88: Chapter 26 The First Snow

The first snow of winter in Backlund fell silently.

Fine, cold snowflakes like scattered grey-white spiritual dust drifted down silently. Lu Li leaned against the floor-to-ceiling window of his apartment in the River Bay District, quietly watching outside.

The snow foam touched the dark, turbid surface of the Hoi River, instantly swallowed by the rushing water without raising a ripple, leaving only the mist that never dissipated from the river surface all year round, wrapping the biting cold into the window cracks.

Since mid-December, a strange cold had spread across the East Borough and the Dock District. The symptoms were mild, with no risk of high fever or coughing up blood, but a continuous, muffled cough echoed through every muddy alley, impossible to shake off.

The trading trend in the Underground Commercial Street had changed. The once sought-after low-level rune fragments were ignored, while cheap cough syrup mixed with trace amounts of pure holy water became a necessity that the lower-class citizens scrambled to buy. The crisp sound of glass bottles colliding replaced the whispers of rune trading, becoming the new backdrop of the underground market in the Dock District.

Lu Li raised his hand to close the window, cutting off the damp, cold wind from outside. His fingertips brushed over three neatly stacked slips of paper on the desk, each involving an undercurrent of maneuvering.

At the top was a note written by Abraham with secret spiritual ink: The black sail ship at Storm Cape had been docked in the dead sea area of the Fog Sea for two days of maintenance and had set sail again, its predetermined route pointing straight to the estuary of the Hoi River in Backlund.

The second was a scribbled reminder handwritten by Old Eye in pencil, the handwriting carrying the slant of an old man with poor eyesight: The liaison officer of the Aurora Order in the Dock District had a constant tracking spiritual stone signal bound to him, moving steadily toward the heart of the Old Industrial District in the River Bay District, without detours or concealment.

The last was a corner snippet clipped from the Backlund Daily, the printing ink carrying the dryness unique to winter paper: The renovation project of the Old Wharf in the River Bay District was completely suspended due to the risk of extreme cold waves and river freezing. All construction barges and crane fleets were withdrawn to safe anchorages upstream, and the resumption date was indefinitely postponed.

The construction fleet had all withdrawn, but the black sail ship, laden with secrets and sins, would never accommodate worldly weather.

Lu Li's eyes darkened slightly, instantly discerning the Aurora Order's entire scheme.

The North Sea had harsh conditions in winter, with giant waves and thick fog overlapping. The joint patrol teams of the church's Nighthawks and Mandated Punishers had to reduce the frequency of patrols and shorten the time at sea, creating a fatal gap in maritime control. Coupled with the fact that the Old Wharf was unguarded and the abandoned factory area was convenient for building evil formations, the timing and location were all in the hands of the Aurora Order.

He sat down at the wooden desk, dipped his finger in ink, and outlined a simplified timeline on his leather notebook: The Aurora Order liaison officer was deep in the Old Industrial District choosing a location for the formation, the window for the black sail ship to arrive was approaching, and the Old Wharf's defense was a vacuum. The three clues perfectly overlapped; the other party had planned this for a long time.

Closing the notebook, Lu Li got up to change his clothes.

The dark grey thickened trench coat he was wearing was a second-hand item he had picked up earlier this month. The stitching on the two patches on the cuffs was rough, but the wool blend fabric was thick and dense, enough to resist the bone-chilling damp cold of Backlund, far better than the thin trench coat from autumn.

He wrapped a dark grey wool scarf purchased for a penny at the East Borough second-hand market around his neck, pulling it up to below his nose, perfectly covering most of his face and blending into the grey crowd of the winter streets.

His fingertips checked the leather waist bag at his side one by one: a sealed copper bottle filled with sufficient purified holy water, a spiritual detection needle made of fine silver lying dormant, and three emergency concealment rune fragments intact.

After confirming everything was correct, he locked the apartment's wooden door, stepped on the iron staircase, and walked slowly into the falling snow.

The cold wave carrying the falling snow made the Underground Commercial Street of Water Pump Street even more crowded and noisy.

It was not because business was booming, but because the homeless people on the streets had all flooded into the underground passage to escape the cold. The district management office was forced to open several abandoned side alleys to build temporary heating points. The smell of charcoal smoke mixed with damp mold and cheap tobacco filled the entire passage.

