Among the bustling crowd attending and observing the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Xia De and Mrs. Cooke seemed out of place. They stood still, parting the flow of people, and Xia De held his breath to distinguish the sounds around him. This not only required differentiating from the background noise ten minutes ago but also from the current background noise.
After all, listening to past sounds didn't completely block out present sounds.
“This way.”
He barely heard the timid voice of the Boy ahead asking if he could leave, and then heard the gentle comforting voice of a woman. Xia De, with a serious expression, waved to Mrs. Cooke, who, already numb, instinctively followed him.
Then, the two squeezed through the crowd and walked east along the tree-lined avenue on the east side of Tobesk Station.
After passing through the tree-lined avenue, they turned north again. This area was the slum next to the station, which also provided the station with a large supply of cheap labor, such as porters.
There were far fewer pedestrians nearby, and Xia De was glad he hadn't lost them. But as he continued walking forward, he surprisingly heard someone call his name. He paused for a moment before realizing that it wasn't the voice from ten minutes ago; it was a current voice.
Turning his head to look across the street, he saw Captain Rades waving and walking towards him. After a week, he looked much better, dressed in proper clothes, and no longer had the slovenly demeanor typical of a drunkard.
“That’s my friend. You explain the current situation.”
He turned to Mrs. Cooke and spoke quickly, then continued to listen to the surrounding sounds and walk forward.
Earlier, to explain how he could find clues, Xia De had asked passersby multiple times along the way. But he always did so out of Mrs. Cooke's sight, only letting her see his back; in fact, Xia De hadn't spoken to anyone.
Once the direction of the sound was lost, it would be almost impossible to find it again, so he had no time to greet acquaintances now.
Captain Rades’s military demeanor became particularly noticeable after he emerged from his state of dejection. Mrs. Cooke, following behind Xia De, was already completely at a loss, and now seeing Captain Rades approach, she followed the Detective’s lead and simply explained that the kind Detective was helping her find her lost child.
“Child lost? That’s a serious matter!”
The Captain was startled. Seeing the Detective ahead looking around, he followed behind them:
“Detective, I’ll help too. I happen to have nothing to do today. Do you have any clues now?”
“This way!”
Xia De pointed forward with a serious expression, making the Captain, who didn't know what had specifically happened before, believe he held important clues.
Stopping and going, they surprisingly circled Tobesk Station, and the number of people coming to watch the excitement grew. Because Queen Diana, the representative of the Cavendish Royal Family, was about to arrive, the police were already blocking off some streets, which made Xia De feel a sense of urgency:
“Why haven’t they stopped yet? Do they know they’re being followed?”
The current Tobesk Station West Street was the main parking area for horse-drawn carriages. But similarly, the alleys here were interconnected, leading to many nearby neighborhoods.
Each time they passed an alley entrance, Mrs. Cooke and Captain Rades behind him would glance inside.
Finally, Xia De stopped and looked towards the alley entrance beside him.
In the alley, a plump woman with her head wrapped in a headscarf turned in from another exit of the alley and was walking towards the alley entrance where they were.
The voices of the Boy and the woman from ten minutes ago had entered this alley. And the woman walking towards them seemed to match the age range of the voice's owner.
To prevent her from turning and running, Xia De didn't speak to inquire. Instead, he wanted to wait until she was closer before asking her to speak, to determine from her voice if this headscarf-wearing woman was his target.
But unexpectedly, Xia De was cautious, but she was even more cautious.
Upon noticing the three people at the alley entrance, she subconsciously slowed her pace. Then, whether she recognized Mrs. Cooke or was intimidated by Captain Rades's demeanor, a hesitant expression appeared on her face, and then she surprisingly turned and ran.
“That’s her!”
The Captain’s excellent reaction ability, honed in the military, made him the first to shout and give chase.
“Mrs. Cooke, call the police for help. I suspect your child is in one of the nearby alleys. Remember, you must say that this is where the culprit of the Tobesk child serial disappearance case is, and be careful, they might have accomplices!”
After speaking, Xia De also gave chase. With the pursuit detected and unsure which house in which nearby alley was problematic, catching the woman was the best breakthrough.
In fact, Xia De currently carried two guns. The Luger revolver from MI6 could be fired at any time. But the woman was already fleeing in the middle of the alley, and Xia De’s instructions to Mrs. Cooke delayed him for a few seconds, so he couldn't guarantee his marksmanship would hit the target.
So he could only chase forward, but Xia De believed that with his Ring術士 stamina, he would definitely be able to catch the woman.
He was still thinking too simply.
Although this alley had no forks, the woman, who started running first, was the first to breathlessly rush out of the other end of the alley and then turn left.
