The shadow of the soul only had the upper half, and the lower half seemed to have been cut off. The shadow was extremely transparent, swaying in the cold wind in the room. Xia De was not used to this scene:
"How many statues do you have left? Where are the mermaid statues now?"
Shade asked in a low voice.
He wanted to confirm what the statue was. He didn't intend to hold it or touch it, so it wasn't dangerous. As for asking after killing someone, it was to prevent the other party from using those dangerous statues to play tricks on him, and the soul shadow summoned by the soul echo would not lie.
"Those statues are useless if thrown away, so I kept three of them in order to find a way to lift the curse. They are in the basement."
The voice had no ups and downs at all. It sounded hollow and weak, as if it came from far away.
"How do I get into the basement? Is it dangerous? What else is in the basement?"
He asked again.
"The basement can be entered from the door next to the broom cupboard at the stairs. You must not step on the first floor after entering the basement, otherwise the door will be locked. In the basement are those statues, the amulets I bought to expel the curse, the exorcism materials I learned about, and some other things I think will be useful to protect myself."
The shadow replied again.
"So where do you keep your money?"
Last time, I didn't take the money of the deceased Ponton family because I promised Miss Beatrice not to take anything extra. And strictly speaking, it is not a good behavior to extort money from such a tragic case of annihilation of the whole family.
But this time it was different, the other party was simply seeking death, and Xia De had no psychological barriers to taking money from such a person. Of course, if the amount was huge, he would donate part of this ill-gotten gains to the Dawn Church.
"There is only some change at home, most of which is kept in a private bank in Lengshui Port, and a small part is with my wife who came back to visit her family."
It seems that the Dawn Church will not be able to get the money. Private banks only recognize people and not documents, and Xia De has neither the time nor the idea to embarrass a woman who is nowhere to be found.
"Well, go ahead."
He asked for some more details about the story, and when he was sure that the other party was not lying, he waved his hand, and the shadow of the soul automatically dissipated. He then searched the body again, and then realized that it was stupid to search for a wallet on a homebody.
So he went to the basement first. Jason Dellal's basement was smaller than Shade's. Standing on the stone steps going down, he found the gas light knob on the wall on one side. Under the dim light, Shade saw three statues covered with red cloth on the box facing the stairs. The outline under the red cloth was indeed similar to a mermaid.
He was very cautious and didn't get close, then quickly looked away:
"Feel anything?"
The Desecration Element, that's a relic. It's very cursed, but not as much as the active blood money.
“It is indeed a relic.”
Out of caution, Xia De just stood on the steps and did not intend to enter the basement. Looking around, the basement was piled with a variety of things. Behind the statue covered with red cloth, there were actually five holy emblems of the gods hanging at the same time.
There were piles of religious books in the corners, and various metal, wooden, and even crystal amulets like tourist souvenirs were hung on the left wall. The basement floor was covered with snow-white refined salt, and the shelves in front of the right wall were filled with incomprehensible things such as stones, metals, and herbs.
Under the box with the three mermaid statues, there were five or six oil paintings, facing the statues covered with red cloth. Because of the angle, Xia De had to work hard to see the content of the paintings, which were all painted with cats.
"Using a cat painting to target a mermaid... He has this idea, but he is still reluctant to ask the Orthodox Church for help. Wait a minute."
Xia De looked at the shelf in front of the right wall again, and stared at the bundle of blue grass tied up on the second layer on the left. His brows slightly frowned:
"Why does this look so familiar..."
After a moment of recollection, he got the answer and his eyes widened suddenly:
“Weathervane Bluegrass!”
The rewards from the Lakeview Manor event and the Angel-level Time Key gave Shade two kinds of space-time magic. However, Laleg's jump, which can move 10 feet (about 3.04 meters) in space, would not be mastered until next month due to the lack of key materials.
Later, Shad had come across a description and sketch of this plant in his first-year Ringwitch textbook, so he was able to recognize the item on the shelf at a glance.
