But judging by the situation, she no longer had a chance to correct it.
Chapter 46: City Lord and Detective
Xia Yibing still knows her limits.
After measuring every inch of the girl's soles, insteps, and toes with her fingers, she went to bed contentedly.
This could have been a great sacrifice - every night in Talignant was unsafe, and they had already been targeted by the Undead, so she could not control her desires.
But the effect was not very good... When she stopped, she thought, "Aisun should be touched now," and thought she had done a smart thing. But she was not the one whose feet were played with, so she had no idea what it felt like.
“……” When he put down the newspaper, Hitzfeld’s skin from his face to his neck turned red.
Her body was so limp that she couldn't lift her legs. She had already slipped halfway into the bed from her sitting position. She knew that her body was reflecting her inner desires, but she still couldn't control it. This was not something that could be controlled by reason.
Looking at the woman who was already sleeping soundly, Hitzfeld hesitated for a moment, and finally gave up and decided to punch her to wake her up from her dream.
Forget it...it’s my fault for not wanting to sleep.
For a normal person who has just experienced a long journey and is in great need of rest, this kind of treatment must be torture. But she is different after all, she has a long night to dispel her restlessness.
In order to divert his attention as quickly as possible and ignore the strange feeling, Hitzfeld adjusted his posture again, sitting up straight again and picking up the newspaper.
She had barely looked at it while she was being stroked—she had stared at each letter but couldn't work out what they meant.
Now that she could finally get a good look, she tilted slightly to the right so that the text was closer to the candlelight, and the first thing she saw was the newspaper headline: "Forest Ridge Post".
This is the largest newspaper in Senling City. The main reason why this city is incompatible with the county system of Talignan is its geographical location - it is not remote, but it is surrounded by mountains and rivers. In the context of a lack of manpower to build new roads, transportation is relatively inconvenient.
Therefore, it was honored to become one of the few autonomous cities in Talignant. The lord of Senling City had the qualification to recruit less than 5000 troops locally, all for self-protection.
In this context, the power of the Forest Post is beyond doubt. In this city with only two official roads, no train station, and no docks, they may be the only agency responsible for communication.
The front-page news was a clichéd evil-doing story about a local family who mysteriously disappeared after dark.
The reason why it was determined to be an evil spirit causing harm was that there were no traces of crime left at the scene, and the streets near the house were patrolled that night. In theory, the homeowner and his family did not have the ability to avoid sight and escape... After considering all the factors, it was suspected to be an evil spirit.
Hitzfeld shook his head as he watched, feeling that there was no one here who could investigate the case.
She knew that the report was probably true, and that it might have been done by an evil nightmare that crawled in in the middle of the night and ate the owner's family.
But this level of evidence gathering...are they doing this because they are too numb?
Being unable to find out the cause and being too lazy to investigate are two different things. With this attitude, she can fabricate a murder scene and easily put the blame on Nightmare.
Thinking of this, she remembered the pile of Mays newspapers in Russell's box on the airship.
At the time, I was surprised that every newspaper had murders, and the time intervals were so close. Looking back now, I think a considerable number of those cases were perjury.
Some of them were not evil spirits harming people, but people killing people. This is the development that should happen in a place covered by the power of the Death Party.
Is Senling City like this too?
Hitzfeld flipped through the newspaper, trying to find more information about the local area.
She actually found it: On the second page of the fourth edition it was written: Bos-Lias invited the famous detective Mark to move into Senling, hoping that it would alleviate the recent frequent invasions to a certain extent.
Next to it was a black-and-white photo of two people: on the left was a middle-aged man with an ape-like face and thick eyebrows, and on the right was a short man with an arrogant look, gray hair on his temples like Moore, but shiny black hair in the middle.
The two men, one tall and one short, stood there, shaking hands and looking at the camera. There were two lines of small words below:
Bos-Lias, the lord of Senling City.
Alaga-Makai is a famous detective in the Sharo region.
Below are some introductions to the two people. The introduction to Lord Bos is very short, and it simply states that he is a good lord because he is willing to listen to the people.
When the people wanted roads to be repaired, he spent money to recruit people to renovate the roads. When the people wanted better public security, he ordered the police to patrol in two shifts at night.
Basically, he gives the people whatever they want, so such a person is naturally loved.
This time was no exception. Some people finally couldn't stand the frequent evil invasions. They asked Bosch to think of more ways to protect their safety, so Bosch specially hired a detective.
Hitzfeld read this passage with a frown on his face.
