Mystery Detective of the Steam World

Chapter 93 The Sealed Secret

The warehouse Olivia was referring to was located in the northwest corner of the Baskerville mansion, at the end of a long, narrow corridor.

From the outside, the room appeared unremarkable. However, when Olivia asked someone to fetch the key to the room…

"Young Miss, are you going in here?"

Upon hearing Olivia's command, Ms. Gladys stared at her in utter astonishment.

"This, this won't do!"

"why not?"

Olivia frowned in displeasure at her maid's words. She was the head of the Baskerville family; she could go wherever she wanted. Was there any place in this house she couldn't go?

"Because, because legend has it that this room is cursed, and anyone who goes in will die!"

"Oh?"

Upon hearing this, Li Wei immediately perked up.

If you say that, I'm no longer sleepy!
"Tell me?"

"this……………"

Faced with Li Wei's question, Ms. Gladys hesitated for a moment before glancing at Olivia, who simply stared at her and nodded. Reluctantly, Ms. Gladys then spoke.

"This is a rumor passed down from my parents' generation. It's said that a maid once met her boyfriend there and was murdered by him. Afterwards, the maid became a vengeful ghost, haunting the warehouse. Anyone who goes in will inevitably die a horrible death..."

"How many died?"

"Hey?"

It has to be said that Li Wei's unusual way of asking the question completely baffled Ms. Gladys.

"Didn't they say you'd die a horrible death inside? How many people died?"

"Well... I only heard that after that, several servants went to that warehouse one after another for various reasons and died inside. Everyone became afraid, which is why rumors spread that it was cursed, and no one dared to go near it..."

"So you've only heard about it."

Hearing this, Li Wei immediately lost interest. How novel! It's like every house has seen deaths. Any building with a history of over a hundred years has probably had more than just one, two, three, or four people die inside.

"How stupid."

Olivia, on the other hand, didn't take it seriously at all, acting as if she didn't care.

"Go get the keys."

"But………"

"Go!"

"Yes, yes..."

This young lady clearly wielded considerable power in the manor; her angry shout immediately terrified Mrs. Gladys, who hurriedly went to the gatehouse and retrieved a set of keys.

"Open the door."

"…………"

Ms. Gladys looked at Olivia, opened her mouth as if to say something, but then sighed helplessly and opened the door.

"Squeak..."

The door hinges, which hadn't been opened for a long time and were even rusty, made a harsh, unpleasant sound. Li Wei reached out and pressed the gun handle, blocking Olivia's way, and peered into the room.

The room appeared empty, with some furniture against the wall, all covered by white sheets. The sheets were covered in dust, even looking somewhat grayish. As the door opened, a pungent, dusty smell rushed out, causing Olivia to instinctively pull out a handkerchief to cover her mouth and nose, looking quite annoyed.

"Has this place never been cleaned before?"

"This... people don't usually come here..."

Li Wei didn't care about trivial matters like house cleaning. He went into the room and first used [Soul Vision] to scan it, making sure he didn't see anything strange, before opening the window. Partly to let in some fresh air, and partly...

"Hehe, just as I thought."

Li Wei peeked out the window, looked at the wall next to him, and smiled.

The reason he chose this "warehouse" was that, in Li Wei's opinion, the room's "shape" was very strange.

In most rooms, windows are open from one end to the other for ventilation. But Li Wei noticed that this place only had two windows at the front, with no windows at the back. It felt like it was sealed off. Of course, if that's all, then maybe it's some kind of special room, and perhaps someone likes it this way?

When Levi learned from Olivia that it was just a warehouse, the suspicion surrounding the place increased significantly, and Lady Gladys's "curse theory" further fueled Levi's suspicions.

Li Wei walked into the room, opened the window, glanced outside, and then smiled.

It's confirmed, there's something wrong with this room.

"What's wrong, Mr. Levi?" Olivia asked, puzzled by the smile on Levi's face. She looked around the room and found it to be just an ordinary warehouse, nothing special except for being a bit dirty.

"You'll see when you come over."

Levi waved to Olivia, gesturing for her to go to the window and turn it on. Olivia walked over hesitantly, peered out the window, and looked at the wall beside her. Then, her gaze sharpened, she quickly looked away, scanned the room again, and finally turned to stare at Ms. Gladys.

"How is this going?"

"Huh? I'm sorry, Miss, I don't understand what you mean..."

"Call Mark and the others over here!"

"Yes."

Seeing Olivia's serious expression, Ms. Gladys hurriedly went to call for help. Levi simply stood to the side, saying nothing.

