Chapter 912: Night Visit to the Vampire

Xia De actually keeps a diary, but he doesn't write a real one. After inheriting the previous detective's diary, he fills five or six days a week with useless sentences like "No clients today, savings decreasing" or "Xiao Miya ate too much, consider asking Miss Gao De for money."

Professor Deleike is different from Xia De—he has the good habit of recording his life daily. His diary is preserved remarkably well, and the entries from around that adventure over a decade ago are all there. On the surface, the diary's contents look perfectly normal, but Xia De discovered that in the days before the professor set off for "Lake Cherub," the diary recorded complaints about his eyes being red and swollen, with double vision when looking at things.

To ordinary people this might seem like a small matter, but for a ring術士 like Xia De, when investigating an anomalous event, if a person involved in the case has eye problems, then that person almost certainly has problems all over.

As for the letters, before Professor Deleike's departure for Lake Cherub, he had been corresponding intensively with friends and academic colleagues out of town, discussing various matters. The letters themselves concerned only minor things—paper publication, visiting lecture invitations, asking about student recommendations—but they led Xia De to speculate that if Professor Deleike had encountered something strange before heading to "Lake Cherub," he might have written to other history and folklore professors to ask about it.

Therefore, Xia De could track down Professor Deleike's old acquaintances and ask whether, over a decade ago, Professor Deleike had inquired about anything unusual. The reason he had this idea was that among that stack of yellowed old letters, he found a familiar name:

"Professor Tillis Manning of Tobsk?"

At the desk, he handed the old letter to Professor Deleike. The two men in the letter were discussing the topic of cat worship, arguing that the worship of cats was connected to primitive moon worship, and therefore believing that the Kallas Mountain region still preserved extremely ancient moon-worship traditions, and they had made plans to go see it together when they had the time.

"Oh, Professor Manning—we haven't been in touch for many years now either."

Professor Deleike said with a nostalgic expression, flipping through the old letters:

"What is it, Mr. Watson? Do you know him?"

"As you know, I'm from Delarion. When I was in the city of Tobsk, I once visited Professor Manning to discuss the connection between cats and dreams."

Xia De said with a strange expression, recalling the 【Joyful Dream Pen】 incident in his mind, and then thinking that Professor Manning really did have an astonishingly wide circle of friends—his connections within the history and folklore academic world were remarkable. The folklore scholars Xia De had encountered in different cities, whether normal or eccentric, all turned out to be linked to Professor Manning to one degree or another.

"Professor Manning seems to be about three or four years younger than me. Is he doing well now?"

Professor Deleike asked.

"The professor is in very good health."

After Professor Manning's encounter with the 【Joyful Dream Pen】 loss-of-control incident, he recovered very quickly—something even young men given to pleasure couldn't manage.

"I have some connections with Professor Manning. I'll write to him—he may have a lead."

Xia De said. Professor Deleike nodded, holding the letter as if remembering things of the past.

The "diary" and the "letters" were the more obvious leads, but the third lead was somewhat vague.

It was the professor's old book "On the Development of Folklore," presumably an old textbook from before. When Xia De touched the book, "she" reminded him that there were extremely faint traces of elements on it—almost equivalent to none at all.

And when Xia De opened the book, on the side of the illustration on the very last page, he discovered a line of strange characters written at an angle. Those characters looked like tadpoles strung together, clearly not contemporary script. Relying on his own Script Comprehension, Xia De tilted his head and translated the meaning of that line:

【Knowledge is power.】

"Professor, what script is this?"

Xia De handed the book to Professor Deleike, who was sitting at the table looking at a stack of old manuscript pages. The professor reached out with some effort to take it, but after a glance he shook his head:

"I've never seen this script either."

"Did you not write this?"

The professor hesitated:

"At the very least, I don't remember doing so."

Xia De therefore temporarily took the book with him as the third lead. Perhaps this was another red herring, like the "Swamp Witch," completely unrelated to his investigation target. But these were all the leads he had, and no detail could be overlooked.

Xia De spent the entire Thursday afternoon at Professor Deleike's home. By the time he had organized the materials, the western sky was already lit with evening clouds. Seeing that the professor looked weary, Xia De took his leave, promising to sort through the information in hand as soon as possible and to contact the professor immediately should any new lead arise.

After a hasty meal in the city, Xia De did not return to the White River Valley Vineyard, but instead headed for Mr. Bernhardt's estate in the eastern part of the city.

The Bernhardt family is one of the oldest local families; the vineyards, farmland, and land they occupy have an area beyond what outsiders can imagine. Although only a viscount, Mr. Armand Bernhardt's quality of life was extremely comfortable, and combined with his fairly high ring術士 rank, he was almost one of the top leaders among the local vampire-blooded.

