"*! I'm starting to get nervous!" In the lobby of Yuri Hotel, Evan had a black eye and kept pulling on his tie. Vertex 23S. Fastest update
As he said, his body language spoke of his emotional intensity. As for the bruise on his face, that was Old Hank's way of telling him to shut up in the morning. It happened when Zach went to vote. We don’t care about this kind of thing anyway, so we won’t repeat it.
Before coming out, Zach suggested that Evan take care of the injury on his face. At least don't give a bad impression of his appearance to the reviewers who are about to give him real freedom. But Evan refuses to put any feminine products on his face, so...
Zach ignored Evan and didn't answer.
"They will let me go, right!" Evan was confirming, "Now it's just a process! Right!!"
Zach continued to ignore Evan.
"*! I swear if I don't get my freedom, you and I will not..."
Zach stood up suddenly, also picked up Evan, who was still shouting, and pushed forward, "Go, the person to pick you up is here." Zach pointed at Aisela who was walking this way.
Evan glared at Zach one last time and walked towards Asera. Esera gestured in the direction of the elevator and continued walking toward Zach. The first thing she said as she got closer was, "Are you serious? That guy still has marks on his face from a fight."
"That's proof of his popularity in Grande, your halfway house project." You understand what Zach means, I won't explain, "So you hope that your halfway house will continue to exist healthily and not go out of business." Any scandal you don't want, give him his freedom, let him go, let him leave Grande."
Esera chuckled lightly, "Translate, get rid of the troublemaker as soon as possible, right~"
"Exactly." As he spoke, Zach touched his pocket and took out a gift box with extremely simple packaging, "Yours."
Ethela was stunned for a moment, then answered with a smile, "Which generation is it?"
"Four generations. You will be Hamilton's daughter." It's so easy to talk to smart people.
"Okay, a little disappointed~" She winked at Zach, deliberately, "It's a bit different from my original expectations~" Remember, Aesera's original request was to become Toledo and be a descendant of Zach, " But~ the result may be worse, so, I can accept this~"
"A friendly reminder." Zach was not interested in Aisela's wink at all. "Lesembra's ancestors may appear in Barton. You may want to use this later. Just a reminder, whenever you want. The decision to join the Eternal Life Club is still up to you." Zach's words were very tactful.
Ethela raised her eyebrows, obviously a little surprised after hearing the clan ancestor, but she didn't ask any more questions, and now was not the time to ask. Evan was yelling rudely in the elevator, urging him here. "Thanks for the reminder, I'll pay attention." He nodded to Zach, "Why don't you go up? I've summoned a few people who are quite interesting and powerful in Barton. You might want to meet them."
Another piece of evidence that Ethera doesn't know what peace is. As Murphy commented, Aesela is a very special female character even in this era.
"No." Zach refused, "I have something to do."
"It's not surprising~" Esera finally gave our vampire a smile and went to the elevator.
Zach watched the elevator door closing with Evan and Aisela, then turned and left Yuri Hotel, heading southwest.
Based on simple judgment, Zach went to the North District Police Station, but in fact, Zach went to Joe's bar.
The disgusting thing about witnessing a traffic accident when you leave home is that it happens right in front of your door. You can pretend you didn't go out and didn't witness anything. But alas, it's there. The tattered human body drags red marks on the road in front of your house.
The aftermath of the accident will come to you unexpectedly. For example, the police knock on your door and ask you if you know the poor person who was hit, or the car that caused the accident.
Theoretically speaking, Zach was asked both of these questions in Grande's office. Just a minute after Zach hung up the phone, Zach received a call from Chapman. Ask Zach if it was him who called just now.
Can Zach say no
Hey, even without talking about how easy it was for the police to obtain the phone records, there was the fact that Zach had mentioned Evan in the previous phone call. As if the name didn't remind Chapman of Grandery's most troubled ex-convict!
What happens at your doorstep happens at your doorstep. Just accept it.
As Zach goes along, there's one more thing I might want to mention.
Zach didn't tell Evan that Joe was dead. Why? good question. Let's find a reason for Zach. Zach needs to tell Evan the 'friend' he doesn't want to see, the reason why he is truly free, and the reason why Joe is dead before Evan is about to be freed. Come on, don't be shy, huh? There's none? All right. I guess everyone agreed with Zach's decision to remain silent.
