Whispering Poems

Chapter 4091 Skin and Mermaid

Winnie obviously couldn't give an answer, so Shad gestured for her to leave the box with him:

"Since someone has come looking for us, Wei Ge might be in trouble too. Let's go and meet up with Wei Ge and the others first. It looks like we won't be able to finish watching the opera tonight."

Winnie followed behind Shad:

"The lack of widespread whispering elements suggests that things may not be so bad."

Although there are no private restrooms in the boxes, the second floor of the opera house is equipped with four public restrooms for guests to use.

Viggo must have gone to the nearest one, and since it wasn't halftime yet and there weren't many people in the corridor, Shad simply led Winnie in.

Miss Rowling and two other maids were standing guard at the bathroom door. When they saw Shad barge in, the housekeeper wanted to stop him, but then remembered how she had ruined her master's time last time, so she withdrew her hand.

"Mr. Watson, what's going on?"

"Besides you, has anyone else been here just now?"

Miss Rowling shook her head:

"After the master went in, you were the first person to arrive. Would you like to go in?"

Vige came to change clothes, so she didn't stay at the sink but went to a private room inside. Besides Vige, a maid was with her, helping her change.

Shade shook his head:

“I’ll wait here. Something just happened. Winnie, go in and check on things.”

"Ok."

Winnie, now back in her flesh and blood form, strode inside. This time, Miss Rowling didn't stop her. Voices soon came from inside the washroom, and shortly after, Winnie returned to the doorway.
"It's alright inside."

Winnie had already informed Viggo of the news about the leather items appearing at the opera house in the restroom, so Viggo quickly changed her clothes and hurried out.

When she returned to the box with her maids, Shad was examining the fat woman who was frozen in ice.

The overweight woman was just an ordinary person, appearing to be in her forties. Winnie knew she still needed to find clues from her, so the woman hadn't died from being frozen. Winnie had already thawed her head and was hypnotizing her while questioning her, but she hadn't gotten many clues from her yet.

"Vege, is the theater company performing tonight the 'Holburn Opera Company'?"

"Yes, they are a fairly well-known local opera company. Although they can't compare to the world-famous Golden Dawn Opera Company, they are almost the best in the Arcadia region."

Xia De then said:
"This fat woman was originally just a laundry maid hired by the Holborn Opera Company. While working for the opera company, she envied the young and beautiful actresses and sometimes would take the opportunity to steal their clothes while doing laundry."

She said that last summer, a young woman in the opera company noticed her actions but didn't scold her. Instead, she asked if she also wanted to become beautiful, if she wanted to attract men's attention again, and if she wanted to be the center of attention for young men. The fat woman agreed and received the skin, subsequently becoming a maid at the opera house.

The skin was still frozen in ice by Winnie. The fat woman, of course, didn't know what "skin" was, but as an ordinary person, wearing it for six months had caused permanent changes to her appearance. After the skin was removed, her facial features were almost completely melted, and her body was covered with scars of varying depths. In a few more months, she would probably become completely integrated with that skin.

Wei Ge frowned:

"What did the person who provided her with the skin want her to do? It certainly wasn't free."

"They made her work here, recording the identity information of other young and beautiful female opera singers and maids who worked here."

Shade replied, and Viggo blinked:

"Is she trying to collect more attractive skins? Well then, who gave her the skins? The lead actress in the opera troupe?"

"According to this fat woman, apart from the initial few encounters, the man continued to correspond with her and informed her of the precautions for using leather items. If her description is correct, that man should be the third female lead in tonight's performance."

Wei Ge then listened to the sounds from the stage:
"We've just reached the end of the second act, and the third female lead doesn't have many scenes left. Let's not act yet; we'll go backstage to find her after intermission."

"no problem."

Then Wei Ge asked:
"However, how did you discover her? I've encountered this maid before when I came to this opera house, but I never noticed anything wrong with her."

Shade shook his head:

“It wasn’t me who noticed it, it was Winnie who noticed it. This fat woman wore leather for so long that I would have had a hard time noticing the whispering elements unless I was very close.”

"I have a strong ability to sense these unnatural existences."

Winnie explained that they would refreeze the woman.

