Neverland

Xu Muzhou felt that the amount of information was a bit large.

It has more information than Robert's diary.

The girl knelt and sat far away from him, she just stretched out her arms and held his hand, building trust with him in this way.

The girl's palm was soft and cold, and Xu Muzhou let her hold it relaxedly, feeling that the other party was like a frightened fawn, jumping away hastily at the slightest movement.

So Xu Muzhou tilted his head towards the wall, trying to make himself as non-aggressive as possible.

"What are you talking about?" Xu Muzhou asked puzzledly: "What is unlucky love? What is the so-called 'offering'?"

The girl was taken aback for a moment, then turned her head to look at the other companions in the corner.

The other girls were of different ages, some immature girls were hiding in the corner behind their companions, timidly watching Xu Muzhou while leaning on other people's shoulders.

The girl with red hair blinked, looked at the girl next to Xu Muzhou, and asked tentatively, "Then why did you come here?"

"I...?" Xu Muzhou smiled wryly: "I was knocked out for no reason and sent in here... I'm just an ordinary guest, I came to the dinner party, and I was drinking afternoon tea with the earl before I was knocked out."

There was a sob from the corner, the red-haired girl hugged the weeping little girl, and patted her on the back gently.

"My mother is still at home waiting for me to go back," the little girl cried. "She said she baked a soft croissant for me."

The young girl fell silent immediately, and the little girl's cry spread with panic and fear, and even Xu Muzhou's mood became depressed.

"I lost it like this for no reason..." Xu Muzhou said softly, "My companion will definitely be worried."

Xu Muzhou didn't know how long he had been missing, but he always had an inexplicable certainty that Yan Cen must have discovered this matter.

——I hope he won't be too anxious, Xu Muzhou thought.

Xu Muzhou sighed: "I want to ask you, what is this place?"

The girl pursed her lips and said nothing.There was a little unbearable on her face, hesitating between whether to tell Xu Muzhou the truth.

The red-haired girl turned her head to comfort the shivering little girl behind her, and asked softly, "...can you tell me what day is today?"

"What day?" Xu Muzhou didn't understand what he meant.

"Tana wants to ask you how long it will be before the full moon night." The girl took the conversation and asked.

Xu Muzhou found that when mentioning "Night of the Full Moon", the girl's fingers subconsciously retracted slightly, and she clenched his palm tightly.

Xu Muzhou didn't know how long he had been in a coma, so he could only say cautiously: "It should be five or six days."

He was blindfolded all the time, so he didn't notice the sadness of the girl when she heard the time limit.

The red-haired girl was no exception. She covered her eyes and let out a soft sob.

It was very quiet in the prison, and the crying was very obvious.Xu Muzhou was startled, and hurriedly asked, "What happened?"

"The night of the full moon is our offering time." The girl said, "...the earl needs the pure blood of a virgin to wash his broken body."

"Virgin... blood?" Xu Muzhou asked blankly.

"According to legend, on a full moon night, if you wash your body and mind with your lover's blood, you can make a deal with the devil in exchange for wishes and immortality." The girl said sadly: "The count's wish is probably to heal his body."

Xu Muzhou followed her words and made up his mind, his mind was full of the scene of Count Robert lying in a bathtub full of blood.

The girl whose blood was drained was probably lying outside his bathroom, her body pale and her eyes closed.It wasn't until the next day that it was chopped up and made into flower fertilizer, and was crushed and mixed into the soil without mercy.

Xu Muzhou was so disgusted by his own imagination that he subconsciously withdrew his hand from the girl's.

The girl was stunned: "You—"

"Sorry." Xu Muzhou collected himself and whispered, "I just... can't accept it for a while."

Robert kept saying in his diary that he loved Catherine more than life.But what are those innocent girls who sacrificed their "lover's blood" under the rose bushes and died in vain.

Xu Muzhou's hands were empty. He wasn't sure if the girl was still with him, so he could only tilt his head and asked, "How do you know this?"

"I've been here for a year," said the girl.

"...how come?" Xu Muzhou frowned and asked, "Aren't you going to be used to support Robert?"

"The Earl will choose pure blood." The girl lowered her eyes and said softly like a sheep, "Only useless waste will be discarded."

Xu Muzhou became more and more confused as he listened, and asked, "So he only takes blood and doesn't kill people?"

"Only blood that is useful to the count is eligible to survive." The girl said, "Some useless blood will be disposed of as waste."

"...What does it mean to be useful?" Xu Muzhou said, "Robert is still alive. According to this standard, there should only be the latest batch of people in this room."

"I don't know." The girl said, "It may be based on the earl's feeling—"

Xu Muzhou understood.

Robert believed in black magic, and believed that this inhuman treatment could help him stand up again, which meant that he subconsciously hoped that this method would be useful.

