Chapter 4215: The Attacked Agent

Seeing Ajielina was very curious, Xia De told her the content of this letter, and Ajielina then asked:

"So what did Willondale ask you to investigate? What exactly was stolen from the Royal Mint?"

Xia De shook his head:

"It doesn't say here."

"It doesn't say, how are you going to investigate? There should at least be some clues, right?"

"The first batch of agents tracking the clues to the theft case knows these things. I need to complete the contact task first before I can get the specific information. Although this has nothing to do with my original purpose, but... alright, I am also very curious about what was lost from the Mint. After completing the contact task, I will go and get in touch with information in this regard."

Tracking the whereabouts of the Big-Mouthed Sparrow was Xia De's original purpose for coming here. Seeing that the investigation could finally start again, Xia De did not waste time. After confirming the location and password in the letter, he bid farewell to Ajielina and set off again:

"Strive to find the traces of the Big-Mouthed Sparrow today!"

The Gray Glove had many secret strongholds in the local area. The stronghold Xia De was told about was located in the Lower City. The meeting time was 10:30 in the morning. Xia De arrived at that remote alley ten minutes early. After finding the two-story apartment according to the house number, he knocked on the door four times quickly according to the contact requirements, but there was no sound in the house.

"Heart of Stone... There is no heartbeat in the house. Ten minutes left, is the contact person so time-conscious?"

He wanted to wait a bit longer, but after sniffing a few times lightly, he frowned again:

"Smell of blood. Have a bad premonition, alright, Key of the Door."

The door was opened, and Xia De entered this two-story apartment. Although the house had two floors, the area of each floor was not even as large as the living room of Xia De's house. It was as if it had been ransacked; all the drawers, boxes, and cabinets were opened, various sundries were thrown all over the floor, and Xia De even discovered a few fresh bullet holes on the wall of the narrow stairwell.

"The footprints on the ground have been cleaned up, although there are bullet holes, I don't see any shell casings... Echoes of the past."

When closing his eyes to listen to the echoes of time and space, just trying three times, Xia De heard the sound of gunshots with silencers and cursing. He followed the sound to the back door of the first floor where the gunfight broke out. The sound of the gunfight soon came to an end. Judging from the sound, both sides had deaths and injuries. Although the Gray Glove agent suffered a big loss, there were still survivors who escaped.

The attackers sent people to pursue, while those who stayed behind handled most of the traces in this house while rummaging through boxes and cabinets, and then left directly. There were no corpses here, but after a careful inspection, Xia De still discovered bloodstains on the wall.

Although Xia De was not at the scene at the time, he knew almost completely the entire process of the whole attack. The attackers came specifically to kill people and find things, and the Gray Glove side suffered heavy losses:

"Although I knew it wouldn't be that easy, but attacking before I arrived, is this fate telling me that searching for the Big-Mouthed Sparrow will lead me to discover an incredible secret?"

【It could also be, simply that you are unlucky.】

"She" said with a smile.

"The contact location had an incident. According to the Gray Glove's internal work procedures, I should go into hiding and wait for the next order. If I don't receive an order within a month, I need to return to Willondale and accept a one-year internal review before I can continue to work outside.

However, I don't have that kind of patience. I want to see who exactly is working against me—Blood Brew, Echo of Blood."

Xia De was in a bad mood. He originally thought that after finding the agent, he could directly hypnotize the other party to get the result, but he didn't expect that an accident would happen again. He didn't care who the people who attacked this stronghold were, but if he found the other party, even if the other party was a colleague from MI6, he would definitely make the other party look good.

According to the feedback of the spellcasting result, the bloodstains came from a living person, but it was unknown whether it was the Gray Glove agent who escaped or the attacker of unknown identity. However, Xia De could be sure that the attack probably happened an hour ago. No matter who the owner of the bloodstains was, the other party should not have gone too far.

So he followed the red light and shadow in the air all the way to the Outer City. Judging from the intermittent red residual shadows, the owner of the bloodstains was obviously seriously injured in the gunfight. The other party did not take a carriage, but tried their best to choose remote alleys to move. The owner of the bloodstains seemed to belong to the Gray Glove side. The seriously injured body no longer allowed the other party to take a detour to confuse possible pursuers, so Xia De directly found the other party's hiding place in the Outer City.

The hiding place was located in the deep back alley at the intersection of "Church Street," the main road of the Outer City, and the "Candlekeep Daily" newspaper office. It looked close to the prosperous area of the Lower City but was actually quite remote.

It was a very typical three-story narrow-body apartment. From the outside, this house was dilapidated and ordinary, with no highlights. The exterior wall was the smoky gray brick common in steam industrial cities, stained dark and even by decades of coal smoke and fog, almost as if it had merged with that deep and dirty alley.

