Whispering Verse

This time the countess' divination went very smoothly. Even though she didn't know much basic information, based on her understanding of Shad, she knew that things related to this man were definitely not trivial, so she made it for the first time in front of Shad. I guessed the truth:

"Is this the house of the Ace of Gray Gloves, the Grey-headed Eagle?"

"Yes, but that's not entirely true. We usually call such a house a safe house."

Shade corrected:

"During the [Collection of Dice Stories], you knew that I had connections with the secret service organizations of both countries, so you shouldn't be surprised that I know this place, right?"

The witch blinked:

"I'm not surprised that Gray Eagle's safe house is in a place like this. You know, he is also a legend to me. When the nobles of Moon Bay wanted to seek independence, Gray Eagle successively murdered many important people. At that time, I was still a little girl who didn’t understand anything. To me, he was the same as those big bad wolves in fairy tales who kidnapped disobedient children.”

She said with a smile, and then felt incredible again:

"Speaking of which, the Gray-headed Eagle actually died? When did this happen? There is no news about such a big matter within Kasenlik? Wait a minute, I remember hearing about Gray-headed Eagle some time ago What about the news about the eagle? Although it is just a rumor, all evidence shows that the gray eagle is still active."

"Yes, you are absolutely right."

Shade nodded, still looking at every closed door on the second floor:

"The gray eagle is indeed dead. It died last summer."

"Then why."

"The Grey-Headed Eagle is indeed still active. Someone has inherited this code name and is active. And that person——"

He turned to face the Countess, who pointed to Shade hesitantly:

"It's you?"

"Yes."

Shade nodded and continued to observe the doors, while Miss Belindel took a deep breath:

"Yes, I found that I was not very surprised. After all, compared to other things, the identity of an ordinary person is nothing. So, does your coming to Yuewan this time have anything to do with this identity?"

"It has nothing to do with the grey-headed eagle. The grey-headed eagle actually shouldn't appear in Moon Bay. He has other tasks. Oh, I found it, here."

He walked to the broom room, removed all the things inside, and then groped on the wall of the narrow broom room.

"Did you murder the gray eagle?"

Miss Belindel asked again curiously, and Shade immediately shook his head:

"Of course not, but he did die in front of me. No one knew about his death at the time. He made arrangements for his funeral before his death. I will go to the cemetery to visit him on the New Year's Day and other days. .”

At this point, Shade was startled, and then realized that he had forgotten to visit Detective Sparrow in the cemetery on his death anniversary. Shade suddenly felt regretful, and at the same time he wondered what he was doing at that time, and how could he forget such an important thing.

[You were probably "busy" attending your birthday party at the time. Those girls were not easy to deal with. 】

"She" reminded with a smile, and Shade understood why he had forgotten such an important day. Of course, Miss Belindel was behind him at this time, so she couldn't see his expression.

Soon, Shade found an area on the wall of the broom closet that could be pressed. With a slight exertion, an extremely narrow passage appeared on the innermost wall of the broom room.

Even people with standard builds like Shade and Miss Belinder had to turn sideways to get in, and behind the passage was a secret room about the size of a cloakroom. It is a helpless move to build the secret room so small. If the secret room is too large, a concerned person can tell at a glance that there is a missing area in the house.

Just as Shade once thought, Detective Sparrow sent someone here to deal with it before he died. The small room has a small bed, chairs, small tables and numerous bookshelves made of metal pipes and metal plates. Today, the furniture is still there, but some of the materials and documents on the bookshelves have obviously been destroyed.

There were sparse traces in the files that were supposed to be kept close together, and the remaining files, after Shade and Miss Belindel looked through them, were all investigation reports about the seven major families in Yuewan City, as well as some of the files in Yuewan City. Transcripts of confidential Bay City City Hall documents.

"There is actually some information about my family. Let me take a look. Oh, this is a photo from my eighth birthday. Can he also find this kind of photo?"

The witch was greatly surprised. When she saw Shade stretching his head to see, she pushed his head back:

"When I was a kid, it was different from what I am now. Anyway, I'm not allowed to watch it."

She put the photo back into the file and decided to get rid of all the information after asking Shade for his opinion.

These remaining information are absolutely precious. Gray Eagle was able to collect such detailed information back then. In addition to his own contribution, the entire Gray Gloves organization must have also put in a lot of effort.

