Chapter Ch123.1 - Black Mass

translator: xiin

editors: apricot & juurensha

Six o’clock in the morning.

After sleeping for seven hours, Wu Jin woke up happy. He crumpled up the pillow and quilt, rolling around before getting up in satisfaction, and jumping out of the king size bed barefoot.

In the main hall of the Grand Trianon Palace, Vera passed bread and butter to Wu Jin, while Wei Shi appeared from the opposite direction to Wu Jin’s room.

In the show’s live broadcast room, Blood Pigeon had just gotten up, and most of the audience were still making up for lost sleep. Only a few scrolling comments appeared when Wei Shi showed up, and they were full of “Ohhhhh” sighs.

Blood Pigeon: “???”

The program producer handed him the script and yawned, “Ignore them. These CP fans just wish Little Witch and Little Wei would blaze up like fire on dry wood, and insist on them cuddling together to sleep… Ah, ah, give me a cigarette, I’m too lazy to brush my teeth…”

The livestream camera switched, and it cut to show a collection of exciting fights from the last 8 hours.

Grand Trianon Palace.

As expected, Wei Shi kept his promise and handed Vera the information they needed before disappearing with Chu Chu in the direction of the Palace of Versailles.

“They’re going to go clear the Louis XIV card instance.” Wu Jin thought about it, “It’s probably going to be the first purple card cleared since the start of the game.”

Vera rummaged through the book and suddenly thought of something. She spoke with a trace of lingering fear, “It’s a good thing that we were only given the clues in the morning. If it had been last night––when Montespan’s second round of clues comes out, other players would rush to the Grand Trianon in the middle of the night once they saw the card.”

Vera spread her hands, “And we wouldn’t be able to catch up on sleep.”

Wu Jin choked on a bun, and two sentences popped up in his mind, “The rest will be delivered in the form of a wake-up story.” and “Didn’t I come and solve this special situation for you.”

The youth quickly buried his head in his food, but he couldn’t keep the corner of his mouth from rising up.

After the two of them finished resting up, Vera finally looked at her wrist watch and said, “305 still alive. The dance starts at 8PM, and there’s still 13 hours left.”

Wu Jin nodded and began search through the information at full speed.

“Madame de Montespan was Louis XIV’s most famous mistress. Her power and honor eclipsed even that of the Queen, and she was known as ‘the real Queen of France’.” Vera dug out an unofficial history of the Sun King, “Montespan gave birth to seven children by Louis XIV and was officially expelled in 1680. In the end, the King forbade his children from meeting with her and didn’t allow anyone to mourn her death…”

Wu Jin nodded and quickly caught onto the key words, “1680… In 1680, Montespan was accused by the police for her involvement in a famous… event.”

Wu Jin paused.

Vera came over to take a look, and saw a French word looming in the records: Messe Noire.

“What does that mean?!”

The two of them exchanged glances, but after going through all the accusations, they were only able obtain a few scant words.

“If this was a royal scandal, and the King’s first mistress was the one being accused,” Wu Jin closed the book, “Louis XIV was likely to have used all possible measures to wipe out Madame de Montespan’s name and erase all relevant records. The clues aren’t here.”

Vera rubbed her forehead and watched on as Wu Jin opened up the map of the Grand Trianon palace.

“Let’s go to Montespan’s room.” Wu Jin pointed to one location, “Also, we need to know how she fell out of favor.”

In the corridor paved with pink marble, Wu Jin quickly strode ahead.

The entire Grand Trianon Palace was dream-like in the sunlight, the pink crystals reflecting brilliant lights, and the grass outside dotted with iris and orange trees.

––These were the two most admired natural icons belonging to the Bourbon royal family.

The entire palace was once a gift from Louis XIV to Madame de Montespan, whose glory couldn’t be matched by any French queen.

Louis XIV had been so generous towards his mistress that it was hard to imagine how the lady had ended up being banished by the King.

Behind him, Vera was still flipping through the books. The Hyacinth Show young woman’s dynamic vision was extremely powerful––she was able to distinguish between the small characters on the page accurately and without effort despite running at a pace used for long-distance.

“In 1669, Madame de Montespan gave birth to the King’s first child and hired a governess. This tutor couldn’t be a young and beautiful girl, so she chose an old widow––who was later on known as Madame de Maintenon.”

Wu Jin paused, “Madame de Maintenon?”

In the records of the recipes in the perfumery room, along with Louis XIV, the Queen, and Madame de Montespan, the other person mentioned had been the governess, Maintenon.

Vera flipped back a few pages and stilled, “Later on, the king fell hopelessly in love with the governess Maintenon.”

The book snapped shut.

At the same time, on one side of the King’s chamber in the Trianon Palace, Madame de Montespan’s room finally opened up.

