Chapter 73 It's quite sudden
Chapter 73 It's quite sudden
191
Klein was stunned, then frowned deeply, thinking about organizing his words: "No, Old Kohler, you don't have to do this."
"I previously entrusted you to be my informant and help me investigate the current situation in the East District, so these fees are what you deserve."
"As for Liv, I don't know if I can help her find her missing little daughter. And I just want to do it. I don't need any reward."
"Even so..." The guilt of deceiving Klein made Old Kohler feel painful. He concealed the fact that the members of the Aurora Society had successfully hidden in the East District with the help of Miss Maria, and concealed the fact that Mr. A was preaching in the East District. They were all good people, but they were undoubtedly a cult. Although the smart detective might find out soon, the feeling of deceiving his benefactor was still extremely tormenting, and he couldn't help but lower his head.
"Please accept it."
"..." Klein sighed and took out a 5-sol note to stop Old Kohler from stuffing money into his hand. "I understand your kindness, but Old Kohler, you also have a daughter to raise. Your daughter is so thin, don't you want to buy her more food? Keep these for your Taylor."
Old Kohler was stunned. Thinking of his daughter who was exhausted every day, the words on his lips could no longer be said.
"Thank you, thank you, you are really a good person." He wiped his eyes vigorously, "I understand."
Klein breathed a sigh of relief, put on his hat, and said with a smile: "Then take me to Liv's house."
192
Joe Wood District.
Hugh resumed his life as a bounty hunter, while Fors, in order to speed up the progress of her new book, finally finished the manuscript of the play she collaborated with Mr. Edward Vaughan today. She successfully completed the editorial task before November and could receive her royalties after today. She hoped to save enough money for the extraordinary materials needed for the "Master of Magic" as soon as possible.
But writing a new book is not something that can be done just because you want to. The time agreed with Mr. Edward had not yet arrived, and Fors scratched his hair in annoyance, deciding to go out for a walk to find inspiration.
As she walked, she found herself back in a familiar place. Diagonally in front of her was the Yusuf Clinic, where she first worked, a fairly large private clinic.
After staring for a while, Fors thought of the old lady who led him into the extraordinary world, so he turned to the alley on the right and took a shortcut to a nearby street. Fors remembered that the old lady lived in house No. 39 - she would occasionally come to deliver medicine or injections, and even help with some daily chores.
"It's been almost three years. The place should have been rented out again. Maybe it has changed tenants several times... I still remember that when I came to sort out the relics, I found a lot of notes recording mystical experiences..." Winter had been here for a long time, and the trees had withered. Fors walked under the sycamore tree with few leaves left, slowly approaching the house at No. 39. Recalling her past experiences, she gradually had some inspiration for writing.
Just then, she saw an old man in a heavy woolen coat and a half-high black hat standing at the door of house No. 39 and rang the doorbell three times.
After a few minutes, no one opened the door. The old man with blue eyes shook his head and turned around, whispering in confusion: "Still no one..."
He suddenly spotted Fors, who was standing not far away and looking over here. He quickly walked over and said with a gentle but eager smile, "Beautiful lady, do you live in this neighborhood? Do you know Lauberuo and Anlisa?"
An Lisa? Isn't that the old lady's name? There are no tenants in this house recently? Fors said thoughtfully, "I don't know if the Mrs. An Lisa I know is the one you are looking for. She lived here for a long time, but she passed away three years ago."
"Died three years ago? What about Lao Boluo?" the old man with only a few wrinkles at the corners of his eyes asked hurriedly.
"Her husband died before her," she answered honestly.
The old man was stunned for a moment, and then showed a sad expression. He was silent for a moment and said, "Thank you, kind lady.
“I’m Lao Bo Luo’s brother, and I’ve been living in Jianhai County. I haven’t received any letters from them in a long time, so I decided to come and take a look.
"Can you tell me about those years?"
Mrs. Anlisa's husband's brother... could he be the descendant of the family she mentioned? Fors suddenly became alert and responded with a smile, "No problem." She quickly thought about what she could say and what she couldn't say.
