The new things I heard in the teahouse were related to the disasters caused by the heavy snow.
About half an hour ago, a train arrived from the north that was delayed for 20 hours. The train encountered an avalanche midway, leaving the entire train with no way to move forward as the tracks were covered.
During the forced stop of the train, a series of horrific incidents occurred in the VIP carriage of the train, including cultists, illegal organizations and brutal murders, but fortunately the incident was solved by an unidentified detective in the VIP carriage.
Sister Devlin was somewhat concerned about this matter, so she asked her "servants", who were actually the witch followers arranged by the parliament in advance to wait for the two witches in the local area, to investigate the cause of the incident.
The young girl in the maid dress came back soon. She didn't find out what happened on the train, but she heard that the train was carrying a relic. Because the train was delayed, the Creation Church, which was responsible for receiving the relic, had to temporarily arrange for the antique shop owner and his apprentice to receive the goods. As a result, the two lost the relic and the thief died tragically. Now the alley where the murder occurred has been blocked.
"So, this heavy snow will change the fate of many people... Two ring sorcerers had their relics stolen by an ordinary person. The peripheral clerical staff of the church are really careless."
Xia De said with a smile, sitting in the warm teahouse, looking at the heavy snow outside through the window. He knew what such a large snowfall meant for this era, and for most people, this winter would be quite difficult to survive.
"Um?"
Xia De, who was sighing in his heart, was suddenly startled. He saw a familiar figure passing by hurriedly outside the window.
Xia De immediately put down the teacup in his hand:
"Lakins Prisha?"
"oh?"
Sister Defulin handed her hand to the maid beside her and stood up with her help:
"Which direction?"
"I'm not sure if I saw it wrongly, after all, there was glass between us, and he was on the other side of the street. The direction was to turn left when you go out. He was wearing a black bowler hat, a brown plush scarf, a black coat, a cane in his hand, and white gloves."
This is the standard outfit for a southern gentleman going out in winter.
"Sister, let's split up and search. If we don't find it, meet back here in half an hour."
The nun nodded and left the teahouse with the help of the maid. Xia De sat at the table and waited for two minutes before calling the waiter to settle the bill. When paying the tip, he even praised the tea for being delicious.
After he left the teahouse, he ran quickly in the direction where Legins Prisha had left.
There was no clue for Shade to follow the figure he had just seen. He could not even see the nun and the maid who had gone one step ahead of him. So Shade could only move forward, and when he came across an alley or street corner, he would turn according to his own ideas. He did not leave the area too far, and basically circled around the Huntington train station.
This method of searching would naturally not be able to find Sir Prisha, unless there really was a so-called "gravity of fate" between Shade and the chosen ones. So after confirming that he had not found the target, Shade was not very disappointed. He calculated the time and planned to return to the teahouse to see if Sister Defulin and the maid had found the target.
But unexpectedly, when he passed the alley behind him marked as "Ancient Tree Alley", a figure flashed out from it. Although Shade did not find Sir Prisha, the latter found him.
"I felt that the figure looked familiar from the window just now. It turned out to be you, Mr. Hamilton."
Shade was wearing witch eyeshadow, which only worked on people who were not familiar with him, so Sir Prisha recognized him at this time. Compared with when he left Tobesk City, this southern gentleman had not changed much. He stood at the entrance of the alley, stepped on the snow, smiled and pointed behind him:
"Come in first and take shelter from the snow."
Number One, Ancient Tree Lane, is a small private book club. Shade did not refuse and followed the knight up the stairs and walked in. The warm room was lined with bookshelves and a fireplace was burning on the side. The servant wanted to take Shade's coat to help clean up the snow, but Shade refused.
The light inside was very soft, but there weren't many people here on this snowstorm morning, and the library was so quiet that people felt embarrassed to speak.
The air was filled with the smell of stinky ink, but that was the smell of ink itself in this era. In order to avoid disturbing other people who were reading, Sir Prissy took Shad to the second floor and stood on the small terrace near the alley, looking at the heavy snow outside and talking to him:
"This is a club I am very familiar with. Every time I come to Huntington, I will visit here. The owner of the club is also a distant relative of mine, and he always reserves newly purchased books for me."
The knight introduced with a smile, and the servant brought two glasses of wine on a tray, both of which were chilled. This was the knight's hobby:
"Mr. Hamilton, I didn't expect you to arrive in Huntington so quickly."
