Chapter 358: Fear Before Death

Xia De played with the ugly little wood carving in his hand, while the priest suddenly stopped and signaled Xia De to look to the side:

"We're here."

12 Hangerton Garden Street was the original residence of the Freeman family. Now the family had moved out of here, and the priest who visited them, relying on his extremely strong personality charm, actually borrowed the key to this house that hadn't found a buyer yet.

The family seemed to have left in a hurry; the trash from moving was still scattered in the garden, where weeds were growing wildly due to lack of care. But they hadn't moved away for too long, so it just looked a little messy here.

The priest took a bunch of keys and opened the iron lock wrapped around the fence. After walking a dozen steps along the path, they reached the front door. During this time, neither Xia De nor Priest Ao Gu Si felt anything unusual.

"Judging from the information obtained so far, except for Mr. Freeman, no one else in the family encountered an accident. Mr. Freeman's death also went through a very long cycle, so I think the danger here won't be particularly great."

The priest said to Xia De, who was looking at the garden, while holding the keys:

"But don't let your guard down. Whether it's a vengeful spirit or a relic, they both have the ability to kill us directly, so be cautious in a while."

"I understand, Priest."

The old man nodded, lowered his head, closed his eyes, and whispered a prayer to 【Mr. Dawn】, then held the holy emblem hanging on his chest, confirming that this divine artifact with exorcism ability was fine, and only then used the largest one in the key ring to open the front door of the house.

After entering, he didn't smell any strange odors, but because the house had been closed for a period of time, after suddenly opening the door, one could see tiny dust particles floating in the sunlight.

Xia De closed the door on his way and reached out to touch the wall, turning on the gas lamp in the foyer.

Priest Ao Gu Si held up his holy emblem at this time, rotating it evenly toward the surroundings, muttering words in his mouth. So Xia De also used the strange arts 【Echoes of the Past】 and 【Echoes of Blood】 to investigate the situation around him. The former only let him hear the voices of neighbors passing by the street outside, while the latter couldn't see any overly obvious bloodstains.

"It's probably not a vengeful spirit, but there must be something evil here."

The old priest frowned tightly:

"If it really is a relic, then we might be in trouble. Like this, I'll take you to see the place where Mr. Freeman died first. After he fell from the attic trapdoor, he rolled down the stairs connecting the third floor and the second floor, and unfortunately broke his neck."

Even though it was daytime and it looked very safe here, the two didn't intend to act separately and search individually; it was safest to walk together in such a dangerous place.

The house was almost emptied, and only the scattered debris on the floor and the dust marks on the walls where picture frames had been placed for years could show that this was originally a warm home.

The process of going upstairs didn't encounter any trouble. At the corner of the stairs going up to the second floor, Xia De's eyes finally saw a clear blood-red glow. The bloodstains on the ground were distributed in patches; it should be the blood that flowed out from the place where Mr. Freeman was hit when he fell to the ground and couldn't move.

The old priest squatted down, the ring of fate behind him revealing a corner. After the 【Undead】 Spirit Rune radiated spiritual light, the priest touched the floor with his hand, which was slightly emitting gray light, while Xia De maintained the use of the spell and looked up.

Very strangely, the clear bloodstains not only remained on the platform at the corner of the stairs, but also existed on the stairs, and they spread down from a higher place. Although the amount wasn't much, it also showed that Mr. Freeman had already been injured before rolling down the stairs.

"Was the injury sustained when falling from the attic to the third floor, or was he already injured in the attic?"

Xia De speculated in his heart, and Priest Ao Gu Si stood up at this time:

"I felt the fear of the soul. He experienced great fear before he died. It wasn't fear of death, and it was completely different from that kind of feeling."

"How was Mr. Freeman's body handled?"

Xia De asked. If there was a body, he could actually use 【Echoes of the Soul】 directly.

"According to the family's wishes, he was cremated and buried in Tobesk's public cemetery."

The priest said, looking up with Xia De. In fact, even if it wasn't cremation, given the current weather, I'm afraid the body wouldn't be enough to support Xia De's mediumship.

"Let's continue going up; I saw some bloodstains."

Xia De suggested.

So they arrived at the third floor, and the bloodstains indeed extended down from the trapdoor leading to the attic. Xia De found the small mechanism to activate the trapdoor by the window. Amidst the sound of gears turning inside the wall, a square opening appeared on the ceiling, and an iron ladder was lowered.

The two still couldn't feel any traces of elements, so Xia De walked in front, the priest followed behind, and they climbed into the attic together.

The attic was also emptied, leaving only some cardboard boxes by the wall. The bloodstains appeared from the right side of the attic, but now it was cleaned too cleanly here, so seeing the bloodstains was useless.

