"Go on, tell me your impression of the church."
Chapter 32 Inspiration
After the questioning, the three people came out of the candy store and looked up to see the huge poster again.
I have to say that the image of the Count is very friendly, and the effect of using it as a trademark... In Hitzfeld's opinion, it is similar to a certain fried chicken colonel.
The count on the poster had a fairly neat white beard, wore a red and white suit, had a kind smile, and was holding an umbrella that looked entirely made of candy.
The reason for this is that the umbrella is covered with colorful pinstripes from the canopy to the handle. The count held it high, and many ribbons and beautifully wrapped candies fell from the umbrella, and the thickness of the candies on the ground was enough to cover the count's ankles.
“It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it?” Ethan was also looking at the poster. He said firmly, “I still don’t believe that it is his ghost.”
"Is this your intuition?" Darent looked at him.
"You can understand that."
"It's too early to talk about this now." Hitzfeld stopped them, beckoned Lily to follow him, walked to the side of the road and opened the car door, "Let's go, get in the car and talk."
She got into the back seat first, and Lily followed in with a bag of candy in her mouth.
The bag of candy was a gift from Jones, and Hitzfeld originally wanted to buy it - she needed a bag of samples to do some research, but Jones was unwilling to accept the money no matter what, and considering that a bag of candy was really not expensive for him, they did not insist.
This indirectly reflects the topic that Jones is debating: Sara is a country that is rebuilding after a disaster. It still has many imperfect laws and the discipline is indeed not strict.
"How is it?" The car started, Darent turned his head from the passenger seat and saw that Hitzfeld had already opened the packaging and poured all the candies onto the back seat cushion.
"What do you mean?" Hitzfeld was confused.
"Can you pick out which two are cow dung candies?"
"...You want to use it to play a prank, right?" Hitzfeld saw through his thoughts at a glance, "Be serious, Maps, we are not here to play."
After scolding the wooden man, Hitzfeld took a deep breath and began to unwrap the candies individually.
These wrapping papers are all colorful.
There were thirty-six candies in total, wrapped in colorful paper, twisted into a twist shape at the two ends, and packed together in a light brown leather paper bag.
Yes, this is the same model that the weirdo bought.
Before opening the candy, Hitzfeld would give it to Lily to smell. Twice, Lily turned her head away, and she knew it smelled like cow dung.
She didn't open the two pieces of candy.
She unpacked the others, spread a layer of newspaper on the cushions, fetched a dagger, and began to carefully powder them.
Ethan saw this scene from the rearview mirror and tried to drive more steadily.
Hitzfeld didn’t shave much either.
She scraped a little of each flavor and pushed the stack of powdered sugar of different flavors and colors on the newspaper in front of Lily.
Lily opened her mouth and wanted to lick it.
"Snapped!"
Hitzfeld tapped it with an empty fluffy paper bag, poked its nose with his finger, and shook his head slowly.
"Woo woo!" Lily whimpered a few times and stretched out her paw to flip the newspaper over.
"You...Lily!"
This made Hitzfeld very angry. She grabbed the big dog's hair on the back of its neck and hit it on the forehead lightly.
"Wow!" Lily didn't dare to resist. She dodged and tried to pick up the scattered powdered sugar.
Gradually, Hitzfeld realized that it was not fooling around and that the powdered sugar had been mixed together.
"You mean, these things have to be mixed together... to have the same smell as what you smelled originally?"
“Wuwu…嘤!”
"I deliberately avoided the cow dung candy..." Hitzfeld thought.
"What's there to think about!" Darent had been observing the situation behind him and couldn't help but say, "He's obviously trying to trick the kids with candy... What kid would like cow dung candy?"
"I wonder where he gets all that candy," Hitzfeld said.
Although she was talking, one could tell from her wandering eyes that her mind was not on the outside world at all.
"That's easy to explain. He must have visited more than one store." Darent shouted again, "I think your initial investigation was in the wrong direction. After all, who would buy crime tools from the nearest store?"
If these candies are used to commit crimes, they can indeed be called crime props, similar in nature to knives, axes, and poison.
In most of these cases, the murderers always avoid nearby stores when buying items. They would rather take a long detour to the other side of the city to buy them, just to avoid the police easily obtaining evidence.
"It's definitely possible."
Ethan echoed.
"We still have time today. Why don't we go a little further and ask in other stores?"
"Let Mapus go." Hitzfeld finally came back to his senses and began to assign tasks in detail.
"Maps, your task for the next two days is to visit all the candy stores in Fellington. Is there any problem?"
"Whatever." Darent yawned, "It's a good opportunity to be lazy."
"Drop him off at the intersection," Hitzfeld ordered Ethan.
"Then I'll go to DreamWorks' company headquarters. I have something to ask them."
"Row."
Ethan had no objection to this.
This was standard procedure - after all, it involved Nicholas Brand, and a large portion of the supply from the Cathedral Orchard flowed there, so they definitely had to make a trip.
"What do you think of Jones's statement?"
He suddenly asked the girl.
“Is it credible?”
In the final interrogation, Jones stated that Bishop Lanno was not without relatives as rumored, but "had adopted a child."
"I'm not sure... because I only saw it by chance. I was very young at that time. During a service, I saw Bishop Lanno passing by the auditorium. He was holding a boy I had never seen before. They seemed to have a good relationship, like father and son... but I never saw the child again."
That's what Jones said at the time.
Hitzfeld asked him if he had consulted other people about the boy, and he said he had, and that other people had indeed seen the "strange boy," but no one thought there was anything wrong.
