Old days, dice and investigator's manual

In the office, after reading the letter in his hand, Isaac's gaze lingered on the last line, "No need to reply," and he remained silent for a long time, unsure of what to say.

The letter was something Carlo had just pulled out of his desk drawer. He tossed out a comment, "This letter Lessing wrote himself should give you an idea of ​​his situation rather than me giving you a long explanation," and let Isaac read it himself.

The image of Edward in the letter overlaps with that of his adoptive father in his memory, yet they are somewhat different.

Edward, whom he knew, was a gentle old man, a learned historian, but somewhat reclusive. He rarely confided in Isaac, let alone interacted with other professors. He spent most of his time alone in his study reading ancient books and studying antiques.

In this letter, Edward lowered his guard and recounted his years of confusion and reflection.

Various questions swirled in Isaac's mind: Lessing's past, the changes in Vesta, order, and the gods...

But in the end, somehow, perhaps knowing that asking the others at this moment would not yield answers, he chose the most insignificant question: "Was this house, 122 Red Maple Street, originally his residence?"

Carlo was looking at another stack of letters, homework submitted by the children from the orphanage: "He was indeed living here when he wrote the letters, but not in this house now."

"What happened?"

"Oh, you're not from Vista, so you probably haven't heard of it." Carlo wrote "Your handwriting is too ugly" on a page of paper. "This area used to be the old town, with many wooden houses. There was a big fire more than ten years ago that burned down most of the street, and the house where Lessing used to live was also destroyed in the fire."

"This building is a reconstruction on the original site. The city hall built a batch of townhouses of similar size, retaining the original house numbers."

Isaac couldn't help but feel a little regretful. If he could have lived in the house where Edward actually lived, touched the tables and chairs he used, walked up the stairs he walked, and seen what the street scene looked like every day, he might have been able to get closer to the old man's heart.

But a fire erased those traces, and now all that remains is imagination. Isaac can't quite describe how he feels.

"However, since the old house has already burned down, the key Lessing left me is useless now." Carlo poured a key out of the envelope, weighed it in his hand, and said, "Keep it as a memento."

The key traced an arc, and Isaac reached out and caught it.

A brass key, its teeth worn smooth and rounded, its surface dull and oxidized, clearly had been used frequently in the past until it was completely shelved at some point.

Isaac examined the keys for a moment, then put them in his pocket: "Thank you."

"Now that you've read the letter, can you return it to me?"

Isaac handed the letter back to Carlo, who stuffed it into an envelope, opened a drawer containing a row of letters, counted them, and put them back in their original place.

"Boss, you've packed this letter quite neatly."

"You sound surprised." Carlo closed the drawer. "What did you think I would do?"

"You look at it and then just leave it aside?"

Isaac thought that, given Carlo's usual style, these letters would have been casually stuffed into some corner or simply buried under a pile of documents.

But the row of letters in the drawer seemed to be arranged chronologically, and they looked to have been carefully preserved.

"With more acquaintances and a longer lifespan, it's inevitable to forget who is who, when, where, and what was said," Carlo said. "These letters can serve as a reference; by flipping through them, you can remember what topics were discussed at what times."

"I see... By the way, boss, you've lived for a long time."

"Of course, I'm a true veteran. Lessing is just a little guy in front of me."

Carlo looked to be in his early twenties, no more than thirty, which reminded Isaac of the "immortality" pursued by the Ghoul Cult, leading him to speculate, "What method did he use to achieve immortality?"

"It's also part of my secret, and no one else can copy it anyway."

"Could it be a dice roll to determine 'how many more years to live'...?"

"Hehe, it's theoretically feasible, but it's extremely difficult to verify. Failure might even result in a direct reduction in lifespan."

Isaac didn't press Carlo for why he was an old man, and Carlo put down the children's homework: "Once you've finished dealing with that idiot and your things are done, you can finally take a look at this ring."

He took out the ring, placed it on the table, and spun it. The dark silver ring spun and fell down, gleaming under the light, the engraved patterns on its surface winding and coiling like veins.

Isaac examined the object that had triggered the series of events: "Boss, you knew about the origin of this ring from the beginning?"

After all, it was Carlo who told him on the black market that this thing was a "good thing," although in retrospect, it turned out to be quite sinister.

"How could I possibly know what this ring is for just by looking at it?" Carlo leaned back. "I knew it was a good thing because I saw the power it emitted with my spiritual vision. That power wasn't particularly strong, but the texture... it felt like a fragment peeled off from some much larger source."

Isaac nodded: "The person who gave this ring to Baker said that its effect is to draw life force from the corpses to supply the living, but the truth should be more than that."

"That's right. If it's just about drawing life force from corpses to maintain the wearer's youth, then Baker's mother-in-law wouldn't have died suddenly after wearing it."

Isaac followed this line of thought and continued: "Could it be that there was some residual life force in the ring, and after Baker's mother-in-law wore it, that accumulated life force was used by her first, which is why she was in such good spirits for those two days?"

"But once the life force stored inside is used up, the ring will directly draw life force from the wearer to replenish it and maintain its own power."

Carlo picked up the ring and twirled it between his fingers: "That sounds a lot like an oil lamp. When the oil runs out and there's no new fuel to replenish it, it burns the wick. When that runs out too, the person is gone."

"Could Baker's sudden death have also been caused by this ring?" Isaac asked. "Did he wear it after he got it?"

"It's hard to say. At least based on Morris's psychic memories, he never wore this thing. Moreover, he died suddenly after selling the ring. Although the timing was coincidental, the ring wasn't on him at the time. Whether his death was directly related to the power of this ring remains to be investigated."