Embers of Embers

Chapter 214 The Rat's Nest
A small voice sounded, and soon a black mouse crawled out from the corner. The man was particularly happy to see it, picked it up, stroked it a few times, and took off the iron chain from its tail. Then he put the mouse on the ground, and saw it running happily and melting into the darkness again.
"We have to hurry, there's a visitor on the way, he's from the Shrike," he said.
The priest in front of him didn't speak, he just observed the man's actions.
This is a very slovenly man. Just like other bad rats, he is a homeless man. His body is dirty and dirty, with cotton wool hanging on his body as hard as stones.
He was an informant, and he had in his mind the information that the priest wanted.
"Can you communicate with rats?"
The priest didn't seem to be in a hurry, but asked some irrelevant questions.
"how can that be."
The informant laughed at the impracticality of this.
"But you got the news from that rat? Another guest."
"It's just some small pendants."
The intelligence dealer took out the iron chain and said, "The rat is just a messenger."
The hanging chain was extremely ordinary, but the priest knew that there must be some pattern on it, and this pattern could be interpreted as a message.
"A rat as a messenger?"
"The underground is very complex, with intricate pipes, and rats can be very good assistants as long as they are trained."
The intelligence agent said that there was another mouse in his hand, and something was moving in the darkness behind him, and there were a huge number of them.
"Let's get to the point! Priest, you came from Feilengcui, not just to meet people like me, right?"
The priest tried hard to move his eyes back from the darkness behind him. His eyes were a little disgusted. He hated this place and these people. If it weren't for information, he would never come here.
"I want to know what's going on in Old Dunling lately."
"Be more precise."
"A few days ago, what happened in the north of Old Dunling?"
The intelligence agent's stroking movement suddenly stopped, and his eyes flashed with a subtle light, as if he had heard some interesting news.
He slowly leaned back and took a comfortable position on the old wooden chair.
"That's not a good question."
"But I need it, and we will pay the price." said the priest.
The intelligence agent was silent. He stared at the priest closely, and then an ugly smile appeared on his cold face.
"We don't know much. After all, we are just some despicable mice who can only hear some wind and grass."
The intelligence agent closed his eyes as he spoke, as if he was thinking about something, and there was a faint pain on his calm face.
The illusion in the mind overlaps with reality, like a strange hallucination.
In an instant, countless homeless people walked out of the darkness. They whispered into the intelligence agent's ears and informed him of all the interesting or suspicious news. Then the intelligence agent carefully stored the information one after another in into memory.
As they narrated, countless images appeared in the mind of the intelligence agent. The darkness between the intelligence agent and the priest suddenly shattered, like a cardboard box being opened, and everything became clear.
The intelligence agent raised his head and looked aside. The darkness was lit up. Stone bricks and wood fell from the sky. In the hallucination of his mind, a stage-like venue was built. In the casino, men appeared in it and they were talking.
"I don't know why the train schedule has changed again and again recently. I'm really annoyed."
"What shift?"
"The northern winter tour was supposed to start a few days ago, but it was delayed for a few days."
Bad Rat was sitting in the corner of the casino, and he overheard the news.
The intelligence agent looked to the other side, the darkness dissipated, 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, which was half filled with a black viscous liquid.
"What?" said another.
"I don't know. I saw a train passing by last night, but that train was not right. It was too big, much bigger than a normal train. This thing was sprinkled from it. I went there secretly. Got some."
That night, a ferocious black shadow swept across the horizon. The man in the wilderness witnessed the advancement of the steel thing, feeling nothing but horror.
"What are you talking about?" The man obviously couldn't understand what he was saying.
"Look! I suspect this is a weapon from the military. They must be studying something."
As the man spoke, he showed the power of the black water, and the flames fell in. It burned fiercely and was difficult to extinguish.
The evil rat not far away raised his head slightly. He poked his head out and saw that the two were helpless against the flames. He wrote down the conversation. Strange black water, this news could be sold at a good price to the intelligence dealer.
The informant continued to think about it, and all the scenes shattered into pieces and turned into a warm bar.
"There are gods in this world, there must be gods!"
The man was drunk and screaming.