After all, that is the New Lunso Cathedral.
Not every church can be given such a name. Since it is suffixed with "Church", it means that it is the local headquarters of the Xieyang Cult.
Then people all over the city bring their children to receive gifts... Is that a problem?
Nothing more than normal, okay.
Not to mention one strange boy, even a hundred of them would be normal.
"I think he was just anxious to make a contribution, so he mentioned all sorts of random ideas."
Darent leaned back in his seat and put his legs up on the console. "I've seen this kind of people before. I can only trust five out of ten of their words."
"Put your legs down." Ethan frowned, "This is someone else's car!"
"Hey, Heidegger~"
"If you call me that again, I'm going to beat you up."
"Alright alright……"
Darent groaned and lowered his legs.
Just at this time, we arrived at the intersection.
Ethan stopped the car and signaled to him to get out with his eyes.
"How cruel, old fellow..."
Darent curled his lips.
"I saved your life in Ernak, and I was disfigured for you. This is how you repay me."
"You ruined your face!" Ethan couldn't hold it in any longer. "That kind of injury, what's it to you wooden people?"
"Look at yourself now. If you tell others that you have disfigured yourself, will anyone believe you?"
"Oh~Heartless Heidegger~~~"
"Get out of here!"
Ethan pretended to kick him.
"Don't make me shoot you now - it won't hurt to hit your hands or feet anyway!"
Hitzfeld was originally playing with his dog and watching the show in the back, but he was moved when he heard this.
She stared at Darent, looking up and down at his long arms and legs, and couldn't help but half-squinting her eyes, her pursed lips slightly curled up.
Chapter 33 A Promise
Candy Dream Factory Liability Company.
The company has two headquarters in Sarah, one in Port Wynne and one still in Farringdon.
Of course, although they are both headquarters, they are different. The employees working in the headquarters in Port Wein are higher in the management level sequence, while those who stay in Fellington are mostly technical positions.
The former is responsible for marketing and management, while the latter is responsible for production and R&D. They are the two legs of Candy Dream Factory, which can stand firm and grow stronger with these two legs.
"This is different from what I read in the biography." Hitzfeld frowned slightly after listening to Ethan's introduction. "According to that book, they were able to develop because they received support from the church."
"There's no conflict, Hitzfeld." Ethan parked the car on the side of the road and raised one hand to gesture. "Yes, that's right. The main reason is indeed that the cult supports their idea, because the cult wants to help the victims. Candy is a food that is easy to carry and can quickly replenish a lot of energy. It is definitely a good thing to be popularized. So they chose to stand on the side of the count. All Huishi Orchards have established cooperation with them, and at one point the rationing ratio was extremely exaggerated..."
"But you can't always be like this." He paused, not quite sure how to explain it to the girl.
"That's it..." He raised his hand, then quickly put it down, "... people like Jones. You need to leave room for such people to survive and thrive."
"I'm not questioning it." Hitzfeld was a little amused. "I'm just expressing my feelings... I know this truth. There are no fish in water that is too clean."
She could tell that Ethan was afraid and somewhat reluctant to open up these dark things to her.
But what is the darkness of this? It is nothing more than that after the death of the Earl, the company could not resist the temptation of profit and no longer took suppressing sugar merchants as its strategic goal but turned to cooperating with them. That's all.
This is inevitable, just like many people hate social interactions, but they still have to abide by the rules and sometimes even benefit from them... These are all normal phenomena in social relationships.
"You should have confidence in me." She looked in the rearview mirror and found that Ethan's eyes immediately turned away, "I am not a little girl from Blackwood City anymore."
Ethan was a little too polite to her, which could be seen from the way he addressed her.
Sometimes he would call her Aisuen, but more often - especially when the situation was urgent and he was driven by instinct, he would prefer to call her Hitzfeld.
"I..." Ethan didn't know what to say. He opened his mouth and pressed his hands heavily on the steering wheel.
"I don't know what's going on... I always feel confused... I'm sorry."
He could feel his mentality changing. After the matter of the Death Tree was over and his father Heidegger had hope of being rehabilitated, he became more indecisive than before.
"You are confused about your current position and career." Hitzfeld saw his problem at a glance.
This is not difficult. After all, she is someone who can accurately grasp the method of deduction, which naturally includes inferring inner thoughts from clues.
"You were once like everyone else, angry and disappointed with your father. All your hard work and efforts over the years were to prove that Villefort was right in thinking highly of you. Even though you have the blood of a sinner in your body, you can still become a qualified detective."
"This is what you've been working towards, and now that you know the truth, all your efforts and life over the years have collapsed in an instant."
"I don't think you need to care too much about this." She said softly.
"No matter what, something has already happened. There is no point in arguing about right or wrong. What matters is how to make the future better."
Ethan's efforts and direction are based on "Heidegger's guilt".
It is like the foundation of a house, like the cliffs below a beach house. Once these things collapse, the houses above will naturally collapse.
So Ethan is confused and disoriented now. Because deep down he begins to question his years of hard work, and whether he has chosen the right path. So many times he doesn't look at things from the perspective of a professional agent, but involuntarily switches to a civilian perspective. This mentality is reflected in his attitude towards Hitzfeld.
And Hitzfeld...she knew that the safest way to deal with this was to wait until she returned to the capital, hand Ethan over to the Pollution Inspection Department, and let Sixus slowly treat this psychological problem.
But that would take too long.
She also couldn't bear to see a once strong-willed agent reduced to the point where he had to lock himself up and rely on drugs to get by every day.
