"Pudding Lane? What's that name?"
Xia De walked along the narrow alley to the intersection, identified the street sign and continued to walk west. Soon, he found No. 8 Pudding Lane. There was a simple yard outside the low shed. At this time, a slightly older girl was playing with a boy in the yard, and a woman with a numb expression was beating clothes with a pestle in front of a basin.
There were piles of clothes around her, and the yard was full of washed clothes. Obviously, she was a washerwoman who washed clothes for others, and the family's income probably depended entirely on her.
The afternoon spring breeze from the Duin River blew into the yard through the mist, causing the clothes on the clothesline to sway slightly. But this scene did not feel full of spring vitality at all. Instead, it looked like a group of people had been hanged here, leaving their bodies to be blown by the wind.
"Hello."
Although the gate to the courtyard was open, Shade knocked on the wood instead of walking in:
"Does Mr. Jack Sybil live here?"
This is the name of the tomb robber:
"I have something to ask him."
The girl, who looked no more than ten years old, held her brother's hand and hid behind the clothes drying rack. The woman washing clothes looked up at Xia De and nodded slowly:
"He's here, but he can't talk to you anymore."
"He... died?"
Shade asked with some regret.
"No, but he's crazy. Absolutely crazy."
The woman said, but Xia De still walked into the yard:
"It doesn't matter. It's not like a madman can't speak."
As he spoke, he took out a handful of coins from his pocket. The change added up to about two pounds:
"I'll be interrupting for about half an hour."
He handed the money to the woman who was washing clothes. She wiped her wet hands on her apron and subconsciously wanted to take it, but then withdrew her hands and held up the apron, allowing Shad to put the change on the apron.
"Sir, he is in the east room, on the bed. Please be careful, he can hurt people sometimes."
The woman said, and Shad nodded, walking across the yard and into the house.
Although this house was not completely bare, its poverty was obvious. The only furniture in the house, such as tables, chairs and cabinets, were very old, and there were no decorations on the walls. Even Shade could not find a gas lamp, and the oil lamp on the table was the only lighting tool.
The person Xia De was looking for was lying on the bed in the innermost room. He was a thin man, covered with a quilt, staring at the ceiling with his eyes open, shivering constantly. His right hand was exposed from under the quilt, tied to the rusty iron railing at the head of the bed with a rope.
He shivered even more at the sound of Shade's footsteps, but at least he didn't try to get up and attack Shade.
Coming to the bedside and looking at the man's state, Shad understood why "Bad-Eyed Barry" said he would not live long. The man looked exactly like Detective Sparrow Hamilton, whom the stranger saw on his first day in this world. This was the last struggle before death, and it also meant that life had come to an irreversible end.
"Can you still communicate with me?"
Xia De asked softly. The man with pale lips trembled, stared at the ceiling with wide eyes, and said something difficult to understand from his throat.
Even if one is familiar with the language of Shade, one cannot fully understand the meaning, which means that it is the meaningless ravings of a madman. The few words of Draerion and Carsenric that can be understood have the meanings of "return", "monster", "ghost", "underwater deep diver", "ill-gotten gains" and so on.
Xia De then placed a finger on the other's skinny right wrist. The bulging blue veins on the wrist made the arm look as scary as some diseased tree roots.
After waiting for a moment, "she" said gently:
His mental state is extremely bad, there are impurities in his soul, and an unknown curse has caused this result. To put it simply, he is indeed crazy. Please note that his vitality is extremely weak, and excessive mental stimulation will cause him to die prematurely.
"I see."
So Shade first took out some holy water and fed it to the man on the bed. After helping him sit up, he took out his moonstone ring. He gently kissed the ring and sent the hazy yellow moonlight to the man's eyes:
"confusion!"
This is a magic trick I got from Miss Orlanod in the Gadis Library. It can confuse summons and drive people crazy, but it can also make madmen temporarily sober.
In the guiding light of the yellow moon in the night sky, the nervous and timid eyes of the constantly trembling man turned into a little confusion, and then the confusion faded away, and the wisdom of humanity was re-lit in his eyes.
Xia pulled over a chair with a missing leg and sat down, giving the man some time to recover, before speaking:
"I came here for the things you stole from the island in the middle of Green Lake. You know what I mean. Now, please tell me what happened on the island, why your companion went crazy and died tragically, and where the man with mysterious power who led you to the island went."
The man's home was reflected in his eyes. He opened his mouth and looked at Shade:
"Can I... speak to my wife for a moment?"
