Ke-style law enforcement officers

Chapter 363 I Have an Idea

Time comes to night.

It's common knowledge that Nanwei City's nightlife isn't particularly vibrant, all thanks to the moisture drifting in from the sea after dark. No matter how enjoyable a night out is, returning home soaking wet will completely ruin your good mood for the day.

So when the weather is nice, the citizens of Nanwei City will go out in a vengeance, whether it's for dating, PC games, or finding a dark corner with their friends to enjoy the magical leaves. In short, all sorts of people will go out for a stroll.

Moreover, the locals' definition of good weather has been lowered over the years. As long as the visibility outdoors at night exceeds 15 meters, it can be considered a good day to go out.

Especially for middle- and upper-class people living in the city center who don't have much financial pressure, the renovation projects in the city center have given the old streets a brand-new look. It would be a great pity if their beautiful figures were not in such a brightly lit and beautiful night scene. For the streets, it would be a great pity.

The hottest place recently is the opera house in the city center. Opera is nothing new to the people of Nanwei, but the opera house is.

Carter Garnier's exquisite design has recently sparked a trend of opera appreciation in Nanwei City. This can be simply understood as a kind of pretentious culture, because the building truly has the qualities of a landmark. The occupants even consider being able to sit on the high platform of the opera house as a symbol of status.

Of course, there are also true lovers of classical opera who come here; they are the ones who are truly appreciating opera in the opera house.

For example, Rick.

……

In a corner of the massive horseshoe-shaped hollow building, in the cheapest corner of the ground floor audience section, Rick, dressed in a suit and wearing newly fitted glasses, listened with rapt attention to the melodious singing of the performers on stage.

It's hard to imagine that a half-dead being who spends his days surrounded by corpses could be moved to tears by a melodious and touching song.

The third act of "The Sleepwalker" is being performed on stage.

Back when people didn't understand sleepwalking, the protagonist, Amina, incurred the wrath of her fiancé because she unconsciously entered a stranger's hotel room while sleepwalking.

When her fiancé Elvino sang "Cancel all promises" and took Amina's engagement ring, Rick seemed to be overwhelmed by Amina's grief-stricken tears.

A woman beside him, who was also crying her eyes out, even handed him a handkerchief to wipe her tears.

……

"Damn, I finally found you."

At that moment, a man wearing a long black trench coat appeared rather inappropriately to the side of the seats.

He bent down and carefully examined Rick, his eyes like those of someone studying a meteorite that had fallen from the sky, as if afraid that the meteorite would disintegrate and evaporate if he wasn't careful.

As a visitor from another world who has never been able to accept any kind of film or television work with a romantic theme since childhood, Milo looked at Rick and asked:

"I've gone around to find that everyone in the audience who's identifying with the female lead is female. What are you getting so worked up about here?"

“You don’t understand. It’s such a pity that a marriage that should have been wonderful was destroyed by an uncontrollable dream,” Rick sighed, then wiped his nose with a handkerchief and handed it back to the woman next to him.

"Shut up."

Milo grabbed Rick and dragged him outside the opera house, commenting:

"All those eggs you ate didn't increase your masculinity by even a fraction."

“Your logic is flawed. According to you, shouldn’t all those men who have eaten a lot of Puxi food have become sissies by now?” Rick immediately got excited and argued his point.

Although what he said was also nonsense.

Because this kind of eating is not the same as that kind of eating.

……

"I'm too lazy to chat with you, I need to get to work."

Milo tossed a wooden awl to Rick.

Rick pinched one nostril to blow the excess snot out of his nose onto the roadside. After calming himself down, he took the wooden awl that Milo had given him and walked to the roadside to examine it carefully under the light of the kerosene lamp.

"Where did this come from?" Rick asked Milo, touching the sharpened end of the wooden awl.

“Dripped from a dying vampire,” Milo replied.

"You want to find that vampire?" Rick asked.

“No, I’m looking for the person, or the creature, who nailed it to the vampire.” Milo shook his head.

During the day, after seeing a drawing of black wings in the room of the missing child Marty, Milo suddenly remembered the wooden spike he had recently pulled from Klaus. According to Klaus, the black shadow that attacked him was the Ripper, with black wings and burning eyes.

