There was nothing worthy of Shad's attention in the journey through the city and the countryside. The Green Lake area, whether it was the city style or the rural scenery, had no outstanding features compared with those cities he had visited in the past.
When preparing to cross the border at the checkpoint, the drivers really took out the special pass that Captain Rades gave to Shade, so they didn't need to queue up to wait for registration. When the driver showed the pass to the officer Shade had never seen before, and the carriage stopped temporarily, Shade also saw from the window that there were more people waiting in line at the border than he had seen last time.
The long line was barely formed amid the soldiers' shouting. After circling the camp, the end of the line almost reached the outside of the camp. Xia De had good hearing and learned from the noisy voices that there was a big market held once a month in the village on the other side of the Mikaela Blast Furnace City, so it was so lively here.
Captain Rades was not seen, so Shade did not get off the carriage. The driver quickly handled the border crossing formalities, and the two carriages passed the queue of people and entered the neighboring country directly.
Then there was another boring journey. At around ten o'clock in the morning, Shade yawned and jumped off the carriage, looking at the "glass blast furnace" in the distance, and said to the pharmacist who also got off the carriage not far away:
"Let's take a boat next time. Even though it's a detour, at least the journey will be more interesting. It's too boring to ride in a carriage by myself. If I had known, I would have brought my cat with me."
The sorceress ignored Shade's boring words and waved at him:
"Come with me, this way."
As he said this, he was about to lead Shade away from the glass avenue where the carriage stopped and into the alley. This road was also the street where Shade saw the police drive away the disabled boy last time. It was the city center of Michaela Blast Furnace City. And this time, he really didn't see the disabled boy begging sitting on the street again.
He followed the pharmacist into the nameless narrow alley. After walking a dozen steps in the alley, he heard a lot of footsteps coming from the street behind him, as well as the sound of someone speaking loudly into a loudspeaker.
He turned around in surprise and soon saw a group of wandering people walking through the street, and people who were talking loudly were calling on citizens to protest against the negotiation, because the Pantanal region originally belonged to the United Kingdom of Carsenrick, and the negotiations desecrated the glory of Carsenrick.
"Their destination is the City Hall. This week's meeting is being held in Mikaela Blast Furnace City. They probably want to take advantage of the lunch break to give a speech in the square in front of the City Hall."
The pharmacist said to Shade, and then motioned for him to follow:
"Don't pay attention to such boring activities. The final outcome of the negotiation will not be determined by a few steps they take."
In the big cities of this era, there are always complicated alleys like a maze. If you want to find a specific store in such a cluster of buildings, you may get lost for a long time without a guide.
The destination of the two was a used bookstore hidden in an alley. The pharmacist pushed the door open and walked in. Xia De followed her and strictly ensured that he would not get within 1 meter of her.
There were no other customers in the bookstore. The pharmacist took Shade through the bookstore and pushed open the back door with a sign saying "No entry without permission". They walked through the backyard and entered the warehouse behind the bookstore, which was the trading place of the black market.
"I made an appointment to pick up that box yesterday."
She said to the fat woman behind the counter, and took out a badge as proof. The woman nodded, took an old black suitcase to the table and pushed it to the pharmacist, who opened it herself. The suitcase was filled with old clothes, old books, rusty buttons and other miscellaneous items.
"What's this?"
Shade asked curiously.
"Sometimes, even if the guys who come to the Central Island can't find anything valuable, they will take away the sundries and sell them cheaply on the local black market. So when we came to the island last time, although most of the furniture was still there, it was empty. Not only in the black market of the ring sorcerers, but even in the grocery stores or second-hand shops of ordinary people, you may find things belonging to the Edwards family. This family is quite legendary in the eyes of local occult researchers and gossipers. Some people even specialize in collecting old things of the Edwards family."
The pharmacist explained while rummaging through the things in the box. According to her, these sundries were used by her ancestors hundreds of years ago.
She quickly found a palm-sized notebook with a red cover in the box. She quickly flipped through it, nodded, and threw two 1-kroner alloy coins onto the table. She stuffed the notebook into her pocket, closed the box, and motioned for Shad to help carry it.
"Why should I help you carry your boxes?"
Shad raised his own question.
"Don't you have the ability to store miscellaneous items? Besides, isn't it a gentleman's duty to help a pretty girl by working with her?"
