Each patrol has a mission. The caravan can only follow the patrol team and cannot change the route. What they can dig up along the way depends entirely on luck.
Under this mode, it is obviously impossible for anyone to break away from the patrol team and enter the red earth plains privately. It can be said that over the years, the Wengsayn Fortress has mastered the activity records of every human team after entering the red earth.
But it doesn't include carving these strange patterns...
"So." Xia Yibing squeezed the teacup with her fingers and applied a little force, "Either someone leaked in and did it, or... the one who carved these things was a creeper."
As soon as the word "Creeper" came out, Leia, who was sitting diagonally opposite, shuddered.
Even Weilencel frowned even deeper, his eyes flickering, clearly showing his fear.
The Creepers are the most terrifying things in the Red Earth Plains.
A swarm of worms is cuter than them because simple worms have no intelligence and will not chase after you if they are hurt or confused.
But the Creepers are different. Once discovered by these monsters, endless pursuit and death will await them all.
"...Sure enough, some things still need to be handled by professionals." Hitzfeld spoke up to break the silence. She picked up a photo and looked at it, then continued to ask the other party: "And then?"
"This thing could have been left by someone other than a human... recently... but why do you think these seven obvious symbols are not eyes?"
She had seen these photos so many times that no matter how she looked at them, she felt they were eyes.
After all, seven narrow, rounded rhombuses with a circle in the middle - isn't this the simplest way to depict an eye?
"Because for the time being, I haven't heard that the things worshipped by the Creepers have eyes..." said Weilencel.
His voice became a little hoarse, and in a noisy environment, one had to get closer to hear it clearly.
"Yes... the thing they worship has no eyes... Of course, we can't rule out that it is an eye... After all, it is just a legend... No one who has actually seen it exists..."
"what is it?"
“Emperor worms.” Willensel managed to utter a single word, and suddenly exerted force with his two hands pressing on the table. “Those huge creatures that are over a hundred meters long… are like gods! They can devour an entire caravan in one bite!”
"Look at the way the symbols are arranged... They radiate outward from a central point. Don't you think this looks like a close-up of those things?"
As he said this, Hitzfeld was looking down at the photo.
She tried to put herself into Willensel's words, and gradually... she felt that the picture on the carving had changed.
No longer blurry, no longer psychedelic... the seven sharp diamond-shaped eyes seemed to come alive. They turned into seven sharp teeth, which suddenly opened towards her, swallowing her in one gulp with a darkness like the abyss.
Closing his eyes, Hitzfeld bit down hard on the tip of his tongue.
When he opened his eyes again, the illusion disappeared and the scene he saw turned into seven strange circular eyes.
"I have to ask clearly - are you committed to finding the emperor worm?" Wei Lunsel lowered his body and spoke in a serious voice, as if he was asking the price in a brothel. "If so, then the deal is canceled. I would rather stay in jail for a few months - anyone who has such an idea is absolutely crazy!"
"I'm not interested in the emperor worms," Hitzfeld said. "You don't need to worry about that... I have to follow the team, too. The patrol team has no plans to go deep into the nest, right? I can't leave the team and act on my own."
Wei Lunsel and Leah beside him breathed a sigh of relief.
"But I'm curious about this thing," Hitzfeld said again. "Are there a lot of them?"
"do not know."
"do not know?"
"It's like this, Miss Hitzfeld..." Leah began to help fill in the blanks again, "The teacher just said that the emperor worms are just legends... The fate of those who have actually seen them is..."
"Then how do you know they exist?" Xia Yibing asked.
"Oh! There's evidence of the caves they dug... and the feces they left behind. These are enough to guess how big and long they were."
Leah kept describing the information she knew, while Hitzfeld fell silent, only asking questions from time to time.
When she had almost squeezed everything she knew out of Willensel, she realized belatedly that it was already past 10 o'clock.
Even in the living area, this point is very late.
Weng Saiyin did not forbid soldiers who were not on mission to have fun, but this was limited. Moreover, an overly decadent living area would also affect the discipline of the defenders.
At the table next to them, the caravan guards were already dazed and almost drunk.
