Chapter 563

According to the idea, the numbers were corresponded to the words in the books, but in the end, among the six possibilities of book and number correspondence listed, none of them were meaningful sentences.

"Um... I guessed wrong. Is the train of thought completely wrong, or is it more complex than I thought?"

Thinking in his heart that this matter had nothing to do with himself, he tried again. If it was still wrong, he would burn this letter. So Xia De observed the characteristics of those numbers again, and when he saw the last digit of each group, he thought again:

"Could it be that the last digit not only corresponds to the book number but also corresponds to shifting? Number one, does it mean jumping to the next word after finding the corresponding word?"

This kind of thinking had no basis, but trying it didn't cost gold pounds. So, he tried twelve more possibilities according to "shifting forward one or two or three words" and "shifting backward one or two or three words."

Although the sentences on the dense page of paper still had no practical meaning, Xia De saw some clues:

"《Western Front Remnants》 corresponds to 1, 《The Queen and Her Lovers》 corresponds to 2, 《The Silver Knight》 corresponds to 3. This arrangement of shifting backward by the corresponding number of digits after finding the word, although the sentences pieced together are still not understandable, after skipping the words corresponding to '2', it seems to make some sense... Could it be..."

Xia De widened his eyes slightly:

"Numbers 1 and 3 correspond to shifting backward; number 2 corresponds to shifting forward?"

Xia De felt as if a hot current was surging from his back, and then realized it was the cat's tail running onto his shoulder sweeping his back.

The excitement made him impatient to translate again. This time, he only needed to look up the words corresponding to the last digit "2" among the first 10 groups of words again. Soon, the first ten words formed half a sentence:

Gray-headed hawk, original emergency mission notification

"Oh, really easy."

A smile that Xia De couldn't control appeared on his face, and he looked at the alarm clock on the table. It was eleven o'clock in the morning:

"Really interesting morning."

【But meaningless.】

"Yes, meaningless, but very interesting. I am indeed quite smart... and bored."

He gained huge satisfaction through this puzzle-solving game:

"However, Gray-headed hawk? Yes, I have heard this code name."

Looking at the square shrouded in thin mist outside the window, he thought for a while, his eyes narrowed slightly:

"A month ago I went to collect my salary, Mr. Giles Johnson mentioned that this is the ace agent of Karsenrik. Two years ago, MI6 received news that Karsenrik had secretly dispatched two ace agents in the Gray Glove organization to lurk in Tobesk. One was caught half a year ago, but the other party committed suicide. The other one is the famous 'Gray-headed hawk'." (Chapter 368)

Although they were opponents of MI6, at that time Mr. Johnson's tone also expressed admiration for this agent. Gray-headed hawk had done quite a lot of things, stealing the special alloy records of the Steel City Gondor, the gold robbery ten years ago, the accident at the Cold Water Port shipyard eight years ago...

When Xia De overlapped the seemingly omnipotent but unknown ace agent of a foreign country with the poor detective who died in a foreign land, in the inexplicable dislocation, he actually felt that the two should have been one person.

"Sparrow Hamilton, is he the Karsenrik ace agent Gray-headed hawk?"

He sat in the chair, holding the cat and looking out the window:

"Clearly so amazing, with so many wonderful stories, but still died here because of ridiculous reasons, and even except for me, no one can know where he was buried."

Thinking like this, it was really a bit sad.

"The first time I heard of 'Gray-headed hawk' was at the 'Lucky' banquet at Lake View Manor. That night I also heard a lot of news, all of which proved to be directly related to me. So that's it, the clue was already obtained at that time. Sparrow... Gray-headed hawk..." (Chapter 74)

Although the time the outlander spent with the living Detective Sparrow totaled no more than ten minutes, he still missed that detective very much. After the detective's death, by piecing together clues step by step, he finally restored the past life of the detective who was also a stranger. Xia De could only say that this world was too cruel and dangerous for ordinary people.

This secret letter in his hand is a mission order, requiring the agent Gray-headed hawk to use the upper-class connections he had gained in Tobesk for three years before the end of the Dacheng Player Luo De Card Tournament in the autumn of 1853, and while ensuring his own safety, to contact the court jester Virgil Cameron from the Principality of Sete as much as possible.

In the order, Gray-headed hawk is required to personally get a secret letter from Virgil Cameron and deliver it to the determined location according to the regulations.

"Where is the determined location? This is not important. However, actually letting Gray-headed hawk take the risk of exposing his identity to personally take the secret letter, it seems this is really an amazing mission."

Xia De sighed in his heart, but thought of the order given to him by Director Anluosi:

"Director Anluosi said that MI6 suspects that this Virgil Cameron will meet with Karsenrik people at the finals of the Dacheng Player, and asked me to monitor the other party as much as possible; and what Karsenrik is asking me to do now is to obtain and deliver a secret letter... So, MI6 really got the correct information this time, the Principality of Sete really has a connection with the Karsenrik people."

He seemed to have become a key figure in this mission. More precisely, Xia De could already fully say that he could dominate the development of this incident.

"But Gray-headed hawk should not be the person MI6 noticed who would meet with Cameron, because the order Gray-headed hawk received was only to do this before the end of the Dacheng Player, not as MI6 learned from intelligence, to do this at the finals of the Dacheng Player. Um..."

He looked at the envelope, put the cat on the table, got up to get a fire basin, and then burned the envelope and letter paper, watching them burn into ashes with his own eyes.