It's no wonder Olivia was so serious. When she was in the room, she felt there was nothing wrong with it. But when Levi gestured for her to look out the window, Olivia noticed something strange—the room's size from the outside was different from its size from the inside.

From inside the room, the wall was only two meters from the last window, and then filled with various kinds of old furniture. But when Olivia peeked out, she discovered that the distance from the window to the corner of the wall was almost ten meters!
So here's the question: where did the rest go?
Soon, the two unlucky guys who had helped dig the hole were called back... Now that it was confirmed there was something fishy about this room, Olivia certainly couldn't just send anyone to work. What if, like in the tomb, she dug up a few more corpses? Wouldn't that cause chaos?

Therefore, Olivia summoned the two men, since they already knew at least part of the Baskerville family's secrets, and knowing more wouldn't matter.

On the bright side, however, these two servants might rise to prominence and become Olivia's confidants.

The premise is that they don't do anything reckless.

"Go and move these cabinets away!"

At Olivia's word, the two immediately got to work, while Levi stood by silently. He wasn't physically strong enough for this kind of work. Besides, even in modern times, Levi preferred to call a professional to move things rather than sweating it out himself.

Once you move those bookshelves and wardrobes away, all that's left are the walls.

Smash it!

When the young lady gave the order, the servants naturally dared not disobey. The two of them nervously gripped the hammers and began smashing the wall.

"Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Levi and Olivia stood at the doorway, watching the two men smash the wall, their expressions slightly unpleasant. Levi was more concerned about the flying dust, while Olivia was clearly more worried about something fishy going on. After all, they had found two corpses before, but at least those were in the cemetery.

But right now, she was in her own home, where she had lived for over a decade—if a few more corpses were found here, Olivia felt she wouldn't be able to sleep well tonight.

"Dong dong!"

Finally, after the two unlucky men's persistent efforts, a small hole was smashed into the wall. Scattered stones and bricks clattered all over the ground. Seeing the large hole before them, the two unlucky men were stunned for a moment, clearly remembering the fear they felt when they dug out two corpses earlier.

"Okay, let's stop here."

Seeing that the two men were about to give up, Li Wei called out. After all, they were servants, not policemen, and besides, the hole was already big enough for one person to squeeze through. He didn't want them to keep smashing things; if they damaged anything, they'd be in real trouble.

Upon hearing Li Wei's order, the two servants, who were sweating profusely, panting, and trembling with fear, immediately felt as if they had been granted a pardon and quickly left the room with their tools. Only after a while, when the air inside had gradually improved, did Li Wei carefully walk over with the gas lamp, pass through the large hole, and arrive at the other side of the enclosed space.

Perhaps due to the lack of air circulation, the environment here was equally poor, but Li Wei didn't care. He walked in and carefully and cautiously examined the room before him.

The first thing that caught Levi's eye was the Baskerville family crest hanging on the wall. Below the crest was a desk, next to which were bookshelves and other furniture—it looked like a study. Besides that, the walls were covered with taxidermied animal heads, presumably the spoils of hunting. And on a shelf in the corner were various weapons.

From longswords to longbows, the list goes on.

It's clear that the owner of this house is someone who really enjoys hunting.

Of course, hunting was a common pastime among nobles in that era. However, Li Wei had little interest in it; to him, hunting animals was meaningless unless it was for food. And the same went for displaying the heads of his spoils as taxidermy specimens.

Think about it carefully: you killed the other person, disemboweled them, beheaded them, skinned them, and then hung their head in your room.

If the other person truly had a soul, they would be watching you all day long and cursing you to death.

"This looks like a study... Whose room is this?"

Olivia was more concerned about another issue. After all, this room didn't look like an ordinary person's; otherwise, it wouldn't have been sealed off.

"Just look for it and you'll find out."

Levi placed the gas lamp on the table and began a careful search of the room. He now strongly suspected that this room had been sealed off by Sir Baskerville.

So why did he do that?

Logically speaking, there's no need to deliberately seal off a room. You could simply wait until renovations to completely renovate it; it wouldn't be a huge undertaking. But Old Baskerville didn't do that; instead, he opted for the simple and direct method of isolating it.

This suggests that he was likely worried that something was hidden here and might be discovered by others during the renovation, or even that he didn't want future generations to find it.

Therefore, they simply sealed off the entire room.

This also means that what he doesn't want others to see is very likely in this room.

　I recently went to the pet market and bought some more plants for my planted aquarium. All that going back and forth almost killed me, plus the water changes and stuff… so tiring…

　　
　
(End of this chapter)