Lu Li walked through the crowd. Several old men wrapped in tattered blankets gathered around a charcoal brazier to warm their hands, lowering their voices to talk about the strange events in the Dock District recently: inhuman low roars coming from the riverbank at night, dark red ship shadows flashing in the fog, and coughing sounds in the alleyway entrance after dark inexplicably overlapping into a chorus.

He passed through the crowd calmly, first verifying the latest maritime intelligence with Abraham, then replenishing high-level purification runes and double-dose holy water at the black market, and finally turned and walked into the dim, old bookstore at the street corner.

Old Eye was hunched over, squatting in the mezzanine of a wooden bookshelf sorting out newly collected old books. His turbid eyes lifted to scan Lu Li, his tone as flat as usual: "That Seer friend of yours came by yesterday, specifically looking for ancient navigation logs related to the Sea of Wraith, specifying that he wanted ancient books with records of dark red sails."

"I sold him a bundle of damp and moldy navigation logs from the corner of the library for three shillings. He said the mold spots caused by the books being soaked in seawater for years perfectly matched the spiritual characteristics of the sea area dust samples he collected, and he entrusted me to tell you: he will be at the Mingde Street detective agency, drawing a complete map of the spiritual pollution spread of the Sea of Wraith."

As his voice fell, Old Eye raised his hand and pulled out a few yellowed comic weeklies from the bottom shelf, lightly swept the dust off the cover with a feather duster, and handed them to Lu Li: "Take this to Old Kohler's daughter. Last time the little girl came to return the bread debt, she asked me eagerly if there were any low-priced old comic books. These have been sitting for years with no one buying them; giving them to her is just right."

Lu Li took the comic books, his fingertips touching the rough paper, nodded in thanks, and pushed the door into the wind and snow.

At 15 Mingde Street, Sherlock Moriarty's detective agency had its light half-hidden.

The heavy curtains were only half drawn, the indoor light was dim and soft, and the solid wood desk was piled with case files, expired newspapers, and investigation notes. That bundle of moldy navigation logs from the old bookstore was spread out on the table, and several hand-drawn diagrams were pressed on the edge of the logs, with lines precisely marking the spiritual pollution levels and diffusion trajectories of the sea area.

Beside it, the envelope was sealed with the agency's exclusive copper-pattern stamp, containing the newly finalized case report—the theft of ore from the Geological Research Institute professor had been settled, the breach of contract compensation had been paid in full, and the client had no objection to the investigation results.

Sherlock raised his hand to rub his sore eyebrows. During this time, he had been deeply studying that cursed portrait of Edwin.

The commission from the painter Matthew Edwin had already ended. He used the Seer Pathway's Beyonder abilities to completely strip away the survival rules of the wraith residing in the painting, and the memories of Matthew being eaten by the wraith stopped flowing away completely.

He activated his spiritual vision several times to dismantle the spiritual dust in the painting, and after comparison, he concluded: the spiritual characteristics of the dust were homologous to the tidal residues sealed deep in the stone piers of the Old Wharf, both being the original tidal force leaking from the Sea of Wraith.

Following this clue to dig deeper, the old case of ore transportation that had been sealed for months surfaced.

Months ago, a batch of high-grade serpentine ore from the Geological Research Institute was swapped at sea, and the transportation route happened to pass through the waters where the black sail ship docked at Storm Cape.

Combined with the whereabouts of the black sail ship, it was not difficult to infer: the Aurora Order had laid out plans early, secretly tampering with the transport ship's route, using the special serpentine ore fragments as a medium to create an evil positioning anchor point that could be linked remotely, paving the way for subsequent high-level energy-supplying runes to be set up on shore.

The fountain pen paused on the paper, Sherlock leaned back against the chair, and the snow particles outside the window tapped on the glass, making a fine, dense pattering sound.

Several event timelines on the notebook intertwined and overlapped: Matthew moving into the Old Wharf's riverside studio to paint, the research institute's ore being loaded from the Southern Continent, the black sail ship entering the lower reaches of the Hoi River for the first time, and the ore ship docking in the open sea off Storm Cape—all nodes pointed to the same starting point of the plot.

Steady footsteps sounded in the corridor, and the Landlady's gentle voice came from outside the door, informing him of the visitor's arrival. Sherlock closed the encrypted notebook and got up to open the door.

