Tianjin people will never lose SAN

Chapter 165: Past Grudges

The night wind whistled through the broken window frames of the monastery. On the hospital bed on the third floor, Dave turned sideways and barely supported his body with one hand and sat up.

He felt pain all over his body and he didn't know what was wrong with his internal organs. Three years ago, he asked a family doctor to come to the monastery to examine him. He could not remember what the doctor said at that time, but he only remembered the way he slowly shook his head.

Dave knew he wouldn't live much longer, but there were still some things he needed to do before he went.

He walked tremblingly to the cabinet, picked up his crutch, and took out an exquisite little wooden box from the drawer. The box was written with "Vernon Baldwin".

Pushing open the bedroom door, Duff plunged into darkness.

He didn't turn on the light. He had walked this path countless times. Since he inherited the Baldwin family's inheritance at the age of 42, he would go to the attic every once in a while.

Standing in front of the door of the last room in the attic, he first struck a match to light the kerosene lamp next to him, then took out a small bundle of herbs from the box and lit them. He waited until the herbs were completely burned and the bitter smell fully stained his clothes before he pushed open the door.

The attic room was not big, even smaller than the other bedrooms in the monastery. The old furniture in the room was covered with blankets, and in the corner of the attic there was a lizard-shaped sculpture.

Although he had seen it countless times, Dave still didn't dare look it in the eye.

Written in blood at the lizard's feet was a sentence: "The source of blood is mutual..."

This sentence was not completed and no one knew its exact meaning, but as the actual heir of the Baldwin family, Duff knew a secret that only the heir could understand. This sentence was not left by a witch or a god.

Instead, it was left by Bald Baldwin, the first founder of the Baldwin family. It is just unknown what method he used to make the handwriting impossible to erase.

Old Duff put his cane aside, walked around behind the sculpture, and used all his strength to move the statue backwards.

A secret door appeared in the room. Facing the secret door, one could see the moldy and cold air emanating from inside. Behind the endless darkness was a staircase winding downwards. Thanks to the complex structure of Baldwin Monastery, this staircase was hidden next to the storage room on the first floor, so no one had noticed it until now.

Dave walked slowly down the stairs. He stopped to rest every once in a while. While resting, he stared into the darkness. His eyes had gradually adapted to the dim light. He could see the crawling creatures rustling on the wall beside the stairs. They were dark brown geckos.

Maybe they were lizards, or whatever. Dave knew that these were just the curse that the god had spread throughout the monastery, and seeing them too many times would bring him some kind of misfortune.

Finally, after descending for more than twenty minutes, Duff arrived at a large underground venue.

This cannot be called a basement, because even with sufficient light, it is difficult for people to see the top wall by looking up. Duff suspected that the monastery itself was built on a huge cave, and the underground space in front of him was that natural cave.

As he continued to walk forward, gray human skeletons appeared on the ground. Unlike the rotten skeletons buried in tombs after death, the surface of these skeletons was very smooth, with no signs of corrosion by corpse blood.

It's like a human being's flesh, blood, and internal organs are quickly eaten by some animal right after death.

A dark brown lizard emerged from the eye socket of a skull. As the first lizard appeared, more and more lizards climbed onto the surface of the skeleton. They watched Daff walk forward quietly. At this moment, Daff felt like a death row prisoner walking to the execution ground. They were all creatures that liked cold and damp. When they were not disturbed by humans, they would hide under the skeleton to sleep.

It is not difficult to guess that the guys gnawing on the bones are also these four-legged monsters.

At this moment, something suddenly fell from the top wall in the distance. The muffled sound of the heavy object falling was so abrupt in the silent cave that even Dave stopped and looked over there.

The lizards seemed to have received some clear signal. They ran across the ground making a sticky "pa pa pa" sound. With the help of the kerosene lamp, Dave could barely see that what fell to the ground was a corpse, to be precise, the corpse of a servant in the monastery.

He had died more than twenty days ago, and was buried in the family tomb by servants. They were accustomed to the stacking burial method passed down from foreign countries, with one coffin on top of another. These lizards must have dug through the tombs from under the caves, so they could always eat fresh food.

Dave continued to walk forward. Because of the incense on his body, the lizards were not welcoming him but could not get close to him. So they made way for him, and at the end of the road was a strange sculpture.

The main body of the statue is three figures. The father is kneeling on the ground holding his daughter horizontally, while his younger son, who is a few years old, is standing beside him.

The most impressive thing about the statue is that it is made up of the bones of some creature. Bones of different sizes and parts are crossed and overlapped together. Although the face of the figure will inevitably become rough and abstract over time due to the limitation of the materials used, the dark yellow statue standing in the cave creates a weird and twisted alternative beauty.

The three figures in the statue are the father of the Baldwin family and his two children 500 years ago. Only the successive family successors are qualified to know what happened on the sacrificial night 500 years ago.

There is no written record of this story. Duff suspected that this was intentional by the then head of the family, Balde. As the story was passed down by word of mouth, the description of that crazy night gradually distorted.

What is certain now is that, on the eve of the church mass, the god worshipped by the foreigners lost control and cast an incomplete projection during the mass.

In front of the sculpture is a long table for sacrifice, on top of which is a stone box. The box is one meter square and the carvings on it reveal a primitive, rough and desolate style, which is very different from the symbolic carvings of Moses Sadeh.

There was no lock on the stone box, but Duff knew that no one had opened it since that night of mass 500 years ago.

Gently stroking the rough rock with his palm, Duff seemed to have made up his mind and opened the wooden box in his hand. There was a small family photo inside the lid of the wooden box. The young Duff and his wife were holding the newborn Vernon.

In the middle of the box was a piece of dried blood, which was Vernon's umbilical cord.

With the help of the kerosene lamp, Daf lit the umbilical cord. As the umbilical cord burned, smelly smoke rose, and the lizard that was gnawing on the corpse in the distance was also attracted.

They piled up on top of each other, greedily sucking the smoke. Slowly, a huge wriggling lizard formed in front of Dave's eyes.

I'm confused. Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival, hahaha. But it doesn't matter. Blessings can be given any day. It's a big holiday. Go home to visit the elderly and chat with them more. It's filial piety.

This book is meant to be read for fun. For example, when you are playing cards with your family, you can take a look at it and have a good laugh. It's quite beautiful.

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(End of this chapter)