The old man pointed to the side and said, "There is a nice cafe there..."
Just as Fors was about to nod in agreement, she suddenly heard a familiar male voice from behind her: "Ms. Fors?"
This voice is... I forgot that Mr. Edward Vaughan lives in Cherwood. Is this place very close to his home? She turned around and saw her acquaintance as expected. Fors was stunned for a moment: "Hello, Mr. Vaughan, I'm taking a walk. It's not the time we agreed on yet, right? Maybe I should talk to this old gentleman first."
Edward, who was wearing a dark grey tweed coat and holding a handbag for the manuscript, looked at his watch and smiled at Fors. "No problem. There is still more than an hour before our appointment. Miss Fors, you can do your thing first."
"Okay." Fors relaxed and touched her hair.
The old man from the Abraham family looked at Edward secretly, but did not see any clues. The spiritual intuition of the "astrologer" also did not give any signs, so he thought he was just an ordinary person.
Since he had already met Fors and the agreed time was not too long, Edward canceled his original reservation and decided to go with them. After obtaining their consent, he followed them to the cafe. Fors and the old man went into a small booth in the cafe to talk, while He sat down at the booth outside, put down his bag, ordered a cup of coffee, a piece of cake, found a newspaper, and waited patiently for them to finish their conversation.
Abraham's descendants are here to look for someone? They don't look like they're coming for Fors, which means they might have encountered someone with extraordinary characteristics, a coincidence... The waiter put the coffee beans into the tool and slowly ground the coffee with the crank. The rustling sound sounded very relaxing.
He ordered the best coffee beans that this small cafe could use, and the hazelnut cake was freshly made and would take several minutes to be served. Edward did not specifically listen to the conversation between Fors and the old man. He leisurely waited for the food and coffee to be served, just to relax and pass the time.
When the waiter brought the condensed cream coffee to the table, Edward noticed that Fors had come out, but she did not walk towards him. Instead, she asked the waiter where the bathroom was and then left.
A few minutes later, Edward suddenly felt a familiar, strange, tingling chill.
This extremely strange feeling is still fresh in the memory of the Declined King. It is the aura of the Source Castle of the Blessed Xuanhuang Tianzun!
Facing Sefirah Castle and Fusheng Xuanhuang Tianzun in this situation?! Under the layers of clothes, Edward's arms were covered with goose bumps in the blink of an eye. The stress reaction almost made him materialize all the fine and dense scales and exoskeleton. But the next second, he was forced to calm down. The Decayed King pushed aside the part of his consciousness that simulated humans and temporarily controlled this body. He looked up, but the ethereal feeling belonging to Sefirah Castle had disappeared, replaced by——
Fors left the bathroom and reappeared in His sight.
A thin layer of gray mist covered her body.
193
Above the gray fog, after putting down the paper figurine and completing Fors’s prayer, Klein temporarily put the affairs of the Abraham family behind him.
According to the original plan, he materialized a pen and paper and wrote down a divination sentence: "Daisy's current situation."
After putting away the pen, Klein stacked Daisy's vocabulary book and the paper with the divination sentence together and held them in his left hand.
Then, he leaned back in his chair and entered a meditative state, repeating to himself "Daisy's current situation" over and over again.
After reading it seven times, Klein fell asleep. His eyes first turned dark and red, and then gray. Then, pictures flashed by, some were coherent, some were jumpy, and some had no logic.
Klein saw the young daughter of the laundry worker Liv. The thirteen or fourteen-year-old girl was repeatedly burned by steam but still insisted on ironing clothes. A man wearing a heavy jacket and a gray-black baseball cap covered her mouth with a handkerchief from behind and forcibly dragged her into a side road in a remote alley.
Another man dressed in the same way grabbed her legs and, together with his companions, lifted her up and walked very quickly.
Their target was the carriage parked outside the alley. The whole process took less than two minutes, and when Daisy's sister Freya turned around to find the place, the carriage had already left.
……
In the carriage, Daisy, who was in a daze, had a cold and sharp dagger pressed against her face, and heard dirty, threatening words in her ears.
