"Although this person has all kinds of problems, I like that he keeps his word."
Xia De muttered, putting the cards into his deck. Although he tried his best to restrain himself, a smile appeared on his face. Although the picture of him smiling beside the weak candlelight at the table with his back to the dead woman on the bed was weird, fortunately no one could see it.
After getting the cards, Shad's ostensible purpose of visiting the manor tonight was achieved, but he still had a lot to do.
He turned to look at the woman's body and whispered softly:
"Well, now that Lady Hela was murdered, maybe I can find her killer."
As soon as he finished speaking, the wind and snow blowing in from the half-open window suddenly intensified. The whistling sound of the wind was more like the wailing of ghosts.
When Shad turned his head to look at the window, he saw a huge ball of fire in the direction of the distant city, which actually rushed directly into the night sky. Then there was a delayed explosion. It seemed that the church had begun to face the enemy head-on.
So, how do you investigate
"She" asked softly in Xia De's ear, and Xia De looked at the corpse again:
"There are no wounds or signs of poisoning. Unless I dissect the body, I won't be able to find any clues using normal means. But luckily, I'm a ring sorcerer."
Take out the bone powder and sprinkle it on the corpse:
"Thaumatology - directed death."
The soul that should have been channeled did not appear. Instead, from the perspective of the "Visual Devil", the petrified rose vines squirmed and grew, fixing the corpse more firmly on the bed.
But Shade's magic was not without effect. He heard the woman sigh, and then saw transparent footprints appear beside the bed. The footprints paced beside the bed and then extended to the outside of the door. From a normal perspective, the footprints were very vague, but from the perspective of the visual demon, the glowing footprints were even brighter than candles.
Instead of following immediately, Shade used a knife to take a drop of blood from Hela Osenfurt's finger and dripped it into his own eyes:
"Echoes of blood."
A magical power that can see traces of blood in normal conditions, if dripped with the blood of a dead person, can see all the traces within one hour before birth and one hour after death.
Sure enough, when the blood entered his eyes, Xia De almost immediately saw a phantom appear on the bed, overlapping with the physical position.
But there was only this phantom, which meant that she had been lying in this position both before and after her death.
"Did he sleep before he died?"
Shade was a little confused and took off the sapphire earring on Hela Oxenfurt's ear. He squeezed it hard, and the glass that contained a drop of Stone Oxenfurt's blood shattered directly. Under the guidance of the spell, the drop of blood floated into Shade's right eye:
"Echoes of blood."
When a living person's blood drips into his eyes, Shade can see the shadow of a target's movement trajectory within 24 hours in the next hour. This magic was used to find the missing Augustus priest in Midhill Castle.
Stone Oxenfurt's bloody shadow appeared in front of him, and the position of his feet was the same as the footprints on the ground. He checked on his wife by the bed, and then walked out of the room, overlapping with the series of footprints on the ground.
Xia De followed with a sword in one hand and the candlestick on the desk in the other.
When "Visual Demon" and "Blood Echo" worked together, Shad found that he could see more details, it was as if he was directly seeing what happened in the past.
The footprints extended to the corridor, and when Shade stepped through the bedroom door, he actually took a step and appeared in the courtyard of the manor where gray snowflakes were dancing.
Some kind of force connected the bedroom door to the manor gate. Entering the room was a normal space, and leaving the room led to another space. Oxenfurt also left in this way.
"She" explained softly. Shade was also a ring sorcerer who mastered the power of space, and he understood what "she" meant. And "she" was right. Whether it was the footprints on the ground or the bloody light in Shade's eyes, they continued in front of him.
The figure did not walk towards the gate of the mansion, but turned and walked towards the fence gate of the manor.
Oxenfurt's footprints clearly lingered for two steps on the right side of the fence gate, and the bloody figure reminded Shad that he had stuffed something into the cracks between the bricks.
Xia De stretched out his hand and gently hooked it, and a smooth gray stone piece floated out from the cracks in the bricks. The stone piece was engraved with ant-sized demon runes.
Xia De thought about it, injected his own spirit into it, and then threw it into the snow.
Light and shadows rose from the snow, and the translucent figures of Hela Oxenfurt and Stone Oxenfurt, who looked much younger, appeared.
"I have bought back this manor that originally belonged to the Oxenfurt family."
In the illusion, Stone Oxenfurt was carrying his luggage and said to the girl beside him:
"After a while, I will go to your house and ask for marriage. Now that I have money, your parents, Mr. and Mrs. Watson, will not refuse me anymore."