"I saw it, I heard it too. During the night of the blizzard, I heard a thunderous sound. I walked out in the heavy snow and saw a dome of light falling at the end of the horizon! It was late at night!"
That man was a hunter who lived in the outskirts of Old Dunling. He would always go to this cheap bar to have a drink after his harvest. Only the homeless man sitting next to him remembered his nonsense. He thought it was an interesting thing. News that the eccentric intelligence agent will definitely like.
The intelligence dealer opened his eyes, and all his memories were shattered in an instant. Countless messages, countless chats, excluding the irrelevant parts, and a story appeared in his mind.
Changed flights, violently burning black water, miracles...or maybe the sky-high explosion caused by the black water.
"Military operations... have recently launched a large-scale military operation in the north."
The informant said with certainty.
The priest asked in a deep voice, "Are you sure?"
"Half guessing, half reasoning. After all, we are just rats. We can't survive without leaving the lower city."
The priest looked at him and then stood up.
"I will come again."
The intelligence agent said goodbye with a smile, "Welcome! We like wealthy guests like you."
……
The underground world is dark and humid, and the fishy smell hits your face, as if there are dead bodies everywhere in this invisible corner.
The homeless man walked in front, holding a kerosene lamp. The dim light was the only light source in the dark night.
There were ghostly sounds in the silence, and there seemed to be countless creatures moving forward in the darkness. Their claws and claws rubbed against the ground, making a fine rustling sound.
Lorenzo looked into the darkness. With the eyesight of a demon hunter, he could see countless rats moving forward in the tunnel. He could vaguely hear the sound of water flowing, and it seemed that there was a sewer nearby.
"We're probably going to be gone for a long time, I hope you can bear it."
The homeless man was in front and said without looking back.
The decaying air was filled with thick dust, making it very difficult to breathe. But fortunately, he was used to this kind of life, and this pain was nothing to him.
"You dug these out of the ground here?"
The longer they walked, the more curious Lorenzo became, and he couldn't help but ask.
Lorenzo had made deals with the Rats before, but never as far underground as this time.
"It's just a rat, there must be some escape route."
The homeless man replied, "But these tunnels are not stable. A nearby tunnel collapsed a few days ago, and several people were buried alive. We would have gone through that tunnel, but after it collapsed, we needed to take a detour." "
With the dim light, it was difficult to judge the direction in this complex and dark tunnel. During the short journey, Lorenzo had already encountered several forks, but the homeless man seemed to have memorized everything here. Lead Lorenzo through the maze.
"How do you remember it so clearly? I almost fainted." Lorenzo asked.
He tried to memorize the road, but he was a little lost due to the detours made by the homeless man.
"You must always have some survival skills. This is the secret of us bad rats." The homeless man pretended to be mysterious.
The two continued walking in the dark like this, chatting with each other during the long boredom.
"What's your name?" Lorenzo asked suddenly.
"Kamu." Kamu hesitated for a moment, but instead of being suspicious, he answered directly.
"Are you a stranger too?"
"If I weren't a stranger, I wouldn't be in the lower city." Kamu replied.
"where do you come from?"
Kamu stopped suddenly, turned his head with difficulty in the narrow space, and looked at Lorenzo with a puzzled expression, as if he was talking nonsense about you so much.
Under the dim light, Lorenzo smiled kindly.
"Don't be angry. I think I may have more transactions with the bad rats in the future. Instead of taking advantage of others, I might as well come to you, right?" he said, "But the premise is that we know each other's ins and outs, right?"
"I'm just from a small country in the south, Mr. Holmes." Kamu looked into Lorenzo's eyes and said slowly.
Lorenzo was a little surprised for a moment.
"You know who I am?"
Kamu turned around and continued to lead the way and then said.
"Of course I know who you are, Mr. Holmes, the detective who served the Shrike and personally caused the Red River Massacre...but you haven't been seen in downtown for a long time. We thought you were dead."
"Know so much detail?"
"It's just about seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages. Shrikes rule the lower city. Of course we humble bad rats need to know more about them."
"But it looks like you're seeing me for the first time."
