Chapter 325: Psychological Portrait

Lu Mian stood at the intersection, hands in his pockets, walking leisurely toward City Wall Street.

In the minds of a large portion of Trier's population, this street was more famous than the boulevards and was their dream destination.

Before Emperor Roselle started the Industrial Revolution, the Trier city area was far from as vast as it is now. This place belonged to the far east, with sturdy city walls and soldiers guarding them. The soldiers' barracks were not far from here, so quite a few streetwalkers and brothels appeared next to them.

As time passed, with the naming of City Wall Street and the expansion of Trier's population, the original small "market" became one of the most famous pleasure worlds in the Northern and Southern Continents.

Lu Mian walked under the Intis plane trees, seeing buildings ahead that were as magnificent as palaces, as well as quite ordinary apartments. The common point was that their windows were all or partially fitted with frosted glass and green shutters.

In the afternoon, City Wall Street seemed not yet fully awake. The pedestrians on the road were not too many, but each had their own characteristics. Some wore gray-blue worker uniforms, hurrying along; some had old formal wear, looking around before entering a certain apartment; some carried cameras, taking pictures here and there, eventually disappearing quietly in front of gorgeously decorated buildings; some tried hard to look like Intisians, but inevitably exposed their true identities through details like their hairlines and exaggerated heights.

Even more, Lu Mian saw an iron-gray robot over two meters tall. It had exhaust vents on its back, constantly spraying white mist, and many parts of its body exposed more decorative gears, springs, screws, and curved pipes.

A man sat on the robot's left shoulder. He was gorgeously dressed with exquisite makeup, leisurely looking down at the people coming and going, looking down at those high-status individuals who wore gold or silver masks to avoid exposing themselves, and the men who had just woken up and left with unsteady steps.

On this street, ordinary citizens and members of high society strangely blended together, presenting a kind of grotesque harmony.

Lu Mian walked while looking around, searching for the target location.

In a flash of his gaze, he saw Albus coming from a side alley.

This "Iron-Blooded Cross Order" member with darker red hair also noticed Lu Mian, smiled slightly, raised his right hand, and pointed at his own head, as if conducting some kind of provocation.

Lu Mian knew he was following Gardner Martin's orders to help find the parish priest Guillaume Bénet, and suspected this guy was "saying" whether to have a competition to see who would find the "prey" first.

Besides Albus, the "Iron-Blooded Cross Order" should have sent quite a few formal or peripheral members. In keeping promises, Gardner Martin's current performance was quite good.

Lu Mian ignored Albus and continued walking deeper into City Wall Street.

According to the "Mirror Divination" result from the freshly baked "Pleasure Witch" Franca, the scope of the previous prophecy had been narrowed:

Guillaume Bénet was highly likely to appear within this week in an area including five streets such as City Wall Street and White Horse Street.

Of course, given the length, area, and crowd density of City Wall Street, and the prosperity of the surrounding neighborhoods, this result was still very rough. It was almost impossible to capture the prey by carpet searching and wide-area casting, unless official assistance could be obtained to directly deploy troops to blockade this place and guard all entrances to Underground Trier.

For the previous period, Lu Mian could only hope that the "Iron-Blooded Cross Order," a secret organization that gathered a large number of powerful "Hunters," had better tracking and search methods, or that he himself, carrying Termiboros, the Angel of Fate, had some degree of aggregation ability. As long as the distance between him and Guillaume Bénet wasn't exaggerated, they could attract each other and "reunite" in a fated way.

But now, he had new clues.

This mainly came from the mystical knowledge that came with the "Contractee"!

That knowledge contained a large number of strange creatures that could be summoned or attracted, as well as the prices that needed to be paid to sign contracts with them, the abilities that could be obtained, and the negative effects that had to be endured afterward.

Combining the partial contract abilities displayed by the parish priest Guillaume Bénet in his memories and dreams, Lu Mian compiled a file:

"'Summon Abyss Magic Flower,' requires a large amount of fresh human blood as a sacrifice; the negative effect is an increased desire for intercourse;"

"'Invisibility,' requires preparing meat for thirteen people; the negative effect is being hungrier more easily;"

"'Slow Flight,' uses the inability to ever fall in love with others as a sacrifice; the negative effect is an impulse to show off;"

"'Bone Curse,' requires sacrificing a living person; the negative effect is being relatively sleepy;"

"'Soul-Sucking Secret Technique,' the price is no less than three souls from humans; the negative effect is four to five irregular bouts of dizziness every day;"

"'Implosion Technique,' requires sacrificing any Beyonder characteristic; the negative effect is that spirituality will be continuously sucked away, equivalent to a permanent reduction in the spirituality cap."

From the detailed description of the "Soul-Sucking Secret Technique," Lu Mian also suspected that the parish priest had unconsciously and covertly paid another price.

That was his name!

The "Soul-Sucking Secret Technique" influences the target's spirit body by shouting the target's real name, causing them to experience dizziness and other reactions. The more one knows about the target and the closer the language used is to the Spirit World, the better the effect.

