The middle-aged man said, "It's here." ”

It is easy to see that at the end of the gray stone staircase ahead, a fence gate emerges in the darkness, and on the pitch-black metal railing, a pile of iron chains is wrapped, and a lock the size of a fist hangs on it.

Not far away there is a deep pool, the black surface of the water, like a mirror, can reflect the figure of people. The seepage water passes through thick rock formations, occasionally falling from above, dripping into the water, causing a ripple on the mirror's surface.

The middle-aged man stepped forward, shook the chain, made a clattering sound, raised his head, and asked into the darkness:

"Is Mr. Arván here?"

Attila, the Big Cat Man, and Sylvid heard voices in the darkness, as if someone had rolled over and got out of bed, and then they heard it.

There was a soft 'click' and a fire lit up.

Fang saw an old face with gray hair, and the other party carefully put the firelight into the glass lampshade, and adjusted the brightness with his fingers like dead grass, and then slowly walked out with the wind lamp.

The light of the fire came from the inside out, and I saw that the furnishings inside did not look like a prison.

Although it is simply furnished, it has everything you need, like an ordinary room, between the desk and the bed, and even with a carpet.

The old man came to the iron fence gate, stood behind the railing and looked at them, there was a pair of light brown eyes under the snow-white eyebrows, but they should not be old and cloudy at all, and those eyes were so magnanimous that they even shone with a smart light, but the other eye was slightly pale white and lost its luster.

The shadow of the fence fell on his face, forming shadows one after another. He calmly looked at a few people, and asked like a master:

"Thank you, Mr. Achilles, for coming to see me again, but nothing is bad on my side, and if you don't want to, you can bring me some more paper. It was a very interesting experience for me, and I had to document it. ”

The middle-aged man replied, "There is no problem, Her Royal Highness the Princess has ordered, and we will try our best to meet your request." But we're here to save anyone other than you. ”

Only then did the old man look at Fang and the others, nodded slightly, and asked:

"Would you like to come in and sit down?"

The middle-aged man looked at the others.

Fang hadn't intended to waste time, but looking at the old man, he suddenly became a little curious and nodded at the former.

The middle-aged man stepped forward to open the door, and he put his hand on the lock, and a golden imprint lit up on the lock, and the lock opened in response.

"I'm sorry." Fang said to the old man.

But the old man was noncommittal, and looked at him with eyes under his thick long eyebrows, and did not look at the chain that the middle-aged man had untied from the door, as if it had nothing to do with him, and turned and walked back without caring about himself.

The middle-aged man opened the door and explained to them:

"Mr. Arván is a scholar, but unfortunately he fell into the hands of the Blood Shark Air Thieves and was resold to those slave traders."

"What kind of scholar is he?" Fang couldn't help but ask curiously.

The middle-aged man was stunned for a moment, but couldn't answer.

The old man opened the glass lampshade, took the flame out of it, and lit the fireplace, so that the whole room was lit up.

They all sat on the edge of the bed in turn, and saw the old man take out a copper kettle from the cupboard, and then sprinkle a handful of tea leaves in it, fill it with water, put the kettle on the iron shelf in the fireplace, and then take a shovel, and dig it out in the coal-fire, so that the bright light of the fire reflected on his wrinkled face.

After doing all this, he clapped his hands and turned around, brought a chair from his desk, faced them, and sat down in the chair.

Fang saw that on the desk behind the old man, a piece of paper was spread out, an inkwell was pressed on the paper, and a quill was inserted in it, and the paper was full of dense words.

"If you want to ask something, just start asking. In half an hour, before three o'clock in the afternoon, I will be going to start my work. The old man looked at them and took the initiative to speak.

Fang was very surprised, what other job did the other party have in this place, and he couldn't help asking, "Mr. Arfan, you also have a job here?" ”

"That's nature, people can have jobs anywhere." The old man looked at him and replied, "Especially for someone like me, who has little time, time is even more precious. ”

"So can you ask what the job is?"

The old man was not impatient with this question, but replied with great interest: "The main thing is to write, to record my experiences during this time." ”

Fang was very interested and asked, "Can I take a look?" ”

The old man nodded: "Although I haven't finished writing yet, if someone wants to read it, I naturally won't refuse." ”

As he spoke, he picked up the stack of manuscripts on his desk and handed them over.

Fang picked up the thick stack of papers, and saw that the old man on it really recounted his experience in the past few days, and to his surprise, the other party's words and thoughts were very clear, and he didn't look like he was old at all.

And he was mainly concerned about what happened that night, what happened between the air pirates and the handover of the descendants of Flor.

This confirms some of the thoughts in his heart.

He read backwards, turned to the pages of the record of that night, and found that the old man had indeed recorded the battle of that night, which read:

On the night between the thirteenth or fourteenth, or no later than the fifteenth day, according to my reckoning, the pirates seemed to be in trouble.

