Chapter 3861

After finishing the arrangements for Xia De, Sylvia handed the key to the house to Xia De, and then really left like this.

But speaking of which, Xia De really has something to do in Wilndale. Baron Samir, who was entangled with the "Lover," thanked him for his help and gave him a house in Wilndale along with the land before his soul left.

The house deed and land deed were handled by the Baron using a fake identity, just so that he could abandon the past and live a new life with the "Lover" Haroning in the future (Chapter 3733).

So Xia De took the vault key he found in the Baron's mansion that day and went to the Karsinrik Central Bank, and really successfully found the house deed, land deed, and the key to the house in the vault.

There was the address of the house on those contracts, and Xia De was startled after seeing the address in the bank vault:

"No. 4 Royal Pharmacist Alley... This address is very familiar."

【Yes, you just came out of there.】

The address of Sylvia's private residence is No. 3 Royal Pharmacist Alley.

"No. 4 should be the house that Sylvia said has been empty... Is this also a coincidence of fate? Or is it that the snake actually noticed Sylvia long ago?"

Xia De thought in his heart, but soon shook his head indifferently. After all, no matter what, the Doomsday Snake finally died in Sylvia's hands.

The house at No. 4 Royal Pharmacist Alley has no problems. Although Baron Samir has never been here in person, he arranged for servants engaged in housekeeping services to come and clean every season through anonymous entrustment to lawyers, so although the house looks a bit old, all the furniture is complete, and it is considered clean.

Although the Baron said that this was purchased before the last round of housing price increases in Wilndale, Xia De estimated that he also spent a lot of crowns at that time. This "gift" from the Baron is indeed heavy.

"I can be considered to have a place to stay locally."

Outsiders never dislike having too many houses. Although this two-story apartment building has no attic and the ground area is far from comparable to No. 6 St. Deran Square, its location is still superior.

The Cold Spring Palace, the administrative center of the Southern Kingdom, is located in the southwest of Wilndale rather than the center. "Royal Pharmacist Alley" is only two blocks away from the Cold Spring Palace, and not far from the exit on the side with the larger house number in the alley is the Sun Church of the Wilndale Diocese.

Xia De felt happy about such a foothold, and then thought that he could let Sylvia use it when he was away.

"It's a pity that neither of these two houses has an entrance to the 【Space Maze】 in the basement... Can't be too greedy."

"She" asked gently in Xia De's ear:

【Then what should we do next? Stay in the house and read books, visit Professor Drake who moved here from Huntington City, or give your blood-type friend Bernhardt a "surprise"?】

"She" gave three choices, and Xia De was a little surprised:

"Every time you give me a choice, it means something is going to happen... Did you foresee something? It can't be that someone is going to assassinate the King today, and then I bumped into it, right?"

"She" continued to smile gently and did not give an answer.

The rain outside the window was getting heavier, and the dark clouds plus polluting gases made the city at 10:00 in the morning still look like the dark night.

Xia De finally chose not to go out, but returned to Sylvia's house and took a book from the study at will.

Sylvia's bookshelf is full of books that ordinary people can read, and most of them are works on number theory and higher mathematics. Although Xia De also likes mathematics, he chose not to tire his brain on such a vacation day. His fingers slid across the spine of the book, and finally he found "Hamilton Detective Story Collection" in Karsinrik language in the corner of the bookshelf:

"Then it's you."

At 11:00 noon, there was a knock on the door in the sound of rain. Xia De put down the book and went downstairs to open the door, but found that it was a food box sent by a restaurant a street away:

"Sir, someone ordered lunch for you, please enjoy it. The guest who ordered the meal left a message for you: please enjoy the lunch yourself."

"Could it be that Margaret is not coming at noon?"

Xia De thought in his heart, but still ate lunch first. Not long after he finished lunch, the door downstairs was knocked again. It was just that this time when Xia De opened the door, he didn't see the person who knocked, only saw a letter placed on the steps at the entrance of the apartment.

There was no sender or stamp on the envelope, but it was clearly written "To Gray Hawk II".

Xia De raised his eyebrows, and only after returning to the foyer did he open the letter. The letter was actually only one page, and it was filled with dense numbers, and every eight numbers were a group.

Xia De nodded, and after returning to the living room, he took out Gray Hawk's three codebooks from the 【Moon Library】, namely "The Queen and Her Lovers", "The Silver Knight", and "Western Front Fragments".