"Is this the purpose of coming to Lengshui Port City?"
He subconsciously wanted to take it, but stopped immediately. After carefully avoiding the traps on the floor, he came to the locker and took the bundle of plants tied with cloth.
After a brief inspection, it was confirmed that this was indeed the main learning material needed for the thaumaturgy Laleg's jump.
Weathervane bluegrass is extremely rare even in the New World. These ones here were probably taken back by Jason Dellal when he was investigating illegal smuggling.
In addition to this, there were many other minerals and herbs on the shelf, but it was a pity that Xia De didn't know many of them. But since he was here, there was no need to leave empty-handed. He took some minerals and put them in his pocket. The herbs were too troublesome to carry, so he took a few bottles of labeled liquids.
Because of the statue covered by the red cloth, Xia De did not dare to continue searching for goodies here. After scanning the area and letting the voice in his head confirm that there were no relics other than the statue, he left the basement and prepared to leave.
To leave, he naturally had to climb out of the window, but as soon as he got close to the window, he discovered that there was someone in the muddy alley.
"What's going on?"
I became alert and looked out from the window. There were five people in the alley within my sight. These people were obviously not passing by, but waiting for something.
"Oops."
I went to the window on the side of the main entrance and looked out. I saw someone walking by with an umbrella on the Mermaid Lane outside, and his eyes were secretly looking in the direction of the house, which showed that the front door was not safe either.
"Who did Mr. Dral offend? Wait... Could it be the True God Church?"
If you think about it carefully, the middle-aged man who was just killed by Shade bought banned books, killed homeless people to get blood, and even put so many strange things in the basement. It is not impossible that he was targeted by the church.
"No matter who he offended, I can't explain it if I stay here."
After thinking for a while, he quickly went to the second floor of the house, found the location of the trapdoor leading to the attic, and climbed up the ladder.
There were some miscellaneous items piled in the attic, but Xia De didn't care. Instead, he pushed the only window of the attic open a crack.
I looked outside and saw that the rain was still coming down hard, but from my current angle the house on the other side of the alley didn't seem that far away.
“I should be able to jump over it.”
He reached for the frog leg in his pocket, then reluctantly gave up some of the heavy stones in his pocket. He chanted the spell, threw the twirling frog leg into his pocket, and found the right time to open the window and jump.
Xia De didn't know whether the people monitoring the house below saw him, so he jumped into the air, and after making sure that he could land on the roof opposite, he prepared to jump again.
The roof was solid enough, and Shade didn't have a big hole in it due to the vibration of landing. He crouched down, trotted forward two steps on the roof of someone else's house, found the right direction, and then jumped into the air again.
Under the rainy sky, he was as inconspicuous as a small black dot. This time, after landing, he did not run again. Instead, he lay on the roof in his robe and observed his surroundings. He did not see the person chasing him from the alley below.
So he jumped again, this time choosing a shorter house in front of him. This house was located at the intersection of the main street and the alley. After Shade lay down, he confirmed that there was no one around, so he immediately jumped from the roof to the ground, and then took off his mask and robe.
Instead of throwing them here, they were rolled up and tucked inside the coat.
He straightened his wet clothes, covered his head with his hands like someone hiding from the rain, and rushed out of the alley.
Regardless of what was happening behind him, Xia De decided that he had nothing to do with it. He ran forward, leaning against the low wall at his feet, and disappeared into the distance of the street in this rainy afternoon in the port city.
As Xia De was walking away, he didn't notice that not far from the alley, there was a carriage parked across the street.
And a few seconds after he ran past, the carriage window that had been opened a crack was pushed open, revealing a delicate face and long fiery red hair.
The girl wearing the silver crown looked out the window in confusion, but Xia De, who was eager to go home, had already run far away.
A group of policemen followed a tough-looking middle-aged man in a black coat and ran towards the carriage from a distance. The driver jumped off the carriage and checked the middle-aged man's ID before allowing him to approach:
"Your Highness."
