Chapter 48

Chapter 48

Chapter 48

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Edward rode in his own carriage all the way to the outskirts of Queens and arrived at his destination on time, just five minutes after eight o'clock.

This is the mansion purchased by Mr. Miller Carter, a new businessman in Backlund, but it is not where he lives. Although he has settled in Backlund, his new house is being renovated. Now he is holding a dinner party to show his face in front of the upper and middle classes in Backlund. He invited his familiar friends and asked his friends to introduce new people to expand his network. When the new house is renovated, there will be an even more grand banquet.

After the red-vest servant confirmed His invitation, he took the gift from the coachman and led Him through the front yard with a garden and a pond to the main entrance of the house.

The driver, who had kept his head down, drove the carriage to a secluded place on the street. In the air, the smoke filled the street and he and the carriage disappeared together.

Edward Vaughan put the small glass bottle in his hand into his sleeves. He stroked the head of his gold-inlaid cane, admired the garden of the mansion, and walked slowly beside the butler. As soon as he walked into the gate, he saw a gentleman in a formal suit, with slightly gray temples, deep wrinkles on his face, but a pair of sharp blue eyes, who came to greet him.

This must be the initiator of tonight's banquet, Mr. Miller Carter. Edward took the East Chester County specialty wine he brought from the butler, handed it to the gentleman, and saluted with a smile:

"Sorry, I'm a little late."

The serious old gentleman, Mr. Carter, took the red wine and replied with a smile: "It doesn't matter, the banquet hasn't started yet."

"Your operas are all excellent. I have admired you for a long time. I never thought I could invite you to the banquet."

"You're too kind." Edward responded skillfully. In Loen, implicit compliments to the host are an important social etiquette, which is slightly different from Intis's relatively straightforward praise. "I am very happy to be friends with you from the east coast of the Sea of ​​​​Break. I am very yearning for the scenery there."

Hearing this, Mr. Miller Carter was obviously very happy. The two talked about the customs and culture of Jianhai County, and it seemed that both the host and the guest were happy. After walking through the corridor of about ten meters, it was the hall, and the banquet was about to begin. Mr. Carter had other people to greet, so he sent them to the place and said goodbye. Edward glanced around the ballroom, took a glass of light brown pre-dinner champagne from the tray of a passing waiter, and slowly tasted it at a place against the wall.

Soon, Mr. Carter returned to the hall. The banquet began and the band played the first dance. He was not in a hurry to find a dance partner, but slowly looked at the long dining table, trying to find some food that interested him. At this moment, he felt some subtle breath coming from behind him.

"Good evening, Mr. Vaughan. When did you arrive?"

A spirited young man who often chatted with him at the Krag Club - Edward's mind quickly flashed through this string of adjectives and pointed to a specific noun - Talim.

Edward slowly turned around and felt the cold air blowing towards him. He saw Talim, who was smiling, and also saw the ferocious black cobra that was tightly wrapped around Talim and hissing. The snake's tail penetrated his clothes and embedded in his left chest, as if it had come out of Talim's heart.

The demon and the snake stared at each other for half a second.

"I just arrived not long ago." He replied, and then asked a question very abruptly, "You seem to have quite good luck with women recently?"

You provoked the witch? He stopped looking at the snarling cobra and speculated with interest: This curse is not difficult to remove, but it is very interesting to study it in depth. Talim is a young man with good conduct. As a descendant of the nobility, he is well-received in the middle and upper classes. He has been working normally in the club recently, and there are no rumors that he is in love with a woman. But this curse has really appeared on him, and it is a curse that can take his life at any time and will not cause any damage to the body. He will suddenly fall down according to the will of the caster, as if he had a sudden heart attack and died.

Why would a very normal young nobleman be targeted by the witch? Edward looked at the cobra again.

"Romance luck? It seems to be a word invented by Emperor Roselle?"

"Yes, it means that you are popular with the opposite sex." Edward took a sip of champagne slowly, stared at the black snake for another second, and then looked away. "How is your life recently, Mr. Talim?"

Talim was stunned for a moment, then he became a little alert, as if he had thought of something, wondering when he had let the cat out of the bag. But he didn't see any clues from Edward's face, so he was relieved and said self-deprecatingly, "I don't have any luck with women. I don't know how you can tell. If it's really like you said, it would be fine if I had a few beautiful and caring ladies around. ... Alas, speaking of beautiful ladies, I have indeed met one quite often recently, but she has given me a lot of trouble."

"It looks like you haven't enjoyed the beauty of a relationship."

"Love? Don't talk nonsense!" Talim said hurriedly. The cobra wrapped around him lowered its head slightly, showing its fangs, as if looking for a place to bite. As long as its mouth opened, it could swallow Talim, who was not short, whole. "That girl has nothing to do with me. She is in love with a friend of mine. On the contrary, I sincerely wish her love to be successful and that the two can live in harmony."

