Miss Black's neighbor, the old man who was walking his dog last time, was at home today and still recognized Shade. When Shade explained his purpose and wanted to know more about Miss Helen Black, the old man holding the leash shook his head:
"Although we are neighbors, I seldom see my neighbor. I only help her take care of the house occasionally. If you want to know more, you can go to old Pasoro. They seem to be connected... Oh, yes, old Pasoro also passed away a few days ago."
The old man was a little sad:
"This street has lost another old neighbor."
"Have you lived here long? Do you know anything about Miss Helen Black's sister, Miss Grace White?"
Xia De asked again.
"Yes, but not very well. I moved here thirteen years ago, and I only met Miss White three or four times."
So the clues were cut off here, and Shade tried to ask other neighbors on the street, but they were either not at home or knew very little. The one who knew the most information on the street seemed to be Mr. Simiel Pasoro, who was already dead.
"But I have here the address of my client, Miss White, to whom I even sent a letter."
When the carriage was heading to the cemetery outside the city, Shade thought of this again. It was on the way, so Tifa asked the driver to stop in front of Miss Grace White's house.
After knocking on the door, no one answered, so Xia De knocked on the door of the apartment next door, hoping to get information from the neighbor. Unexpectedly, he got another letter.
"Miss White went to Castle Midhill, too?"
Xia De looked at the letter handed to him by his neighbor in surprise.
"Is this the letter she left for Detective Sparrow?"
Tifa asked.
"No, yes, it's for me. Miss White said that she had received the last letter, and the commission fee would be remitted to 6 St. Teresa's Square next month. She seemed to have guessed that someone would come to her door... If I hadn't known that Miss White was dead, I might really believe this letter."
He frowned, folded the letter and put it in his pocket. The carriage started again and drove towards the public cemetery outside the city:
"But in this case, the client has taken the initiative to announce the end of the commission. It seems that this matter has nothing to do with me?"
"So you're going to continue investigating?"
Tifa asked curiously. She was also a little curious about this matter.
"Of course I have to continue investigating. I'm not the kind of person who gives up halfway."
Shad sighed.
After all, the commission to investigate the lover, Mrs. Lasoya, and to find an ophthalmologist both resulted in new progress because Shad did things beyond his commissioned duties, and directly or indirectly led to huge gains for Shad.
Now that the matter has become more confusing and is related to the fourth time key and Midhill Castle that have already ended, Shad is of course willing to continue investigating until he meets Helen Blake and Grace White.
Thinking of this, he suddenly frowned, looked out the car window over the buildings on the street, and looked towards home under the gray sky:
"If we conduct a more in-depth investigation into the commission to find Mia, will there be any other gains?"
But no matter what, the most important thing now is to find the stone statue with the fragments of "Whispering Poems" inscribed on it.
For ordinary people, the best time to rob tombs is definitely at night, but for ring warlocks, there are not so many concerns.
The carriage took the group to the city's public cemetery, where two other sorceresses, whose names Shad could not remember, went to investigate the burial place of Mr. Simiel Pasoro.
The result was obtained half an hour later, so the maid Miss Leila and the coachman stayed in the carriage, and the four ring magicians including Shad went to the tomb.
We are lucky today because Mr. Simiel Pasoro was not buried directly, but in the underground cemetery, so we don't have to worry about digging up other people's graves.
Even without Shade using the silencing effect of Silent Moonlight, the three sorceresses used their own magic to conceal their figures, eliminate sounds and block detection.
The only thing Shade did was to use the key to open the door to the underground tomb. Then he lit the light of the silver moon in front to lead the way. The four of them broke into the tomb area with a strong smell of dampness and mold, and moved forward along the direction of the gas pipeline. After disturbing a few rats and spiders, they successfully found the tomb of Mr. Simiel Pasoro.
Shad opened the stone door at the entrance of the tomb, and the two female sorcerers went to check the coffin placed in the center of the tomb. Tifa wanted to talk to Shad about spiritualism, but she didn't expect that after Shad entered the tomb, he looked directly at the southeast corner of the tomb.
"What's wrong?"
She looked over too, but saw nothing.
"I think we don't need to communicate with the spirits. The spirits are right here."
Shade pointed to the southeast corner of the tomb. Tifa blinked and took out a small bottle from her pocket. Inside was almost transparent dust:
"Soul-revealing dust, detects spirits that are difficult to capture with the naked eye."
This is a very basic alchemical product, but its use is very narrow. After all, a soul that even a ring warlock cannot feel is basically useless. However, this kind of thing often falls into the hands of ordinary people, and serves as an auxiliary tool for those who are curious or occult enthusiasts on the road to death.
Tifa threw some towards the location indicated by Shade, and as the green light gradually appeared, the soul of Mr. Simil Pasoro appeared. At the same time, the two sorceresses also checked the coffin and the tomb, and it was basically confirmed that they were the first people to come here.
"What do you want to do?"
Perhaps it was because he had just died two days ago, so although his spirit was weak, his soul still had a strong sense of self. He was just "standing" there quietly, and when Tifa approached and threw dust, and Shad looked directly at him, he realized that these people could actually see him, a dead person.
"Let's find a stone figurine."
The communication was still done by Shade, who had a lot of experience in communicating with ordinary souls like these:
"It's just an antique buried with you. I'm sorry to disturb your sleep."
Xia De said politely, and the old man's soul stared at him, with his beard on his chin raised:
"Don't be so polite. Even if I have an opinion, can I still stop you thieves?"
"No, no, please don't be so angry. I know this is wrong, so I want to help you deal with the distribution of your property."
"How will my property be divided?"
Mr. Simil Pasoro's soul looked suspiciously at the young soul in front of him:
"Have you been to my house?"
