Part 1 The Joker Chapter 118 August
Time passed steadily as Tingen sent the tail end of summer to mid-August and the temperature stabilized at twenty-six or twenty-seven degrees Celsius.
Whoa!
Klein jerked up from the bathtub and stepped out, bringing with him a sprinkle of dripping water.
He stood there naked, looking down at his own abdomen, and with a little exertion, he saw the lines of his muscles clearly outlined.
This was the result of his persistent training over the past few days, and on top of that, his entire body looked much more energized.
And just today, his fighting teacher Gao Wen began to teach him basic boxing footwork and power techniques.
Snap, snap, snap, Klein’s bare footboards stomped on the lavatory floor, sometimes sliding forward, sometimes retreating sharply, sometimes dodging right, accompanied by swinging and blocking motions.
Whew, he stopped, exhaled in delight, grabbed a nearby towel, and wiped himself down.
In the two weeks or so following his contact with the insane asylum doctor Duster Guderian, it was as if Klein had shaken off the coincidences and left the strange circle of always running into extraordinary events, and life had become smooth, with a routine paycheck, deep study of the occult, practicing shooting and fighting, transplanting and developing new dishes, accumulating decent cutlery and furnishings with his brother Benson’s sister, Melissa, one by one, and asking his captain, Dunn, and his teammate, Leonard, for asking for advice on extraordinary cases from the past, as well as going to the club to help with divinations and strictly following a code that he himself had summarized.
This settled his mind, and he would have begun to grow accustomed to and fond of his present life, if he had not still missed the earth in the dead of night, if the matter of the Red Chimneys had not yet been cleared up, and if the patterns conveyed by the Muppets of Doom had not occasionally appeared in his dreams.
During this period, the “Tarot Club” convened three times, Klein did not get a new Roselle diary, but according to “Justice”, she met two new extraordinary people, is naturally contacting them, until the corresponding circle, should be able to trade more Rossel’s diary.
The “inverted man” also said that he had returned to the land, and was dealing with some matters, and as soon as he was free, he would start to look for it.
In addition, “Justice” felt that the two new extraordinary people she had met were both worthy of development, for example, each had a good cover for their identities, each had a certain amount of resources that were not similar to each other, each had their own persistence and characteristics, and they were not the kind of people that would sell secrets at will, the only problem was that they were both only Serial 9, which was not very suitable for the “Tarot Club”. “The only problem is, they’re all serial 9s, so they don’t fit in with a high-end, strictly secretive organization like the Tarot Club.
High-end organization? I feel more like a pyramid scheme …… At that time, the “Fool” Klein only wanted to cover his face and sigh long, to the “justice” lady’s self-perception of good actually can not find the words to deal with, can only agree to let her on the She could only agree to let her make further observations of the two extraordinary people.
Of course, “Justice” is not the same naive young girl from the beginning, she cautiously did not mention the names and characteristics of the two extraordinary people, for fear that the “inverted man” will find out about herself.
”Ms. Justice said she clearly felt the signs of the magic potion digestion, perhaps another three or four weeks, she will be able to complete the role of the ‘audience’ …… ‘mind reader’ formula has to be put on the table. The formula for ‘Mind Reader’ has to be put on the agenda …… “Klein, who wiped his body clean, put the towel aside, and while putting on his personal clothes, he thought about the events of the previous day’s “Tarot Meeting”.
In the past twenty days, he only met with Dr. Duster Guderian once, and in the spirit of the idea of not being too fast, he only chatted about the other party’s status, and asked the Psychological Alchemy Association about some unimportant things.
The speed at which “Justice” digested the magic potion made him think about how to get the Sequence 8 “Mind Reader” formula from Duster in advance.
Buttoning his shirt one by one, Klein grabbed another dry towel and wrapped it around his head to absorb the moisture from his short hair.
Compared to Justice, he digested the Diviner’s Potion faster than he did, and by the end of the week, he was no longer hearing voices or seeing scenes he shouldn’t be seeing while meditating or in his psychic state.
Reversing the towel, Klein wiped his hair again, looked up at the door, and muttered silently to himself:
”The ‘Diviner’s Code’ that I summarized does work, and I should be able to completely digest the magic potion next week …… next week …… I still don’t know where to get the Hornachis Grey Goat Unicorn Crystals and the Human Face Rose in the ‘Joker’ formula …… Maybe I can follow Ms. Daley’s example and submit a special application …… but that would definitely be Get noticed by the upper echelons …… I just want to develop obscenely now …… Aurora Society’s developing adherents in the police department have also been found, but still don’t know who Mr. Z is …… ”
”Henry says he’ll be able to complete the ‘Red Chimney’ commission by the end of the week …… I’m back up to seven pounds out of my privates, so I don’t have to worry about how I’m going to pay the balance… …”
”Some of the houses and occupant profiles he gave earlier don’t look problematic at the moment, and it’s not like I have time to check them out one by one ……”
”Maybe start by looking at which houses with red chimneys have recently changed occupants?”
”Well, that’s a thought.”