Edward shook the goblet in his hand very slightly, and the meaningful expression on his face made Talim feel a little guilty.

"Hey, I get it—" He figured out the connection and teased quietly, "It's the one you mentioned before. My suggestion is still to elope."

Talim's eyes suddenly widened.

"No, don't mention it!" He leaned forward hastily and lowered his voice. "I, I heard that you have been busy with the opera commission at the end of the year. Can you tell me about the current progress of your work? Yes, yes, I have some interesting rumors to talk to you about. Yes, the last time I talked to you about Mr. Miller Carter's house, I also wanted to introduce you to Mr. Sherlock Moriarty, the outstanding detective who helped him solve the housing incident."

"The editorial department did not allow me to announce the progress. However, the script adaptation has been completed, and the music score is progressing steadily."

He tried his best to change the subject, and after talking for a while, he finally found a suitable topic, and his content and voice became normal. Edward had no intention of dancing the first dance, but standing there in a daze would be too eye-catching, so he simply followed the other party's intention and asked, "I did establish some friendship with Mr. Moriarty, but I haven't heard him talk about it yet. Do you know the details?"

136
"…Mr. Moriarty is an experienced and excellent detective. He first inspected the basement of my house and found a large number of snakes gathered there. He then brought trained assistants to drive the snakes away. As a result, the basement collapsed during the process. Fortunately, nothing happened to them."

Klein left a very good impression on Mr. Carter. When he came to talk to the guests, he found that Talim and Edward were talking about this, so he immediately joined in, wanting to add some connections to this outstanding detective. When talking about these things, he was a little sad and fortunate: "Fortunately, I chose him, otherwise others might have met with an unexpected event."

"That's amazing." Talim exclaimed, "I knew he must be a very powerful person. He is very skilled!"

"You actually have a large basement under your house..."

Unlike Talim, Edward muttered to himself in a puzzled tone. Mr. Carter heard it, but did not show any surprise, just thinking it was the surprise of a playwright at something strange and mysterious.

So he nodded and added: "Yes, Baron Pound didn't tell me when he bought this house. It was a pleasant surprise."

"Mr. Carter, I would like to ask you a question." Edward thought about why there was a basement on that street that he had no impression of, but failed. So he asked Mr. Carter, "That is to say, after Detective Moriarty found the snake, you didn't go in to take a look until the end of the snake exorcism. And it collapsed at the end, right?"

He originally wanted to say, "You didn't even go in to take a look until it collapsed?" But after thinking about it, he chose to ask a more tactful, gentler question without any hint of meaning.

After all, he had a very good impression of Klein, and questioning him would be counterproductive.

"Yes." Miller Carter had no doubts and even agreed. "Mr. Moriarty immediately reminded me when he found the snake down there, so I stopped sending servants to clean it up, reducing the possibility of casualties. I later checked the basement, and it was undoubtedly in disrepair and had collapsed beyond recognition. Mr. Moriarty's appearance at the time was definitely not fake, he had really experienced a disaster."

"So that's how it is." A slight smile appeared on Edward's lips, and he turned his head and forgot about this answer which had no reference value.

Talim was still enthusiastically exchanging more details about Mr. Moriarty with Miller Carter. Edward glanced up with his eyes slanted, and the black cobra was immediately enraged by the disdainful look, opening its mouth wide enough to swallow Talim's head whole. The demon bared its teeth slightly, revealing a bit of crazy and filthy breath, and the arrogant cobra was suddenly frightened and retracted back to Talim's heart. Talim's expression froze, and the champagne slipped from his hands, rolled over the corner of Edward's clothes closest to him, and shattered on the ground. He clutched his heart with his hands in pain, and was unable to straighten up for several seconds.

The instigator stared indifferently at his back bent in pain.

The sound of shattering glass attracted everyone's attention. Mr. Carter was startled, but just five seconds later, Talim stood up again. His face turned slightly pale, and he forced a smile: "Sorry, Mr. Carter, I suddenly felt a little unwell just now, but I feel better now. Haha, maybe I really should have a good rest recently."

Seeing that he was not seriously injured, the old gentleman breathed a sigh of relief and asked the servant to clean up the glass fragments on the ground.

Afterwards, Edward asked to go to the dressing room to change clothes at the right time. Mr. Carter then called another servant and asked him to take Edward to the rest area to take off the dirty coat and send it for cleaning. After entering the single room, He picked out a bottle labeled "Secret Order-Master of Secret Puppetry-Entity" from his collection cabinet and threw it on the ground.

