Chapter 2207

"What is going to be performed here next?"

Xia De asked curiously. Buying tickets here does not give physical tickets, and the scenery on the stage does not have too much directional nature.

"I don't know either."

The priest said so. He had investigated Mr. Vincent Taylor in advance and knew his appearance, so he was looking around preparing to find someone.

"Priest, your efficiency is too low, follow me, I will take you to find him."

Saying this, he pulled the priest from the side door of the courtyard and prepared to go to the backstage.

"Detective, do you know the people here?"

"Of course I know, but it's not particularly familiar."

A few minutes later.

"Oh, look who this is? Detective Hamilton, why do you have time to come to us? Little Hank at the door wouldn't have made you buy a ticket again, right?"

The backstage of the theater shouldn't let outsiders enter casually, but the man at the door had seen Xia De last time. After letting Xia De and Priest August in, he immediately found the troupe leader, Mrs. Marian.

The woman wearing a red dress but wearing an apron outside welcomed Xia De very enthusiastically. Xia De shook his head to indicate that the ticket was nothing, and then introduced Priest August as his friend, and then stated his intention:

"I am investigating a tricky case."

Mrs. Marian nodded knowingly, inviting Xia De and Priest August to go upstairs to talk. The wooden wall divided the courtyard into two. There was a low two-story building in the courtyard on this side as the backstage. At this moment, the actors on the first floor were busy making up and dressing up. The story they were going to perform seemed to be the story of the hunter, the princess, and the dwarf. Xia De saw a man with a miserable face, working hard to brush paint on a red apple to make it black to show that it was poisonous.

Mrs. Marian led Xia De and Priest August through the crowd and went upstairs, finding that it was quite quiet here. Although there were people here dealing with stage props, the corner by the window could still find a place away from others.

From the window here, you can directly see the auditorium downstairs. Priest August reached out and closed the window, and Xia De said:

"Is there a Mr. Vincent Taylor in the Jasmine Opera Troupe?"

Mrs. Marian nodded unexpectedly:

"Yes, are you looking for him? That's a tall and thin young man who works part-time here. Did he commit a crime? I knew that such people from other places coming to our Tobesk would definitely cause trouble. And usually I think he is not right. Last time the troupe lost two broken chairs, maybe he stole them. People from other places like to steal small things."

Then she got to the point:

"Taylor has been especially wrong recently. Our troupe has not performed those Karsinrik plays since this spring, but he said that my hair is long and my knowledge is short, saying that because I am a woman, I am too cautious, hindering the cultural exchange between the two countries, and it is people like me who make the contradictions between the two countries irreconcilable."

Priest August asked:

"You didn't fire him?"

"I just treated it as if he had drunk a few more cups of horse urine and didn't care about him. But later I also let the troupe arrange a few Karsinrik plays, and the result was okay, so I didn't pursue it. I am not unable to listen to what others say."

Mrs. Marian was still quite proud to say this. Xia De felt that her influence by "prejudice" might have been deep enough:

"How is his performance usually?"

"Usually? Oh, Detective Hamilton~ You are the famous detective of Tobesk, and you are favored by big figures like Duchess Jia Lin Na. Since you think he has a problem, he must have a problem. I think he usually can say some big truths, but who knows what he thinks in his heart."

Not only thinking that someone is relatively bad is "prejudice," in fact, because of personal experience and social background and other factors, having good ideas about specific objects also belongs to "prejudice." These are one-sided and arbitrary views, just like now.

Xia De had to interrupt her description and ask more carefully:

"I want to ask, does he usually talk about things like foreigners, people from other places, contradictions between men and women here? And use very extreme ideas to comment."

Mrs. Marian nodded immediately:

"Yes, especially in the last few weeks, as long as someone is willing to talk to him, he never hesitates to express his views. At first, everyone was annoyed, but he just kept expressing his views endlessly. If anyone ignored him, he would triumphantly say that the person was guilty and didn't dare to reason with him. But..."

She frowned and thought, probably recalling the whole thing:

"But, in fact, some things he said were also reasonable, at least more reasonable than those critics in the newspaper. So although everyone was a bit annoyed with him, no one said they wanted to drive him away."

"May I ask, what reasonable things has he said?"

Priest August asked again. Xia De estimated that the priest was still evaluating whether this person was hopeless.

