Chapter 387: Comparison

Lu Mian looked around quickly, only to see that under the illumination of a few scattered gas street lamps and the still-burning crimson flames, people were moving in the distance, no one dared to approach, and the part at the very front couldn't even open their eyes due to the stimulation of the "sun."

In such a scene, whether it was the man suspected to be "Loki" or the "passerby" who sang the aria, there was no trace to be found.

"Son of a bitch, ran away just like that?" Lu Mian was both anxious and angry, unable to help but curse.

They hadn't even had a real battle, and he ran?

One strike missed, and immediately broke contact?

"Damn, are they rats? Not only slippery, but as soon as there's any sign of trouble, they run so fast you can't even see a shadow!" Franca, while closing in on Lu Mian, used strange vocabulary that sounded like it had been forcibly translated to curse, "Beyonders of the 'Seer' and 'Marauder' pathways are indeed adjacent pathways that can be swapped. The style is too similar, right?"

This was mainly reflected in the fact that you couldn't hit the true body and couldn't catch the main person.

The difference was that the "Seer" pathway had been like this since Sequence 7, while the "Marauder" pathway might have to wait until pushing open the Gate of Divinity and advancing to Sequence 4.

Thoughts raced through Lu Mian's mind as he pondered how to find the traces of "Loki" and his marionettes.

They might have already left, or they might still be lurking in the evening Chaos Street!

"Marionette...

"Right, that marionette who sang the aria took my 'Hum-Ha Technique' head-on, yet wasn't affected. This shows that he is likely already a dead person, and there is no active, clear spirit body...

"The experience I just had of almost being turned into a puppet also indirectly confirmed this...

"Since a marionette is a dead person, he shouldn't have the fate of a living person, there's no so-called luck. Even if there is, it would be frozen in a piece of darkness, which represents death...

"Can't find 'Loki' who has the 'Faceless' ability, can start from his marionettes!"

Thinking of this, Lu Mian concentrated his spirit and seriously observed the luck of those citizens ten or twenty meters away.

He scanned them, and anyone who had their own fate and wasn't a piece of pitch-black was directly skipped.

After quickly browsing through them, Lu Mian didn't find a target suspected to be a marionette.

He sighed slowly and disappointedly.

"Let's leave here first. The firefighters putting out the fire will be here soon, and official Beyonders should also be on the way." Franca reminded Lu Mian.

Lu Mian withdrew his gaze and, before the crimson flames extinguished, turned and left Chaos Street.

He planned to take a half-circle detour before returning to the Golden Rooster Hotel to hand over the swindled money recovered from the "Different" cabaret to the bankrupt merchant Fitz, and take away his own share according to the agreed proportion.

After walking a dozen steps, Mr. Ruhr, who died of an infectious disease, and Mrs. Michel, who hanged herself while singing songs of the City of Joy, suddenly appeared in Lu Mian's mind.

He was worried that he would bring a disaster involving supernatural power to the Golden Rooster Hotel and to the client, Fitz.

Aurora had shaped those very nasty and perverted criminals in two of her novels. They loved to start killing from the people the target valued, letting him watch his friends around him die miserably one after another.

"Loki," as the leader of "April Fool's," loved toying with people's minds the most and had no psychological barriers to harming his companions, let alone killing innocent people he had never met before. So, having failed his first attack, there was a significant probability he would start from Lu Mian's acquaintances, using their deaths to crush the target's spirit, watching him lose his mind in the dark, become crazy, and then take advantage of this opportunity to harvest his life.

Although this was only a possibility, Lu Mian didn't want to take the risk. He stopped and turned toward Market Avenue.

"What's wrong?" Franca asked puzzledly.

Lu Mian had initially calmed his emotions and said with a smile:

"Going to the Breeze Dance Hall for a drink."

The gang members he often contacted would die if they died; mixing in a gang required such awareness!

Franca was stunned for a moment, roughly understanding Lu Mian's worry:

Because he fished out a big fish but failed to capture him, "Loki" clearly already knew their true appearances. He could always hide in the dark, waiting for a suitable opportunity to arrive. And Lu Mian and she herself, unless they abandoned their current identities and comprehensively utilized their anti-divination and anti-counter-surveillance capabilities to live in another place, would inevitably fall into a state of random speculation where they felt every rat they saw would attack them.

Compared to the crowded Golden Rooster Hotel, the second floor of the Breeze Dance Hall was relatively quiet and more conducive to defense.

Moreover, once a battle at the supernatural level broke out, affecting gang members was better than affecting ordinary people.

"I'll go back and change clothes too." Franca's subtext was that she also had to change her appearance, hide in the dark, and make it impossible for "Loki" to find her, so as to avoid possible attacks.

Similarly, she would have Jenna go back and live with her brother for a while to avoid being affected.

Facing such a bizarre and terrifying enemy, the survival ability of an "Instigator" was still too weak.

Lu Mian patted Franca's "Mirror Substitute" hidden inside his clothes with his right hand, telling the other party to pay attention to each other's rough condition at all times.

Franca nodded seriously, indicating she knew.

Breeze Dance Hall, second-floor cafe.

