"Forgive me for coming, but the news from the Temple of the Sunset... If it is true, "a middle-aged
grey-haired nobleman, whose right hand trembled slightly, bowed deeply to his left breast:
"Please allow me to come and see to it for you myself."
"You are very well informed, old friend," said a stout figure gravely by the roaring fire, lowering his
right hand on his chin. "The return just now: not yet confirmed, but the lamp in the temple of the
setting sun has indeed been lit, and looks very close."
"I have sent Jodl, who is better suited to covert operations than Ada."
The grey-haired nobleman gasped.
'Jodl?
"That's right," the stout figure said faintly:
"You know how important this news is, Li Xiya, she even sealed the inner altar in the name of the
Oracle at the first time, so we can't risk unnecessary exposure. Only at the moment of final
confirmation, I will secretly send you."
"Of course, of course," the grey-haired middle-aged nobleman could hardly contain his excitement.
"If that happens, I will be at your service with all my heart."
"Well," sighed the stout figure, "I should have been more excited than you."
"But somehow I am so calm."
————
Rick didn't know how he had walked back to the frat house.
The chill in the back of his neck never stopped.
But when he saw the Black Street headquarters of the frat house, the two elite thugs at the door
playing stick-in-the-fingers with knives, the light guards looming outside...
When he entered the great room and saw behind the iron table Boss Morris perusing the accounts...
But when he saw Belicia's disdainful eyes leaning against the colonnade -- presumably because
Belicia's proposal to increase the funding for the prostitute house had been turned down again
tonight --
Rick's heart was really relieved.
that moment, even Layok, the killer who had always been at odds with him, seemed amiable by
the candlelight at the table.
Before he knew it, the chill at the back of his neck was gone, as if it had never been there.
Even Rick wondered if he was a nervous wreck.
When he mentioned to Boss Morris, who was in the population business, that he suspected
someone was following him, Leyjok burst out a mouthful of ale with a laugh and blew out the
candlesticks on the table, and Belicia yawned and tightened her enormous chest and looked at him
with even more contempt.
And Boss Morris, when he saw the cold sweat on his head, also looked strange, patting Rick on the
shoulder, asking him not to "work too hard" in the near future, watching less plays in the Temple
of the Night, and waiting for strange doctor Ramon to come back from a business trip, let him
prescribe a calming prescription.
This is bad!
Rick knows it's hard to believe even that he has powers.
Let alone a psychopath who had followed him for a mile from the abandoned house to the dark
street, invisible and invisible, with no purpose and no movement -- but subconsciously Rick thought
that the guy was real!
But when he goes back to his room, lies down and goes over the details of the night's stalking, even
Rick, who is always suspicious, wonders if he's really too nervous.
Rick calmed down and tried his powers again. Everything was fine. His neck was comfortable on
the pillowcase.
Okay, maybe I'm just being paranoid.
But the next moment, that thrilling chill comes again!
Shit!
I can't sleep!
Rick tumbled out of bed.
He pulled out a box under the bed, dug out a Siegel VI magic gun, heavy enough to be dragged by
two hands, pressed it nervously against the solid wall, and slowly tiptoed out of the corridor, listening carefully.
The corridor was full of immortal lamps burning with eternal oil, which shone brightly, but still
there was no one there. In the distance, one of the watchmen, returning from a bathroom break,
appeared to be scratching an itch and tugging at the black and red leather of his crotch as he walked
past Rick.
From the room at the end of the corridor came the customary wild, wild roar of Leyok and Belicia.
"Damn you, shameless dogs and women," Rick cursed loudly.
"Better push it too hard and break it!"
"Brother Whistle, who had just passed, turned with sympathy and nodded at Rick.
The two men looked at each other and felt confidant.
Then Rick saw the other painfully scratching the leather on his crotch, while the other looked at
him leaning against the wall with his magic gun.
They both turned their heads awkwardly, back to their posts, back to their rooms.
Rick touched the back of his neck.
Shit, this damn power must have malfunctioned.
Besides, there's no point in holding a magic gun if they've got their hands on a frat house that's so
good they haven't been spotted by anyone.