"We can finally be together."
Because he had seen Mrs. Hela's expressionless face, Shad felt very strange when he saw Hela Watson's happy face in the illusion.
"Shi Dong, can you tell me what kind of business you are doing now?"
Hela asked again. She looked at her future husband with concern, while the younger Ossenfurt smiled and said:
"You don't have to worry about that. I will become richer and richer. Yes, richer than any of my ancestors. Your parents will never look down on me again."
The illusion ended here. The purpose of the stone slab was just to release the illusion. So Shade continued to follow the footprints and the bloody phantom forward, still not towards the mansion, but towards the flower garden that had been covered by snow.
The footprints lingered here again, and the bloody figure told Shad that Oxenfurt had hidden something under the snow again.
It was still smooth gray stone, and this time it was still an illusion.
Stone Oxenfurt stood in the middle of the flowerbed while Hella painted at her easel. Hella Watson was a good painter and had served as a model in the back garden when Shad came to visit her the second time.
"The wedding date is getting closer."
Oxenfurt remained in motion, and his attire was much the same as when Shade had first seen him at Lord Granger's banquet.
"I received a letter from your father, and he gave me a ... prenuptial agreement."
Hella Watson's hand paused for a moment as she painted. She said softly:
"That was my father's own idea. You don't have to care about it."
Oxenfurt, who remained motionless, said:
"It doesn't matter. The contract is necessary. It proves the property we each had before marriage and stipulates the distribution of property after divorce. In addition to the portion that originally belonged to you, the contract also stipulates that once we divorce, I will give you half of my personal property under any circumstances."
"I... ... "
The woman in front of the easel had a guilty look on her face.
"It doesn't matter. I left Captain Woody's ship and got this family fortune just to marry you. If one day I change my mind, I would rather give you my heart as compensation, not to mention half of the property."
Stone Oxenfurt, who had an extremely tough face, had always been considered by Shade to be more like a bandit, but now he showed a kind of rugged handsomeness:
"I will love you for the rest of my life, no matter what the cost."
The illusion smiled and winked at the woman behind the drawing board, and Hela Osenfurt also smiled:
"You love me without paying any price, just as I love you."
Judging from the timeline, since he had become rich, Ossenfort must have completed his contract with the devil long ago, so Shade could understand the determination behind this sentence. After Hela Watson finished speaking, she hid her face behind the drawing board, so the owner of the manor did not see the guilty expression on her face.
The illusion ended. Shade sighed and shook his head in the snow, illuminating the snow with the flickering light of the candle in his hand:
"Although everyone who knew Stone Oxenfurt said that he had always loved her, I didn't expect it to be like this."
Will you let him go for this
"How is that possible?"
The western night sky was suddenly illuminated by a golden light, followed by a dull sound. The ground was shaking slightly, and even the trajectory of the snowflakes was changed by the impact of the sound waves.
Xia De looked in that direction with great concern, and then continued to track the footprints and the bloody figure. After leaving the flower garden, the footprints and the bloody figure circled the courtyard in front of the manor before finally arriving at the door of the mansion.
The footsteps wandered again, and another piece of stone was hidden.
When the illusion was activated, the transparent figures that appeared at the door, in addition to Hela and Stone, were actually the father of the former, Mr. Watson, whom Shad had met in the haunted Watson Manor. Of course, at this time, he was no longer an old ghoul with four arms, but a healthy living person.
The translucent phantom carriage drove into the yard. Old Mr. Watson got out of the carriage, walked down with a cane, and then looked up at the manor house:
"This place is spacious and looks nice, but it's a little old. If you really want to get married, this place needs to be renovated."
"Father, Shi Dong said that the house will be renovated soon."
Young Hela Watson said, and old Mr. Watson looked at his daughter and smiled. But when he looked at Stone Osenfurt, he didn't hide his disgust at all:
“I’m here today to sign the prenuptial agreement with you. If Hela hadn’t insisted on marrying you, I would never have had anything to do with someone like you.”
Stone Oxenfurt is not actually a very good-tempered person, but in the illusion, although he is angry, he still tries to be patient:
"Then let's go in and sign it now."
"No, I won't enter such a shabby house. Although this is your ancestral home, in my opinion, it is not only shabby, but also has a very poor level of artistic aesthetics."
Old Mr. Watson said, then put his hands in his pockets, turned his back to his daughter and future son-in-law, and turned to look at the scenery in the yard.