The wind and snow grew denser in the afternoon. Lu Li and Sherlock met at Old Eye's old bookstore as promised.

The small shop was warm with charcoal fire, and the two held a cup of hot black tea each, efficiently exchanging all intelligence.

Lu Li synchronized the three key pieces of information: the movements of the Aurora Order liaison officer, the arrival time of the black sail ship, and the defense vacuum of the Old Wharf; Sherlock informed him that the portrait had been completely dismantled and verified, the residual spirituality of the wraith on the canvas had been cleared, and he had entrusted the church's Mandated Punishers team to seal the frame in the River Bay District outpost archives as evidence. He had removed and kept the heat-insulating seal rune on the back of the painting—that was a fragment of the jiaowei sealing box shell gifted by Lu Li, with stable spirituality, still usable for a second time.

The two reviewed the deployment points of the Aurora Order's support personnel in the dock underground market. Sherlock added clues about the ore anchor points, and Lu Li recorded them silently, preparing to incorporate this foreshadowing into the overall game timeline for re-deduction.

Twilight fell, and the snow in Backlund suddenly became heavier. Goose-feather snow covered the streets and rooftops, and the world was grey and white.

Lu Li bade farewell to Sherlock and headed to the Mingde Street parish church on the way.

The branches of the old oak tree at the church entrance were bent by the thick snow, and the rough trunk was hung with blessing pendants woven by children with old cloth strips, delicate and lively.

Old Kohler's little daughter tiptoed on her thin feet, hanging a frosted silver piece on the lowest branch. That was the angel signpost that guided the lost, as spoken by the lower-class believers.

Seeing Lu Li, the little girl instantly shrank her neck shyly, clutched the brand-new comic book in her arms, took out a small package wrapped in newspaper from her tattered coarse cloth pocket, and handed it over obediently.

Unwrapping the two layers of old newspaper, two warm white breads came into view. The surface of the bread had light yellow lines baked with extra sugar, which was a heart specifically prepared by the father and daughter.

"Dad said the dock water transport is suspended, and there are fewer odd jobs, but he found a stable job as a cleaner at a freight company. The boss is very kind and knows that our mother and daughter rely on each other, so he gave us a storage room to live in for free." The little girl's voice was soft and sweet. After speaking, she hugged the comic book and ran into the warm light of the church, stepping on the snow.

Lu Li looked at the little girl's back and put the bread into his backpack. He understood in his heart that Old Kohler's stable job was never a coincidence.

After the client of the ore case settled the debt, he had always protected all innocent ordinary people involved in the Beyonder game in a low-key and gentle way. This was the restrained kindness unique to top-level Beyonders.

When he returned to the River Bay District apartment, night had completely shrouded both banks of the Hoi River, and the lights of thousands of homes merged into the wind and snow.

Lu Li placed the bread on the dining table and got up to water the ivy on the windowsill.

This potted green plant was insisted upon by the Landlady. The old lady said the apartment was too damp near the river, and green plants could purify the cold spirituality and dispel the dampness.

He didn't pay much attention to it at first, but after half a month of care, the ivy not only didn't wither but sprouted two fresh new leaves, vibrant and green, especially eye-catching in the grey winter room.

Sitting at the desk, Lu Li picked up his pen to organize the day's intelligence, writing succinctly: The Aurora Order liaison officer had penetrated deep into the heart of the Old Industrial District, suspected of choosing an abandoned factory building to build an evil formation.

Abraham would send personnel tomorrow to scout the spiritual anomalies in the factory area from the periphery; the window for the black sail ship to arrive continued to tighten; there were only three weeks left until this full moon, and the Aurora Order must complete the backup rune energy supply debugging and unload the last batch of wraith entity puppets before the full moon's spiritual peak arrived.

As the pen tip fell for the last time, Lu Li put down the fountain pen, closed his eyes, and leaned back against the chair to rest. Inside the waist bag at his side, a few space perception rune fragments emitted a faint, cool spirituality, gently touching his waist and abdomen.

The wind and snow outside the window grew stronger, the sky full of white snow swallowed the light of the Hoi River, and the outline of the Old Wharf pier in the distance gradually blurred, dissolving into the grey and white snow curtain.

Before the storm and snow fell, the undercurrent had already reached the shore.