Even Boss Morris can't help it.
Sleep, sleep.
————
Tyers' back injury looked bad, but it didn't seem too serious, because it was only day three and he
was up and walking.
Maybe... Life is hard for people with cheap lives, Tyers lined up and sighed.
He looked at the broken houses and walls around him, took the brown bread and wild vegetables
handed by the enforcer Pearson, and bit them into his mouth.
The damn place."Next to you is the sharp branch, you must have secretly cut my hand!"
'It wasn't me! My hand was cut last night too, and I can't 'work'!"
'We all have cuts on our hands! It must be the people in the eighth house! They're jealous of what
we got yesterday!"
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
'So it's them! Our man in the fourteenth room was cut in the night, too! They don't want us out in
the streets' petting sheep '!"
Tyers yawned as he idly listened to the beggars in several different rooms as arguments turned into
fights, and the beggars even heckled until the thugs came to stop them.
He sighed, swallowed the last of his unsavoury breakfast, clapped his hands and called the beggars
in Room six.
The work began.
The day is Tuesday, the sixth house of begging is relatively smooth, they for more business, directly
to the west gate near the guard card place -- the recent week seems to be the celebration of the
sunset God, but heard that the oracle fell, the sunset temple blocked the inner altar, leading to
many believers from afar have to go home from the West gate, they can only climb the city wall,
pray to the sunset, To make up for the regret of not being able to pray to the first shrine of the
goddess of sunset in the world.
Tyles manages, with the help of Lane and Coria, to make his way from a fat fruit and vegetable
vendor to a statue of the bright moon carved out of black wood, before the guards turn their glares
into an attempt to stop him.
The vendor is too attentive to the purse in his arms (" Stay away, puppies! "), so while Ryan and
Coria haggle with him over the price of an alfalfa, Tyers reaches for the package behind him.
The belief of the Bright Moon is not common in the Kingdom of Stars, let alone in the first temple
of the sunset in the Star City, which makes the statue of the bright moon even more special -- of
course, this kind of stolen goods can not see the light, can only be sold in the Brotherhood channel,
Brotherhood veterans know that they are only beg and steal, but will be desperate to pressure the
price, and even when they come across valuable products, they will forcibly rob. Can be exchanged
for five copper is good.
But even the smallest mosquito is meat.
When Tyles and the others returned to the abandoned house, they met Rick, who came to visit as
usual, but the latter did not have the usual kind and indifferent, but his face hurriedly told the enforcer a few words, and disappeared from sight.
"Is Mr. Rick in trouble?"
"Asked the hungry Coria, biting her fingers.
They traveled far and came back late, but Tyles was on good terms with Pearson, the enforcer who
delivered the food, and often bribed small gifts before he promised to leave them a meal.
"Probably Quaid. That guy's the biggest troublemaker." "Kellett said, his stomach growling, too.
Ned and Ryan shuddered at the name.
"No food tonight, boys." When the six children entered the empty delivery yard, Pearson, who was
in charge of the meal, waved.
"Don't look at me. I can't help it," Pearson said, shaking his head casually in the face of angry but
somewhat insecure questioning from the six children. "Rick gave the order to go to bed early
tonight. The hours are early."
Tyles frowned, touched his empty belly, and began to wonder whether he should sneak into the
beater's watch for food tonight.
But he glanced around at the five others who were waiting for food, sighed, and pulled out the
statue of the bright moon he had brought from his pocket.
In the end, Tyles gave the statue as a price in exchange for the four and a half loaves of bread and
half a bowl of black cabbage that Pearson had intended to cut off and leave for his two hounds.
"Rick and Quaid have been a little jumpy lately," he said.
When the other five children were eating away, Pearson broke some news to Tyles before he left:
"Quaid's getting grumpy, and he's been saying things like 'dead-head' all the time -- but that's what
he is -- but Rick's been acting weird, especially since the last two days, and from what people here
are saying..."
At this point, Pearson looked around and whispered in Tyles's ear:
"He's being haunted by a ghost."
A ghost?
