Confused Man and Woman

The alley he turned into was nothing more than a passage between two buildings, extremely narrow. Aside from garbage and filth, nothing else had piled up inside.

His heart pounded wildly. Shade knew this decision was risky, but the voice in his head was right. If he wanted the supernatural, he had to accept risk. Perhaps the psychiatrist and The Church offered safer channels, but he knew nothing. To him, every path was a risk.

To gain something, one had to pay a price. He was willing to bear the risk—a small risk.

"If anything goes wrong, I'll leave immediately."

Shade gripped his cane tightly and tiptoed forward, doing his best not to make a sound. Some wooden crates sat at the end of the alley, plastered with Wanted Orders whose words had nearly faded away. They seemed to be for a serial killer who had fled into Tobesk City.

At the alley entrance, he could turn left or right and enter the Lower District Slums of Tobesk City directly. Shade hid behind the crates and looked through the gaps between them toward the direction the man had turned just now.

That was another alley, and the only person there was the young man wearing the Pebble Ring. He now stood midway down the alley, cautiously scanning his surroundings. He even narrowed his eyes and looked up at the sky. Only after a long while did he place the black Suitcase on the ground, then remove the Pebble Ring from his right index finger and, to Shade's surprise, carefully kiss it.

The young man seemed to lower his head and say something, but Shade could not hear it clearly. Wind and distance had obscured his hearing.

After kissing the ring's surface, the young man appeared somewhat more relaxed.

He put the ring back on his right index finger, and thick smoke immediately rose from his body as though he had caught fire. It seeped from the gaps in his clothes and quickly enveloped him completely.

Shade heard Whispers beside his ear, but they did not belong to the elegant woman's voice in his mind. These whispers were utterly incomprehensible, like chewing—or like something cursing.

His head felt uncomfortable, as though he had spun in place several times and then tried to walk in a straight line. The mad whispers grew louder and louder. At one moment, Shade even thought he saw evil spirits lunging at him.

Fortunately, the illusion soon ended. But as Shade gradually recovered, he still suspected that something was wrong with his eyes. As the black smoke vanished, the person wearing the white Pebble Ring stepped out, lightly dusted the hem of her skirt, then bent down and picked up the Suitcase.

Lassoya turned and cautiously looked around again, a faint smile seemingly on her lips. Only after confirming that no one had witnessed this did she finally carry the case toward the other end of the alley.

Shade covered his mouth and pressed his back against the wall, hiding in the gap between the crates and the wall. For a long time, he did not dare move.

Just now, Shade had wondered why The Church's investigators were moonlighting as leaflet distributors. Now he understood. Like the inept Detective Shade, they might have been trying to monitor Lassoya outside The Club.

By the time Shade emerged from the alley again, the silver, yellow, and red Three Moons had all risen into the sky. The Yellow Moon had a whitish tint and shone the brightest. The night here was as peaceful as in his old world.

This street was somewhat remote, so there were no streetlamps. In the dim light, Shade did not even know what expression he wore. After a long while, he took out his pocket watch. It was nearly eight in the evening. He had stood in that crack by the wall for two whole hours before daring to leave. He had not known his physical endurance was so good.

"No relief food for me, then."

He shook his head dejectedly, in an indescribably terrible mood. He walked along the street toward Home. Even if he had to go hungry, at least he still had a house to live in. Things were not completely hopeless.

The key issue now was that the lucrative commission to investigate Mr. Lawrence's mistress seemed impossible to continue.

Clearly, Lassoya had the ability to turn into a man through the ring. Or rather, the young man had the ability to turn into Lassoya through the ring. Shade certainly could not report this information to the employer, nor did he want to submit the dead Detective's report. He would simply pretend nothing had happened.

Once he submitted the report, Mrs. Lawrence would inevitably let Lassoya know, because of her conflict with Mr. Lawrence, that a Detective had followed her without her knowledge. Even if the report contained no Secret, Shade could not guarantee what Lassoya might do.

"This world is really more troublesome than I imagined. Did Mr. Lawrence fall in love with a man or a woman?"

Perhaps Lassoya was a good person, and becoming a man did not harm anyone. But he had been in this world for less than twenty-four hours and had already encountered something like this. Shade felt an intense sense of danger.

"Perhaps the supernatural in this world follows the rule that the supernatural attracts the supernatural."

Thinking wearily, he continued down the street. Worried that someone lurking in the dark might rob him, that a drunken man might harass him, or that he might stumble across some illegal transaction, Shade—armed with only a cane and a fruit knife—did not even dare take an alley as a shortcut Home.

"Today really has been unlucky."

He turned left at Old John Pawnshop on the corner. Thinking about having to sleep in a house where someone had just died made his mood even worse.

"If the supernatural exists, then perhaps ghosts do too. Don't scare yourself. Wait, where did I turn just now?"

He stopped, tilted his head, and took a step back. Once again, he saw the sign for "Old John Pawnshop," as well as the Gas Lamp still glowing inside the store.

"Well, I never expected there to be a trick like this. Actually, maybe I'm not that unlucky. Things will get better."

With a slight sigh, he clutched his pocket watch and pushed open the pawnshop door.

