At the intersection of the long street, an old man wearing black gloves lit his pipe, took a deep breath, and exhaled light blue smoke.
Wait quietly.
After a long time, his shoulders shook, and he turned around slowly, seeing a figure appearing behind him from nowhere.
"Mr. Holmes."
He nodded and said, "I've been waiting for you for a long time."
"Mr. Ghost Hands, long time no see."
Ye Qingxuan smiled slightly and took off the deerstalker hat on his head: "I remember the first time we met outside the White Horse Hotel. You once showed me the way, but now I didn't expect that it would be reversed again. "
Guishou took a deep look at the young man's eyes and couldn't help but sigh in a low voice, full of emotions.
A few months ago, when he and the boy met for the first time, they passed each other on the long street.
At that time, he was still a famous legend in Avalon, a debt collector with ghost hands. Ye Qingxuan is just an Eastern brat who has just arrived here.
At that time, this kid was still the fish on the chopping board, cooking it only according to his heart.
But within a few short months, he had gained a huge reputation, and earned the fear and awe of countless people with his actions.
He is already the "vengeful evil spirit" who is famous in Avalon.
Even the shaman had the idea of taking him as his right-hand man, and he had great expectations for this young man.
The ups and downs of fate are very unpredictable, and sometimes people are caught off guard.
"I'll leave it to you to find the professor's traces."
He turned around and led the way.
Ye Qingxuan walked into the alley, stepped on the water and broken bricks, and walked into the shack.
In the empty shack, it was covered with faint blood, and on the floor in the center, a corpse was already rigor mortis.
The cold night climate kept the corpses intact and did not cause them to rot, but the skin became paler and paler, which made people feel sick.
"Whose body is here?"
"A smuggler, nicknamed 'Litchi'. Lychee is a rare oriental water..."
"I know."
Ye Qingxuan nodded: "A Westerner is called such a nickname? It's really rare."
"Because one of the things he is most famous for is smuggling dozens of tons of 'lychees' from the East, passing them through Avalon's customs, and dumping them into the entire Anglo market."
"Fruit seller?"
"Although it looks fresh and cute, don't be deceived by the appearance. After cutting the lychee, there is a refined 'mandala' hidden inside."
Guishou said calmly: "They are all high-quality goods. The Tianzhu people call them 'Krishna'. With that shipment of goods, the Tianzhu people seized 90% of the market share and laid the foundation for illegal rule." The foundation of the drug market. Lychee has always been regarded by Sheila Yiduo as an important right-hand man and a thorn in the side of many people. However, he is cautious and acts very carefully. Sometimes he travels disguised as a pregnant woman, so he has never been caught. handle."
"Pregnant woman?"
Ye Qingxuan knelt down and looked at the swollen corpse. Seeing the beard on his face and the dense chest hair, he couldn't help but frown:
"He really invested his money..."
He asked, "When was the body found?"
"Tonight, three hours ago."
Guishou smoked his pipe and said calmly: "According to the shaman's rules, those who sell banned drugs must have their hands and feet cut off, but when our people arrived, he was already dead. The professor was one step ahead of us and found him in advance. Is this revenge for the betrayal of Sheila Jita?"
"more than."
Ye Qingxuan shook his head: "If it was for revenge, the professor would directly hang Shirajita's younger brother 'Pashina' in front of his bed. When Shirajita woke up from his nightmare, he saw that his brother's facial features were distorted. Like death, living in fear forever..."
Guishou was stunned: "How did you know?"
Ye Qingxuan glanced at him indifferently and looked away: "Because if I were a professor, I would do that."
Ghost Hands was silent.
Ye Qingxuan's palms groped on the corpse, exploring the remaining traces on the corpse. With Bolero, it became a lot easier. He directly pressed his palm on the chest of the corpse, manipulated the flesh in the corpse to form a thought thread, and explored the condition of the internal organs.
Soon, he released his palm.
