Steampunk: Sixth Era Epic-Chapter 554 - Fiancée

Chapter 554: Chapter 554 Fiancée Chapter 554: Chapter 554 Fiancée Mrs. Sangmi mentioned a female bard named Ashara whose singing was incredibly powerful. It seems she hails from the “Mountain City” of Midshire Fort City in the southeastern Kingdom. She has dark red hair, but her features aren’t particularly striking.

The female bard appeared promptly at seven o’clock, her head adorned with a predominantly red, soft floral hat, her torso clad in a white shirt with a brown vest featuring silver buttons on the outside, and surprisingly, she wore a pair of trousers on her lower body.

The regulars applauded and cheered, and some even tossed coins to the tall stool.

Ashara seemed accustomed to such attention as she sat on the high stool playing the lute and singing a tale of ancient love.

An outlander might not be fully versed in the world’s culture, but Iluna had heard this story. It was a traditional tale of love between a princess and a prince, involving adventures, witchcraft, and more, with the bard’s vibrato painting the kiss that wakes the Sleeping Princess… She described the details of that kiss very clearly, reminding Shard that they were in an inn in the Lower District.

Such meticulous description was presumably not to be heard during the day.

Though he lived in the Lower District, Mr. Toby Julian wasn’t exactly what one would call poor. He ran his own grocery store, and while not rich, he at least managed to survive in this city.

When Shard and Iluna, following the address, found Mr. Julian’s home on Loswal Street in the north of the town, it was already 7:50 in the evening.

This street was one of the nicer areas in the north, lined with a mix of three-story apartments and shops, gas pipelines, and steam conduits neatly scaling the walls facing the street. Mr. Julian lived at number 8, converting the first floor into a shop selling groceries, with his residence above it.

Now that it was nighttime, in this era, there wasn’t such a thing as a grocery store open at midnight. Although it might seem a bit absolute to say so, in the chaotic Lower District, no one would operate at night.

The shop was closed, and Shard was about to knock directly on the door, but Iluna pulled him around for a walk nearby, and then in a nearby alley, they found the gas meter for this street.

It seems this neighborhood was built in the last few decades, as old-style residential apartments usually have their gas meters inside the house.

“The captain told me that before investigating someone, you should try to find and examine the person’s gas meter reading first, to check for any abnormal readings, as a preliminary judgment of the investigation subject,” Iluna said, sharing her experience with Shard. After opening the box containing the gas meter inside the wall, Shard saw it was an old city gas meter model. The internal gears rotate with the use of gas, changing the readings. Each household’s gas meter has two readings, one representing the cumulative past reading, and one representing the new usage reading.

At the end or beginning of each month, the gas company employees responsible for checking the meters would use a specially made metal slot to push and pull, and through the complicated mechanical structure inside the meter, they would add the latter reading to the former, while the latter would be reset to zero for a new cycle of reading accumulation.

By comparing with the previous reading, it was possible to verify if anyone had tampered with the gas meter. A ribbon is usually tied next to the gas meter box, with the time of the last check written on it. This style of gas meter was widely used in the Old Continent.

After the operation in the Dark Realm, Shard, somehow, gained the ability to see in the dark, which might be related to his absorbing some of the power from the Box of Darkness. But Shard couldn’t deduce anything clear from the readings, while Iluna, after taking a close look at the numbers, quickly nodded to a conclusion:

“The readings are normal, consistent with what the captain told me about the gas usage rate for mixed merchant housing buildings.”

Shard was rather curious if the captain from Blackstone Security Company had previously worked in the city’s tax department.

After knocking on the door, it took quite a while for someone to come downstairs from the second floor. The person inquired about their identities through the door, and after seeing Iluna’s credentials through the crack and repeatedly confirming their appearances were not that of robbers, the cautious Mr. Julian finally allowed them inside.

Mr. Julian was not living alone; a woman with a black veil, very pale skin, and always looking down appeared with him. She hardly spoke, and Mr. Julian, somewhat embarrassedly, told Shard and Iluna that she was his fiancée.

Once upstairs, Mr. Julian received them in the drawing room on the second floor, while the lady in the black dress went to prepare them some hot tea. After all three were seated, Shard, observing the simple decor of the room, curiously asked:

“Why don’t you consider redecorating the house?”

What Shard meant was that since Mr. Julian was getting married, he should perhaps renovate the house before the wedding.

