"Something is wrong." Hitzfeld frowned and stared at Lily's posture, and found that she was struggling in one direction.
This dog is very psychic.
This actually doesn't need much explanation. The fact that it can understand a lot of what she said and can accurately execute many of her commands shows that it is no longer an ordinary beast.
"Try to loosen it, Xia!" she said suddenly, "It seems to be taking us somewhere!"
Xia Yibing curled the corners of her mouth and held the rope motionlessly.
Looking at her stiff posture, Hitzfeld knew what she was struggling with. He leaned closer to her helplessly and said in a voice not much louder than a mosquito's hum: "Don't be like this... Get angry with a dog."
"At worst, I can give it to you after I come back..."
"You said it yourself." Xia Yibing raised her eyebrows and let go.
"Ahhh!" Lily shot out like a white arrow. The two men jogged behind her, crossed the park and came to another street. They were surprised to find that Lily had entered an alley, stepped on the tile window in the middle of the alley, climbed over a wall, and disappeared into a yard.
what's the situation?
Stopping, Hitzfeld and Xia Yibing looked at each other.
They had not forgotten that Lily was Barty-Villefort's dog.
It has a good memory and knows who is a friend and who is an enemy. It is also extremely timid and will never provoke an opponent it is not sure it can defeat.
...How could a dog like this suddenly run into a stranger's yard?
Unless this courtyard is...
"Have you ever taken your dog here before when you were walking it?" Hitzfeld asked.
"No." Xia Yibing said affirmatively, "I mostly took it in the direction of the White Shadow Palace, which leads to the library. I don't like that place."
"That's right."
Hitzfeld walked to the outer wall of the house and gently touched the closed door.
"This is probably a base he established."
With Xia Yibing around, they didn't have to worry about unlocking the door.
Two minutes later, the door opened, and just as Hitzfeld was about to enter, he was stopped by the woman.
"Watch out for the spider webs."
Xia Yibing reached out her hand above her head and swept aside the large circle of spider webs.
Entering the courtyard, Hitzfeld took a quick look around.
There was nothing special about the layout, it was exactly the same as the houses in the dark alleys she had seen before.
The door of the main house was not locked. It was half open with a gap. There was no sign of Lily in the yard, so it was most likely that she had gone in.
As a precaution, Hitzfeld pulled the white whale out from under her skirt.
Xia Yibing also pulled out the wheel, and the two of them were almost pressed together, and they reached out and pushed open the door at the same time.
"ah--"
The wooden door screamed.
The light from the alley entrance shone in a little, allowing the two to see the situation in the room clearly.
There was hardly any furniture.
There were no tables, no chairs, no cupboards, no rugs, no fireplaces, and no pictures.
But it is still not correct to describe it as bare, because in the corner of the house there is a pile of... messy things, which can be said to be of all kinds.
Guns, books, notebooks, daggers...
Like a pile of junk.
Lily stood on this pile of junk, head held high and proud, like a king guarding treasure.
Chapter 5: Weng Sein
This is all...what?
Waving Lily aside, Hitzfeld wanted to go forward and check these items.
Xia Yibing didn't stop her this time for a simple reason - since Lily looked very familiar with this place, she must have been here many times. Even a dog wouldn't be cursed, so it seemed that these items were not dangerous.
Hitzfeld encountered no obstacles.
She was a little surprised - given Lily's personality, she thought it would resist. Unexpectedly, it behaved so well, as if it was not the one standing proudly on the pile of things just now to "claim sovereignty".
Half squatting, Hitzfeld first picked up a dusty iron-sheathed dagger.
The style of this sword is a bit too old-fashioned. The handle is fat in the middle and narrow at both ends, and the two wings of the guard are slightly tilted downward, with two small metal balls at the end.
The entire sword, from the scabbard to the guard, was covered in dust. Hitzfeld didn't care about dirtying the black silk gloves he was wearing, so he gripped the hilt and pulled it out.
The cold light flashed before his eyes like a startled wild goose, but this sense of amazement came to an abrupt end when the sword blade was completely pulled out. Because this was actually another broken sword, with only three quarters of its blade remaining, and the bottom tip of the sword was not here.
But at least it looked better than the broken sword she had touched before, and at least the damage was not as serious.
