Chapter 180 Underground Labyrinth

Hao Ren roughly assessed the situation in the hole. Confirming that it was solid ground and not too deep, he jumped down. But mere seconds after landing, a resounding "What the heck!" erupted, startling both Lily and Vivian. Lily peered into the dark opening. "Landlord, Landlord, what's wrong?"

"Nothing. It's just... this place is unbelievably huge!"

Standing at the bottom, Hao Ren squinted as he took in his surroundings, his tone filled with amazement.

It was pitch black down there, challenging his night vision far more than the night outside. Except for the faint moonlight filtering through the opening, there was no light whatsoever. Hao Ren felt his newly acquired night vision was being pushed to its limit. He had to fully concentrate to see anything.

It seemed his night vision was still based on normal optical principles and hadn’t yet reached the legendary level of mentally scanning his surroundings. He wondered if he would ever evolve to that point.

When he jumped down, he had landed on a raised dirt platform, seemingly designed for people below to return to the surface through the chapel's secret door. In front of the platform was a small slope. As Hao Ren walked down it, he saw something astonishing: tunnels, tunnels beyond imagination.

There was indeed an underground structure beneath the castle, and it was even larger than he anticipated, far exceeding the underground scale of most normal classical castles. Right in front of him were three wide passages extending in different directions. These passages were reinforced by thick stones and black pillars of some ancient, unidentifiable material. They hadn't collapsed after all these years, which seemed incredible even to Hao Ren, an architectural layman. Each passage was wide enough for a medium-sized car to drive through, and over three meters high. They converged in front of him, forming a T-junction, the intersection as wide as an underground hall.

It seemed the chapel's secret door led to a "node" in the castle's underground tunnels, a place where several tunnels intersected.

Hao Ren heard two soft rustling sounds behind him. Vivian and Lily had also jumped down from the hole. They walked down the slope of the small platform, joined Hao Ren, and saw the scene before them.

"This... the lord of Yoford back then was no ordinary person. The underground palace he built is beyond standard," Vivian, the knowledgeable vampire, immediately recognized that the size of the tunnels didn't match the castle above. "Could there have been constant wars here? And the local lord built such a large underground shelter? Even with three-way intersections..."

Hao Ren gave Vivian a strange look. "Haven't you been away from England since 1190? How do you know so much about the size of ancient English castles from hundreds of years ago? I wanted to ask you that upstairs..."

"Just because I wasn't in England doesn't mean I couldn't travel around Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and France?" Vivian gave Hao Ren a disdainful look. "I may be a bit poor, but the reason I didn't come to England for almost a thousand years wasn't because I couldn't afford the travel expenses—I was traveling around neighboring countries! Ancient castles in this area were pretty much the same a few hundred years ago. No matter how different the structures were, I still have a good grasp of the size of the facilities."

At this moment, Lily had been sniffing and circling around the three-way intersection. She ran to one of the passages, carefully distinguished the remaining scent in the air, and shouted, "This way! This way, there's a human scent!"

The werewolf girl had completely become a scent radar. Hao Ren felt like he was carrying a police dog...

Led by Lily, the trio ventured deeper into the underground palace (the scale was large enough to be called a palace). Hao Ren was initially worried about the risk of suffocation in the dilapidated tunnels, but after walking for a while, he found the air fresh, and a breeze, source unknown, constantly brushed his face. It seemed that some of the ventilation shafts leading to the surface hadn't been blocked, which further proved how much effort the original owner of the castle had put into building this fortress, making it so reliable.

Vivian analyzed from the side, "I originally thought the lord of Yoford was just an ordinary nobleman with a castle, but now it seems he was quite extraordinary. The underground structure and the amount of stone used in the castle above indicate that this was once a very solid fortress, but this is a plain, and the location isn't a military stronghold—it lacks favorable geographical conditions even as a fortress. I don't quite understand what the lord of Yoford was building such a solid fortress for back then."

"Didn't they say the Yoford territory was abandoned later due to internal rebellion?" Hao Ren speculated randomly. "Perhaps it was because of constant civil wars that the lord here built the castle like a large fortress."

"Ignoramus," Vivian glared at Hao Ren. "How long do you think it takes to build such a large underground project? Especially hundreds of years ago? It would take the efforts of several generations. The Yoford family had probably been reinforcing and expanding this underground palace for two hundred years. And don't forget this is England, unlike those bug-like dynasties in ancient China that could conscript tens of thousands of laborers to dig mountains and open lakes. Here, a feudal lord's productive forces were limited. For him to undertake such a huge project... it's suspicious."

As Vivian spoke, she quickened her pace and walked ahead. At this point, it was completely dark, and even with the strongest night vision, some light was needed. So Hao Ren took out his data terminal and turned on the standby screen, using it as a flashlight to illuminate the way. The surrounding area instantly became as bright as day in his eyes. A line of subtitles rolled across the screen of the data terminal like a barrage: "This unit believes your usage is incorrect, this unit believes your usage is incorrect... This unit suggests you properly search for the normal measures that should be taken at this moment..."

Hao Ren pretended not to see it. This data terminal was unreliable.

The trio walked through the tunnels for several minutes. Hao Ren felt the terrain gradually sloping downwards, as if the tunnel was leading to a deeper level. He had temporarily forgotten about the paranormal enthusiasts and Nangong on the surface: he felt that staying in this pitch-black place had at least one good thing—it was further away from the troubles on the surface. It would be perfect if he could find the "person" he was looking for in this underground place.

"So, the ghost stories in the old castle are actually someone playing tricks?" Lily felt bored walking like this, and despite their usual disagreements, she took the initiative to talk to Vivian. "Who could it be? And there really are undead in this castle, right?"

"Hmph, those who play tricks are definitely humans. Humans are the most complicated beings. Who knows what they're thinking all day long," Vivian snorted. "As for the undead... hey, Landlord, why did you shiver just now?"

Hao Ren looked miserable. "I just remembered there are ghosts down here! I just jumped down without thinking about anything... Now I feel a little scared."

Vivian "comforted" him with malice, "Don't worry, dealing with demons and monsters will eventually become your daily job."

Just then, Lily, who was leading the way, suddenly twitched her nose in the air. "Ahead, there's a person very close by! They seem to have stopped moving."

The tunnel ahead finally reached its end, revealing a corner. Vaguely, they could see light coming from the other side of the corner. Hao Ren was about to step forward when Vivian tugged his arm. "Wait, it's best to do some camouflage. Don't forget to hide our identities from ordinary people."

As Vivian spoke, layers of black mist emanated from her. Because of Hao Ren's strange "magic immunity," Vivian couldn't directly cast her spells on him, so she could only use a layer of mist to surround the three of them to conceal their figures. Hao Ren looked at himself shrouded in a black mist and suddenly felt that the three of them seemed to be the most suitable group to play ghosts...

Vivian whispered to the other two, "Don't leave the range of the black mist, especially you, Big Dog, don't wrinkle your nose. My black mist is the peppermint-scented type! I specifically removed the bloody smell this time to prevent you from spouting nonsense."

Under the cover of the black mist, the three of them quietly moved forward. After rounding the corner of the tunnel, they indeed saw a person's back.

A short, stout man, wearing a miner's lamp and carrying a strange box, was standing in front of a stone wall, anxiously pacing back and forth.

It was Angus, the hotel owner.

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