"I want to give His Highness a surprise. His Highness will probably be very happy to see me when he gets off the train."
Shade raised his glass and shook it slightly, then asked Sir Prisha with an unchanged smile:
"Sir, I remember you left with His Highness. How did you arrive in Huntington City first? Did you run into any trouble?"
"Yes, some of my collaborators asked me to attend their event as soon as possible. After I finish this drink with you, I will probably meet up with them in the city."
The knight looked at the heavy snow, drank the glass of iced red wine, and showed an intoxicated expression on his face:
"My favorite thing is to look at the snow in the winter and taste the best red wine of the year."
He laughed heartily, picked up the bottle of wine on the tray on the small table, and wanted to pour himself a glass of wine, but Shade stopped him:
"I have better wine here."
He took out the bottle of red wine from his coat, and the knight smiled and raised his eyebrows:
“That’s great.”
He took the bottle of wine from Xia De and blew on it, and the cold air immediately covered the entire bottle.
"No need to sober up, just drink it directly."
Xia De reminded him and drank the red wine in his glass. The Jazz then poured new red wine into the two glasses.
The two clinked glasses on the small terrace. Sir Prisha couldn't wait to take a sip of the new wine, then half-closed his eyes and made an intoxicated sound:
"Oh, this wine, this wine is really... I can't believe it... Mr. Hamilton, you are willing to carry such a fine wine with you!"
He exclaimed in surprise. Although Shad gave Margaret a batch of red wine at the end of autumn, it was obvious that Sir Prisha was not of sufficient status to taste them, at least not a lot.
Xia De put down his glass and did not talk about wine:
"Before I left Tobesk, I went to see Mr. Booker. The poor fellow died, and his library was destroyed by fire. According to the investigation, the fire broke out on Tuesday evening, which was the time when Her Royal Highness Margaret was giving a banquet."
Sir Prisha smiled and took another sip of the red wine in his hand:
“What a pity.”
Xia De didn't know what this southern gentleman was "regretting", he continued:
"My fortune teller friend did some fortune telling for me, but unfortunately there was no result. But the church soon found out something, and maybe... this matter has something to do with you."
Shade looked into Sir Prisha's eyes, and the latter did not evade and looked back at him. After a brief silence, the knight nodded slightly:
"Yes, that's right, it's me."
"For those old books that Mr. Booker treasures and doesn't want to sell?"
"Of course, what else could it be for?"
"You invited me to go with you to collect the relics on Monday, just to check out the location?"
"It is also for the purpose of storing relics. No one stipulates that one thing cannot be used to achieve two purposes."
Jazz shrugged his shoulders, and during the brief conversation, the two of them kept looking into each other's eyes.
These answers were not surprising to Shade. He had known them for a long time and even fully understood what Lakins Prisha was thinking. Shade knew very well that the other party was definitely not the same kind of person as himself:
"In fact, there was a time when I thought we could be friends. At Her Highness Resia's reading salon, we talked about wisdom and knowledge very harmoniously."
His voice was very soft.
"Yes, we talked very harmoniously at that time. Then you should understand. Knowledge is power, and wisdom is wealth. I have power, and I desire wealth."
The right corner of the Jazz's mouth curled up slightly:
"Wealth should belong to those who deserve it. In other words, it is a waste for those books to remain in the hands of Mr. Booker who only regards them as collections. If they are given to me, I will read them and donate them to universities or public libraries when appropriate. This is the destination of those books. Sacrificing a person in exchange for the spread of knowledge, I can't say it is reasonable, after all, life is priceless, but at least I think it is not wrong to do so."
Joey Barton knew that what he did was wrong, but he still did it; then the man in front of him probably really didn't feel that he did anything wrong.
"At the wedding reception at Lakeview Manor, you said you wanted to popularize education and liberate the labor force. Isn't the first step to do this to free these books, which are not expensive to print, from the hands of those collectors?"
Jazz asked with a smile, and Shade also laughed:
"Your statement cannot be said to be outrageous, it can only be said to be quite outrageous."
Sir Prissy smiled and nodded:
"Yes, yes, of course it is outrageous. Well then..."
He looked at Xia De with a smile on his face, but there was only indifference in his eyes:
"I did it so I could get the books myself."