Chapter 40 The Mountain Pool and the Haunted Mansion 7

Chapter 40 The Mountain Pool and the Haunted Mansion 7

Ten minutes prior, when Invincible Champion was still alive, Feng Bujue was inside the cellar. Feng Bujue knocked on the coffin lid and said teasingly, "Hey, Miss Madeline, are you there?"

He did not expect a reply to come from inside the coffin because he knew that the coffin was supposed to be empty.

After finding the first stanza of The Haunted Palace, Feng Bujue had begun to suspect that the house was inspired by the House of Usher in the short story. When he arrived at the cellar and saw the coffin and the fifth stanza on the wall, his suspicion was confirmed.

Feng Bujue read many books, but that did not mean that he had a photographic memory. Other than the memories that were pushed out of his mind as trash, for the rest... like stories that he had once read, he could recover around seventy percent of the memory. To have the man stand there and recite all six stanzas of The Haunted House from pure memory was impossible. Therefore, he needed Xiao Tan and Brother Long to issue some words to jog his memory before the other two stanzas become more clarified in his mind.

Of course, Feng Bujue could remember the general plot of the short story quite clearly.Rêạd new chapters at novelhall.com

Many people knew of the name Edgar Allen Poe; he was the founder of detective novels. His ’The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ was deemed as the first actual detective novel in modern literature, and he was the man who popularized the term detective novel when he published the story. But that was 1841, and The Fall of the House of Usher was written before that. It was a Gothic thriller story, and the whole passage was steeped in a dark, scary atmosphere.

The summary of the story was as well; it detailed the story of the main character’s dead friend, Roderick Usher. Roderick’s family suffered from a mysterious hereditary disease. The house that he lived in seemed to be tainted by some kind of weird curse as well. Over hundreds of years, the lineage of the Usher family had continued in spite of all these problems, passing from father to son. Soon, the original name of the house was forgotten, and the house itself was equated to the name of Usher. When people mentioned the House of Usher, they were referring to both the house and the family.

One day, Roderick wrote a letter to the main character, saying that he was going to die soon. He was tormented by his illness, swaying between the physical and hallucinatory realms. The mysterious power within the House of Usher destroyed his rationality, draining him of his life.

The main character came to visit his old friend, hoping that his visit would breathe some life into the ailing man. However, on the night of the main character’s arrival, Roderick’s little sister, Miss Madeline, ’died from an illness’.

She was the only family that Roderick had left in the world, his only companion for all these years. Miss Madeline had been sick from a young ages, and the doctors had announced that there was no treatment for the girl. However, she continued to fight the disease, spending most of her time in bed. The curious depression and collapse of Roderick’s mental state was mostly due to her condition.

Before Roderick died, he made a request. He wanted them to find a cellar to store his sister’s body for fourteen days. The main character personally helped to fulfill his friend’s dying wish. He placed Miss Madeline inside the coffin and placed her down in the cellar, but no one knew that she was actually still alive.

After eight days, the distraught Roderick fell into madness. That night, the main character came across the scary-looking Miss Madeline roaming the house, and she scared her big brother to death before finally dying. After the main character escaped from the House of Usher, he saw the house crumble into the pond next to it with his own eyes.

There were many ’unscientific’ plot points in the story. For example, how could no one realize that Madeline was still alive when she was placed inside the coffin? How could a woman who subsisted on nothing inside the coffin for eight days have the energy to crawl back into the house? Why did the house collapse? Was it due to an earthquake or explosion?

But the readers in the 19th century would not have had questions like that. It was not until the end of 20th century when ’criticism’ became an actual professional career, especially in the field of literature where Poe’s works were questioned. If Poe was alive in the 21st century, any ’professor’ who dared to call himself a critic would have some choice words for this famed author. Let’s not dwell on this subject; it’s about time we got back to the story.

Based on the plot of the story, the coffin had to be empty. Whether the spirit that Feng Bujue saw in the tunnel was Madeline’s spirit or not, her body was not going to be inside the cellar but inside the house.

"Yes," Feng Bujue replied. He did want to see what kind of tricks this coffin monster could be up to.

"What can you give me?" the coffin lid asked.

Then the system audio sounded. "You can sacrifice a piece of equipment that is of normal quality or higher to have the monster teleport you out of the cellar."

Oh... So, I ’can’ sacrifice, is it? Feng Bujue thought. In other words, I can choose not to sacrifice. That must be right... Because if the player doesn’t have any appropriate equipment, then would they be trapped here forever? That doesn’t seem likely... there has to be another exit.

"Coffin, I have nothing to give you," Feng Bujue said. The face suddenly underwent a drastic change; the lips and eyes peeled open, and the face turned scary. If this was a normal person, they would have been scared, but in reality, it was merely a human face floating on a wooden board; it was unable to attack the people lying inside the coffin. At most, it could only scare them, which would not work on Feng Bujue.

"Then you’ll be trapped here forever, before wasting away in fear and hunger. Even when your nails are bloody from the scratches, even when your knees and ankles are cracked from the kicks, you’ll never be able to..."

Feng Bujue removed the M1911A1 pistol from his backpack and switched the safety lock off.

"Let me introduce you to a friend of mine..." Feng Bujue aimed the barrel at the space between the face’s brows. "It’s a little thing that was made after the second industrial revolution."

"The damage caused by the weapon in your hand is not enough for you to escape. One or two small wounds is nothing," the lid replied.

"I know you can change and recover, but what about the coffin boards next to me, above my head, and underneath me?" Feng Bujue asked.

The face on the lid laughed, and at the same time, the carved handwriting near Feng Bujue’s head and the surrounding scratch marks disappeared. "What about them?"

"Oh... So that’s it. Since the quest has been received and the secret of the coffin has been discovered, the hints of the scratch marks can be removed," Feng Bujue said as he put the gun away.

"Now, have you changed your mind?" the lid said again. "You can give me the weapon you were holding earlier, and I’ll let you out immediately."

Feng Bujue pulled out the kitchen knife and Mario’s Wrench without stopping to take a breath. "Now you have two choices, one is to teleport me back into the house and end this happy conversation."

He raised his arm to left a deep cut on the coffin board. "Or two, I will cut you up into pieces and feed you into the oven."

Several seconds later, Feng Bujue successfully reappeared inside the house, but he was not back in the living room where he disappeared from but in a corridor. There was a painting on the wall next to him, but the painting was not of an underground tunnel but a twisted and ugly human face.

He did not stop to waste his time. He checked his Life Points, which were still full, and Stamina Points, which were high and continued his exploration.