Chapter 1616: Madman, Water Ghost, and Clues

"Pudding Lane? What kind of name is that?"

Xia De walked along the narrow alley to the intersection, identified the street sign, and continued walking westward. Not long after, he found No. 8 Pudding Lane. Outside the low shack was a simple courtyard. At this time, a slightly older girl in the courtyard was holding her younger brother's hand playing, and a woman with a numb expression was in front of a water basin, laboriously beating clothes with a laundry stick.

Beside her was a pile of clothes like a small mountain, and the courtyard was full of washed clothes. Obviously, this was a washerwoman who washed clothes for others, and the family's income probably relied entirely on her.

The afternoon spring breeze from the Duin River blew into the courtyard in the fog, making the clothes on the clothesline sway slightly. But this scene didn't feel vibrant with spring at all; instead, it was like a group of people had all hanged themselves here, letting the wind blow their corpses.

"Hello."

Although the courtyard door was open, Xia De still knocked on the wood instead of walking in directly:

"Does Mr. Jack Sibil live here?"

This was the name of that grave robber:

"I have some business with him."

The girl, who looked no more than ten years old, pulled her younger brother's hand and hid behind the drying rack. The washerwoman looked up at Xia De, then nodded slowly:

"He is here, but he can't talk to you anymore."

"He... passed away?"

Xia De asked with some regret.

"No, but he's crazy, completely crazy."

The woman said, but Xia De still walked into the courtyard:

"It doesn't matter, a madman is not unable to speak."

Saying that, he took out a handful of coins from his pocket. These small change added up to about two pounds:

"I'm going to disturb for about half an hour."

He handed the money to the washerwoman. The latter wiped her wet hands on her apron, subconsciously wanting to take it, but then withdrew her hand, instead holding up her apron, letting Xia De put the small change on the apron.

"Sir, he is in the room on the east side, on the bed. Please be careful, he sometimes hurts people."

The woman said. Xia De nodded, walked through the courtyard, and entered the house.

Although this home couldn't be called empty, the degree of poverty was visible to the naked eye. The only table, chairs, and cabinets in the house were very old, and there were no decorations on the walls. Xia De couldn't even find a gas lamp; the oil lamp on the table was the only lighting tool.

The person Xia De was looking for was lying on the bed in the innermost room. It was a thin man, covered with a quilt, staring at the ceiling and shivering constantly. His right hand was exposed from the quilt, tied to the rusty iron railing at the head of the bed with a rope.

Hearing Xia De's footsteps, he shivered even more, but at least he didn't try to get up and attack Xia De.

Coming to the bedside and looking at the man's appearance, Xia De also understood why "Rotten Eye Barry" said he wouldn't live long. The man's appearance at this time was exactly the same as the appearance of Detective Sparrow Hamilton that the Outsider saw on the first day he came to this world. This was the final struggle before death, and it also represented that life had irredeemably reached its end.

"Can you still communicate with me?"

Xia De asked softly. The man with pale lips shivered, staring at the ceiling with wide eyes, and said words from his throat that were hard to understand.

Even with Xia De's language proficiency, he couldn't fully understand the meaning. This meant it was the gibberish of a madman without meaning. And the few words that could be understood in Delarion and Karsenrick had meanings like "return", "monster", "ghost", "deep ones under the water", "ill-gotten wealth".

Xia De then placed a finger on the man's thin right wrist. The blue veins on the wrist protruded, making the arm look as terrifying as the roots of some diseased tree.

After a while, "She" said gently:

【Mental state is extremely poor, impurities exist in the soul, and an unknown curse caused this result. Simply put, he is indeed crazy. Note that his vitality has weakened to the extreme, and excessive mental stimulation will cause him to die prematurely.】

"I understand."

So Xia De first took out some holy water and fed it to the man on the bed. After helping him sit up, he took out his moonstone ring. Gently kissing the ring face, he sent the hazy yellow moonlight to the man's eyes:

"Confusion!"

This was a miracle obtained from Miss Olanod when he was at the Cadis Library. It can confuse summoned creatures and make people crazy, but it can also make a madman temporarily sober.

In the yellow moonlight that guided the direction in the night sky, the man's nervous and timid eyes, which were constantly trembling, turned into a bit of confusion, and then the confusion faded, and the wisdom of humanity was re-lit in his eyes.

Xia De pulled over a chair that was missing a leg and sat down, giving the man some time to recover, and then opened his mouth:

"I came for the things you stole on the central island of Green Lake. You know what I'm talking about. Now, please tell me what happened on the island, why your companions went crazy and died miserably, and where the person who led you to the island and had mysterious power went."

The man's eyes reflected his home. He opened his mouth and looked at Xia De:

"Can I... can I talk to my wife for a while?"