The blood-colored traces went directly into the door. Xia De stood at the door and listened to the heartbeat for a while. After confirming that there was only one living person in the house, he used the Key of the Door to open the old door that could actually be opened with a kick.

The light in the room was extremely dim, and there was a dampness accumulated over the years. The layout in the house was no different from the living space of ordinary bottom-layer poor people. When Xia De walked inward stepping on the old pine wood floor with severe wear, the floor also made a rhythmic creaking sound.

He deliberately did not cover up the sound, just wanting to let the person in the house be prepared. He could almost be sure that the other party was not an attacker but a person from the Gray Glove. If it were an attacker, it would be impossible for him to escape here alone without anyone to take care of him.

The structure of the first floor was very simple; the living room connected to the kitchen and bedroom, and the kitchen connected to the washroom. This was the entirety of this house. When passing through the living room, Xia De also glanced at the newspapers scattered on the coffee table. On the front page headline, Margaret, who was giving a speech to soldier representatives at the front line, was wearing military uniform, appearing more capable than usual.

Although it was arranged like a temporary residence for a down-and-out foreign businessman, when passing through the living room to the bedroom, the man sitting on the ground by the window with bandages wrapped around his body, the balls of cotton stained with blood on the ground, and the medicines and medical equipment scattered around the man, all well explained that he was definitely not any businessman.

The man looked to be in his forties. At this moment, his complexion was pale and gray, his lips were blue-black, his skin was damp and cold with cold sweat, and his breathing was weak and shallow. He had already fallen into a coma. His left hand hanging on the ground was still holding a gun. When Xia De squatted down to check his situation, he discovered that the laudanum, hemostatic powder, and cans of dried herbs placed beside him seemed to be medicines produced by Heaven Island Pharmaceuticals.

Linen bandages bound the position where the other party had a gunshot wound, and the blood-stained brass medical scissors and a few bullet heads beside him explained what this person had done to himself before falling into a coma. Xia De even smelled the scent of brandy from the other party; this was both an anesthetic and a disinfectant.

"Comatose, too much blood loss... Even if woken up, I'm afraid there's no way to survive."

The fatal wound was not the gunshot wound. When Xia De checked, he discovered that the back of his head had suffered a heavy blow, and there was already intracranial hemorrhage. It was a miracle that he could escape so far and run here.

But a miracle could not reverse the injury. Intracranial hemorrhage plus taking an excessive amount of laudanum, excessive blood loss, and wound infection; if Xia De did not appear, this person would probably stop breathing within ten minutes.

"Sunlight Healing."

The right fist was clenched tightly and raised above the head, so Xia De's fist radiated a faint light downward like the sun. Xia De did not heal him, only allowed him to restore the ability to communicate normally. In fact, letting him die and then performing mediumship was easier than communicating directly. However, Xia De neither wanted to kill anyone nor wanted to wait for the other party to die; that was too much of a waste of time.

Taking advantage of the fact that the other party had not yet fully awakened, Xia De searched this house again and found some items from secret compartments and hidden places, basically confirming the other party's identity as a Gray Glove agent. And the pale-faced man, after opening his eyes and seeing the stranger in front of him, subconsciously wanted to raise the gun in his left hand, but that gun had already been placed on the table by Xia De.

"If I were you, I wouldn't move around now."

Xia De warned with a Willondale accent, standing in front of the man looking at him:

"Your aunt asked me to come and visit you, and reminded you not to forget to go and pick up the boots at the cobbler's."

Although the man was still a bit dizzy because of his serious injury, he also realized that this was the contact password:

"Thank you for the aunt's reminder, Little Michael has already helped me go and pick them up. Did the aunt say anything else?"

His voice was so hoarse that it startled even himself.

"The aunt also said, let you eat on time, remember to bring your fiancée back during the Year-End Festival this year, otherwise she will kick your butt hard."

Xia De said the last sentence of the password, and only then asked:

"What is the situation now, who attacked you?"

But even though Xia De matched the password, the pale-faced man still refused to tell Xia De the truth. He huddled in the corner of the damp room, even though he had reached the end of his life, he still retained the caution of an agent:

"How did you find this place? The contact location is not here, I cannot rule out the possibility that you were also attacked by those people and were forced to reveal the contact password."

Although his vitality was weak, his eyes were still powerful. Xia De admired such a loyal person. He reached his hand into his pocket, and the man wanted to stop him but was powerless to do so.

However, what Xia De took out was not a weapon, but a ring with the royal emblem given to him by Margaret:

"I did not come from Willondale, but accepted a secret mission, temporarily left my original station, and replaced the identity to come to Arcadia City. Princess Margaret will come here this week, I need to clear away some bedbugs in advance for the Princess's arrival, you understand what I mean."

After a moment of pause, Xia De said softly:

"I am Gray Headed Eagle." ===== CHAPTER 4216 =====