The torrential rain grew more and more intense, as if it were a long-stored revenge, and they rained down from the sky to wash away the city's sins.

Obviously, this rainy season is extremely ferocious, pale thunder snakes are traveling in the rolling dark clouds, each time they show up brings a dazzling light to this gray world, and then these lights disperse those steel whales, those giant beasts that never dive down have landed, such a terrible thunderstorm, with the current strength of human beings is not enough to fight.

It seemed that there was a strange sound of mockery behind the dark clouds, wantonly unleashing natural disasters.

A flash of thunder reflected the city like a flashing light, and in the center of it all, the sharp spire still pointed straight to the sky, lonely but indestructible.

Hercule stood at the outlet of the sewer, the water pouring out of the channel beside him into the River Thames below, which was almost overflowing from the shore because of the heavy rain.

"It's magnificent, that tower isn't something you can see very often. ”

Hercule enjoyed the thunderstorm, in the gloomy sewers, looking up at the spire high above.

"I don't remember a building like this in Old Dunling. ”

Lorenzo leaned against the damp walls, and then sat down slowly, he might really need to rest for a while, and looked at the lonely spire outside, it was so large, far taller than all the buildings in the old Dunling, as if it was communicating with the heavens.

"Because normally it is covered in exhaust fumes, and the thick fog not only obscures the sky, but also the tall buildings, and usually the upper part of the tower is covered in cumulus clouds, and it is only in this bad weather that the wind disperses the smoke and it really shows itself. ”

Hercule obviously knew a lot, and then he asked.

"Do you know its name?"

Lorenzo shook his head, his confused mind running out of energy to think of anything else.

As if to get Lorenzo interested, Hercule paused for a moment and then continued.

"Tunling Tower. ”

Lorenzo looked up slightly, his eyes filled with confusion.

"That's right, it's called Dunling Tower, Dunling Tower and the old Dunling, it's very interesting, isn't it? ”

Hercule sat down against the damp wall as he spoke, shoulder to shoulder with Lorenzo in his arms, the big furry mouse in his arms.

"Lorenzo, we are now in a city of innovation, where the things that are born in this city change the world, and in the same way that those things are changing the city itself. ”

"You seem to know a lot. ”

Lorenzo took a slight interest and put the damned mystery aside for a moment.

"Yes, these are secrets in the royal archives, but you know my desire to control people, and I won't allow those secrets to be outside of my knowledge. ”

He pointed to his head, to which Lorenzo smiled only reluctantly.

"You haven't been put to death yet, but you're dead. ”

"It's not that serious, it's an abandoned project, and maybe the current people in power don't remember such a thing. ”

Hercule explained this to Lorenzo as he spoke.

The rain surged in the channel in front of them, dragging leaves and debris into the Thames, and the two of them were like rats cowering in the shadows, talking about what was beneath the glory.

"Don't you wonder about the name of this city? Old Dunling, old Dunling, so where is the new Dunling?"

Hercule looked at the minaret surrounded by thunder behind the rain curtain.

"This plan was proposed at the end of the Glorious War, almost a few decades ago, and now those involved are either dead or dying, and are gradually forgotten by the world...... There are many such cases, and those who come up with a lot of ideas can always come up with something new, but for various reasons they can't do it, so they can only be locked in an iron cabinet and covered with dust.

In short, it was a great revolution after the steam engine, and although the power of steam changed the world, those scholars who were at the forefront of it also realized the shortcomings of the steam engine and needed more power.

Like what...... Electricity. ”

Hercule stared at the tower in the distance, the clouds of thunder and thunder growing thicker and thicker, like falling iron curtains, slowly approaching the ground until everything they touched was crushed.

"They carved out a new town in Old Dunling, an experimental town that was not recorded on the map, and named it Tunling, where they planned to try the power supply for the first time, and then spread to the whole of Old Dunling, and then the old Dunling was reborn as a new city called Dunling.

