"However, even if it is just to win favor, giving this..."
Dorothy's eyes lingered on the pearl on the table, and she looked very much like the cat caught by Shard:
"It's a pity to give such a beautiful pearl to... ahem, I mean, if it's to please the queen and for a possible title in the future, this is the right gift."
"A title? Dorothy, I don't care about that."
Shade shook his head and said:
"If you like this pearl, keep it."
Although Xia De always felt that he was short of money, he actually had many precious items that could be converted into cash.
"No, no, just give it away. Although you don't care about the title, but..."
Dorothy looked up at Shad, and Shad looked back at her. The blonde didn't continue speaking immediately, but waited for the two to look at each other for several seconds before looking at Shad and continuing to speak softly.
Xia De really couldn't guess what kind of thoughts were hidden in her beautiful eyes:
"... ...Lecia cares."
"Meow?"
The cat in Shad's arms stared at Dorothy curiously with eyes that were prettier than those of pretty girls, while Shad opened his mouth slightly to express his surprise.
Because of this sentence, Xia De was thinking about it all day. He even delayed writing the report paper for Professor Garcia's "Locked Space" course that he was going to finish during the day until the evening.
Although the report was long, I felt a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment when I put the final period on the parchment:
"Mia, get to the side!"
The cat was trying to smudge the ink that had not yet dried with its claws.
He and Father Augustus agreed to meet at midnight, but the meeting place was outside the city, so Shade set out early at 10 pm. After much deliberation, he decided to take Mia with him, who wanted to stay at home and didn't want to go out. In Shade's opinion, Father Augustus was a very reliable person. Since he said it was nothing serious, it should really be nothing serious.
The night in Tobysk in mid-August was still not very cool. He found a carriage at the intersection of Saint Teresa's Square. He was told that he was going out of the city to the cemetery in the suburbs, but the driver refused to take Shad out.
Even if Xia De promised to double the fare, the cautious driver was unwilling to do this business. In the end, Xia De could only let the driver take him to the Anthem Square in the north of the city, and then find another carriage near the Anthem Square in the lower city, which was also very lively at night, to take him to the edge of the city, and then walk towards the Hanged Man Trail.
The night in St. Teresa's Square in the center of Tobysk was quiet and peaceful. Only patrolling police and the occasional stray cats brought some noise. The strange light of the three moons and the light of the elegant gas street lamps illuminated the earth together.
The area around Anthem Square in the lower city is noisy and dangerous, with prostitutes, gamblers and drunkards roaming around. The light of gas lamps and kerosene lamps is dangerous and full of temptation.
As for the small villages and towns outside Tobysk, they were dead silent. This was still a civilized area, and there was only a low wall from the old times as a physical barrier between it and the urban area. However, the flames of the steam age still came to an abrupt end here.
Residents outside the city don't have the spare money to waste kerosene lamps at night. As for whether this place is connected to the gas pipeline of the city's infrastructure projects, only the civil servants in the city hall know.
Even the carriages in the lower town were unwilling to take Shad out of the city at this time, so just like the last time he and Dorothy visited Mr. Copps's cemetery, Shad walked through the small village outside the city.
The buildings are low, but the straw along the walls and the chicken coops beside the yard make this place full of life.
What Shade was most dissatisfied with was not the bad smell that made him and the cat unwilling to breathe, but the uneven ground under his feet. Fortunately, it didn't rain in Tobesk yesterday, otherwise it would definitely be a quagmire.
The small village he passed through at this time was called Upper Glen Village. Like Lower Glen Village located in a low-lying area a few miles away, they were all villages outside the city adjacent to the lower city of Tobesk. After passing the small village in the north of the city, going north completely left the scope of the capital, and that was the real countryside of Tobesk.
The road called "Hanged Man's Alley" was not far from Upper Glen Village. In addition to the road sign, Shade could only confirm the existence of this road by looking at the edge of the detailed city map left by the previous detective.
The nameless cemetery that Hanged Man Path leads to is a cemetery shared by several nearby villages. Although it is a country cemetery, it is well equipped with a crematorium, a gravekeeper's hut, a church, and an underground tomb.
The dead tree on the Hanged Man Path where Priest Augustus and Shad agreed to meet is located at the end of the path. Further ahead is the gravel road paved by the villagers for the cemetery.
The dead tree was beyond Xia De's imagination. He originally thought it was just a dry sapling, but he didn't expect it to be a towering tree that did not grow any leaves even in summer.
It stood bare in the middle of Hanged Man's Path, with branches growing in all directions along the main trunk, like tentacles spreading in the darkness, or the hands of an old witch in a fairy tale.
