Princess Leixia had made sufficient preparations for the joint action on Wednesday. She arranged a special carriage and driver in advance, and prepared a fake identity for herself to facilitate the action.
Now Shad is still an MI6 spy operating undercover in Coldwater Harbor, while Leicia is an active writer at the Coldwater Harbor docks, contributing to the local Tuna Literary Newspaper. She has a full set of credentials, so unless someone recognizes her face directly, there is no way to see through her identity.
"Do you do this often? In Tobesk, I mean, also under a false identity?"
Shade asked curiously as they boarded the carriage.
"I used to do this before I met Dorothy. After all, my father's discipline is very strict, and no one in the family dares to disobey him. Even for an adult princess like me, or a prince with children like my brothers, you can't expect any freedom unless you give up your title. But it's much better after I met Dorothy. I occasionally ask her to use her body to act, which is really fun."
It sounds like the current king of Draerion is a very hard man with children.
"Does this Tuna Literary Newspaper really exist?"
Xia De's interest in her press credentials returned.
"certainly."
The princess said, and after the carriage started, she asked the maid in the carriage to help pour tea. The carriage looked ordinary from the outside, but it was fully equipped with all kinds of utensils. There was a fixed small table, tea sets, aromatherapy, and Shade even found a rifle in the secret compartment under the carriage seat.
“This identity is real.”
"You bought off the local newspapers?"
"Of course not. The Tuna Literary Newspaper itself is my property."
Xia De immediately showed an expression of sudden enlightenment. The outsider claimed to be knowledgeable, but his imagination about rich people was still too lacking.
The destination of this visit is the dilapidated old city area at the border of the southern area and the dock area of Lengshuigang City. It was the old urban area of Lengshuigang City before the discovery of the New World. However, as the exploration of the New World became more and more in-depth, the center of Lengshuigang gradually moved to the northern part of the city, which was more suitable for the construction of deep-water docks, resulting in the abandonment of a large area of the old city area in the southern part of the city.
There are still residents there now, but most of them are local elderly people who cherish the memories of the past, or poor people who have no money to rent a house in the city.
The carriage took the two people to the ancient street called Kaisem Lane at 11 o'clock in the morning. This street is the dividing line between the coastal dock area and the old town in the south of Coldwater Port. Looking east along the lane, you can vaguely see the Peace Church with an old classical style spire. The old church has a history of 900 years and has been rebuilt many times, which means that the Peace Church is the first church among the Five Gods to take root in Coldwater Port.
The rain was still falling, moss covered the corners, and there was almost no one on the street. The deserted old alley was not only because of the rain, but also from the nearby windows sealed with boards, the empty and open doors of shops, and the gravel road surface that was in disrepair and had potholes, it was clear that even on a sunny day, there were probably not many pedestrians on the streets of the old city.
It is best not to be too conspicuous when walking around the area, especially in the old town east of Kaisem Lane. It is not that Shade discriminates against the lower-class citizens who are nostalgic for the old days, but in this port city, the residents living in such cold and damp old town are mostly gloomy and angry, and full of hostility towards outsiders.
On the way here, Lecia told Shade that the nearby area was one of the areas with the highest incidence of missing foreign population in Lengshui Port.
The ring wizard who claimed to have removed the mermaid curse lived in the ancient street in front of them. Shade and Princess Leicia got off the carriage at the street corner and walked onto the street holding an umbrella. They put on clever makeup in the carriage. In this era when photography technology was backward and there was no clever way to record, this way of concealment was enough.
Coincidentally, when the two got off the car, another horse-drawn cab stopped at the street corner. Shade and the red-haired girl looked curiously and found that two men wearing glasses and holding notebooks got off the car.
The older one wore a white shirt with a brown double-breasted vest of an old-fashioned style, and a black fountain pen in his pocket. He was about 50 years old. The young man looked five or six years older than Shade, with his hair combed meticulously. After getting off the bus, he looked at the surrounding street scenes curiously.
Both of them were holding umbrellas, with the same badge on their chests, and the older one was holding a cane. Shade glanced at the princess, who explained to Shade in a low voice:
"That's the emblem of a local university in Lengshui Port. I remember it was... Lengshui Port Third Mechanical Manufacturing College. These two people should be scholars from the school."
The scholars who got off the car also noticed Xia De and the other person, but because they had no intersection with each other, when they saw that both parties were dressed very decently, they nodded to each other through the rain as a greeting.
