Chapter 109: The Professor's Hush Money

"What kind of secret art is this? It can have such an effect at the 1st Ring?"

Even Miss Louisa was surprised by this. She wanted some water to taste, and then let Xia De continue to feed the professor water.

Miss Louisa is worthy of being a 4th-Ring Mage; she very easily analyzed things that Xia De did not analyze:

"This is really a secret art of 【Gluttony】? It can actually convert emotions to supplement life energy. So that's it, achieving healing by supplementing life force. The increased feeling of satiation in the body is not an illusion, but really making the body reach a state of satiation. It can be learned at the 1st Ring, and it can actually be used on others. Currently, the side effects are only that the desire to eat will be greatly reduced for a short time. This is really... *hiccup~*"

Xia De turned his head in surprise to look at her, even stopping the action of feeding the professor water. Miss Louisa's face turned red visibly to the naked eye. She closed her mouth tightly, shrugged her shoulders upward, and forcibly suppressed the urge to hiccup a second time:

"What's wrong? Haven't you seen a lady hiccup?"

Inexplicably, from her attitude, Xia De associated it with the appearance of Mia drinking water yesterday and hiccuping non-stop, to the point of being angry with herself.

"Hurry up and wake Professor Manning up, I... go to the washroom to touch up my makeup, and by the way, let the maid downstairs not panic. You should also be careful here."

Saying this, she stood up with a red face and walked out of the bedroom without looking back.

Listening to Miss Louisa's distant footsteps, Xia De looked at the small water bottle in his hand:

"This can probably be considered a side effect."

It took a long time for Miss Louisa to return from downstairs. Xia De very consciously did not discuss the hiccuping matter again.

Confirming that Professor Manning could no longer drink water, Xia De stopped. From the appearance, his body no longer looked so terrible, but the professor still did not wake up.

"How can he not wake up? Could it be that the mental damage caused by the fountain pen is too serious? Yes, my secret art cannot treat mental-type injuries."

Xia De said, stuffing the bottle back into his pocket.

"I think this has nothing to do with mental damage. Detective, do you know what kind of person cannot be woken up?"

Miss Louisa glanced at the professor's situation and probably understood the reason.

"A person pretending to sleep cannot be woken up... Oh, I understand!"

But Miss Louisa shook her head:

"No, only a dead person cannot be woken up. Since the professor cannot wake up, then we will..."

"Alright, alright, Louisa, stop joking, I'm awake. Young man, can't you leave some final dignity for an old man... *hiccup! *"

The professor suddenly opened his eyes, and then also hiccuped. His face was a bit pale as he crawled up from the floor, his legs went soft and he almost fell. Xia De reached out to help him:

"Your body has not fully recovered, Professor. I'm afraid you will have to rest in bed for a long time, and you must abstain from desires, and do not engage in long-term mental labor."

Professor Manning covered his face with one hand. He just didn't want to bring up this kind of question, so he pretended not to wake up. He was even almost bloated to death by Xia De's water just now.

"Young man, just take that fountain

The professor's current pained expression likely had nothing to do with physical weakness:

"Why did you have to wake me up? Oh, can't you leave this old man with his final shred of dignity?"

His face, which had been pale due to physical weakness, flushed red. Xia De glanced at Miss Lu Lu Lu Yisha, and the latter signaled for him to speak:

"Actually, we don't know that you were in a dream with a black cat..."

"Oh, fine, what do you want to extort from me? Take it all, take whatever you fancy, as long as you don't speak of this matter, take whatever you want. I only want my final dignity."

"No, no, that's not what I meant."

Xia De explained:

"I meant to say, today's events..."

"Nothing happened! Everything I saw will go with me to the grave! No one is to know what happened today! Absolutely not."

Judging by Professor Manning's current agitated state, his physical condition and mental state were much better than Xia De had imagined.

"That's good, then this fountain pen..."

Xia De shook the 【Relic】, and the professor looked at it with reluctance before gritting his teeth and saying:

"Take it, take it quickly! It's yours now."

Xia De nodded in satisfaction and then handed the fountain pen to Miss Lu Lu Lu Yisha, who toyed with the document-level relic 【Pen of Joyful Dreams】, looking quite happy.

He helped Professor Manning to a chair to sit down and simultaneously pulled back the curtains, letting the bright afternoon sunlight shine in. The weak old man squinted at the sunlight, his expression relaxing significantly.

"Actually, we also want to know, besides you, does anyone else know about this fountain pen?"

Xia De asked again. Professor Manning stared blankly at the sunlight for a long time before saying:

"How could I possibly tell anyone about such a thing?"

"Then how did you know how to use this fountain pen? Did that old writer tell you?"

Xia De wanted to confirm that there was nothing strange about this.

"Of course not, I dreamed it. I suddenly dreamed it on the third day after getting the pen, and for some reason, I just wanted to try it..."

He suddenly froze:

"So, the death of the previous owner of this fountain pen... was because of this?"

"If you had continued to hold it, your fate would likely have been even more miserable than death."

Miss Lu Lu Lu Yisha said, but her tone was the exact opposite of the gentleness she used when speaking with Xia De:

"You should be glad you fainted just now and didn't see what happened. You are also a professor at the university; how could you not have realized the strangeness of this thing?"

"I just... couldn't resist the temptation."

The professor lowered his head, and Xia De coughed to summarize the matter:

"Professor, since we saved your life, this pen will be given to us as a token of gratitude. At the same time, today's events will be treated as if they never happened; no one is to speak of it."

"I have no problem with that."

Said Miss Lu Lu Lu Yisha, who had obtained the 【Relic】.

"I have a problem!"

The professor raised his head and suddenly said:

"Lu Lu Lu Yisha won't speak of it, but what if you speak of it?"

Xia De said in surprise:

"Why would I speak of it? You've probably guessed that we are not ordinary people; how could we risk exposing our identities..."

"I've seen plenty of things in my life; you don't need to explain. I'll give you some benefits as hush money, how about that?"

He probably thought that Miss Lu Lu Lu Yisha had received "hush money" while the detective had not, and might hold a grudge because of it. Xia De had intended to be polite, but he didn't expect the professor to call the fat maid from the second floor directly, having her retrieve an item to give to Xia De.

It was actually a Luo De Pai, and one with special rules at that.

【Northern City · Lengshuigang City】, Moon 7. After drawing this card and actively displaying it, if the number of cards already used in the deck exceeds one-half, choose one of your own cards and shuffle it into the opponent's deck.