"But speaking of it, the prototypes of the old witches in most existing fairy tales seem to be witches from the Fifth Epoch."
Shade thought to himself, but it was hard to equate a beautiful lady like Miss Feliana with a hunchbacked old witch.
The tree looked lifeless, but it still stood here. A few crows were perched on the branches at night, and they flapped their wings and flew into the night sky in the distance, following Mia's calls.
Xia De arrived twenty minutes early. He held the cat in his arms and stood under the tree in the night breeze, looking up at the trunk. He had to admit that if someone wanted to hang himself, this tree would be the best place.
Not only can people of all heights easily find the location to tie the rope, but it is so close to the cemetery that there is no need for a special carriage to carry corpses; the gravekeepers can drag the bodies into the cemetery themselves.
The cat, who was usually very timid, was very interested in this strange environment. He was held in Shade's arms and kept looking around. Shade guessed the purpose of priest Augustus asking him for help. Although the priest was not a ring wizard of the church, he could ask for help in the name of the church clergy when he encountered trouble.
Unless he doesn't want the church to know about this, or there are great interests involved, or the priest thinks he can solve the problem.
Just as he was thinking, the priest finally appeared on the other side of the Hanged Man's Path. He was still dressed as a clergyman, panting and carrying something on his back. When he saw Shade under the moon and the mysterious cat in his arms, he waved his hand as a greeting.
When the priest came closer, Shade saw that he was carrying two shovels:
"Oh, my Mr. Dawn, this thing, this thing is much heavier than I thought."
The priest threw the shovel under the tree, then held onto the trunk and gasped for breath.
Shade handed over a test tube of water, and the priest thanked him and drank it all.
"A shovel? Are you trying to dig something, priest?"
Shade asked curiously. The priest held the tree with one hand, panting heavily and nodded to Shade:
"Of course, otherwise, would I carry something this heavy to sell to the gravekeeper?"
"So what are we going to dig? Is there something under this tree? Treasure? Relics? Or a body?"
Both Shad and the cat were curious about this.
"Who said we were going to dig up trees? Let's go there and dig."
Father Augustus pointed to the dark cemetery not far away.
"Is there something buried in the corner of the cemetery? Or is there a secret in the underground tomb or the gravekeeper's hut?"
Xia De asked again.
"Don't think too much, we are here to dig graves."
The priest finally caught his breath, threw one of the two shovels to Shade, and took the other one himself:
"Come with me, and be quick. The best time for the ritual is to finish at two in the morning. I noticed that you brought your cat with you, which is great. A smart cat can help increase the success rate of the ritual."
"Wait, priest, are we really going to dig up someone's grave?"
Xia De hurriedly caught up with the priest's hurried steps. The two of them left the Hanged Man Path and officially walked onto the gravel road in front of the cemetery gate.
"Of course, if we really want to dig... Oh, I understand."
The old priest turned his head and looked at Shade in the moonlight:
"You have a mental disorder, don't you?"
"No, of course not."
Xia De immediately shook his head:
"I'm just surprised that you took me to do this. If it was Dr. Schneider, I wouldn't be surprised. In my mind, you are the kind of person who... abides by the rules of the church."
"Don't stand there, detective. Come with me. Also, why do you have such a bad impression of doctors? We are not desecrating corpses tonight. We are here to deal with an accident. I have always believed that human nature is evil, but if it is for the sake of doing good, then some problems with the means can be accepted. Everything is for the dawn and justice."
There were no qualified gravekeepers in the nameless cemetery in the countryside, and Father Augustus originally wanted to knock him out to make tonight's operation easier. But when the two used Shade's magic to lurk outside the window of the gravekeeper's hut with a kerosene lamp on, they found that the old gravekeeper had been drunk and was lying on the bed unconscious with a bottle of wine in his hand.
Even when Shad and Father Augustus entered the hut, they failed to alarm him.
So Shade kindly covered the drunken old gravekeeper with a blanket and kicked his shoes under the bed. Father Augustus kindly extinguished the kerosene lamp in the room and took away a portable lantern to prevent fire.
In an era when most poor people suffered from night blindness, even if a gravekeeper woke up and couldn't find his shoes, the first thing he would do was definitely not to look outside the house, but to light the kerosene lamp.
In this way, Shad and Priest Augustus will know at any time whether the other has awakened.
In addition to the drunk gravekeeper and the two sneaky people, the living creatures in the cemetery include the cat on Shad's shoulder and the wild animals living here. Shad was very glad that Mia didn't have the habit of meowing randomly, otherwise, if he suddenly heard the cat's meow in the cemetery in the night wind, he would definitely be scared.