Lin Chuan walked along one side of Iron Cross Street, heading in the opposite direction from the scattered workers returning home.
He concealed himself again. No one noticed an invisible fellow brushing past them. For a great reading experience, make sure you choose the right site.
He headed toward Tingen City's North Borough, then passed through the neighborhood divided by Daffodil Street and Howes Street.
At an intersection on Howes Street, Lin Chuan stopped. Short gas streetlamps stood at fifty-meter intervals on either side of the road.
Their dim yellow light spilled over the flagstones, illuminating a detached house with a garden a short distance to the east.
That was the place Welch rented. It happened to lie on the route from the Moretti Family's home to the North Borough.
As far as Lin Chuan knew, Welch McGovern was generous and free with his money, but like the Moretti Family, he was only renting his home.
The difference was that Benson's meager salary could only afford the family a single-room apartment with a shared washroom on Middle Street in Iron Cross Street, whereas Welch had enough money to rent an entire building on Howes Street.
Housing prices in Tingen, the "University City," were second only to those in Backlund, the "City of Cities." Even buying a terraced house outright on Daffodil Street cost 850 pounds, let alone a detached villa with a garden like this.
Even a banker's son could hardly be so extravagant as to buy an entire building just to attend university.
Something like that was probably only possible for Miss Audrey, who could pay for it with a month or two of pocket money.
Why not take a look? I'm passing by anyway...
With that thought, Lin Chuan changed direction and headed toward the house.
Looking over from the side of the street, the first thing he noticed was the roof. A dark red chimney stood atop it, almost blending into the darkness beneath the wash of night.
"Who built all the houses in Tingen City?" Lin Chuan felt his composure slipping. "No wonder Klein and the others still hadn't found the real Red Chimney House by early September."
Although Ince Zangwill's influence through 008 was behind it, honestly, the plot point that "red chimneys were everywhere, making the target difficult to find" was the most normal story that lousy third-rate writer had ever written.
At least Ince had not followed that sentence with his classic line, "This is perfectly logical. Our story is not a fabrication."
He really wondered what Alzuhod, an avatar of the mighty Ankewelt, the "Dragon of Imagination," would have thought of a writer of "logical plots" like Ince, if he could see him from beyond the grave.
Most importantly, the fellow had written it all using a quill formed from his ashes.
Haki Dragon, you bastard, can you really endure even this ultimate humiliation just to avoid being caught and eaten by Adam?
Lin Chuan silently took a couple of jabs at the Dragon of Imagination, welcoming him to come over and settle things in person at any time.
He pulled his thoughts back and looked at Welch's home. The openwork iron gate was firmly shut, and he could faintly sense eerie, prying gazes extending outward from within.
Those gazes merely swept the street to either side of the iron gate, however, without focusing on Lin Chuan.
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That was only natural. Forget the residual power of the Antigonus Family Notebook-even if that fish on the chopping board came in person, he could forget about detecting Lin Chuan.
Perhaps it was precisely because of that spine-chilling sense of being watched that this stretch of Howes Street was almost deserted apart from Lin Chuan.
He felt a little disappointed. He had expected Leonard and the other members of the Nighthawks team to come straight to Welch's home after investigating the Moretti Family's place.
Now it seemed he had arrived too early, and Dunn had not yet had time to ask Daly to come over for Spirit Channeling.
As for Leonard, he had probably already returned to the Blackthorn Security Company... Lin Chuan had originally planned to drop by and say hello.
"Never mind. Tomorrow's not too late." He glanced up at the night sky and decided to continue north.
Before leaving, Lin Chuan casually erected a Wall of Spirituality. Hopefully, it would block at least some of the notebook's residual mystical influence. He would count it as helping lighten the Nighthawks' workload.
He was not worried that Dunn and Daly would become overly suspicious because of it-after all, Tingen had its share of unaffiliated Beyonders. They could simply treat it as a passing good Samaritan's casual handiwork.
One good deed a day. Better build up some merit now so I don't lose it all when I start telling dark jokes.
Lin Chuan left humming a cheerful tune, without another glance at the building behind him. Meanwhile, the house Welch rented looked increasingly unreal in the darkness.
As the buildings on either side of the street grew sparse, the desolation of the North Borough's outskirts began to emerge. Old Neil's detached house with a garden stood somewhere in this area.
Although it was likewise a detached house with a garden, rent on the outskirts was much cheaper than on Howes Street.
If Old Neil had not been so determined to resurrect Shaliste, his consummate mastery of expense claims, combined with the Nighthawks' salary of twelve pounds a week, would have let him rent a house in a middle-class neighborhood and even hire a few servants.
Checking the house numbers, Lin Chuan found his destination. As he crossed the garden planted with roses and golden mint, a thought suddenly surfaced in his mind:
These flowers... were they the kinds Shaliste liked when she was alive?
He shook his head almost imperceptibly-tragic tales of pure love were more than he could bear.
