Seake followed Valru to the servants' rest area. They turned right into the maids' resting area. A large sign for males to stop was hanging by the door, making Seake nervously tense his neck, while Valru casually opened the door.
The rectangular room had wooden flooring, with cabinets lining both walls. Over a dozen maids, dressed in ankle-length maid uniforms, were standing somewhat askew by the sides. They had known that a man was coming, so no one was changing clothes. They gave Valru trusting looks but regarded Seake with suspicion, as if he were a moldy piece of bread.
"What do you need help with?" Seake tightened his neck even more.
"Listen," Valru said.
Everyone fell silent, including the maids. Then, a faint noise became increasingly clear in the silence.
"Ah—hm—" It was a very faint groan, akin to the sound of rustling leaves!
Seake's first thought was that they believed he had caused this, and he was about to face vigilante justice! His hand went directly to the kettle bag containing the sacrificial knife, but before he could draw it, Valru cleared his throat and said, "Please help us find the source of the sound."
"So, no lynching for me?" Seake's hand slowly moved away from the sacrificial knife.
Valru continued, "I heard this sound last time we met in the studio. You were working on those—" Valru hesitated for a moment, struggling to find the right words, "—heads, and they made a similar noise."
"Do you think there's a secret door?" Seake asked tentatively.
"Yes. I believe it's coming from a secret door," Valru said. "I need your help to locate it."
"I can assist you, but this place is not convenient for me to search," Seake said. Stepping in, he already felt immense pressure, let alone turning the place upside down.
The maid who had previously disguised Seake as a waiter was also present. She said, "I'll be watching you from the sidelines. As long as you don't act suspiciously, I won't give you a hard time. Just search."
"Alright," Seake sighed. Seeing their determination, he knew he couldn't refuse, or he might face passive punishment. Though the definition of suspicious behavior was itself suspicious, Seake had to help given the circumstances.
Valru was considerate, providing Seake with a pair of white gloves to prevent anyone from thinking anything touched by Seake had to be thrown away.
Seake put on the gloves and began searching for the hidden door.
He asked the maids where the sound was loudest, and they said it sounded the same everywhere. Unable to pinpoint a specific location, Seake had to search all potential spots. He opened every cabinet and drawer, even sticking his head in to listen. The maids' personal items were exposed before him, which he moved around methodically. Seake forced himself to maintain a professional attitude while touching those items, treating them like ordinary spell materials.
Seake didn't notice, but his serious demeanor changed the way the maids viewed him. Initially very wary, fearing Seake might steal their belongings when they weren't looking, the maids began to see Seake as sincere. Slowly, they started to trust him.
After nearly two hours of searching, Seake finally found the hidden door in the fourth cabinet on the left side of the entrance. Standing up, he saw the floor was littered with drawers he had pulled out, and only now did he notice the colorful undergarments strewn about, making him dizzy.
"I found it. Shall I remove the protective spells?" Seake asked Valru.
"Of course," Valru replied.
Seake squatted down again, reaching into the wall cavity and retrieving three small rectangular boxes made of white iron, placing them on the floor. Everyone gathered around to see. Seake opened the first box, and the unmistakable groaning noise immediately emanated from within. Seake quickly closed the lid in a second. In that instant, he saw what was inside the box: several shattered human faces stuck together, a grotesque sight.
Opening the second box revealed an empty bottle with remnants of purple potion. Seake picked up the bottle, examining the herbal residue on the bottom and around the mouth. Hana was sloppy, not filtering the potion properly. From the residue, Seake identified the formula.
"Love potion, no doubt. Leftover love potion. What's Hana up to? Trying to recreate a classic scene from the Spiral Tower of Love?" Seake remarked.
Valru's face turned pale, clearly shaken by this discovery.
Seake opened the third box. Inside were remnants of herbs, but the container was empty. Seake smelled a familiar scent and said, "There used to be Devil's Throat here. That's a poison I used frequently. There's no mistaking it." Since Devil's Throat was commonly used by criminals, Seake understood why Hana would hide such material. After a moment's thought, Seake said to Valru, "It seems like it's on your list."
Valru quickly took out the receipt and, after searching for a while, confirmed that Devil's Throat was indeed on it, in a large quantity, but now there was none left. He took a deep breath, his eyes widening.
Seake remained squatting with legs spread apart, observing Valru's distressed expression. The maids whispered among themselves, visibly uneasy. Seake wasn't sure of the significance of these discoveries, but they seemed serious. He asked, "What do we do now?"
"Put everything back and restore everything to its original state," Valru said.
"Even the protective spells?" Seake asked.
"Yes."
"Why didn't you mention this earlier?" Seake lamented. If he had known, he wouldn't have destroyed the protective spells so thoroughly. He couldn't reset them as flawlessly now. He hoped Hana wouldn't notice that her protective measures had suddenly become intact.
With a bitter expression, Seake returned the items to their original positions. He tried to simulate Hana's possible magical mistakes, but always ended up making the correct gestures due to his strict self-discipline. It took several attempts before he successfully failed the spell.
The maids discussed, "When did Hana put these things in here? There are people here all day."
"We're not here all day. We're not allowed out of our rooms after eleven. Madam sets all sorts of strange rules because of her poor mental state," the ponytailed maid said. "This is just one of them. Like the candles downstairs, she insists on lighting them. She doesn't let us touch them; if they go out, only she can light them, and we're not allowed to help."
"Sometimes I've seen her in the corridor when I stayed behind to help the chef," another maid said. "She looks like a ghost."
Seake understood; he had seen her too. When he encountered her, she was lighting candles. It shouldn't have been long before she would extinguish them all. Seake wondered if those candles were related to the magical energy underground.
"Thank you for your assistance. You may return to your work," the ponytailed maid said with a smile, gesturing for Seake to leave the female sanctum.
Seake also smiled back and got up to leave.
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Having lived in the same room with XiaoBa's corpse for so many days, Seake had grown accustomed to the presence of this lifeless roommate. He reflexively refrained from greeting XiaoBa every time he entered the room.
Seake rudely wore XiaoBa's coat, covered XiaoBa with the blanket, used XiaoBa's pen to take notes, and even ate XiaoBa's unopened snacks—all without bothering to ask XiaoBa.
After work today, Seake went even further and reached for XiaoBa's collection of magical items. Like many young mages fresh out of school, XiaoBa had a variety of flashy but impractical items, as well as some simple and practical ones. Typically, it took at least five years out of school and enough practical experience for mages to start selecting the truly necessary tools.
Seake also found a couple of trinkets that some unscrupulous merchants had sold to him. Finally, he came across an essential mage tool: the perfectly round steel-faced mirror.
Although this material was common in everyday life, when polished and used as a mirror, it possessed the power to repel evil. Coupled with its perfect circular shape, which allowed for cleaner and smoother flow of magical energy, this mirror served as an excellent medium for spell projection and could even defend against counter-projective spells.
Seake held the mirror for a long time, pondering and reconsidering. He was planning to commit a full-fledged crime.
Regarding how Hana managed to enter the maids' lounge, Seake suspected she might have set up a teleportation portal, allowing her to bypass the locked door and enter directly. Thus, there was no need to unlock it. To confirm this, he needed to spy on various parts of the house.
Seake decided to proceed. Placing his palms against the edges of the mirror, he rotated it with the back of his hands, reciting a spell in Solni each time: "My eyes, blind to self, see the external." After seven rotations, the mirror no longer reflected his own image but instead showed the room behind him. The preliminary spell preparation was complete.
Tomorrow, he would set up several surveillance points inside the house.