"no."
Xia De shook his head decisively. He didn't want to cause trouble for himself:
"If the information you gave me is useful, I can give your wife some money so that she can live well with your children. If you disagree, I actually have the ability to communicate with souls and ask questions... You know what I mean."
The man pursed his lips and nodded. He knew that the stranger sitting in front of him had no intention of negotiating with him:
"Even though I've become like this, I don't know everything. I guess I'm lucky to be the last one to die... What do you want to know first?"
Xia De wanted to know a lot, and he knew exactly what he wanted to know most:
"Did you know that among the grave goods you brought back from the grave of a member of the Edwards family there were some finger bones?"
"Yes, it was sold to a wealthy businessman in the Randall Valley City of the United Kingdom of Carsenrick."
The man nodded:
"I remember it very clearly. The merchant looked even crazier than us at the time. He kept saying that he had met a demon and that he must never look in the mirror. The two finger bones were sold for a large sum of money, and everyone who was alive at the time received a generous reward."
Xia De frowned slightly:
"Only two?"
This number is correct. Shad got two finger bones from Hela's home.
"Yes, only two. However, there was another similar bone product, which the merchant did not want, so we gave it to Ferrero."
Hard Ferrero was also one of the tomb robbers, but he died half a year ago. The only information about him in the intelligence of "Rotten Eye Barry" was the time of death and the burial place. Shade wrote down this clue and continued to ask:
"How did you become so poor if you sold two finger bones for so much money?"
Shade pointed to the house:
"It's only been two years since you landed on the island. Aren't you wasting time too quickly? Are you playing Rhodes? Or have you encountered a scam or a trap?"
The man leaning against the head of the bed replied with a wry smile:
"I am a disgraceful grave robber, yes, I know that, but I never gamble. As for the scam, I used to be a liar and a thief myself. I actually sent all the money back to the island."
"oh?"
Xia De looked at him scrutinizingly, and the man continued:
"You know, since we came back from the island, everyone has gone crazy. But actually, they are not crazy, but... we encountered some terrible situations on the island."
He suddenly frowned, then groaned and covered his head:
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I forced myself to forget those things. The person who brought us to the island also erased our memories so that we could leave the island safely. I can no longer tell you the details of what happened on the island. I only remember the fog, screams, fish heads, corpses, tentacles... Oh."
He began to tremble all over again, and Shade fed him some holy water to stabilize his condition.
"Originally, our symptoms were very mild after we left the island. But as we spent our gains, the headaches, nightmares, and the feeling of being watched all the time became more and more intense. I think this is the curse of the devil's island on everyone. I spent the least, so I went crazy the slowest. In order to survive, I was willing to give back all the money, so I died the last."
He laughed dryly with a pale face, and told Shade the specific location where he buried those things. It was an open space in the woods connecting the pier and Green Lake Town. He himself did not dare to go deep into the island:
"Looking at my current physical condition, I probably won't live until the end of spring."
He was so optimistic that Shade even felt that he might not live to the end of this month:
"So you actually know nothing about that experience? Well, next question, how much do you know about the guy with mysterious powers who led you to the island?"
The man shook his head hard:
"Do you remember what I said? In order to get us off the island alive, he erased most of everyone's memories. This included memories of himself. I only remember that he gathered us in this city and left the island with us after robbing the tomb. He left with the notebooks he collected, the inscriptions he copied, and a small number of burial objects. We secretly hid those finger bones. He was a man in his forties, wearing glasses and looked like a writer or university professor."
According to Megan, the other party was just a low-level warlock, and Shad had no idea what his abilities were.
"Besides that, you don't remember anything?"
The man shook his head and said nothing. Xia De frowned and thought for a while, then took out the pen he had picked up from the bottom of the lake:
"Do you recognize this pen and this name? Durut Giles."
This time the man finally showed a surprised expression:
"Yes, yes, that's the name of the guy who hired us to go to the island and has special abilities. I remember that he did have a very expensive pen on him, but I haven't touched it, so I'm not sure if it was this one... I remember it now, it's a very vague memory!"
He covered his head, his face turned even paler, but part of his memory was indeed reviving:
"It was a dark and stormy night when we escaped from the island by boat. There were monsters under Green Lake! Yes, my God, how could I forget this! There were monsters under Green Lake. They attacked us. Originally, there were three boats that escaped, but when we returned to the shore, there were only two boats left!"