Captain Rades was the second to emerge from the alley, and after chasing a few steps, he saw Xia De actually overtake him. The young Detective was nimble, able to achieve extremely fast speeds even in crowded streets.
“Hamilton Detective, I’ll take a detour to block her; you keep chasing forward!”
Seeing this situation, Captain Rades decisively chose the more rational approach.
Xia De shouted “Understood” to him, staring at the woman who was constantly pushing through pedestrians in the crowd ahead, and quickly chased after her.
Because it was so close to the station, the crowd grew denser, and Xia De couldn't fully exert his speed, so the distance between them didn't close quickly. He thought of shouting loudly for passersby to help catch her, but unexpectedly, when he shouted, the people in front scattered, making the woman run even faster.
As for the police officers patrolling the street, due to the noisy environment, they didn't hear Xia De’s voice at all.
The two ran one after another across an entire street, and directly opposite the street entrance was the main entrance of Tobesk Station. The sound of a train whistle could be heard from a distance, suggesting a train was arriving.
At this moment, there were various sizes of four-wheeled carriages parked at the station entrance, and uniformed, armed police officers were maintaining order, while reporters looked into the distance, waiting for the main character of the ribbon-cutting ceremony to arrive.
The fat woman immediately turned and ran towards the road to the left of the station entrance, not giving Xia De a chance to call for police assistance, unless he was willing to detour and waste time.
“I must catch you!”
Xia De followed closely, turning left at the street entrance, no longer wasting energy shouting, and running forward through the gaps in the crowd along the wall.
After running less than a few dozen steps, he accidentally bumped into a nervous middle-aged man clinging to the wall. Xia De quickly apologized and darted forward, while the middle-aged man, with a serious expression, put his hand in his pocket, looked at Xia De's receding figure, and paid him no more attention, instead continuing to squeeze towards the front of the onlookers.
A louder, more chaotic sound came from further down the road; led by police, escorted by the Royal Guard, a carriage adorned with the Cavendish Royal Family crest was slowly approaching.
People on the street expressed their respect to the distinguished lady inside the carriage. The window was opened, and the face of Queen Diana, often seen in newspapers, appeared there. Her makeup was not complex; the woman in her thirties wore a silver tiara and waved to the citizens with a benevolent smile.
Someone else seemed to be sitting beside her.
The surrounding cheers and shouts made the street even more crowded and chaotic. The lively atmosphere reached its peak, and the crowd surged from the sidewalks towards the center of the street, forcing the police and Royal Guard maintaining Leedweich Field to deploy more personnel to prevent anyone from approaching the carriage.
The fat woman running ahead was the first to see the approaching motorcade in the distance. She glanced back at the Detective, who was hot on her heels, getting closer and closer, with a grim expression, then gritted her teeth and rushed towards the motorcade. But she didn't get close; instead, she ran directly across in front of the motorcade, from one side of the street to the other.
And when Xia De also wanted to cross the street in the same way, the uniformed police officers leading the way had already blocked the street to allow the motorcade to proceed, and used a human wall to prohibit anyone from coming from the sidewalk onto the street.
At this moment, Xia De was only twenty steps from the street entrance behind him, and he could be seen from the entrance of Tobesk Station.
“I dare to gamble on luck; do you think I would lack such courage?”
He thought to himself, stopping his steps, preparing to squeeze through the human wall and dash across the street while the motorcade hadn't arrived and the police weren't paying attention.
And the middle-aged man Xia De had bumped into a few seconds ago had also squeezed to the front of the crowd. He frowned, looking at the approaching motorcade, his left hand pressed down on his black soft hat, and his right hand, tucked into the inner pocket of his overcoat, remained motionless.
From Tobesk Station behind him, a group of pedestrians emerged; these were newly arrived passengers. Those who could still move freely at the ribbon-cutting ceremony site were naturally from the Orthodox Church. Miss Bei Ya Si and her group walked out accompanying a middle-aged man carrying a briefcase.
Doctor Schneider, who was among the crowd watching the excitement, conversed with his acquaintances and appeared from the street entrance behind Xia De.
Miss Jialinna sat beside Queen Diana, looking out of the carriage window with boredom.
Captain Rades, behind the crowd on the other side of the street, made a lunging gesture forward.
The Detective's superior, Chief Dak Anlos of MI6, mingled in the crowd, observing the surrounding situation.
The carriage got closer and closer to the street entrance in front of Tobesk Station, and the sounds of wheels and hooves were drowned out by the seemingly explosive cheers. Flocks of pigeons, already prepared, were released at the intersection, flying in large groups over people's heads, forming moving shadows.
The fog still hadn't dispersed, but the low, dim sky couldn't stop the cheers and joy of the citizens of Tobesk from all walks of life.