……
The carriage drove into Kapin's luxurious villa.
……
Daisy was in a small, dark room, with women's cries, screams, and curses echoing from time to time outside. …
Daisy woke up and shouted for help, but someone opened the door and kicked her down. She was in so much pain that she couldn't stand up. She shed tears and kept whispering words like "Mom" and "Freya".
…………
Klein opened his eyes and found that the paper in his left palm had been crumpled into a ball by him at some point.
He has already determined that Kapin is the mastermind behind many cases of missing girls and that he is the boss of a criminal group.
But the problem is that this kind of case should not and could not involve too strong a Beyonder power. At most, there would be a few Sequence 7s, 8s, or 9s who are greedy for money to help. Klein would not feel a strong sense of danger through his spiritual intuition as soon as he approached the villa.
Even if the danger level is raised, it shouldn't be to the extent that Maria, the gang leader of the East District, is afraid to take action. After all, Maria should be at least a mid-sequence Beyonder, and a Beyonder like "Lawyer" who is good at both close combat and ability combat. Not to mention that she has other subordinates. It is really strange that a private detective is needed to investigate the internal routes for the purpose of sneaking in to rescue people instead of fighting head-on.
Could it be that Ka Ping is a Sequence 6 or even Sequence 5 Beyonder? But it is not difficult for Beyonders of this level to make money. There is no need to do such dirty and tedious things. It is easier to just call the various gangs and collect protection fees one by one, and it won't dirty your hands... Could it be that Ka Ping has some hidden agenda in human trafficking? As Klein pondered, he used the power of the gray fog to restore Daisy's word book to a flat surface.
After a few seconds of silence, he materialized another piece of parchment and wrote a new divination sentence: "Saving Daisy is a dangerous thing."
After calming down for a few seconds, he closed his eyes and silently recited the divination sentence he had just written. When the sound stopped, Klein opened his eyes and looked at the pendulum in his left hand. The yellow crystal pendant was rotating clockwise at a very fast speed and with a large amplitude!
This means affirmation, indicating that saving Daisy is a rather dangerous thing!
Then Miss Maria... No, she is in great danger to me, but it shouldn't be completely hopeless for her. There is still a good possibility. As long as I can grasp it, if I can get a complete roadmap, or if I can join in and help them in some special way, as long as I can do it... Klein interpreted the revelation given by the "Pendulum Method".
He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and said with a self-deprecating smile: "Aren't you looking for an opportunity to take the initiative to perform?"
"This is!"
"As a magician, you still have to challenge yourself to do something difficult. Otherwise, you should be called a master of tricks, not a magician. Completing seemingly impossible things, even if the result is false, this is the image of a magician in my mind. As for whether it is one of the rules, it remains to be confirmed..."
"But my primary goal is still to get the route map, and then help Ms. Maria who has infiltrated while ensuring my own safety, or at least to prevent her operation from failing."
Thinking of this, Klein regained some of his sanity. He tapped his fingers on the edge of the old long table and made a quick decision. The biggest difficulty for him, or Maria, in saving Daisy and dealing with Kapin was that they didn't know the other party at all. They didn't know how many Beyonders there were in the villa, and which paths and sequences they belonged to.
This prevented Klein from making targeted preparations, and was also the reason why Maria had no choice but to seek help from the detective.
And for a "magician", the first rule is, "Don't perform without preparation"!
"In fact, if even Miss Maria's connections can't do it in this regard, then it won't help whether I ask for help from Miss Justice or Miss Magician and her friends. Unless I do it myself and get the information I want from the servants or bodyguards who come out of Capin Villa, using the method of 'spiritual communication'."
After finalizing the plan and steps, in an instant, his figure disappeared into the towering palace above the gray fog.
194
After lunch, Klein followed his plan and successfully possessed a man who worked for Kapin. He controlled his body and went to a nearby cheap hotel to perform a summoning and spiritualist ceremony.
The man suddenly turned over and sat up, opened his eyes, and looked quite dull. He stood up straight, walked to the front of the altar, and then chanted in a low voice: "Fool who does not belong to this era;"
"You are the mysterious master above the gray fog;"
"You are the yellow and black king of good luck."