And when signing a contract with the Spirit World creature that lends the "Soul-Sucking Secret Technique," Guillaume Bénet would inevitably expose his real name. For strange creatures with that kind of ability, mastering a person's real name might allow them to do many things.

This was a potential major hidden danger.

There were quite a few similar hidden problems in the mystical knowledge that came with the "Contractee," so Lu Mian ultimately chose to screen a large number of Spirit World creatures himself, contacting them one by one, trying them one by one.

Based on the negative effects brought by those known contract abilities, Lu Mian had some speculations:

Guillaume Bénet himself was a man with relatively strong desires. After his desire for intercourse increased, he definitely wouldn't lack women. This coincided with the prophecy that he would appear in the Red Princess District and the Mirror Divination result that he might be in these five nearby streets.

And he was hungrier than before, and doing that kind of thing also consumed a lot of physical strength, so he likely chose brothels that could provide meals or brought women home.

In addition, Guillaume Bénet was a man who was very ambitious, extremely power-hungry, and had been suppressed in a mountain village. Before the negative effects brought by the contract abilities, his lust was more of an act to demonstrate his power. Otherwise, it would be impossible to explain why he wanted to steal every woman he saw, regardless of whether the mistress was good or bad, with a huge gap in quality.

For him, stealing other men's women was a manifestation of his own status, power, and charm.

Such a person, after arriving in Trier and being discriminated against by citizens for his provincial accent, would inevitably use his own way to vent and prove himself.

Combining the "increased desire," "appearing in the Red Princess District," and other situations with his past style, Guillaume Bénet was very likely to find relatively famous courtesans, making those local citizens who wanted them but couldn't get them jealous, and might even directly take one or two of them away to keep at home.

The above analysis of the parish priest's personality traits and psychological state was not done by Lu Mian himself, but came from Anthony Reid, the "Psychiatrist." He outlined the psychological portrait of this evil god believer from Lu Mian's detailed description of Guillaume Bénet.

Therefore, the current direction of tracking the prey had two paths: one was to stake out those high-end brothels that had famous courtesans and provided meals, and the second was to inquire about which courtesan had married or become someone's mistress, or even gone missing, in the last two months.

The former was the responsibility of the "Iron-Blooded Cross Order." What Lu Mian needed to do now was to find an well-informed person who could provide various scandals on City Wall Street.

Anthony Reid, the intelligence peddler, had some understanding of this. He knew that Buller, a columnist for "Ghost Face" magazine, was a regular on City Wall Street and was famous for telling scandals and rumors here.

And Buller liked to drink and write manuscripts in a corner of "Hope Cafe" where he could see the entrance before going to a brothel.

With a clear purpose, Lu Mian walked at a pace that was neither fast nor slow toward the cafe in the middle of City Wall Street.

On the way, he went over the whole thing, feeling a bit emotional for no reason:

His divination ability was clearly inferior to Franca's, having only a "Prophecy Technique" he didn't dare to use easily. He was also not as good as Anthony Reid at drawing a psychological portrait of the target and collecting various intelligence. But he was able to find these two helpers and leverage their strengths, which was equivalent to obtaining these abilities.

Lu Mian didn't know what would happen after possessing divinity, but he was very sure of one point: below Sequence 4, a person's power was limited. A team that complemented each other could exert an effect of "1+1 greater than 2" and was fully capable of challenging higher-sequence individuals who didn't involve divinity.

Not long after, Lu Mian saw "Hope Cafe," with its window frames and doors painted milky white.

After pushing open the relatively heavy door, he cast his gaze directly toward the corner where he could see the place.

A man in his thirties with a thin face, black hair, blue eyes, and neatly trimmed beard with waxed tips happened to be looking at the entrance.

Sensing Lu Mian scanning this way, the man's expression changed, and he was about to pick up the soft-shell notebook and red fountain pen on the table and turn into the back door beside him.

Lu Mian directly pulled out his revolver and fired a shot at the back door of "Hope Cafe."

Amidst the *bang*, the bullet embedded itself in the wooden board.

The customers in the cafe were startled simultaneously, either hiding or turning around, in a state of chaos.

The man with the waxed beard froze in place; running wasn't right, and staying wasn't right.

Under the fearful gazes of the bartender, waiters, and customers, Lu Mian walked to the target with the revolver in his hand, neither fast nor slow, and asked with a smile:

"Is this Mr. Buller?"

"Yes, it is." Buller forced a smile.

Lu Mian pointed to Buller's original position and said as if nothing had happened:

"Sit down, I'm here to buy information."

Buller breathed a slight sigh of relief, turned back slightly hunched, and sat down.

Lu Mian pulled over a chair, sat opposite him, put down the revolver, and asked amusedly:

"Why do you like sitting in such a position with no lighting?"

Buller sighed and said:

"In my line of work, one always worries about being retaliated against. You know, some people don't like their names or images appearing in newspapers and magazines, associated with scandals.

"Sitting here, I can observe the entrance well and discover in advance if anyone wants to find trouble with me, and I can also quickly escape through the back door."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 326 =====