"Actually, I once suspected."

When Xia De squatted down to check those cardboard boxes, Priest Ao Gu Si suddenly mentioned:

"I once suspected that all of this was actually caused by that Mrs. Freeman. She made some noises in the house to scare Mr. Freeman, and then used drugs to affect Mr. Freeman's spirit. Finally, avoiding everyone, she pushed Mr. Freeman down in the attic, creating the illusion of an accidental death."

This kind of speculation was a bit too terrible; it was more like a plot from a court political novel. Xia De turned to look at the priest with some surprise:

"Do you have any evidence?"

"No, it's just speculating according to the darkest side of the human heart... you can just treat it as me proposing a possibility."

But this possibility indeed existed, because they really didn't find anything suspicious in the house.

In the boxes in the corner of the attic were the paintings of the deceased Mr. Freeman before his death. It was impossible for an artist to sell every painting, not to mention that practice sketches were worthless to a small painter.

The sketches in the box counted as Mr. Freeman's relics, but it was unknown why Mrs. Freeman didn't take them away.

The paintings themselves were ordinary items, and the specific painting time was written on the back of each painting. The earliest one was a work from half a year ago, while the most recent one was completed in the last week or two, which was the period when Mr. Freeman claimed there was a problem in the house.

In this world, although the danger level of the artist profession couldn't compare to that of a folklorist, it was greater than that of ignorant ordinary people. Mental problems would greatly affect a painter's creative style. Mr. Freeman originally tended to use intense colors to depict scenery under the sun, but the three oil paintings from the recent period were almost all in cool tones, and there were some strange things in the pictures.

"Priest, look at this."

Xia De pointed to one of them, which was a work from a week before Mr. Freeman's death. The picture was the Freeman family's garden, painting their own house from a low-angle perspective. He almost painted his own house as a haunted house, and at the second-floor window, a very blurry person was clearly standing.

"Is this the strange thing he saw, or a family member who happened to be at the window?"

The priest was also very puzzled.

And in another painting by Mr. Freeman before his death, he painted his own living room. At that time, wood carving tools had already appeared in the picture, and beside them was the small priest wood carving gifted by Priest Ao Gu Si. It looked like Mr. Freeman wanted to carve by referring to it.

"So, why exactly was he obsessed with wood carving?"

In the oil paintings from two weeks before Mr. Freeman's death, some wooden boxes piled in the corner were painted. During this period, his mental problems weren't serious yet, and the colors and composition methods used were relatively normal.

Xia De looked at this third oil painting and asked Priest Ao Gu Si:

"Priest, look at these boxes, are they wooden boxes used by the Kingdom Post Office for shipping?"

No one had ever sent anything other than letters to Xia De, so Xia De didn't know much about this. But Priest Ao Gu Si recognized them:

"That's right, they are wooden boxes for shipping by the post office. Look, he even painted the metal fixing corners used to prevent the wooden boxes from falling apart during transport. These black fixing corners represent that these are valuable items. The red label on top represents that this was shipped from Karsenrik."

"In the last two weeks, did Mr. Freeman come into contact with anything strange?"

Xia De proposed a conjecture, and then pointed to the content on the oil painting:

"For example, these things sent from afar."

Priest Ao Gu Si frowned and nodded:

"There is such a possibility. In a while, when I go to return the key, we can ask together. However, whether there are other problems with this house still needs to be searched carefully."

Just like that, time arrived at eleven o'clock in the morning, and outside it was still foggy. Xia De and Priest Ao Gu Si finished the final search of the garden, left the garden, locked the fence, and planned to take a carriage to return the key to Mrs. Freeman.

The whole house was completely unusual; Xia De almost touched every inch of the wall with his hands, but he couldn't feel the traces of elements and spirits. The priest even suggested checking the corners of the garden to prevent anything from being buried in the soil, but in fact, they were overthinking it.

Wasting two hours and gaining nothing made both of them a bit frustrated. But after all, they were out to try their luck for 15 credits, and gaining nothing was something they had anticipated in advance.

So they ate lunch together at a restaurant in the nearby neighborhood, talked about the truth of the painter's death accident, and joked that they could provide inspiration for Duo Luo Qian. After finishing the meal, the two took a carriage to the apartment temporarily rented by Mrs. Freeman and her children.

The apartment was also in the eastern district of Tobesk, and it took twenty minutes to walk to the destination. This was an ordinary street in the city, with both shops and apartments for rent along the street. At noon on Thursday, the bustling appearance of people coming and going was very lively, and this place was only separated from Doctor Schneider's psychological clinic by three streets. ===== CHAPTER 359 =====