Xia De did not intend to do this because he had no reason to do it at all, and Detective Sparrow only asked him to burn this letter. He had no intention at all to tell MI6 the information he had learned, which would lead to him having to explain more things.

"I haven't seen this letter, I don't know what identity Sparrow Hamilton has at all, I just took over Uncle Sparrow's detective agency. I know the orange cat Mia, but I don't know Gray-headed hawk."

Xia De said to himself in his heart.

Because of 《Whisper Chapter》 and the Chosen One, his troubles were already enough, and he must not get involved in the affairs of foreign spies.

After burning the envelope and letter paper, he planned to take the cat out to eat, which was a celebration of finally settling all connections with Detective Sparrow. This task that lasted for two and a half months was over, and he could be considered to have truly inherited all the detective's legacy.

But thinking of the burned envelope, he felt that the code composed of eight digits seemed a bit familiar. Only then did he remember that on the weekend when Lei Qianya returned to Tobesk, when Xia De was waiting for the carriage at the alley entrance of Silver Cross Avenue, he was bumped into, and then picked up a newspaper, and there were similar codes written on the newspaper.

"There is such a thing?"

He sat in the chair in front of the desk and recalled that day.

The way to meet the carriage that Dorothy told him was wearing gray gloves on both hands and an animal brooch on his chest. That brooch was a brass brooch with an eagle head image that Xia De found in the bedroom desk of the late Detective Sparrow.

"Um..."

Later, he met President Stan of the Association of Prophets on Silver Cross Avenue. Xia De of course wouldn't say he was waiting for Princess Lei Qianya, so he casually made up that he was performing a detective mission and preparing to meet someone.

So President Stan gave Xia De a divination on the spot and gave the suggestion of "wearing the gray gloves backward, changing the newspaper in your hand to 《Three Penny Newspaper》, and then buying a red rose to hold in your hand."

"Is there really such a thing?"

President Stan is the most excellent diviner in the Tobesk area. The divination he once gave Xia De about the "Knight" was very accurate. And if President Stan was really divining "how to make Xia De's meeting smoother" that day, then the suggestions he gave might really be helpful for the "meeting."

Thinking of this, Xia De found the newspaper he brought back that day from the bookshelf behind him. After copying the digital code on the edge of the newspaper and cracking it according to the rules just obtained, he actually got a complete sentence:

【Confirm Gray-headed hawk's request for single-line contact, now providing the dynamically changing intelligence network—】

This is the sentence on the edge of the first edition, which means that in fact, the person who threw the newspaper also didn't know the true identity of "Gray-headed hawk" because he didn't see through Xia De. And Detective Sparrow seemed to only be able to receive information and could not actively communicate, so he could not report that he was going to die.

【Special mission to be carried out in September, no information changes at present. If abandoning the mission, please go to the old place tomorrow night and write Delarion language - eternal loyalty. If the mission is not carried out and no response is given, it will be regarded as identity exposure, please evacuate by yourself.】

This is the sentence on the edge of the first edition, and "tomorrow night" had long passed.

Xia De finally knew why he was asked to burn that letter. Of course, if Detective Sparrow didn't find anyone and just died himself, it seemed possible, but that detective was probably worried that the detective agency located in the city center would close abruptly, or the strange change of ownership of this "haunted house" would attract the attention of MI6.

Judging from the location and the identities of the neighbors, this was almost certain. Therefore, finding Xia De, a person with "some problems in his head," to operate it temporarily for three months, until everything dissipated, and the Gray Gloves also gave up on "Gray-headed hawk" who had not responded for a long time, everything would be over.

"It really is 'eternal loyalty'."

Xia De sighed with emotion.

【For the information obtained, please deliver it to No. 1 Vicar Street before the Harvest Moon and collect the 2000 pounds of action funds for this year.】

"2000?"

Xia De now knew why the detective agency in the Sparrow era, which clearly only did pet searching and mistress investigations, could support his consumption of that kind of high-end black tea.

【Will you go to collect those 2000 pounds?】

"Of course not, I am playing a loyal Delarion person now, how can I pass information to the enemy country?"

【The truth?】

"I'm not short of money now, there's no need to get involved in troublesome things for 2000 pounds. However, the address was not written on the order. Detective Sparrow must have known the address, but for others, except for me who happened to run into President Stan and got this secret information, otherwise even if I got Mr. Cameron's secret letter, I wouldn't be able to get involved in this matter."

Following is the last line of ciphertext on the newspaper:

【If there is no special need, please do not enable the information network frequently.】

This sentence was written in the crack of the advertising area of the second edition.

Xia De sighed and threw the pen in his hand onto the desk.

He was very sure that what he had glimpsed so far was only a corner of the complex intelligence system of the Karsenrik "Gray Glove" organization. Detective Sparrow was dead, and no one could know how that complex system operated.

However, what is certain is that Sparrow Hamilton's mission was long-term lurking. He could not actively provide any information to his superiors, and even his superiors might not know his true identity. His only role was to remain silent, accept the mission, and then complete the mission.

"This kind of spy is really amazing. If it weren't for obtaining partial information, I wouldn't have thought that an ordinary detective would have such an amazing identity background."

Thinking in his heart, he threw the newspaper and the translated text into the fire basin and burned them into ashes.

In the firelight, the paper burned out little by little. Xia De looked at the bright fire basin, and in a trance, he understood that the last traces of the former detective also disappeared in this home.

He sighed softly:

"Farewell, Detective Sparrow Hamilton."