In this case, the corpse, ore, and pen that Shade found in the water ghost's lair were all belonging to this group of tomb robbers. The pen might have been lost by the low-level warlock.
But the information provided by the man sitting on the bed could only indicate that the water ghost in Green Lake might be related to the island, but it still could not provide more accurate clues about the owner of the pen, Durrut Giles.
Xia De asked questions in a different way, but the man was able to provide very limited information. In the final silence, Xia De suddenly asked:
"Describe your nightmare. Don't use fancy words to exaggerate the atmosphere. Just tell me what happened."
"Sir, do I look like someone who can use very sophisticated words?"
The tomb robber smiled bitterly and described his horrible dreams:
"All the dreams took place on that island, as if we had never left there. The sky was filled with fog, monsters rushed out of the fog, and babies laughed. Sir, you can imagine that in the fog of the night, all the horror scenes that humans can imagine appeared in our dreams. I have talked with my companions, and everyone's dreams are similar. This must be caused by our tomb robbery."
Shade didn't ask them why they didn't seek help from the church. He thought of another thing:
"Do you know whose tomb you are robbing?"
"That strange cemetery had tombstones, but it was dark and foggy that night. I only knew that it was a baby who died young in the Edwards family, but I didn't know who it was."
Xia De frowned slightly:
"So... when you opened the coffin, did you see the ghost of the baby?"
When Shade and Megan came into contact with three corpses the second time they landed on the island, the last corpse did not show a soul. This is probably because they were not the first to contact, so the soul did not appear.
The man on the bed shook his head blankly:
"I'm sorry, but I don't remember. I don't remember most of the things on the island. I just remember that it was dangerous and there were monsters... But at least there shouldn't be any undead after I return home. I only have nightmares and headaches."
Xia De nodded, and the magic to keep him awake was almost up. Seeing Xia De stand up, the man pleaded:
"Sir, what you just said..."
"I will leave some money for your wife and children. But it's not from me. Someone will donate it in time."
The man sighed deeply and retreated into the quilt. After a while, the light in his eyes faded and he shivered unconsciously again. Xia De frowned and looked at him, and suddenly said:
"A dead water ghost with a fish head and a human body."
The man's shivering became more severe.
"So, here are three clues: the dead grave robber Hard Ferrero who took the bone fragment, the owner of the pen, Durut Giles, and the water ghost is related to Central Island."
Shad thought to himself and walked out of the house. Seeing the washerwoman looking at him, he shook his head;
"I'm sorry, but it looks like there's really no hope."
He walked towards the woman, took out a stack of five-pound notes from his pocket, and stuffed them into her hands. Seeing that the two children were not there, he reminded them:
"When he dies, give him a decent funeral. He dug other people's graves when he was alive, so he hopes that others won't dig his grave after he dies."
Hearing what Xia De said, the woman looked very panicked. However, Xia De did not say anything else, but walked out of the yard. As for the money he promised to give the woman, he could not give it now, but planned to see Megan next time and ask her to help in the name of Paradise Island Pharmaceuticals. Or, after Yin Luna came to the local area, it would be good to use the name of the church.
Back at Pudding Lane, Shad put his hands in his pockets and looked towards the foggy riverbank, wondering if he should go to Riverbank Street to take a carriage. He turned around and walked slowly towards the alley entrance, turned left at the alley entrance, and disappeared. In the slightly empty alley, five or six minutes later, in the direction where Shad had just come from, Barry, who was wearing an eye patch, walked over with his two rough-looking men.
Barry stood at the door, and two of his men entered the yard. One of them spoke fiercely to the woman, and the other entered the house to check on the man. They quickly asked about the situation and told the one-eyed man about it. Barry shook his head regretfully, and then the three of them left together.
On the rooftop opposite, the silver cat saw all of this in the fog:
"As expected, he is here. When the tomb robbers escaped two years ago, they were attacked by water ghosts in the lake. It seems that this may really be related to Rotten-Eye Barry. Is he a collaborator of a secret existence on the island in the middle of Green Lake? Or is he also coveting the things that the tomb robbers took away from the island?"
Compared to this, there is actually another question.
"She" suddenly said beside the cat's ear.
"What?"
Didn’t you say that you wouldn’t easily turn into a cat
"Well... the girls aren't with me now, and Mia isn't here either, so what should I be afraid of?"
Amid "her" gentle laughter, Shade Cat nimbly jumped off the eaves, transformed back into a human form on the ground, and then walked towards the river bank.