Hitzfeld held the blade in front of him and examined its broken edge carefully, trying to determine how it had broken.
"It broke on its own," Xia Yibing said. "There are no spreading scratches on the sides. It must have been chopped or stabbed by something much harder than itself, and broke instantly."
Her experience in this area was far richer than that of the girl. After all, some things were "superficial when discussed on paper", and Hitzfeld could not rely on those notes to gain real experience.
"..." Nodding and saying nothing, Hitzfeld handed her the thing along with the sheath, and continued to squat and rummage through the pile of objects.
The more she searched, the more she felt the place was too messy. She found eight short swords and daggers of various styles, as well as three guns, all of which were extremely honest and classical flintlock rifles - her biggest impression of this kind of gun in her previous life was that they usually appeared in the form of lighters.
How could Villefort have found such a place to store such junk?
Hitzfeld couldn't understand.
Not to mention that as the director, countless people were watching his every move. Didn't those people notice that he had hidden a house here? How was that possible?
Just then, she saw Lily jump up to the side window and go out the other side of the house. A moment later, she jumped back in with a worn-out boot in her mouth and threw the boot into the pile of items.
"...You mean, he has never been here, and this is the treasure room he specially arranged for you?" Hitzfeld asked Lily speechlessly.
"Woo woo!" Lily raised her head and barked twice, then turned around in circles, wagged her tail, grinned and stuck out her tongue.
That seems to be the general situation... Hitzfeld was basically certain.
This house should have been bought by Villefort a long time ago. He himself had never been here, but Lily remembered this place. Sometimes when she was released by Villefort, she would travel a long distance back here and pick up some food on the way to join in.
As she was thinking about this, she saw a circle of messy footprints on the dusty ground.
There were footprints everywhere, spreading throughout the house. It seemed that its owner had walked around the place carefully, especially around the pile of junk... and finally stepped on the window sill that Lily had just jumped onto.
"It should be a thief or something like that." After seeing the dagger, Xia Yibing kept staring at her movements, and naturally discovered the footprints by following her gaze.
This is a very common judgment. After all, this place has been abandoned for so many years, the walls are so low, and the door of the main house is not locked. It would be strange if it had not been visited by thieves.
However, the thief was also full of despair about this place. Even if he took these junks out to sell, not many people would want them - this was even more normal, because items that someone wanted would not be easily stolen back by a Sheldon dog.
"Let's go?" She asked Hitzfeld in a questioning tone, "There's too much dust... If you really don't want to give up, I'll send someone from the bureau to take a look. You just wait on the side."
After flipping through a few items, Hitzfeld's black silk gloves were already covered in dust and dirt. Even her skirt was stained with some dirt.
In this case, black really doesn't resist getting dirty, but Xia Yibing felt a little jealous and couldn't help but imagine in her mind whether she could get dirty in another way.
"Yeah." Hitzfeld didn't insist. He clapped his hands and prepared to get up.
What the woman said made sense. And even if there had been valuable things here, such as those that Wilford might have put in, after so long, she estimated that thieves would have rummaged through them a hundred times and they should have been taken away and sold long ago.
What's left are all junk, dirty garbage that no one would want even if given to others... Only Lily the dog would treat them as treasures.
As she thought about this, she felt something strange about her legs under her skirt.
When she looked down, it was Lily. The Sherries had pushed its head into her skirt at some point. She pulled up her skirt to reveal her legs in black silk stockings, and the expression on her face gradually became distorted.
This dog...it picked up a dirty towel that hadn't been washed for eight hundred years from somewhere and is rubbing her socks with it!
"Lily!"
Lily let go of the towel, jumped onto the window with a howl and ran away, leaving Hitzfeld with his skirt lifted up, looking at his messy calf with tears in his eyes.
She didn't notice that Xia Yibing's eyes looked even weirder at this moment.
Shrugging her shoulders and putting down her skirt, she kicked the towel out with her foot. Upon closer inspection, she realized that it was not just a towel.
There are many small brush-like things on its edge - similar to the edge of a banner. It should be a small, decorative flag.
It's just that it's so dirty that the thieves think it's worthless.
Piqued by interest, Hitzfeld deftly turned his ankle, picked it up with the edge of his shoe, and turned it over.
