Xia De went to Captain Lades by the wall and confirmed that Captain Lades had only fainted.
"Kill him? Of course not, why would I do that?"
Xia De retorted in his heart, preparing to get up and retrieve his rhode cards before waking up Captain Lades:
"What good would it do me to try and resist someone else's prophecy?"
The movement of getting up caused air to pass by his ears. Vaguely, Xia De actually felt a cold strand of long hair brush past his ear. Just the hair alone made him shiver:
"What's going on?"
Looking at the fallen Henry Val, the evil spirit behind him had indeed disappeared. The current situation should have nothing to do with it.
"Wait, the hair hanging by my ear... It's that relic! The Unfortunate's Long Hair!"
Outsider, an unfortunate fate is coming for you.
"What?"
Suddenly, a thick white mist appeared, almost instantly engulfing Xia De and the other two in the secret room. The familiar feeling made Xia De immediately understand what this was:
"Damn it! The entrance to the Gap actually opened here! Just like when Priest Augustus fell into the Gap, such unlucky things are happening now!"
The white mist surged from an unseen boundary, indicating that the line between life and death was gradually blurring. Xia De keenly sensed the change in the abnormal space; the temperature was rapidly dropping, and everything in the secret room was decaying. He even heard the wails of evil spirits and saw countless rotten hands reaching out to him, becoming clearer from their blurry state...
If there were no accidents, with his next breath, Xia De would fall into the Gap just like Priest Augustus. And he couldn't even call for help from anyone.
Fortunately, Xia De was stronger than Priest Augustus:
"Space Stabilization Aura!"
An invisible ripple spread out from Xia De. A sound like shattering glass rang in his ears, and all the surrounding white mist instantly vanished, as did the exit that had just opened.
The entrance to the 【Life and Death Gap】 was inherently extremely unstable, which is why a ritual was needed to sustain its existence. Dispelling this abnormal spatial phenomenon, while very draining for Xia De, was at least not impossible.
The sensation of the cold, long hair by his ear also disappeared. The misfortune caused by the unauthorized use of the relic was successfully avoided by Xia De.
"So, unless absolutely necessary, one must never manipulate fate."
The Outsider summarized the lessons learned in this world in his heart.
And besides not attempting to manipulate fate, another important lesson Xia De learned was not to make deals with demons.
"However, after Priest Augustus left the Death Door, although my Mystic Lock could seal the door, entrances to the Gap have started appearing again in Middelburg. Priest Augustus said that the Gap devours living people to Balance life and death. It seems that the final time for the outbreak of death is getting closer and closer. I hope this time, the Church doesn't overlook important information again, like Tobesk did."
Before waking Captain Lades, who seemed to have been drugged, Xia De briefly searched the slightly cramped secret room.
Since there was only one bookshelf, he easily found the diary of Henry Val, who had become a vegetable. Then, on the bottom shelf, he discovered a terrifying book titled "Human Treasure: Life Extension Methods."
The book used hand-drawn anatomical diagrams as illustrations, describing methods of extending one's life through cannibalism. Of course, these methods were all deceptive and had no relation to true mysticism. So, this was probably just the ravings of a madman, published by a mystic enthusiast among ordinary people, and then it fell into the hands of this folklore student.
"Even fake mystical Knowledge can drive people so crazy. I can't imagine what would happen to this world if the Church didn't regulate Ring術士 Knowledge."
Therefore, the Five Gods Church truly is an important force in maintaining the stability of civilization.
As he casually flipped through the book, a note fell out from between the pages, with only one line of text:
Predict death, make an appointment in advance, no bargaining. Pig Tail Lane, Building A, No. 8, three long, two short, three short, two long.
"How does that look like a scam? Could that Boy have just happened to guess Henry Val's situation?"
After thinking for a moment, Xia De put the note back into his pocket and then returned the book to its original position.
Besides books, there were also some strange small bottles containing suspicious liquids on the bookshelf. In addition, on the top shelf were five or six hideous enamel figurines, but unfortunately, they weren't even valuable antiques, only unique works of art.
Henry Val didn't have a wallet on him, but there were some in this secret room. However, those ladies' wallets looked like relics of the victims, so Xia De didn't touch them, waiting for the police to return them to the victims' families. Of course, the money inside might be embezzled, but Xia De would absolutely not take it.
"I knew it, there had to be a hidden compartment!"
After knocking on the wall for a while, he indeed found a spot where the sound was off. After prying off that wall brick, behind it were an old single-shot pistol and several boxes of bullets wrapped in oil paper, a kraft paper bag with the victims' identification information, and a long-handled cosmetic mirror wrapped in burlap.
The mirror handle and frame were silver, adorned with what appeared to be genuine or fake gemstones. However, around the mirror frame, some thick silver threads were intertwined into the shape of tentacles, and there was also a small, barely noticeable line of ancient text on the mirror handle:
The safest place is—inside the mirror!
the moment he opened the burlap and touched the item, a prompt had already appeared in his ear:
Outsider, you feel the whisper.
"whisper? This is..."
Xia De's eyes widened instantly.
Yes, relic.
Having been in this world for over three months and experiencing so many things, strictly speaking, the relic in his hand at this moment was the first relic Xia De himself actively touched.
Many previous relics were either bought or encountered due to others' reasons, such as the Drowned Merman's Scale, the dream pen of joy, and even the demon hunting seal should be considered to have fallen into Xia De's hands due to Sparrow Hamilton.
But this mirror in his hand fell into his hands by coincidence entirely due to Xia De's own reasons.
"Three months! Three months! I knew it! Even if I'm not a Chosen One, how could I never encounter a relic wandering outside!"
His current joy was even greater than when he had just discovered the truth. It wasn't because he had obtained something valuable, but because he had proven his luck:
"I knew it, my luck is still pretty good."
Unfortunately, Henry Val did not record the origin of this mirror, but it must have been something he acquired when collecting what he considered "mystical items."
"Today is truly a perfect day."
He put the mirror away and then filled the brick back into the wall. He first returned to the wall where he had come from the broom closet, found the push-button mechanism to open the door, proving that he had entered through normal means, and then woke the groggy Captain Lades.
When Captain Lades opened his eyes, he saw Xia De, then saw Henry Val, whose life or death was uncertain, and his face immediately flushed:
"I was actually ambushed by a young man."
It seemed that if there were no cracks in the ground, Captain Lades would have wished to burrow directly into the ground.
The rest was simple. Xia De found it inconvenient to attract too much attention in Middelburg, so he used the excuse of "the troublesome client doesn't want me to expose myself" and let Captain Lades take sole credit for solving this serial murder case.
Captain Lades, of course, refused, but Xia De waved his hand, signaling him not to say more:
"Captain Lades, I'll take ninety percent of the 100-pound reward. The remaining ten pounds are yours. If you feel bad about it, you can treat me to a meal sometime."
Aside from Henry Val, who was now a vegetable, no one had seen Xia De and Captain Lades investigating together in the castle. And the only one who knew the truth of this matter was now Professor Dunn.
Xia De only needed to solve the case. As for the credit, perhaps Captain Lades needed it more.
PS: Originally, I planned to add 20,000 words on the first day of the Lunar New Year. To avoid being too concentrated, I've moved some chapters to tomorrow, spreading them out, but the total added words are still 20,000.
Asking for votes at the end of the month.
