After staying at home for an evening and a morning, Leonard Ethan left his home and drove to the city center after lunch the next day.
Because after comparing the map in his mind with the electronic map online yesterday, he was surprised to find that the location of the mysterious light point was actually in the National Library of Ireland.
The National Library of Ireland is located on Kildare Street Dublin and is a classic white stone building. However, this building was completed in 1890 and is not as old as it looks.
After looking around the round hall of the main building, he bypassed a group of tourists taking photos at the door and then went up the stairs into the library.
Because he majored in history in college, the long-term reader card he applied for at the time to write his thesis could still be used, so he went straight to the reading room marked on the map after entering the library.
As soon as he entered the door of the reading room, Leonard saw the white light that only he could see coming from a bookshelf in the middle of the room.
When he approached the bookshelf, he found that the book emitting the light was a somewhat old-looking book.
However, unlike ordinary books, this book is slightly smaller in size and could even be held in the palm of an adult's hand, but it is much thicker than a regular book.
"The Bible?" Looking at the worn gold lettering on the book's cover, Leonard frowned.
This book is the largest-selling book in the Western world, and it would be normal for it to appear on a bookshelf with religious books. But he didn't understand why the card would guide him to find this book.
After taking the book off the shelf, Leonard began to read one of the most widely-read books in human history in the reading room next door.
Although he was not very religious, it was impossible to say that he had never read this book in a religiously dense place like Ireland. So he quickly discovered that this book was actually no different from the one he had read before.
If there is a difference, it is that modern Bibles are often written in the languages of various countries, while this book is written in Latin.
Other than that, the strangest thing about this book is that for some unknown reason, there is a black dot under some of the letters starting from the first page with text.
After seeing these black dots, Leonard tried to connect the letters with black dots below from page one. As a result, various attempts resulted in a mess of codes.
"If it's not a content issue, then there must be something different about the book itself." After briefly browsing some of the contents, Leonard focused on the book itself.
Soon, he found a name on the title page of the book - Jack De Brian. And on the last page of the book, it can be seen that it was printed by the Church of France in 1804.
If these findings are combined with the worn book itself and the content written in Latin, it can be deduced that this book may have been a religious book carried by a noble in the past for prayer.
This discovery made Leonard invigorated because such small prayer books tended to be personal items. So if there was really any secret, hiding it in the book would not be a small probability.
After careful inspection, he found that the book had no interlayer or anything else, but on the title page with the name, he felt some unevenness.
"As expected, this book is not an ordinary book." Leonard smiled, then examined the scratches on this page, quickly finding a number and a French word written in the scratches - repentance.
He turned to the page indicated by the number on the scratches. Leonard saw that the main content on this page was Psalms 51:1-12, which is the prayer of King David to the deity for repentance.
"If the confession on the first page refers to this Psalm—" Realizing the content written in this piece, Leonard Ethan immediately began to record the first letter with a black dot below it in the Psalm.
A few minutes later, some scattered French words appeared in front of him: Cork, Michael, Holy Sanctuary, 12.
"Don't worry, mom. It's just a trip to Cork, and it's all highways, so there's really no danger—" An hour later, in a restaurant at Port Leith, Leonard Ethan quietly reassured his mother on the phone.
"—I understand, I understand, I'll take care of myself, and you can rest assured. I promise I'll call you as soon as I arrive."
After discovering the clue in the library, Leonard Ethan immediately took out his mobile phone to search for a computer map.
In his view, the words Cork and Michael found in the book should refer to a place called Michael near Cork, the second-largest city in the south of Irish Island.
However, it was strange that, after searching for a long time using a satellite map on his mobile phone, he only found a woodland around Cork called Michael.
Obviously, if this Michael is the place name that those characters want to guide, then it would be somewhat unusual for the destination to be such a large woodland.
Because the target search range is too large, if something is hidden there, it would be impossible for ordinary people to find it.
While pondering, Leonard Ethan subconsciously flipped through the book in front of him. Under this circumstance, the publication date printed on the last page of the book suddenly inspired him.
"What if that place called Michael existed back then but doesn't exist now?"
This is not an impossible thing, especially in Ireland. Because in the mid-19th century, a massive famine broke out on the Irish Island. This famine led to the death of more than a million people, and nearly two million chose to emigrate.
At the same time, the famine completely changed the population distribution of the Irish, and since then, the population of Ireland has never recovered to its peak in the 18th century.
However, because of this famine, the struggle for national liberation in Ireland continued to escalate, and they launched one uprising after another in the subsequent history, eventually gaining independence from the Japanese Empire.
Even today, there are still a large number of abandoned villages scattered across the Irish Island.
Therefore, if the Michael hinted at in this book is an abandoned village, it would indeed be impossible to find it on a satellite map.
With this thought, Leonard Ethan immediately went to the electronic reading area of the library to search for old maps, and indeed found the small village called Michael on a 1836 map of Cork and its surrounding areas.
After confirming the target, Leonard Ethan immediately took a picture of the content on the screen with his phone. Then he drove his family's Kodiak towards the target.
However, when he had been driving for more than an hour and felt hungry and ready to eat something, he realized that he had forgotten to notify his family before leaving.
So while having his meal, he had to spend a lot of time explaining to his angry mother why he had stood her up and didn't come home for dinner. Fortunately, after half a day of explanation, he finally gained his mother's forgiveness.
"Sorted—" After hanging up the phone, Leonard Ethan clenched his fist and swung it at his chest, quickly finishing his simple lunch and continuing his journey.