green moss stains on the marble walls and asked in an offhand, speculative tone.
He had been here too—or rather, at that extremely similar orphanage. He had merely been confined there for a few days before being taken away.
"Yes." Nian Fu nodded and recalled, "The layout