Because tomorrow, Thursday, the fifth day of September, is the date Sparrow Detective said the “letter” would arrive before his death.
On Wednesday night, after seeing Jialinna and Tifa off, Xia De kept guessing what the contents of that letter would be.
As he let his imagination run wild, his guesses became more and more bizarre; eventually, he even thought that perhaps it wasn't a letter but a package, and opening it would trigger a steam bomb.
Because he was thinking too much, he had a strange dream after falling asleep on Wednesday night.
At the end of the dream, he actually saw Mr. Sparrow Hamilton.
In the dream, that gentleman didn't mention the task he had given Xia De, but instead blamed Xia De for raising a cat in Saint Delan Square and making the house dirty.
“What kind of strange dream is this?”
Xia De woke up suspiciously, then realized it was only five-thirty.
He stared at the dark ceiling for ten minutes, but couldn't fall back asleep, so he sat up from the bed.
As autumn arrived, the sunrise time became later and later, and with the bedroom curtains drawn, the room was pitch black.
However, perhaps startled by Xia De's movement, the cat, curled up beside his pillow, alertly opened its eyes, glanced at Xia De, and after realizing it was him, meowed a few times, then fell back into a deep sleep.
It wasn't time for this cat to wake up yet.
Since he couldn't sleep, Xia De got up early, changed into clothes he didn't usually wear, and went straight out.
But he didn't go far; instead, he sat by the fountain statue of the maiden holding a water bottle in the center of Saint Delan Square, feeding pigeons with some bread crumbs.
These pigeons seemed to always be here.
His appearance was very suspicious; even the passing patrolman looked at him twice.
But as the time reached six o'clock, other people gradually appeared in Saint Delan Square, and he no longer looked so conspicuous.
Xia De wanted to see who was delivering the letter to Saint Delan Square.
Starting at six-thirty, mail carriers and milk company delivery personnel arrived one after another.
Letters and newspapers were delivered through the slot under the front door into the foyer, while milk and goat milk were placed in the milk box to the right of the front door.
Xia De remained still, which resulted in Mia, who woke up precisely at six-thirty, standing on the windowsill and staring intently at Xia De after seeing him from the bedroom window.
Xia De waited until seven o'clock, and seeing no one else lingering at his doorstep, he then scattered all the remaining bread crumbs to the pigeons.
After standing up, the pigeons flapped their wings and flew over Xia De’s head.
Xia De walked to his doorstep, took out the milk box key, and unlocked it.
Holding the glass milk bottle, he opened the door and saw the newspaper he had ordered on the doormat, as well as two stamped letters.
“Could this kind of letter be sent through the post office? Is it that bold?”
Xia De wondered suspiciously.
He first made breakfast for himself and the cat, then opened the letters at the dining table.
Of the two letters, one was an official letter from the Prophet Association, inviting Xia De to attend the opening ceremony of the “1853 Great City Player rhode cards Competition” to be held tomorrow at the Prophet Association on Silver Cross Avenue.
Since Xia De had accepted money to participate as a special guest player, he would, of course, be there tomorrow.
The other letter was from a Mr. Greer Igor.
The sender's address stated a street in the north of the city, but no specific house number, so it was probably delivered directly to a mailbox at the street corner.
“I have a strange premonition that this is the one.”
Xia De thought to himself, feeling a little excited:
“This is a mystery that has lasted for over two months. What could it be?”
He opened the envelope, and inside was only one folded sheet of paper.
The back of the paper was blank, and the front had a single, neatly written line in blue-black delarion ink.
There was only a short line, without even a greeting or a signature.
【Still the same.】
“How impolite, but what does this mean?”
Xia De was very curious.
【Don't you want to burn this letter?】
She asked softly in his ear.
“Burning the letter and figuring out its contents are not in conflict.
This is a mystery that has lasted for two months.”
Xia De replied, holding the letter up to the sunlight from the window, but there was no reaction.
Seeing Mia curiously come closer, he handed the letter to her.
She sniffed it, then turned back to her breakfast.
“How interesting.”
Xia De was sure that this letter was not that simple, and with nothing to do today and his strong curiosity, he couldn't give up now.
“I just want to know what this is; I don't want to get involved in Sparrow Detective’s troubles.”
So, after breakfast, Xia De took the letter to Dawn Church and found Priest Augustus there.
The Priest had already received the exact departure time and planned to discuss his long-distance travel plans with everyone on Saturday.
Seeing Xia De, he even asked him for help in thinking about what else he needed to bring, as the climate in the southeastern kingdom was completely different from Tobesk.
“I wanted to ask if there’s a way to make invisible writing appear.”
Xia De shook the letter in his hand.
“It might be written with special ink, but I don’t know what kind.”
If it was truly as Xia De thought, then Sparrow Detective should have already destroyed the potion that made the ink visible.