Unlike the locals who all had positive comments about Bosch, she felt that he was either a complete idiot or had bad intentions.
It is a good thing to pay attention to the voices of the grassroots, and she is not saying that this is wrong. But what cannot be ignored is that the concept of the grassroots is too huge.
There are too many mixed elements, some of which are correct and some are stupid. Those in power must be able to distinguish them and cannot blindly follow them.
Otherwise, why would he be needed? Wouldn't it be better for the grassroots to form an association to make decisions themselves?
Take road construction as an example - basically everyone knows that the road conditions in Senling City are a long-standing problem. The city is located in a very remote area, and transportation in some areas even has to rely on old wooden elevators to deliver things from the foot of the mountain.
Then why didn’t the previous rulers consider building roads?
Admittedly, there is a possibility that "they are all selfish and never want to consider the bottom", but the times are open after all, and the probability of so many city lords in a row being such people... is very low.
They never thought of building roads through the mountains, which made some sense to Hitzfeld.
Perhaps they did not receive financial support from Kerger and knew they did not have the financial resources.
Maybe they tried it, planned it, but gave up on it for various reasons.
Apart from other things, Senling City would not be a wealthy city from the perspective of economic structure. Inconvenient transportation means that many goods cannot be sold, and the lowest level may still remain at the stage of barter. Relying only on the support of mercenary hunters and the terraces on the mountainside... How much money can they use to build roads?
The workers' commissions, the provision of food and lodging, the lack of materials... Lord Bos spent a large sum of money on this big project. Has he ever thought about how he will survive the next winter?
Time passed quietly as she was thinking, and Hitzfeld forced herself to stop associating - after all, it had nothing to do with her.
She could only sigh. They had even planned to leave here at dawn. They really could do nothing about the situation here.
So she continued reading and began to read the part describing "The famous detective Ma Kai".
This guy is very powerful. He is from Sarao, and there are more than twenty cases he has solved listed here alone.
Sharo is further west than Talignan. Strictly speaking, it is located at the extreme northwest, almost the end of the continent.
There is not even a concept of a country there, there are only castles and lords. Due to geographical reasons, the days are long and the nights are short, which makes it more likely to avoid evil spirits. Since the locals almost all sleep during the day, nightmares are forced to hunt during the day.
When he saw this, Hitzfeld almost laughed out loud.
She had thought before whether it would be possible to more effectively solve problems such as nightmare invasions by forcing everyone to sleep during the day.
Because the fog is very light during the day, without the addition of gray fog and exposed to the sun, prevention and control work will be much easier.
And to be honest, not many people will have nightmares in this kind of environment. It's like a virtuous cycle - as public security improves, nightmares become fewer and fewer, so the number of nightmare monsters breaking out of their cocoons also decreases, further improving public security.
Unfortunately, it is not realistic, for the same reason as “If everyone in the country gave me one dollar, I would instantly become rich right where I am”. It is just wishful thinking.
This is the only way to play in the Shaluo area where there are few people.
Chapter 47: Expected Attack
So Hitzfeld really isn't biased.
She looked at the matter very seriously from the perspective of "sample base", and doubted whether the famous detective named Ma Kai was worthy of his fame.
After all, the overall environment of Sha Luo is more comfortable, while the overall environment of Senling is more severe. Anyone who suddenly comes from a comfortable environment to a harsh environment will be a little uncomfortable, and his past cognitive experience may not work here at all.
As she continued reading, she quickly finalized her suspicions - because more than half of the cases handled by Ma Kai lacked a complete logical chain.
What does it mean to lack a complete logical chain?
Basically... for example, if the content of a case is unreasonable, then it is 100% certain that it was done by evil.
There was absolutely no careful consideration of other aspects. This could no longer be considered an investigation. In her opinion, it was more like muddling through the matter and shirking his rights and responsibilities.
She was not wrongly accusing him. The most obvious case was the sixteenth case reported, called "Forest Cabin Invasion Case". It was about a forest ranger in Shaluo who was tragically killed in broad daylight. When he was found, half of his skull was missing, and a big hole was drilled in his forehead, and all the brain matter inside had disappeared.
After the famous detective Ma Kai arrived at the scene, he immediately concluded that "this was done by an evil spirit." The local police raised different opinions during the process, such as that some non-evil animals do have this ability.
Things like brain-eating monkeys, bobcats, and parasitic brain worms may also be responsible for the crime.
But Ma Kai directly denied all the inferences and insisted that this was a simple murder case caused by evil spirits. His reasons were that there were no brain-eating monkeys nearby, it was impossible for a bobcat to break into a house and commit a crime, and parasitic brain worms were only a problem for residents living near water. All in all, it could only be an evil spirit.
