Whispering Verse

"Although this man has all his faults, I like that he keeps his word."

Shade muttered and put the cards into his deck. Although he tried his best to restrain himself, a smile appeared on his face. Although this scene of a woman smiling with her back to the body of a woman on the bed and the faint candlelight at the table was strange, luckily no one could see it.

After getting the cards, Shade's apparent purpose of visiting the manor tonight was achieved, but he still had a lot to do.

He turned to look at the woman's body and whispered softly:

"Oh, now that Mrs. Haila has been killed, I might be able to find her murderer."

As soon as the words fell, the wind and snow blowing from the half-open window suddenly increased. The howling wind sounded more like ghosts wailing.

When Shade turned to look at the window, he only saw a huge fire ball in the direction of the city in the distance, rushing directly into the night sky. Then there was a delayed explosion. It seemed that the church had begun to attack the front. Meet the enemy.

[So, how do you investigate? 】

"She" asked softly in Shade's ear. Shade looked at the corpse again:

"There are no wounds on the outside, and there are no traces of poisoning. Unless the body is dissected, I can't find any clues by normal means. But fortunately, I am a ring warlock."

He took out the bone meal and sprinkled it on top of the corpse:

"Thumbology - Guide to Death."

The soul that was supposed to be channeled did not appear. Instead, from the perspective of the "seeing demon", the petrified rose vines squirmed and grew, fixing the corpse more firmly on the bed.

But Shade's thaumaturgy was not without effect. He heard the woman's sigh, and then saw transparent footprints appearing next to the bed. The footprints were pacing beside the bed, and then extended outside the door. From a normal perspective, the footprints are very blurry, but from the sight demon's perspective, the glowing footprints are even brighter than candles.

Shade did not follow immediately, but used a knife to take a drop of blood from Helena Oxenfurt's finger, and then dripped it into his own eyes:

"Echoes of Blood."

A thaumaturgy that can see traces of blood in a normal state, but by dripping the blood of a dead person, one can see all the traces in the hour before death and the hour after death.

Sure enough, when the blood entered his eyes, Shade almost immediately saw the phantom appearing on the bed that overlapped with the physical position.

But there was only this shadow, which meant that she was lying in this position both before and after her death.

"Were you sleeping before you died?"

Shade was a little confused and took off the sapphire earrings from Haela Oxenfurt's ears. With a hard squeeze, the glass that sealed a drop of Stone Oxenfurt's blood shattered, and the drop of blood floated into Shade's right eye under the guidance of the spell:

"Echoes of Blood."

When the blood of a living person drips into the eyes, Shade can see the shadow of a target's movement trajectory within 24 hours for the next hour. The search for the missing August priest at Fort Midhill relied on this thaumaturgy.

The bloody shadow of Stone Oxenfurt appeared in front of him, and the position of his feet was the position of the footprints on the ground. He checked on his wife's condition beside the bed, and then walked out of the room with a series of footprints on the ground.

Shade held the long sword in one hand and the candlestick on the desk with the other and followed.

With "Seeing Demon" and "Echo of Blood" working together, Shade found that the details he saw became more and more. It was like directly seeing what happened in the past.

The footprints extended to the corridor, and when Shade also stepped across the bedroom door, he actually took one step forward and appeared in the courtyard of the manor with gray snowflakes flying.

[Some kind of power connects the bedroom door and the manor door. Entering the room is a normal space, leaving the room leads to another space. Oxenfurt also left like this. 】

"She" explained softly that Shade was also a ring warlock who mastered the power of space and understood what "she" meant. And "she" was right, whether it was the footprints on the ground or the bloody light and shadow in Shade's eyes, they still continued before his eyes.

The figure did not walk towards the door of the mansion, but turned around and walked towards the fence gate of the manor.

Oxenfurt's footprints obviously lingered two steps on the right side of the fence gate, and the bloody figure reminded Shade that he had stuffed something into the crack of the brick.

Shade stretched out his hand and gently hooked it, and a smooth gray stone chip floated out from the cracks in the bricks. The stone chip was covered with ant-sized demonic runes.

Shade thought for a moment, injected his own spirit into it, and then threw it into the snow.

Light and shadow rose from the snow, and the translucent figures of Haila Oxenfurt and Stone Oxenfurt, who looked much younger, appeared.

"I have bought back this manor that originally belonged to the Oxenfurt family."

In the illusion, Stone Oxenfurt was carrying his luggage and said to the girl beside him:

"After a while, I will go to your house to propose marriage. Now that I have money, your parents, Mr. and Mrs. Watson, will no longer reject me."

