Seal of the Four-Colored Horse (I)

Jersey Island truly deserved its reputation as a famous holiday destination.

Time here seemed to move half a beat slower than in London; even the waves carried the charm of a bygone century.

The cries of seagulls mingled with the crash of the waves, while the enticing scents of sea salt and grilled seafood drifted through the air, making people stop in their tracks without realizing it.

"I just received word that Scotland Yard found the hollowed-out corpse of a Shire Horse on the north bank of the River Thames."

As he walked, Holmes said, "Its time of death was exactly the same as Philip Dalmans's, and there was a knife mark about three inches long on the outside of its belly. The cut was clean."

"This completely confirms our previous deduction."

He stopped walking.

"The Corpse Mover and the murderer are indeed two different people. The murderer killed Philip Dalmans, while the Corpse Mover later cut his body out of the horse's belly."

Ye Yan nodded in agreement.

"And now we'll investigate this case along two separate lines."

Holmes narrowed his eyes and looked toward the harbor in the distance, where ships were moored.

"Scotland Yard will continue tracking the murderer through the victim's body, while our purpose here is to find that Corpse Mover."

"He must have clues about the murderer on him."

A horse carcass cut open from belly to gut.

A room entered without picking the lock.

No Awakened in history had ever possessed two abilities. That mysterious Corpse Mover most likely possessed some strange artifact with special powers.

Of course.

The possibility that he had accomplices could not be ruled out.

"Mr. Holmes, you said before that those cultists were imitating the Seven Seals of the Lamb from the Book of Revelation?"

"Yes."

Holmes explained, "In the Book of Revelation, the Lamb opens the seven seals, bringing judgment and salvation. What Sunset Church intends to do is a reversed ritual that blasphemes God."

The knight rode four horses, while sinners entered the horse's belly.

The soul of a martyr was replaced by the flesh and blood of a blasphemer.

The facts proved that it was indeed wrong to lump the strange together with the mysterious. Because he knew that the mysterious also left traces, he had not overlooked the strange elements of this case, linking them all into a new clue.

Ye Yan suddenly felt suffocated.

Were those cultists really going to kill so many people just for a ritual that vented their resentment?

As a humanities student, he knew something about Western religion. Chapter Six of the Book of Revelation mentioned the Lamb opening the seven seals of the apocalypse, with the first four seals representing the Four Horsemen, symbols of humanity's disasters brought on by sin.

The white horse represented conquest, the red horse war, the black horse famine, and the gray horse death.

And as it happened.

Every horse carcass discovered so far had appeared in precisely that order of colors.

He suddenly recalled the news reports he had seen before: a snow-white Andalusian Horse, a chestnut-red Shetland Pony, a pitch-black Friesian Horse, and a gray Shire Horse...

Behind every horse stood at least one life, because the sacrifices required for the ritual were "the anointed."

Anointing should have been a sacred ritual in which holy oil was poured over the recipient's head, but when performed by cultists, the sacred ritual naturally became one of blasphemy.

Only those chosen ones who had survived the "Triple Anointing" with ointment refined from human fat were qualified to become sacrifices.

And that was why all the victims had died of suffocation.

Half an hour later.

The three of them found a suitable inn.

Holmes went out alone to ask around near the docks.

Ye Yan and Old Jack remained at the inn for the time being.

After spending most of the day there, apart from learning from an old sailor that Jules had indeed appeared here half a year ago, the detective seemed to have gained no clues at all.

"I'm certain he's hiding on this island."

After saying that, Holmes suddenly seemed to think of something. He snatched up his coat and rushed out the door like a whirlwind, leaving Ye Yan and Old Jack staring at each other.

Ye Yan did not know whether Holmes had discovered another clue, but he had not been idle either.

Over the past two days, he had been asking Old Jack about the three great mysterious organizations.

There had even been quite a bit of gossip about the detective.

"As for me, I practically watched both brothers grow up."

"I used to serve Master Mycroft, but later, because of what happened to Master Sherlock in university..."

At that point, Old Jack suddenly fell silent.

When he spoke again, he skipped over the previous topic entirely and continued, "In short, after that, I followed Master Sherlock to prevent any more accidents."

So the issue had arisen while Holmes was in university.

Ye Yan thought.

It was unexpected, yet also made sense.

According to the original course of events, Holmes should have become a detective who relieved stress by conducting chemistry experiments, rather than a professor buried in a laboratory.

Something must have happened back then, causing the detective to cease being a detective.

Ye Yan suddenly became curious about the reason.

After hesitating again and again, he still could not suppress his desire to investigate. "Mr. Thomas, what exactly happened back then? Can you tell me?"

"This..."

Old Jack seemed conflicted.

But since the other man had not refused outright, it meant the matter was not entirely confidential.

Ye Yan decided to add more fuel to the fire.

"I'll clean your stables!"

"All right, all right. I'll tell you."

The old man smacked his lips, revealing a grin with one front tooth missing. "But it's not because you'll clean my stables. It's because I'm a softhearted old man."

