"There's movement."
Mr Delacour's deep voice woke up Lin Ze who was dozing off.
He was so startled that he almost fell off the chair. His two legs on the window sill kicked wildly in the air for a while before he managed to stabilize his balance.
"What? Where?"
Mr Delacour didn't answer. He just put the telescope into Lin Ze's hand and pointed at the sea southeast of the pier.
Lin Ze raised the telescope and looked in the direction pointed by Delacour.
It was already late at night.
The moon was completely covered by clouds, and the sea was pitch black, with only a few navigation lights flashing in the distance.
But Lin Ze soon discovered that a circle of ripples was spreading on the sea.
There is movement under the water.
Then a motorboat emerged from the sea and jumped very high in the air.
"Magic modification." Lin Ze put down the telescope and looked at Mr Delacour.
Without saying anything, the two of them took out their wands and ran downstairs.
By the time they reached the edge of the pier, the motorboat had already docked at an abandoned berth at the far end of the pier.
The location is very tricky. It is blocked by a row of stacked fishing nets and buoys. You can't even notice it if you don't look carefully from the shore.
There were two people sitting on the motorboat, both wearing dark waterproof cloaks with their hoods pulled down low.
One of them rolled over and got out of the boat.
Lin Ze noticed that his left foot obviously dragged when he landed on the ground.
Lin Ze and Delacour exchanged a look.
Cripple.
Mathieu.
Mathieu pushed the hood back, revealing a slender face in his forties.
Lin Ze immediately applied Eavesdropping Charm to his ears.
I saw Mathieu kicking the motorboat, and then complained to his companion in French with a strong Marseille accent, "How many times have I told you, this piece of shit should be replaced. If you don't say it so loudly, the black smoke from the engine will almost blacken me."
"You tell Bados." The other person replied angrily.
"Hmph." Mathieu snorted without saying anything, obviously a little afraid of Bados.
Mathieu unloaded two bulging waterproof bags from the boat, threw them over his shoulders, and then waved to his companions.
The motorboat started up again, making a churning sound that shook the trestle, then changed direction, sank into the sea again, and disappeared without a trace in a few seconds.
Mathieu carried two bags alone and dragged his left leg towards the west side of the pier.
Lin Ze and Mr Delacour are far behind.
Mathieu walked to an abandoned warehouse at the west end of the pier, took out a key from his pocket and opened the door.
Mathieu dragged his left leg into the warehouse, with the waterproof bag dangling on his shoulder, still cursing.
"Every time I unload the goods alone, every time I move the things alone, those bastards are happy, hiding in the laboratory every day..."
Lin Ze and Mr Delacour touched the side of the warehouse and peeked in through a window that was so dirty that they could barely see anything.
The warehouse is filled with rusty shelves and abandoned fishing gear, and there are a few wooden boxes covered with dust in the corner.
Mathieu threw the two waterproof bags on the ground, then walked to the innermost wall of the warehouse, pulled out his wand and tapped on the wall three times.
The wall glowed with a dark purple light, and then parted to both sides like a curtain.
Oh boy, there's a secret door.
Behind the secret door is a downward staircase, with a pale green light coming from inside.
Mathieu dragged his legs down the stairs. After walking a few steps, he yelled at the top of his lungs, "Maurice! Lambert! Come out and move your things! Don't pretend to be dead!"
No one responded.
"I told you to move things! Your ears are fucking deaf, right?"
Still no one responded.
Mathieu cursed, kicked the waterproof bag to the corner, and then walked downstairs.
Lin Ze and Delacour looked at each other, then walked into the warehouse against the wall.
The two of them went down the stairs one after another. The space below was much larger than the warehouse above.
Walking down the stairs, the torches on the wall danced on the iron lamp stands, casting their shadows on the damp stone wall, lengthening and shortening.
There was a familiar fishy smell in the air, just like the smell in the cannery.
Mr Delacour frowned in confusion.
