Ethan took the lead and rushed ahead, and the three of them began to run down the street following the Sherlock.
During the process, Hitzfeld kept paying attention to the environment on both sides.
After running for nearly a minute, she squinted her eyes and found that the environment had undergone the expected special changes.
The hazy glow surrounding those mansions disappeared completely.
They became silent and speechless, and fell into complete silence. They looked like haunted houses, almost blending into the gray fog.
"Maps! Start the timer!"
"11:38:25!" Darent counted immediately, "I've been watching - the error can't be more than 1 second!"
There was absolutely no sign...
Hitzfeld was somewhat shocked.
The current situation is that they should have entered the ghost street.
Let’s ignore the fact that these outsiders actually saw the mystery on their first visit. Just talking about the process of breaking into the mystery... there was not a single ripple.
There were no signs, no warning.
If she had not been keeping her eyes on the mansions, and had not kept Mr. Ponson's description of the "ghost streets" in her mind, it might have taken her several minutes to realize that something was wrong.
"boom!"
As he was marveling at this, Hitzfeld suddenly bumped into Ethan's back and felt a sharp pain in his nose.
She took a few steps back and covered her nose, then she stepped aside, only to find out why Ethan stopped.
In the middle of the street, someone had written a line of words with colorful, sweet-smelling powdered sugar. Lily stopped three meters away and barked at it.
"'This is the holy vengeance of Nicholas Brende'..."
Hitzfeld whispered the words.
"'Unrelated personnel, please remember to stay away.'"
--------
I was dragged to do nucleic acid test halfway through writing, hmm——
Close contact 2, horror——
Chapter 24: Shooting
"Ouch!"
The only sound on the quiet street was the rapid barking of the Sheldon dogs. The three people looked at each other, huddled together and moved closer to Sugar Powder.
Standing closer, I confirmed that these characters were not small... Each letter was about one meter long and wide. In Darent's words, this was called being afraid that others would not be able to see it.
"What do you think?" After squatting down and observing the powdered sugar for a while, Darent turned to look at the other two.
"I've never seen anyone who did something bad come up and introduce themselves." Ethan said noncommittally, "...it seems a little too obvious."
Of course he didn't believe it... After all, he was the only one present who admired the Count of Candy, and a line of large powdered sugar words could not prove that the murderer was the Count's ghost.
But one must admit that what he said makes sense - directly mentioning the Earl's name and asking them to remember to avoid it shows that he is timid and wants to scare them away in this way.
"At least it shows one thing." Hitzfeld stood up, "There is someone behind Ghost Street."
If it weren't for someone manipulating it, it would be impossible to achieve accurate screening. The police wouldn't accept it, the reporters wouldn't accept it, and it just happened to be unfair to the residents of Enling Road.
"But why did we come in?" Ethan frowned. This was the only thing he couldn't figure out. "If he didn't want to call in reporters and police because he didn't want to make this a big deal, then shouldn't he be indifferent to our actions?"
Indeed, this was very strange. Hitzfeld thought about it in his mind and found that no matter how he looked at it, there was nothing special about them.
Of course, seriously speaking, there are some, for example, Darent is a wooden man, Ethan once made a key to trigger evil, and he himself is a Devourer... but the other party should not know this information.
Could it be that the murderer had his own intelligence channels... or was he from the Eclipse Church? Did he know them long ago and had a general idea of their situation?
She found this even more impossible.
She had dealt with the Sunflower Reverse many times and was well aware of their cunning. She felt that if the murderer was from the Eclipse Church, he would not have done it so clumsily, and the whole process would be much more sophisticated than it looked now.
Yes... Although she didn't find any evidence in reality, she still thought that the other party's method was not very sophisticated.
Because he tried too many times.
Take Mr. Pangson, who encountered Ghost Street the most times, for example... Mr. Pangson was attacked 29 times.
Based on the current assumption that Ghost Street targets children living in all the households on Enling Road, these 29 attacks on adults are unnecessary.
The most ingenious crimes always involve as few acts as possible. In some classic cases, the murderer doesn't even have to do anything himself for the target person to die.
But here it happened a staggering 29 times. It looked like... the murderer was not familiar with this process and was just practicing casually relying on his ability to accurately filter police reporters.
This is another contradiction - because the scene she saw in the dream ruins was not false, and the concentration of gray fog showed that many people had indeed died here in recent years.
Enling Road is not a busy street, so it is impossible for there to be so many natural disasters and man-made tragedies. So many lives are undoubtedly attributed to this ghost.
So he should be very skilled and shouldn't be so clumsy.
Not to mention being scared... This is really puzzling... What is so special about us that we can be scared by a murderer who is so crazy that he would kill children? Why would he expose his secrets and scare them in this way?
"Maps, pay attention to the time." She reminded Darent while thinking because she saw that his attention was all on the powdered sugar.
"I've been watching..." Darent checked his watch, then continued to glance at the ground with his peripheral vision. "I have a suggestion. Do you want to hear it?"
"explain."
"This amount of powdered sugar must have required a lot of sugar, right? At least several large bags. Why don't we check it from that perspective?"
"...You're absolutely right." After holding it in for a while, Hitzfeld had to pinch his nose and give a compliment.
