Mystery: The Last Shepherd

Chapter 83 The Bed of Evil Gods
"Thank you sister."

Lu Ze used his "listening" ability for the first time and heard the voice of the dead through the corpse's chest.

elder sister?

Is it his sister, or a woman he recently met?
Lu Ze thought to himself, then tilted his ear to try and hear more clearly. He heard the childish voice suddenly turn terrified, "What is this, sister!" Immediately afterward came a long, painful wail, the sound of bones breaking, and the crackling and popping of blood being squeezed out of the lungs.

Before long, the childish voice turned cold and venomous, "Sister, why did you make it so dark and cold here?"

The voice was cold and distorted, and Lu Ze felt a sharp, throbbing pain in his head. He quickly shut down "Listen" and stood up. He felt dizzy as he stood up and almost fell because he couldn't keep his balance.

"So, did you find anything?"

Leonard noticed his pale face, helped him up, and asked.

"Hmm, I can vaguely see a woman's face."

Luzer lied, saying that he hadn't told Leonard that he had overheard it, "I'll try the ritual to see if I can draw her accurately."

So Luze arranged candles on the ground, used ritual magic to pray for power from the goddess, and drew a portrait of the woman who had been in contact with the child before her death. After casually glancing at the portrait, he suddenly froze.

He had seen the woman in the painting before.

With her distinctive round face and beautiful appearance, she was the woman who once appeared in Viscount Dorset's bedroom!

“I’ve seen this woman. She was also at the scene of the viscount’s death. The captain later sent police to investigate, but they couldn’t find any clues about her.”

Luzer showed the portrait on the paper to Leonard and Frye, and couldn't help but sigh inwardly. When he was investigating that case, his family didn't yet have that crazy woman, Ms. M.

Leonard stared intently at the painting.

Suddenly, Luzer noticed that Leonard tilted his head, as if listening to something. Then, a strange look appeared in his eyes. — Leonard's tilting of his head to listen was so subtle that Luzer might not have noticed it if he hadn't become more sensitive to such movements because of his use of "listening."

Really? He's a "listener" too?
Isn't he the "Midnight Poet"?

Leonard noticed Luze looking at him, quickly regained his composure, and smiled, saying, "My neck hurts a bit; I think I twisted it in the car."

What's going on? I thought you were also from the Aurora Club.

Lu Ze chuckled, "Who told you to sit with your legs crossed even in the car? Such a lazy posture is bad for your health."

"Thank you for your reminder."

Leonard said nonchalantly, opening the door to call in the sheriff and foreman, showing the paper to the foreman, "Have you seen this woman before?"

"What a beautiful woman, I really want to sleep with her, I've never seen her before."

The foreman stared at the portrait with fascination, only answering honestly after being nudged by the sheriff.

Leonard frowned and thought for a moment, then pointed to the corpse and asked, "Did they have time to rest?"

"Yes, if they work two shifts a week, we give them a day off and pay them their wages."

"Bring me the people in his shift."

"It will interfere with our work."

The foreman reluctantly explained that he only went outside and brought in three or five children after being threatened by the sheriff. These raggedly dressed children stood timidly and uneasy, their eyes filled with fear as they looked at Lu Ze and his group. To them, these people in their smart police uniforms were terrifying. "Have you seen this person before?"

Leonard half-squatted down, showed them the painting, and asked in a gentle tone.

His handsome face and friendly attitude put the children at ease, and many of them nodded after seeing the painting.

As Leonard pressed on, he learned more. The deceased child was named Oliver, and he was very young. He hadn't been able to adapt to the factory environment since arriving, often dozing off, and had nearly gotten into trouble several times before. As for the woman in the painting, she had inexplicably appeared in the factory one night. Because she was beautiful, the children liked her very much. She played with them for a while, and seemed to particularly like Oliver, giving him a piece of candy.

"Candy? Do you still have the wrapper for that candy?"

Leonard discovered a clue and asked with a surprised tone.

So the children led him to Oliver's bed—which was actually just a dirty blanket under the loom. There, he carefully hid a brightly colored candy wrapper under his bed.

"There are traces of a curse."

Lu Ze glanced at it and drew a conclusion without hesitation.

That's right, the culprit behind this series of deaths is this woman!

“These kids work so hard, working a week and resting for a day, and their pay is only half or a third of what adults get.”

After leaving the cotton mill, Leonard remarked that the earlier events had clearly left a deep impression on him.

“This place is already considered to have pretty good treatment.” Fry shook his head coldly. “In some coal mines in Southwell County, because the mine shafts are too small for adults to enter, children have to pull carts and crawl in and out to transport coal.”

Lu Ze also shook his head:
"After the repeal of the Corn Act, many farmers went bankrupt and migrated to the cities. Factories took advantage of the situation and offered increasingly lower wages. They worked their hardest, but the money they earned was barely enough to make ends meet, and they gradually weakened as they struggled to survive."

He had traversed the slums of Tingen and Port-Enmat, witnessing firsthand the widespread extremism there. From his perspective as a cryptic practitioner, this was perfect material for evil rituals. One could say the slums and industrial buildings were ideal breeding grounds for evil spirits.

How ironic! The factory owners exploited their bodies, while the evil god devoured their souls. Both sides were satiated, while they vanished without a trace.

"By the way, you mentioned before that you had an idea. What exactly did you mean?"

Luze suddenly remembered what Leonard had said in the car.

Leonard organized his thoughts and asked:
"How long do you think this child, or that viscount, would live, even without that woman's curse?"

Lu Ze thought for a moment.

The child's body couldn't withstand the intensity of the work, and he kept dozing off. Meanwhile, Viscount Dorset, seeking thrills, liked all sorts of extreme ways of playing, and he kept pushing the limits, which would eventually kill him.

"He probably won't live much longer."

"But the appearance of that woman hastened their deaths."

"You mean, she took a part of their lives?"

Luzer knew many evil rituals and immediately understood Leonard's meaning.

But what is she going to do with all that life force?

(End of this chapter)