The fact that these materials can be left behind shows that the destroyed materials are even more precious.

Shade tried to listen with "Echoes of the Past", and after making sure he heard nothing, he asked the witch to do a divination.

The latter immediately smiled:

"You see, divination is indeed very useful."

Since no cyclomancer was involved, the divination was successful:

"The flames, those materials were burned directly. The place of destruction was in this house, but not here. This place is too closed. No one would be stupid enough to light the paper on fire in the secret room."

After her confirmation, the location where those documents were set alight was the kitchen on the first floor of the house, and the time was at the turn of spring and summer last year, just before Detective Sparrow died. Since the house still had gas, the people who came here to process documents at that time naturally used the stove.

However, when the two came to the kitchen, they found that the kitchen was indeed cleaned very clean. There was no possibility that the paper was not completely burned and small pieces of paper were left to record important information.

"Help me check for fly ash."

After thinking about it carefully, Shade said again. Although Miss Belindel didn't know what he wanted to do, she still nodded in agreement.

Although Shade's "Breath of Time" can turn back time, it is impossible for him to make that book reappear by turning back the time on the table just because a certain book was once placed on the table and now the book is taken away.

To repair an item through the "Breath of Time", you must at least have the remains of that thing, no matter how small the remains are, it's just a matter of how much spirit is consumed.

Fortunately, although the person who handled the documents did not carelessly leave any unburned paper, the cleaning person was not particularly careful. In the end, they found a small piece of burned paper in the sewer and under the trash can. paper ashes.

Shade put the two pieces of ashes together on the stove, then took out the "Lord of Immortality", put it on his right hand and rotated it, then took a deep breath:

"The Breath of Time."

Breath of Time's current maximum limit for turning back time is three years, so it is quite effective for things that were burned more than a year ago. From the witch's perspective, as Shade inhaled, two almost imperceptible streams of gray air rushed into his nostrils, and the two small pieces of ashes were actually reversed in time and restored to their original state. appearance.

The two pieces of ashes seemed to come from the same item, because what was lying on the stove was a brown leather-covered notebook. The side of the notebook was fastened with a magnetic metal buckle. After Shade opened it, he saw that as expected, all the words inside were unidentifiable:

"Encrypted cipher text."

"There seems to be something stuck inside."

Miss Belindel reminded, Shade then flipped back and found a total of 3 photos in the notebook. These photos were all landscape photos, similar to the ones Shade found in the mezzanine of his attic, and seemed to be places Detective Sparrow had visited.

The witch stretched her head aside and said:

"This is Belindre's Big Ben. Look at the banner hanging here. I was a little girl back then. This one seems to be the city of Gondor, the steel capital in the east of Draerion."

Shade knew this city, and Mr. Johnson at the garbage disposal station he was connected to in Tobesk once mentioned that Grey-headed Eagle had stolen a batch of smelting records of special alloys for casting steam cannons in the city of Gondor. But that was many years ago.

"What's the last one?"

He asked again. The first two photos were cityscapes, while the last photo was taken in the mountains and forests. Even from the yellowed black and white photo, it can be seen that it was taken at night, and the only conspicuous landmark in the photo is the side of the tower in the upper left corner, hidden in the mountains.

Miss Belindel thought for a while, and just when Shade thought she couldn't recognize it, she suddenly waved her hand:

"Remember, although I have never been here, I have seen such scenery in my teacher's travel notes. This should be Mount Karas in Delarian. Look at that high tower. It was an ancient building that collapsed last spring. The ruins can no longer be seen.”

"What?"

Shade suddenly turned his head and looked at her:

"Mountain Karas? That mountain Karas with the ruins of the Moon Tower? Are you sure this photo is the scenery of that mountain?"

Miss Belindel nodded hesitantly:

"Sure. I've never seen you so surprised in all the time I've known you. What, is that mountain important?"

Of course that mountain is not important. What is important is the ruins of the ancient Moon Tower. Of course, it is now the ruins of the tower. Although the stranger "awakened" on the shining silver moon in the midsummer of 1853, he had always suspected that he had actually come to this world in the spring of 1853, or that this body had done some very important thing in that spring. matter.

"I never thought before that he actually went to Karas Mountain."

Shade felt a strong sense of disbelief, and then asked the witch:

"Is there any way to divine the specific time this photo was taken?"