Scholars built the towering Dunling Tower, and countless cables wrapped around the building to transmit the electricity, but in the end, due to the loss of power transmission, some technical difficulties, and the factors of the times, the experiment finally failed, and the Dunling project was locked in an iron cabinet, and the tower was also covered by dark clouds, and no one knew about it. ”

Hercule's words were full of regret, he had seen the dusty papers with his own eyes, and he could read the ambition from decades ago in the blurred handwriting.

"At that time, the steam engine was already a mature and powerful technology, and electricity was just a speculation about the future direction, everyone was afraid of failure, and the immaturity of power technology, it was better to put all the bets on the steam engine than to put the bet on it...... It turned out well, the Glorious War was won, and the technology of the steam engine propelled Invig to the top of the Western world.

But...... But I always feel that those people haven't given up, haven't given up electricity. ”

"What's wrong?"

Lorenzo asked, intrigued by the city's past.

"Quite simply, the Dunling plan failed, but the electricity-covered city was not erased, and the power was expanding little by little, and although it had been so long, it still hadn't conquered the city, but it had become ubiquitous, hadn't it?

That's why Old Dunling is so fascinating, it's like a microcosm of the whole Western world, and you can feel that kind of transformation in it. ”

There was a cold wind pouring into the sewers, and the cold was too cold for Hercule to stand it.

"That's all for the review, Lorenzo, now your question is the first priority. ”

Hercule stood up as he spoke, and motioned for Lorenzo to get up and follow him.

"Where are we going?"

"A safe place. ”

Hercule looked back at Lorenzo.

"Didn't you say that the people of the mission would not give up, and maybe they are looking for you all over the city with knives right now?"

"Is there a safe place in this sewer?"

Lorenzo was a little skeptical, he knew very well that the terrain here was complicated, but it was only complicated, and safety was definitely not enough.

"Did you know? There are two kinds of rats. ”

Hercule laughed.

"One is wild rats, which usually get mixed up in filthy sewers. ”

As he spoke, he lifted Poirot up, probably the food was really good, and the big mouse was a little bigger than the last time Lorenzo had seen it.

"One is Poirot's domestic, and the domestic rats live in delicate nests. ”

......

After a long walk down the sewers, through a series of intricate passages, Hercule laboriously pushed open a secret door, climbed several flights of stairs, and then a warm living room appeared in front of Lorenzo's eyes.

Rather than being bad rats, Lorenzo felt like termites, digging into the ground, with countless roads and countless doors, like a maze, and maybe only a guy like Hercule could remember the route.

"Rat King's safe house...... One. ”

Hercule put Poirot down as he spoke, and the little one ran merrily around the house, but because the place was not large, there were bumps and bumps along the way.

"There's clothes in the closet, so let's change out of wet clothes. ”

Hercule then said to Lorenzo that this guy was really dozen.

Lorenzo nodded, and then opened the closet next to him, but the contents made his facial expression a little complicated.

The different uniforms were hung up in unison, from workers' clothes to doctors, and Lorenzo even wondered if Hercule had some strange fetishes.

"That's just to deal with an emergency, such as when it's exposed, and we can change into maintenance clothes and escape, after all, it's the best way to blend in. ”

Probably aware of Lorenzo's eyes, Hercule explained in time.

Lorenzo didn't say anything, he took out a plain gray shirt and changed into it, while Hercule brought a blanket from another room and handed it to Lorenzo, and the two sat on the sofa facing each other, Poirot was still bumping into the cabin, and Lorenzo looked out the window.

Lorenzo didn't know where he was, but he could still see the towering tower of Dunling, the rain and the oppressive clouds making it impossible to distinguish between day and night.

The rainy season in Old Dunling is like this, it may be the catharsis of the heavens to mortals, like the end of the world.

However, although it was violent, the mature and well-established sewer system under the old Dunling did not cause any serious natural disasters.

"So, where do you start?"

Hercule looked at Lorenzo on the other side, there was no light in the room, and he could only rely on the oppressive light to see Lorenzo's face.

Lorenzo is like a confused child, his former madness and anger are gone.

