[But the situation quickly changed.]
Below this description is a yellowed black-and-white photo of three men in frayed canvas trousers and sailor shirts, two of them barefoot and wearing straw hats to protect their heads from the sun.
The three of them were squatting on the ground, with a total of six hands gathered together, with smiles on their faces that were so bright that they could be used in toothpaste commercials, trying their best to touch a fist-sized stone on the ground.
Then the annotation: [The Kofft brothers and Paul Larrance first discovered gold on the lower riverbed of Broken Ridge Canyon, August 1939]
It turned out to be gold.
Hitzfeld couldn't help but look at the stone a few more times.
You can't tell from the black and white photo, but it is indeed brighter than ordinary stones.
A fist-sized amount of gold... Even if it is divided equally among three people, it will be a lot of money.
No wonder they were laughing so happily.
After flipping through other books, Hitzfeld confirmed: there is no train to the town of Barvik.
Very sad, but true.
This town did not exist at the beginning, which means that it never appeared in Sarah's urban construction system diagram.
It was the gold diggers, those people who were crazy about gold, who spontaneously flocked there and built their own town on the basis of the houses left behind by the mining companies.
Of course it would not be open to traffic, as the Sara royal family would not have built a railway line specifically for these people.
And when she looked, she found that there were only two railway lines in Kuroki City.
One of them leads to Port Wein, and the other leads to Nanling City.
The closest place to the town is Zhongtu City.
If she wanted to go to Balvik, she and Darent had to either go to Port Weyne first and then transfer to Middle-earth City from Port Weyne; or go to Nanling City and then transfer to Middle-earth from Nanling City.
In any case, you have to change trains, and after arriving in Middle-earth City, you have to find a way to enter the canyon basin on your own.
Really troublesome.
Hitzfeld sighed quietly.
To be fair, she didn't want to go.
But Darent said there might be a cure for her insomnia.
Wait a moment.
She frowned suddenly.
How did he know I had insomnia?
Hitzfeld never explained this matter to either Xia Yibing or the senior agent Laming-Reiter.
That is to say, Shadow Lions now only know that she may have the "Organ of God" in her body. In order to prevent her from escaping or being murdered, they may have sent people to follow her in secret like they did to the lady, but they definitely don't know that she can't sleep every night.
As for why the light in the room was always on at night...her explanation was that she was afraid of the dark and had to do so.
This is a very convincing explanation.
Especially after experiencing such a terrible disaster, it is normal for a young girl to be afraid of the dark.
"Guessed it?"
After thinking about it, it seems that this is the only possibility.
There is a saying that the history of the Wheel of Fortune is older than the current Sara Kingdom.
Judging from the example of Dawson Literary Society, it is simply unimaginable how many ancient books and documents the library contains.
There must have been situations similar to hers in this world before. Maybe those people couldn't sleep like her, so the story can be directly deduced.
Headache.
Hitzfeld covered his head, conflicted.
After the extreme emptiness, she suddenly felt that there were a lot of things waiting for her to do.
Solve insomnia.
Get familiar with the Wheel of Fortune.
As Xia Yibing and Alfred had said, Shadow Lion still had a set of procedures to go through, and they might even take her to the capital to meet His Majesty...
Why didn't they take her to the royal capital earlier?
She couldn't figure it out.
Everyone knows that there is probably a "God's Eye" in her body, and this is the extent of their attention to her.
Is the "Eye of God" worthless?
Or are they also fighting among themselves, and this period of rest is just a benefit to me?
Walking to the window, Hitzfeld opened it a little, hoping to get some fresh air to calm his mind.
Before leaving, Darent told her to be prepared to accept the commission. To be honest, she didn't understand what this meant.
Then she saw the man.
He was a man who had lost his soul. He stood under the street light, looking around, holding something that looked like an envelope in his hand.
When Hitzfeld saw him, he just raised his head. Then he seemed stunned for a moment, quickly lowered his head to read the letter carefully, and when he looked up again, the expression on his face had turned into ecstasy, and he ran quickly towards the iron gate.
"bell--"
There was a doorbell ringing downstairs.
Hitzfeld glanced at the clock helplessly.
Eight o'clock is almost nine.
“I don’t like loneliness.”
She muttered and went downstairs.
"But I don't like being disturbed..."
Chapter 4: The Burro Canyon Murders
The winter wind blew, and snow began to fall outside the window again.
In the living room, Hitzfeld tried to make the fire burn as vigorously as possible, so vigorously that she felt a little hot. Then he poured a cup of half-scalded hot water for the second guest today.
The Sara people also grow coffee beans and tea leaves, and there is a widespread tea drinking culture in Blackwood.
But she doesn't like any of them, she only drinks water.
"Thank you..." The man sat on the sofa near the fireplace, sipped a few sips of water, then put the cup in front of him and held it from time to time. His frozen body finally began to function again.
