novelraw Chapter 614: Their Burial Place
Chapter 614: Their Burial Place
"Are they really gone?"
The mayor's assistant kept glancing over his shoulder, unable to believe what had just transpired.
Sarah and Adam saw me, yet I'm completely unscathed...?
"Mhm."
It seemed Adam was still on their side. That meant he would soon distract Sarah, giving Lu Li and Anna time to find the sanatorium's true body.
The assistant felt a pang of regret, knowing he could never speak of this encounter. Too much of it was a secret—like the fact that Lu Li and Anna were "friends" with Sarah and Adam, or the truth about Anna's nature.
Perhaps he'd be able to tell the story later, assuming he survived.
They returned to the city hall. In the square, the crowd watched Lu Li and Anna with the same reverence as before; by now, everyone knew who was responsible for the recent spectacle.
Ascending the steps into the main hall, they saw Mayor Valentine looking up.
"You've surpassed my expectations. This only reinforces my confidence in choosing you.""Here's the evacuation plan. Please take a look."
Valentine handed Lu Li several sheets of parchment. He took them.
The plan proposed an urgent survey of the underground passage, the establishment of a safe zone at its exit, and the subsequent evacuation of Flarand's residents. To prevent chaos, people from the secure sector would be evacuated first, making room for those rescued from the infested areas.
The underground passage leading out of the city was the crux of the plan. But first, they had to confirm it was even passable.
"How can we help?" Lu Li asked, setting the parchments aside.
"Practically everything..." Valentine said, his tone apologetic. "There are still many citizens trapped in the infested districts. We lack the manpower and the protective gear. Only your abilities can provide a shield against the dandelions. Exploring the passage also falls to you. There could be dandelions inside, and we have neither the resources nor the time to incinerate the entire tunnel."
"Anna can only repel the dandelions, not locate and destroy them. We won't be able to handle that second task," Lu Li answered.
Valentine sighed. "Then please, get some rest. Once the passage has been scouted, we'll need your help to rescue the people of Flarand."
Lu Li didn't refuse. He genuinely needed a quiet room to rest until Sarah and Adam had put some distance between them.
A servant showed them to a guest room on the second floor of the city hall, bringing two steaks with salad and a bottle of wine. The wine remained untouched, but Lu Li finished the steak and salad. Anna switched off the light and, in the cool dimness of the room, silently watched over him as he slept.
By midday, the unnaturally large carpet of dandelions still covered the ground outside.
A knock at the door broke the silence. Anna, pulling her cloak around herself, opened it. She had been expecting news about the passage, but the assistant was there with an old man who claimed to know the history of the Flarand Sanatorium.
"Let's talk outside," Anna said, not wanting to wake Lu Li. But from inside the room, his voice, still soft with sleep, drifted out. "Let him come in."
...
The old man, his face dotted with prominent age spots, sat by the fireplace. The assistant, Tom, stood behind him.
Lu Li took a seat opposite him, the firelight catching one half of his face.
"Young Tom tells me you want to know the history of the sanatorium," the old man began, his words slow and deliberate.
"Yes."
"May I ask... why?" The old man's heavy eyelids lifted, his murky gaze seeming to hold a secret of its own.
"It's a personal matter." Lu Li couldn't very well tell him about Sarah and Adam.
"I see... You must have come because of that story?" The old man's cloudy eyes flickered with the ghosts of memories in the firelight. "They truly were a wonderful couple..."
Lu Li and Anna had expected a story about Sarah and Adam, but the old man told a different one—a tale of love and hate between a young man and an aristocrat's mistress.
Not wanting to waste time on an irrelevant tale, Lu Li interjected, "There's a cemetery there, right?"
"I see you know more than I do... Yes, there was a cemetery there just for the two of them." The old man didn't realize they were speaking of different things.
According to his tale, a young man had fallen in love with an aristocrat's mistress at a ball. She was a young woman forced to sell her affections to support her family. The two fell deeply in love, but the aristocrat discovered their affair. To save face, he framed the young man for theft. When the youth came to visit his beloved in secret, the aristocrat "found" her jewelry in his possession.
The young man was beaten and handed over to the authorities. The aristocrat applied pressure, and the sentence was changed to hanging.
At first, the young woman believed her lover was guilty. But on the day of his execution, she overheard a conversation between two maids and learned of the conspiracy. In despair, she rushed to the scaffold, but she was too late. By the time she arrived, the young man was already hanging, lifeless. Overcome with grief, she publicly accused the aristocrat of treachery and cruelty before smashing her own head against the gallows, dying at the feet of her beloved.
The scandal didn't ruin the aristocrat, but it stained his name with shame forever.
The owner of the Flarand Sanatorium, a political rival of the aristocrat, had gladly allowed the lovers to be buried in the garden and even permitted visitors.
The aristocrat took his disgrace to the grave. Over time, the story, which had been originally used as a weapon against a rival, sank into oblivion.
Sarah had probably known this story. Judging by her cruelty, she had likely dug up the lovers' remains, discarded them, and taken their place to receive the adoration of young couples who visited the grave.
Tom helped the sighing old man to his feet and led him out. Anna closed the door and returned to the fireplace.
"Now we know where the true body is. Shall we go?"
"What time is it?"
"Twelve-twenty."
"Let's wait a little longer."
Sarah and Adam had left less than three hours ago. They needed to get further away.
Lu Li was still drowsy, but any thought of more rest vanished when Tom burst into the room, out of breath. An incident had occurred in the underground passage—something strange was spreading down there.