Most people in the bar were like this. Some were sent upstairs by the waiters in a daze, while others fell to the ground with bottles of wine in their hands and fell asleep with their bellies wide open.
This even included Darent, who was hugging Kak... Only the situation in Hitzfeld's corner was better.
Neither she nor Xia Yibing was drunk.
Willensel and Leah, Smail, Frick, and the fat businessman... I think his name was 'Hughes', they were not drunk either.
Hitzfeld was mainly surprised by Hughes - the others didn't get drunk because they hardly ever drank, but Hughes had drunk quite a bit.
But he just looked a little rosy.
What a terrible drinking capacity...
"Well, Miss Hitzfeld."
Smail suddenly called her.
"I heard from Kangana that your condition...we may need to do some tests on you starting tomorrow."
"Of course, I personally believe that you are fine. This should be quick, two or three days at most, and it won't delay our departure together."
There was no reason for Hitzfeld to refuse.
But she also called someone.
"Mr. Hughes."
"I'm listening, Miss Detective."
Hughes was just about to get up and go upstairs when he heard the call and turned around quickly.
"What can I do for you?"
"You know where we live, right?"
"Uh... I heard the two Knights mention something. It's on the third floor, room 306."
"Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, I hope you can spare some time to come here."
"No problem." Hughes agreed readily, then frowned slightly.
"May I know why?"
"No reason."
Hitzfeld narrowed his eyes, and his monotonous gaze passed over him, staring at the void in the shadow.
"There's just something I want to ask you."
Chapter 23 Ceramics Market
The next day, in Room 306 on the third floor, when Xia Yibing opened her eyes from her coma, she saw the back of the girl sitting at the head of the bed, holding a thick book in her hands.
"The Art of Clay?" The woman whispered the title of the book, declaring her awakening in this way. She raised herself from the quilt, opened her arms, and wrapped them around the girl's waist.
"You're quite funny... Aisuen, when did you become interested in this kind of thing?"
In my impression, Hitzfeld does have a good artistic temperament.
After all, she can draw, and she draws quite well... and she has a good knowledge of classical humanities and history, especially ancient Sarai. All these have given her a unique romantic temperament that only scholars and artists have.
But she never knew that he liked to read these things? Didn't she always think that people should read less of these messy books because they should save their energy for more important professional books?
"Clay Art, 1977, Sinze Parish Press, author Filmer Strost." Hitzfeld read out a string of information, closed the book, and looked helplessly at the rogue woman who was clinging to him like a loach: "... You don't think I bought this after I traveled through the void and arrived in Shein Town, do you?"
It seems that Xia's dependence on himself is a bit too serious.
It was because of this that she did not get up immediately after accompanying Xia to sleep - the reason why she did not sit at the desk to read but sat next to Xia was to prevent her from not being able to touch herself when she woke up from a nightmare in the middle of the night.
It turned out that she was worrying too much... The woman slept quite soundly that night, and had a tendency to act up again as soon as she woke up in the early morning.
"Oh, of course I know this is what you picked out and stuffed into the box at the beginning..." Xia Yibing ignored the girl's resistance to pushing her. She hugged her waist tightly, pressed her head on Hitzfeld's round and elastic thighs, and her face was against her lower abdomen.
"So can you tell me about it? What do you think...your idea for solving the case?"
This might be instinct - she felt that there was no more comfortable contact posture than this. The girl's body fragrance coming through her clothes made her breathe greedily, making Hitzfeld's face flushed and her body tremble from time to time.
This is definitely not a psychological effect, and it has nothing to do with psychology. But in this situation, every word Xia Yibing said would cause vibrations in her lower abdomen, and that feeling was too strange... Every vibration made the girl flustered.
"Turn your head away first!" She slapped the woman on the forehead and pretended to be angry: "Otherwise I will get out of bed and you will be hugging air!"
"Okay~" Although Xia Yibing didn't understand why she was shy, she still didn't make it too difficult for her.
She simply stopped hugging her and twisted her body to lie back on the pillow, with her face pressed against the girl's right hip: "...Can you tell me now?"
Of course she wasn't stupid... Hitzfeld was wearing a loose-fitting pajamas, and from this angle... she could see the faint presence of the southern hemisphere from time to time... She had always been confident in her concentration and eyesight.