"Memory Palace...... I want to learn that...... I guess I must remember something, but I forgot, like I don't remember being 047...... It must be hidden in the depths of my memory. ”

Lorenzo's words were a little hesitant, he firmly believed that he was 042, but he was still hesitant in the face of the indefensible evidence when it came to talking.

"Talk about yourself first. ”

Hercule tried to help Lorenzo, Lorenzo told him a lot in the sewers before, but some of the more secret parts were hidden by Lorenzo, and he must go to the Demon Hunting Order, such as the Pseudo-Holy Grail, in Hercule's eyes, Lorenzo is a patient with a split personality at the moment.

"You said you split into a 047 personality...... To be precise, the 047 personality split out of you, your personality named 042, and then 047 died, and you thought you were normal, until now. ”

Hercule struggled to figure out the relationship, and then there was a wave of admiration.

"You're a bit like me when I was shipwrecked, but instead of having a split personality, I've become what I am now. ”

He then began to nag.

"Lorenzo, sometimes I'm like you, a little bit confused. ”

Lorenzo looked back from the window, he didn't know why Hercule would say that.

"I've read a lot of books, and they're still stored in that magnificent palace in my head, and a few of them are really interesting, and they talk about ourselves.

The meaning of being alive. ”

"And the answer?" asked Lorenzo.

"It doesn't make sense. ”

Hercule spread his hands, indicating that he was also helpless.

"You can see between the lines that it was a pessimistic and negative but very intelligent guy, he said that everything was meaningless, everyone was dying, one second Hercule died, the next second Hercule came back to life, and then died again.

And so on in a weird cycle until we can't live anymore. ”

Hercule laughed helplessly.

There is indeed some truth in this, and he said that the world will eventually perish, lose all light and heat, and become everything that is cold and silent.

The only thing that makes sense is to find a comfortable evening, a moment that you think is fun, and end your life in a relaxed way. ”

"Is that author still alive?"

"I don't know, who knows?"

Hercule nested comfortably, and Poirot was crazy enough to expertly jump into his arms.

"But I've just concluded that one thing is that people don't have nothing to think about these strange philosophies, it only traps us. Then come back to me.

If you think about Lorenzo, do you think it's possible for humans to have such a memory?"

Hercule said seriously.

"This kind of power is beyond what we know to be a 'normal', it's an 'abnormality', and I sometimes wonder if there is such a possibility. ”

"What is possible?"

"The real Hercule is dead. ”

Hercule still had the same familiar expression, without the slightest fluctuation, as if what he had just said was a very ordinary sentence.

"Yes, Hercule didn't have such a good memory in the past, but now Hercule has built up the glory in the shadows with such power. ”

He retracted his smile and said solemnly.

"Maybe the real me died at sea a long time ago, and now the Hercule you know is just a monster that has taken over this body, and it has a terrible memory, but it remembers so many things that it overlaps with the memories of this person called Hercule, and thinks it has lived to this point. ”

The voice with its strange power turned into a whisper of terror in this thunderstorm, but many of Hercules let go of their seriousness and smiled again.

"You see, just like this, the serious Hercule has just died, and now it is the smiling Hercule who has come to life.

Every transformation of humanity can be regarded as a death and a new birth, and you are the same Lorenzo, maybe the 047 of the Emerald died, and the 042 of the old Dunling came to life. ”

"It doesn't matter who I am or where I'm from, what I do matters, right?"

Lorenzo said slowly, he knows this truth very well, yes, it doesn't matter who he is, it doesn't matter if it's 042 or 047, what matters is what he has to do, but ...... But......

"But you always want to know the truth, don't you?047 has clearly left an important mark in your life, so important that you can't even accept that it's just a split personality...... What a beautiful memory it was, but now it's just fake, everything you have with him is fake, it's just your imagination, and even says you're ......

You, 042, everything you think you think is false, how can you accept such a result?"

Hercule looked at the sad Lorenzo and said lightly.

"You have the body of 047, but you think you are 042...... Let's talk about him. ”

"Who?"

"Another self, or rather...... 047。 ”