"As long as other bad rats know about you, it's fine. We all stick together to keep warm."
Lorenzo followed closely behind him, and during the short conversation, he had already learned a lot of useful information from the side.
These humble rats obviously have an efficient way of exchanging information. As long as one person knows it, the others will know it, but Lorenzo still doesn't understand how they communicate and how to remember this large amount of information.
"It's almost there."
Kamu said, at the same time, the faint sound of water flow became louder and louder, as if there was a huge waterfall deep underground.
More than that... Lorenzo keenly heard more sounds, the rotation of machinery, the movement of people, and the whispers gathered together, turning into a chaotic storm.
"We have arrived."
Camu's voice interrupted his thoughts, everything fell silent, and he moved out of the way to allow Lorenzo to move on.
The end of the tunnel is the sewer. The smelly water falls from above and flows rapidly in the channel. The two people walk by and the vast space comes into view. At the same time, the sound of rushing water reaches the top. The underground waterfall is in Luo. In front of Renzo's eyes.
"This is your lair?" Lorenzo was a little shocked.
Sure enough, Old Dunling is not only what it looks like on the surface, it is also a city with "depth", such as the city under the ground.
"One of the rat's nests. Everyone always needs a place to hug together and keep warm. This place is very good." Kamu replied.
Lorenzo raised his head, and there was a faint light falling from above. Along with the light, millions of tons of water fell. They fell from a high place, bringing with them a light mist.
It is a huge waterfall, guided by ditches, branched from the Thames River, and flows all the way to the boilers deep underground.
The entire space is vertically downward, which is one of several filters for water purification. The waterfall falls into the reservoir below and continues downward like a spider web through different channels.
In this space, it is covered with complex steam pipes, heavy machinery operates on its own, and rusty sky corridors intersect it. There is a number painted with orange-red paint at the highest point, which is also the pillar of the furnace. part, part of the edge.
"The Mechanical Institute has almost hollowed out the underground, and steam pipes and machinery have completely filled the void. It can be said that the old Dunling was built on a huge machine." Kamu said, "But the underground world is still too vast. This is the edge of the underground kingdom, no one cares, so we built our home here."
Lorenzo looked at both sides of the waterfall. There were many iron gates on the edge of the wall, which were the roads leading to the inside of the machine. But now there were figures flashing there, and there was also the long corridor erected in mid-air. The bad rats used damaged wood to build simple houses on it. Such houses were like deformed tumors, hanging on the vertical well wall.
The corridor is like a spider web, with prey entangled to death hanging on it.
"This is a dangerous building..."
After thinking for a long time, Lorenzo said bad things.
"We can only live here, do you still care about the dilapidated house?" Kamu continued to lead the way without looking at him.
The largest "tumor" is at the intersection of the sky corridor, and sporadic people can be seen walking out of the nearby sewers and going in and out between the tumors.
This is Lorenzo's first time in such a place. The Furnace Pillar system is too bloated, and Lawrence can build a breeding ground in it, and the evil rats build rat nests.
If it is called the kingdom of the underground, it is still true, here is the edge of the kingdom, away from the perpetual pump of the core.
Due to the moisture and corrosion of water vapor, the corridor was covered with rust. As Lorenzo stepped forward, he felt that the thing was crumbling, as if it would break in the next second.
Looking down, the reservoir is located more than ten meters below, and its surface is covered with hazy mist from the falling river water.
Suddenly something fell, and the black thing separated from the falling waterfall. It hit the corridor, causing the entire corridor to shake slightly.
Lorenzo grabbed the rusty handle. After stabilizing his body, he looked to the side and saw that the fallen object was stuck on the corridor. It was a corpse. It looked like it had been soaked for a long time, and its skin was pale and disgusting.
"Just get used to it. Those people in Xiacheng District always like to throw some strange things into the river. They think they will be sent to the combustion chamber and burned in the end, but in fact there are several filtering steps before that."
Camu seemed to be used to all this. He kicked the stuck body down as he spoke. Lorenzo watched him fall and submerge into the water mist below.
"Let's go."
He led the way, guiding Lorenzo to the largest tumor in the center.
(End of this chapter)