It sounds reasonable, but Hitzfeld himself can list no less than ten natural animals as suspects.
The Sharo bush leopard, the hunter spider...even some potions have side effects that can directly blow off their heads, these are all possible.
After all, he is a forest ranger. The nature of his work determines that if he is in trouble, he will be discovered later than others. As time goes by, the traces at the scene will be quickly decomposed and destroyed by mosses, insects and ants, so it is necessary to analyze the problem from multiple aspects and angles.
Ma Kai didn't do that at all. He simply classified it as an invasion by evil spirits. He stood guard nearby for eight hours and declared the case closed after catching a newborn nightmare.
"I seemed to hear people talking about him when I passed by downstairs during the day... Is he really poor or ignorant... Why did he hire such a bastard?"
Hitzfeld secretly complained about the city lord. He no longer had any interest in this man.
"Knock knock knock." There was a gentle knock on the door.
After a moment's pause, Hitzfeld immediately looked at the woman beside him.
Xia Yibing leaned to the right side, her body curled up like a baby, her breathing steady and she slept soundly.
Hitzfeld tried to get out of bed as quietly as possible - she really didn't even lift the quilt, for fear that too much cold air would come in and disturb the woman.
Then she quickly put on the black skirt, tidied her hair which was not yet completely dry, put on her shoes and walked to the door.
"Who's outside?"
"Your friend."
"...I don't remember when we became friends, Mr. Sally." Hitzfeld recognized the voice of the person who came. "You should know that it is rude to disturb two ladies in the middle of the night."
Holding the white whale tightly, she opened the door a little, and then found that there was another person next to Old Moore.
"Russell?"
"It is precisely because I think it is impolite to let him disturb you alone that I followed him." Russell put his hand on his felt hat, but did not take it off. He just made a formalistic gesture of nodding.
"Can we talk about it? This is Mr. Sally's request. He has some troubles and wants to consult us."
"..." After thinking about it, Hitzfeld opened the gap in the door a little wider, but did not open it completely - she had not yet removed the chain on the door.
"Let's talk about it." She tried to make her voice sound cooler. "We have the entire third floor reserved. You should be able to spot who is eavesdropping."
The implication is that there is no need to find a hidden place anymore.
She could stay in the room, ensuring her own safety while keeping an eye on Xia to prevent any accidents.
But unfortunately, her voice is still relatively soft, and no matter how much she pretends to be, she has no intimidating power.
"I'm very grateful that you're willing to give me this opportunity." Old Moore breathed a sigh of relief. "I'm sorry... It's mainly because what I heard during the day was too... I want to ask you, are you sure you want to go to Kerge next?"
Hitzfeld glanced at Russell and saw that he had no reaction. He nodded and conceded, "If this is the result of the vote during the day, then it should be so."
"Great!" Moore was very happy and didn't care about the need to vote at all. "I'm so glad to meet you... I mean, you know so many secret information... and I've never heard of the 'Fire Dragon' lineage."
This is indeed a dereliction of duty on your part.
Hitzfeld was not very happy.
She felt that Moore-Sali's role was too limited.
Oh, she shouldn't think like that. He saved them as soon as he showed up. This alone was enough.
"Your ability." She thought for a moment, "Can you please tell us about it?"
Not only did she want to understand Moore-Sally's abilities, she also wanted to understand Sixus' abilities.
What are the effects, classification of effects, scope of effects, what is the difference between the effects on extraordinary people and ordinary people? Only by understanding these can we better avoid dangerous situations.
At the very least, they need to have a way to distinguish between Mimics.
It can be seen that Moore is in a dilemma.
This is Shiguang Long's secret weapon for survival. Saying it out loud is no less than revealing all your secrets, so it is indeed something that needs to be considered.
But Hitzfeld underestimated his determination. He quickly reported a string of information: "Recall, and hallucinations... We can see scenes from the past... You know all this."
"What about the future?" Russell interrupted.
"Theoretically, yes." Moore curled his lips, "But I can't do it... I haven't heard that a time dragon can do it."
"It seems to be a difficult skill to practice." Russell shook his head and finally gave up hope.
"The range is twenty meters... You can probably guess this. The effect on extraordinary people will be weaker. As for ordinary people, if they are careful and observant, they can also detect it..."
"that's all?"
"Oh! There is another one, which is a hidden possibility." Moore quickly added.
"What's possible."
