The alley we turned into was just a corridor between two houses and was very small, so there was nothing else piled up in the alley except garbage and filth.
His heart was beating wildly. Shade knew that this decision was risky, but the voice in his head was right. If you want to be extraordinary, you have to accept risks. Maybe the channels with psychiatrists and the church are safe, but he knows nothing. Which path is actually risky for him.
To gain something you have to pay for it, and he is willing to take risks, even small risks.
"If there's any problem, I'll leave immediately."
Shade clenched his cane and walked forward on tiptoe, trying not to make any noise. At the end of the alley were some wooden boxes with almost unreadable wanted posters on them. It seemed that the posters were for a serial killer who had fled to Tobysk.
The alley can turn left or right and directly enter the slums of the lower city of Tobysk. Shade hid behind the wooden boxes and looked through the gap between the wooden boxes in the direction where the man had turned.
It was also an alley, and only the young man wearing a pebble ring was there. He was now standing in the middle of the alley, looking around cautiously. He even squinted his eyes at the sky. After a long while, he put the black suitcase on the ground, took off the pebble ring on his right index finger, and kissed it carefully in front of Xia De's surprised eyes.
The young man seemed to say something with his head down, but Xia De didn't hear it clearly because the wind and space obscured his hearing.
After kissing the ring, the young man seemed to relax a little.
He put the ring back on his right index finger, and immediately thick smoke came out of his body as if on fire. The smoke came out from the gaps in his clothes and soon enveloped the young man completely.
Xia De heard a whisper in his ear, but it was not the elegant female voice in his head. The whisper was not clear at all, it sounded like chewing, or like something was cursing.
There was a feeling of discomfort in his head, as if he had been spinning in circles for several times and then had to go in a straight line again. The crazy whispers became more and more intense, and at one point, Shad even thought he saw evil spirits rushing towards him.
Fortunately, the hallucination ended quickly, but after gradually recovering, Shade still suspected that there was something wrong with his eyes, because he saw that as the black smoke disappeared, a person wearing a white pebble ring walked out of the smoke, gently patted the edge of her skirt, and then bent down to pick up the suitcase.
Mrs. Lazoya turned around and looked around cautiously again, with a smile on her face. After confirming that no one had seen this, she finally carried the box to the other side of the alley.
Xia De covered his mouth and leaned against the wall, hiding in the gap between the wooden box and the wall, and did not dare to move for a long time.
Just now, Shade was puzzled as to why the church investigators were distributing flyers on the side. Now he understood that the other party might be just like the poor detective Shade, trying to monitor Mrs. Lazoya at the entrance of the club.
When Xia De came out of the alley again, three moons, silver, yellow and red, were already hanging in the sky. The yellow moon was whiter and brighter. The night here was as peaceful as the world in the past.
This street is a bit remote, so there are no street lights. In the dim light, Xia De didn't know what his expression was at the moment. It took him a long time to take out his pocket watch. It was almost eight o'clock in the evening. He stood in the crack of the wall for two hours before he dared to leave. He didn't know that his physical fitness was so good.
"Forget about the relief food."
I shook my head dejectedly, feeling indescribably bad. I walked along the street towards home. Even if I had to starve, at least I had a house to live in, so the situation wasn't too bad.
The key point now is that the lucrative commission to investigate the mistress seems to be unable to be carried out.
Obviously, Mrs. Lazoya has the ability to turn into a man with the ring, or in other words, young men have the ability to turn into Mrs. Lazoya with the ring. Of course, Shad couldn't report this information to his employer, and he also didn't want to hand in the report of the dead detective and pretend that nothing happened.
Once the report was submitted, Mrs. Lawrence would inevitably let Mrs. Lazoya know that a detective had been following her without her knowledge because of the conflict with Mr. Lawrence. Even if the report did not involve any secrets, Shade could not guarantee what Mrs. Lazoya would do.
"This world is really more troublesome than one might imagine... Is Mr. Lawrence in love with a man or a woman?"
Maybe Madam Lazoya was a good person, and becoming a man was not a harm to others. But after only being in this world for less than 24 hours, Shade had come into contact with such a thing, and he felt a great sense of crisis.
“Perhaps the extraordinary in this world also follows the law that the extraordinary will attract the extraordinary.”
He walked along the street, thinking a little tiredly. Because he was worried about being robbed by people in the dark, or being harassed by drunkards, or even being caught in some illegal transactions, Xia De, who only had a walking stick and a fruit knife, didn't even dare to take the shortcut home through the alley.
"I'm so unlucky today..."
I turned left at Old John's Pawn Shop at the corner of the street. I felt even worse when I thought about sleeping in a house where someone had just died.
"Since there are supernatural beings, there might also be ghosts... Don't scare yourself... Wait a minute, where did I turn just now?"
He stopped, tilted his head and stepped back a bit, and saw the sign of "Old John's Pawn Shop" again, as well as the interior of the store with the gas lights still on.
"Well, I didn't expect there is such a trick. It's not that unlucky. Everything will get better."
With a slight sigh, he held the pocket watch and pushed open the door of the pawn shop.
