Conan: I'm Not a Model Worker in the Winery

After staring at the skeleton with only half of its eye socket bone left for two seconds, Gin silently raised his sinful left foot that had offended the dead.

"Uncle, please accept my condolences. I hope you are safe and sound. I'm sure you will be reborn into a good family in your next life."

Skull: wdnmd
If the skeleton could speak, it would definitely be speaking sweet words now.

Too bad it can't.

To the extent that Gin picked up the barely intact half of its skull and examined it carefully.

"Well... judging from the skull, it's an adult." Gin put the skull down and connected the cervical vertebrae. "Although most of the clothes are torn, judging from the style, this kind of plain clothing is more likely to belong to those missing scholars."

Gin shone the flashlight around.

This secret passage was not quite what he had imagined:
The hole in the floor he opened was not at the beginning of the secret passage, but some distance down the stairs, and the skull happened to be on one of the steps and was stepped on by Gin.

The real entrance to the secret passage is along the stairs going up. Gin judged that it seemed to be connected to the door of the reception room...

After a brief thought, Gin glanced at the groove in the stone wall above his head and said, "This secret passage should be controlled by a mechanism."

But it's been so long, who knows how to open this mechanism?

The decayed smell in the underground secret passage was not that strong, probably because the smell floated up and attached to the wooden floor. The secret passage was paved with stone bricks, which made people feel cool and shady.

The depth of the secret passage is not yet known, but after Gin stepped over the corpses and turned a corner, he found that there were stairs continuing downwards, and there were black marks under the corpses and at the corners, which were different from the color of the stone bricks.

Considering the shape of the corpse, it is not difficult to infer that the corpse closest to the exit was probably thrown into the secret passage before it was completely dead. In the end, it relied on its remaining willpower to drag its injured body up the stairs. In the end, it died near the exit of the secret passage due to excessive blood loss and exhaustion...

"How miserable..."

Gin looked back at the corpse lying on the steps, shook his head sighingly, and continued to go down.

"Almost. This should be the location below the stairs on the first floor."

He would stop and calculate the distance every few steps.

The dark bloodstains on the steps were still there, and no other bodies were seen...

So we have to go further down?
Gin once again admired the skeleton that he had stepped on, crawling so far with its seriously injured body.

Or maybe you can help glue its broken head back together before you go back, otherwise it would be embarrassing.

Having made up his mind, Gin temporarily put the skull behind him and headed down.

The depth of the secret passage was far beyond Gin's imagination:
Gin had a very keen sense of distance, and the distance between the steps was basically fixed. When he reached the bottom where there were no more steps, he estimated that he was about 20 meters underground, which was about five or six floors underground...

It is equivalent to digging through half of the cliff where the villa is located.

Gin: I can only say that the Karasuma family is really rich.

you do not say?

The flashlight illuminates the dark and deep underground space.

What’s outrageous is that there is actually a door built underground!

——Yes, it is a spacious and open space. In addition to the nearly ten-meter-wide aisle in the front, there are also castle-like iron gates on both sides.

Both doors were locked and could not be opened by outsiders without keys.

But... Gin took a look at the ancient and exquisite lock, silently took out two heavy iron wires from his pocket, bent them a few times, inserted them into the keyhole and fiddled with them for several times.

A few seconds later, there was a "click" sound, and the two palm-sized padlocks sank slightly in Gin's hands.

The lock is opened.

However, when Gin removed the lock and pushed the huge iron door open a crack, he really felt regretful -

In an instant, a stench comparable to that of a methane bomb whistled out from the gap in the door and poured into Gin's mouth and nose from all angles.

This made Gin's already pale face even paler, and he chose to hold his breath without hesitation.

This sour smell, which is like rotten meat thrown in a cellar and fermented for three months, is so inhumane!
Even more anti-herring than canned herrings!

Gin resisted the urge to slam the door, put on another mask, and then looked inside.

...Sure enough, it is unclear what the huge underground room was originally designed to do, but now, the room is filled with corpses.

"Six... eight... twenty-seven?" Gin counted the bodies and was slightly shocked. "Including the one above, that's twenty-eight..."

From the inside out, with the light of the flashlight, one can barely see the clothes on the innermost corpses. Most of them are aristocratic clothes, while the few corpses outside are relatively plain. They are the scholars...

That is to say, the death toll in the first massacre was far greater than that in the later ones.

After condemning the Karasuma family's madness in his heart, Gin was about to close the door, but suddenly thought of something. After hesitating for a moment, he opened the gap in the door wider to allow himself to enter.

Because it was a closed space, the stench of corpses in the room lingered for a long time, and as it accumulated over time, it became even more foul...

This is probably why the Karasuma family moved away from this place - not only is the location remote, but there are so many corpses buried in the warehouse under the family's house. How uncomfortable would it be to live there?
Switch to gin, gin...

Gin is happy to live here. There is a lot of yin energy here. If he can ignore the corpses, it would be quite comfortable to live here.

He moved among a pile of corpses that were only bones left, and from time to time he stopped beside the corpses of those who seemed to be nobles and looked at the faces on the skulls.

"Could Vermouth's father be among these people?"
Gin had this suspicion, but he was not very sure. After all, no matter how you look at it, Vermouth's father was the legitimate son of the old patriarch, Karasuma Renya. He would not just throw the remains of his relatives here. It was such a sick thing that he would do... right?

After a round of identification, Gin failed to be recognized.

After all, he was not an expert in bone identification and tracking, so perhaps he could tell Vermouth and let the latter look for it herself.

After making up his mind, Gin walked up and wanted to leave the morgue. However, when he left, he glanced at the corpse at his feet as if he had sensed something. He paused, bent down, and carefully dragged the corpse to the wall. Then he walked out of the door and locked it again.

Gin also opened the door on the opposite side and took a look, but there was nothing special inside...

So, what's left is the passage in front of us.

When I opened the secret passage above just now, I could feel a faint breeze, which means that the underground passage is not airtight - either there is a vent or there is another exit.

Considering that there are rooms below, Gin is more inclined to have both.

"The road surface is still trending downwards. At this depth... it should be able to penetrate the mountain."

Gin narrowed his eyes.

Let him see where the end of this secret passage is.