After leaving the Wilde Opera House, Shade braved the snow and carried his suitcase to the local Prophet's Association. Although it was snowing heavily and the weather was freezing, it still couldn't affect people's enthusiasm for Rhodes cards.
There were countless carriages parked in front of the Prophet's Association's square, and people were coming and going on the escalators on both sides of the fountain statues at the Association's entrance. Xia De was curious about what day it was today, but when he met Luvia, he found out that today, the entire Old Continent simultaneously released a new Rhodes card set, the "Phantom Opera House Series".
The so-called "Phantom of the Opera" is not a real opera house, but a fictitious name for a common opera house. This set of cards is not a reprint, but a brand new series. Among all the cards issued, there are more than a thousand cards with special card faces, and a total of 52 special rule cards. In other words, each of the other numerical suits except the king and queen corresponds to a special rule card.
There is a superstition among Rhodes card players that if you buy cards on the first day of the card set release, you are more likely to encounter special rule cards. Therefore, although it is snowing heavily, there are still so many people coming to the Prophet Association to participate in the event. The local association held a regional competition, and the top three winners can get ten, five and three boxes of new cards for free.
"You are not interested in this matter."
The Prophet's Association in Randall Valley City has a larger area and more rooms, so Luvia randomly found an empty room to talk to Shade. She doesn't work as a fortune teller here, so Shade can't ask her for divination.
"When have you ever seen me actively buy issued cards?"
Shade smiled and said:
"I won all my cards."
"It's hard to imagine that when I first met you, you were so determined not to gamble... You don't need to explain. I know you still don't gamble. You're just interested in the Rhodes cards themselves."
Luvia knows Shade well:
"You came to me so early, you must have some important gains, right? Yesterday, you and that lady found the Sand of Time stained by the Night in the Temple of the Night. Did you also find new clues?"
"There are new clues, but they are few. The point is that the seventeen-year-old girl from Tobesk got new information from where she worked."
Xia De handed over the notebook, trying to avoid directly revealing key information in a place like the Prophet's Association.
Luvia frowned and took a look:
"Heart of Stone...except for the third line which is a bit obscure, the others are exactly consistent with your guess."
"Yes, but it only proves my guess. I need to contact the guardian again as soon as possible to confirm my idea. But if everything goes well this time, we will welcome a chosen one who is stronger than Sister Devlin."
Luvia nodded:
"So what are you going to do today? Visit Lord Granger and get that antique key?"
"The Earl won't be back from out of town until tomorrow. I'm going to visit the haunted Watson Manor today."
"The family of Hela Oxenfurt? ... Be careful."
Luvia said softly, and when she saw Shade standing up and trying to leave with his suitcase, she called him back:
"Since you are here at the Prophet's Association, I will give you a small gift. Wait a moment, I will go buy a deck of newly released cards, you can keep it as a brand new backup deck. And I am using my identity as an insider, so the price is very cheap."
Seeing her say this, Shade did not object. Luvia left the room and soon came back, handing Shade a very ordinary flat wooden box.
The decks that may contain special cards sold by the Prophet's Association are all packaged like this, while the decks that definitely do not contain special cards can be bought anywhere and are packaged in paper boxes. In order to prevent people from using strong light to determine whether there are special cards in the deck when buying cards from the Prophet's Association, the outer packaging of Rhodes cards is made of wood.
Of course, compared to the lacquered wooden deck storage box that Shade got when he exchanged "Wise Pyroxene" for "Founding Knowledge" from the Association, this kind of wooden box looks much simpler.
It was the first time for Shad to open a brand new Rhodes deck. Although he claimed not to be interested just now, he still smiled after receiving it. Luvia was naturally very happy to see him like this.
Due to packaging costs, the wooden box had no mechanism to open. The box itself was made up of two parts, the upper and lower parts, which were connected together after being sealed with wax. Xia De used a knife to remove the wax, opened it, and took out the brand new fifty-four Rhodes cards.
The smell of ink hit me, and the smell of brand new playing cards was intoxicating.
He weighed the deck happily, then pressed it on the table, pulled it sideways, and arranged the cards in an arc on the table. In this way, he could see at a glance whether there were any special patterns among the fifty-four cards:
"Oh, look, Luvia, you're really lucky!"