In the end, he did not pawn the pocket watch, but the cane. The pocket watch was an important everyday tool, while the cane was dispensable. More importantly, the watch was not worth much. The shop owner, an old man who called himself John Jones, was only willing to offer ten shillings, claiming that the watch's surface had many scratches and had perhaps often been kept together with a ring of keys.

But for the cane, he was willing to offer one pound and twelve shillings.

"Do you even know what you have here? This is the heartwood of natural snow cedar from the Delado Mountain Area. Look at the grain, look at the craftsmanship. If you can provide information on the craftsman who made it, I might even offer more."

The old man seemed to be complaining that Shade knew nothing about the trade. After confirming that he wanted to pawn the cane, he also reminded him that if he did not redeem it within half a month, the cane would belong to the pawnshop.

Shade naturally understood that the cane was worth far more than one pound and twelve shillings. But he truly was not in the mood to haggle. In the end, he merely took two one-pound banknotes, signed the contract, and left.

Based on local prices, the money was enough for Shade to live quite well for two weeks. If he was frugal, and excluding any possible rent, it might even support him for a month and a half. It was even enough for him to Dig Out Sparrow Hamilton, place an obituary in the newspaper's advertising section, and hold another modest funeral for the Detective.

Of course, he had no such intention for the moment.

"But now that I've solved the short-term problem of food and warmth, what exactly should I do about the supernatural and the mysterious?"

He ate dinner at a restaurant near the pawnshop, tasting thick soup with a meat steak, before walking Home.

When he returned to No. 6, St. Derain Square, it was nearly ten at night.

He checked that the hair he had placed before leaving was still in its original position, then entered the room. Carefully turning the Gas Lamp on the Living Room wall, he let the light gradually Appeared, then wearily threw himself onto the sofa. Through the open door of the Master Bedroom, he could see the bed Sparrow Hamilton had lain on.

Shade resolved to seek out the supernatural soon rather than continue living in ignorance. Although he had not encountered any definite danger yet, this world was not simple. Shade had no intention of waiting until danger found him before searching for a solution.

At present, he had three possible ways to come into contact with the supernatural.

First was Mr. Bill Schneider, the psychiatrist who had given Shade his business card. Second were the five Orthodox Churches In The City; visiting a church might bring results. Last was Lassoya herself. She certainly knew about the supernatural, and making contact with her was also an option.

Each of the three had advantages and disadvantages. But in the end, Shade simply knew too little about this world, and he had no channels through which to learn more. Before leaving this morning, he had checked the map. This city did not even have a public library where he could obtain knowledge for free.

There were some private libraries In The City, but one had to be introduced by an acquaintance and pay a considerable fee before becoming a member. Shade clearly did not have that kind of money now.

All he could rely on was the material Sparrow Hamilton had left behind. But that gentleman had no habit of collecting books, and he had evidently been an ordinary person as well.

Investigating Sparrow Hamilton's cause of death through his death might also bring him into contact with the supernatural, but that was undoubtedly an extremely dangerous approach. Shade's reason rejected it.

"Can you give me some advice?"

He patted his head, but only heard the woman's soft laughter. It was the voice in his mind that had enabled him to complete the entire investigation into Mr. Lawrence's mistress. Without her, he could never have discovered the ring's Secret.

He hoped the voice would offer another hint, but received no response.

"People still have to rely on themselves."

He murmured to himself, tilting his head to Looked Towards the window and gazing at the night sky, where the three moons he had never seen before had appeared together. So magnificent, so mysterious, so intoxicating. The Silver Moon in particular seemed to ease his oppressed mood whenever he looked at it.

"No matter what, I can't wait any longer. Though I haven't encountered danger yet, if I intend to survive as a Detective, I need the strength to protect myself. I need to know just how complicated this world really is. Otherwise, I'll end up like Detective Sparrow Hamilton."

With money temporarily in his pocket, he set aside thoughts of continuing other investigations and shifted his primary goal toward coming into contact with the supernatural.

"The Church, the psychiatrist, Lassoya."

He did not think highly of the last option. Her Appearance today seemed to overlap with the investigation by The Church and the police, so he instinctively felt that she did not seem like a good person. He was somewhat tempted by the first option, since his basic understanding was that the Orthodox Churches of this world were relatively open-minded.

But that was only his understanding, and he could not make plans based on such a simple assumption. Besides, he was not a Believer of any god and, as a vagrant, had never visited a church. Whether a church's open-mindedness extended to someone like him was hard to say.

"Perhaps I can investigate for a few more days. For now, I don't need to worry about starving to death. Pawning some of the inheritance can support me for quite a while. As Long As no possible landlord shows up, I'll have plenty of time to investigate. Out of these three choices, I'll surely find the most suitable one."

With that thought, he fell asleep in the bedroom that had belonged to the original Shade and passed his first night in the new world.

In his haze, he seemed to hear the woman in his mind laughing again. That laughter made Shade unexpectedly at ease. That night, he had a wonderfully relaxing dream, sitting on a field ridge and gazing at the Silver Moon on the horizon.

Accidents always disrupted existing plans, and Shade's plan of choosing one out of three was thrown into Confusion the very next morning.

P.S. The story has reached one hundred bookmarks, so here's an extra chapter. Please vote, any kind of vote is welcome. Readers who have made it this far are welcome to offer suggestions for this book. I'm a new author with a new book, and I need everyone's valuable feedback.