"Cardiac arrest, internal bleeding, and symptoms of poisoning in brain tissue... "
Ye Qingxuan's eyes turned cold:
"-'Litchi', he wasn't killed, he was scared to death by himself."
Soon, Guishou suddenly realized where the anger in the young man's eyes came from: "This is your usual method... The professor is provoking you?"
According to his understanding of Holmes, this black musician, known as the evil spirit of vengeance, has always hated killing people in the presence of blood. He always makes his enemies kill themselves, and he never takes the lives of his enemies no matter how cruel he is.
He is so kind and cherishes life, he doesn't look like a black musician at all.
But the most cruel place is here, his enemies often want to die but cannot!
For example, those lunatics who were sent to Avalon Mental Hospital, such as the disgraced Rat King, and the Tianzhu musician Pusu Po who became an idiot...
If Ye Qingxuan wanted to deal with the dead, he would undoubtedly choose a similar method, but the professor's behavior would be even more cruel.
No matter what the process is, the scene will definitely be so tragic that it will give people nightmares.
In the silence, Ye Qingxuan stared coldly into the corpse's dim eyes, and after a long time he stood up slowly:
"Maybe he was challenging me, right? After watching this scene, everyone most likely thought I was the one who did it."
Just the death of a lychee will not hurt Ye Qingxuan, but it is just a warning. If the professor cannot find him next time he takes action, the identity of the dead person will change.
Ye Qingxuan could think of several suitable targets to frame him without using his brain.
For example, an important member of the Avalon Police Department, the heir of a certain noble official... When the time comes, he will be unable to move around in Avalon.
Professor Yueling was taking revenge on himself for exposing his identity. He wanted to make himself understand that if he exposed his identity, he would have the same method to make him no longer have a foothold in Xiacheng District.
It's just that at this time when the city is in turmoil, the professor doesn't think about long-term strategies and doesn't want to take revenge on the parliament. He just comes to kill someone just to warn himself. Isn't it a little too idle
Or is this his plan to kill two birds with one stone, warning himself is just a matter of convenience
Ye Qingxuan stared at the corpse and suddenly asked:
"Mr. Ghost Hand, the legend says that you can capture the souls of enemies and make them work for you. Is it true? If it is true, you might as well use it on Lychee."
Guishou smiled and shook his head slowly:
"I'm sorry, Mr. Holmes. Human beings have never had such a thing as a soul? It's just a rumor passed down by philosophers, right?"
He said, "I only know how to kill people, and that's the only thing I'm good at. After people are killed, I can't do anything with them. After all, dead things can't be killed again. I'm afraid I'm going to make you laugh."
Ye Qingxuan himself did not have high expectations for the strange news about Ghost Hands. When he heard what he said, he just nodded and responded lightly:
"Don't laugh too hard. Sometimes it's not a bad thing to have a universal solution."
"oh?"
Guishou's eyes raised: "Sir, don't you think a murderer like me is shameful?"
"No, I just think it's funny."
Ye Qingxuan looked back at him, not afraid of offending the old man: "Everyone knows that killing people cannot solve all problems, but there are still many people who think that all problems can be solved by killing people. It's strange, isn't it? Some things, No matter how many people you kill, it won’t change it.”
Guishou was silent and stopped talking.
Ye Qingxuan knelt down and inspected the body again, not missing any corner.
It can be seen that this man suffered a long period of torture before his death.
In the frightening hallucination, the first thing to be hurt is the brain. The reason is tortured by all kinds of unprecedented horrors, and the blood rushes to the brain.
Fear is born when the subconscious mind judges that something irresistibly terrible is coming. When fear reaches a certain limit, the subconscious will seek relief from death on its own. The heartbeat speeds up, the breathing becomes heavy, and the body's glands secrete excessive hormones. The disordered hormones stimulate the internal organs and cause internal bleeding. The hormones in the blood rush to the brain, and the brain becomes poisoned.