A dying spy would have no reason to leave behind something that could expose his identity.
“A Ring術士’s letter? With text hidden by Miracle?”
Priest Augustus asked.
“No, just an ordinary person’s letter.
I suspect it’s special ink.”
“Ordinary people are easier to deal with.”
The Priest didn't even take Xia De to his potion workshop; instead, in his room in the church, he found a small glass bottle covered in dust.
The bottle contained a black liquid that looked particularly viscous:
“Try this, a revealing potion, usually used to detect objects that can be touched but cannot be observed with the naked eye or other methods.
This bottle of mine has expired, but it’s still very effective on ink.
This doesn't reveal through chemical reactions; it conceptually reveals things that ‘exist but cannot be seen’.”
Invisible ink is still ink; there must be traces of ink on the paper.
This kind of simple potion requires a specific ritual to work, and using it to decipher a secret letter is like using a steam bomb to kill a mosquito.
Priest Augustus didn't bring the ritual materials into the church, so he told Xia De to take the revealing potion home and do it himself.
Xia De immediately offered to pay for the potion, but the Old Priest waved his hand, telling him to leave directly:
“It might be worth some money if it hadn’t expired, but this bottle has expired.
Just consider it helping me throw out trash.
I always think about throwing it out someday, but I’m always too lazy to get it out from under the bed.”
After bidding farewell to the Priest, Xia De first went to Old John's Pawnshop and spent 3 shillings and 9 pence to buy the ritual materials.
Because the price was cheap, Xia De didn't even haggle, which greatly disappointed Old John, who was eagerly waiting for him to say “cane”:
“Sometimes I feel that the pleasure of doing business with you is even greater than the pleasure of earning those few coins in your pocket.”
After returning home, Xia De simply arranged the ritual on a blank sheet of paper, then placed the letter from this morning on it.
After pouring Priest Augustus’s potion on it, there was no reaction on the letter paper.
“Hmm, did I guess wrong?”
Xia De, at his desk, thought for a moment, took down the letter with the small line of text, and then placed the envelope on it.
After pouring Priest Augustus’s potion on it again, dense numbers appeared on the inside of the envelope.
“Very good.”
A excited smile appeared on his face, but these numbers, when strung together, had no meaning at all.
“Is it sheet music? It doesn’t look like a code.
Sparrow Detective’s code…”
Xia De turned to the bookshelf and took down the Detective’s relics: “The Queen and Her Lovers,” “The Silver Knight,” and “Remnants of the Western Front.”
These three novels were the only ones Sparrow Detective owned during his lifetime, and they had many signs of being flipped through.
Xia De had once speculated that they were the spy’s codebooks, and now he finally had a chance to verify it.
“But why didn’t he destroy these three books before he died?”
He thought suspiciously while flipping through the books, then realized that compared to the strange ink, these three novels were unremarkable.
Anyone who suspected his identity, even if he had destroyed the three books, would sooner or later notice the missing books from the study; anyone who didn't suspect his identity wouldn't care if these three books were on the bookshelf.
“But how do I compare those numbers with these three books?”
Looking at the items on his desk, Xia De fell into deep thought.
The numbers revealed on the envelope were not entirely continuous; a clear space appeared after every few numbers.
And taking the numbers before and after a space as a group, each group consisted of eight digits.
“These three books all have three-digit page numbers, and their binding specifications are similar.
Judging from the number of digits on the envelope, it’s impossible for each group of numbers to correspond to one letter; it should correspond to a word.
And the number of rows and columns of words on each page are only two digits.
That is to say, to point to a word on a specific page, row, and column, only 3+2+2 = 7 digits are needed.
But now each group has eight digits; what does the extra one point to?”
Mia jumped from the floor onto Xia De’s lap, and then from Xia De’s lap onto the desk.
Seeing three books on the desk, she immediately extended her claws, and then Xia De picked her up.
“Could it be pointing to the book? The codebook isn’t made up of one book, but multiple books?”
He compared all the numbers on the envelope again and found that the last digit of each group was either “1,” “2,” or “3”; no other numbers appeared.
“That makes it very simple.
The last digit of each group refers to the book.”
Xia De smiled.
But this raised a new problem: even if this guess was correct, he didn't know the corresponding numerical codes for the three novels.
“But it doesn’t matter; I can try them one by one.
First, translate the first 10 groups of numbers.
If they can form a coherent, meaningful sentence, then my idea is correct.”
【Three numbers correspond to three books; you’ll have to guess many times.】
A voice came from his ear.
“It doesn’t matter; it’s only six possible permutations.”
Xia De thought to himself, picked up his notebook, and began to record the letters corresponding to the numbers.
Ten groups of numbers, ten words.
And although there were six possible permutations, in reality, each group of numbers only needed to be checked three times.
