Chapter 942: Amazing Gains

Putting away that small piece of vine fragment, Xia De officially stepped into the second riverbank stone wall cave he discovered.

The cave here was obviously different from the first one. Entering it, he saw a standard square space, and the stone walls were polished quite smoothly. In the darkness, there were red mahogany desks with painted lacquer, four-poster beds covered with soft cushions, large wardrobes with metal handles, and special kerosene lamp brackets on the walls. Even the glass lampshades of the kerosene lamps had hand-painted patterns.

The storage rack looked like a wooden antique, and the shelves were full of various vessels with labels. On the bedside table, there was even a lotus-shaped brass-colored bedside kerosene lamp. This was a high-end lamp even in the current 1853:

"Found it, it seems this is the place."

The dim sun outside the river was about to sink completely below the city, and the thin fog made everything on the river impossible to see clearly. Xia De didn't deal with that very conspicuous hole, but stretched out his finger:

"Silver Moon."

After calling softly, the moonlight on his fingertips illuminated the "safe house". Xia De still remembered that he had an appointment to have dinner with Lu Wei Ya tonight, so he probably had to act a little faster.

Haer De Weng Di Ba left here for the last time more than ten years ago, but he didn't expect that he would never return. Therefore, the value of the safe house by the river gave the outsider who came looking for it more than ten years later a big surprise.

Just in terms of currency, he found a full 300+ gold pounds and 50+ crowns in cash from the desk drawer. As for the biscuit box and the coins at the bottom of the cabinet, he was too lazy to count them.

Besides currency, because no one maintained them, the spellcasting materials had all rotted. After using 【Key of the Door】 to open the cabinet lock, the stench almost made Xia De think the other party had set a poison mist trap again.

There were no diaries or letters in the desk drawer. The desk surface was cleaned very cleanly, with fountain pens, oil lamps, and a folded map of Huntington city. But in the locked bedside table, there were three books wrapped in velvet and carefully preserved.

Xia De sat on that bed covered with soft mattresses, imagining the scene of Haer De Weng Di Ba decades ago lying here reading under a kerosene lamp.

Opening those cloths, the first book had no book cover, but the first page was handwritten with "Crawler in the Darkness" in Kaisenrike language. After flipping through a few pages, Xia De confirmed that this was written in the Dika Wen letters of the Fifth Era, a mystical book related to 【Snake】.

Several sheets of paper were tucked into the book pages, recording the magic potion "Language of Viper" that could allow people to communicate with snakes after drinking it, the "Cold-Blooded Potion" that could lower human body temperature, and the formula for a special snake venom "Weng Di Ba Snake Venom". The last one should have been invented by Haer De Weng Di Ba himself. It was a pity that Xia De was not good at configuring magic potions, but Father Ao Gu Si would probably be interested:

"This book is quite valuable. It's a pity that the 【Snake】 spirit rune system is different from mine, but it should be able to sell for a good price."

The book cover of the second book was written with "Mystery of Pantanal" in Kaisenrike language, but this was not a book recording mystical knowledge, but the popular science book mentioned by Mr. Bernhart, compiled and issued by the Pantanal Voodoo Society, introducing the great swamp and the modern changes of the primitive beliefs in the great swamp area. The Voodoo Society wanted to expand its influence and the influence of the primitive beliefs of Pantanal through this way.

This book had traces of being frequently flipped through, and there were many annotations and explanations in the book pages with the same handwriting as the magic potion formula. That Ring Ringed Ringed Shushi was a firm "Pantanal regionalist".

"Folk books are quite interesting. I can take them home as bedtime reading. I don't know if Mr. Edmund of Cold Water Port is interested in this, but the folklore he studies is marine folklore."

The third book was still written in the Kaisenrike language of the Sixth Era, titled "Huntington Folklore Examination". After opening it, it was confirmed that this was a 1840 print.

"Hmm? I seem to have heard of this book."

Xia De flipped directly to the last page and really saw Professor De Le Ke listed in second place in the list of compilers. Then he flipped through the book again and a piece of old photo slipped out:

"This is..."

The black and white photo showed two people standing together. The location of the photo seemed to be at the entrance of a village inside the Pantanal swamp. The mud and low adobe houses in the background could prove this point.

The man on the left in the photo was tall, with rough skin and sunken eye sockets, and had strange tattoos on his exposed neck. Although the black and white photo couldn't identify the color of the tattoos, both the appearance and the tattoos matched Father Ao Gu Si's description of "Haer De Weng Di Ba".

The man on the right in the photo was wearing an adventure outfit with dozens of pockets all over his body, a hat with a string on his head, and an iron pickaxe in his right hand.

They were both smiling at the outside of the photo, and the latter was an old man. Although he could stand with his legs, Xia De still recognized who this was:

"Professor Kansas De Le Ke?"

Although the professor in the photo was younger than he was now, judging from the wrinkles on his face, this should have been taken more than ten years ago, rather than a photo from a more distant era.

