Mr. Rat of the Steam World

Chapter 48 Sherlock Holmes
Morning light streamed through the carved window lattice, falling on the unfolded linen paper. Afra's silk sleeves rested lightly on the edge of the pages as she sketched with a pencil. Lu Ran climbed onto the desk with practiced ease and immediately spotted a detective sketch drawn on the paper.

Afra gripped the pencil with a slight pressure, the pencil twirling half a circle between her fingers. When the graphite tip landed on the sketchbook, it first outlined the shape of a wide-brimmed top hat. The brim was pulled low, and the shadow swept obliquely across the paper, obscuring most of the imagined face, revealing only the sharp lines of the jawline.

"There should be a pair of tall boots."

She murmured to herself while looking at the paper, completely unaware that Lu Ran had climbed up.

Then the pencil slid down, making a sharp angle at the ankle. She drew the stitches on the boot shaft in great detail. Suddenly, she remembered the detective novel she had read the night before. The pencil paused, and she added a pipe to the detective's fingertip. She gently poked the tobacco fibers with the pencil tip to create fine dots, but deliberately smeared the ash into a blurry blob, as if it might fall onto the front of her trench coat at any moment.

"It should look like this."

should be.

Lu Ran stroked his chin. In his plan, if he hadn't turned into a gray rat, he should indeed have grown to be this handsome.

Unexpectedly, Afra saw him nodding thoughtfully and her eyes lit up.

"Detective Number One Mouse, does Sherlock really look like this?"

The mouse paused, then nodded vigorously.

"That's awesome!" Afra clenched her fist tightly, then suddenly realized what she was doing and grabbed Lu Ran by the back of the neck.

"You ran quite fast that day, you promised to deliver the letter, why haven't you replied this time?"

信?
Lu Ran was stunned. Right, where did she put that letter?

Because I remembered Bella saying that the main purpose of the letter was to use scent tracking to find her "disguise" in the manor, I didn't pay much attention to it and just casually put it in the stone house.

To suffer.

Lu Ran tried to play dumb and get away with it, but Afra accurately caught his momentary guilty conscience. His expression was exactly the same as Bella's fawning face when she did something wrong.

"Oh, so you and Bella aren't working together to hide something from me, are you?"

Afra suddenly remembered that Bella had led her in circles that day. Now it seemed that not only the gray rat, but Bella as well had been bribed and bought off by that detective. She was heartbroken.

"I'm never making scones for you again."

Seeing the girl's somewhat sad expression, Lu Ran felt a little embarrassed. He glanced at the image on the linen paper, and suddenly had an idea. He started squeaking and then waved his claws, pointing out the window.

"What's wrong? Is there something outside the window?"

Afra stopped pretending to wipe away tears and glanced around subconsciously. The sun was shining brightly outside, and the lawn was empty, without even a servant coming or going.

Lu Ran paused, his gaze shifting back and forth between the view outside the window and Afra, his face filled with astonishment.

Under what circumstances are they unaffected by deception magic?
He had just used deception magic to create an illusion of "Sherlock" that landed below, yet this noble girl in front of him couldn't see it.
"Wang Wang!"

Just then, Bella came skipping back from the lawn downstairs, and Afra realized what was happening.

"You mean Bella was behind it all?"

Lu Ran hesitated for a moment, suppressing his inner shock, and after thinking for a while, he nodded decisively.

Sorry, my friend.

……

After resting for two days, Lu Ran and Sang Biao Cat had their usual get-together for a meal and chatted. In front of the pitiful Bella, they denounced the awful creatures together. After dealing with the cat and dog, they dug out Afra's thank-you letter and wrote a new reply to reminisce.

It was mostly just words of comfort and gratitude, and we also chatted about a few interesting detective stories, which made Afra look on with longing.

While Lu Ran wasn't paying attention, the foodie and the novel rat huddled together.

"Write the boss's personal biography?" Novel Mouse was a little confused.

“That’s right!” Foodie nodded emphatically. “Stories made up out of thin air definitely don’t feel real, so we have to take it step by step, make it relatable, and make sure the mice feel a sense of familiarity when they read the story!” Foodie said earnestly, his voice gradually becoming more enthusiastic.

"As the current leader of the rat pack, we must learn from and improve upon the leader's spirit, and write the first story based on the leader's deeds."

The novel mouse seemed to have grasped something: "So..."

The foodie nodded affirmatively, his eyes shining: "Since Boss likes being a detective, then I must grasp the essence of this exploration and thirst for knowledge. Think about it carefully, Boss calls himself Sherlock Holmes, what can you associate that with?"

The novel's mouse paused, then tentatively asked, "Detective... Mouse?"

"That's what I mean!"

The foodie suddenly clenched his claws in mid-air.

"I've thought it all out. To avoid using the boss's name, but to make people immediately associate him with the boss, our first story will be called 'Sherlock Holmes Mouse'!"

The gluttonous mouse's voice was resounding and gradually became more impassioned.

"A famous detective mouse, Sherlock Holmes, full of pioneering, adventurous, and inquisitive spirit!"

The novel mouse's mouth swelled slightly into an "O" shape, its black bean eyes wide as it stared blankly at the gluttonous mouse that seemed to glow all over, its face full of adoration.

"Foodie Bro, you're amazing! No wonder you're the second-in-command of the territory."

"Ugh, tsk... what are you saying?"

The foodie suddenly felt embarrassed.

"There's no such thing as a second-in-command. It's just that the brothers are praising him and the boss values ​​him. It's nothing special. In the end, the actual writing still depends on you..."

"no."

The novel mouse's eyes sparkled, and it grabbed the foodie's paw: "Before I came here, I never imagined that the mice in the main territory were so amazing. The problem that I couldn't solve no matter how hard I thought about it, you pointed out the way for me in just a few words."

The novel mouse shook the foodie's paw: "Foodie, I'm new here and don't know any other mice. Only you can help me, and please, Foodie, help me complete this story."

The foodie stared blankly at the novel mouse, as if seeing himself in it, seizing opportunities and diligently doing everything.

"We're all working for the boss, why distinguish between 'yours' and 'mine'!"

"I promise you!"

……

"Achoo!" Lu Ran sneezed.

Something just doesn't feel right.

Just to be on the safe side, Lu Ran subconsciously began using divination magic to ask—

"Is there anyone trying to harm me lately?"

After a while, a vague "no" appeared out of nowhere in his mind, and he got the answer. Only then did Lu Ran breathe a sigh of relief.

Nobody hurt me?
"It looks like he caught a cold due to the changing seasons."

Lu Ran rubbed his nose and stretched.

It's time to go check out my precious factory and the precious engineer I've been eyeing for a while.

[Please let me continue reading! This book's data is pretty good. Next Monday, the reading data will be compared with Sanjiang. I should be able to boost the data in the next few days with the intelligent push. I don't care about the other times, but I would be very grateful if you could read it on Monday.]

　Thank you Changshengxia for the donation!
　　
　
(End of this chapter)