Qin Yan always stayed by my side, helping me to search for clues. We wandered through the mansion, checking nearly every room, but we still couldn't find a definite breakthrough.
It wasn't until we dug up the mansion's structural plan that we finally noticed something strange.
"According to the structural plan, this section of the building is a bit unreasonable," he said. He stood in front of the wall, gesturing through the air with his long fingers. "There should be another door here, but it's been sealed off now"
"A hidden door?" I frowned and stared at the seamless wall. "It looks like it was deliberately erased."
"It may be used to cover a certain passage," he said. Then, he crouched down and began to inspect the seam between the wall and the floor.
I also crouched beside him, and my fingers accidentally pressed on what looked like an ordinary floor tile.
Click.
A crisp mechanical sound rang out suddenly, and the floor trembled slightly.
Qin Yan and I exchanged a glance; there was a flicker of alertness in his eyes.
The floor tile slowly sank, and along with it, the entire wall beside us began to slide open like interlocking gears.
A breeze slipped through the gap, carrying the scent of dust and rust.
We stood in silence for a few seconds. Then he stood up first. "Let's go in and take a look."
I nodded and followed behind him.
Behind the wall was a long and narrow passage that extended diagonally downwards, with no clear end.
The stone steps were steep and slick. We walked down carefully with the help of flashlights. Every step felt like stepping into a foreign world and the darkness slithering around us beyond the reach of light.
We walked halfway down, a large number of tiny scratches suddenly appeared on the walls.
I shone the light closer and realised they weren't ordinary marks, but they were knife gouges.
"These... look like they came from a struggle," I whispered.
"It's not a struggle," Qin Yan said gravely. "They were carved deliberately."
Further down the wall, a row of words had been carved, which were crooked and forceful, as if etched with fury.
Laine, how dare you betray me and elope with my sister... You will pay the price. I hate you for the rest of my life, every breath I take will be to curse you with unrest.
A chill ran down my spine, and my throat tightened.
Qin Yan frowned and said softly, "This wasn't a struggle. It's a curse."
We pushed the door open and walked in. The room seemed like no one had lived in the room for a long time. There was a fine layer of dust coated the floor, the air was filled with the smell of dampness and decaying wood, and the spider webs in the corners quietly extended to the ceiling.
Whatever had once been on the walls was now mostly torn down, leaving only a few crooked, yellowed photographs still clinging there.
One of the photos of a man was particularly eye-catching. His face had been slashed over and over with a sharp object, rendering him nearly unrecognisable. The gouges cut deep, as if hatred itself had taken hold of the blade.
I stared at the photo. A name suddenly flashed through my mind, who was Laine.
"That's... Lord Laine," I said hoarsely as my voice was a little dry. "The first day we entered the castle, Butler Adrian said it—'This estate belongs to Lord Laine.'"
Qin Yan nodded.
From the very beginning, we had been caught in this so-called master's story.
"But ever since we came here, no one has mentioned his name again," I murmured. "As if... he'd been deliberately erased."
I looked up at the perfectly preserved photo of a woman. My chest tightened. If he was Laine... then who was she?
If this was a family wall of portraits, as the "young master" of this mansion, thus I should be here. But there is no me here. Not the child me, not the grown-up me, not even a shadow. It was as if I had never belonged here at all.
Then I noticed another photo. It was shoved into the corner, badly damaged. It was a photo of a young woman. Even though the middle of the photo was scratched several times by a hard object, her face was almost completely torn apart, leaving only half of her face vaguely recognisable, but we could still see that she had soft and three-dimensional facial features, and a hint of innocence between her eyebrows and eyes. Her hair was neatly tied up, and a pair of slender pearl earrings hung from her ears, like a symbol of an aristocratic girl, with an elegant temperament and a hint of indescribable stubbornness.
"This might be her sister," I said softly. That curse echoed again in my mind—"Laine, how dare you betray me and elope with my sister…"
If this was her… then all that hatred revolved around the three of them.
"I will going to ask Bulter Adrian," I said, voice low but firm.
Qin Yan didn't stop me. He simply said calmly, "I'll go with you."
I nodded, my eyes resolute. No matter how many secrets were hidden behind this game, I had to find out what had happened in this mansion.