"We finally get to be together."

Because he had seen Mrs. Haila's expressionless face, Shade felt very strange about Haila Watson's happy face in the illusion.

"Stone, can you tell me now what kind of business you are doing now?"

Haila asked again. She looked at her future husband with concern, while the slightly younger Oxenfurt smiled and said:

"You don't have to worry about this. I will become richer and richer. Yes, richer than any of my ancestors. Your parents will never look down on me again."

The illusion ends here, and the role of that piece of stone is to release the illusion. So Shade continued to follow the footprints and the bloody phantom, still not heading towards the mansion, but towards the flowerbed that had been covered by snowflakes.

The footprints lingered here again, and the bloody figure told Shade that Oxenfurt once again hid something under the snow.

It was still smooth gray stone, and this time it was still an illusion.

Stone Oxenfurt stood in the middle of the flower garden while Hella painted at her easel. Helena Watson was good at painting, and she worked as a model in the back garden when Shade came to visit her for the second time.

"The wedding date is getting closer."

Oxenfurt kept moving, and his attire at this moment was very similar to when Shade first met him at Lord Granger's banquet.

"I received a letter from your father and he gave me a prenuptial contract."

Haila Watson's painting hand paused for a moment, and she said softly:

"That was my father's idea, you don't have to worry about it."

Oxenfurt, who remained motionless, said:

"It doesn't matter, that contract is also necessary. It proves the property that we each kept before marriage, and agreed on the distribution of property after divorce. In addition to the part that originally belonged to you, the contract also stipulates that once we divorce, under any circumstances, I I will give you half of my personal property."

"I"

The woman in front of the easel had a guilty look on her face.

"It doesn't matter. I left Captain Woody's ship and got this family fortune just to marry you. If one day I change my heart, I would rather give you my heart as compensation, not to mention half of my property? "

Stone Oxenfurt, who had an extremely tough face, had always been considered by Shade to be more like a robber before, but now he showed a rugged handsomeness:

"I will love you for the rest of my life, no matter what the cost."

The illusion smiled and winked at the woman behind the drawing board, and Haela Oxenfurt also smiled:

"You love me without paying any price, just like I love you."

From a rough estimate based on the timeline, since he has become rich, Oxenfurt must have completed his contract with the devil at this time, so Shade can understand the determination of these words. After Haila Watson said this, she hid her face behind the drawing board, so the owner of the manor did not see the slightly guilty expression that still existed on her face.

When the illusion ended, Shade sighed and shook his head in the snow, illuminating the snow with the light from the candlestick in his hand:

"Although everyone who knew Stone Oxenfurt said that he had always been deeply in love with her, I didn't expect that this would be the case."

[Will you let him go because of this? 】

"How can it be?"

The night sky in the west was suddenly illuminated by a golden light, and then a dull sound swept across. The ground trembled slightly, and even the trajectory of the snowflakes was changed by the impact of the sound waves.

Shade glanced in that direction very worriedly, and then continued to follow the footprints and bloody figure. After leaving the flower garden, the footprints and blood circled the courtyard in front of the manor before finally arriving at the door of the mansion.

The footsteps wandered again, and another piece of stone was hidden.

When the illusion was activated, the transparent figure that appeared at the door, in addition to Haela and Stone, was actually the former's father, Mr. Watson, whom Shade had met at the haunted Watson Manor. Of course, at this time, he did not look like an old ghoul with four arms, but a healthy living person.

The same translucent phantom carriage drove into the yard. Mr. Watson stepped out of the carriage, walked down with a cane, and then looked up at the manor house:

"This place is very open and looks nice, but it's a little too old. If you really want to get married, this place needs to be renovated."

"Father, Shi Dong said that it will be renovated soon."

Young Haila Watson said, and old Mr. Watson looked at his daughter and smiled. But when he looked at Stone Oxenfurt, the disgusted expression on his face was not concealed at all:

"I came here today to sign that prenuptial agreement with you. If Haila hadn't insisted on marrying you, I wouldn't have had any contact with someone like you no matter what."

Stone Oxenfurt is not actually a very good-tempered person, but although he is angry in the illusion, he still tries to endure it:

"Then let's go in and we can sign now."

"No, I will not enter such a dilapidated house. Although this is your ancestral home, in my opinion, it is not only dilapidated, but also the artistic aesthetic level is really poor."

Old Mr. Watson said, then put his hands in his pockets, turned his back to his daughter and future son-in-law, and turned to look at the scenery in the yard.