The sorceress said as a matter of course, signaling that Shade could leave:
"We're going to take a boat into Green Lake. If you don't mind, we can have lunch on the boat later."
"Of course I don't mind, but could you please wait a moment?"
He put the suitcase behind the right side of his coat, patted it, put the toy in his pocket, and asked the fat woman behind the counter who was watching the two men's conversation:
"Ma'am, do you have any relics like coins here?"
So ten minutes later, Xia De happily left the bookstore with the pharmacist, holding a small cloth bag containing two coins.
The poet-level relic, the Sorrow of the Lute, allows you to throw a coin forcefully onto the floor in a confined space, and a sad lute-played piece of music will randomly sound in that space. The price is that the user will completely lose the ability to speak within an hour.
This was a kind of useless poet-level relic, so the price was relatively cheap. When Shade got them, he also saw the detailed ancient Elvish language on the side of the coin:
I hope that the performances I perform for the rest of my life will be as sad as those at Lianna’s funeral.
The emergence of this coin obviously has a very complicated story.
"But why did you inquire about the local grave-robbing gang just now?"
When we walked through the alley towards the banks of the Duin River, the pharmacist who was leading the way asked curiously.
"Someone took something they shouldn't have, and even though I found the item, I still want to know where they got it from."
Xia De gave the answer, and the pharmacist nodded thoughtfully. She wanted to help Xia De find it, as she was very influential in the local area, but thinking about what they were going to do, she decided to wait until this matter was over.
The steamship waiting for them on the bank of the Duin River was very similar to the one that was destroyed last time, except that there were two ladies with nine rings waiting for them on the ship.
"These are my followers. In order to prevent what happened last time, they are going with us. However, they are not going to the island. Instead, they are waiting for us at the dock."
Fearing that Xia De might misunderstand, the pharmacist even explained it. Xia De didn't care. He climbed onto the deck and watched the riverbanks on both sides moving backwards, wondering what he would encounter on the island this time.
Last time, since we entered the Great Lake from the direction of Delarion on the north shore of Green Lake, the landing place was the dock from the central to the north shore. This time, we set out from the city of Mikaela Blast Furnace, so the landing place was on the south shore of the island. When the ship entered the foggy area, Shad realized that the docking location this time was different from the last time.
Sure enough, as the ship slowed down, the shadow of the island in the fog became clearer and clearer, and Shad gradually saw that this time it was no longer a grove connecting to the pier, but a path on a low hill.
"The northern part of Green Lake Island is flat, with the dock, cemetery, town and farmland. The southern part is low hills, with Edwards Mansion, orchard and lighthouse all in the south."
The steamer gently bumped against the pier and stopped. The pharmacist came to the pier first, carrying a cloth bag with reagent bottles, followed by Shade. As for the two Nine Rings sorceresses who had been silent, they stood on the deck and watched them walk away in the fog:
"So what is this pier used for?"
"This is the Edwards family's private dock. It connects to the mansion on the hill and is used to transport things that are inconvenient for the townspeople to see. When Green Lake Town was still prosperous, the lord and his family often took a boat from here to go to Mikaela Blast Furnace City for vacation. Although there are no strict regulations, the townspeople rarely take the initiative to go to the hill in the south of the island. They tacitly accept that this is a private territory that is forbidden to anyone other than Edwards."
Their destination was not the Green Lake Town Cemetery in the grove in the north of the island. Although most of the townspeople and Edwards were buried there, according to the pharmacist, there were actually no bones in Edwards' grave in the cemetery, and all the family members were buried separately in various hidden corners of the island.
As for the reason, the sorceress couldn't explain it clearly:
"It sounds like some kind of ritual that uses blood as a guide to affect the entire island, but I can't explain the details. From the relics and letters my father left me, I can see that this is a rule left by the first lord of the family, Clay Edwards, and my ancestors have been following it."
This time she was looking for the grave of her brother Sloss Edwards' wife in the second generation of the root system map. In order to avoid the situation of suddenly losing their sense of direction and being forced to wait, the two of them did not waste any time on the road this time. They walked along the path connecting Edwards' mansion and the southern pier, then turned into a fork in the road, and more than ten minutes later, they saw the lighthouse standing at the highest point of the island.