Chapter 41.2 (1/2)

Moments later, they arrived in front of the door to the secret chamber which was left locked yesterday. They finally encountered today’s first challenge – this locked door. No matter how Xiao Tangqiu turned and twisted the door handle, the door handle still wouldn’t budge.

Xiao Tangqiu let Tang Mianmian, who was stronger than him, give it a try, but the result was still the same.

“It won’t open.”

Duan Hongzhen arched an eyebrow. “Let me do it.”

Xiao Tangqiu and Tang Mianmian quickly stepped aside and saw Duan Hongzhen move towards the door. His back was facing the two of them so they couldn’t see what Duan Hongzhen did. Anyway, in the next second, the door was opened.

Xiao Tangqiu had already seen Duan Hongzhen’s lock picking skills before, so it wasn’t much of a surprise. Shen Yuan and the others didn’t even blink an eye. They had obviously grown accustomed to it. Tang Mianmian originally wanted to scream and make a big fuss about it, but when he saw the players’ calm reaction, he couldn’t appear too surprised and could only silently suppress his amazement.

Duan Hongzhen pushed the door and the others followed.

When Xiao Tangqiu clearly saw the appearance of the secret chamber, he was immediately shocked. The underground chamber was filled with mirrors! From the four walls to the floor, from the floor to the ceiling; every inch of the whole room was filled with mirrors of different sizes!

Mirrors of different materials and sizes reflected their image into numerous people. At first glance, there seemed to be tens of thousands of them standing in the room. When Xiao Tangqiu looked at the Xiao Tangqiu in the mirror, the reflection in the mirror also looked at him.

Xiao Tangqiu instantly felt a chill crawling up his spine. Tang Mianmian felt his hair stand on end as well. “Fuck! I think I’m going to have agoraphobia! “

“No wonder there aren’t any mirrors in this castle,” Xiao Tangqiu laughed dryly. “It turns out that Lippinobert has placed all the mirrors in this underground chamber.”

Tang Mianmian, “…Does this guy have some sort of weird hobby of collecting mirrors?! Every time he comes to this secret room and sees so many mirrors and so many reflections of himself, doesn’t he feel creeped out?!”

Xiao Tangqiu looked at his reflection in the mirrors and suddenly thought of something. He turned to Tang Mianmian and asked, “Do you remember what I said about narcissism earlier?”

Tang Mianmian blinked. “I do, why?”

Xiao Tangqiu looked at his reflection in the mirror and frowned slightly. “Narcissus was a beautiful young man in Greek mythology who fell in love with himself and died after chasing after his own reflection in the water. After his death, he turned into a daffodil…”

“In short, he died because of his narcissism!” Tang Mianmian interrupted him and asked incredulously, “But what does this have to do with Lippinobert? But then again, for that guy to have so many mirrors, he is definitely a big narcissist! “

Xiao Tangqiu hesitated for a moment before asking Tang Mianmian, “If a person hasn’t seen a mirror from birth, when he looks in the mirror for the first time after he’s grown up, would he think that the person in the mirror is another person?”

Tang Mianmian blurted out subconsciously, “How is that possible? Even if that person hasn’t seen a mirror since young, how can he not know that the person in the mirror is himself?”

Xiao Tangqiu laughed bitterly. “How would he know that the person in the mirror is himself? No one has ever told him about it, no one has ever taught him so. Do you think if a six-month-old baby or an isolated primitive man were allowed to look into a mirror, they would think that the person in the mirror was themselves?”

Tang Mianmian was shocked by that notion. He paused for a moment, then went on to say, “But even if that person has never looked into a mirror, he has seen his reflection in other things, hasn’t he? Like his reflection in the water…”

Xiao Tangqiu shook his head. “According to the mirror stage theory, children between 6 and 10 months old have no way to recognize their own images in the mirror. They will think that the person in the mirror is someone else. At this time, he hasn’t yet formed an understanding of the self. Later, with the intervention of his parents and family, he is taught to recognize his reflection in the mirror. Only then can he gradually separate himself from the many others and finally form an understanding of the self…”

“But what I was thinking just now is, if there is no such intervention and guide from this stage onwards, would there be such a situation where that person cannot successfully complete the transformation from ‘others’ to ‘self,’ thus always treating the person in the mirror as another person?”

Tang Mianmian listened and froze from the realization, while Duan Hongzhen raised his eyebrows. “It’s a bit interesting, so do you think this is the case with Lippinobert?”

“It’s hard to say,” Xiao Tangqiu looked at the countless reflections in the mirrors. “At least so far, we haven’t found any material evidence related to Lily Marlene… Does Lily Marlene really exist?”

Tang Mianmian was confused by the implications made by Xiao Tangqiu words. “Why is it that I seem to understand less and less about what you are saying? Why haven’t we found any clues about Lilly Marlene? Yesterday in the town of Daemon, didn’t you say Lily Marlene might have died due to the ignorance of the town’s residents? You also said that there might have been a plague in Daemon town, so they burned Lily Marlene alive for being a witch who brought disaster… “

Xiao Tangqiu grinned. “I did say so. I didn’t say that Lily Marlene never existed. She could’ve existed and indeed suffered from her ill fortune. But the witch hunting era happened hundreds of years ago. Unless Lily Marlene was really a witch, she couldn’t have lived to this day, right? So how did Lippinobert know her?”

Tang Mianmian finally got his point. “I see what you mean. Do you mean it’s possible Lily Marlene exists, but the ‘Lily Marlene’ married to Lippinobert never existed?”

Xiao Tangqiu nodded, “Yes, that’s what I mean.”

Lily Marlene may really exist, but the poor woman was burned alive by the ignorant residents of Daemon town as a witch who spread the plague… Who was the “Lily Marlene” married to Lippinobert?

“We found the pocket watches and photos of Laura, Maria and Veronika, as well as Alice. These things can at least prove that they really existed, but we have never found anything related to Lily Marlene…”

Xiao Tangqiu had wondered before why they couldn’t find Lily Marlene’s pocket watch.

Now the answer to this question was before them.

Because this castle never had Lily’s Marlene pocket watch to begin with.