Then he translated the ciphertext by comparing the codebooks. The content of the ciphertext is not long—

【Gray Hawk, the Margaret Anjou you are loyal to has been kidnapped by me. If you want to save her, you must pay us a ransom. Now go to Mrs. Wilford's tailor shop, and you will get the next instructions.】

【Do not try to call the police, otherwise you will only get a result that makes you sad.】

Mrs. Wilford's tailor shop is between the Cold Spring Palace and this apartment. Although it sounds like an ordinary shop on the street, Sylvia and Xia De mentioned that many well-known fashion designers who design dresses for the royal family have walked out of this tailor shop.

Sylvia evaluated the old Mrs. Wilford like this:

"Old people don't know how to change. Just because of the fabrics I invented, she actually tried to publish in the newspaper to scold me for being shameless."

Of course, the newspaper did not publish the old lady's letter in the end.

So Xia De left the house with an umbrella. The streets on a rainy day were muddy, carriages splashed water on the stone road, ladies lifted their skirts and walked by in a hurry, and gentlemen held walking sticks, carefully avoiding the water. The spires of the magnificent buildings of the Cold Spring Palace and the city clock tower in the distance appeared and disappeared in the rain and hazy fog. The city seemed to have turned into a phantom in this spring rain.

However, Xia De liked this kind of scenery a bit. At this moment, walking in the oldest urban area in the core of Wilndale, he had the mood of being interested in everything when he first came to this world.

However, the city walk did not last long. After successfully finding the tailor shop, the old lady with silver hair just glanced at Xia De and signaled Xia De to follow her to the inner room:

"The clothes prepared for you are inside, go and try them on."

"How do you know it was prepared for me?"

"Of course, it was judged from your height and weight. The size of the clothes will not lie."

The old lady obviously didn't want to talk to Xia De too much, and returned to the rocking chair just now to sit down and continue to look at what was in her hand. If Xia De didn't read it wrong, the magazine introduced the avant-garde clothing design manuscript published by Sylvia after getting inspiration from his "Weak Locked-Room · Cinderella".

"It seems that this old lady is not as rigid as Sylvia said."

The "kidnapper" did not prepare formal dresses for Xia De, but a set of casual clothes.

Ivory white pure cotton shirt, the collar edge was stitched with an extremely fine white silk thread, and there were two small mother-of-pearl buttons sewn on the inside of the cuffs; then it was a dark blue twill hunting jacket, knee-length, the version was neat and not bloated, with dark patch pockets on both sides, which is convenient for storing notebooks or some kind of orange and white cat; the pants were gray flannel trousers, straight-cut, the trouser line was straight, and there was no extra decoration.

The waist was fixed with a black cowhide narrow belt, the belt buckle was a simple brass square buckle, and the surface was treated with matte. In addition to the shirt and upper and lower clothes, it was also matched with a dark gray dome hat and round-headed black Oxford shoes.

Although this is not the kind of dirt-resistant black clothes that Xia De often wears, when he put it on and went to look in the mirror, he still felt that this old-fashioned but modern-designed clothing was quite suitable for him.

"Very good."

Mrs. Wilford nodded with satisfaction, and after Xia De changed his clothes, she walked to his side and helped him tidy up:

"Although I have never approved of designing directly based on a few size numbers without seeing the owner of the clothes, your figure is simply the most standard clothing model. Very good, very good. But it's raining outside, you'd better call a carriage before leaving."

Obviously, the "kidnapper" had paid all the expenses for this expensive set of clothes, but Xia De came here for clues:

"Excuse me, did the person who ordered the clothes for me leave a message for me?"

The old lady shook her head in the sound of rain hitting the shop window:

"No, but she has a strange request: the changing room prepared for you is not allowed to have other people enter within three days."

Xia De suddenly realized, claiming to go to collect the old clothes, and returned to the room located on the inner side of the tailor shop:

"Since no one has come within three days—Echo of the Past!"

So the deliberately disguised clear voice entered his ears—

"Gray Hawk, you are smart. Since you can think of finding clues through sound. Then take the next step to Thornley's flower greenhouse, where there will be instructions for the next step."

"Thornley's flower greenhouse" is a flower shop with a quite large area. It is located in the south of Wilndale. When Xia De got off the carriage and looked at the flower shop that was completely like a glass greenhouse located on the street, he was quite curious about which noble's industry this was.

Like the tailor shop just now, this time when Xia De just entered the flower shop, the middle-aged man behind the counter said to him quite politely:

"Good afternoon, the flowers you want to take away have been prepared, please sit here for a while, we will send them to you immediately."

Xia De was puzzled:

"Do you know me?"

"Respected guest, this is my first meeting with you. But I know the clothes you are wearing, this was purchased from Mrs. Wilford, right? It really suits you."