Therefore, in this kind of self-hypnosis, it is very normal for Robert to have the psychological effect of "seems to be getting better".

And the girl in front of her was probably one of the girls who was temporarily left behind by Robert because of her luck.

"Since your blood is useful, why is Robert still arresting people?" Xu Muzhou asked.

"I don't know." The girl shook her head again: "...Probably because I don't have enough numbers for myself."

Xu Muzhou had probably figured out the girl's cognitive range, so he took the initiative in this conversation and began to absorb information instinctively.

"How many survivors are here?" Xu Muzhou asked again.

"Two." The girl said, "Tana and I, Tana came here three months ago...but..."

"But?" Xu Muzhou asked.

"Before the night of the full moon last month, the earl did not send any new offerings," the girl said.

"How many girls are left?" Xu Muzhou asked.

The girl turned her head, and Tana also helped count, and then gestured to her for eleven.

"Besides me and Tana, there are eleven people," the girl said.

Oh—thirteen, Xu Muzhou thought, it really isn't an auspicious number.

Xu Muzhou weighed the clues in his hand now in his heart, the matter was obvious.The missing girls in the nearby villages and towns should all be prey captured by Robert.

Robert regards them as a good medicine for his legs, so he will ensure the purity of these girls to the greatest extent-this is why Kelin chose this girl to attack.

The girl asked Xu Muzhou just now if she also got Robert's "unfortunate love".Xu Muzhou understands now, maybe that thing can't be called "love", but just a little attention paid by Robert in order to heal his legs.

It's just that Xu Muzhou knew very well that the blood of a living person, no matter how extravagantly blown, would not have the effect of healing bones. No matter when Robert started this matter, he would not get any healing effect.

This is also evidenced by the layers of bones and minced flesh among the rose bushes.

But Robert would not attribute this uselessness to the method itself, he would only think that there was a problem with a certain step in the implementation of the method, perhaps these girls were not pure enough, or perhaps this "love" was not pure enough.

What kind of self-deception, Xu Muzhou sneered in his heart.

This so-called magic is originally like this, using ambiguous language to describe the process. As long as it fails, the believer will only find the reason on himself, and firmly believes in his illusory life-saving straw.

Xu Muzhou couldn't help wondering if there were no new offerings brought in last month, whether it was because Catherine became the "offering offerings" instead of these girls.Not satisfied with the false love, Robert began to attack his lover.

But this guess was quickly denied by Xu Muzhou himself, because no matter what, Catherine's attitude and love for Robert were not fake.

Xu Muzhou probably knew something in his mind, so he nodded and asked politely: "Can you go to another corner to hide, I want to take off the cloth strips and have a look here... I promise I won't turn around and peek at you. "

The girl hesitated for a moment, stood up, walked to the corner, squatted down and huddled with her companions, and said nervously: "Okay, you can take it off."

Xu Muzhou took off his blindfold.

He wanted to find out where he was first.

Xu Muzhou opened his eyes and found that he was only a few steps away from the prison gate.The cell door is a steel grid about the thickness of a wrist, and the mesh is so dense that it can only allow a cat to enter and exit.

The outside of the cell door was tightly fastened with a big lock, Xu Muzhou took a closer look and found that it was a simple iron lock.

——The last time I went back from Ji Yun's place, I should learn from Yan Cen how to slip the door and pick the lock, Xu Muzhou thought through gritted teeth.

But it was too late to think too much, Xu Muzhou withdrew his gaze and focused on the wall tiles beside him.He touched it with his hands, only to find that the specifications of the wall tiles were very familiar.

These are the wall tiles used in Robert Castle.

The specifications of this kind of castle bricks are very special, narrow and hard. Xu Muzhou saw the untreated original brick style once in the sloping corridor where Robert went downstairs, and he still had an impression.

Xu Muzhou thought that Kelin took a big living person and walked not too far without knowing when he would wake up, so there is a high probability that he will be near the manor.

But Xu Muzhou didn't expect that he was actually in the castle.

He walked around Robert's castle more than once in the past two days, but he didn't realize that there was such a prison-like place in the castle.

Xu Muzhou raised his head. The ceiling above his head was very high. If it was a basement, it would be too difficult to build at this height.

At the same time, in the gap between the smooth stone bricks of the ceiling, a drop of water is slowly growing.

The water mist accumulated for a long time before it finally turned into crystal clear water droplets, falling from a corner of the brick crack.

On the other side of the blue bricks, the broken vase fell to the ground, water stains dripped down the floor, and the white rose that was originally inserted in the vase fell beside Yan Cen's wheelchair.

Yan Cen was sitting in a wheelchair. The screen of the golden pocket watch in his hand had a horrible crack. One side of the watch chain was broken from the clasp and was hanging down pitifully. strand of hair.

"I want to listen to your wish." Yan Cen said calmly.

"I have only one wish—" Catherine said gently: "Please love me."