Knowing that no one was inside, he did not pull the cord connected to the indoor bell. Instead, he passed straight through the door.
Beyond the carpeted entrance hall lay a spacious reception room.
Old Neil's reception room had no lavish decorations, only a carpet, a round table, a bench, a chair, and a piano.
It was far simpler than Welch's villa, yet much closer to Lin Chuan's idea of a lived-in home.
The sofa and coffee table were in the sitting room. The reception room was generally just where Old Neil entertained his colleagues.
A brand-new piano stood in the corner, with a framed photograph carefully placed on its lid. The photograph was slightly yellowed, but it had clearly been preserved with great care.
Lin Chuan stepped closer. The young woman in the photograph had a gentle face. She stood among similar flowers, holding a bouquet of golden mint, her smile quiet and soft.
But there was only this one photograph.
Has it already begun? he wondered, looking at the piano.
As he remembered it, Rozanne had often visited Old Neil with Mrs. Orianna during the first half of the year. There had been no piano in the reception room then.
Old Neil had probably bought it only after two of the Nighthawks' clerical staff suddenly left in early June, sharply increasing Rozanne's workload and leaving her no time to visit.
The appearance of the piano was proof that Old Neil was gradually being corrupted by the Hidden Sage, blurring reality and memory. In his hallucinations, he had begun to believe that his deceased wife, rather than his fian-
cée, had loved music, which was why he had placed a piano like this in the reception room.
Looking at it that way, if Rozanne's workload had not suddenly increased so much, leaving her either working late every day or catching up on sleep to prepare for more overtime...
If she had still had time to visit Old Neil after June and noticed the signs early...
Then surely things would not have dragged on until August 29 and deteriorated beyond all hope of recovery.
Old Neil, it wasn't just the Hidden Sage that did you in. This overtime madness did, too.
Lin Chuan withdrew his gaze without touching the photograph.
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A shelf above the fireplace held a row of bottles and jars: essential oils, herbs, a small bottle of pale blue liquid, and several sheets covered in intricate symbols, pinned beneath a glass jar.
These were Old Neil's ritual supplies and spiritual materials as a Mystery Pryer, along with his research notes on ritual magic.
Lin Chuan gave them a cursory glance but found none of the materials required for "Life Alchemy."
That made sense. Star crystal, phlogiston, and hematite were fairly common, but gold was far too valuable to leave lying in the reception room;
And water from the Sonia Spring of Elves was a relatively high-level material-good stuff that could later serve as a supplementary ingredient for Klein's Sequence 5 potion.
If another Beyonder saw a Low Sequence "Mystery Pryer" secretly preparing spiritual materials so far beyond his level, it would have felt as jarringly out of place as a Mysticologist, an archaeologist, and an artist agreeing to go on a trip together;
Or an Infernity player quietly setting a back-row card in a game; or some inexplicable drumbeat suddenly sounding beside the plastic chairs of a street food stall; or Dante and Yi Sang stubbornly refusing to retreat while facing a powerful enemy alone...
Whatever happens next is going to be hilarious.
Especially something like a large quantity of blood from living people-Old Neil would surely hide that in a secret room known only to himself, rather than leave it openly on display.
The staircase leading to the second floor was close at hand, but he chose not to explore upstairs. Instead, he adjusted his Spirit Body and reappeared beside the round table in the reception room.
Lin Chuan quietly sat down on the bench to await the owner's return. From beginning to end, he had gone nowhere except the reception room and entrance hall, like a truly well-mannered guest.
However, Tingen's Nighthawks team was currently working around the clock on the Antigonus Family Notebook case. Although Old Neil was a clerk, he could hardly avoid working overtime alongside them.
Considering the complicated paperwork and case-closing reports that would follow, he might even have more work rather than less. It could be quite a while before Lin Chuan met the man himself tonight.
But that did not matter. What Lin Chuan had in the greatest abundance was time, and the patience needed to wait through its long passage.
When he felt enough time had passed, he got up once to add some coal to the fireplace.
The reception room was extremely quiet, with only an occasional faint crackle from the flames in the hearth.
Lin Chuan leaned against the back of the bench, his gaze passing over the bottles and jars above the fireplace before returning to the brand-new piano. Its lid had a dull sheen in the dim light.
He suddenly recalled that when Klein first learned mysticism from Old Neil, there had been more than the Hidden Sage's eyes appearing behind the old man. An almost invisible figure had also stood beside him.
Klein had not told Old Neil about it, believing it to be a hallucination. Later, when Old Neil lost control, that figure had sat nearby, playing the piano for him.
Only after Dunn covered Old Neil's eyeballs with a handkerchief, closing his eyes for him, had the keys moving on their own finally stopped. The figure had swiftly evaporated as well, disappearing completely.
Lin Chuan wanted to believe that it had truly been Shaliste's Spirit Body, unwilling to fade away-proof that the young woman had never left.
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