??Chapter 218: 217. Trieste Detective Agency_1
Chapter 218: 217. Trieste Detective Agency_1
The police carried the person away, and Shia placed the book on the table.
Lu Ban felt the cover looked familiar. It depicted a man in a suit engrossed in his work at a desk, surrounded by various ugly and abstract monsters. The entire scene emitted a strong sense of discordance, appearing quite mad.
The title, translated from ‘Silent Lands’, read ‘Shadow of Terror’. Looking back at the cover illustration, one would realize that these monsters were all erging from the man’s shadow.
Lu Ban subconsciously looked at his own shadow, which was empty and pitch-black.
“”This is a book from the Ancient Capital.””
Trieste picked up the book.
“”In the Abandoned Capital, you can find it for sale in all the bookstores, and there are even handwritten copies in many places. Whether it’s the upper-class people or the shop assistants, as long as they are literate, they all enjoy this author’s stories. Even illiteracy isn’t an issue, as the storytellers outside the teahouses also tell his tales.””
He pointed to the teahouse across, where the storyteller, unimpacted by the affair, was standing at the entrance. The storyteller, dressed in a long gown and a jacket, holding a folding fan, and wearing sunglasses, had gathered a group of porters, laborers, and children who were listening intently to his narrative.
“”The Ancient Capital?””
Shia obviously had never heard the na before.
“”It must be a writer’s na, I’ve heard it ntioned before.””
Lu Ban had heard the na of the Ancient Capital during a previous mission in the Abandoned Capital and knew him to be a writer fond of horror stories and romances, seemingly often in the company of married won.
Could the writer they were looking for this ti be him?
“”Yes, actually… the Ancient Capital has gone missing.””
Trieste’s expression appeared sowhat bitter.
“”In fact, my forr colleagues have received commissions to find traces of the Ancient Capital before, but at the ti, I thought it was just soone’s husband, who had discovered he was being cuckolded, seeking revenge on the Ancient Capital. But today, I received a commission from the publishing house to find him. He’s been missing for two weeks now, with no word of his whereabouts.””
After leaving the teahouse, Trieste led the way as the three of them headed to a corner of the street.
Lu Ban listened to Trieste while surveying his surroundings.
As he had seen before, there were various shop signs visible, and most of the people walking on the road were dressed in old and tattered clothes, dirty and dusty. In contrast, those riding in rickshaws were dressed in suits and cheongsams, clearly belonging to an entirely different society.
The main road in the center was smooth and flat, but the alleyways reeked, and in so areas, the cries of roving vendors overpowered everything else, noisy like a vegetable market. In other areas, there were only the more refined shops like antiques, jade, and bookstores, which were quiet and oppressive.
The three soon arrived at a two-story building with a small teahouse on the first floor, frequented by common folks. Climbing the stairs to the second floor, Lu Ban saw the sign hanging with ‘Trieste Detective Agency’.
Pushing open the door, the first thing Lu Ban heard was a lazy ow.
The fat Orange Cat didn’t seem to be alard by the strangers, rely glancing at Lu Ban and Shia before falling into a deep sleep, not even bothering to twitch its tail.
“This is the landlord’s cat; for so reason, it likes to co here to sleep,”
Tryst took off his coat, removed his hat, and set his pipe on the rack on the table.
His desk was ssy, covered with various formats of docunts and files, and there were scattered photographs. Along the wall beside the desk was a bookshelf, which was similarly piled with files.
The second-floor living room had an old sofa where the Orange Cat was sleeping right in the center. There was a coffee table with so leftovers, a wine bottle that was more than half empty, and more little trinkets whose purpose was unknown.
There was no bed on this floor; only an unmade quilt beside the sofa, indicating that Tryst probably slept on the sofa.
“Alright, now we can sort out the information about the mission.”
Tryst picked up a bottle of liquor from the coffee table and glanced at Lu Ban and Shia inquiringly; both shook their heads, so he poured the alcohol into a murky glass and downed it in one gulp.
“Ancient Capital is a writer who beca famous about seventeen years ago, skilled at writing horror stories, the kind that scare people. His horror stories were very popular with the upper class; therefore, his books quickly beca best-sellers. He wrote several more books and made a good amount of money.”
Tryst set down his glass, walked over to his desk, casually pulled out two files, and handed them to Lu Ban and Shia.
“So of the ladies of high society, you know, either they were widows who had inherited a big inheritance after their husbands passed away early, or their husbands frequented romantic haunts and kept several mistresses on the side. Of course, there were also so who simply didn’t like their own husbands, having married purely due to family reasons.”
“These ladies were obsessed with Ancient Capital’s novels and naturally beca interested in the writer. Sotis, they would hold poetry salons and invite literati to attend, and Ancient Capital was one of them. After the salon was over and everyone else had left, Ancient Capital would sotis spend the night at their hos.”
He laughed, poured himself half a glass of wine, and this ti didn’t drink imdiately, but sat down on the sofa, petting the Orange Cat that was sound asleep beside him.
“Over ti, Ancient Capital’s reputation started to get weird. Sotis, so of his female readers were willing to offer their bodies to spend a night with him. However, the guy was indeed quite sothing; he was smooth with his love talk and had plenty of energy. Sotis he could visit three households in one night.”
“Three households?”
Shia tilted her head, puzzled.
“Ahem, anyway, since his works were really popular, the wealthy people of Abandoned Capital couldn’t overtly harm him. Instead, so old masters with peculiar tastes even specially invited Ancient Capital to their hos to create together with their wives. However, this kind of behavior always led to so discontent. The publishing house wondered if it’s possible that one of the masters, because he’d been cuckolded, might have hard Ancient Capital or hidden him away.”
Seeing that Shia didn’t quite understand, Tryst changed the subject.
“I think that our mission this ti is to find Ancient Capital.”
“If it’s a mission, then Ancient Capital shouldn’t be dead; perhaps he was just kidnapped. Wait, what about that man from before? Is there anything special about that novel?”
Lu Ban, who naturally hadn’t read Ancient Capital’s books, therefore asked.
“The book itself is an ordinary one, nothing special about it, but this novel…”
Tryst pulled out a book from his shelf; it was “Shadow of Terror”, and it looked newer, like a just-purchased book that hadn’t been read yet.
“I wasn’t interested in these novels before and hadn’t read them. But for the investigation, I still asked the publisher for a set. Last night I read another one, and I can only say Ancient Capital beca famous for a reason. Since that man said this book was the reason for his attack, perhaps we can see what’s actually written inside.”
Tryst opened the novel.
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