162: The Truth of Blood and Tears
"Pa-ta!"
After experiencing a full minute of sliding down what was essentially a moss slide, An An finally fell out from the passage with a "pa" sound.
The moment she landed, An An's mind was still in chaos. However, she forcefully suppressed the churning sensation in her stomach and quickly found a large stone within her field of vision to use as cover.
The situation below the passage was unclear for now. She didn't know if the noise she had made had attracted Sauron and the others' attention, so she could only use the giant stone behind her to conceal her figure as much as possible.
About thirty seconds passed and An An still hadn't detected any movement nearby. Only then did she finally let out a temporary sigh of relief.
In this situation, she really didn't know whether to cry or laugh.
She had originally planned to stop here and retreat quickly, but she ended up falling down because she stepped on moss growing on the stone floor... What kind of situation was this!?
Fortunately, she had covered her mouth in time and didn't make any loud sounds. Otherwise, for a child like her, wouldn't being discovered be like delivering herself straight to them?
An An didn't want to be sold by bad people.
"But... for human trafficking... would it be necessary to make such a huge place?"
After the pain in her body had lessened a bit, An An also started trying to poke her head out to observe the space below this passage.
Setting everything else aside, just the size of this area alone had truly startled An An.
Just the range visible to An An's eyes alone was the size of the orphanage main building's footprint.
Under the orphanage, there was actually such a large underground space?
Aren't they afraid it will collapse?
An An couldn't figure it out. Was this place an underground karst cave as described in textbooks?
And also... even though this is underground, why is it so bright?
Shouldn't underground be pitch black?
An An didn't see any electric lights or torches either!
But these weren't the most critical things. The most critical thing was... ever since she fell here, the rotting smell and bloody scent contained in the air had become even heavier.
It was already heavy enough to make An An feel nauseous.
"Wait... what are those?"
Suddenly, An An noticed that in several corners of this underground space, there were strange light pillars like columns supporting the ceiling. These light pillars were covered top to bottom with magic arrays emitting mysterious radiance. They looked both gorgeous and dreamlike.
"Is that... magic?"
An An froze slightly and subconsciously guessed.
In her concept, perhaps only magic could explain all the abnormal things in this underground space.
After all, magic itself was the symbol of miracles and mystery.
Just then, a low voice carrying a hint of anger came, instantly giving An An a huge fright.
"You mean... that the [Divine Canon] still needs at least one more person's worth of blood and life force to be completed, is that right?"
This voice... was Director Sauron!
Although she hadn't had much contact with him, An An still immediately recognized the owner of this voice. It was that white-bearded old man who had just become their orphanage's acting director today.
An An tentatively stuck half her head out from behind the stone and looked toward the direction the voice came from. She saw Sauron standing together with the black-robed figures from before in the center of this underground space. And in front of them was a scarlet, bizarre lake.
They... what were they saying?
Due to the distance being too far, An An couldn't hear the content of the conversation between those people below very clearly. But judging from Sauron's expression that clearly carried a hint of anger, their conversation probably wasn't going very smoothly.
"And there's a stone... quietly... be careful... heave-ho!"
At the same time, An An noticed that there were also several giant stones nearby that could completely cover her figure. Using the messy grass growing on the ground to conceal her figure, An An made a dash and ran from her original hiding spot to behind another giant stone.
She looked at Sauron and the others again. Mm, good, not discovered.
Next, An An continued to transfer her hiding spot several times following this pattern. The distance between her and Sauron and the others below became closer and closer, and at the same time, the bloody scent permeating the air also gradually became thicker.
"My lord, please calm your anger... It was indeed our calculation that had some problems. Because the last batch of people Victor sent had too poor endurance, we weren't able to obtain enough blood..."
"Shut up! Right now this orphanage has already become a target of public criticism. Even I find it difficult to bring anyone out without being noticed. Now that William is dead, where do you plan to get the blood and souls needed for the [Divine Canon]?"
"My lord, we..."
At this point, An An could already hear Victor and the others' conversation very clearly. However, the content of their conversation... An An couldn't understand it. What [Divine Canon], what blood, An An completely didn't understand what they were chatting about.
"Stare..."
An An lay in the grass and quietly poked out half her head from behind the giant stone. Her intention was to see what Sauron and the others were doing, but it was precisely this action that nearly made her heart stop beating from fright.
Originally, An An had thought that the red lake behind Victor and the others was dyed with some special reagent. After all, how could there be lake water of this color in the world? But when she truly saw the truth of that "lake," she suddenly jolted awake.
That wasn't a lake at all.
That was a pool of blood.
A pool of blood that had accumulated countless bones, gathered from real human blood... a giant blood pool with a radius of at least ten meters!
And on the shore of the blood pool were piled mountain-high rotting corpses.
Among these corpses, An An even saw several figures that looked familiar to her.
One of them she remembered clearly. It was a girl named Little Qiu, who had a very good relationship with Luo Xin. She was also one of the children she had witnessed being "sold" by Victor last time.
And now, Little Qiu was casually discarded on the pile of bones on the shore like a broken doll. Under the girl's young body, all her blood had already been drained. Only a thin layer of skin wrapped around her bones, looking both terrifying and pitiful.
The most bizarre thing was that even though her death was so tragic, Little Qiu's face still hung a faint smile, as if she hadn't suffered any pain at all before dying.
Fear, extreme fear.
An An trembled all over as she took two steps back. Her field of vision also gradually became wider as her figure moved away.
But this also made her horrifiedly discover that all the corpses beside the blood pool, as long as their skulls still had flesh and skin attached and their bodies hadn't completely rotted away, all had faces hanging with that kind of bizarre and peaceful smile like Little Qiu's.
"Snap!"
Just then, An An's right foot suddenly stepped on and broke a branch. The strange noise it made instantly attracted the attention of Victor and the others who were conversing not far away. One of the black-robed figures suddenly looked sharply in this direction and shouted sternly:
"Who!?"
In an instant, An An's heart completely rose to her throat.
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