"Professor De Le Ke actually knew a Ring Ringed Ringed Shushi of the Pantanal Voodoo Society?"

Xia De raised his eyebrows.

He was very sure that Professor De Le Ke himself definitely didn't know about this, rather than deliberately hiding it. The professor had never mentioned that he had such a friend, and the letters he checked for Xia De didn't contain letters of correspondence with "Haer De Weng Di Ba".

Turning to the back of the photo, a line of words was written on the yellowed background:

【May we walk together on the road of exploring knowledge and history.】

Those letters were elegant and free, and Xia De recognized that this was very much like Professor De Le Ke's handwriting.

"The Goddess of the Lake erased all connections between the Professor and the Ring Ringed Ringed Shushi Haer De Weng Di Ba. The Professor himself didn't remember, the Church couldn't find it at all, and the Pantanal Voodoo Society didn't know either. The date Father Ao Gu Si mentioned that Haer De Weng Di Ba was besieged and killed was the day after Professor De Le Ke wrote to Professor Manning, and two days before Professor De Le Ke set off to visit the Goddess of the Lake. Hmm... probably guessed some things."

He put the photo aside and checked "Huntington Folklore Examination" again. This time he found a sentence written on the title page, which was still Professor De Le Ke's handwriting—

【Dedicated to my best friend, may you find more knowledge in the field of folklore.】

The blue-black ink had faded a bit, but the handwriting was so vivid that Xia De didn't know what to say:

"Interesting, more interesting than I thought."

After searching the desk, cabinet, and bedside table, Xia De knocked on the wall and really found a wall secret compartment.

"What will it be this time?"

. Violently destroying the wall, he found a small box full of jewelry from the secret compartment.

After opening the box, it was as if light radiated directly from it. Sapphires, rubies, emeralds, and diamonds covered the bottom of the box, gold and silver bracelets, earrings, and rings were stacked together, and antique coins and broken diamonds were interspersed in the gaps of the jewelry.

. With a clatter, Xia De poured everything in the box onto the bed. Precious metals and gemstones poured out, scattered on the yellowed sheets. Xia De raked through them with his fingers, regretting that these were all ordinary items:

"This person actually hid money in the secret compartment instead of relics?"

Fortunately, one of the coins had a reaction of whispering elements, which could be confirmed as a relic, but Xia De didn't know its characteristics. Weng Di Ba should not have recognized what this was, otherwise he wouldn't have put it here.

Besides the above items, Xia De found a pistol and several bullets with runes carved on the warheads in a small iron box stuck under the bed; in the interlayer of the bedside table, there was a roll of parchment paper recording the learning ritual of the strange art - 【Swamp Chameleon】; on the back of a blank photo frame hanging on the wall, there was a piece of paper with a prayer praising the "God of Pantanal", which was burned by Xia De as soon as he touched it.

There were no relics contained by Weng Di Ba in this safe house. It seemed that he just treated this place as a temporary residence and stored property. Xia De believed that the Ring Ringed Ringed Shushi who died more than ten years ago definitely had other safe houses hiding books and letters in this city, but this time Xia De really couldn't find them.

"So, my Huntington trip this afternoon, I threatened a mouse, learned that Professor De Le Ke knew the previous holder of 【Knowledge Arrow of Akenola】, and made a fortune, but still didn't let me touch the absolute truth."

Xia De sat on the edge of the bed looking at that box of jewelry:

"I even thought I could find that Sage-level relic directly."

【Isn't it a bit too greedy? At least, you are only one step away from discovering the truth and completing the 'Cherub's Second Trial'.】

"She" asked with a chuckle.

Xia De's fingers raked through the gemstones in the box, listening to them collide and make a pleasant clattering sound. Xia De had heard Princess Lei Lei Qianya say that noble ladies all had small boxes specifically for holding gemstones and jewelry, but he didn't expect that a middle-aged man from the great swamp area also had one.

Xia De picked out an oval purple gemstone and tossed it a few times. The moonlight on his fingertips made the gemstone shine:

"I have to see the people from Apuna Library tomorrow morning, participate in the reading salon on Wednesday, and prepare to catch that hateful thief. I don't have time to waste more time in Huntington. This winter, I plan to focus my main energy on Tobesk."

. He stood up and packed the coins, books, and parchment rolls he found, preparing to leave. He didn't intend to touch the other things in this safe house, such as those expired magic potions.

Walking out of the cave, the stone wall of the riverbank restored to its original state with the use of strange arts.

Xia De looked up at the night sky. The heavy jewelry box in his hand didn't bring him as much happiness as he imagined:

"Take the photo to show the professor tomorrow. I hope the professor can remember something. As for this box of jewelry..."

This was probably the adventure with the highest one-time gain besides killing the Silver-Eyed One deep in the underground ruins. And, in this adventure, he didn't even take action against anyone. ===== CHAPTER 943 =====