Zach stood in front of the main entrance of Joe's bar and saw the person he least expected to see, James Lance.
Homicide detectives are here. got it.
"Have you decided on the case so quickly?" Zach asked James, who was not about to go in, who had already walked over with a gloomy face.
"His body was stabbed more than a dozen times!" James lowered his voice slightly, just because he didn't want the busy police officers to find out that he was leaking case information to a civilian. "This case was Confirmed! Tsk!" He glanced impatiently at the police officers who were not here to work, but just watching. "If these guys delay, I should take over the case as soon as possible."
What James means is that when Zach calls Joe, he should be the one who answers the phone, not an ordinary police officer.
"They just want to help." Zach didn't mean to defend himself. When Chapman called, he had already explained part of the situation:
The people who found Joe dead were Joe's customers, the police who frequented the place. Year-round habits have made them never expect any cases to occur here. So when the police followed their long-standing habit and ran to the kitchen to get food, only to find Joe lying on the floor and already starting to stink, they were... confused.
There is no need to question the professionalism of the police. Their chaos was not that they destroyed the scene, but that the entire case acceptance process was disrupted. The police, who had been reporting crimes, became the ones who reported the crime. The police officers who had been responsible for interviewing, interrogating, and finding witnesses became the interviewees. To put it more bluntly, most of the time, in the corner of the crime scene, it is repeated, 'Why did this happen! 'People, turn into police yourself.
Coupled with Joe's... identity, although he is only a civilian, he can almost be regarded as a member of the North District Police Department. He is someone who can chat with all the police officers and is everyone's friend. So a lot of police officers came who shouldn't be here at all. All this makes the place chaotic.
This is what James is complaining about, that normal procedures become redundant and dragged out because of the victim's special circumstances.
Zach's vision began to wander aimlessly. James noticed it and continued to lower his voice a little nervously, "What are you looking at?"
"Qiao..." Zach's gaze was fixed, "Here." Then he immediately turned around and left this place where there were too many sights.
James was stunned for a moment and immediately followed.
Finding a place with no other sights, Zach stood again, "Where's Wes?" Zach asked James.
"Still working on the 'Xiao Bai' case."
"Be careful." Zach was giving advice, "Although Wes had already started the 'Xiaobai' case before you were reinstated." It was referring to the fact that the pair were not working on the case together now. "There was no reason for him to stop halfway." Quit, but don't let that become a reason for Darcy to give you another partner."
James opened his mouth, nodded, and said, "Where's Joe? Is he here?"
"Give him some time." The place where Zach's eyes were focused seemed a bit far away, "He's not sure I saw him yet."
James adjusted his emotions, waited for a while, and saw Zach's gaze quickly zooming in!
"Can you see me?!" Is it Joe, the Earthbinder? No, he is a fantasy! The colorful light spots under the fat body inherited from the human body made Zach want to rub his eyes.
"I can see you." Zach curled his lips, "You don't want to touch me..." Before he could finish his words, the colorful light spots collapsed in front of Zach, and then, the trembling light spots Slowly regrouping…
"You, what are you..."
Zach sighed.
James on the side looked anxious, "What?! What happened?! Is Joe here? Is he talking to you?! What is he talking about?!"
"Shhh" Zach held James' mouth and explained, "Joe is here. But he probably thinks that I can see him, which means he can touch me. So stop shouting and ask if you can be a little considerate and okay. A question that can be understood with a little bit of empathy. Give Joe some time to understand his current situation." Zach let go of James, "Is that okay?"
James suppressed his blush and shut up.
This is good.
Zach looked at the much dimmed Fantasy Joe. As Zach said, he was considerate and gave the other person time to feel all this before speaking, "I am a vampire, and I have innate restraint on my soul. And you, Joe, you Understand what you are now.”
The weak voice came from the humanoid Qiao who gathered free light spots, "Ha." It was actually a chuckle, "Vampires and souls. Ha. Hey..."