The middle-aged man behind the counter was Mr. Thornley, the owner of the greenhouse flower shop. He let the apprentice of the flower shop take Xia De to the rest area in the greenhouse, and before long he personally held the packaged roses and walked over:

"Guest, these are the roses you ordered. In addition, give you this, it is raining and the air is humid now, so these flowers do not need extra water. But if you want to raise these flowers indoors for a long time later, then please remember to use this nutrient solution to replenish water for it every day."

That bouquet of roses was all red, and the nutrient solution was sealed in a silver-plated pewter carved small pot.

Based on the experience of the first two times, Xia De already had a guess about what to do next. So he took away the roses and boarded the carriage at the entrance of the flower shop, first told the coachman an address at random, then threw out a card to seal the roses, and finally opened the nutrient solution, aiming an empty wine bottle at it:

"Miracle - Blood Wine Brewing!"

This miracle is only effective for blood or things similar to blood, and this time there were actually a small amount of blood threads in the liquid in the pot responding to the power of the miracle.

So the blood brew entered the wine bottle, and then it was dripped into his eyes by Xia De. 【Blood Echo】 saw the blurred blood-colored shadow outside the carriage window on this rainy day.

"Sure enough, it's like this. It seems that my skills as an agent are really comprehensive."

Xia De smiled and let the coachman follow the string of blood-colored shadows according to his instructions.

So the carriage drove through the streets and alleys of Wilndale on this rainy day, and finally stopped on the bank of the Dorn River flowing through the urban area of Wilndale. The coachman saw the flowers made by illusion, so he didn't notice that Xia De had one less large bouquet of roses in his hand.

After paying the fare, Xia De continued to pursue the blood-colored light and shadow into the cargo warehouse on the street along the river. The Dorn River is the river with the largest flow in the urban area of the Southern capital, so there will be this kind of cargo warehouse that temporarily stores goods for people along the river.

And after Xia De entered the door, the owner of the cargo warehouse recognized Xia De at a glance like the tailor shop owner and the flower shop owner. However, there was no special reason this time. The middle-aged man bowed to Xia De, and then said as if reading lines in a stage play:

"Spy, you finally found this place. That's right, this place was indeed our stronghold, but the noble lady you are looking for has long been transferred by us. Even if you beat me down now, don't think about asking any clues from me."

"So this time I have to find a way to interrogate you, right?"

Xia De asked, and the cargo warehouse owner hurriedly shook his head:

"No, no, I haven't finished speaking yet, cough cough—but our game is not over yet, I very kindly left clues for you in the warehouse, go and find it, your princess is still waiting for you."

After he finished speaking, he took Xia De to the backyard of the cargo warehouse, handed Xia De a key, and pointed to a closed door in the backyard:

"Her Highness left things in here."

The cargo warehouse owner whispered, and then left from here. Xia De guessed that the other party should be a subordinate controlled by Margaret, so he didn't make things difficult for him anymore. And after Xia De opened that door, he saw strange things placed in it.

Red walnut carved tableware cabinet, white mahogany dining table and chairs, dark green velvet cushions with golden tassels, neatly stacked tablecloths with white iris patterns, multi-layer silver branch candlesticks, silver cups and gold plates, beeswax long candles, decorative porcelain vases, pure silver dinner knives and forks, various silver-plated glass wine cups...

These things were piled up together in a mess. In addition, there were sea salt, black pepper, olive oil, black vinegar and other seasonings in crystal bottles on the shelf on the side, as well as lobsters, sea fish, fresh vegetables and fruits sprinkled with water, and slaughtered and cut meat, etc., stored with ice.

The things piled up here can completely be used to hold a small banquet. Xia De blinked in the sound of rain, then raised his hand and grabbed the huge canvas hanging on the wall on the side, lifted it up fiercely, and covered all the items in front of him with the canvas.

After taking away the canvas, he saw a floor of toys, and then blank cards were thrown out by him and accurately hit those toys. So the sundries and food piled up in the warehouse all turned into a thin stack of cards in Xia De's hands in the end.

And after the warehouse was "cleared" by Xia De, he saw some paper scraps scattered on the floor that had been deliberately cleaned. After collecting the paper scraps, the number of fragments was close to three digits.

"Jigsaw puzzle? It seems that this test is the ability to restore information in a short time."

Xia De thought in his heart, found the 【Ring of Longevity】 and put it on his hand and turned it:

"Miracle - Breath of Years."

Time flowed backward, all the paper scraps flew to one place, and finally turned into a hard card. But this is not a Rhode card but a boat ticket. The address is a small pier on the bank of the Dorn River not far from here, and the departure time is noted before 4:00 this afternoon.

