"So what are you looking for?" The heat of the lamp rose along the black smoke of the inferior oil, and through the thick callus faintly stinging his fingers, Koop withdrew his hand and lifted it shoulder-high as far away from the flames as possible, so that the flames could reach the steps under Kraft's feet in front of him.

"Frankly, I don't know."

Kraft walked slowly down the spiral road, small stone bricks forming the front half of it, using arches to prop up small spaces in the dirt, and taller people had to stand in the middle and bow their heads a little to avoid bumping into them.

The slightest unavoidable seepage seeps out from the cracks of the bricks and accumulates into droplets hanging from the top of the wet arc, dissolving into a yellowish ash that grows slowly like a pulsating oocyst in limited light.

This masonry load-bearing structure has a depth of thirty or forty steps, and it is monotonous without any words or patterns to express its intentions, only seeking its practicality.

At the end of the descent, a large piece of masonry with the emblem carved into the wall is polished by water and repeated strokes, and then a wider square passage replaces the brick arch.

It is not because I suddenly understood the cement technology and was able to bond the stone bricks directly. Rather than "build", it might be better to describe it as "excavating", and the passage has passed through the deep earth and continues in the rock formations.

The geometric rock wall retains straight cutting lines, walking vertically or horizontally, slightly concave or protruding, and progressing in sections, showing its former identity, a quarry.

Moving on, the passage grows wider enough for two people to walk side by side, and the sides expand to the side to create a hollowed-out square chamber that may have also been used for transit and stone processing.

The need to construct a large number of above-ground buildings has driven the continuous extraction of stone from the ground and the expansion of space in the rock formations. It looks sturdy and sturdy, so you don't need to think about collapse and you can play freely.

Some patterns can be found in the corners of the cutting lines, which seem to have been made by stonemasons at that time.

This underground space is meaningless most of the time. The difficulty of circulating air and light underground severely limited the imagination of the use of the quarry, after all, a living person in his right mind would never want to stay here for more than a day; The damp environment is also destined to be unsuitable for storage.

However, it turns out that there is no such thing as a completely useless thing in the world.

Strange formations are revealed, which are coarse elongations parallel to the ground, with unkempt corners and obtuse corners, as opposed to the straight marks formed by quarrying, which have been hewn directly from sloppy work, producing only fine rubble.

They are nested into stone walls, layered above and below, resembling closet shelves, only wider and more numerous, not the same size as the decayed sieves of hardwood, extending from the illuminated reach to the depths of the passage.

Koop followed Kraft into the "closet" passageway, looking curiously at the long stone pits. They are less than an arm's length deep, and it's easy to tell what's piled up in them under the light of the lights.

The shelves, supported by yellowed and rotten, dirty and gray strips, were covered with brittle and weathered textile residues like cobwebs, partially corrupted and adsorbed on the ribs that had not yet been completely broken, tangled into the joints that had lost their filling.

The skull, unsupported by the cervical vertebrae, rolled over the broken bones, opening a dark hole into the dark interior, and the multi-legged worm, disturbed by the sound of fire, shook its arthropods and crawled out of the dry spongy sinuses and into another darkness.

Even though the concentration brought by the experience caused his heart to regain stability after only a moment of contraction, he still subconsciously reached out to wipe his facial features and expel the illusory itching.

"Bring the lamp over and light it." Kraft waved casually, straightened his mask and covered his mouth and nose, and leaned close to the bones in the stone niche, like an experienced grave robber who had accidentally discovered some rare and exotic funerary object.

He pointed to a section of the spine that spread out, "Look at this, it should have been there before he was born, and the location is also typical." ”

Coop looked closely for a moment, and realized that Kraft was referring to a section of the spine that had a devastation that did not resemble weathering and collision, as if something was spreading and gnawing on one side of the vertebrae, forming a defect that seeped into the intervertebral space.

"A case of bone tuberculosis in the spine, which is typical. Most of the patients buried here are patients with infectious diseases, and there must be a lot of tuberculosis, and this location and shape are basically correct. ”

"But isn't the tuberculosis in the lungs?" A bit beyond what is customary, as far as Koop's limited understanding is concerned, it was all because of a cough.

"Mostly, but not necessarily, it goes wherever it wants, it just stays in its lungs most of the time." Kraft rubbed his hands together and fumbled in his pockets, but his casual clothes didn't have the tools he needed.

"That's what you're looking for?"

"Not really." Pulling his hand out of his pocket in disappointment, he controlled the desire to flip it, "I just haven't seen it, it's the first time I've seen it today." ”

So why is it so familiar? Koop held back his doubts, not intending to pursue the contradictions in his words, "You didn't plan to bring it back, did you?" ”

"It's really not what I'm looking for."

Considering that funding the grave keepers is dubious enough, it really doesn't make sense to take something with them. After a not-so-difficult decision, Kraft chose to say goodbye to the tuberculosis victim for the time being, and continued his aimless search.

The light of the fire and the sound of knocking came from a stone chamber along the way, and it was the group of people who were walking in front, trying to widen a stone niche so that they could stuff the corpses they had brought with them.

Seeing someone passing by, they nervously stopped what they were doing, clenched the pendant of the emblem at the neckline, muttered words in their mouths, and only relaxed a little after distinguishing the new and shiny clothing, but still did not let go of the emblem.

The act of trying to say hello only got a reluctant response, probably in this kind of place to meet strangers who have never seen it, it is inevitable to have a sense of horror that people are indistinguishable, only when they see the two continue to move inside, they remind not to go too deep into the fork in the road.

"Thanks, don't worry, I won't get lost." Kraft returned with a good-natured smile, which didn't seem to work as it should, but rather increased the tension.

By the time he figured out what was wrong with his speech, he had already walked out of the passage for a long time.

The niches enlarged to occupy the entire cave wall, and the bones were no longer placed in the form of individual tools, but became the building materials themselves.

A relic of the Great Plague.

The sturdy long bones of the limbs are stacked one by one like the firewood in the castle's winter warehouse, and the skulls are neatly embedded on the upper floor. It's not that the builders don't want to pile them up randomly, it's that they can't stuff such a huge number of bones without making the most of the space as wisely as possible.

Behind the bones, worldly dignity, fear of death, religious beliefs, and humanistic sensibilities are stripped away and dissipated to their material essence, something that is not fundamentally different from everything else in the world.

Use masonry and lay them on top of each other. After the initial shock, it entered a state of numbness, or some kind of ethereal.

Without warning, Kraft turned around and pressed Koop's shoulder, who knew he would slow down and listen. It was an echo of footsteps that did not belong to oneself, and it was especially obvious to the ears of those who had experienced and paid attention to it.

(End of chapter)