People were just scared to death.
Soon, he discovered new anomalies.
"what is this?"
Ye Qingxuan carefully pinched the rigor mortis' wrist, turned it open, and stared at the rice-sized blister in his palm: "Handitis?"
"It should be caused by certain fungi that are parasitic on humans, right?" Guishou said, "Sailors who go to sea often have skin diseases like this."
Ye Qingxuan shook his head, "It's different from sailors' skin diseases. The common skin diseases of sailors are actually skin allergies caused by sunburn and irritation caused by some substances in sea water. But this kind of skin disease is like those caused by working in rotten and humid places. It was infected, and it didn’t last long. It must have been a very dirty place recently... "
Soon, he thought of something. He dropped his palm and snapped his fingers to utter a syllable, causing a group of blisters to sprinkle on the corpse's feet.
Soon, with his control, the blood regrouped and gathered into a dirty ball. Then, with another instant syllable, the flames were summoned, and the bubbles quickly boiled, evaporated, and disappeared without a trace.
Only a handful of dark red soil remained in the air, exuding a putrid stench. There are still bits and pieces of white crystalline material remaining in it.
"What is this?" Guishou frowned.
"Dried sludge."
Ye Qingxuan rubbed the mud powder in his hands and watched the dark red dust fall from his fingertips: "There is only one place in Avalon that has this kind of soil. The sewer, only the sludge in the sewer is this dark red."
"You mean 'diggers'?"
Guishou thought of a profession, "Indeed, these days, Lizhi and the others have hired many diggers who were originally used to dredge sewer areas. They cast nets all over the sewers, as if they were looking for something... I'm afraid they really found something, otherwise The professor would not come looking for such a smuggler."
"Lizhi is an ally of the Tianzhu people, which means he is working for the parliament. The professor is still pursuing clues from the parliament."
Ye Qingxuan nodded: "Which section of the sewers do they mainly operate in?"
"The scope is too great."
Ghost Hand shook his head: "Avalon's sewer system is complicated, and few people have been able to understand the ins and outs. If they want to take action, they must cast their net everywhere."
Ye Qingxuan was silent for a moment, controlling the dust on the ground to form a large map of Avalon: "Show me the range of activities."
The ghost hand pondered for a moment, stretched out his hand and drew a circle on the dust map, almost covering half of the lower city, including part of the middle city.
"No, the scope is too big, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack."
Guishou shook his head: "In such a big place, there are more than a thousand shops, not to mention the sewer system below. Part of it even leads to Queen's Road, and it's even harder to tell when you get there."
Ye Qingxuan's eyes swept across the map, and a long list of place names flashed through his mind: King's Cross, Queen's Park, Amersham, Silaslip and...
Ye Qingxuan's eyes lit up and he pointed to a point on the map: "It's right here."
The ghost hand looked along his fingers:
"—Arkham Asylum?"
"That's right."
Ye Qingxuan showed the dirt he extracted to Guishou and let him see the dots of small white crystals inside: "This should be mainly salt and alkali, and some of it is other chemical raw materials. There happens to be a factory near Arkham Asylum. These things are produced exclusively for the research and use of the Royal Academy. Except for the sewage discharged there, the sewers in other places will not have such strong chemical residues. Litchi and the others must often be active in the sewers under that chemical plant. That’s why there are so many residues on my body. If you want to find a professor, that’s the right place to go.”
Guishou listened to Ye Qingxuan's analysis in silence, his cloudy eyes brightened for a moment, then dimmed again.
The young man who was close at hand seemed to be aware of the murderous intention and fear in his heart that he had not expressed just now. He just raised his head and glanced at him with a smile in his eyes.
The corners of Guishou's mouth curled up, and the slightly raised fingers were lowered. At that moment, after listening to Ye Qingxuan's analysis, Guishou suddenly had an instinctive urge to kill.