And it is only 2:30 now, it seems that Xia De's action is quite rapid.

Xia De then held an umbrella and left the cargo warehouse, walking alone on the street along the river in the rain. There were only a few small boats floating on the Dorn River in early spring. Although the river channel had thawed, it was not yet the high water season, and it was not enough for large cargo ships to pass.

He thought about what might happen later in his heart, and before long he walked along the river embankment to the pier on the pier. He saw a lonely small boat tied to one side of the pier.

The shape of this boat is almost exactly the same as Xia De's boat, which means it is not only small, but also needs to be rowed with oars. There was a compass on the boat. After Xia De picked it up, he immediately understood that this was a "treasure hunting compass" made by Sylvia.

So he untied the rope, picked up the oar, and rowed forward along the direction pointed by the pointer.

The thin fog made the front of the river channel hazy. Xia De, who was rowing alone, would check whether the compass pointer changed from time to time, and I don't know when the fog was so thick that he couldn't see the river banks on both sides of the river channel.

"No, it's not fog, it's space anomaly. This compass brought me to the space anomaly zone... The test this time turned out to be like this."

He stopped rowing, then put his hand above his pocket, so the card storing bone powder automatically flew from the deck into his hand. Xia De held the card and shook it at the outside of the boat a few times, so the bone powder fell into the water with a rustling sound:

"Miracle - Summon Small Wooden Boat."

Xia De's own small boat floated out of the water next to this ordinary small boat, as if it had been waiting for Xia De here originally. Xia De then jumped to the boat belonging to him next door, and did not forget to connect the original small boat with this boat with a chain, letting the two boats move forward together.

However, he did not look at the compass with the pointer spinning wildly, but used 【Strong Space Perception】 to probe the obviously artificially constructed abnormal space here. After finding the direction, he let his small boat that could penetrate the space barrier sail toward the deeper part of the fog.

There was still the sound of pattering rain all around, but Xia De, who was rowing at this moment, seemed to be the only one left in the world in the fog. However, he was sure that he hadn't found the wrong direction. About ten minutes later, a black shadow symbolizing land appeared in front of the fog. Continuing to move forward, the small boat touched the pier on the edge of the small island lightly.

His own small boat disappeared. After tying up the ordinary boat, Xia De officially arrived on the island. There was no fog on the island, and the vision was very clear. This island was not very large, and a white small building with four floors stood in the center. There were herbs planted in front of the house and there was a garden, and a grape trellis was also built on one side of the building.

This is the entire landscape on this small island.

And looking out of the island again, there was no wide water area that Xia De had just sailed from, only the river channel of the Dorn River and the city scenery in the rain on both sides of the river channel.

And it didn't rain on this island.

"Is this the river island in the middle of the Dorn River?"

"Of course not, this is a space fold. It is a space anomaly zone that I artificially opened and created by using the tiny space cracks that originally existed in the middle of the river channel. I spent a full year maintaining the stability here. Although it cannot be compared with Green Lake Island, it is enough for me and a few people to use."

"This island is one of my safe houses in Wilndale. This time it is just temporarily lent to Margaret."

Sylvia, who appeared beside Xia De, said. Compared to the morning, she had changed into a dress, and now she was wearing a black waist-length long skirt. Seeing Xia De looking at her, the young black-haired witch coughed:

"Oh~ Spy named Gray Hawk II, I didn't expect you to really find the place where we hid the kidnapped princess. You read the ciphertext, heard the clues, discovered the red traces, pieced together the destroyed tickets, and finally broke through the fog and sailed through the rapids to get here."

"I admit that you are a spy loyal to the princess, but if you want to see that beautiful princess, you still have to experience the next test."

"You are the kidnapper? Sylvia, you don't want to have a fight with me, do you?"

Xia De asked hesitantly, and the witch full of smiles shook her head:

"Of course not, this is a romantic occasion, of course it can't be too violent. Didn't I say it at the beginning? If you want to get the princess, you have to pay the ransom. So did you bring the ransom?"

While speaking, she blinked at Xia De, and Xia De blinked:

"Really want money?"

Sylvia shook her head:

"Of course not. Xia De, aren't you usually very smart? Think about it carefully again."

She pointed at Xia De's pocket, and Xia De suddenly realized:

"I understand, yes, of course I brought the ransom. On this journey to find the princess's whereabouts, I also had gains on the journey. Then let me use these gains as a ransom to win the heart of that beautiful blonde princess."

?? PS: This plot is one piece, not suitable for splitting chapters, so it was made into one chapter.

? It can be considered as adding a chapter, after all, the word count has doubled.