The glass bottle turned into a puff of white smoke as it fell to the ground, and a ragged middle-aged man kneeling on the ground suddenly appeared in the single room. He trembled for a moment, lowered his head and stood up, his flesh and blood squirming, and in the blink of an eye he turned into another identical Edward Vaughn.

"You know what to do."

"...Yes, Master."

The demon ignored him and grabbed another bottle of "Abraham-Traveler-Soul", opened a door and disappeared into the room.

137
Number 8 Williams Street is the house that Miller Carter bought.

Edward arrived here in an instant after passing through the door. The owner of the house was having a party, and only a few servants were guarding the unfinished house. Building materials were piled up in the messy garden. He walked into the garden as if no one was around, opened the door, and walked silently past the male servant who was dozing on the chair. Finally, he saw a handrail that had just been put up in the corner of the first floor, and the paint had not yet dried.

Edward stood at the entrance to the underground and looked down. He clearly saw a not-so-narrow area inside. However, within the range of his spiritual intuition, this underground space did not exist.

Blocked?

Can the spirituality of an angel be obscured? Can it only be discovered through physical means?

The seal of the true God?
What is underneath? Even if it is a sealed item with strong side effects, the church would never place it in a place where mortals could come into contact with it.

With such doubts in mind, Edward walked down the stairs quietly, step by step. Without the need for lights or candles, he saw that the basement had been preliminarily renovated, with several gas lamps installed. The place to stay was relatively clean, but there was still some gravel and sand a few meters away that had not been cleaned up.

He walked along the rubble. Behind the rubble was a newly built wall.

"The real sealed place is behind this."

"Klein discovered this place, but he chose to blow it up instead of telling anyone else. Does this prove that he felt that the matter had been completely resolved and did not need help from others? Did he discover it by accident, or did the mysterious organization he belonged to ask him to come here and keep it secret?"

Edward muttered to himself, and used the power of the traveler again to open a door here. He walked in, and the piled up stones of all sizes flew up and moved to both sides, leaving a passage wide enough for one person to walk through.

"There are many candlesticks..."

"An Iron Throne? Even this... No, two? The hand holding the power and the black crown, Tudor and Trunsoest - ah, this is not the ruins of Solomon, but the last United Nations where I descended."

Edward immediately saw the era when these historical relics were created, and was slightly disappointed. He had been very interested in the mausoleums where the black emperors slept and resurrected, but he had never been to any of them. Solomon's mausoleum had long been found and destroyed, and Roselle would not let him go.

He continued to walk forward without stopping, and came to several large doors at the end. All the doors were half-closed, and inside were statues of the six gods. They had collapsed in the explosion that covered everything, and were all incomplete.

And the last one, the only one that was still closed, did have something behind it. Dark red blood seeped out from the crack of the door below, and a gloomy atmosphere enveloped it. Edward took a look, stepped on it directly, walked a few steps to the door, and knocked lightly with two fingers together.

Blood flowed down from the crack above the door again - Edward felt a little tired, as if he was watching a low-quality horror movie. But in fact, he was the only one who felt this way. The gloomy atmosphere, unknown creatures, and blood all over the ground were enough to scare any creature that had just arrived - lines of blood stopped at the level of his sight in violation of the laws of physics, and then gathered together, opening a scarlet eye in this fist-sized blood mass.

He stared into the big eyes, not understanding what the other party was trying to be mysterious about. Just as he was about to speak, a voice that made him stiffen his fists suddenly came from inside the door:

“Demon? A lively Sequence 2 demon?”

"You still have the aura of a prisoner. You are a Sequence 2 prisoner. Tsk, could you be the Fabuti who was crippled by my Lord?"

Edward's expression, which was not smiling to begin with, was made even more terrifying under the gloomy light. He remained calm, gently squeezed the fist-sized eye, and drew an inverted cross on the door.

"Excuse me, you are so good at talking. I guess you must be the Angel of War. Seeing is believing. You are really good at talking."

His expression became subtle, implying three parts of indifference, three parts of alienation, and four parts of confusion, as well as "Why do I always encounter these unexpected things?" and "This is really a troublesome need, I won't do it in the future." He wiped the blood off his hands, threw the handkerchief directly into the pool of blood, and turned and left.

TBC
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I won’t save him this time because I don’t have enough ability.

Much later:

Medici: Wow, isn't this the great master of our back garden?
decay:……

Medici: Why don't you say anything? You're just sitting here digging the dirt. Aren't you bored?

Decline: I don’t understand why you dare to challenge me when you can’t beat me.

*Based on readers’ feedback, I found that if I wrote some light-hearted skits like ↑ at the end, it would be easily misunderstood, so I decided not to write them in the future.

(End of this chapter)