Because it was a brand new deck, the cards were arranged according to suit and number. Shade immediately saw the exquisite pattern on the penultimate card of the Moon suit, which was the Moon 12 card. After picking the card out, he saw a line of small words printed right below the card, which undoubtedly meant that this was actually a special rule card:
"Luvia, you really are my lucky girl!"
The girl with purple eyes was also a little surprised. She didn't expect that her luck was so good today.
The card is divided into two parts: the upper left and the lower right. In the upper left part, a dancer without a face is dancing on a brightly lit stage; in the lower right part, a dark and neatly arranged auditorium is shown, with a vague figure outlined by a brush sitting alone in the middle of the second row of the auditorium, which is the center of the entire card.
"Phantom of the Opera: Silent Audience, Suit: Moon 12. If the previous card you drew was also of the Moon suit, all players except yourself will be forced to stop playing this round."
He smiled and read out the rules of this card:
"This rule is really good, especially in multiplayer games, the effect can be even greater. I am really looking forward to it... I mean, I have one more special card, now I have 23."
"We are still 31 cards away from completing the entire special card set."
Luvia concluded, and Shade stood up and gently kissed Luvia on the forehead:
"Thank you so much, Luvia."
"I really hope you can find other reasons to kiss me... But it's okay, as long as you are happy."
Luvia didn't have much of an opinion about Shad's love of playing Rhodes cards. After all, apart from Rhodes cards and Mia, Shad's private life was so monotonous that it was outrageous. She and Dorothy actually had the same worry. Shad's low-material life seemed to be moving away from them step by step. So she had to seize the opportunity to defile Shad before he really wanted to become a "saint".
"Speaking of which, I went to see those two ladies this morning. What did they say about you being injured?"
Seeing that Shade was about to leave, Luvia asked again. Shade blinked and immediately shook his head:
"It's all right now. There were some accidents, but they were just minor ones. Not even a false state of immortality appeared. It's nothing."
The girl with purple eyes looked at him:
"I always feel like something is wrong when you said this. But since you don't want to talk about it, I won't ask you. Just be careful. Also, who hurt you? Those two ladies were very vague about it."
"It was... the person I hurt. Even though I was hurt, it was what I deserved."
Luvia looked at him even more strangely:
"Your physical injuries have healed, so your mental state won't be affected, right? Okay, okay, I know you're fine, you don't have to prove it to me."
She gently kissed Xia De's cheek:
"Be careful and don't underestimate any opponent or enemy. The path we take is destined to be extraordinary, but don't be arrogant and think that we are the ones chosen by fate... Arrogance is the original sin."
But Shade always felt that this sentence was more appropriate to describe the long-haired Luvia than to describe him. The way the long-haired Luvia did things was very different from the short-haired Luvia.
After bidding farewell to Luvia, Shad braved the wind and snow and came to the street again, heading for today's real goal, which was the family manor of Hela Oxenfurt, who was brutally murdered.
Watson Manor was also not in the city. Although the Watson family was a very successful merchant family, it was still far behind the local old nobles. The manor was located in the northern suburbs of the city, but fortunately it was not far from the city.
Because he didn't know whether strange things would happen near the manor, Shade did not go there on horseback. Instead, he took a carriage to the outside of the city first, and then walked to his destination.
Watson Manor had been abandoned for three years. Because of rumors of haunting, no one even dared to approach the surrounding woods. Three years was enough time for weeds to cover the original paths and to eliminate any traces of human activity nearby.
Xia De relied on the map to find the location of the manor. At the end of the country road, he could barely distinguish the traces of the fork in the road under the snow. He followed the traces of the fork in the road into the cedar forest. In the gaps between the trees, he could barely see the manor standing not far away.
The closer we got to the manor, the darker the sky became. Although it was winter and there were no leaves on the branches, the interlinked branches made the forest look a little weird and unsettling.
The snow was getting heavier, and Shade pushed his hat against the wind as he walked forward, squinting his eyes as he watched the manor, which stood higher than the woods, getting closer and closer. Even in the snowy weather, there were still three crows hovering above the manor, with gloomy black clouds covering it, and the clinging dry branches twisted and deformed. Shade seemed like the unlucky protagonist in a horror story who had crossed the snowstorm and entered a haunted house for refuge.
The manor was right in front of me, but in the cedar forest ahead, there were three figures sitting. When I got closer, I saw that they were not three living people, but three skeletons wearing rags.