Chapter 8

"If this business goes smoothly, maybe I can really try to stay here as a detective. After life is stable, then contact the supernatural and try to see if I can find a hope of going home."

During the leisure time of monitoring the door of the club, the outsider thought of his hometown far away, and Xia De couldn't help but sigh.

He estimated the time again. Since Mr. Lawrence also entered the club, the two of them couldn't come out within an hour.

"They have things to do, should I find a place to rest?"

He thought in his heart, looked around, and then successfully saw a tavern called "Screaming Hound" at the street corner.

This kind of tavern opened on the main road and started business during the day usually wouldn't be particularly chaotic, especially since it was only two o'clock in the afternoon now. Xia De pinched the 10-penny banknote in his pocket, licked his somewhat dry lips, confirmed the current time, hesitated for a moment, and then walked over.

Pushing open the door of the tavern, the first thing he saw was a row of gas lamps on the wall, illuminating the somewhat dim interior. A smell of alcohol and fermented food permeated the air, making him, who was still hungry, a bit unaccustomed.

Xia De now knew that the lamps used in this era were all gas lamps. And the ones climbing on the wall, besides gas pipes, generally had steam pipes. Gas pipes were the slightly thinner ones, and steam pipes would be wrapped with thermal insulation layers outside.

The round wooden tables in the tavern were all empty. There were few people now, only three customers, sitting around a wooden table against the wall far from the bar, playing cards. On the wall beside the table hung an oil painting of a snow mountain.

Those were three men who didn't look very rich. Although there were no patches on their clothes, the dark clothes were all washed white, and the hats placed on the table were obviously used for a long time, wrinkled together.

Maybe they just wanted to rest for a while on this leisurely summer afternoon. Xia De didn't disturb them and walked toward the bar where the bartender was standing, thinking of just buying a glass of ice water. But he heard a cheer from one of the people playing cards:

"I won again this time!"

The middle-aged man with a messy beard and hair stood up and threw the cards in his hand onto the table very proudly:

"Look, exactly 21 points."

Saying that, he looked proudly at the surroundings, but unfortunately there were only him and his friends here. Seeing Xia De who had just walked in the door, his eyes lit up:

"Please buy this gentleman a glass of rye wine!"

The man who won the cards but wasn't very rich said to the bartender. Xia De turned around and looked at him in surprise, paused, and nodded slightly to express his gratitude:

"Thanks for the kindness, but I think a glass of ice water is enough."

He wasn't good at drinking, and he didn't know the degree of the so-called "rye wine," and he was still executing detective activities now, so there was no need to get involved in alcohol.

And clearly, the price of a glass of water was much lower than the price of a glass of wine. The three men thought Xia De was saving money for them, so they immediately had a good impression of him. Seeing that Xia De had no companions, they invited him to play cards together.

But Xia De couldn't, so he could only watch them play from the side, and the men were also very enthusiastic about teaching Xia De the skills of "Luo De Pai."

The cards in this world were very similar to the poker cards in the previous life, also with four suits, totaling 54 cards, except that the four suits were Sun, Moon, Star, and Flower.

The mainstream way of playing cards was a rule similar to "21 points," which was called "Luo De Pai." Other rules like connecting, drawing ghost cards, and comparing sizes also existed, but the Luo De Pai way of playing was prevalent in the world. It was said that the inventor of this way of playing was named Luo De.

Cards generally adopted the way of making the front as a drawing and marking the suit and number in the upper left and upper right corners. Therefore, some special series of cards issued in special eras were extra valuable.

A special series of Luo De Pai issued recently only issued 1000 sets, and the name was "Fairy Tale Series."

The three men playing cards didn't know much about the so-called special series of Luo De Pai and could only say roughly.

They only knew that some people among the nobles crazily pursued those rare cards. In particular, some cards not only had special card patterns but even contained special game rules.

That part of the cards was worth a fortune. It was rumored that last year, the Bifford Auction House sold a special card for 12,000 pounds.

Xia De quietly converted the cost of living and thought about the "Sun 3" clipped in the diary. He didn't want to laugh, but deeply suspected whether the card he inherited was genuine.

But if that card with the woman sitting sideways holding the silver moon was genuine, his last bit of worry about future life also disappeared.

Chatting with the three men playing cards in the tavern for an hour, Xia De got up and said goodbye. When he returned to the door of the newspaper office, the position next to the original mailbox was occupied by a young man wearing a brown vest and glasses.

This was probably a real reporter, so the young detective changed to standing next to the black iron lamp post.

The street lamp was generally considered a cylinder, also using gas as energy. Xia De was originally standing there leisurely, but his eyes accidentally saw the nameplate. The nameplate clearly pointed out that one must not smoke under the lamp post, otherwise the consequences would be at one's own risk.

Xia De imagined what might happen and subconsciously stayed away from this dangerous place.

The sun gradually shifted to the west, and Xia De had been waiting patiently. After the feeling of hunger reached its limit and disappeared in the afternoon, his body obviously felt much better. He planned to wait until around five o'clock. If Mrs. Lasoya still didn't appear, then he would set off to the church of the 【Church of War and Peace】 to receive relief food.

By the way, he could also take a look at what was going on with the church in this world and confirm whether the church possessed supernatural power.

"However, I have that voice in my head, won't I be caught as soon as I enter? And the secret of the outsider..."

He was also a bit worried about this point, but under the premise of not understanding any situation, the choices Xia De could make were actually not many.

Maybe it was because he noticed that Xia De thought of her again, and the woman's voice in his mind sounded again:

【Observe his ring.】

This sentence had appeared at noon, except that the pronoun was female, and this time it was male.

Xia De immediately looked up at the door of the club and really saw a young man carrying a suitcase walk out, and on the finger of his right hand was exactly the white pebble ring he saw on Mrs. Lasoya's finger at noon.

Because the shape was too unique, Xia De believed he wouldn't recognize it wrong.

Both of them wore the ring on the middle finger of their right hand, and the voice in his mind didn't make further hints.

"Really interesting, why would the owner of the ring change?"

Xia De thought in his heart, seeing the man wearing the ring leave the club, not looking for an empty carriage, but mixing into the crowd in the evening, following behind a fat man holding a briefcase who was in a hurry, and walking toward the east along the street.

The fog of the steam city blurred his figure. If he didn't pursue, Xia De would soon lose the man's trail.

"Should I pursue? The voice in my head definitely wouldn't be talking nonsense for no reason."

He thought in his heart, turned around to avoid the direction of the door of the club, unfolded one-eighth of the map clipped in the notebook, and looked for the direction of the church of the 【Church of War and Peace】. The church distributing relief food was to the east of the current location, and now it was very close to five o'clock.