Whispering Verse

After returning to the second floor, Shade walked directly towards the woman wearing a brown headscarf, the headscarf and scarf almost blending into one. There is a stack of fortune-telling cards on the woman's desk, and there is still half a glass of beer in the wine glass. In addition, there is a pencil, a black-covered notebook and a string of smooth small stones that are threaded through.

She looks like a common fortune teller who makes a living by divination. Few people in the tavern will take the initiative to talk to this kind of lady, because if they are not careful, they will sit opposite her and listen to nonsense sentences and hand over their own. money. In particular, this lady looks to be very old. Although her face is not visible, her clothing style reflects that she is definitely not younger than 40 years old.

Shade sat across from her. The lady who was counting cards with her head lowered raised her head and saw Shade's face before shaking her head and looking at the cards again.

"Luvia, what are you doing here?"

Shade asked softly, took out a shilling from his pocket and handed it to her. Luvia, whose hair turned black, eyes turned green, and wore strange makeup, shook her head:

"Sir, it's two shillings for a divination. One shilling isn't even enough to pay for my drink this afternoon."

"Madam, drinking too much is not only harmful to your health, but it will also make the divination results you give look more like nonsense than they seem."

Hearing Shade's words, the waitress passing by with a tray couldn't help but smile.

Shade took out another coin and pushed it over:

"Are you also after the Victor box?"

"What box?"

Luvia, who was wearing a turban, took away Shade's money, stuffed the coins into the folded corner of her clothes, gathered the divination cards into her hand and started shuffling them:

"Detective, you didn't read at home in the snowy weather, and you didn't go to other cities, but you came here because of the commission?"

She knew Shade's daily schedule very well. As she spoke, she placed the divination card deck in the lower right corner of the table, then divided them into a stack of 5 cards and placed them in the center of the table.

"Yes, a commission, but it involves supernatural power, so I'm not sure what will happen. Luvia, what are you doing here? Do you need my help?"

Shade asked as he watched her cut the cards.

"It's not necessary for the moment. I'm confirming the identity of the chosen one. I gained something in my dream a few days ago, so I'm here to try my luck. If you don't show up, I will leave in about half an hour."

Most of the dreams of skilled soothsayers predict the future, so it is very common for soothsayers to act according to the guidance of dreams.

"The Chosen One?"

Shade raised his eyebrows, but did not turn around and look around. In every corner of the city that he didn’t know, Luvia never stopped looking for the chosen one:

"I'll stay and help you. The chosen ones must all be ring warlocks. At least I can be sure who will be suspicious."

"Okay, I won't delay your business. If there is no result in half an hour at most, I will give up. After all, dreams are too illusory. I have often had some strange dreams recently."

Luvia hesitated for a moment, and the action of cutting cards in her hand stopped, but soon returned to normal:

"Many things have changed, but they have not changed. I claim to follow the poem of destiny, but maybe I will find out in the end that all I have done is just walking in the same circle repeatedly."

"What are you talking about? Are diviners always so sentimental?"

Shade asked with a smile. The girl wearing a headscarf also smiled and motioned to Shade to choose a card and turn it over:

"Speaking of which, your recent divination has indeed been accurate. The 'game' you drew at the Prophet's Association on Wednesday night simply refers to that night."

He turned over one at random, and the card showed "anger".

"Cards that represent emotions."

Shade sighed and put the cards back. Luvia didn't say anything and put the divination cards back together.

"I'll go down and talk to my companions. They might be worried if they wait too long."

"Who did Dorothy come with you? That pretty maid?"

Luvia asked while sorting the cards.

"It's not Tifa, it's Princess Margaret."

"Detective, your methods are really clever."

Luvia teased, and then said in a hoarse voice:

"Sir, I cannot predict your fate. Your fate seems to be shrouded in a mist."

Shade watched her performance with a smile, but he didn't expect Luvia to reach out and take out a 1 pound coin from the corner of her clothes and hand it to him.

"I only paid two shillings, and even if I get a refund it won't be that much."

Shade reminded.

"Sir, I think you may be possessed by a demon."

Luvia held back her smile:

"So, one day soon, I will go to your home to help you exorcise demons. This will probably last until late at night. This is your deposit."

Shade didn't ask him to "exorcise demons", why did the fortune teller have to pay instead. He smiled and stretched out his hand, and Luvia put the coin into his hand, and even rubbed Shade's palm with the pad of her index finger.

After accepting Luvia's "deposit", Shade got up and returned downstairs, telling Dorothy and Princess Margaret that he might stay upstairs for about half an hour before coming back. The two girls didn't have any objections. They had many topics in common, especially Dorothy's words to trick Princess Margaret intentionally or unintentionally. This made Shade unsure whether it was Dorothy or Lacey who was here now. elegant.