Before approaching Rick, Milo had already visited the manor where the vampires lived.

But the manor was deserted. The vampire siblings had already left Nanwei City with their servants and returned to Cainhurst Castle. This was the message from Dirashaw. He said that the vampires had completed their mission and offered their bloodline to the contract organization. After offering their bloodline, the siblings would enter a short period of weakness, so they dared not stay in Nanwei City any longer and fled back to Cainhurst City overnight.

Milo compared the wooden awl with all the furniture in the manor and found that it did not match in terms of material or style, indicating that the guy who attacked Klaus did not choose the weapon from the available materials, and that he had prepared the wooden awl in advance.

……

Rick took out a match, lit it, and used the flame for less than ten seconds to scorch the tip of the wooden cone. He then carefully smelled the burnt smell emanating from the cone.

"I think I should know what this is now."

Rick brandished the wooden awl twice, gesturing as he said:
"This thing should have been longer. Its original form was a short stick used by the city guards, but the outer paint was worn off to remove the number on the surface, and the end was sharpened."

"The city guards?" Milo's brow furrowed.

“Yes, your last job.” Rick nodded, tossed the awl back to Milo, and continued:

"If there's nothing else, I'm going back to listen to music. You're taking up my personal time."

"No, no, no, you don't have any personal time."

Milo grabbed Rick.

This was the only person he had left with a sufficiently high sanity level; how could he let him waste his time in a place like the opera house?

"This is terrible! I only get one day off a month." Rick was on the verge of tears.

But Milo pulled a document from his pocket and handed it to him: "This is some information and clues about the missing persons case. Go through it quickly, get a general idea, and then we'll start investigating."

Although Rick seemed reluctant, he flipped through the documents at lightning speed.

Milo presented Rick with a mix of things, including vampires, the Ripper, missing children, and paintings on the walls.

Rick adjusted his glasses, looked up at Milo, and asked, "Do you think that kid named Marty encountered something that doesn't belong to this world?"

“Something is slowly sprouting in his heart.” Milo spread his fingers and gestured as if he were blooming.

“At least he saw or came into contact with what that vampire encountered, right?” Rick spread out the black wing pattern that Henry had drawn on the wall by Marty in the file, and frowned as he thought, “This doesn’t look like a city guard. If this is the Ripper, no one has ever seen the Ripper.”

“You’re looking at it from the wrong angle.” Milo flipped the picture in Rick’s hand over, so that the wings were upside down, and said, “This painting was done by Marty hanging upside down on the wall.”

"upside down?"

Rick roughly imagined the eerie scene, and his body involuntarily shuddered twice. Then, as if realizing something, he suddenly slapped his thigh: "Do you think it could be a dream?!"

"What do you mean?" Milo asked, puzzled.

Rick rattled off a long explanation:

"Opera, didn't you hear it? Amina sleepwalked into a stranger's room, causing a series of misunderstandings and disputes. Research shows that people in a sleepwalking state can do many inexplicable things, not just morally, but also in terms of superhuman abilities. In fact, a large part of the human body's potential is locked away when the self-awareness is clear, limited by shallow self-cognition, self-awareness, and an incomplete worldview. Everyone says that children can't be hung on the wall, the physics teacher also said that it's against the rules, and Marty himself thinks so too, so he can't, at least not while all these ideas exist."

“But there are no such limiting factors in dreams.” Milo immediately understood what Rick meant.

"So do you think it's possible he painted this while sleepwalking?" Rick blinked, his eyes filled with anticipation and expectation for Milo's approval.

However, Milo did not jump to conclusions, but muttered:

“Marty’s parents did mention that he had been plagued by nightmares for a long time.”

"See? Enjoying opera isn't entirely useless," Rick said with a smug grin.

“But this conclusion can only be confirmed after we find Marty.” Milo shook the wooden awl in his hand.

"How do we find it?" Rick suddenly stopped smiling because he sensed something strange about Milo's tone, which even sounded a bit malicious.

Milo grinned:
"I have an idea, but I need someone to help me out."

(End of this chapter)