The man put away his umbrella, trotted to the carriage window in the rain, and said with his head lowered respectfully. He did not dare to look at the face of the person in the window:
"We have surrounded the target's house. When the operation begins, we will bring out some sensitive items. The mermaid statue you requested will definitely be no problem."
"Don't be careless. The church also knows the situation here. I don't want the True God Church to know what I took away. You know how I do things."
The red-haired girl sitting in the carriage said, her tone was not harsh, but it still made the man in the rain shiver. The middle-aged man stepped on the ground with his right foot and opened his shoulders:
"Please rest assured, Your Highness, nothing will go wrong."
After saying that, he bowed slightly towards the car window, then turned around and returned to the scene of the operation with his men.
But the young girl sitting in the carriage was no longer most concerned about whether the relic she had heard about by chance could fall into her hands.
The rain outside the window was reflected in her eyes, and she closed the window again. Although the space inside the carriage was not large, it was fully equipped with sofas, coffee tables, incense burners, and porcelain tea cups.
The red-haired girl wore a silver crown and a long white dress with a row of silver decorative buttons around her waist and a pair of black leather shoes.
With his pinky raised, he picked up the teacup in front of him, his brown eyes showing a thoughtful look. After a while, he murmured softly:
"Was it my eyes that were blurry just now?"
As he spoke, he raised his right hand and touched the sparkling ruby earring on his right ear:
"Why is Shad here?"
(Mi Mia is running...)
On the other side, Xia De returned to the small hotel in the rain. After packing his things, he looked out of the window and saw no one was following him, so he quickly checked out and left.
Holding an umbrella, he walked around the alleys nearby for a few times before finally arriving at the pier. He walked onto the pier with his suitcase in hand, and after making sure no one was watching, he leaned over and pretended to fish something out of the water, then dove directly into the sea.
He hadn't been holding an umbrella and his whole body was wet. When he went under the water, he even felt warmer underwater.
Under the effect of the underwater breathing spell, he held the suitcase wrapped in canvas in one hand and paddled with the other hand to move underwater. Guided by his fairly good sense of direction, he quickly arrived at the cliff outside the dock through underwater movement.
He first poked his head slightly out of the water to confirm that the black stone in front of him was the reef he had landed on. Then he went back underwater again, found the rope extending from the underwater gap, and then swam inward along the crack under the cliff.
It was almost evening, and the low tide exposed part of the crack to the water, so Shad actually swam and walked. He had walked this route once before, so there were no surprises on the way back.
When landing in the dark cave, holding a big fish in his hand, Shade, who was soaked, was almost tripped by a turtle on the ground when he walked towards the hidden wall at the end.
Summon the Life Ring to make the wall disappear, then walk towards the statue of the ancient god and touch it. After chanting the spell to enter the space maze, touch the signpost representing home and enter the circular space again.
Chad walked out of the basement quickly, still dripping with water, wiped the water off his face, and saw at a glance that it was still raining on St. Teresa's Square outside the window.
He stared blankly at the rain outside the window, and after a while he let out a long sigh, dropped his suitcase, and slowly sat down against the wall, not caring about the seawater on his body getting the wall and floor wet:
"Oh, although I didn't encounter any danger during this long journey, it was really tiring."
The serious expression on his face finally relaxed. He just looked at the rain outside the window and listened to the sound of raindrops hitting the glass. It took him a long time to come back to his senses.
He stood up and looked at the dead fish in his hand. It was alive, but it died after approaching the statue of the ancient god. It was not that the statue of the original crack of the ancient god prohibited the movement of living things through space, but that living things could not withstand the mental impact of approaching the statue at close range. It seemed that unless the other party's mental resistance was confirmed to be strong enough, it would be impossible to move living things through space for the time being.
I took a thorough bath at home, washing off all the seawater smell on my body. After soaking my clothes in the basin in the bathroom, I went out with an umbrella and took a carriage to Quill Pen Avenue.