"No."

Xia De shook his head decisively. He didn't want to cause trouble for himself:

"If the information you give me is very useful, then I can give your wife a sum of money so that she can take your children and live well. If you don't agree, I actually have the ability to communicate with souls and then ask questions... You understand what I mean."

The man pursed his lips and nodded. He knew the stranger sitting in front of him had no intention of negotiating terms with him at all:

"Although I have become like this, I don't know everything. Being able to be the last one to die is probably good luck... What do you want to know first?"

Xia De wanted to know a lot, and he knew very well what he wanted to know most:

"Do you know that among the burial objects you brought out from the cemetery of a member of the Edwards family, there were some finger bones?"

"Yes, sold to a wealthy merchant in Randall Valley City, Karsenrick United Kingdom."

The man nodded:

"I remember very clearly, the merchant looked even crazier than us at the time, muttering that he had encountered a demon and must not look in the mirror. Those two finger bones were sold for a large sum of money, and everyone who was alive at the time received a generous reward."

Xia De frowned slightly:

"Only two?"

This number was correct. The finger bones Xia De got from Hela's home were two.

"Yes, only two. However, there was another similar bone product, the merchant didn't want it, so we gave it to Ferrero."

Hard Ferrero was also one of the grave robbers, but the other party died half a year ago. The few pieces of information about this person in "Rotten Eye Barry's" intelligence only included the time of death and burial place. Xia De noted this clue and continued to ask:

"Since even two finger bones sold for so much money, how did you become so poor?"

Xia De pointed to this house:

"It's only been three years since you landed on the island, your speed of wasting is a bit too fast, right? Do you play Rhode cards? Or did you encounter a scam or trap?"

The man leaning on the head of the bed answered with a wry smile:

"Although I am a shameful grave robber, yes, I know this, but I never gamble. As for scams, I used to be a swindler and a thief myself. Those money, in fact, were all sent back to the island by me."

"Oh?"

Xia De looked at him scrutinizingly, and the man continued:

"You also know, since our group returned from the island, everyone went crazy. But actually, it's not crazy, it's... on the island, we encountered some terrible situations."

He frowned suddenly, then groaned and covered his head:

"Sorry, really sorry. I forced myself to forget those things, and the person who led us to the island also erased our related memories, so we could safely leave that island. I can no longer tell you the details of what happened on the island. I only remember the thick fog, screams, fish-headed corpses, tentacles... oh."

He trembled all over again. Xia De fed him some more holy water to stabilize his situation.

"Originally, after leaving that island, our symptoms were very mild. But as everyone spent the harvest from that time, the headaches, nightmares, and the feeling of being watched at all times became stronger and stronger. I think this is the curse of that devil island on everyone. I spent the least, so I went crazy the slowest. In order to survive, I was willing to return all that money, so I was the last one to die."

He laughed dryly with a pale face, and told Xia De the specific location where he buried those things. It was an open space in the woods connecting the pier and Green Lake Town. He didn't dare to go deep into the island himself:

"Looking at my current physical condition, I probably won't live until the end of spring."

He was too optimistic. Xia De even felt he might not live until the end of this month:

"So, you actually don't know anything about that experience? That's fine, next question, how much do you know about that guy who led you to the island and had mysterious power?"

The man shook his head with difficulty:

"Remember what I said? In order to let us leave that island alive, he erased most of everyone's memories. This also included memories about him. I only remember he gathered us in this city and left the island with us after grave robbing, taking away the collected notebooks, rubbed inscriptions, and a small portion of burial objects. Those finger bones were what we secretly hid. That was a man, looking to be in his forties, wearing glasses and looking very much like a writer or university professor."

According to Megan, the other party was just a low-level Ring Ringed Ringed Shushi. Xia De didn't know what ability he actually had.

"Besides that, don't remember anything else?"

The man shook his head, unable to say anything. And Xia De, frowning, also pondered for a while, then took out the fountain pen he picked up from the bottom of the lake:

"This pen, and this name, do you recognize it—Drut Giles."

The man finally showed a surprised expression this time:

"Yes, yes, that guy who hired us to land on the island and had peculiar abilities was called this name. I remember he did have a very valuable fountain pen on him, but I didn't come into contact with it, not sure if it's this one... I remember, a very vague memory!"

He covered his head, his face became paler, but part of his memory was indeed recovering:

"It was a dark night with a rainstorm when we escaped from the island by boat. At that time, there were monsters under Green Lake! Yes, my god, how could I have forgotten this! There were monsters under Green Lake, they attacked us, originally three boats escaped, but when we returned to the shore, only two boats were left!"