Wei Ge said with some concern:

"Could the person behind this fat woman help us find the true identity of the [Leather Goods Guild]? Or perhaps, the leather craftsman is behind her?"

The spread patterns of the [Leatherworks Guild] and the [House of Pseudo-Humans] are quite different. The latter usually involves the original artifact appearing in a certain place, followed by a large number of pseudo-humans appearing in the city over a period of time.

The [Leather Goods Guild] usually sends out "Leather Craftsmen," derivatives of relics, to a certain place first. After a sufficient number of people use leather goods, the original relic will officially arrive, thereby developing more "members" for the guild and filling the guild's leather goods collection.

One theory suggests that "leatherworkers" were originally normal beings who wore leather, but became part of the relics because they lived in the guild for too long. However, "leatherworkers" possess more than just the skills to make leather goods; their danger rating ranges from scribe to sage, and their combat abilities definitely match their danger rating.

Although the artifact itself appeared locally because the leather item left by Vigo's mother was touched, this does not mean that there were no leatherworkers in the area before.

The group patiently waited in the private room. To prevent the fat woman's disappearance from attracting attention, Winnie made a life-sized ice sculpture and had it dressed in leather clothes to carry out activities temporarily.

This is extremely dangerous and increases the risk of the animal going out of control, but fortunately they don't have to wait too long.

After intermission, when the performance resumed, the three maids remained in the box, while Viggo, Shade, Winnie, and Miss Rowling secretly left for backstage.

During the performance, no one unrelated to the troupe was allowed to enter or leave the backstage area, but this didn't stop Xia De and his group. Wei Ge had obviously been here before, and she quickly led the group to the actors' rest area.

However, the actors and musicians backstage were still preparing for the upcoming performance, and Wei Ge couldn't find the third female lead immediately. So she led the group through the corridor to the troupe's storage room.

Spare costumes, stage props, and personal belongings of troupe members are all stored here. If there really is a "leatherworker" in this opera troupe, there will probably be other leather items in the troupe as well, so Vige plans to do a simple search here first.

It is certainly unethical to rummage through other people's things without permission, but the search had only just begun and had already yielded results.

At the far end of the storage room were two rows of sliding clothes racks with casters, on which hung magnificent costumes. Pushing aside the clothes racks, a beautiful oil painting appeared on a table at the far end of the room. In the painting, a mermaid with dark red hair smiled alluringly at the viewer from the sea.

"Oh, it's so beautiful!"

Vige was immediately drawn to the oil painting, and Xia De, upon hearing this, also looked over, his expression changing drastically. He quickly walked over and slammed the painting onto the table.

"What's wrong?"

Viggo asked curiously, as she hadn't sensed anything unusual about the painting. The painting itself was indeed fine, but Winnie understood Shad's approach; after all, there was a painting on the second floor of No. 6 St. Teresa's Place with a very similar style and subject matter.

"Do you remember Mrs. Connaught that I mentioned?"

Xia De asked softly, and Wei Ge nodded:

"The Viscountess who died in the church? Of course I remember. The church later discovered that the dead were just other people wearing her skin; she herself is still missing, but you said before that she might be related to..."

The witch also shut her mouth.

The four then carefully searched the room again and found other items related to "desire".

None of the items had any specific elements, but the mermaid pendant, the multi-armed monster emblem, the badges related to "desire," and so on, all indicated that some members of this opera troupe were "desire worshippers."

The worshippers may not even know what they are worshipping; they simply believe that wearing certain accessories will make them more charming and attractive. Even so, this remains a high-risk activity, and it's enough to demonstrate that Arcadia City definitely has genuine "desire followers."

Although Shad found these items related to "desire," he could not find any clues related to "leather."

Just as Xia De and Wei Ge were discussing their next steps, someone opened the door to the room from the hallway.

An elderly man entered; judging from his attire, he must have played the female lead's father on stage. He sat down on a chair next to a dressing table piled with things, sighed as he looked at himself in the mirror, then stood up, took off his hat, and reached behind his head.

After fumbling around for a while, he found the button, unbuttoned it, and then slowly peeled off the layer of skin covering his body.