After sweeping the grave, McFlin was going to the market to get some fresh catch and vegetables, saying that he would show them at noon, and thank Ann Yizhi for helping him clear his grievances.

Ann pointed out that they didn't follow this time, and when he went to sweep the grave, he had already learned the general layout of the town from McFllyn, and was ready to gather information.

So the four of them parted after entering the town, and McFlyn ran to the market near the docks, while Ann pointed them to the library on the left side of the town.

After all, the town used to be very prosperous, and many of the hardware facilities were very good, and McFlin thought that they wanted to go to the library to look up information about the mines, so he didn't think it was strange.

On the way, we passed a tall building, and people came in and out from time to time.

McFflyn mentioned that this place was the town's meeting place, and it was usually the place where important things were done, such as funerals or weddings.

Thinking of the two people who died on the ship, it is estimated that this is a funeral for them.

When the three of them came to the library, they could see the traces of time, many places looked very dilapidated, and the town had no money to renovate it, so it could only be so dilapidated.

Next door to the library is a building of the same style, which McFlin says was originally a school, but the school has long since closed because there are so few newborns and most of them follow their parents outside.

What is more striking is that there is a stone sculpture at the entrance of the library, which looks like a large disc with an iron tong in the middle, facing the sun like a sunflower.

This is a sundial that can tell the time by shadows, and it was relied on in ancient times when there were no clocks.

An pointed over to check and found a name engraved underneath the sundial.

'Locke. Rupert'

This name should be Daddy Locke who died from the fall of the chandelier, so the Oriental invention of the corona was made by Daddy Locke?

The disc of the corona is usually engraved with the words "time", but this corona may be due to the poor material, or because the time has passed, the engraved lines have long been blurred, and only a few rough straight lines extend from the iron drill in the center to the edge.

"What's wrong?"

"It's nothing, just a little curious, how can the islands near the Mediterranean Sea have something from our Celestial Empire?"

"What's so strange about this, the sundial is a symbol of culture and wisdom in the eyes of foreigners, and it is perfectly normal to put it in front of the library"

As Tu Hongyu said, this is probably just to catch up with fashion. For example, foreigners who like to walk around the streets in shirts with Chinese characters printed on them don't even know that they actually have 'stupid foreigners' printed on them......

–‐‐——–‐‐——

Entering the library, it was not closed, and there was a thin old man guarding the door with a pipe in his mouth.

Don't underestimate him, he is the mayor of the town, because the town is too small, and there is no official business to do, so he works part-time as a librarian, although no one has necessarily come to borrow books for a long time.

"Who are you? Visitor? ”

The old man asked vigilantly when he saw the three players.

"Hello Mr. Mayor, we are geologists sent by the government to explore whether the Houshan mine can still produce gemstones, and we would like to borrow the previous records before starting the exploration work."

An Yizhi still uses this set of rhetoric to fool people, mainly because this set of rhetoric is very effective for the townspeople.

The mayor of the town was happy when he heard this, and of course he hoped that the mines would be able to mine the gems again, but he was still quite wary, after all, there was no basis for his words.

"Where's your paperwork?"

If you want to, Ann pointed out that they have no documents.

However, since An Yizhi dared to say this, he must have thought about his backhand.

"The documents you want are on the way, you know, it's slow to do things according to the rules after all, and the three of us came first as early personnel."

Of course, the mayor of the town will not be fooled so simply, An Yizhi asked Qingfeng Bazuka to reveal his police gun, and said:

"She's the policeman who protects us, even if you don't believe us, you should know this badge."

The old mayor still didn't believe it, but police guns can't be faked, and even if they are fake, what are they trying to do? There weren't any precious books in the library, so there was no need to lie to him.

After hesitating for a while, the old mayor said:

"What do you want to see?"

"Something related to geology, especially to the history of the mine and the town"

"History, too? Geological exploration has nothing to do with the history of the town, right? ”

"No, no, you may not know that many people who write history will write about the relevant major events, and for Chisa Island, mining is undoubtedly a big event, and we need these materials to make early judgments"

The argument was somewhat convincing, and the old mayor said wait a minute, and went into the bookshelf to search. After a while, he brought several books and put them on the table:

"Everything is here"

"So little?"

There are less than 10 books in total, and all of them are thin.

"I wasn't born when the town opened mines, the town has been prosperous for a total of decades, only this bit of information, earlier everyone had a problem with eating, how could anyone be idle and have nothing to write a book"

Westerners are not as good as Orientals in this regard, they have no habit of writing history, a collection of short poems Homer's epics have been regarded as history books by Western descendants, which shows how thin they are in the narrative of history, which is like the Celestial Empire, and there are perfect history books to check early on.

But it's not a big problem, anyway, they just came to the library to try their luck, and now there is no news about the mission objectives, not even the main quest has been updated, generally speaking, there are clues in places like the library, purely dead horses as live horse doctors.

The three of them divided the books and read them separately.

An Yi pointed to the history of the development of the town.

