The fish training ring didn't fit on the white mouse's claws or head, so Xia De held the mouse with one hand and used its slender tail as a rope to tie the ring around it. As the relic took effect, the low-intelligence mouse gradually stopped struggling, as wisdom began to occupy the high ground of its mind.
It looked up at Xia De, and Xia De met the gaze of the tiny black mouse's eyes. He clearly felt the emergence of wisdom from the trembling fur on the mouse's head and the 'expression' in its eyes.
A moment later, the white mouse spoke:
"Oh, you, this, damn it, are you going to, I curse you, really, ."
Its voice wasn't loud. Judging from its tone, it was a male mouse, an adult. It cursed Xia De, who was holding it, in heavily accented carson rick, using words that Xia De couldn't even fully translate:
"The Owl I met in Middelburg last time also seemed very good at cursing in carson rick."
He thought to himself, slightly increasing the grip of his right hand. The mouse squeaked but stopped cursing. Compared to the Owl Xia De met in Middelburg, this mouse from the Lower City was truly impolite.
"Do you hate me that much?"
He asked with a smile, and the mouse, held in his hand, replied indignantly:
"I can smell your cat scent through a door; it's even worse than Old John's foot odor!"
"John" is a very common name, so the "Old John" here is definitely not the miserly pawnshop owner from Tobesk.
"Cat scent?"
Xia De looked at himself and realized the mouse was referring to Mia:
"Are you very afraid of cats?"
"Aren't you afraid of man-eating beasts?"
The white mouse retorted, its tail, tied with the ring, shaking constantly. Its tone showed it was very angry:
"But I am a brave mouse! Quickly, call that cat out! I will defeat it with my wisdom! Yes, I have wisdom now, and wisdom is my wealth and strength!"
Xia De suppressed a smile. With Mia's wisdom, the cat could easily toy with this overconfident white mouse:
"Back to business. I'll ask, and you answer. First, in the past week or two, have any strange strangers visited?"
"You......"
"Besides me."
"There was a strange person fifteen lunar cycles ago."
"How many people in total?"
"Two!"
"What did they ask?"
"Very similar to what you just asked. If you're willing to give me some cheese, I'm willing to......"
"Hmm?"
"I mean, they asked questions similar to yours, and then they knocked this unlucky fellow out."
The unlucky fellow referred to the white mouse's owner.
"When those two humans left, they chatted about a place name. Yes, the name was Matilda Street 39!"
The mouse spoke quickly, as if truly worried about being squeezed to death by Xia De's hand. In fact, its worry was completely unnecessary. For any human or creature with intelligence equal to humans, Xia De would carefully consider whether to kill them.
This was respect for life.
"Matilda Street 39......"
Xia De knew this street, but only from a map. Half a month ago, he hadn't even been to Huntington. Xia De couldn't confirm what those two people, who found Rust Alley before he even began his Huntington operation, knew.
He took a piece of Mia's cat food from his pocket and dropped it onto the table, then, amid the white mouse's pitiful pleas, he also put the mouse down.
The white mouse didn't run away but sniffed the expensive cat food. It didn't eat immediately but said to Xia De again:
"My hearing is much better than a human's. After they went outside, I heard a few more words: Voodoo Society, relic, sacrifice, wasting time, once-in-a-century opportunity."
The white mouse described, with several words pronounced inaccurately, clearly not remembering them clearly.
"Voodoo Society? Is it the Pantanal Voodoo Society again?"
Xia De was very surprised:
"They're so careless, discussing such topics right in the alley."
“Aren't you also often discussing sensitive topics with friends on the street?”
“She” asked with a smile. Xia De touched his nose, pretending not to hear, and then said to the mouse, who was starting to prepare to eat:
"Mr. Mouse, thank you very much for your help. I'm leaving. Do you want to go back to your cage, or do you want me to help you gain freedom?"
Xia De would definitely take off the fish training ring, but he could let the mouse go and leave some money for the owner here.
The white mouse stepped on the wood grain of the counter, raised its head in great fear, and said in a slang-filled accent:
"Please don't put me outside; those wild cats and mice will eat me!"
"So, you're willing to go back to the cage?"
"Does that even need to be said? Oh, humans like you who haven't lived in a cage won't understand how comfortable it is to have a stable cage and food at fixed times. Just as I can't understand why you always like to wander outside, for me, life in a cage is......"
Seeing that the mouse had a tendency to become a philosopher, Xia De took off the ring. As the white mouse squeaked, he put it back in its cage and also threw in that piece of Mia's high-end cat food.
"These animals are really interesting."
Xia De thought to himself.
