170: The Ghost of the Clockmaker

"My god..."

Wang Dalong stared at the study before him, which resembled a landfill, and was utterly dumbfounded.

The dust mixed with the musty smell of old paper made him cough uncontrollably.

"Brother Feng, this... this will take forever to go through!" he wailed, feeling his scalp tingle. "This is even crazier than when we did the 'Five-Three' for the college entrance exam! At least that had answer keys—where are we supposed to find answers for this ghostly mess?"

However, Lin Feng seemed not to hear his lament.

He slowly removed the black-framed glasses from his nose.

Standing ramrod straight, his gaze moved slowly and steadily from one end of the room to the other.

Bookshelves, floors, corners of the ceiling—no pile of clutter was overlooked.

"Fatty, let's get to work."

His voice wasn't loud, but it was crisp and cold, like two pieces of ice colliding.

"Huh? How... how do we start?" Wang Dalong was intimidated by his aura and stammered.

"All paper documents, sort by year and type."

"All maps, scan them all, create digital layers, and calibrate the coordinates."

"All photos, take high-resolution reproductions, input them into the database, and conduct image comparison analysis."

Lin Feng's instructions were calm and clear, without a hint of hesitation.

"I want this room, in its physical entirety, completely transferred into our computers within twelve hours."

Wang Dalong was stunned, taking three seconds to snap out of it.

Looking at Lin Feng's expressionless profile, he couldn't help but shiver.

"Yes, sir, my 'Emperor' Majesty!"

Wang Dalong wailed, but his face showed a mix of resignation and excitement.

He swung his equipment bag, which resembled an arsenal box, and the zipper ripped open with a loud rustle, revealing various high-tech gadgets glowing with faint indicator lights.

Portable high-speed scanners, professional-grade DSLR cameras, multi-angle fill lights, a laptop matrix... the next second, two tireless precision machines officially started up.

The entire study instantly came to life!

"Rustle—"

Lin Feng was in charge of sorting and filtering.

Countless pieces of information he deemed useless were mercilessly tossed aside, piling up into a new "garbage mountain."

Things like "On the Evolution of European Royal Coat of Arms," "Manual of 18th-Century Noble Social Etiquette," "List of Potato Suppliers for the German Army Logistics Department"... all were swept into the trash heap.

Only documents involving keywords like "Schutzstaffel," "archaeology," "the East," "mysticism," and "codes" were precisely extracted and categorized.

"Fatty, Zone A, 1938-1940, Schutzstaffel secret files, prioritize!"

"Roger!"

Wang Dalong deftly picked up the documents and placed them on the high-speed scanner.

"Hum—hum—"

The scanner emitted a soft hum as yellowed pages rapidly digitized on the computer screen.

"Zone B, all maps, scan and bundle them to me!"

"Got it!"

Time passed minute by minute in this near-frenzied collaboration.

The sunlight outside turned from gold to orange-red, then sank below the horizon. Night deepened, only to be replaced by the pale dawn in the east.

A few glaring white work lights lit up in the study, casting the two men's elongated and distorted shadows on the wall.

Ten hours later.

"Gulp... gulp... ah—"

Wang Dalong crushed his fifth empty Red Bull can, eyes bloodshot, feeling like he might ascend to heaven at any moment.

He slumped in his chair like a pile of mud, groaning weakly.

"I can't do it anymore... Brother Feng, I feel like I'm about to die from overwork."

He turned to look at Lin Feng, only to see him still alert and upright, sitting before three large, spliced-together display screens.

The screens were filled with dense data streams and constantly flashing, comparing images—the information density was enough to crash any normal person's brain in three seconds.

"Brother Feng," Wang Dalong's voice took on a tearful tone, "we've gone through all the materials, and it's all useless stuff! Things like WWII German military organization, European folklore, and a bunch of watch design drawings... I believe the old man was a Watchmaker, but what does this have to do with treasure or the nine tripods you mentioned?"

