The rooms the parish opened for them were only valid for one month, which meant that although they didn't specify a time limit, they would have to leave if there was no results after a month.
"It's too late today, you guys should rest first."
When he said this, Carl's face became more gloomy. "Tomorrow, local Sheriff Cole and Chief Danny will come over... I will come tomorrow too. Then we will analyze the case together and decide how to investigate."
"Who is Director Danny?" Hitzfeld asked him.
"The Newspaper Control Department... the department that keeps those bastards from writing nonsense."
"Why don't they come now?" Hitzfeld looked at the corridor window.
Although it was getting dark, it was clearly not time to rest yet.
If there is something else important...is there anything more important than this case?
"Oh, you're a detective, Hitzfeld."
Carl waved his hand impatiently.
"You just need to investigate based on the information they provide, and don't get involved. That's my advice."
Chapter 10: Experience
Carl left.
Hitzfeld walked to the end of the corridor, opened the window and the unlocked fence, stuck his head out of the window and looked down, and saw that two of the tall plainclothes knights were still standing guard below.
To monitor... or to protect?
She raised her eyebrows.
Back in Room 2, Hitzfeld's face changed because she found Xia Yibing had opened her suitcase and was staring at a pile of underwear.
"What... are you doing?" The girl's face darkened. She never liked anyone touching her things.
This is true even for her closest relatives, which has to do with the environment in which she grew up.
"Oh, I just want to help you put it away." Xia Yibing awkwardly made way and watched the girl squeeze over. She took back control of the box from her and carefully stuffed all the underwear into a square cloth bag and put them in order.
"...Wait, what do you want to do?"
She was horrified as she saw Hitzfeld reach into the innermost part of the bag and pull out a revolver.
Hitzfeld bought the gun on the black market while concealing his identity.
Her original Planck was lost in the storm, and after much consideration she decided to buy a revolver.
Her hit rate is just so-so, and she needs to be within a certain distance to ensure accuracy. So no matter how you look at it, a revolver with a simple structure and durable operation is more suitable.
"I just saw the style of your underwear. There's no need to kill me to silence me, right... Hitzfeld?"
Although she said this, the woman did not look scared at all. Instead, she was thinking about the scenery she had just seen.
Hmm...a question that had been bothering her for a long time finally had an answer.
I can only say that it is as expected and quite standard, a little conservative, which suits her characteristics very well...
"If you continue to be so shameless, I can't guarantee that I won't really shoot you dead."
Hitzfeld took out a small box of silver bullets and carefully inserted six bullets into the revolver. He put the pistol into the holster under his armpit and hid it. He turned around and prepared to leave.
Xia Yibing raised her eyebrows, but didn't even ask her why she went out. She picked up the key from the bed sheet and followed her to lock the door. Then they went downstairs together.
"Dong dong."
Hitzfeld adjusted his perspective, stood at the top of the bar and knocked on the table, waking up the waiter who was taking a nap.
"You saw who led us here," she said. "Now take us out the back door."
Xia Yibing took out a silver coin with a face value of 11 goli from her pocket, and the two of them cooperated closely.
"Follow me." The waiter stared at the silver coin and swallowed, then glanced at Hitzfeld's skirt below his waist.
"You may need to raise it a little later, so please be careful."
The back door leads to a small path in the alley. It is more like a crack than a path, and there is 3 cm of foul-smelling sewage flowing on the ground.
Hitzfeld threw the silver coin to the waiter and sent him away. He was feeling worried when suddenly he felt dizzy and someone picked him up by the knees.
She was stunned, and before she could protest, the woman in the boots turned her body sideways, hugged her and started charging.
"Will you let go?"
"If I let go, you'll fall."
"I can't walk on my own?"
"But shoes will always get dirty."
"You...wouldn't you ask for my opinion first, or just carry me on your back?"
"Oh? I completely forgot about it... But you see it's not easy to operate now, right? Let's go out first and talk about it later."
Hitzfeld gritted his teeth and punched the woman twice on the back.
"Thank you~" Xia Yibing laughed, "Actually, you're quite light... There's no need to do this. My shoulders aren't sore."
Hitzfeld debated whether to just shoot her.
Squeezing out of the alley, Xia Yibing didn't delay and immediately put the girl back on the ground.
Hitzfeld squinted at her with his one eye half closed, and decided to let the matter go for the sake of her decent attitude.
"Let's go." Xia Yibing shook her legs and scraped off the dirt on her high-top boots on the steps. "Let's go find Bella Haytham."
Hitzfeld frowned, somewhat surprised that she could actually follow his train of thought.
"From Carl's performance, it seems that some local officials don't want the case to be solved as soon as possible." Xia Yibing raised her eyebrows at her. "They don't even plan to discuss a plan with us overnight. They are still playing their own game. This attitude can explain a lot of problems."
"It's not just the Flintstone Knights who are following us," Hitzfeld added. "There must be people from the local police, the Newspaper Regulatory Department, and even the administration."
"Karl clearly expressed this contradiction and placed the spies on the main street. The underlying meaning is too obvious." Xia Yibing shook her head. "If we don't sneak out to check something fun, it would be a shame for this arrangement."
Hitzfeld couldn't help but look at her with admiration.
The two were equally good at deductive methods, but I had always been able to find a new way to consider problems with my vision and experience that was ahead of my time, while Xia Yibing's reactions were always a little slower.
But that's only because she's comparing herself to me. She's definitely an excellent agent, smart and experienced.
However, she was very annoyed by the woman's smug look, so she reminded her: "Don't forget, we don't know where Haytham lives at all."
"Oh, are you sure you want to test me this way?"
