82: Chapter 20 Sherlock's Investigation

Sherlock Moriarty had recently taken on a commission that reeked of something sinister.

The client was an associate professor from the Geological Research Institute at Backlund University. He was roughly forty-two or forty-three years old, thin, and wore round-framed myopia glasses with lenses as thick as the bottom of a bottle, which were permanently coated in a thin layer of gray dust that obscured most of the emotions in his eyes.

This man had a deeply ingrained habit; whenever he spoke, his right index finger would rhythmically tap against the wooden table. The rhythm was steady, carrying the stereotypical caution unique to a scholar.

According to the associate professor, a batch of ore samples purchased by the Geological Research Institute from the mines along the coast of the Southern Continent's Sea of Wraith had been completely swapped by the time they arrived at the Backlund port and were opened for inspection. Inside the sealed and reinforced wooden shipping crates, there was not a single piece of raw ore, only a box of clean, ordinary sand from the Hoi River. The valuable raw ore had been completely stolen.

The entire ocean shipping route had strict procedures and complete checkpoints. Only the Old Wharf in the lower reaches of the Hoi River allowed cargo ships to dock temporarily and personnel to go ashore to unload. The associate professor was certain that the ore swap must have occurred at the third berth of the Old Wharf.

"This batch of conventional ore is of low value; even if sold in its entirety, it wouldn't fetch thirty pounds." The associate professor's finger-tapping rhythm quickened slightly, and his tone became a bit heavier. "But mixed within it was a piece of deep-mine raw sample, harvested from an ancient mine vein a thousand meters underground in the Southern Continent. It retains the complete traces of the fourth epoch geological layer and is a research material that the institute has struggled to find for years. As long as this sample is retrieved, the institute is willing to pay a reward of fifty pounds, with twenty pounds as an upfront payment."

Sherlock picked up the yellowed, real-life photograph of the ore from the table with his fingertips, then flipped through the paper shipping ledgers stamped with the official seals of the port and the shipping company, his expression calm and unreadable.

The ledger clearly indicated that the date the cargo ship docked at the Old Wharf happened to be the third day after the full moon, which was the exact same day the Mandated Punishers raided the abandoned warehouse in the River Bay District to clear out the heretical gathering.

And the third berth of the Old Wharf of the Hoi River happened to be the fixed docking point for the ghost ship from the Sea of Wraith, and it was also the end of the pier where Lu Li had borrowed the rift of the Apprentice Pathway to board the ship and leave Backlund a few days prior.

Scattered clues snapped together in his mind: Southern Continent deep-mine ore, the ghost ship of the Sea of Wraith, the stolen special sample, the connection to ancient geological changes... This seemingly ordinary theft case had stripped away its mundane facade from the root, entwined with a rich Beyonder aura from beginning to end.

Sherlock nodded and accepted the commission, finalizing the fee at ten shillings, with five shillings prepaid and transferred immediately.

That afternoon, before twilight arrived, Sherlock went to the Old Wharf of the Hoi River alone.

The wraith-like white mist that had shrouded the pier and carried crazy whispers a few days ago had already dissipated. Between heaven and earth, only a cool river breeze swept across the water. Only in the gaps of the wooden beams at the edge of the pier remained a few wisps of silver-white mist, so faint they were almost transparent, slowly dissolving under the scouring of the river breeze.

He knelt beside the stone pier and gathered his focus to drive his spirituality, his formless perception spreading like ripples into the murky river water below.

The traces of the rift where the Apprentice Pathway tore through space had long been washed away by the daily rise and fall of the river, making it almost impossible to trace. However, deep in the cracks of the rough stone pier, a layer of extremely fine silver-gray spiritual dust was deposited. The spiritual fluctuation was pure and special, completely matching the particle characteristics inherent to the tides of the Sea of Wraith.

The ghost ship had not only docked here but had stayed for a duration far exceeding a normal transit stop, which was why the tidal spiritual dust had deposited so evenly and thickly.

Sherlock took out the small sealed lead bottle he carried for storing spiritual substances, carefully scraped the dust from the cracks in the stone pier to seal it, and then walked slowly along the promenade by the wharf toward Water Pump Street, which connected to the port area.

When passing the street-corner old bookstore run by Old Eye, he caught a glimpse of a new row of obscure books in the display window. They were all written around the landscape of the Southern Continent and the deduction of the fourth epoch strata. They were old, niche, and obscure, definitely not reading material that an ordinary citizen would purchase.

The bell on the door chimed as he pushed it open. Old Eye, behind the counter, held a feather duster, slowly and methodically brushing the dust off the spines of the hardcover old books. Without even lifting his eyelids, he determined based on the aura: "You have the tidal spirituality unique to the Sea of Wraith on you. You just returned from the Old Wharf."

