A small sound sounded, and soon a black mouse crawled out of the corner, and the man was very happy to see it, so he picked it up, stroked it a few times, removed the iron chain from its tail, and then put the mouse on the ground, only to see it run happily and melt into the darkness again.

"We have to hurry, there is a guest on his way, he is a shrike. He said.

The former priest did not speak, he just observed the man's movements.

It was a very sloppy man, like the other bad rats, a vagabond, dirty, and the cotton wool was hard like a stone, and hung on it.

He was a newspaper merchant, and he had in his head the news that the clergy wanted.

"Will you communicate with rats?"

The priest did not seem to be in a hurry, but asked questions of irrelevance.

"How is this possible. ”

The newspaper merchant laughed at the impracticality.

"But you got the news from that mouse? another guest. ”

"It's just a little pendant. ”

The newspaper merchant took out the iron chain generously, "The mouse is just a messenger. ”

The chain was ordinary, but the priest knew that there must be some pattern on it, and that pattern could be interpreted as a message.

"Rats to be messengers?"

"The underground is very complicated, the pipes are intricate, and rats can be very good helpers if they are trained. ”

The newspaper merchant said that there was another rat in his hand, and something was moving in the darkness behind him, and they were numerous.

"Priest, you're not just here to see people like me, are you?"

The priest tried to look back from the darkness behind him, his gaze was a little disgusted, he hated this place, he hated these people, if it wasn't for the revenge, he would never have come here.

"I want to know what's going on in Old Dunling. ”

"Be precise. ”

"What happened north of Old Dunling a few years ago?"

The newspaperman's stroking stopped suddenly, and a subtle light flashed in his eyes, as if he had heard something interesting.

He leaned back slowly, settling into a comfortable position on the shabby wooden chair.

"It's not a good question. ”

"But I need it, and we'll pay for it. The priest said.

The newspaper merchant was silent, and he stared at the priest, then an ugly smile appeared on his cold face.

"We don't know much, after all, we're just despicable rats, and we can only hear some of the wind and grass. ”

The newspaper merchant closed his eyes as if he were thinking about something, and there was a faint pain on his calm face.

The illusion of the mind overlaps with reality, like a strange hallucination.

In an instant, countless homeless people came out of the darkness, whispering in the ears of the newspaper merchant, informing him of all the interesting and suspicious news, and then the newspaper merchant carefully stored the news one after another in his memory.

In the midst of their narration, countless images appeared in the minds of the newspaper merchants, and the darkness between the newspaper merchants and the priests suddenly shattered, like a cardboard box that had been opened, and everything became clear.

The newspaper dealer looked up, the darkness was lit up, and bricks and timber fell from the sky, setting up a theatrical arena in the hallucination of his mind, in which men appeared and talked.

"I don't know why the train frequency has been changed recently, and I am annoyed to death. ”

"What shift?"

"The one on the northern winter tour, which was supposed to leave a few days ago, was delayed for a few days. ”

The bad rat was sitting in the corner of the casino when he overheard the news.

The newspaper merchant looked to the other side, the darkness cleared, and the scene appeared out of thin air.

"What are you looking at?"

On the streets of the lower city, the man secretly took out a bottle with half a bottle of black viscous liquid.

"What's that?" said another.

"I don't know, I saw a train pass by last night, but the train wasn't right, it was too big, much bigger than a normal train, and this thing was spilled from it, so I secretly went to pick it up. ”

That night, a hideous shadow swept across the horizon, and the men of the wilderness watched the steel thing move forward, nothing but horror.

"What are you talking about?" the man clearly didn't understand what he was saying.

"Look, I suspect it's a military weapon, they must be working on something. ”

The man said as he showed the power of the black water, and the flames fell in, and it burned fiercely, difficult to extinguish.

The bad rat not far away raised his head slightly, he poked his head out, and saw that the two of them were helpless against the flame, and he wrote down the conversation, strange black water, this news can be sold for a good price in the newspaper dealer.

The newspaper merchant continued to think back, and all the scenes shattered into warm bars.

"There is a god in this world, and there must be a god!"

