"Wish me luck? Yes, I do need some good luck right now." After hearing the receptionist's blessing, Liang En nodded slightly and replied.
To be honest, sometimes searching for these historical relics and uncovering the truths of history does require some luck. In fact, luck plays a major role in some significant discoveries.
Some people might find what they want with a single shovel, while others might dig through almost the entire land only to narrowly miss what they're looking for.
"So beautiful!" When they all reached the top of the tower, Joan of Arc's gaze passed over the low wall, looking at the lake and the distant snowy mountains, and she exclaimed.
"Yes, if we're just talking about the scenery, this place is indeed nice," Liang En said softly with some helplessness. "It's a pity it's too far from home and too remote."
"You're right. Driving on the mountain roads for so long just to get here is quite exhausting," Joan of Arc recalled the long journey earlier and said, "And we don't usually come to Italy."
Indeed, some wealthy people might buy houses around the world and leave them empty as investments, but that premise requires those real estates to have value. Unfortunately, the value of this castle is too stable.
"I thought castles were valuable," Marie Antoinette also glanced at the surrounding scenery and said, "I didn't expect there to be old castles without investment value."
"That's why you have to analyze specific issues specifically. This kind of property just looks great but, in reality, its value is just so-so," Elizabeth explained her investment philosophy.
"So I am currently doing something to increase the value of the castle," Liang En said, looking at the strange symbols on the castle's stone walls. "Let's record these symbols first and then see if there's any pattern."
As Liang En finished speaking, the three ladies immediately took out their phones and began recording the carvings on the stones one by one.
As they recorded, the symbols carved on the floor and low walls were documented and gradually pieced together to reveal the entire set of symbols on the top floor of the tower.
"Now we can confirm that there are over 320 symbols carved on the tower, and these symbols are very evenly distributed across the top floor platform of the tower."
In the evening, Liang En and the three women sat around a computer analyzing the previously photographed content. After completing the handover work, the receptionist left, leaving only the four of them to explore.
The exciting part was that although this castle was the only building on the island, it still had running water and electricity, allowing them to conduct their research smoothly.
"Yes, and I think these symbols are not randomly carved," Marie Antoinette said after carefully examining the symbols.
"How did you figure that out?" Liang En raised his head in surprise upon hearing Marie's words. Unlike Joan of Arc, she had not received training in this area, so making such a judgment was indeed surprising.
"Because these symbols have a special aesthetic that doesn't seem like random carvings," Marie thought for a moment and then explained.
"More importantly, the granite used to build the castle is very hard. Carving anything on it is a time-consuming and labor-intensive task. Therefore, what is carved here must be significant."
"What you're saying is probably the truth. Although there is no direct evidence, it is the most reasonable explanation based on various circumstances," Liang En nodded.
As everyone knows, the passage of time causes the world to undergo significant changes, resulting in the loss of vast amounts of information. Today, people reconstructing the past through records and relics depend on many factors.
The most crucial factor is the summary of existing clues and reasonable inference. Whether the inference is accurate depends not only on sufficient clues but also on luck.
Now, Marie Antoinette's inference is the limit of what can be deduced from these known clues. From a rational perspective, it should be very close to the truth, but unfortunately, its value is not very high.
"About 20 symbols are missing, which means that theoretically, it doesn't affect the information these symbols convey," Liang En said to the three ladies.
"According to my statistics, half of these symbols are newly created, while the other half come from various religions, including the dominant Christian sects of that era and some extinct ones."
"Very strange. Normal people would never do this," Elizabeth said, puzzled. In her time, Hungary was a place where mysticism was prevalent, but she had never seen such a bizarre combination of symbols.
Even mysticism follows a series of principles; it's not about piling up unknown things and calling it mysticism.
"Could these things be a code?" Marie suddenly had an idea. "Are these symbols tools for those people to convey some information?"
"Not likely. As you just mentioned, carving these symbols is time-consuming and laborious. Using this method to convey information is not only covert but also extremely inefficient," Liang En shrugged.
"What kind of person, or what kind of information, would make someone come to this heavily guarded castle tower and spend days carving on the stones? More importantly, doing so without anyone noticing."
"You're right. So the creator of these symbols is most likely the owner of the castle at that time," Joan of Arc quickly gave her final judgment following Liang En's words.
"As for leaving these clues, it's very likely for conveying some information, but this information should be long-term and stable, rather than for urgent communication."
"Yes, long-term and stable information," Liang En extracted the core of Joan of Arc's words, "So I guess this is likely related to some treasure."
"Your idea is obviously reasonable, but I've been thinking about one question: why would someone leave such complex information as clues to guide others to find hidden treasures?" Elizabeth asked, puzzled.
After all, hiding wealth requires either absolute secrecy or a lot of security measures, so these puzzle-like documents always seem suspicious.
"In fact, in some special circumstances, it is very normal to use secret methods to preserve information," Liang En explained seriously.
"For example, if the original owner of these items had some wealth that was not suitable for public exposure, they often hid these things to leave for their descendants."
"In such cases, using cryptic messages to inform their descendants of the hidden location becomes a common practice. However, not all heirs can obtain what they want; many things are ultimately forgotten."
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