Sherlock placed the sealed lead bottle lightly on the mottled wooden counter and got straight to the point: "I'm investigating a batch of stolen ore from the Southern Continent. The cargo ship docked at a berth at the Old Wharf, and there are traces of a ghost ship docking on the stone pier. Was this batch of ore intercepted by the Aurora Order?"

Old Eye put down the feather duster, pulled open the drawer with his fingertips, took out a small, worn, and simply bound cowhide notebook, and pushed it steadily to the center of the table. The title on the booklet was clearly printed: Geological Research Institute Ore Shipping Records》.

Tucked into the title page of the booklet was a neatly cut piece of white paper, with sloppy and sharp pencil handwriting that only wrote two words: Serpentine Stone.

Sherlock picked up the note and flipped it over. On the back was a minimalist, closed-loop snake emblem. The snake body was coiled into a ring, the pupil was left blank, and the lines were sharp and cold, exactly the same as the secret mark Lu Li had deliberately left on the windowsill of the abandoned apartment in the River Bay District.

"This ledger was archived three months ago. Long before the ocean voyage set sail, the contents of these wooden shipping crates were not ordinary ore, but high-purity ancient Serpentine Stone."

Old Eye pointed his finger at a handwritten annotation in the middle of the ledger and stated the truth in a flat tone, "The swap was never at the Old Wharf, nor even at the Backlund port; it was completed at the loading wharf in the Southern Continent. The crime was a two-person cooperation: one person marked the cargo crates and modified the shipping files in advance, and one person picked up the goods at the wharf. They used two-way, one-way communication, leaving no traces of collusion, so the shipping company naturally couldn't find any flaws."

Sherlock folded the note and put it into his inner pocket, flipping through the entire shipping ledger page by page. The edges of the paper were yellowed, and the records were detailed and complete, covering all the routes, docking, and inspection information for all ore entering the Southern Continent within the past six months.

Flipping to the last page in the remarks column, a line of tiny pencil words came into view, with a sharp and restrained brushstroke, highly recognizable, still from Lu Li's hand: The Secret Order has intervened, and the ore has been recovered. Investigation terminated.

He closed the booklet, raised his eyes to look at Old Eye, and clarified the whole thread: "Lu Li entered the investigation earlier than I did. He knew that the piece of Serpentine Stone was a seal fragment that emerged with geological movements after the seal of the ancient ruins of Antigonus was loosened; he also knew that the Secret Order had already gone through official channels to submit a special ore inspection application to the Geological Research Institute."

"This is a typical cross-commission." Sherlock said with realization, sorting out the multi-party game, "The commissioner is the same shipping company manager: he reported the case to me externally, lying that the ore at the wharf was swapped and stolen; privately, he commissioned Lu Li to investigate the cargo ship moving the crates in the middle of the night for no reason; at the same time, an Apprentice Beyonder from the Secret Order, commissioned by a third party, verified the purity of these Serpentine Stone fragments. Three-party investigation, one source of the matter."

Old Eye picked up the feather duster and tapped the solid wood bookshelf gently, making a dull, light sound: "In the black market and the Beyonder circle, cross-commissions have always been common. Splitting the same event into multiple clues, flowing to different detectives and different forces, eventually all trajectories will converge to the same point. The place where you three parties finally meet is not the Old Wharf, but Mingde Street."

After saying this, Old Eye took back the shipping ledger, lowered his eyes again, continued to brush the dust off the pages, and said no more.

Sherlock pushed the door open and left the old bookstore. The river breeze, carrying water vapor, rushed towards him, and he walked straight along Water Pump Street toward Mingde Street.

Returning to his own detective agency on Mingde Street, the room was quiet and silent, with only the old-fashioned wall clock ticking.

Sherlock took out the commission file, spread out his cowhide notebook, and picked up his pen to sort out the cross-nodes of the whole thing one by one: the shipping manager's dual-line commission, the Southern Continent's advance swap, the ghost ship's transit transfer, the Aurora Order's secret coveting, the Secret Order's official recovery, and the Mandated Punishers' simultaneous clearing of heretics. All nodes were linked, forming a complete closed loop.

Finishing the writing, he closed the notebook, opened the drawer, and took out a heat-insulating rune fragment with missing corners. His fingertips traced the fine and deep spiritual patterns on the surface of the fragment, feeling slightly cool to the touch.

Outside the window, the gas street lamps lit up one by one, the dim yellow halo piercing through the twilight, enveloping the entire Backlund in a layer of thick lead-gray mist. The evening breeze was stagnant, undercurrents were surging, and a meeting of multiple forces was already destined.