Outside, the fighting was fierce, the sky was as bright as day, and the ground and walls were shaking slightly. A leader of the air pirates walked in and told us to hide in the tunnels.

…… As I passed by the warehouse, I hid a handful of chickpeas in the compartment of my pocket without anyone noticing, and it turned out that it saved my life.

Soon after, the fighting outside came to an end. Another pirate entered the tunnels to inform us to leave. But I have a vague feeling that this person seems to be a little different from everyone else.

This difference is roughly temperamental

This makes me feel that the air pirates seem to be in a disadvantageous position.

…… It turned out to be what I had thought, and it wasn't long before news came from elsewhere that the pirates were planning to leave the place and sell us to a gang of slave traders.

It seems that although they won the battle, their plan at Idus also failed. ’

After reading this paragraph, Fang felt that he had grasped something. As Sylvid explains, the slaves came from Idus, not on the way to Idus.

Although it is also possible that they came from the hands of the defeated air pirates at the time, the Blood Shark air pirates did not need to bother with this at all.

From the old man's description, the descendants of Flor had every chance to disguise themselves as Blood Shark Air Pirates when they handed over control of Idus with the Blood Shark Air Pirates.

And in the other party's account, it is also mentioned that the second time the air thief entered the tunnel, which is slightly different from the first time.

Although this is not yet evidence, it is enough to say a lot.

He closed the pages and pondered for a moment before asking the old man, "Mr. Arvan, you recorded a battle in Idus?" ”

The old man replied with great spirits: "I remember that battle very well. ”

Fang looked at the others before replying, "Actually, my companions and I both experienced that battle. ”

After listening to his answer, the old man also showed some surprise, looked at them with light brown eyes, and said in surprise: "It turns out that the enemies of the air pirates at that time are you?" It's really unseemly, it turns out that it was a group of young people who caused so much trouble to the air pirates. ”

Fang shook his head, "That's not the case, Mr. Arfan. We were just one of the participants at the time, and it was the descendants of Flor who actually attacked the Blood Shark Sky Pirates. ”

He paused: "You should have heard of them, right?" ”

"The 'Guild Organization' of the Chosen One," the old man nodded, "I've heard of that." It's very interesting, these things you said add to the details of my memory, and I'll have to write them down later. ”

"One more thing," Fang glanced at Sylvid behind him before asking, "There's actually a small mistake in your account." ”

"How?" The old man was not annoyed, and asked humbly.

Achilles looked at them from the sidelines. He thought that Fang's request was just a means to open up the topic, but he didn't expect that the two sides would really discuss the work, and he couldn't help but be a little surprised for a while.

But fortunately, he still held his breath, thought for a while, and did not speak.

Fang then said: "You said at the end of that account that although the air pirates won the battle in the end, this was not the case, and in fact they were driven out of Idus after the battle that night. ”

At this point, he paused slightly: "Do you remember the situation? ”

The old man was unaware of the intention of asking this question, and he pondered for a moment before replying, "This is my negligence, but we have been hiding in the tunnel afterwards, and we don't know the real situation outside. ”

Fang Yi frowned: "You mean, after that day's battle, there has been a group of air thieves hiding in the tunnels of Idus?" ”

He cursed in his heart, secretly saying that the people of the descendants of Flor are cunning, and if the other party has been controlling these people in the tunnel, it will be difficult to use the time of the battle to testify against the other party.

Because no one can guarantee that after the battle that night, there will not be such a group of 'air pirates' hiding in the underground of Idus.

Holding on to his last hope, he asked, "Mr. Arvan, do you remember when you left the tunnel?" ”

But the old man could only give an approximate time: "It was about a few days later, and we left the canyon directly through the tunnel." This is exactly what you described. ”

It's a pity that this coincides and is not what Fang wants. Since the Elven Ruins and the Jeffrey Redcoats' two misses, the Descendants of Flor have become more and more flawless.

However, this question and answer was not all fruitless, he at least figured out that Sylvid's analysis was true.

Figuring out who the real enemy is is obviously also extremely important.

And the old man has some real scholarly bearing, although he is not clear about Fang's true purpose, but he still humbly accepts their opinions, and also praises them a few words.

Fang had no intention of looking backwards, in fact, after being resold to slave traders, the slave traders naturally didn't care too much about them, who were not strong and weak, and only had the attitude of letting them fend for themselves, and didn't even distribute food to them.

But with a handful of chickpeas that he had mentioned in advance and hidden in his pocket, the old man survived tenaciously.

And it was precisely because of such an attitude of not paying attention to it that he found a chance to escape from that demon cave.