Just as the four people walked along the street, Xia De unexpectedly discovered that the other party's route of movement seemed to overlap with his own.
"Excuse me, are you also here to visit Mr. Jude, the antique collector?"
The young scholar approached a little closer and asked quietly on the street. When seeing the strange man approaching, Leicia dodged and Shade slowed down and started chatting with him:
"Yes, this lady is a reporter for the Tuna Literary Newspaper. I am her assistant and bodyguard. May I ask who you are..."
Although the social atmosphere is relatively open in this era and it is normal for women to work outside the home, female journalists who act alone will generally be accompanied by a male assistant when they go out, also for safety reasons.
Leicia nodded coldly to the young scholar, who was attracted by the pretty girl's face and explained in a low voice:
"This is my teacher, Professor Katya. I'm Lim Scott, and we're here to visit Mr. Jude about the project at hand."
Professor Katya nodded kindly to the elegant red-haired girl and Shad.
"Are you scholars?"
Shade asked again.
"Yes, folklorist."
Leicia didn't react, but Shade blinked. According to the plots in the classic horror novels he had read, visiting such a remote ancient city, when most of the information about the person being visited was unknown, and the four of them actually had three professions: reporter, detective, and folklorist. This was a very ominous sign.
"My teacher and I are working on a project about the old town in the southern part of Coldwater Harbor. Mr. Jude, who lives here, has some information that we are very interested in. We came here after being introduced by someone."
The young scholar continued, and Xia De also explained that he and the lady beside him came here to collect information for the special project of renovation of the old city in the south.
Since both parties wanted to visit the same person, the four of them came together. With the two folklorists covering for them, the visit of Shade and Princess Leicia could seem more natural.
However, when the group arrived downstairs of the stone building that had stood for hundreds of years, Xia De looked at the rain flowing down the wall and felt that this journey would not be so simple.
Most of the buildings in the old town in the southern part of Lengshui Port are old houses that are hundreds of years old. Probably due to local customs, most of the houses are gray stone buildings and are not painted.
After knocking on the rusty iron door, it took a long time for someone to open the door for them. Behind the door was a middle-aged man with a gloomy face, heavy bags under his eyes, and dark skin. He was wearing a long leather apron with white spots on it, which looked like flour:
"Good morning, sir. We are reporters from the Tuna Literary Newspaper. These two are folklorists from the Third Mechanical Manufacturing College of Lengshui Port. We are all here to visit Mr. Jude."
Shad and young Mr. Scott handed over the business cards of the reporter and professor respectively, representing the identities of the two teams.
The middle-aged man took the business card, glanced at it with his slightly bulging eyes, and then looked at the four people standing at the door holding umbrellas. He looked very bad, and his accent was very strange, with a gurgling sound coming from his throat from time to time:
"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Please come in first and wait in the hallway. The gentleman is reading in the study on the second floor. I will go and inform them. Please don't wander around."
The men let the reporter in first, then they wiped their feet clean on the insoles at the door and placed their dripping umbrellas on the wooden umbrella stand at the door.
Without the owner's permission, the four of them stood in the hallway for the time being. Fortunately, this old building was larger than No. 6 St. Teresa's Square in the Shard, and it was not an exaggeration to call it a mansion, so it did not seem crowded.
Probably because of the heavy rain today, the humidity inside the stone building is no less than outside.
For some reason, the lights were not on in the room, and the whole house was very gloomy on that rainy morning. Of course, there were no windows in the foyer, and the rainy sunlight projected into the living room cast large shadows in the room.
On the wall of the foyer hangs a cool-toned oil painting of a stormy ocean, with an overturned fishing boat in the storm.
The four guests in the hallway stood in the darkness, looking at the somewhat scary painting and listening to the increasingly violent rain outside. The strange atmosphere in the room made them all involuntarily imagine what kind of person Mr. Jude would be.
The walls are covered with old yellowed wallpaper, and behind the peeling wallpaper is a wall with mold spots. This house has stood from ancient times to the present day, and has witnessed the changes of Coldwater Port in countless days and nights. If you want to study local folklore, the house itself is the greatest value.
If Dorothy wanted to collect materials, she would definitely find more ideas by visiting the house. The strange atmosphere inside the house was also in line with the identity of the ring wizards.
Shad was just curious whether Mr. Jude, who had not yet shown up, would develop rheumatism from living in such a place for many years.