At 8 AM on Saturday, Tobesk City's full martial law was lifted, making this Saturday, which should have been an ordinary thunder moon day, exceptionally lively.
People who had been confined at home for an entire day rushed out, and the shouts of vendors and newsboys proclaiming major news in the City were louder than ever.
The hooves and wheels of rental carriages made pleasant sounds on the streets, and the hurried, mixed footsteps filled the City with vitality.
Rising mist enveloped the City, and chimneys on the outskirts of the City spewed black smoke into the sky.
But none of this could affect people's good moods; yesterday's actions by City Hall and the Orthodox Church had terrified the uninformed citizens, and the news of thousands of deaths overnight had cast a pall over everyone's hearts.
Fortunately, everything had returned to normal, and Tobesk was once again shrouded in mist and sunlight.
Although it wasn't good weather today, people's spirits were exceptionally high.
On the bustling Queen Mary Street in the west of the City, the faint morning light spilled onto the street, and the coming and going pedestrians did not disturb the quiet of the detached three-story building facing the street; perhaps the family was still using Sleep to get through this unusual Saturday.
Xia De, dressed in a black coat and black hat, appeared at the street corner with Doctor Schneider.
The two men were in a hurry, both carrying black briefcases, but in the lively crowd, they did not attract the attention of others.
They brushed past passersby, and carriages slowly drove past them.
The Doctor and the Detective stopped one after another at the entrance of 17 Queen Mary Street.
Doctor Schneider walked up the steps under the eaves, and Xia De stood behind him, his back to the door, looking around the street.
Click~ With a sound, the keyhole, obscured by the blue-eyed Doctor, turned, and the door opened.
The Doctor pushed the door open a crack and went in first, carrying his briefcase.
Xia De, who was on alert, carrying his briefcase in his right hand and his left hand in his overcoat pocket, looked around, then turned and walked up the steps, slipping through the crack in the door.
Click~
The door was locked from the inside, and the morning sun slanted onto the steps at the entrance.
The pedestrians on Queen Mary Street did not notice what was happening at that moment.
The two men who entered number 17 did not communicate with each other; they quietly put on shoe covers, gloves, and masks in the foyer, then entered the living room one after another.
A plump maid, wearing an apron, came carrying a plate and looked at the two strangers in surprise:
"You..."
"Sleep."
The Doctor said softly.
Xia De quickly took the plates from the maid's hands and placed them on a nearby table.
The Doctor carried the unconscious maid to the window and directly threw her into the alley on the side of the house.
Then he found the remaining two servants on the first floor, and after they were in Sleep, he also threw them all out of the side window into the alley.
Without lingering on the first floor, the men carrying briefcases ascended the stairs to the second floor.
There were six rooms on both sides of the second-floor corridor.
The Doctor walked to the second room on the left and, after confirming Xia De was following, pushed the door open.
A young man sitting at a desk organizing his luggage looked up in astonishment at the doorway:
"Who are you?"
"Her divination was indeed correct, and the intelligence my old man sold me was also correct; he hired a Ring術士 to protect himself."
The Doctor's muffled, monotonous voice came from behind his mask.
"What do you want to do to my employer?"
"Leave here; your employer is involved with the Blood Feast Lord cult.
Letter-based Ring術士 of Zaras School of Spellcraft, if you don't want trouble, leave immediately."
"How did you know... Never mind, it doesn't matter, none of this concerns me.
How unlucky to encounter such a thing; no wonder the employment fee was so high.
Damn it, I won't be summoned for questioning by the academy, will I?"
The young man hastily closed his suitcase, brushed past the two masked men, and left without looking back.
Xia De and the Doctor still did not continue to communicate, nor did they search the second floor, but walked directly to the third floor.
Xia De used the silence charm he got from Iluna, then kicked open the door near the stairs.
After opening the door, Xia De and the Doctor both raised their guns and fired inside.
The three men in the room were riddled with bullets without a word.
"The desperadoes he hired to protect himself deserve to die."
The Doctor lowered his gun barrel, and smoke rose, the men's voices sounding muffled behind their masks.
Exiting the room with Xia De, they arrived at the door of the master bedroom on the third floor.
After knocking on the door and hearing a rude man's curse from inside, the Doctor kicked open the door and walked in with Xia De:
"Whoever moves dies."
The two men pointed their guns at the four-poster bed.
The curtains in the room were tightly drawn, making it exceptionally dim, and the air was filled with incense and a strange smell that could be detected even with masks on.
Thick carpets covered the floor, and men's and women's clothes lay entangled on the carpet, with a police uniform belt and a woman's garter belt draped together.
The four-poster bed was draped with curtains, and as Xia De, who was walking behind, turned on the gas lamp on the wall, the unclad middle-aged fat man and the curvaceous woman behind the curtains became faintly visible.