There was a strong vanilla, jasmine, and orange blossom fragrance. The red velvet curtains hung from the high ceilings and brushed against the elaborately embroidered bed. Facing this big bed was a painting of the female owner of this room.

The foremost beauty of France, the Marquise of Montespan.

The woman in the painting was young and beautiful, with a taste in clothing that wouldn’t go out of fashion for decades, or even centuries. Her cheeks were high, arrogant and sharp, but it didn’t prevent the charm in her bones from shining through.

“Any mistress of the King will eventually fall out of favor.” Vera shrugged her shoulders, “Given that the King’s next mistress was the governess that she’d hired, Montespan still had an advantage. Although––”

Vera sighed, “Not only did the King fall in love with Maintenon, the children also loved the governess more than their mother.”

Wu Jin looked at the lady in the painting and nodded, “It was a psychological gap.”

The two of them rolled up their sleeves and began to search through Montespan’s room. Vera expressed, “Having lost the King’s love, the Grand Trianon Palace and its property became the most important thing! And what is the most important thing in the 31st century? Housing!”

The female contestant pushed open a wardrobe, and the corner of her mouth twitched slightly, “Several dresses are missing.”

Wu Jin immediately asked, “Could it be a clue––”

Vera closed the wardrobe and shook her head, “No, I think Chu Chu was the one who took them. For Chu Chu to take away six dresses means that this madame’s taste in clothing was very outstanding. At the very least, she was a clever mistress.”

Wu Jin thought of the big basket Chu Chu had taken with her as they were leaving, containing some unknown supplies, and nodded in a daze. By the time the two of them opened up the second curtain in the suite––

Wu Jin took two steps back.

An old painting hung there. A woman lay naked on the grass, and a strange pattern was drawn out behind her. A priest handed her a baby––to be precise, its neck was at an unnatural angle, and its cheeks and chest were marred by blue and purple bruises.

“The priest’s left hand.” Vera spoke and suddenly began to tremble.

It was a bloody dagger.

“What is this?!” Vera’s face was nauseated. This painting wasn’t complicated. Other than the dagger and the dead baby, the depiction of the beautiful woman, the priest, and the scene was the same as any romantic portrait from the 18th century. The sun was shining in the painting, but the painting made people’s backs go cold.

Wu Jin looked at the profile of the woman’s face, “It’s Madame de Montespan.” He looked up, and the pink marble walls glistened, “To the east of the Grand Trianon––” He narrowed his eyes, “The orange grove.”

Wu Jin’s voice had just fallen when the card in his pocket turned hot.

The red dot that marked the second round of clues appeared on the map sketched out with rough lines.

East of the Grand Trianon, E110.

The two of them traded glances and turned around to run to the target location.

Wu Jin quickly sorted out the clues as they ran, “Montespan was banished in 1680, and the accusation was the ‘Messe Noire’, a term with unknown meaning––it’s very likely to be related to the painting hanging there. Before that, she had seven children, which meant that there was at least seven years before the governess, Madame de Maintenon took her place.”

“The timeline should be in favor, then out of favor and accused.”

“The new clues are the priest, the dead baby, and the array––”

Wu Jin pressed his lips together, “Sacrifice.”

Vera’s mouth opened wide.

At this time, most of the players were in the Palace of Versailles, and the two were apparently the first to arrive at the clue’s location. The array on the ground seemed almost fake with how realistic it was. The reddish brown liquid was solid beneath their feet, and the soil had traces of being freshly turned over.

A shovel had been tossed away at the foot of a tree not far away.

“I’ll do it.” Wu Jin didn’t hesitate to roll up his sleeves and have Vera hang out by the side.

The dry and hard soil was far more difficult to handle than Wu Jin had imagined. It took him almost a quarter of an hour before a piece of parchment appeared in view.

Wu Jin bent down to pick it up, and it looked like a broken corner of a piece of parchment, “She can easily obtain his heart. As for me, for over 10 years, in order to stabilize Louis’s love, I would turn to Catherine every month to sacrifice a stillborn baby at mass, and pray for him to change his mind. ––Montespan.”

“Catherine.” Wu Jin frowned, “We’re going to find this Catherine that Montespan mentioned. She should be a regular guest of the queen, one who had a high position and knew the court’s secrets. She also had enough means to provide hundreds of stillborn babies for the King’s mistress to complete the prayer for the King’s favor––” The key words once again linked up in Wu Jin’s mind.

Sacrifice, priest, mass. Messe noire.

Messe.

“Sacrificial mass, a Black Mass.”

Montespan would crush the dead baby against her naked body, using the blood, bone, and skin tissue from the stillborn to strengthen the King’s love for her.

Vera sucked in a breath of cold air, her previous sympathy for Madame de Montespan finally turning into disgust.

Wu Jin looked at the hard soil, “There’s something else underneath. I’ll continue to dig down––”

Vera suddenly looked up.