“I’m actually quite comfortable with this style, and the shop is also busy. It wouldn’t be good to disrupt business with hasty renovations. Although it will become a home for two… it’s not easy to make money here,” Mr. Julian replied.

It was getting late, so they didn’t engage in much small talk, and Iluna revealed their reason for visiting as well as the progress in the grave robbing case.

Of course, when Shard passed the photo to confirm the location of the grave, he “accidentally” brushed Mr. Julian’s hand, allowing the whispers in his ear to confirm that Mr. Toby Julian was indeed an ordinary man.

Hearing the corpse theft case brought up, Mr. Julian was calmer than they had expected. He answered all questions in a mostly normal manner and stated that to his knowledge, his sister hadn’t offended anyone.

“She was a very kind person in life, and I can’t imagine anyone holding a grudge and doing something so malicious after her death.”

Just then, the lady with the veil came in with a tea tray, prompting Mr. Julian to rise and help distribute the cups. However, as the veiled lady approached, Shard instinctively felt something was off about her. He stood up to help, hoping to create an opportunity for “contact” to confirm his suspicions, but Mr. Julian always seemed to intentionally or unintentionally stand between the detective and his fiancée.

“Are there whispers or desecration elements?”

Having sat back down, Shard cautiously asked in his mind.

“At least without direct contact, I didn’t sense any traces of the element. However…”

She seemed to be deliberately whetting Shard’s appetite, pausing on purpose:

“Don’t let your facial expression change, but there is something odd about this.”

“What is it?”

Shard listened as Iluna continued to inquire Mr. Julian about the situation, while the strange lady with the tea tray walked out the door. Looking at her silhouette from behind, there didn’t seem to be anything special about her.

“The other party doesn’t breathe, has a body temperature far below an ordinary person’s, and hasn’t blinked even once. To put it simply…”

Shard took a deep breath, nodded, as if he were agreeing with Iluna’s explanation about the investigation:

“The other party is a dead person!”

He concluded this in his mind and then hesitated for a moment, considering an even more terrifying possibility:

“I hope I don’t have nightmares tonight.”

Mr. Julian, who had remained calm throughout, finally showed some signs of emotional instability when he mentioned the young man who had abandoned Miss Julian, leading to her hanging herself:

“I’m sorry, I really don’t want to mention that person.”

“Then do you know where he lives?”

Iluna said. Mr. Julian sighed, nodded, and gave them the address. Having acquired the information they needed, Shard and Iluna didn’t plan to stay any longer. After consoling him a bit more, they stood up to take their leave.

Mr. Julian accompanied them downstairs and watched as they walked side by side along the street towards the far-off street corner. He turned off the lights on the first floor, then hurried to the second floor and peered out of the window to make sure the two were far away before he felt relieved.

At the street corner, Shard and Iluna stopped. On the moonlit street, only the two of them were present, with just a few houses along the street still lit:

“No matter how you look at it, Mr. Julian doesn’t seem like someone about to get married.”

The girl with brown long hair let out a small sigh:

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“That so-called fiancée has an issue, and he himself has issues too. I thought he was a good person at first.”

Shard then raised a more chilling possibility, looking up at the moon in the sky. In the transitional period of summer and autumn, the monsoon was very evident, long absent from clearing the fog above the city. Standing in the city, one could see the starry sky, the silver moonlight reflecting in his eyes:

“When Mrs. Sangmi provided the information about the wedding dress, I thought Mr. Julian was a pervert who liked to wear dresses. But now, I think he might be even more twisted—the fiancée we just met might actually be his sister’s corpse.”

Iluna was not at all surprised. Although her “other self” was certainly not as sensitive as Shard’s, she had also noticed something:

“Sorry, from the current situation, it looks like I might have involved you in another terrible affair.”

As her words faded away, a soft chuckle near Shard’s ear hinted:

“Outlander, you’ve felt the ‘Whisper’.”

“Where?”

“Look behind you.”

Turning around, the Corpse Bride stood under the moonlight, with a veil on her face and a sharp knife in her hand. The long shadow of her wedding dress spread towards them, swaying in the moonlight.

Meow~

In the far distance of the city, from some unclear location, a plaintive cat’s cry arose. Facing the moonlight to look at the bride, the wind brushed through those layers of the dress. Indeed, the night air of autumn was getting quite chilly.