……
Sitting still for twenty or thirty seconds, he pulled on his gray and black pants, put on his bowtie, fastened his gun pouch securely, tossed his change of knightly practice clothes into the laundry basket, opened the door and stepped out of the washroom – he’d just finished his Wednesday afternoon fighting training not long after, and was still at his teacher, Gawain’s, house.
”Greetings, Mr. Moretti.” Gawain’s handyman maid happened to be passing by, and was busy bowing and curtseying.
Klein nodded slightly and pointed at the messy and wet washroom:
”Please clean it up.”
”That’s my duty, the clothes will be handled by the pulping maid, she’ll come by at six.” The handyman maid replied with her head bowed.
The laundresses did not provide food and shelter, and the pay they gave was also very low, so they would not be employed by just one family, they often took on the clothes of several nearby residents, or hurriedly rushed every day, immediately going to another family after washing one, or collecting all of them at home to process them together, and sending them back in turn, only in this way could they barely survive.
Without further ado, Klein went to the parlor and took his leave of his master, who was seated in a rocking chair.
He saw Gawain, gray at the temples, nodding his head with little animation, a light brown blanket spread over his legs, and a copy of the Ahova Evening News in his hand.
Klein knew that the man in front of him, bathed in the westering sun, was actually in his early fifties, but he looked as if he were in his eighties or nineties.
Gawain also remained silent during his regular combat training, speaking only when it was time for instruction and never saying much or making small talk, and Klein, due to his exhaustion every day, lacked the desire to initiate conversation, so their relationship remained cold to this day.
”Watching Mr. Gowan’s demonstration, his strength is still quite impressive, and his pace is agile enough that beating three of me is probably not a problem …… He has a salary from the police department, and he also bought a piece of land in the countryside on the outskirts of Tingen, so he can collect a fixed ground rent… . he employs a cook, an odd-job maid, and a washerwoman …… In the great foodie countries of the earth, gentlemen of fifty or sixty with such means would have been traveling all over the world ……”
Klein withdrew his eyes from Gawain and shook his head darkly, then went to the coat rack and removed his half-height silk bowler hat and thin black trench coat.
Fully dressed, he grabbed his cane and walked out of the house, approaching the gate along the stone path with overgrown grass on either side.
It was at this time that he saw a two-wheeled carriage parked outside the iron fence, and a familiar gentleman standing.
”Leonard?” Klein whispered to himself as he looked suspiciously at his Night Watchman teammate with his hair in wanton disarray.
Leonard, dressed in a white shirt, black pants and unbuttoned leather boots, was twirling his hat in his hands when he saw Klein come out and spoke with a smile:
”Surprise?”
Only surprise, not joy …… Klein ignored the other’s immodesty and stared into the fake poet’s green eyes:
”What’s the matter?”
Leonard put his hat back on and said:
”The captain asked you to cooperate with Fry and I. We’ll talk more about it on the way.”
”Okay.” Klein followed the other into the wagon compartment.
Waiting for the scenery on both sides to sweep back, Leonard picked up the briefcase next to him and threw it across the room.
Klein caught it steadily, took out the document, and carefully flipped through it.
”On August 11th, 11:00 PM, inside the West End Poorhouse, the bankrupt Soles attempted to set a fire and create a tragedy, but ultimately only burned himself to death ……”
”Aug. 11, 10 p.m. Dockworker Zide jumps into the Tassock River, ending his life in poverty ……”
”At 8 p.m. on August 11, Mrs. Lauwers, who made her living by gluing matchboxes in Lower Iron Cross Street, died of a sudden illness ……”
……
When he saw the first two incidents, Klein was puzzled for a moment, thinking that similar deaths were too common and too frequent, and that not only should they not be brought to the attention of the night-watchman, but that even the police department had to avoid a waste of police force.
But looking down the page, he gradually frowned.
After turning two pages, he jerked his head up and looked at Leonard:
”This is too much, isn’t it?”
It was hard to call normal deaths normal when there were so many of them that they were appalling.
Leonard nodded in a rare moment of seriousness:
”Five times the normal number of deaths in the last two weeks.”
”The Tingen City Police Directorate discovered this when they ran the statistics and rushed to turn things over to us, to the Substitute Punisher and the Mechanical Heart.”
”While all of these deaths were initially verified to be in order, the captain felt we had to check them all over again, and that would probably require the aid of divination or ritual magic.”
Klein drifted off:
”I see.”
Leonard snapped his fingers and said:
”Me, you and Frye team up, he’ll meet us at the lower Iron Cross, Sega, Loyal and Old Neil team up to investigate the corresponding incident in the North End, and the Captain stays inside the security company to deal with the unexpected.”
”Uh-huh.” Klein nodded solemnly, suddenly remembering something, he asked in a hurry, “Can I go back home first and leave a note?”
He had to tell his brother and sister that he had something to do tonight and would not be home for dinner.
Leonard smiled:
”No problem, it just happens to be on the way.”
Klein settled down then and went through the deaths again, trying to find connections in the different deaths with different names at different points in time.
Looking at it, he thought greasily:
This is my first group mission since I became a Night Watchman?