Lu Mian sat in the innermost position far from the window and said to his bodyguard, Sakota:

"Go to the Golden Rooster Hotel and call a bankrupt merchant named Fitz over."

With such a transit, Fitz seemed more like he had achieved his goal with the help of the Savard Party, and had no personal relationship with Charles Dubois. If "Loki" really wanted to choose a victim, he would definitely pick from the Savard Party members belonging to Lu Mian.

Lu Mian, while stroking the heavy satchel placed on his lap, waiting for Fitz to arrive, thought about problems related to "Loki."

In the situation of losing the trace of that "April Fool's" leader, he could only look for clues from certain phenomena in this event.

And one of the details was an option Lu Mian had preset before acting:

"If I really fished out 'Loki,' then why could I rely on counter-surveillance techniques to shake off this 'April Fool's' leader last time, but not this time?"

After Lu Mian left the "Different" cabaret, he deliberately completed the entire counter-surveillance process just like last time, returned to his original appearance, changed his clothes, modified his satchel, and waited until he crossed Jiujie again and met with Franca, but no longer performed counter-surveillance, all to set up a sample for comparison and find the differences.

Otherwise, if he hadn't successfully captured the bizarre and hard-to-kill "Loki," wouldn't he have "fished" in vain?

There had to be some other harvest!

This belonged to a small trap hidden within a big trap.

"According to normal logic, since my counter-surveillance process last time could shake off 'Loki,' this time shouldn't be an exception. After all, I not only paid attention to the people and animals around me, but even avoided the birds in the sky. Even if there really were bugs that became 'Loki's' puppets, they would be shaken off because they couldn't keep up with my speed...

"So, either Franca was watched from the beginning, or I was recognized by 'Loki' when I finished counter-surveillance and crossed Jiujie again.

"Franca performed anti-divination and was relatively far from the 'Alone' bar and the 'Different' cabaret, not even entering Jiujie, and used non-mystical means to observe, so it's unlikely she was exposed quickly, unless 'Loki' knew from the beginning that there would be such an observer...

"The most likely possibility is that I was recognized when I crossed Jiujie, but how did he recognize me? I not only changed back to my original appearance and changed my clothes, but also, in order not to be suspected, chose to take a rental carriage to pass through. According to Anthony, this could prevent people outside from seeing my unchanged leather shoes, and could also hide my habitual walking posture and body language...

"I even sprinkled some perfume to cover up my original scent...

"What unchangeable feature do I have that allowed 'Loki' to recognize me in a short time?"

Lu Mian compared the differences before and after, gradually having some guesses:

"Either the 'Marionettist' or one of his marionettes can directly identify a person from the level of soul, consciousness, etc., or 'Loki' can discover features on me that are different from others. The Angel of Fate, Mr. Fool's seal, or the 'Blood Emperor's' aura?

"'Lie,' although also of the 'Seer' pathway, doesn't have an obvious, intuitively perceivable aggregation force with the Sequence level corresponding to 'Loki'..."

Lu Mian felt more and more that the reason was that "Loki" had a way to see through his disguise, but his tracking ability was limited, and he would be shaken off by targets who were wary of strangers, animals, birds, and bugs, and couldn't be directly divined.

No matter what method "Loki" used to see through it, this was the reason that best explained the comparison between the before and after situations.

Based on this reason, Lu Mian had a new train of thought.

He looked at the night sky that had already turned dark, and the corners of his mouth curled up imperceptibly.

Another quarter of an hour passed, and the bankrupt merchant Fitz was brought to the cafe by Sakota.

Lu Mian signaled Sakota to leave here temporarily, then said to Fitz:

"The money has been recovered. How much do you think you can get?"

As he spoke, he poured the banknotes, gold, and jewelry onto the table, scanned them a few times, and said:

"In total, there's about 130,000 Vergold."

Fitz blurted out:

"60,000, no, 50,000, no, just give me 30,000 Vergold."

Lu Mian smiled, pulled out a few stacks of tied banknotes, and threw them to Fitz:

"According to the previous agreement, the interest belongs to me, and I take 50% of the principal.

"Here is 50,000 Vergold."

Fitz received it with surprise and thanked him repeatedly.

Although he couldn't get the full amount, 50,000 Vergold was enough for him to start a brand new life full of hope.

The reward of 50% principal plus interest was too worth it!

Lu Mian also felt happy. Borrowing the action of the "Angel of Time" beside Mr. Fool, he easily earned 50,000 Vergold in banknotes plus 30,000 in gold.

You know, he had worked so hard to collect gold before, and in the end, it was only 75,000.

He seriously considered whether to buy some sacrificial offerings in the corresponding field to thank Mr. Fool and that "Angel of Time."

Waiting for another half an hour, Lu Mian entered the bedroom also located on the second floor, threw off his satchel, used "Lie" to change his appearance again, looking like a black-haired, brown-eyed version of Aurora, leaning toward the male side.

He put on a shirt, vest, trousers, and leather boots, took off "Lie," transferred the "Torture" gloves into his briefcase, and examined the situation outside the window.

Confirming there were no humans, rats, and birds, Lu Mian pushed open the window, jumped down lightly, in the guise of not knowing that "Loki" could directly see through his disguise.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 388 =====