Tyles looked at the receding Pearson, took a bite of the brown bread that usually tasted bad but became extra tasty when hungry, and mused silently.
I don't know what happened to Rick to make him hit a ghost.
But the thing that made Quaid's temper worse and worse...
Tyles swallows a mouthful of bread.
Looks like he's been toning it down a bit lately.
————
Rick was nervous again.
Two days before, he thought his powers were wrong.
But it wasn't until this morning, when he opened the book of supplies for the next batch of beggars,
that he really knew for sure:
That his powers were not at fault.
Rick is a very ambitious man, and he believes that to achieve his ambition, he must start from small
things: for example, never write the schedule and plan on paper, such as drawers, boxes and
important documents, he will clip a few hair in the inconspicuous places, to prevent people from
stealing and peeking, such as never hide money in one place and so on.
He has always been proud of his caution, and he thinks that one day he will receive the reward he
deserves for such caution.
Now, for example.
Rick opened the book of Beggars.
On each page of the book, the hair was in the same place.
This was supposed to be a good thing. It meant that no one touched the book.
But Rick was the son of the scribe.
His father had taught him that every good thief, if he wanted to, could easily circumvent such hair
clipping secrecy laws and open the papers he wanted without anyone noticing.
So Rick got a more cautious approach from his father.The quickest way to flip through a document without anyone noticing, with the hair in the pages,
was to hold the hair in place, holding the top and bottom of the pages in your hand while you
turned, and keep the hair in place.
How do you break this method?
Like the nobility, it is the fastest and safest way to seal it with fire paint.
But Rick had a light, dry gel made from his father's fish oil.
It's a gel for the poor people who live by the river, and the properties (drawbacks?) of this dry gel.
The adhesive force is not strong, as long as the book is not too heavy, after the pages are coated,
even if the book is closed, the glue will not stick together, you must press the two sides of the glue
for a short period of time, the pages will stick together.
When Rick opened the book, he found that all the hair was in its place except for one bit.
It was all glued to the page.
His poor-quality gel couldn't have done it without an external force.
Someone had looked through his scrounger book and found his "anti-theft hair", which he had
turned the pages between his hands.
Rick felt a chill in his heart.
The other person must have mastered it, so that the four different but inconspicuous hairs on the
page could remain in their place without deviation.
Fortunately, he had the secret from his father to find out.
Ten days ago, because I saw Tyles's begging scene, in order to find the boy Tyles is in the house, I
had looked through the roster.
At that time, everything was normal.
But as of today, in the intervening ten days, someone has come to his room and looked through
the book of beggars?
Rick got a cold scalp.
It dawned on him that this wasn't the most important thing.
So Rick rolled and crawled through the secret compartment of the drawer.He pulled out the most important ledger of human transactions and his secret deposit book at
King's Bank.
The ledger and the deposit book were safe, undisturbed, and the hair had fallen naturally from the
pages.
Rick breathed a sigh of relief.
Thankfully, the contents of these cells haven't been -- wait.
If you are a master, how can you miss the secret?
Trembling, Rick pulled out the whole compartment, opened it, and moved his hand to where the
hair should have been.
Then he slumped back in his chair.
Hair.
They are being firmly glued to the seams of the dark compartment by his Rick's unique light dry
gel that won't be effective without force.
As Rick swooned into the dining room, ignoring the flirting Lyok and Belia, it was Lyok, who had
never served the dish, who gloated at him.
"Accountant, I hear you've been hit by a ghost?"
Rick ignored him and just continued to sit down expressionless.
Vaguely, he pulled a bottle of accounting ink from the table, mistook it for sauce, and poured it
over his steak.
"Ignore him," said Belicia, smiling as she sat in Leyok's arms, cast a flirty glance at the killer, and
slipped a glass of red wine into his mouth. "Come to my room tonight?"
"Well, of course, of course," replied Lyjok hurriedly, before he could swallow the wine, "I found out
today that the boss took all the guards out of the house a week ago, so tonight we might as well...
Hey, hey... Go crazy."
"Ouch, you're bad..."