Unlike the dark and terrifying castles vampires inhabit in horror stories, Mr. Bernhardt's estate was bright and grand—so much so that it was said when it was completed over three hundred years ago, a priest from the city had been invited to bless it.

Since it was not Xia De's first visit to the Bernhardt estate, when he rode up to the estate gate in the night and rang the bell, the servant who came to open the door recognized him almost immediately.

When Xia De saw Mr. Bernhardt, the latter was sitting in his study with a worried frown, looking through a scroll of parchment. Seeing Xia De come in, he asked:

"Xia De, how is your ancient script ability?"

"From which era?"

Even though he could read any script, Xia De still asked—this was not only to conceal his secret, but also to show humility.

"Script from around the year 2500 of the Fifth Era, but I'm not certain of its origin."

He handed the parchment in his hand to Xia De, then ordered a servant to bring tea:

"I've studied ancient scripts systematically, but I'm not particularly good at it... not innate dullness, just not my forte."

The middle-aged vampire-blooded sighed, and Xia De glanced at the contents of the parchment:

"Oh, this one—I learned it in an elective at Saint Byron's. What this says is..."

He roughly scanned the script. Although script containing strange knowledge could affect the spirit, at least the script on this parchment could not affect Xia De:

"How strange—here 'emotion' is treated as a symbiotic parasite dwelling in the soul, describing the story of the parasite 'emotion' interacting with people. But the content here should be incomplete—it's neither the beginning nor the end."

"Yes, yes."

Mr. Bernhardt was clearly pleased, and stood up from behind the desk:

"Saint Byron's education is indeed excellent—truly worthy of its reputation as one of the three great thaumaturgy academies known throughout the material world. This is an excerpt from the "Seven Emotions Curse Tome," containing the sections on 'Anger' and 'Envy.' A friend lent it to me, but neither of us can read the script."

"Please give me paper and a pen, I'll help translate. Mr. Bernhardt, you're in luck—I dare bet not every correspondence-course ring術士 in the area could recognize this script."

Xia De said. The parchment in his hand contained only a little over 200 characters in total.

"That's wonderful, Xia De. I didn't expect your humanities coursework to be this strong either."

Mr. Bernhardt said flatteringly, without standing on ceremony with Xia De.

When the servant had brought the black tea and pastries, Xia De had also nearly finished translating that short piece of text. The two men moved to the sofa to discuss matters. Xia De lifted his black tea, letting the steam warm his cheeks, while Mr. Bernhardt cracked a joke:

"Princess Margaret's visit to Tobsk is the big news lately—every day there's news from Tobsk. I've heard some rumors. The night before last, Lakeside Estate—I hope I'm not getting the name wrong—Lakeside Estate's grand banquet. Xia De, have you and Princess Margaret become acquainted now?"

"This news has already reached Carsonric?"

Xia De asked in surprise, holding his teacup.

"Interesting news like this always spreads like wildfire. Ordinary people may not have heard yet, but I have special channels. Detective, people have only a few forms of entertainment, and among them, discussing royal gossip and news is beloved even by ring術士."

Having said that, he raised an eyebrow at Xia De:

"Have you tried to persuade Princess Margaret to sell the royal family's White River Valley Vineyard to you?"

Xia De did indeed have such a plan—after all, the only member of the Anjou royal family he knew was this one:

"I am not yet very familiar with Princess Margaret. However, the Princess has invited me to next week's reading salon; I think I should present myself appropriately. The White Valley Vineyard is really important to me."

He did not hide his thoughts, and Mr. Bernhardt expressed understanding:

"Her Highness Princess Margaret was a Miss difficult to deal with even in Welandel. Before this, I also heard she greatly disliked dealing with men, which led to some not-so-good rumors."

This was because Her Highness the Princess still wished to become Young Lady Sylvia's apprentice.

"Although Her Highness is skilled at socializing, she is not an easy person to please. Xia De, to what extent has your relationship with Her Highness reached?"

Mr. Bernhardt asked with great interest. As he said, in an era with few forms of entertainment, discussing royal news was one of the rare nationwide entertainment activities:

"Last week, she asked me to help transport that contraband... ahem, that tobacco, only because we are distant relatives; otherwise, how could Her Highness have been so polite to me."

Xia De thought for a moment:

"Our relationship... we played a riddle game, and then she gave me her personal handkerchief."

The Blood Sucker revealed an expression of awe, yet felt this was actually not exaggerated. He vaguely remembered the young man before him had done something even more exaggerated, yet felt he could not recall what that thing was.

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