"Thank you for trusting me...really...because not all ladies would be willing to open the door for a strange man at this point."
He was also thin, but not the unhealthy thinness of Darente, nor the leanness of Ethan. This could be seen from the calluses on the inside of his palms and the broad shoulders - he had a lot of energy in his body.
"In this respect, I think you are indeed as they say, an unusual and peculiar person..."
"You wait first."
Hitzfeld stopped him.
"If I'm not mistaken, you're from Barvik?"
"Yes." The man was a little surprised. "How do you know... yes... did they notify you at the same time?"
"No, just a guess." Hitzfeld sat opposite him, looking at him with his lone blue eyes.
"Where did you serve?"
"In Dantel." The man had just finished drinking water and answered her reflexively.
“Oh my God!” Then he shook his body violently and stared at the girl as if she were a ghost. “I didn’t tell them this! Who on earth are you…”
"Because the location of the calluses on the hands is very peculiar, only distributed on the index finger and the base of the thumb."
"but……"
"And I noticed that the amplitude of your arm swinging when you were running was not consistent, probably on the right side. Combined with the calluses, I guess you have been handling guns for a long time, and rifles at that. Only long-term rifle shooting practice will leave such marks on the body."
“Oh you are so…” The man held his head in his hands, his face half fear and half joy.
Hitzfeld felt extremely happy when he was stared at like that.
No wonder everyone loves Sherlock Holmes.
Once the deductive method is successful, the joy of pretending to be something is simply addictive.
And that's not the end.
She had another guess she wanted to confirm.
"Drink more water...Have you eaten?"
Thinking of the purpose of the visitor looking for her, she also began to switch to honorifics.
"No."
"Then there's some bread left in the kitchen."
"No... Really no!" The man quickly stood up to stop her, "I'm sorry to bother you so late... Really, I don't want to bother you anymore, I just hope you can listen to my request."
"You say." Hitzfeld didn't really want to go, so he sat down again.
The other party has demands - that's obvious.
A person who has nothing to ask for would not be so idle as to travel to such a faraway place on New Year's Eve to talk about life with a girl who looks so unreliable.
When he first entered the room, his face was red from the cold, and even his eyebrows were covered with frost. It was obvious that he had been looking for a place non-stop after getting off the vehicle, and he hardly stopped in the middle.
Hitzfeld guessed that this was what Darent had reminded her to prepare for.
The "they" the other party mentioned should be the people from the Wheel of Fortune. Not only did they guess that she had insomnia, but they also planned to help her solve this problem early on.
Therefore, this troubled person was led directly here by them. Perhaps it was just to create an excuse for her to go to Barvik first.
"My name is Mickey Gebrina... You can call me Gebrina or Mickey. I came here because I encountered a very scary and very strange thing. It's useless to call the police. I visited many private detectives, and they all recommended you to me."
Without exception, these detectives are all from the Wheel of Fortune.
Hitzfeld recalled that Darent had said that many members of the organization were running offices.
"Come to think of it, it's not easy to find you." Gebrina smiled very humbly and flatteringly. It seemed that the girl's initial reasoning had shocked him and made him believe that this was really a strange person.
"I didn't know there was such a big commotion in Kuroki City... I heard that tens of thousands of people died from the petrification disease. If this disease were to happen in our area, there would probably be no one alive within a hundred miles..."
"Let's get to the point, Mr. Gebrina."
"Okay, okay... Here's the thing... You have to know that I'm not the only son in the family. I have two sisters, a younger brother, and an older brother. Together with my parents and grandfather, there are nine people in my family."
"Ah."
"My sister works in the town's spinning mill, my brother is a postman, and I'm lucky enough to find a job as a clerk in a luxury store - there are only two such stores in our area."
"That's really good."
It is inconvenient to supply goods in mountainous areas.
Hitzfeld thought.
Then Gebrina's salary alone should be enough to support the family.
"That's the problem." Gebrina was very angry when he said this. "My brother Johnny was ambitious to find a better job than a coachman when he was unemployed. But since I took on the responsibility of supporting the family, he has become a lazy man, idle all day long, either gambling or sleeping!"
"That's unfortunate."
"That's right. We are not rich, so we don't have that much money for him to waste."
"what's next."
"We reprimanded him severely, hoping to make him realize his mistakes. This was very effective at first, and he did restrain himself a little in those few days, but the speed at which his shamelessness increased was beyond all of our expectations. In less than a week, this kind of reprimand was no longer effective!"
"I was really angry!" he said. "I fought him right in front of everyone else!"
“The results are obvious.”
Hitzfeld nodded.
On one side are the good-for-nothing lazy men whose spirits have been drained by gambling, and on the other side are the men who have respectable jobs, spiritual pursuits, and experience in the military.