Removed all the checkpoints outside the house a week ago...'Clank! The ink bottle Rick was holding hit the table, and the ink ran across the table and into the
man and woman on the other side.
He looked up pale at the unhappy Leyok and Belicia.
"A week ago? A week ago, was there no guard at the main house?"
"Nonsense," Lyok brushed off the ink and threw a piece of bread angrily at Rick's face.
"The last big Bloodibottle operation, the boss said to keep it a secret, the fewer the better, so the
checkpoints have been taken outside -- but don't worry, you've got a haunting ghost looking out
for you."
"So, so in the hallway," Rick didn't realize, his voice was trembling now. "So in the hallway, there
won't be any whistles in the hallway?"
But Lyok and Belicia had already forgotten him, and kissed as if no one were watching.
Rick took a deep breath.
The day before had been followed inexplicably in the abandoned house, the guard brothers who
were not supposed to exist in the hallways that night, the scrounging roster that had been sifted
through the room.
Good. I can connect all the dots.
And now, Narr Rick, he said to himself, trembling with tension:
You're being watched.
The opponent may be strong.
Powerful enough to move around the heavily guarded headquarters of Black Street, powerful
enough to be unaware even of a fearsome killer like Lyok, or an experienced Power warrior like
Boss Morris.
Only I had the good fortune, thanks to my late father, to discover it.
He could be right behind me.
I had to save myself, save myself!
I must find his purpose!"Rick's mind worked like crazy.
In the past two days, Rick should have turned his room upside down, but he only carefully looked
at the book of begging children.
He abandoned the more important books like a blank shoe.
Rick thought: What the other is looking for, in the begging book!
By the way, he was targeted near the abandoned house, which happened to be where the begging
children lived!
He was looking for some beggar!
But Rick thought with a headache that he had dozens of beggars on his hands!
Next month, Beth will send another batch of children, these are unknown or no future problems
(important and valuable children, such as the descendants of some powerful people, some rich
businessmen's children, have long been redeemed and killed), the other side wants, in the end,
which beggar?
Why, with such a brilliant skill, such a terrible strength, did he not make fair demands on the
Brotherhood?
We'll just give it to you!
I would rather cooperate with him one by one, even if all the more than 100 beggars are pulled out
one by one, stripped and searched, or even killed and dissected, than such a daily fear, being hung
by a "ghost" far away!
Wait for it!
I seem to have thought of the key.
Why didn't he make his demands on the Brotherhood above board?
Rick winked.
Of course it is, and no one can know about this, not even the Black Street Brotherhood!
Is it a Brotherhood rival?
No, if the Blood Bottle Gang had that kind of power, the Black Street Brotherhood would have been
overturned dozens of times by now.That means they probably don't have the formal channels, or don't bother to deal with a Black
Street frat downtown!
Such fearsome figures certainly don't come down to dealing with ghetto gangsters.
And why should he be interested in orphans who have been dead for years?
Can't you just go to the Vigilance Office to find a missing child?
And this level of figures and forces, the security office dare not neglect, in the face of the official,
even the seemingly arrogant brotherhood can only bow.
Wait a minute!
Rick's mind lit up, feeling like he'd hit the point.
He was smart, invisible, secretive, interested in the origins of a certain kid, unwilling to deal with
the Black Street Brotherhood.
Power is built with money and resources, secret because it would be bad for him to go public, and
not dealing with the Brotherhood because he's too high up the hierarchy.
As for being interested in the kids the Brotherhood collects from all sources, from all backgrounds...
... wait, etc.
Behind him must be the high men of power and wealth, yet he evades all eyes and ears, from the
Brotherhood to the guard House, and secretly searches for some important child - child?
Shit!
Rick slapped his thigh hard, a string running through his head.
He was in the middle of some big family succession struggle!
Rick stared hard at Leyok and Belicia, who had begun to make hands on each other as if no one
were watching.
However, his mind had long since turned away from the couple in front of him.
Perhaps the 15 million people in the entire Kingdom of Stars did not know that one day, a secret
truth that could shake the kingdom and shake the continents of the East and West had been so
close to a humble gang leader.