"Confusion is normal." Zach glanced at James and continued to say to Joe, "You know what Detective Lance and all the police over there want to do here." After touching Zach After the break, the dimmed light was relit by James's, hehe, *. This is the phantom. "You can feel it, right. But we don't have to talk about that. We don't have to worry about what those humans want right now. As the only creature here that can see you and communicate with you, I, you can ask me any questions. "
We have witnessed Zach's goodness time and again, and we should put a bold 'good guy' on Zach's forehead! Hehe, hehe.
"Humans..." Joe was just repeating Zach's words, wasn't he? Zach said, don't worry about what humans want, "I, what am I?" This is the right question, what am I. Everyone should always ask themselves this question.
"You are a phantom." Zach just replied and held down James who was about to yell again. You can understand James, Joe is not an earthbender. Zach's answer continued, "You are an alien soul that exists in this world by relying on the human body in this world."
"I, I don't understand..."
"People want wealth, people want attractive appearances, people want things that go their way." Zach is explaining the fantasy, "Everyone wants it, but it doesn't happen to people." It's worth listening to. "The soul imprint that I hope to have, but will never get, cannot become part of the human soul." There is no need to explain that the soul imprint is the human experience, "It is you, the thing that sustains the fantasy human being in this world."
"I, I..." Perhaps Zach's explanation was too essential, "I, I'm not real?"
"No. You're very real." Zach looked at Joe. "You'll understand. Now, any questions?"
"Me, how did I become like this?"
"Well." Zach glanced at James again, answering the question that James wanted to shout just now, "You are dead." So direct, "Your body can no longer carry the soul, so your soul..." Zach used a rather euphemistic word, "Exposed to the world." Zach found Joe's eyes in the light spots, "You have gone through a stage we call the earthbinder." Zach described, "You You should remember that you grab something familiar to you, like your body, and repeat the scene of your death, trying to understand why you died."
"I, I remember..." It was obviously not a good memory, the light spot was trembling, "I remember a bunch of disgusting animals suddenly appeared... dogs! They looked like dogs! They wanted to attack me! I was fighting them! I was …”
Zach interjected, "Those are hellhounds. They are not part of your repeated death. They just want to drag you to hell."
"Uh, hellhound... drag me to hell??"
"Don't take it too seriously. From now on, you will understand that hell and heaven are meaningless." Zach waved his hand.
"Okay, okay, then, then they, they left, left suddenly!" The light all over Joe's body flickered once, "I, I want to follow them to make sure they are really gone, I'll leave mine , I didn’t see those hellhounds, I started walking out... Then I felt... broken... something that belonged to me... broken... Then, then I felt like I was disappearing... I, I became like this... "
Zach frowned and summed up, "Your death reappearance was interrupted by hellhounds, but instead of completing their job of dragging you into hell, they left suddenly, and then you chased them away from the place where you were bound. The scope of activity of the spirit, so because you cross the boundary and your instinct requires you to continue to exist, you become a phantom."
"Uh... I, I guess... that's it..." Can we blame Joe for being unsure.
Zach nodded and faced James, "You heard me, I'll just leave this to you."
"What are you going to do?!" James asked eagerly after seeing Zach turn around and leave.
"Go to the fallen angels. Cerberus will not drag the soul halfway away. Unless you want Barton to have many more people like Joe who become soul aliens for no reason in the future, you should let me tell the fallen angels about this and let them Let’s solve the problem of Cerberus’ slow work.”
"Uh." James was never easily satisfied, "What about here? Where's the case? I can't see Joe at all! I can't ask him questions!"
"James, Joe is an illusion." Zach shook his head and walked further and further away, "Believe me, if he hadn't touched me just now, this case would have been solved."
"Oh." James blinked and watched Zach leave.
James still has problems, such as what to do after the case is solved. Joe, who is already a phantom, can't be left here. For example, what to do if the Phantom Man appears? Although this is obviously not an easy skill, considering Joe's adventure in becoming a Phantom Man, who knows what kind of 'miracle' he might perform in this place where the police gather together. for example…
But this is a problem that James needs to be able to solve on his own, isn't it? He is James Lance, the future mayor, and this is his job. He knew he needed to be able to do this without Zach. from now on.