The man was drunk and screaming.

"I saw it, I heard it, in the blizzard night, I heard thunder, I braved the snow and walked out, and I saw the sky at the end of the horizon!

The man, a hunter who lived in the old Tunling countryside, would always go to the cheap pub after a good harvest, and only the homeless man sitting on the side remembered his nonsense, which he thought was interesting news, and that the eccentric newspaper merchant would have enjoyed.

The newspaper dealer opened his eyes, and all the memories were shattered in an instant, countless news, countless small talk, and a story appeared in his mind, excluding the inconsequential parts.

Shifts changed, black water burning violently, miracles...... Or the sky-high explosion of black water.

"Military Operations...... A large-scale military operation has recently been launched in the north. ”

The newspaper merchant affirmed.

The priest asked in a deep voice, "Are you sure?"

"Half guessing, half reasoning, after all, we're just rats, guys who can't even survive in the lower city. ”

The priest looked at him, and then got up.

"I'll be back. ”

The newspaper merchant smiled goodbye, "Welcome! We like rich guests like you." ”

......

The underground world was dark and damp, and the smell of fishy smell came to the face, as if there were dead bodies all over this invisible corner.

The homeless man walked ahead, holding a kerosene lamp, the only light available in the night.

There was a ghostly voice in the silence, and it seemed that countless creatures were moving in the darkness here, their minions rubbing against the ground and making a fine rustling sound.

Lorenzo looked into the darkness, and with the sight of the witcher, he could see countless rats advancing through the tunnel, faintly hearing the sound of running water, as if there was a sewer nearby.

"We're probably going to have to walk for a long time, and I hope you can put up with it. ”

The homeless man was ahead, and he said without looking back.

The rotten air was thick with dust, and it was difficult to breathe, but fortunately he was used to this kind of life, and this pain was nothing to him.

"You dug this up in the ground?"

The longer he walked, the more curious Lorenzo became, and he couldn't help but ask.

Lorenzo had made deals with bad rats before, but never as deep into the ground as he did this time.

"It's just a rat, and there must be some escape routes. ”

The homeless man replied, "But these tunnels are not stable, a few days ago a nearby tunnel collapsed, and several people were buried alive, we would have advanced through that tunnel, but after it collapsed, we needed to take a detour." ”

With the dim light, it was difficult to determine the direction in this complex and dark tunnel, and Lorenzo had already encountered several forks in the road during the short journey, but the homeless man seemed to have written everything down here, and led Lorenzo through the complex labyrinth.

"How do you remember it so clearly, I'm almost dizzy. Lorenzo asked.

He tried to write down the path, but he was a little lost in the back and forth of the homeless.

"There's always some survival skill, it's the secret of our bad rats. The homeless man pretended to be mysterious.

The two of them continued to walk on in the dark, and in the long boredom, the two chatted casually.

"What's your name?" asked Lorenzo suddenly.

"Kamu. Kamu hesitated, but instead of being suspicious, he replied directly.

"You're a stranger, aren't you?"

"If I weren't a stranger, I wouldn't be in Downtown. Kamu replied.

"Where are you from?"

Camus stopped suddenly, turned his head with difficulty in the narrow space, and looked at Lorenzo with a puzzled expression, as if the table was talking about you so much.

In the dim light, Lorenzo smiled kindly.

"Don't be angry, I think I'll probably have more deals with the bad rats in the future, and I'd better find you than cheapen others, won't I?" he said, "but only if we know each other, right?"

"I come from a small country in the South, Mr. Holmes. Camus looked into Lorenzo's eyes and said slowly.

Lorenzo was a little surprised for a moment.

"Do you know who I am?"

Kamu turned, continued to lead the way, and then said.

"Of course I know who you are, Mr. Holmes, a detective in the service of the Shrike, who personally caused the Red River tragedy...... But you haven't been in Downtown for a long time, and we thought you were dead. ”

"Do you know so much?"

"It's just a matter of seeking advantage and avoiding harm, and the shrike rules the lower city, and of course we lowly rats need to know more about it. ”

"But you look like you're seeing me for the first time. ”

"As long as other bad rats know about you, we're all in a group to keep warm. ”

Lorenzo followed him closely, and in the short time he had already learned a lot of useful information from the side.