Amidst the monotonous but rhythmic whispers and the fragrance that made it difficult to concentrate, the man's spirit gradually dissipated, and he became confused but still strangely awake, as if he was hypnotizing himself. With the "help" of Klein in spirit form and the feedback from chanting the name of "The Fool", he gradually entered a state of "artificial sleepwalking", and his spirit body approached the gray fog at an infinite height, and the mysterious place above the gray fog.
Klein seized this opportunity, ended the summons, returned to the majestic ancient palace, and sat in the seat that belonged to The Fool.
"Who are the powerful people in Capin Villa?" Klein asked through his interactive spirituality.
The phantom transmitted the scene in his memory without any resistance, making Klein feel like he was watching a holographic movie: the man in the baseball cap stood in the room with fear and respect, and in front of him was a middle-aged gentleman in a black tuxedo and a white wig.
This gentleman has a long, serious face, with his mouth pursed naturally, giving people an unusually cold feeling. There is a mysterious light flashing in his eyes, making it impossible to disobey his words.
……
The man in the baseball cap carried an unconscious girl along the stairs to the entrance to the underground area.
There was a small room separated from the other side, and inside sat a bearded man whose age was unknown. The bearded man had a pair of cold and intimidating blue eyes, and was holding a fine velvet cloth in his hand, carefully wiping the gray and white complex rifle on the table. The rifle was thick and long, and was connected to a huge mechanical box of the same color through a pipe.
A dangerous person in possession of a controlled firearm.
……
The man in the baseball cap entered the neatly laid out underground building that looked like a prison, locked the unconscious girl in one of the small rooms, and touched her sensitive parts reluctantly.
He locked the door, returned to the corridor, and picked up the lantern. At this moment, he saw a figure walking slowly from the other end of the corridor. The figure's eyes seemed to be able to see through the darkness, and he did not carry any lighting device.
The man in the cap used the light of the lantern to find that it was a woman in her thirties. She wore a brown soft hat that tilted up in the middle, a thin white shirt and suspenders, and a pair of knee-high cowhide boots. There were several old scars on her face, and a cruel smile always hung at the corner of her mouth.
A woman with a fierce temperament and who seems to be good at fighting.
No new characters appeared after that. There were four Beyonders in total, at least four... The strongest one should be Mr. Heras, at least Sequence 6, maybe even Sequence 5... I don't know what method he used, it's somewhat similar to the "Black Emperor" path... relying on order and issuing decrees? Based on the scene just now, it can be preliminarily judged that the ban is only for the underground area, not the entire villa. Also, during the day, people come and go, once the ban is imposed, it will be too troublesome to enter and exit... I wonder if it's the same at night... Klein analyzed the intelligence he just obtained and asked again:
“What is the overall layout of the villa?”
He quickly received feedback and saw the magnificent lobby, the elegant and spacious restaurant, the corridor running through the first floor, as well as the bathroom, the underground area and other scenes.
Through them, Klein pieced together the general layout of Capin Villa in his mind. He quickly drew an accurate sketch. Time was urgent, so he planned to hand it to Miss Maria in person.
Otherwise, according to the speed of Backlund's postman, I don't know when this letter will be delivered. Now it is really like saving lives. In order to prevent worse things from happening, I can't delay for a minute...
Klein took a breath silently, and his expression became firm.
TBC
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*In order to cover up the divination of Abraham's family, Fors asked the Fool for a paper angel.
This part of the plot is longer, so I have to break it down.
I should be able to start playing the next chapter.
The previous chapter mentioned one of the children raised by the Ernst Foundation, little Alia, so let me add a small setting.
The orphans raised by the Ernst Foundation, who have no names, no keepsakes, no birth certificates, and no parents to recognize them, will be given a name first, and then allowed to give themselves a surname, or draw lots by putting the surnames of the responsible persons together.
Alia's name was chosen by drawing lots. She chose the same surname as the director of the Tingen Orphanage, so her full name is Alia Viliana.
(End of this chapter)