After returning to the second floor, Luvia was talking to the waiter and asked for two more glasses of juice. After Shade sat down, she started shuffling and cutting the cards again. It seemed that she wanted to continue divination for Shade to prevent the two of them from arousing suspicion if they just sat there.

Although Shade's perception is very powerful, his perception does not allow him to directly determine who among the people on the entire floor is a ring warlock. Before he came to the second floor, Luvia only looked at someone for a long time to determine the target, so she would definitely miss some people who came from other stairs or who came to the Three Cats Hotel earlier than her.

But that doesn’t matter, Luvia is here to try her luck. The reason why she is still sitting here with interest is purely because Shade is sitting opposite her.

At 3:20 in the afternoon, that is, ten minutes after Shade sat down on the second floor again, a lady wearing a black top and a red dress walked up from the stairs, followed by a man in a straight blue and black formal suit. Blonde middle-aged gentleman. The lady held a small silver book under her arm, glanced at the second floor, and then walked to the left side of the stairs. There were more empty tables in that area.

"Miss Paavo?"

Although she was disguised, Shade recognized her at a glance. In order to prevent being discovered, he immediately turned his head slightly and looked to the other side. According to "her" observation, the eyes of Miss Pavo and his companions did not stay on him.

In a low voice, she informed Luvia about the person she saw. The girl who was shuffling the cards countless times frowned slightly:

"I observed her last time and confirmed that she is not the chosen one, at least not the first candidate."

He said softly, looking at the lady who was sitting down and greeting the waiter with his peripheral vision, and shook his head again after half a minute:

"No, she is indeed not."

"Where are her companions?"

"No."

"It's a coincidence that I met people from the Truth Society here. Are they planning some conspiracy?"

Shade whispered, Luvia thought for a moment:

"Miss Paavo is different from other lunatics in the [Truth Society]. She is very calm. She deliberately avoided ordinary people when she caused trouble in the city. There are so many people in the Three Cats Hotel now, so she will not cause trouble. I think she She must have made an appointment with someone important and is waiting to meet."

"That makes sense. I'm curious about who she wants to see. But people like her who believe in numbers are usually very punctual. She won't arrive too early or too late. We should be there soon. You can see who the [Truth Society] is meeting again.”

Shade said softly that neither he nor Luvia had any intention of reporting Miss Pavo. Since the other party boldly chose to appear in such a public place, it was impossible not to be prepared for a sneak attack by the Zhengshen Church.

Just as Shade thought, Miss Pavo and her companions had just ordered drinks when another Ring Warlock appeared from the stairs. This time it was two men. The distance was too far for Shade to judge their level, and Shade did not recognize the two new men who appeared.

One of them was tall and actually wore a single coat in the snowy winter. The other man was tall but thin. He looked ordinary, but he had a cyan tattoo on his right eye.

Shade didn't say anything, just pointed in that direction. Luvia watched the latter and Miss Paavo sit together, watched carefully for half a minute, and then shook her head again:

"Not them either."

"Do you know them?"

Shade asked:

"Maybe it's another cultist hired by the Society of Truth."

"I haven't seen him either. He's not a local. He looks like someone from the Pantanal area. Maybe he's the voodoo sect you mentioned."

Luvia replied softly, people in this world who are good at observation and summary can distinguish the appearance differences of races in different regions based on their life experience, but outsiders who have only been in this world for half a year do not have this ability:

"Voodoo Society? What are they doing here? I heard in Huntington City that they are preparing to do something big. A talking mouse overheard some news. They are looking for the arrow in my hand for a hundred years. things that happened.”

"It's really strange. Voodoo people generally don't leave the Pantanal. I've never heard of them being hired to come to Tobesk."

“Maybe it’s because the [Truth Society] gave too much.”

Shade joked.

Luvia also looked away from the group of people, and while writing down the results of the card divination in her notebook, she asked with a smile:

"I heard you say a few days ago that you felt like your cat was crawling all over you because you failed to shoot the arrow in Huntington. Did you spend the night at Dorothy's place afterwards?

"Why do you put these two things together? No, Dorothy has been unwell lately."

"In other words, after what happened last Tuesday, it's just you and your cat at No. 6 Saint Teresa Square these evenings."

Luvia picked up the wine glass on the side with her right hand. Shade recalled it and nodded:

"Yeah, by the way, Mia now"

"It's not legally yours yet."

Luvia waved her hand to interrupt him, and said with a long smile:

"It's so pitiful, detective. He has three lovers and is rumored to be with the Grand Duchess, but he has to spend a long night by himself."