The Doctor, holding his gun in his right hand, suddenly tore open the curtain by the bed with his left hand.
The woman screamed and hid under the covers, while the middle-aged man shouted, then had the Doctor's gun pressed against his head.
He looked in terror at the strangers who had broken in.
"Mr. Anthony Walgrave, Chief of Police of Leedweich Field, Tobesk City?"
The Doctor, with his gloved hand, first flashed Xia De's identification, then pulled a black and white photo from his pocket, glanced at it, and tossed it onto the bed.
It was a close-up black and white photo of the Chief of Police, secretly taken from a special angle.
"MI6?
The money is in the safe next door, don't shoot, I am..."
"You don't have to answer."
The Doctor's gun barrel twitched, and ignoring the screaming Chief of Police's mistress on the bed, he said to Xia De behind him:
"Go search next door."
"Alright."
Xia De turned and walked out of the room.
Tens of seconds later, a sound like walls being torn down came from the next room.
Boots clicked on the floor, and Xia De quickly returned.
He carried a cloth bag full of banknotes in his left hand and a plaster statue with ruby eyes in his right arm.
"Found it, in the safe."
"Woman, you have three minutes to get dressed and leave this house, otherwise I cannot guarantee what will happen."
The Doctor's muffled voice came from behind his mask.
The woman, who had been terrified into a state of collapse, scrambled to her feet, grabbed the clothes on the carpet, and left the room, her panicked footsteps disappearing at the stairwell.
The Doctor's gun-holding hand was steady.
The shirtless middle-aged man had the gun pointed at his head, his hands raised, not daring to move, his brown eyes constantly scrutinizing the two masked strangers:
"Listen, gentlemen, I can give you money, I can give you..."
"Shut up!
Killing you, first, is because you deserve to die."
The Doctor's thumb slowly cocked the hammer.
The middle-aged man shook his head in despair, but when he opened his mouth, he found that he could no longer make a sound.
Having collaborated with Mercury Blood, he fully understood who was in front of him.
"Second, it's because you killed my client."
Xia De said, walking to the window, pulling back the curtains, and opening the bedroom window.
Sunlight entered the room, making the abnormally white skin of the shirtless fat middle-aged man seem to reflect light.
The gentle warm breeze of summer also immediately blew in, but it did not reassure Anthony Walgrave, who was being held at gunpoint.
"Third, do you know how much time and effort we spent looking for this thing?"
The Doctor viciously struck the Chief of Police's face with the gun butt.
While the middle-aged man lay on the bed groaning in pain, he dragged him to the window.
"You bringer of misfortune, lie here!"
Pressing the middle-aged man's head onto the windowsill, the Doctor took one of the statue's eyes from Xia De's hand.
After confirming he was wearing three layers of special protective gloves borrowed from Priest Augustus, he slammed the ruby-like glass onto the windowsill.
Immediately, bright red liquid seeped out from the broken glass.
It was generally gelatinous but also had some liquid components.
Xia De opened his briefcase and used a pre-prepared empty bottle to collect the liquid.
The Doctor observed the color of the blood-red liquid against the sunlight, then reached out with his gloved hand, dabbed some, and roughly smeared it into the middle-aged man's mouth.
The Chief of Police of Leedweich Field, Tobesk City, immediately began to convulse, and an abnormal bluish color spread from his mouth to his entire body.
"It's the forged philosopher's stone; the poisoning symptoms match the characteristics given by the academy."
Only then did the Doctor relax.
"There's still some liquid on the windowsill, it can't all be collected."
Xia De reminded him, holding the half-filled small bottle.
The Doctor glanced at the red gelatin and droplets on the windowsill:
"No need to collect all of it.
We need to tell the Orthodox Church that we have nothing to do with the cult, and are only here for this relic."
Releasing the convulsing Chief of Police, the Doctor opened his briefcase and took out a small bottle of brown liquid.
This was the potion "Heart of Fire" obtained from Priest Augustus.
Although called a potion, it was actually potent kerosene.
Xia De squatted on the ground, putting the other "ruby" eye of the plaster statue, along with the already shattered liquid, into his briefcase.
Click~ The box was simultaneously snapped shut, and the two men stood up, facing the sunlight outside the window.
Xia De, with one hand, lifted the still-alive middle-aged man onto the windowsill, canceled the silence charm, and shot him in the head.
Bang~
As terrified shouts rose and fell on the street, he grabbed the banknotes from the cloth bag and scattered them out.
The wind carried the dancing papers further away, and the falling banknotes made the shouts on the street even louder.
The Doctor smashed the kerosene in his hand onto the floor, and the two men, carrying their briefcases, walked out of the room.
As the door slammed shut, the Doctor pointed his hand from his shoulder backward, and a violent fire roared, black smoke billowing from the window into the sky, and chaos quickly spread throughout the entire block.