Fang put down the pages, and then returned to the topic: "Mr. Arfan, you must already know that before Her Royal Highness the Celestial Princess arrived in Tansnir, those slave merchants had already fled. The clues are also broken in this place, and in order to save more people from the clutches of those people, the only thing we can rely on at the moment is to learn from you who have been in contact with them. ”

The old man nodded: "Her Royal Highness the princess has already told me about this matter in advance, so I naturally understand, if you want to know anything, you can just ask me." I'm not boasting, I'm old, but my memory is pretty reliable. ”

Fang then said: "If it is an ordinary slave trader, it may be a little troublesome to find them. However, those men are said to be related to the great thief Mazahar, and have received a number of ancient documents from him, and apparently have not had ordinary motives, so we intend to start with this. ”

"Wise choice," replied the old man, "but I will correct it, it is not an ancient document, but a long scroll of the deep sea." ”

Fang looked at the other party with some surprise.

The old man smiled slightly, and then the kettle on the iron shelf in the fireplace boiled and whined.

He then got up, picked up an iron hook, hooked the kettle off the shelf, and then removed a few teacups from the wooden shelf on one side of the wall, and poured the reddish tea into them one by one.

The room was filled with smoke for a moment.

"In the northern part of Kaurin Ishurian, and in many parts of the Osyria, it is more customary for the people to make tea," said the old man, putting down the teapot and speaking to the crowd in a slow manner, "I have heard that it is somewhat similar to what you are used to. ”

Fang nodded, it is true that in Kaulin Ihurian, people's habits of drinking tea are very similar to those in his hometown. It's just that the Cowlin people prefer fermented black tea.

"But in Idania, boiling tea also has a different flavor, and since you are in this place, you naturally have to follow the local customs."

The old man put the teacups on the low table in front of them one by one, and there was no unnatural expression in his expression, as if he regarded himself as the master of this place, although this place was only in a dungeon.

He put away the teacup before he said, "Achilles should have introduced me to you, but the scholars from the Silver Tower have mixed identities and have their own schools. ”

"When I was younger, I was an apprentice under the university scholar Helint, and the ancient writing of Sinsas and Noumerin was my research direction, and I was also very interested in the long scrolls of the deep sea."

He said, bowing his head and taking a sip of tea before saying, "If it weren't for that, I wouldn't have recognized these ancient documents and stole them from those slave traders at the risk of being discovered." ”

Fang couldn't help but be surprised.

These days, he had been looking for someone who could help him decipher the Abyssal Scroll, but it was a pity that in the small place of Tansnir, it was difficult to find some ancient texts from the library, let alone someone who was proficient in this way.

But he didn't expect that there was nowhere to find the iron shoes, and it didn't take any effort to get there, and the person he was really looking for was actually a person he had already made an appointment to see in the basement of Princess Celestia's manor.

If it weren't for the current commission to find those slave traders, he would have been eager to discuss the matter of those deep sea scrolls with the other party immediately.

But even so, he took the initiative to ask, "Mr. Arvan, since you are very familiar with the Abyssal Sea Scroll, do you know Mazahar's intention in handing these things over to those slave traders?" ”

The old man pondered for a moment before replying, "I think it should have something to do with the Dragon Worship Sect. ”

Fang was slightly taken aback, and couldn't help but turn around and exchange glances with Sylvid, the nobleman's daughter could still maintain her composure, but he turned back with some puzzlement and asked:

"What do you mean by that?"

"As far as I know, in addition to the scholars who study them, there are also alchemists and craftsmen, and only these cultists are interested in these things."

"But we and the alchemists will never get these abyssal scrolls from the slave traders, such a sneaky move, I really can't think of anyone other than the Dragon Worship Sect."

Fang listened and pondered for a moment, which was the opposite of the conclusion he and Sylvid had reached, but it was also reasonable, after all, he had thought so in the first place.

He asked again, "Mr. Arfan, apart from scholars, alchemists, and dragon worshippers, is there anyone else who would be interested in the Abyssal Sea Scroll?" ”

"How?" The old man was obviously very perceptive, and asked rhetorically, "Do you think this has nothing to do with any of the above?" ”

Fang shook his head, although he and Sylvid had other inferences, he would never easily leak his mouth until he was truly sure of friend or foe.

Even Achilles is the same.

He pondered for a moment, and was about to answer.

But Sylvid opened her mouth at this time, and replied in a nice voice:

"Mr. Arfan, for the sake of safety, we can't come to you all the time, so we need to ask for clarification, please don't mind.

Although the head of the regiment and I also have such speculations, we are not sure of this, and you are well-informed and have studied the long scroll of the deep sea, so we hope that we can check and fill in the gaps as much as possible on this issue. ”

Her words were so clear that the old man couldn't find anything wrong with it, so he just nodded and said, "Let me think about it, by the way, there is indeed such a thing, but it should have nothing to do with the current matter." ”

"It doesn't matter if it's related or not," Achilles also spoke, "Mr. Arfan, you can say it and let everyone discuss it, maybe there will be some clues." ”

"I naturally understand this," the old man said slowly, "and that was more than ten years ago. ”

……