Huntington City, the City of Red Wine, is crisscrossed by waterways, and Matilda Street leads directly to the City's second-largest river, the "Tomson River." The eastern end of this street begins at a five-way intersection, and the western end goes straight to the riverbank; it's not very long overall.
Xia De believed the white mouse hadn't lied, but when he arrived at Matilda Street at three o'clock that afternoon, he was surprised to find that the street simply didn't have a number 39.
On Matilda Street, odd numbers are on the north side, even numbers on the south. Numbers one and two are a flower shop and a law office, respectively, right next to the five-way intersection. The last two house numbers at the end of the river are 37 and 38, which is the end of Matilda Street.
To prevent any mistakes, Xia De even specifically inquired at a pub on the street and confirmed that Matilda Street had never had a number 39. Although the street had been rebuilt many times in recent decades, the number of house numbers had always remained the same.
There weren't even rumors of "invisible shops" or "number 39 appearing at night" here, which meant that, whether from a normal person's perspective or an urban legend's perspective, the Matilda Street 39 mentioned by the white mouse simply didn't exist.
Xia De didn't rush back to Rust Alley to continue discussing philosophical topics with the white mouse that didn't want to leave its cage. Instead, taking advantage of the heavy fog that reappeared in the afternoon, he left Matilda Street and came to the Tomson River bank street that intersected with it.
In the afternoon, there were only a few women with headscarves washing clothes below the riverbank. The heavy fog on the river made it only possible to see the outlines of buildings on the opposite bank.
"This also makes it easier to act."
Xia De carefully descended from the riverbank street to the riverside along the slope. The City Hall would certainly not waste manpower to renovate the riverbank. The bank was overgrown with weeds, and huge pipes continuously discharged sewage from unknown sources into the river. The bank was full of mud and garbage, and occasionally there would be tin cans and broken kerosene lamps, things that could scratch shoe soles.
Perhaps scavengers regularly picked up trash here, so the footprints on the riverbank were very messy.
Xia De searched back and forth several times at the position directly opposite Matilda Street, and under "her" guidance, he indeed found traces.
It was an uneven stone wall on one side of the river, located precisely on the odd-numbered side of Matilda Street. There were very faint elemental traces on the stone wall. According to Xia De's judgment, there should be an entrance concealed by rituals and Miracles.
Someone had definitely been here recently. The person was very confident they wouldn't be discovered, so they didn't even clean up the footprints.
Xia De touched the stone wall with his hand, roughly confirming the concealed entrance. Then he carefully observed the stone wall and found a small trace among the normal cracks and stains on the stone wall. Interpreting it as text, the meaning was roughly:
"The great Pantanal shall reclaim its lost territory."
"It's the Voodoo Society, after all."
Xia De thought to himself, then used the Miracle, Echoes of the Past, to try and find the voices of the people who came here, to determine how to open the concealed entrance. But unfortunately, after many attempts, he only heard the City noise from above the river. The only speaking voices were children chasing each other, discussing fishing.
"That is to say, this might be a local stronghold of Harald Ondiba, the owner of 'Arrow,' from decades ago. The Ring術士 who came to investigate him visited Rust Alley fifteen days ago. After finding no clues, they came here, but that was more than 48 hours ago, so I didn't hear any voices."
There were no signs of damage here, indicating that the early arrivals likely knew how to open the entrance a long time ago. It was reasonable to believe that those two were also members of the Voodoo Society.
“So how are you going to open the entrance?”
“She” whispered softly in Xia De's ear.
Xia De turned to look at the sun in the sky at five in the afternoon, looked left and right to confirm that no one was nearby:
"This is simple. They only concealed the entrance, not the space itself. I don't believe they have that ability. Since there must be space behind the stone wall, then......"
He pressed his right hand against the stone wall:
"Felianna's Witch Light!"
Golden light radiated from his palm. As Xia De steadily pressed his hand against the stone wall, the golden light, like fire melting solid ice, allowed Xia De's arm to penetrate the stone wall.
Apparently, the Ring術士 who used this place as a stronghold had also considered that someone might violently break the stone wall. Therefore, when Xia De's wrist was fully inside the stone wall, he felt he touched something extremely cold.
Cold air and curses followed his hand and shot towards Xia De's heart. Xia De instantly froze in place, then shivered violently:
"Oh, so cold."
He complained inwardly, confirmed that the lingering curse had been completely suppressed by his divinity, and then continued to reach into the stone wall. After encountering curses three times in a row, a third of his upper arm had already sunk into the stone wall. At this point, he finally felt his palm completely penetrate the stone and enter the space behind it.
He pulled back his arm, squatted slightly, and looked into the dark space inside the opening:
"It's actually so thick. Are they treating this like the Carson Rick Kingdom Bank's vault?"
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