86: Chapter 24 The Shadow of the Storm's Corner

When Abraham took out the cargo ledger of the Storm Cape sea area for the past two weeks, Lu Li was checking the berthing schedule of the construction ships at the Old Wharf.

Comparing the two documents, the flaw immediately appeared.

In the past two weeks, four unregistered small vessels sailed from Storm Cape into the downstream of the Hoi River. Only two completed temporary docking procedures, while the remaining two were completely outside of all port registrations.

"These two ships have an extremely shallow draft, no official hull numbers, and a minimalist snake-shaped ring painted on the sides," Abraham pointed his fingertip across the blank column of the ledger. "It's the exclusive livery of the Aurora Order ghost ship. The old Sailor on duty says they dock late at night and leave after a very short stay, not to load or unload cargo, but to put puppets ashore."

"Spare runes don't need to be transported by the whole ship, just the fragment carrier," Lu Li stacked the two documents and put them into his backpack. "The Aurora Order lodges the fragments inside ghost entities, brought ashore by puppets. The Mandated Punishers only inspect physical cargo and cannot detect ghosts at all."

"The Church's sealing system is ineffective against the rules of the Sea of Wraith, and the Mandated Punishers can't even capture the corresponding spiritual fluctuations. How do you intend to investigate?" Abraham asked, raising his eyes.

"Don't check the ships, only check the puppets."

Lu Li took out several fragments of spatial perception talismans and placed them on the table, his tone calm: "Secret Order talismans can cover the entire Old Wharf. On the eve of a ghost ship docking, the ghost tide will show a short-term spiritual peak. By setting up talismans in advance to lock the coordinates and tracing the puppets' trajectory in reverse, we can find the hiding place of the fragments."

He finished the black tea in his cup, put away the talismans, and pushed the door open to leave Water Pump Street.

Walking to the River Bay District second-hand market, Lu Li ran into Old Kohler, who was squatting in a pile of old ship planks selecting materials.

The old man looked up at the sound and took out a white loaf of bread wrapped in newspaper, handing it over.

"My daughter gave this to you. She said you always leave bread outside the warehouse, and you look thin lately, so you must not be eating properly," Old Kohler stuffed the bread into his palm. "Ever since that girl moved near the church, she's been watching the wharf every day looking for someone, having identified the reflective brass buckle on your backpack."

Lu Li looked down at the polished brass buckle on his backpack, realizing. Old Kohler's daughter's extremely sharp observational skills, in the context of the Beyonder system, would make her an excellent candidate for the Spectator Pathway. He accepted the bread and said in a deep voice.

"Old Kohler, stay away from the Old Wharf at night recently. There are aliens mixed into the construction fleet, neither human nor cargo, acting in accordance with ghost rules."

Old Kohler gripped his pipe tightly and remained silent for a moment.

"I've been sailing for forty years, and I've seen more than one ghost ship. They only exist to collect memory tolls; those in debt have nowhere to hide." The old man stood up and brushed the wood shavings off his pants. "I won't go near the port area late at night, but you are going into danger alone; it's too perilous."

"I am not alone. The Mandated Punishers have increased night patrols, and Sherlock Moriarty from Mingde Street is also investigating commissions related to ghost ships."

"That Detective Moriarty?" Old Kohler realized. "He treats people with humility and never looks down on the dock laborers. Are you companions?"

"Just associates," Lu Li replied.

Old Kohler didn't ask any more questions, reminded him that the bread had sugar added and should be eaten while warm, then tucked the wooden planks under his arm and walked slowly toward the church.

Returning to his apartment in the River Bay District, Lu Li cross-checked the ledger information again.

Two ghost ships: one docked late at night two weeks ago, and one returned a few days ago. The docking windows were all locked to the low tide period of the river between midnight and dawn.

This is the period when the ghost tide is at its weakest and easiest to evade the Church's spiritual detection.

He spread out the spatial perception talismans on the table and verified them one by one. The talismans' perception range was better than the black market standard, but the normal spirituality of ghost entities is almost transparent, making them difficult to lock onto directly. Only at the peak of the tide would they leave behind an indelible spiritual mark.

To track them accurately, he still needed to add three passive warning runes from the Apprentice Pathway to build a full-area monitoring network.

Over the next two evenings, Lu Li surveyed the port area locations in separate trips.

The stone pier at the end of the jetty, the gap in the old warehouse at Berth 3, and the base of the street lamp at the wharf entrance—he set up warning runes at these three locations, creating a triangular monitoring zone that covered all the puppets' routes ashore. After calibrating the spiritual circuits to ensure they were correct, he returned to his apartment to wait for any abnormal activity.

During this time, Sherlock made a special trip to the old bookstore on Water Pump Street and had a brief meeting with Lu Li at the street corner.

Sherlock brought intelligence from the Church: the Mandated Punishers had received an anonymous tip-off and had initiated special night patrols at the Old Wharf.

Lu Li shared the docking patterns of the ghost ships at Storm Cape, as well as the Aurora Order's plan to use ghost ships to bypass the Spirit World tide and provide for the spare runes. The two exchanged information and went their separate ways to prepare.

Everything was ready.

Lu Li took out the cursed portrait stained with ghost dust and used his spirituality to decompose the connection nodes of the canvas, pigments, attached ghosts, and toll rules layer by layer.

As a Swindler, he intended to weave a false memory beacon.

The ghost ship captain determined the toll based solely on the emotional intensity within the memories, unable to distinguish between real and fake. He could construct a pseudo-memory that was emotionally rich but logically incomplete and attach it to the canvas.

After the puppets collected this fake toll and returned, the captain far out at sea would have no way to verify its authenticity halfway.

This was both a countermeasure against the Aurora Order and a deep, practical honing of his Sequence 7 deception construction abilities.

Lu Li repeatedly polished the spiritual structure of the pseudo-memory until it was stably attached to the canvas and would not dissipate on its own.

Finally, he wrapped the picture frame tightly in kraft paper, put it under the bed, and waited quietly for the next full moon to arrive.