These humble rats apparently have an efficient way of communicating newspapers, and if one person knows about it, everyone else will know, but Lorenzo still doesn't know how they communicate or how to memorize the large number of newspapers.

"It's almost there. ”

At the same time, the faint sound of the water became louder and louder, as if there was some huge waterfall deep underground.

And that's not all...... Lorenzo was keen to hear more voices, the turning of machinery, the movement of the crowd, the whispering voices all coming together, noisy into a chaotic storm.

"Here we are. ”

Camu's voice interrupted his thoughts, and everything fell silent, and he moved out of the way so that Lorenzo could move on.

At the end of the tunnel is the sewer, the smelly water falls from above, flowing rapidly in the channel, the two of them walk aside, the vast space comes into view, and at the same time the sound of the rapid water reaches the peak, and the underground waterfall is right in front of Lorenzo's eyes.

"Is this your nest?" Lorenzo was a little shocked.

Sure enough, Old Dunling is not just what it looks like, it is also a city with "depth", such as the city underneath this ground.

"One of the rat's nests, everyone always needs a place to huddle together to keep warm, and it's nice here. Kamu replied.

Lorenzo looked up, and a faint light fell from above, and with the light fell millions of tons of water, which fell from a great height, bringing a faint mist with them.

It was a massive waterfall that branched out of the Thames through a ditch and flowed into a boiler deep underground.

The entire space is vertically downward, one of several filters that purify the water, and the waterfall falls into the cistern below, passing through different channels and continuing down like a spider's web.

In the middle of the space, it was covered by complex steam pipes, heavy machinery running on its own, rusty air corridors crisscrossing it, numbered with orange-red paint at the top, part of the Furnace Pillar, part of the edge.

"The mechanical yard has almost hollowed out the ground, and the steam pipes and machinery have completely filled the vacancies, so to speak, the old Dunling was built on a huge machine. "But the underground world is still too vast, and this is the edge of the underground kingdom, and no one cares, so we have established a home here." ”

Lorenzo's eyes looked at the sides of the waterfall, and at the edge of the wall were the iron gates, which led to the interior of the machine, but now there were flickering figures, and the corridor that had been erected in mid-air, on which the rats had built improvised houses out of broken timber, which hung like deformed tumors from the vertical walls of the well.

The corridor resembles a spider's web, on which hangs the prey that has been entwined and killed.

"You're in a dilapidated house......

After thinking for a long time, Lorenzo said bad things.

"We can only live here, do we care about any dangerous houses?" Kamu didn't look at him, and continued to lead the way.

The largest "tumor" is at the intersection of the air corridors, and sporadic people can be seen coming out of the nearby sewers, moving in and out of the various tumors.

This was Lorenzo's first time in such a place, where the Forge Pillar system was too bloated for Lawrence to build a breeding ground and the bad rats to build a nest.

If you call it the Underground Kingdom, it's still true, it's the edge of the kingdom, far from the perpetual pump at its core.

The corridor was covered with rust from the moisture and corrosion of the moisture, and as Lorenzo walked, he felt that the thing was shaking, as if it would break in the next second.

Looking down, the cistern is located more than ten meters below, and its surface is beaten by the falling river water in a hazy mist.

Suddenly, something fell, and the black thing parted from the falling waterfall, and it slammed into the corridor, shaking the whole corridor slightly.

Lorenzo grabbed the rusty handle, and after stabilizing his shape, he looked to the side, and what had fallen was stuck in the corridor, it was a corpse, which looked like it had been soaked for a long time, and its skin was pale and hateful.

"It's good to get used to it, the people in the lower city always like to throw strange things into the river, and they think they're all going to be burned in the combustion chamber in the end, but in fact there are a few times before that. ”

Camus looked used to it all as he kicked the stuck corpse as Lorenzo watched as he fell, sinking into the mist below.

"Let's go. ”

He led the way, guiding Lorenzo to the center of the largest tumor.