Writer 1879: Solitary Journey in France

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Albert looked around and carefully counted the heads, discovering that Lionel was indeed gone.

Only the skull's empty eye sockets, seemingly bottomless, appeared under the flickering light, as if countless eyes were silently gazing at these uninvited guests in the darkness.

Some skulls are slightly tilted, with the jawbone open, forming a perpetually frozen, silent scream.

Some bones were covered with a layer of slippery, grayish-white mold, like the sweat of the dead, which gleamed with a cold, eerie light.

"He...he couldn't have been taken away by something, could he?" A henchman's voice trembled.

Albert panicked at this point. No matter how "humble" Lionel's status seemed to him, losing a classmate in the catacombs would be a serious problem if anything happened to him.

He might be accused of "murder"—after all, his conflict with Lionel was well-known, and many people heard him mention the "old mine" to Lionel.

However, Albert soon noticed something amiss. From the leftmost of the three tunnels, there was a regular, slight noise, like human footsteps; and on the bone wall, there were faint shadows of flickering light.

He breathed a sigh of relief and pointed to the tunnel on the left: "He probably went ahead first... Damn it, I haven't even explained the rules yet!"

Michel Verne asked, "Should we follow them?"

Albert hesitated for a moment, but finally nodded: "Let's go! Let's follow him and see what tricks he's up to?"

He was the backbone of everyone, and as the group grew more accustomed to the eerie environment, they became bolder and all declared that they would catch up with Lionel and teach him a lesson.

Albert gritted his teeth and led the way, hurrying after Lionel in the direction he had left.

Their feet trod on slippery gravel and silt, each step making an unsettling "plop" sound, as if they were stepping on something unclean.

Cold water droplets kept seeping from the vaulted ceiling, tapping "tap...tap...tap..." on the skull, shoulders, and the glass cover of the gas lamp. The sound was amplified infinitely in the deathly silent tunnel, like a slow countdown, pounding on everyone's nerves.

The tunnel stretched on and on, until the light reached only deeper and deeper walls of skeletons, disappearing into an impenetrable darkness. As the beam of light swept across, the eye sockets of those skulls seemed to instantly devour the light, leaving even deeper shadows, as if something had flashed and disappeared at the edge of the light.

Of course, the silence here is not absolute. In the brief moments when everyone is holding their breath, a faint, indistinct rustling sound can be heard, like countless pieces of bone rubbing against each other, or like something slowly crawling in an unseen corner.

"God..." someone in the group let out a groan, tinged with sobs. The sound echoed eerily in the bone tunnel, as if awakening something slumbering and drawing out an even deeper silence from the darkness in the distance.

"Shut up!" Albert snapped.

They wandered underground for almost 10 minutes, but not only did they fail to catch up with Lionel, they also lost sight of the faint footsteps and the dim lights.

All that remained were the heavy breathing of a few people and the flickering light of the gas lamp.

"He...he couldn't have really gotten into trouble, could he?" Michel Verne was also getting anxious. He had been forced by his father to study in Paris, and through connections, he had gotten to know Albert and others, quickly becoming part of their social circle.

Today, I heard that Albert and his friends were going to play a trick on a country bumpkin from the Alps, so I came along with them with great interest.

I never expected things to turn out this way. I wish I hadn't gotten involved.

They walked for a while longer and came to a "bone hall" with a skull pillar made entirely of skulls in the center, reaching all the way to the top, and several piles of skull "pyramids" around it.

Albert gestured, "Take a break."

The followers breathed a sigh of relief, some even collapsing to the ground. People burn through their energy very quickly when they're stressed; during the day, on the street, they could cover the same distance without even breaking a sweat.

Only Albert managed to maintain his composure, raising the gas lamp in his hand, its beam trembling as it swept forward; at the end of the light, an arched fork in the road opened like a giant mouth, revealing an even deeper and denser darkness.

"Damn it, where did Lionel go? Was it just our imagination?"

"How about we shout something?" "Are you stupid? What if we shout something else?"

The group fell silent again. The air seemed to freeze, icy cold, and even breathing it in was painful.

At that moment, a light appeared in the tunnel ahead, a green light, as if it came from the depths of hell and was lit by Satan himself, casting a dim light on the terrified faces of the group.

Then a lifeless, emotionless voice came from the darkness: "Are you looking for me?"

Immediately afterward, a face with an extremely eerie smile appeared above the green light. Because the beam of light was shining from below, the angular contours of the face were shadowed particularly heavily, making it especially gloomy and terrifying in the darkness.

"Which of you wants to come with me?"

Albert de Rohan, Michel Verne, and several of his followers were so engrossed in their work that they forgot to even breathe.

…………

A dozen seconds later, two kilometers away, in another private tunnel, a group of Parisian mystic enthusiasts were conducting black magic experiments when they suddenly heard faint but unusually clear screams coming from the depths of the distant tunnel, as if demons from the depths of hell were roaring.

Moreover, the resonance was continuous and lingering, echoing repeatedly through the narrow rock walls and bone walls of the tunnel, creating a peculiar resonance effect that made the surrounding bones tremble slightly.

"It worked! It worked!"

"We have successfully summoned the devil!"

"Really? Hurry, continue the ceremony!"

The group of people dressed in black robes immediately knelt before the six-pointed star on the ground, prostrating themselves repeatedly, their heads hitting the cold ground with a thud...

--------

It was another cold Monday, but since it was already February, the weather had warmed up slightly, and the various odors wafting through the streets and alleys of Paris had become stronger.

Although the nascent sewer system has transformed Paris from the "dung capital" it was 100 years ago, the pace of urban renewal has lagged far behind the rate of population growth.

Therefore, wealthy people in Paris would stay in holiday villas in the suburbs during the summer. For example, after Zola bought the Villa Médan, he would only return to Paris to live in the winter; or he would simply go to the south or Italy and Spain for vacation.

Lionel arrived at school on time as usual in a public carriage, but this morning he wouldn't see Albert gracefully jumping down from his little carriage.

As soon as I arrived at the classroom door, I saw the Dean of Academic Affairs, Mr. Dunn, standing there for the first time. He greeted me with a big smile and said, "Mr. Sorel, you don't need to attend class this morning. Professor Gaston Boischer wants to see you."

Lionel paused for a moment, then, remembering Professor Boischer's identity, knew it was probably because of "The Old Guard." He nodded and followed Dunn out of the teaching building to the school's journal editor's office.

Upon opening the door, one sees the long conference table in the center of the hall already filled with professors from the Faculty of Arts, except those who have classes to teach.

Lionel spotted Professor Gaston Boischer, who had once taught him, at a glance, but instead of sitting at the head of the table, he sat in the first seat on the right.

Sitting in the main seat was an old man with white hair, a thick and neat white beard, a broad face, a high forehead, thick eyebrows, and a calm and firm gaze.

His features, honed by age, long-term mental stress, and a life of wandering, have become more rugged, giving him an air of majesty and power.

This old man, Lionel, was no stranger to him. In his previous life, he had read Lionel's complete works, and the cover featured his photograph. In this life, his portrait hung in the corridor of the Faculty of Arts, alongside Nicolas Boileau-Depres, Pierre Corneille, Jean Racine, Molière, La Fontaine, and others.

He is the only one still alive.

He is Victor Mari Hugo, "the conscience of France," "the greatest poet in France," and "the most outstanding representative of Romanticism"!

(End of this chapter)