In this way, the corpses, ore, and fountain pen Xia De found in the water ghost nest were all things belonging to this group of grave robbers. The fountain pen might have been lost by that low-level Ring Ringed Ringed Shushi.

But the information provided by the man sitting on the bed could only show that the water ghosts in Green Lake might be related to that island, still unable to provide more definitive clues about the owner of the fountain pen, Drut Giles.

Xia De changed some ways to ask questions, but the information the man could provide was very limited. In the final silence, Xia De suddenly asked:

"Describe your nightmare, don't use flowery language to over-render the atmosphere, just tell me what appeared."

"Sir, look at me like this, do I look like someone who can use very clever vocabulary?"

The grave robber smiled wryly, and then described those terrible nightmares:

"All the nightmares happened on that island, as if we had never left there. The sky was full of thick fog, monsters rushing out of the fog, and the laughter of babies. Sir, you can imagine all the horror plots that all humans can imagine in the thick fog at night, all appeared in our dreams. I have communicated with my companions, everyone's dreams are almost the same, this must be caused by our grave robbing."

Xia De didn't ask why they didn't seek help from the church and the like. He thought of another thing:

"Do you know whose grave you robbed?"

"That strange cemetery had tombstones, but that night was very dark, and there was thick fog. I only know it was the early-dying baby of the Edwards family, but I don't know who it was."

Xia De frowned slightly:

"Then... when you opened the coffin, did you see the ghost of that baby."

Xia De and Megan contacted three corpses when they landed on the island for the second time. After that, the last one didn't show a soul. This was probably because they were not the initial contacts, so the soul didn't appear.

The man on the bed shook his head blankly:

"Sorry, I don't remember. I don't remember most of the things on the island, only that it was very dangerous, there were monsters... but at least after returning home, there should be no ghosts, I only have nightmares and headaches."

Xia De nodded, and the time for the miracle to maintain sobriety was almost up. Seeing Xia De stand up, the man begged:

"Sir, what you just said..."

"I will leave a sum of money for your wife and children. But not given by me, someone will donate it after a while."

The man sighed long, shrank back into the quilt, and after a while, the spirit in his eyes faded, and he shivered unconsciously again. Xia De looked at him with a frown, and suddenly said:

"Fish-headed human corpse water ghost."

The man's shivering became more severe.

"So, three clues here: Hard Ferrero, the grave robber who died and took away the bone fragments, Drut Giles, the owner of the fountain pen, and the water ghosts related to the central island."

Xia De pondered in his heart and walked out of the house. Seeing the washerwoman looking at him, he shook his head;

"Sorry, but it really looks like there's no cure."

Saying that, he walked toward the woman, took out a stack of banknotes totaling five pounds from his pocket, and stuffed them into the woman's hand. Seeing that the two children were not here, he reminded:

"After he dies, hold a decent funeral for him. He dug other people's graves before he died, I hope he won't be dug up by others after he dies."

Hearing Xia De's words, the woman looked very panicked. However, Xia De didn't say anything more, but walked out of the courtyard. As for promising to give the woman a sum of money, he couldn't give it now, but planned to wait until he saw Megan next time and let her help in the name of Heaven Island Pharmaceuticals. Or, wait until Yiluna came to the local area and do it in the name of the church, which was also good.

Returning to Pudding Lane, Xia De put his hands in his pockets and looked toward the foggy riverbank, thinking about whether to go to Riverside Avenue to take a carriage again. He turned and walked slowly toward the alley entrance, turned left at the alley entrance, and disappeared. In the slightly empty alley, five or six minutes later, from the direction Xia De came from just now, Rotten Eye Barry, wearing an eye patch, came over with his two rough-looking subordinates.

Barry stood at the door, and the two subordinates entered the courtyard. One of them talked to the woman fiercely, and the other entered the house to check the man's condition. They quickly finished asking about the situation, told the one-eyed man about the situation, Barry shook his head with regret, and then the three of them left together.

On the roof opposite, the silver cat watched all this in the fog:

"Sure enough, they came. When the grave robbers escaped three years ago, they encountered an attack by water ghosts in the lake. It seems it might really be related to Rotten Eye Barry. Is he a collaborator of some hidden existence on the central island of Green Lake? Or, is he also coveting the things the grave robbers brought back from the island?"

【Besides this, there is actually another question.】

"She" suddenly said beside the cat's ear.

"What?"

【Didn't you say you don't easily turn into a cat?】

"Well... now the girls are not by my side, and Mia is not here, what am I afraid of?"

In "She"'s gentle laughter, Xia De cat jumped off the eaves nimbly, transformed back into human form on the ground, and only then walked toward the riverbank.

PS: It's the last day of the month, begging for votes~~ ===== CHAPTER 1617 =====