"you……"
"I can almost guess what you're thinking, but that's not nice, not very ladylike... Let me do it."
As she spoke, Xia Yibing walked straight into a simple shop.
This type of shop is directly converted from the residential houses in the alley. The interior is very narrow and dark, and the goods sold are very low-end, such as nails, hammers, rags, hand-sewn cloth bags, and the like, all groceries.
Xia Yibing called the boss familiarly, asked him to get her a pack of tobacco leaves, and bought her a box of matches, then pretended to ask him casually: "Is there anything good to read in the newspaper recently?"
The boss glanced at her pretty face and figure, and crossed out the names of newspapers and magazines that serialized pornographic articles.
"The Night Owl, the Worker's Journal, the Bugle, they're all good, interesting, and cheap."
"One for each."
The boss did as he was told.
"This 'Dream City' is actually... the work of Bella Haytham?" Xia Yibing flipped through the newspaper and suddenly turned up the volume, then looked at the boss in embarrassment, "The address of the Bugle newspaper is nearby, right?"
"Yes." The boss stared at her warily, "Nanqiao Square is in front of us. Turn right 100 meters past the square."
He was not surprised why the other party was so sure - it was directly marked in the newspaper.
"It's like this." Xia Yibing bit her lip. "I'm a fan of... Larson's books. I want to find him and express my respect for him in person. But I don't know his address..."
"Don't think I'm easy to fool."
The boss smiled, looked at Xia Yibing again, and pointed his finger: "Are you going to ask him for a debt?"
Xia Yibing gave an awkward but polite smile.
The boss became more certain, and a hint of eagerness appeared on his face: "I shouldn't have done this kind of thing...but, since it's like this..."
"No. 215 Nanqiao Street. The intersection of Nanqiao Street and Chuanxi Street."
He said seriously.
"You'll find out when you get there by just asking around, because he's been making quite a fuss lately."
Chapter 11: The Mummy on South Bridge Street
Walking on the road, Hitzfeld was still a little dazed.
Yes, she did have a way to find out Haytham's exact address - after all, she had watched so many police and gangster movies, right? And now she was a young girl, so it would be easy for her to get the address by taking advantage of her appearance and pretending to be a fan.
But this inevitably led to people taking advantage of her indirectly. Outsiders thought she was really a stupid girl, and even went a step further to speculate whether she went to see the novelist in order to have some "private communication" with him.
However, Xia Yibing proved with practical actions that she could achieve her goal without being taken advantage of.
How did she do such a thing...let the other party observe for himself and come to the conclusion she wanted?
I can't figure it out and can only attribute it to the experience of an old hand.
"I asked, and Hailson has been making quite a lot of noise lately." Xia Yibing was still boasting, "He has mental problems, howling, crying, and smashing things at home every day. The neighbors are miserable about this, and the police have been called more than a dozen times just because of the rumors."
They had just got off the bus and were walking along Chuanxi Street towards Nanqiao Street.
As for why we didn’t go directly to Nanqiao Street - because Nanqiao Street is the largest financial street in the area, with 16 gold banks and 4 bulk commodity exchanges.
The toll for driving in by car is three times more expensive. The money they both had wasn't blown by the wind, it was just a short distance, so they could just walk over.
"It's confirmed." Hitzfeld glanced at her and said, "Congratulations on your guess."
There was indeed something wrong with Haytham's mental state, and Xia Yibing's guesses on the train were basically all correct.
“No big deal.” The woman shook her finger. “Do you know what I’m worried about now? I’m worried that those people might be so cruel as to place surveillance on every problematic writer. If that happens, it will be very troublesome for us to contact them.”
Hitzfeld said nothing, but he acknowledged her concerns.
It has been quite a while since the case first occurred. Even if the local police department is useless, at least they can monitor those authors who popped up, right?
It has been said that people disappear from time to time. Since we can't find the reason for the disappearance and the people, then we can monitor the remaining people and keep a close eye on them to see if anything happens to them, and how they usually move around and what they do - this is really the most basic criminal investigation method.
"What if there is someone guarding it?"
“It doesn’t matter.” The woman raised her lips. “If they don’t take this seriously, then they won’t take us seriously either.”
"They have someone following us."
"That's about 'we are here', they don't care about 'who we are'."
Xia Yibing snorted a few times, fully expressing her contempt for certain people: "When the time comes, I will show my ID that I am from the Security Bureau... What do those little shrimps know? They will definitely think that I am someone arranged by someone else and let me pass without any hesitation."
"..." Hitzfeld had to admit that she was right.
He is quite good at reasoning and analysis, but he lacks life experience. Unlike Xia, he can handle any situation with ease.
"Then." She looked at the woman, "Why doesn't Nan Xinze want the case to be solved?"
At this point, she gave up the idea of competing with the other party and began to concentrate on asking her for advice.
Because in her opinion this is unreasonable and an act of seeking death.
Regardless of whether this bizarre "newspaper war" has caused any bad consequences, it has been tainted with evil, and some people have even gone missing!
Why did the Nanxinze administration and the newspaper supervision department suppress the progress of the case? Aren't they afraid that the incident will be further escalated?
If it were a day ago, Hitzfeld would have thought... maybe the booming newspaper sales had led to a booming local economy, causing some officials to only care about the immediate benefits and ignore the potential dangers.
But after hearing the story of Ouroboros, she no longer thought so.
A city is gone in an instant.
Evil spirits are such terrifying things that we should be extremely vigilant about any signs of them and block and eliminate them as soon as possible. How can we have such a lucky mentality?
"I hope they are also affected by the evil spirit." Xia Yibing said softly, her expression suddenly becoming a little confused.
"Hitzfeld..."
"Ok?"