At this point, its complete appearance was revealed: both she and Xia Yibing saw that its surface was an embroidery of figures.
It's very crude... far from being exquisite. But you can vaguely make out that he has a beard, is wearing armor, and is holding a sword. He seems to be riding a horse and charging at the enemy.
Hitzfeld couldn't figure out what this thing was... She was very familiar with the artwork from her previous life, but that knowledge was of no use in the Changxia world.
However, Xia Yibing exclaimed, somewhat surprised: "The background is red... red soil... does this look like Weng Saiyin?"
"Onsayin?"
Hitzfeld looked at her. "Northwestern Plains... Worm Plains?"
"Yeah." Xia Yibing nodded, "It's right there."
Going northwest from the West Grant ruins and crossing a range of mountains and hills, you will reach the Onsayn Plain, the largest plain in the entire Sara region.
It is also called the Worm Plain because there are terrible carnivorous worm nests everywhere. The worms may be as small as fingers, but they may be larger than a hill, and their ability to destroy the environment is terrifying.
Hitzfeld had seen descriptions of the Plains of Onsayin in many notes and books. It was called this name because of the Battle of Onsayin.
Onsain, the first golden knight in the modern history of Sara.
Rumor has it that evildoers have always coveted the Worm Plains. They believe that the remains of the ancient gods (ordinary people call them evil gods) must be buried below, and some of these fanatics have poured into the plains and disappeared into those underground caves, becoming the infamous "Crawlers".
The creepers usually cover their faces with tattered cloaks, and are surrounded by gray fog and stench. They hold some simple musical instruments, such as flutes, pipes, and harmonicas, and use music to drive the insect tide.
This is an extremely dangerous force. In order to suppress the sudden and terrifying insect swarm, the knight Ong Saiin led his troops to fight to the death and forcibly blocked the enemy on the plains for two days and two nights. He was eventually killed in the battle and his corpse was eaten by the insect swarm.
In order to commemorate him, later generations called the land the Onsayin Plain, and the checkpoint fortress built on the site of the Battle of Onsayin was also called Onsayin City.
That is truly a cursed place.
Hitzfeld stared at the background of the flag in deep thought.
She thought of the black vase again.
Chapter 6 Breastfeeding
An hour later, the alley was almost full of people.
There happened to be a post office across the street from the alley. Xia Yibing sent a telegram and almost called two truckloads of people. A group of policemen in formal black clothes blocked the alley in three circles inside and outside. Many passers-by who had no urgent business stopped outside to watch out of curiosity.
People were talking about whether another murder or evildoing had occurred.
In fact, neither was true. Hitzfeld, who knew the inside story, felt that Xia Yibing had gone too far. The flag obviously could not be related to the curse, otherwise it would be impossible to explain Lily's health.
The Sherlock is not a blessed species. It cannot remain unscathed by the curse.
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①: Blessed species. According to legend, some animals have been blessed by gods and have stronger defense against mystery and evil than ordinary species. However, this term is usually only applied to animals. Some people also use this term to refer to the Southwest people, which is a derogatory term in this context.
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"It's always better to be cautious." Xia Yibing ran behind the girl, pinched the back of her neck with both hands, and gave her a massage neither too light nor too heavy.
She swore she wasn't thinking of anything indecent, like the hands should move a few inches forward and downward to rub something else, measuring Hitzfeld's development in this way.
She had thought so before. But the message behind the banner reminded her again, and she immediately put away all her impropriety.
Compared to those messy thoughts, she would rather stay the way it is now.
Hitzfeld didn't hate her, and sometimes he would even directly express his liking and love for her. This feeling was enough to make a woman infatuated. She didn't ask for more - this was enough.
However, the results of the investigation were quite discouraging: there were no cursed items among the objects, but the origin of the house was found out. It had been in Villefort's hands for at least twenty years. A desperate homeless man had once moved in and lived in the house, but he slipped away for some unknown reason.
"I guess it's because there are no toilets." Facing Zafira's report, Hitzfeld made a cold joke, "Even homeless people can't stand this kind of life."
"Are you well?" Zafira noticed her then and pushed up his glasses, a flash of light flashed across the lenses. "I heard from the captain that you have some kind of aesthesia...smell good things smell bad, and smell bad things smell - ah!"