If Ye Qingxuan is not eradicated now, he may become even more difficult to deal with than the professor over time... Now he can vaguely compete with the professor and is regarded as a strong rival. If he wants to oppose the shaman's rule in the future, he will definitely be in serious trouble.
But soon, his reason suppressed this impulse, his expression returned to calm, and he just sighed:
"As expected of Mr. Holmes, he is more like a detective than a musician, which is really scary. No wonder Mr. Shaman values you so much."
"Detective? That was one of my childhood dreams."
Ye Qingxuan stood up and dusted himself off: "Being able to scare Mr. Ghost Hand also gives me a sense of accomplishment. It's just such a misunderstanding. I hope it won't happen again."
His words were clear and his voice was calm, but the underlying meaning was conveyed without any trace: if there was a second time, once the signs were revealed, he would definitely fight back violently.
What's even more troublesome is that for a person like Holmes who can get the truth from any tiny clues, once he realizes that the ghost hand regards him as an enemy, it will definitely not be a mindless and reckless duel. What awaits him will be It's a series of interlocking traps. Even if he couldn't be killed, he would probably have to shed his skin.
If you want to kill him, you must be thoroughly prepared and determined to fight him to the death.
This is the most difficult enemy to deal with. No matter what, Guishou does not want him to stand on his opposite side.
Sensing the young man's displeasure, Guishou sighed: "I was rude just now. Please forgive me, Mr. Holmes."
"It's okay, I would also feel honored to be qualified to be regarded as an enemy by Ghost Hand."
Ye Qingxuan waved his hands, no longer dwelling on the little test between each other just now, and turned the conversation back to the right track: "It will be dawn now. If we take action immediately, not only will it not be conducive to covering up our tracks, but I am afraid we will fall into the professor's plan. I plan to visit the chemical factory tomorrow night. Does Mr. Shaman have any manpower that can cooperate with me?"
After listening to his words, Guishou fell into deep thought.
He waved his hand, signaling all the men next to him to get out.
In the silence, he said seriously: "Tomorrow is not a good day. If possible, I hope you can wait a few more days. I think the shaman will think so too."
"Huh?" Ye Qingxuan frowned slightly: "Is there any inconvenience?"
"In terms of manpower, Mr. Shaman originally assigned me to cooperate with you, but if it were tomorrow, I would have to personally protect Mr. Shaman and would not have time to cooperate with your actions."
Ghost Hand took a drag on his pipe and whispered: "The storm is coming, Mr. Holmes, please think again."
Ye Qingxuan pondered and asked, "Do you have any big plans tomorrow?"
"The war between us and the Parliament has reached a fever pitch in the past two days. Hundreds of corpses are thrown into the sewer every day. We have received news that the Parliament will make a big move tomorrow, and a large amount of ordnance has been sent to that group. In the hands of the thugs, there are also two Archangel armors whose serial numbers and records have been erased. And we will also launch a formal counterattack tomorrow."
The message in Guishou's words made Ye Qingxuan horrified: "Will Avalon let you start a war in the lower city?"
"If Avalon wants this war, it will happen. Haven't they allowed the lower city to fall into chaos for so long?"
Guishou said calmly: "Tomorrow there will be chaos in the lower city. Mr. Holmes, you'd better not fall into this quagmire. It will be difficult for us to have the energy to take care of your actions by then. How about a better day?"
Ye Qingxuan was silent for a moment and couldn't help but sigh:
"Forget it then, let's each do our own thing. You take care of the parliament, and I'll take care of the professors. Everyone has revenge and complaints. It's nothing more than murder and arson. How can there be any auspicious day for such a thing?"
Ghost Hand saw the determination in his eyes, and after thinking for a moment, he took out a business card from his arms: "If you insist, don't refuse this person's help."
"who?"
Ye Qingxuan took the business card. There was no writing on it. There was only a horse face pattern on the white paper that seemed to be stained with blood. In an instant, he suddenly realized:
"-Butcher?"