In the end, he didn't pawn the pocket watch, but the walking stick. The pocket watch is an important daily necessities, while the walking stick is dispensable. More importantly, the pocket watch is not worth much. The owner of the shop, an old man who called himself John Jones, was only willing to give 10 shillings, on the grounds that there were many scratches on the surface of the pocket watch, and it might be often put together with the keychain.
But for the walking stick he was willing to pay £1 12s.
"Do you know anything about it? This is the heart of a natural cedar tree from the Drado Mountains. Look at the grain and the workmanship. If you can provide information about the craftsman who made it, I might be able to pay you more."
The old man seemed to be complaining that Xia De didn't know what he was doing. After confirming that Xia De wanted to pawn the cane, he also told him that if he didn't come to redeem it within half a month, the cane would belong to the pawnshop.
Of course, Shad knew that the price of the cane was definitely more than 1 pound 12 shillings. But he was really in no mood to bargain, so he just took two 1-pound notes, signed the contract and left.
According to the price of goods, this money was enough for Shade to live quite well for two weeks, and if he lived frugally, excluding the possible rent, he could live for a month and a half. This money was even enough for him to dig out Sparrow Hamilton, publish an obituary in the advertisement section of the newspaper, and hold a shabby funeral for the detective.
Of course, he doesn't have this idea for the time being.
"But now that I have solved the short-term problem of food and clothing, what should I do about the extraordinary and the mysterious?"
We had dinner at a restaurant very close to the pawn shop, savored the flavor of the thick soup and steak, and then walked back home.
It was almost ten o'clock in the evening when we returned to 6 Place Sainte-Teresa.
After checking that the hair he had left behind was still in its original position, he entered the room. He carefully turned the gas lamp on the wall of the living room, letting the light gradually appear, and then threw himself on the sofa tiredly. From the open door of the master bedroom, he could see the bed where Sparrow Hamilton had slept.
Xia De is determined to get in touch with the extraordinary in the near future, rather than live in ignorance. Although he has not encountered any definite danger yet, this world is not simple, and Xia De does not intend to find a solution after encountering danger.
He currently has three methods that may help him come into contact with the extraordinary.
The first is Mr. Bill Schneider, the psychiatrist who gave Shad his business card; the second is the five Orthodox churches in the city, visiting the churches might be fruitful; the last is Mrs. Lazoya herself, she must know about the supernatural, so contacting her is also a way.
Each of the three has its pros and cons, but in the final analysis, Shade knows too little about this world, and he has no channels to learn about it. Before leaving today, he checked the map, and there was not even a public library in this city for him to get free knowledge.
There are some private libraries in the city, but one must be introduced by an acquaintance and pay a considerable fee to become a member of the library, and Xia De obviously does not have that money now.
All he could rely on were the materials left by Sparrow Hamilton, but this gentleman had no habit of collecting books, and he was obviously just an ordinary person.
Through Sparrow Hamilton's death, he could investigate the cause of his death and perhaps get in touch with the extraordinary, but this was undoubtedly a very dangerous approach, and Shad's mind refused to do so.
"Can you give me some advice?"
He patted his head, but only heard a woman's chuckle. It was the voice in his head that allowed him to complete the entire task of "investigating Mr. Lawrence's mistress". Otherwise, he alone would not have been able to discover the secret of the ring.
He hoped the voice would give another hint, but there was no response.
"People still have to rely on themselves."
I whispered to myself, tilting my head to look out the window, looking at the night sky with three moons that I had never seen before. It was so magnificent, so mysterious, and so intoxicating. Especially the silver moon among the three moons. Whenever I look at it, I can feel that my depressed mood is better.
"No matter what, we can't wait any longer. Although I haven't encountered any danger yet, since I have made the initial plan to survive as a detective, I must be able to protect myself and know how complicated this world is. Otherwise, I will end up as Detective Sparrow Hamilton."
Since he had some money in his pocket for the time being, he put aside the idea of continuing other investigations and shifted his current main goal to contacting the extraordinary.
"The church, the psychiatrist, Mrs. Lazoya..."
He was not very optimistic about the last option, because the other party's appearance today seemed to coincide with the investigation of the church and the police, so he instinctively thought that the other party did not seem to be a good person. He was somewhat tempted by the first option. Based on a simple understanding, the Orthodox Church in this world was relatively open-minded.
But that was just his understanding, and he couldn't make plans based on such a simple idea. Moreover, he was not a believer in any god, and as a homeless man, he had never been to a church. It was hard to say whether the church's openness was aimed at people like him.
"Maybe... I can investigate for a few more days. I don't have to worry about starving to death for now. Pawning some of my inheritance can support me for a long time. As long as the possible rent collector doesn't show up, I have plenty of time to investigate. Among these three options, I can always find the most suitable one."
With this thought in mind, he fell asleep in the bedroom of the original owner, Shade, and spent his first night in the new world.
In the haze, he seemed to hear the woman's laughter in his mind again. That laughter made Xia De feel unexpectedly at ease. That night, he had a very relaxing dream, sitting on the ridge of the field and looking at the silver moon in the sky.
Accidents always disrupt existing plans, and Xia De's plan of choosing one out of three was disrupted in the early morning of the next day.