However, Lin Feng didn't speak.

He didn't even glance back at Wang Dalong.

He was completely focused on a photo in the center of the screen.

It was an old photo of this workshop, black and white and somewhat blurry.

The subject of the photo was the missing Howard Cavendish.

He was sitting at a workbench piled with parts, head bowed, intently polishing a gear.

A very ordinary candid shot.

Wang Dalong had scanned this photo at least ten times and found nothing special, aside from remarking, "This guy's pretty handsome."

But Lin Feng seemed captivated by something in the background of the photo.

It was a massive and ornate grandfather clock.

Its design was extremely complex; the clock face didn't have ordinary numbers but a sophisticated mechanical structure simulating the solar system's planetary movements.

At that moment, a mechanical prompt suddenly sounded in Lin Feng's mind!

[Ding!]

[Key historical item detected: Howard Cavendish's Custom-Made 'Copernican Orrery' grandfather clock.]

[System analysis: The internal structure of this item contains non-standard components, suspected to contain hidden information.]

Lin Feng's pupils contracted sharply.

He shot up from his chair!

The movement was so swift that it knocked over the chair behind him with a loud crash.

"Heavens! Brother Feng, what are you doing? You scared me!" Wang Dalong was startled, nearly falling off his chair.

Lin Feng ignored him, quickly scanning the study, his gaze landing on the innermost corner.

There, a tall piece of furniture covered by a large white dust cloth, piled with clutter, had gone unnoticed.

He strode over, swung his arm, and yanked off the dust-covered cloth!

"Rustle—"

"Cough, cough, cough!"

The billowing dust in the morning sunlight was like an exploding smoke grenade, making Wang Dalong cough repeatedly.

As the dust settled.

A grandfather clock, identical to the one in the photo—ancient, ornate, and full of mechanical beauty—stood silently before them.

It was like a monarch forgotten for over seventy years; even covered in dust, its exquisite construction and majesty were undeniable.

The clock had stopped.

The slender hand was forever frozen at the "9:15" position.

"Brother Feng, what are you doing? What's so interesting about this broken clock?" Wang Dalong rubbed his eyes and curiously leaned in. "It's been stopped for seventy years—can it still chime out a gold ingot?"

Lin Feng still didn't answer.

He reached out, his fingers still dust-stained, and gently placed them on the long-stopped minute hand.

A cold metal sensation transmitted from his fingertips.

Holding his breath, he applied an extremely light force and nudged it.

Just as he slowly moved the minute hand from the "15-minute" position to "16 minutes."

"Click."

A faint yet crystal-clear sound emanated from deep within the grandfather clock's base in the silent study.

"What was that?" Wang Dalong was startled, his hair standing on end.

Lin Feng's heart stirred!

He immediately crouched down and felt around the clock base, covered in a thick layer of dust.

His fingers moved like the most precise probes, inch by inch, over the wood carved with intricate patterns.

Soon, he found an extremely tiny protrusion, almost blending into the wood grain.

This was it!

Without hesitation, he pressed hard!

"Creak—squeak—"

A dry turning sound followed.

Wang Dalong watched, dumbfounded, as a small hidden drawer, no larger than a palm, slowly popped out from the massive solid wood base of the grandfather clock!

Inside the drawer, there was no map, no mysterious key, nor any slip of paper with a password, as they had imagined.

Only one thing lay quietly on the faded velvet lining.

It was an exquisitely crafted monocle, made of brass and crystal.

The lens was crystal clear, the frame glowing with the warm luster unique to brass, small and distinctive.

Wang Dalong recognized it at a glance.

This was the professional-grade magnifying eyepiece used only by top-tier Watchmakers when repairing extremely precise mechanisms!

"That's it?" Wang Dalong was dumbfounded. He carefully picked up the object. "A magnifying glass? Brother Feng, after all our Herculean effort, pulling an all-nighter, this is what we dig out of this garbage heap?"