According to the book, the island's inhabitants date back to the 16th century, when they were shipwrecked on a desert island during the Great Voyage, and then they simply settled on the island, and the town gradually became formed.

For this part of history, the account in the book can be said to be a passing one, so it can be seen that the author is not very sure, after all, the news comes from the story passed down by the residents.

Keep scrolling down and it becomes more detailed.

1852, March. The town organized the first prospecting trip, which took two months and yielded nothing.

The following year, also in March, the town organized another prospecting activity, and this time they found an exposed coal deposit in the back mountain, which experts said was only a small coal mine and had little mining value.

In June of the same year, the mayor decided that even the raw coal mined from a small coal mine could improve the lives of the residents, so he organized personnel to excavate the open-pit coal mine.

In August of the same year, after two months of excavation, the open-pit coal mine was gradually hollowed out, and the islanders lacked experience in drilling and did not dare to dig deeper, but the coal mines exported in the past two months made everyone's money bags a little richer. The mayor decided to hire a professional driller to dig the mine, what if there was coal underneath?

July 1854. The drilling work lasted for three months, and the engineer in charge of mining approached the mayor and said that there was no coal underneath and that it would be a waste of time to dig any further.

March 1855. The mayor of the town, who had spent all his savings and continued to dig, finally paid off, and the drillers dug a natural cave with an underground lake and a large amount of raw gemstones and crystals of various colors.

The discovery delighted the townspeople and attracted a large number of outsiders, and the town prospered.

The next paragraph was about to be skipped, because it was written like 'what new facilities have been built in the town', 'how much is the annual income?' and so on.

I quickly flipped through two pages, and only then did I find the different variations.

In 1895, it was difficult to find any more ore in the mines, and for a month nothing was produced, causing everyone to be disturbed, outsiders leaving, and the town began to decline because of the loss of an important pillar industry.

1899, March. Forced excavation without the help of professional engineers led to a mining disaster. A total of 30 miners died.

This is the last record, which, combined with the information he received from McFlin, was the same time he lost his father when the mining accident occurred.

At first glance, this history is nothing more than a record of a small town going from ordinary to prosperous, and then from prosperity to decay, and at first glance there is nothing suspicious, but An Yizhi always feels that something is not right.

Re-skimming, he found that both the discovery of the vein and the eventual accident, albeit of a different age, all occurred in March.

Closing his eyes, An Yizhi recalled the calendar in the detective agency when he first entered the dungeon, yes, the dungeon time is now March!

There is any connection between the fact that there are often big events in March, and it is also the return day of migrant workers, combined with the eerie scene I saw last night?

An Yizhi put down the book, his fingers knocked on the table, and then he saw Tu Hongyu and Qingfeng Bazuka also come back to their senses from the books, first nodded at them covertly, and then said to the mayor:

"Thank you, these materials are very useful, we plan to go to the location of the mine in the afternoon, the information says that the mine has collapsed, I wonder if we can still enter it now?"

"Yes, not all of them collapsed, only the bottom part of the landslide, but because of the danger, we locked the gate."

"Can it be opened?"

"This ......"

A hint of embarrassment flashed across the old mayor's face:

"I don't know where the key is for a long time, but it doesn't matter, the lock is easy to open, you can find an axe to split it"

An Yizhi was speechless, judging from the time, it was the current mayor who locked the gate, but he actually lost the key......

–‐‐——–‐‐——

Bidding farewell to the old mayor, the three of them left the library, and when they passed the sundial at the door again, Shi An suddenly had a flash of inspiration, and reached out to take out the pocket watch from his pocket.

"What are you doing with it? Isn't that thing unopenable? ”

"It's true that it can't be opened, but that's because we didn't find the right way"

"You've found it now?"

"Of course"

An Yizhi smiled proudly, pointed to the sundial and said:

"This sundial was carved by Daddy Locke, and the pocket watch is also Daddy Locke's, and both are not only related to him, but they are also timekeeping tools, which is enough to make me think of it"

After hearing this, the two suddenly realized that there is indeed a connection between the two that is difficult to ignore.

Feeling the remaining engraved lines on the sundial, Ann pointed up the pocket watch, pointed the round clockwork at him, and turned the clockwork in turn according to the position on the engraved line.

"It's done!"

There was a soft click, the back cover of the pocket watch opened, and the three of them looked inside.

There were three thumb-sized crystals, identical to the stones McFlin had shown, carefully guarded in a fuchsia flannel.

An Yizhi was a little disappointed and puzzled, he thought there was a clue in the pocket watch, but it turned out to be this thing.

However, there is still a clue, the number of crystals is three, and among the people who returned home on the ship, excluding Locke's father with a crystal around his neck, there are exactly three people who do not have crystals.

This means that the crystal was originally intended to be given to the three of them? But why? Could it be that the inhabitants of the island must bring crystals with them when they return home?

Just as they were wondering, the crystal suddenly floated out of thin air, which startled the three players, and they quickly dispersed.

But they were still a step slower, and the crystal flew towards them with a whoosh. An reached out to grasp it, but the crystal passed through his palm like a disembodied phantom and hit his chest straight into his chest......