It is a very common and ordinary perspective on solving a case, which basically anyone working in the relevant field can think of.
But she had subconsciously ignored it just now... Was it because she thought too highly of the murderer?
"I'll see you again tomorrow, Lily." She squatted down and stroked the big dog's head, put her fingers into claws, and gently scratched along the snow-white fur, just as a reward for its meritorious service.
"Woo!" Lily hummed with pleasure, rubbing her head against her face continuously, and consciously turned the other side over to let her continue the tickling service.
Just then, Ethan discovered that all the powdered sugar on the ground had disappeared.
The surrounding mansions and houses had regained their "luster". The green lights that had seemed so strange before actually looked somewhat friendly... and full of life at this moment.
He was stunned for a moment, then turned his head suddenly: "Maps——"
"I've been watching the time—" Darent held up his pocket watch and said, "11:48:26!"
"We came in at 38 minutes and 25 seconds." Hitzfeld began to think again, "Excluding the error in the notes, it was exactly ten minutes."
"What is a 'note'?"
"Oh, I've seen a more accurate timing method, where the start and end buttons are made by the machine itself."
“Is there such a convenient thing?”
"... Could you please not care about such details?"
After thinking for a long time, he still had no clue, and Darent had messed up his thoughts. Hitzfeld's face was half dark, and he was hesitant whether to send Lily to bite him.
"Then what's next--" Ethan exhaled and was about to say something.
Then he froze.
Not only him, Darent and Hitzfeld also froze.
Because they just vaguely heard a noise that shouldn't be heard at this time.
Some are small, but very crisp.
That was the sound of gunfire.
It came from the direction they came from.
……
Forcing himself to wake up, Hitzfeld suddenly stood up, turned sideways and jumped off the bed.
There was movement in the corridor...it must be Ethan and Darent running upstairs.
She held White Whale tightly and rushed into the corridor. She kicked the sleeping Lily hard on the butt, then quickly rushed into the master bedroom on the second floor with her gun raised. She saw Sheriff Daisy lying in a pool of blood, with a large dark mark on her waist that she was holding with her left hand.
Looking at the bed again, Mrs. Xinlai was lying on it in her pajamas, with several bloody holes scattered on her chest, abdomen, and thighs. She was no longer in a condition that could be saved.
"He jumped out of the window..."
Seeing her rush in, Daisy tried her best to give a hint.
"Go chase..."
“Hitzfeld…!”
The girl rushed to the window and found that the window behind the curtain was broken.
The iron fence was intact. Through the gaps in the fence she saw a dark figure run across the yard, take a big stride and climb over the fence, then run desperately on the deserted street.
Without saying a word, he picked up the White Whale and fired two shots in that direction.
"boom!"
"boom!"
She didn't hold out hope, but reality gave her a surprise this time - she saw with her own eyes that the shadow staggered after the second gunshot, and its running posture became a little limp.
"Hitzfeld!"
Just then, two people and a dog also broke into the room, and were immediately shocked by the horrible scene in the room.
Lady Xinlai...was killed?
Even Sheriff Daisy was injured, this—
"I shot him." The girl turned around with a cold look in her eyes. "At least he was just scratched. He can't run far. Take Lily and chase him... quickly!"
Hitzfeld knew her own abilities. If she was asked to run non-stop, her unscientific recovery ability would still allow her to shine a little, but if she was asked to shorten the distance to the target as quickly as possible... she estimated that any normal person would run faster than her.
Darent took Lily downstairs without saying a word, but Ethan stayed where he was.
"Why don't you go?"
Hitzfeld was a little strange.
"We've already been deceived once..."
Ethan looked at the body on the bed and then turned his gaze to Hitzfeld.
"What if he comes back?"
"I'm going to stay here and watch over you."
Hitzfeld was stunned again, looking directly into the middle-aged man's determined eyes, and suddenly remembered the black-and-white photo in the cigarette box.
"That's okay too."
A warm feeling passed through her heart and she lowered her head slightly.
"I want to save the sheriff. Please help me guard the windows and doors. Don't let anyone get close."
Chapter 25: Sudden Rise
At dawn, the breaking sunlight shines on the rows of red-tiled roofs of Enling Road, casting a soft veil over the quiet streets.
The mansion at No. 14 Enling Road was once again surrounded by people. But this time there were no ordinary citizens. All of them were wearing gray and black uniforms without exception, and they had obvious worries on their faces when they talked.
"The Sheriff is injured..."
"Mrs. Xinlai is dead..."
"The murderer hasn't been caught yet..."
"It seems that the arrival of these kings has played no role..."
The fact that the sheriff was attacked and seriously injured and needed rescue was a big blow to the police officers. They wanted to blame the three Wangdu detectives who were present at the time, but because of Daisy's injuries, there were some things they couldn't say.
After all, their Sheriff Daisy was the closest at the time. As a sheriff and a figurehead of the Fellington police system, she was unable to save Mrs. Sinley from the murderer's attack, and she herself was shot and injured... This kind of thing was embarrassing enough.
Then how could they have the nerve to further accuse those three people?
The police in Farrington can't just lose all their dignity and shirk their responsibilities.
