The sky gradually darkened, and Chen Ke erged from the other end of the alley, returning to the street.
The indigo hue filled the firmant, leaving behind a touch of crimson in the west, while the small moon played hide and seek in the eastern sky.
The number of pedestrians on the street had dwindled significantly, and the occasional empty carriage sped by, as everyone seed to be in a hurry to get ho.
Chen Ke also noticed that there were an unusually large number of patrolling sheriffs. They moved in groups of more than a dozen, from one end of the street to the other, as if they were on guard against sothing.
He hurried towards the building that Jacob and the children had temporarily stayed in during his last visit, hoping it had not yet been demolished, and that he might encounter them there.
After nightfall, Langdon grew sowhat colder, and the air was mixed with a sickly sweet odor from the combination of mud and garbage.
After so effort, Chen Ke finally arrived near the banks of the Taist River. The large house he rembered had been transford into sothing else, looking like a workers’ dormitory. The door was not closed, and the orange glow of lights seeped from within, with several workers squatting by a ditch in front of the house to wash up.
"Alright, Jacob, it looks like you and your little ones have moved," Chen Ke sighed.
How on Earth was he going to find Jacob?
Chen Ke rubbed his temples and closed his eyes in deep thought, suddenly rembering a way. Jacob was the leader of the Langdon Thief Gang, and if he were still alive, he would constantly be adopting abandoned children and child laborers. All Chen Ke needed to do was observe the street corners carefully and spot a young pickpocket, from whom he could probably learn Jacob’s whereabouts.
However, it was already night, and it wouldn’t be easy to find those little pickpockets. Besides, the children from 29 years ago should have grown up by now. Were they still active on the streets stealing?
If that were true, then Jacob would be indirectly nurturing generation after generation of Langdon thieves, even though his intention was to protect the holess children.
"I need to find a place to spend the night," Chen Ke mumbled to himself.
Without a penny to his na and no acquaintances here, not even the coffeehouse outpost that the foundation had set up was around anymore—it had been destroyed in 1859. Left with no other choice, Chen Ke headed to a park in the city, where he found a bench to sit on.
As ti ticked by second by second, Chen Ke looked up at the bright moon, closed his eyes to pass the ti, and thought about many things. What occupied his mind the most were thoughts about the witches.
The descriptions in the Ashes of An Helei once ntioned that there could only be one witch in each era, but it never explained what would happen if there were multiple witches.
Undoubtedly, there had been four witches in 2009 already. The Fla Witch Diana and the Illusion Creation Witch Sleery were born from Chen Ke taking the power of other witches, while Yasla’s Illusion Creation Witch Fujiwara Makoto and the company’s Furious Witch Olivia had traveled from other tilines.
Speaking of which, Diana and Sleery were the witches of the 2009 era. When Olivia and Fujiwara Makoto coexisted in Opportunity City, Chen Ke didn’t notice anything strange happening in the city.
Of course, if one were to stick to rationale, Olivia might have traveled from another era to 2009 only recently, arriving just as Fujiwara Makoto had been killed by Chen Ke.
Why were witches able to resonate with the green Holy Diamond? This was another mystery that eluded Chen Ke. Olivia had one in her possession, and there was one in the 19th-century Langdon as well. They must have both tried to activate it, but the Holy Diamonds only revealed their worth when activated in the Illusion Dream Center, which sufficiently suggested a connection to him.
Either the Holy Diamond originally belonged to Chen Ke, or the Illusion Dream Center contained sothing missing in the dream world. In any case, the Holy Diamonds worked in his hands, whether the result was good or bad would only be known through reality.
Engulfed in such random thoughts, Chen Ke remained until dawn. After all, in the Illusion Dream Center, ti did not pass, and every rotation of the dial took ages to continue, so it was better to think of solutions in this world.
Chen Ke sat there until dawn, his eyes closed, leaning back in his chair, looking as though he had fallen asleep.
He felt soone quietly tugging at his clothes. Cracking his eyes open slightly, he saw a child trying to go through his jacket pocket.
Chen Ke’s lips curled up slightly. He had thought about going out early to see if he could run into so pickpockets, but one had co straight to him. Pretending to be asleep, he let the child search him.
If he grabbed the child right now to interrogate him, he probably wouldn’t get anything out of him – just wasting an opportunity. It was better to follow the child when he left, to see where their den was.
"Tch... Pauper."
The pickpocket searched for a while but couldn’t find a penny in Chen Ke’s pocket, so he disparaged it.
Chen Ke still feigned sleep. This pickpocket reminded him of the little Jack from the past, the boy who followed Jacob. He wondered how he was doing now; after 29 years, little Jack must have beco big Jack.
As he barely opened his eyes to see the pickpocket leave dejectedly, Chen Ke quickly got up and followed at a distance. They went one after the other through the streets and alleys, Chen Ke always appearing just right in the pickpocket’s blind spots.
Early in the morning, the streets started bustling again. Horse-drawn carts rolled over the bumpy roads, and factory whistles blew. A newsboy stood at the crossroads, loudly reading the newspaper headlines.
"Headline! Headline! A mysterious person strikes again, another woman eviscerated, the Public Security Bureau is at a loss!"
The pickpocket targeted a few easy marks, then t up with two buddies in front of a café.
"Kevin, how was the haul?" a companion asked.
"Not much, I found a well-dressed tramp in the park. I thought he was a rich man who had drunk too much and spent the night in the park," said the pickpocket nad Kevin.
"Oh? What happened then?" his companions asked.
"He really didn’t have a penny. I thought I had lucked out," Kevin shook his head and sighed, looking for all the world like a businessman who had made a bad deal, a little adult in every way.
"If he didn’t have money, then for sure his clothes were stolen too," said a companion.
"Who knows. Hey, you guys want to go to the bank of the Taist River to skip stones?" Kevin suggested.
"Uh, I haven’t picked up anything this morning... But stone-skipping won’t take long," a companion was tempted.
"Let’s go, let’s go. It’s still early. All the early risers are workers; the rich co out at noon," Kevin said with a smile.
The three children grinned and ran towards the Taist River. It seed that even as pickpockets, children were still just children at heart, loving play.
Chen Ke continued to follow them, watching the young rascals frolic in the countryside, catching fish and skipping stones by the river, lying on the riverbank to pass the ti – not at all looking like professional pickpockets.
When the three children noticed the sun had moved overhead, it was already the afternoon. They got up and scampered off towards the direction of the big clock tower. Chen Ke also stood up from a bench nearby and followed at an unhurried pace.
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