At the end of the stairs, there is light overflowing.
They continued walking down, the sound of their footsteps being obscured by the roar of the waves hitting the rocks.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, a bright view suddenly opened up in front of me.
This is a basement transformed from a natural underground cave, and its area is two circles larger than the warehouse above.
There are several long tables placed against the wall, which are piled with Potions materials, crucibles and various types of glassware.
Several crucibles were bubbling, green steam emerged from the mouths of the crucibles, condensed into tiny water droplets in the air, and fell on the table, making a hissing sound.
There were more than a dozen iron cages stacked in the corner, most of them empty. Only a few cages contained a few animals whose original shapes could no longer be seen.
Several small animals were huddled in the corner of the cage, with tangled hair and skinny bones, and their breathing was so weak that the rise and fall of their chests could barely be seen.
One of the creatures that looked like a cat raised its head, glanced at Lin Ze with a pair of cloudy eyes, and then lowered its head feebly.
"Damn it." Lin Ze cursed in a low voice.
At this time, Mathieu was standing in front of the long table, with his back to the stairs.
His wand was inserted casually on his back belt, with the tip pointing upward, and it curled up and down as he turned over the paper.
"Where did these two lazy idiots go? I have to transport these unfortunate beasts to the factory myself? I don't think I'm a fucking human being."
He closed the notebook with a snap, and just as he turned around to go upstairs, he saw two people standing at the top of the stairs.
Mathieu's face went through a full set of expressions from blank to frightened to ferocious in just two seconds.
"Fuck Fuck!"
"Expelliarmus"
Mr Delacour cleanly took away the magic wand on Mathieu's lower back.
The wand flipped several times in the air and was caught by Lin Ze.
"Petrificus Totalus"
Mathieu's whole person froze in place for an instant, only his eyeballs were still moving wildly. He looked at Lin Ze from the left and Delacour from the right, and his eyeballs almost popped out of their sockets.
"Good evening, Mr. Mathieu?" Lin Ze turned the wand he caught between his fingers and inserted it into his belt.
"I have a few questions to ask."
Mathieu's eyes moved faster.
"Look, we are all civilized people, there is no need to act like we are interrogating prisoners."
"You just need to tell me where Bados is, the specific location of his cruise ship, how many experimental subjects you have now, and what their current status is. I will help you break the spell, and you can run away before we change our minds."
Mathieu's eyes stopped moving, staring straight at Lin Ze.
"Say or not?"
"..."
"Give you another chance, do you want to say it or not?" Lin Ze's wand was firmly pressed against Mathieu's chin.
"That..." Mr Delacour opened his mouth melancholy.
"He was petrified and couldn't open his mouth..."
Lin Ze was stunned for a moment, and then sighed as if he didn't hear what Delacour said. Then he turned to Delacour: "Mr Delacour, can you Legilimency?"
"Know something..." Mr Delacour said.
Mathieu's eyes began to move crazily again.
Lin Ze tapped him with the wand and unlocked Petrificus Totalus, but then gave him another Binding Charm.
Mathieu The sweat on his forehead trickled down his thin cheeks.
"I said! I said! Bados is... in..."
Before he finished speaking, Mathieu suddenly had a bulge in the clothes on his chest, as if there were insects crawling underneath.
He looked down at his chest, and the fear on his face instantly turned into despair.
A dark purple crack spread along his collar.
"No... no! Wait! I..."
This was followed by a dull loud noise.
Mathieu's upper body exploded like an overinflated balloon.
Blood, flesh and rags splashed around, hitting the cauldron on the long table, making a crackling sound.
A few pieces of minced meat flew to the iron cage, and the cat-like creature in the cage let out a weak hiss.
Lin Ze subconsciously turned sideways to avoid it, but a few drops of blood still spattered on his coat.
After a few seconds, the basement became quiet again.
Only the Potions was still bubbling in the crucible, and the faint breathing of the animals in the iron cage.