But Hitzfeld was no fool either—never underestimate whether a person who is proficient in deduction can detect what you are looking at. So Xia Yibing didn't get the answer in the end, and was kicked off the bed.
While they were washing up, they heard a commotion downstairs.
It seemed like a morning market or something... Xia Yibing didn't even have time to rinse her mouth before she leaned out of the bathroom window and saw a number of curtained sheds set up on the street below. Soldiers, merchants, porters, rangers, and many other people were moving around in them carrying goods.
"So many clay jars..." She squinted her eyes and found that only half of them were normal goods, namely weapons, armor, sundries, fruits and food. The remaining 50% of the goods were clay jars of various shapes.
Moreover, she found that the locals seemed to have developed the custom of storing everything in pottery jars. Fruits, grains and sundries were basically all stored in large pottery jars, which looked very exotic.
It seems like some thoughts are popping up in my head.
But it is too vague, like the catkins in spring that are hard to grasp.
Just then, she heard a knock on the door.
She quickly rinsed her mouth and washed her face, tidied her clothes and appearance, and then gave a confident smile to the policewoman in the mirror who was wearing a windbreaker and her thighs were wrapped in black stockings. Xia Yibing opened the bathroom door and saw Hitzfeld sitting on the sofa and interrogating Darent.
To say it was torture... because the difference in aura was too obvious, and she just happened to hear the second half of Hitzfeld's words: "...you know you can't keep it secret for long."
"Or have you never really considered me as a partner?"
"I never thought so." Darente was serious for once, but he did not look at the girl. Instead, he stood by the window and stared at the downstairs. "I have always regarded you as a good friend... the best kind."
"Then you should tell me what happened to you." Hitzfeld crossed his legs on the sofa. "You don't really think you can get away with saying 'interesting'? Your so-called best friend is someone who can make you pork chops?"
"What are you talking about?" Xia Yibing looked at Darent and then at the girl.
She didn't understand the atmosphere.
"He insisted on being an actor." Hitzfeld said unhappily, "Remember I told you that he asked Ethan for cigarettes after seeing a traveling theater troupe's convoy in Fellington? He didn't even want to talk about such a good opportunity. It's obvious that he doesn't regard us as friends!"
"You mean that!" Xia Yibing also reacted and immediately jumped into the girl's camp, "That's right! Maps... This is outrageous!"
"No...I--" Darent was speechless.
He has never been so miserable.
The main reason was that this kind of coercion was initiated by two women, and that kind of pressure... was completely different from what he had encountered in the past.
"Okay, I'll tell you!" After hesitating for a while, he turned around and leaned against the windowsill, loosening his collar: "My first love... and the only lover I've ever had... She used to be an actress in a theater troupe."
"once?"
"Oh, strictly speaking, until death." Darent raised his eyebrows and looked away deliberately. "As for who she is, what her name is, and how she died, don't ask... I won't tell you even if you ask."
"Did she tell you that if there were ever something like a 'movie', she'd like to co-star with you?" Hitzfeld suddenly asked him.
"???" Darent stared at her with a ghostly look: "Oh! I almost thought you could read minds!"
This is a confession without asking...but for the first time, Xia Yibing felt that other people's thoughts were not that difficult to guess.
"She did say..." The wooden man drooped his head.
"It's a little different. It's probably saying... people's daily lives are actually the most real drama. She doesn't regret meeting me, nor does she regret being with me... as the lover and lead actor in this drama."
"So you want to be an actor?" Hitzfeld commented sarcastically, "No wonder you act so much."
"Aisun-Hitzfell!!!"
"Humph, this is revenge for your past."
"Aisun."
Xia Yibing had to stop the two people's childish behavior. She called the girl and guided her to look over here, using her thumb to point to the world outside the window.
"That book...did you expect Onsin to be like this?"
Her reaction was only slightly slower than Hitzfeld's. Since reality had given her such a hint, she could naturally think of it... This was because Hitzfeld had been extremely concerned about the "pottery jar" from the very beginning.
As for the reason, maybe it was because of the charred vase I saw in the museum?
But that thing looked like a failed product, and she still didn't understand why she could connect them.