"Yes, I saw your children and the maid, Miss Lina, but we did not see the will."
Xia De told the truth, and Soul nodded:
"Of course you can't see it. After all, I didn't leave a will."
"I see."
Shade smiled and shook his head. He and Tifa both saw that the maid was lying. They had thought she was just playing a trick, but they hadn't expected her to be so bold:
"You see, I told you there was something wrong with that maid. We were all fooled by her."
He said to Tifa, who wasn't too surprised but smiled.
"What happened in my house?"
Mr. Pasoro asked somewhat at a loss:
"I thought I was in good health and thought that making a will in advance would be a curse on myself, so I never started writing. Unexpectedly, I suddenly had a heart attack... What happened in my family? My children fought over the inheritance?"
"No, no, that gentleman and that lady are getting along very well. It's your maid who's about to fight with them."
Xia De told what he had seen a few hours ago. After hearing this, Mr. Pasoro was so excited that even his soul became a little unstable:
"Oh! I treated her so well! Even her salary was twice that of an ordinary maid! She actually, she actually..."
"We will make her get the punishment she deserves. If you want to dictate your will, I think this lady will help you do that."
Xiade nodded to Tifa:
"So, in exchange for helping you with your will, we can take the stone statue away, okay?"
The old man's soul nodded immediately:
"Of course. Oh, I really didn't expect that I would encounter such a thing even though I'm dead. Don't people often say that you can have peace after death?"
He covered his face and tried to cry, but this soul that had stayed here for some unknown reason did not have this ability.
After obtaining the consent of the coffin owner, the two sorceresses raised their hands, used a spell to open the coffin, and took out the stone figurine as a burial object. Tifa wrote down the old man's dictated will - Piccolo Pasolo took five tenths of all the property, Jenny Pasolo took three tenths, and the remaining two tenths were donated to the Church of Creation, and promised to help him execute it.
After Xia De finished reciting the will, he asked:
"Although I don't know why you're staying here, I think you want to leave too, right?"
The old man nodded and glanced at the tomb dejectedly:
"Before I died, I really thought that I would be able to get rid of all my troubles after death, but I didn't expect that I couldn't find peace after death. I accepted my accidental death. After all, everyone will die, but it is really frustrating to encounter such a thing after death."
"I have the ability to liberate you by touching your soul. But before you leave, I want to ask you some questions about Miss Grace White and Miss Helen Black."
The Death Gate can also allow the soul to enter the real death directly, but it cannot touch the obsession of the resident soul. Shade only uses the Death Gate for evil spirits. For normal souls like this, it would be better to send them away with the power of guiding death.
Soul looked at him unexpectedly:
"What an unexpected question, young man. What do you want to know?"
"Don't you think these two ladies are weird?"
"Sure it's weird, but what does that have to do with me?"
"Then you only need to answer two questions for me. Miss Helen Black, who is 22 years old this year, lost her sister 11 years ago. So how old was Miss Grace White when she died?"
"22."
Mr. Simil Pasoro gave the answer.
"Very good, then do you know any of the elders of Miss Grace White who has passed away?"
Mr. Pasoro's soul actually smiled:
"Young man, you've grasped the point. That's great. I thought I was the only one who could discover this wonderful little secret."
Xia De narrowed his eyes slightly:
"Miss Grace White's ancestor, who died in 1842, would not have been named Black?"
The soul nodded slightly:
"I promised to keep it a secret. Young man, ladies' secrets are not so easy to explore."
After that, he stopped talking, obviously not intending to reveal any more information. And Shade followed the agreement and used magic to guide death to touch the other party's soul.
The hand emitting an ambiguous gray light touched the glowing soul, and then scenes of the soul's life flashed before Xia De's eyes. Compared with the knowledge that carried extraordinary power, the most important scenes in a mortal's life did not put much pressure on Xia De.
However, when the soul in front of him turned into a spot of light and disappeared, and Xia De's vision returned to normal, he actually saw a girl in a black gauze dress in the last picture.
She stood on the steps in front of the apartment, looking exhausted, as if she had just returned from a trip, and the servant behind her was carrying two suitcases. The weather was very good that day, and it seemed to be early spring. Helen Blake was wearing a black long dress and a beige wide-brimmed hat decorated with black irises.
She nodded slightly outside the picture, probably greeting the owner of the memory. Under the bright sunshine, this lady with a rather good-looking face was as beautiful as the most beautiful flower in early spring.
Xia De couldn't be sure what era this memory was from, but he was sure that the girl who looked to be in her twenties and had a half red butterfly pendant hanging around her waist had almost exactly the same facial shape as the thirteen or fourteen-year-old girl in a black dress who he met at a cocktail party last century.
She didn't look like an old person who had lived for thousands of years. She still looked like a young girl, playful and a little shy. Just like when she said goodbye to Xia De at the cocktail party.
"So it was really them..."
Surprise
“A little.”
Seeing that Shade had finished talking, Tifa came over and handed him the stone figurine. Although it was a burial object, the stone figurine did not come into direct contact with the corpse, and after a little cleaning it was not very dirty.
Still feeling a little emotional, Xia De stroked the base of the cold stone figurine with his palm, and looked at the carvings in the light of the silver moon. The fragment only had two sentences:
"die... ... "
The two sorceresses had already left the tomb, leaving only Tifa standing beside Shad. The black-haired maid looked at Shad's profile in the moonlight, with the corners of his mouth with obvious lip lines curled up to reveal a smile, and Shad translated softly:
"The burden of death will fall on the shoulders of those who can see through death. That is..."
The last few words were a little blurry, and it took Shade a while to recognize them:
"That is the person with the eyes of death."