Mrs. Marian thought again:

"He said that the rising housing prices in Tobesk year by year are the result of those poor people from other places running into the city, so heavy taxes should be imposed on people from other places, their children should be restricted from studying locally, and they should not be allowed to buy houses locally."

But that Mr. Taylor himself is also a person from other places.

"He also said that the ambition of Karsinrik people to destroy our Tobesk people will never disappear. So every Karsinrik person is bad, and we should strike first. Arresting all foreigners is a bit exaggerated, but we can start by establishing files for every local foreigner and investigating and monitoring their residence at any time."

He probably doesn't know how idle the City Hall has to be to extract so much manpower.

"He also said that the current nobles are making money on the bodies of ordinary citizens, and all nobles should die..."

Mrs. Marian also realized that this sentence could not be said indiscriminately, and immediately closed her mouth and changed the subject:

"He also mentioned you, Detective Hamilton. Of course, I know that when he talked about you, what he said were all lies he made up because he was jealous of your talent."

"What did he say?"

Xia De asked with interest.

"He said Xia De Hamilton became famous only by relying on the Duchess, saying that you actually have no real ability at all. Those stories of yours were all written by people paid for, and those cases you saw in the newspaper were also specially arranged for you by Duchess Jia Lin Na. He said that for nobles, killing a few people and arranging a few so-called cases is not difficult at all."

After finishing this paragraph quickly, Mrs. Marian shook her head again:

"That's why I said everyone doesn't like him. Although many things he said are reasonable, such words are too mean. Miss Louisa is our main sponsor. She is a truly noble lady. How could she take money to write stories for you?"

It seems that her "prejudice" against Dorothy defeated Taylor's "prejudice" against Xia De.

"Thank you for the information you provided, I basically understand."

Xia De nodded and exchanged glances with Priest August, confirming that the old priest had nothing else to ask, and then said:

"Then is Mr. Taylor here now? Or where can we find him?"

Mrs. Marian then smiled and said:

"You came very coincidentally, he is here. Just now if you said you were looking for him, I would have led you directly to him. He works as a temporary actor in the troupe, and now he should have put on makeup and is ready to go on stage."

"Then Mr. Taylor's role is..."

"Hunter's attendant. It's the hunter's attendant in the story who wants to let the princess go, but finds the princess's trail and wants to continue tracking, but is still fobbed off... Oh, look, he is there."

Mrs. Marian suddenly raised her hand and pointed out the window. Xia De and Priest August both looked over. From their angle, they could just see a young man carrying a bow, wearing a deerstalker hat, and wearing a bright green hunting suit coming to the stage. Of course, the real hunter would not wear such bright clothes.

The audience under the stage thought the play was finally going to start, so they sat down on the seats one after another, preparing to watch the performance, but Priest August upstairs asked suspiciously:

"I watched this play when I was a child. When was it adapted so that the hunter's attendant became the first actor to appear? I remember, shouldn't the current Wang Hou appear first? Even if the beginning is omitted, it should be the current Wang Hou appearing first, right?"

Mrs. Marian also saw that something was wrong, but she couldn't jump out of the window upstairs to stop it. Xia De reached out and pushed open the window, letting all three hear the sound from the stage. The young man wearing the hunter's assistant costume, Taylor, cleared his throat and then said loudly:

"Respected citizens and friends,

We are standing at the crossroads of the era, facing the severe reality that the North-South War is about to break out. To this day, what we see is the truth about the ugly and dirty Karsinrik people, which forces us to face a painful reality: the world is splitting into two irreconcilable camps. This is not prejudice. One of them—obviously not us—is full of that kind of undemocratic and unequal things that make people awe-inspiring.

In our hometown, the Delarion Kingdom, the loyal people proudly defend..."

"Oh, my God! What is he going to do?"

Mrs. Marian groaned and held the wall, and then almost leaned her body out of the window, shouting loudly to the outside:

"Stop him, don't let him talk nonsense anymore! Taylor, what are you going to do? Do you want us all to have no food? Oh, for God's sake, someone pull him down, don't let him open his mouth again!"

Even if the persuasive power brought by "prejudice" is no matter how strong, it cannot let Mrs. Marian, who is responsible for the entire opera troupe, let him make such a dangerous speech here.