As Old Jack spoke, Ye Yan came to understand why Holmes had not become a detective.

After solving the mystery of the Gloria Scott in university, Holmes had frequently entered a strange state. According to Old Jack, it was like his brain had been thrown into a pump basin and stirred around, with countless fragmented images surging before his eyes.

Ye Yan narrowed his eyes slightly, his fingers unconsciously rubbing the rim of his teacup.

Why did that sound a little like "Fascination"?

He recalled the description of Soul Essence in the prompt: souls were not immutable. They could grow, and they could fall ill.

And Fascination was the diseased, aberrant state of the Soul Essence known as Lantern.

Resting his chin on his hand, Ye Yan silently guessed.

Perhaps Holmes's excessively sharp spiritual awareness had allowed him to glimpse something beyond ordinary comprehension in a certain moment, causing him to fall into the negative state known as "Fascination."

Unfortunately, the prompt had not explained how to resolve a diseased, aberrant state of Soul Essence.

Then how had the detective escaped this predicament?

At that thought, Ye Yan unconsciously sat up straight. "What happened afterward? How did Mr. Holmes solve this problem?"

He pressed on.

"That... I'm not too sure."

Old Jack shook his head. "Back then, Master Holmes often stared blankly into space all day. I only remember one thing he said after returning to normal. It left a deep impression on me."

He proudly raised his chin and puffed out his chest, imitating the detective's tone. "I am now certain that the problem is not with my brain, but with this world."

After saying that, Old Jack burst out laughing first.

But as he laughed, his expression gradually faded, and his gaze became serious.

"After that, Master Holmes, who loved solving mysteries, spent all day in the laboratory because he thought that at least test tubes and beakers wouldn't eat his brain."

The old man twisted his mouth into a worried expression.

"I always felt that after that... Master Sherlock became... became like a tightly drawn violin string. Forced to give up investigating cases, he only loosened that string when explaining the deductions behind newspaper cases to those around him."

Perhaps because he had not spoken so openly with anyone for a long time, Old Jack seemed to have opened a box of memories sealed away for years. Without needing Ye Yan to ask, he continued speaking at length.

"But things changed a month ago."

His voice suddenly became lighter.

"Master Sherlock said he wanted to move out of the laboratory!" He was so excited he nearly rose from his chair, then forcibly held himself back. "Can you imagine it? The young master who spent eight whole years in that laboratory..."

Old Jack slapped his thigh excitedly.

"And on the second day after moving into Baker Street, he actually took the initiative to participate in a case! Just like eight years ago!"

He nearly trembled as he spoke the final words, his voice filled with unbelievable joy.

Ye Yan did not feel particularly strongly about it.

He only felt a little uneasy, because the original owner's parents also seemed to have moved to Baker Street a month ago.

Could there be some connection?

Ye Yan wanted to dismiss it as mere overthinking, but ever since stepping onto the stairway of the principle of Guidance, he had paid close attention to the flashes of intuition that occasionally came to him.

What exactly had happened a month ago?

Just as Ye Yan was silently pondering, the door was violently thrown open with a loud bang.

Ye Yan's heart jumped.

He turned and saw Holmes striding in with a blank expression.

"A fifth victim has appeared!"

"It's Philip Dalmans's wife." His voice was low and hoarse, as though he had not drunk water for a long time. "She was murdered while traveling to England to collect her husband's body."

"Her body was likewise hidden in a horse's belly, but as if in provocation, it was hung directly from a church statue."

The detective suddenly pulled a gleaming revolver from the inner pocket of his coat. "This pistol is for you."

The cold barrel pressed against Ye Yan's palm.

From Holmes's gesture of giving him a gun, he realized how serious the situation had become.

"I know you don't know how to use a pistol." Holmes took a box of bullets from a case. "Old Jack will teach you. You don't need to hit anyone. Just learn how to fire it and scare people."

"Don't return to London for now. Stay here."

Watching the detective stride away, Ye Yan stood there in a daze. In that hurried moment, he seemed to glimpse something sharper than a sword flash through Holmes's eyes as he turned.

At that moment, the Light of the Cranium within Holmes shone brilliantly.

This time.

You have no reason to stop me from continuing the investigation, do you, Mycroft?

His memory palace and mind map merged, constructing a dreamlike Kingdom of Reason within his mind. The instant he pushed open the Gate of Deduction, the entire royal city lit up.

It was not a blinding light.

It was the rational light that pursued knowledge.

The mystery had finally revealed a loose thread, no longer tangled into a chaotic knot merely because of its mystery.

He understood in an instant.

What those cultists were conducting was not a reversed ritual that blasphemed God, but a bloody sacrifice to summon God.

The horse's belly symbolized gestation, and the anointed symbolized a sacrament. Then after reversing everything...

The child gave birth to the mother.

What would be born?

"Virgin Mary, who represents the great Nativity?"

Holmes's pupils contracted as he directly withdrew from the Kingdom of Reason. "Do these lunatics understand what they're summoning?!"