97: Chapter 35 Medicines and Intelligence

Backlund's winter was slow to retreat. The thin ice congealing on the surface of the Hoi River, stained with the coal ash permeating the industrial area, shimmered with a dead, leaden gray under the cold, white morning light.

Inside the apartment in the River Bay District, the residual warmth of the fireplace had dissipated, and the air was steeped in a bone-chilling damp cold.

Lu Li's fingertips brushed over the yellowed paper copy as he scanned the black market shipping ledgers submitted by Abraham last week, when a line of scrawled, handwritten notes suddenly caught his attention.

An unnamed shop in the Dock District specializing in the procurement of Beyonder potions had been visited three times by a mysterious buyer in the last half-month.

This individual never used the shop's membership, conducted all transactions in cash, left no name or address, and procured a strange, eclectic mix of materials: low-level holy water purification powder, Sea of Wraith tide dust diluent, and several essential auxiliary materials for low-Sequence Apprentice Pathway potions.

The shop owner, having spent years in the black market, smelled something unusual and specifically asked Abraham to keep an eye on it.

Lu Li picked up a graphite pencil, neatly copied this intelligence onto a beige note, folded it, and tucked it into his inner pocket.

He carefully locked the spiritual fasteners on the doors and windows to shut out prying eyes, pushed the door open to step into the slightly cool morning breeze, and strode toward the Underground Commercial Street on Water Pump Street.

The Underground Commercial Street was always quiet during the day. Dim gas lamps flickered, illuminating the wooden crates of spiritual materials stacked on both sides, while the air was filled with a dry, distinct scent of sulfur, withered flowers, and spiritual minerals.

Abraham leaned against the counter, slowly and methodically sorting through Spirit World dust that had just been transported from the Southern Continent. Hearing footsteps, he lazily lifted his chin, reached into a solid wood drawer to pull out an encrypted transaction slip, and pushed it to the center of the table.

"Not three times, four times in total."

Abraham's fingertips tapped the circled handwriting on the slip, his voice low and flat, carrying the meticulousness unique to a black market merchant. "Four purchases in two weeks. The variety of materials increased each time, but there is one thing he bought every single time—Sea of Wraith tide dust diluent."

This diluent was a niche functional spiritual material with a single purpose: to neutralize the bone-eroding spirituality inherent in tide dust, stabilize the spiritual circuits of wraith entity puppets, and it could also be used in Apprentice Pathway space rift experiments to counteract the spatial erosion of the dust.

"For an Apprentice doing space experiments, a single drop of diluent is enough for one experiment. But the amount this person buys each time is enough to support over a dozen practical operations; it is definitely not for personal use."

Abraham said with certainty, "He used fake names of Southern Continent ports every time; the four aliases were completely different. But two flaws in the handwriting could not be hidden: when writing the unfamiliar place names, the pauses in the strokes and the pressure of the pen were exactly the same. It was the same person deliberately disguising himself."

Lu Li lowered his eyes to look at the slip, his gaze calm as he instantly sorted out the connections. "He is hoarding the diluent in large quantities. Aside from stabilizing puppets, the biggest use for this diluent is to debug the rune power supply circuits of the Aurora Order. Although the main array built by Malcolm was destroyed, the spare rune fragments that the Aurora Order previously buried in Backlund's underground drainage network have not yet been fully cleared by the Mandated Punishers. This person is most likely secretly recovering the fragments and relying on the diluent to reactivate the spiritual circuits."

"The wraith spirituality of the black sail ship at Storm Cape is still continuously weakening, and the mass-produced wraith puppets on board have long since been depleted." Abraham tapped his fingertips on the cover of the dark ledger, his tone certain. "If this person is a remnant of the Aurora Order left behind in Backlund, hoarding spiritual materials and recovering fragments is all in preparation for restarting the rune power supply network of the entire underground pipe system after the black sail ship has finished repairs and replenished its puppets. I have already placed a spiritual mark at the potion shop; as soon as he appears next time, I will transmit the message to you immediately."

As he finished speaking, he took a brass compass the size of his palm from the drawer and pushed it toward Lu Li. The compass had fine patterns, and the surface was engraved with ancient runes resistant to tidal erosion, the metal casing polished to a smooth, matte finish.

"This is a spare compass that Vera of the Secret Order prepared when she went out for an investigation. I have recalibrated it to specifically amplify the spiritual capture frequency exclusive to the Sea of Wraith. Its detection range far exceeds that of Old Eye's old compass, making it suitable for the complex environment of the underground pipe network."

Lu Li picked up the compass; it felt cold to the touch. When he probed it with his spirituality, he could sense the stable detection patterns on the dial, and he casually tucked it into his waist pouch.

After bidding farewell to Abraham, he stopped by the old bookstore on the corner of Water Pump Street on his way.

The wooden bookshelves in the shop were stacked with dusty ancient books, and the smell of ink mixed with old paper permeated the room. Old Eye sat behind the counter, slowly wiping his copper-rimmed glasses with the corner of his clothes. After hearing Lu Li recount the potion procurement intelligence, his expression showed no surprise at all.

"The Secret Order has also been closely monitoring the flow of black market spiritual materials recently." Old Eye put on his glasses, a flash of deep thought passing through his eyes. "After the black sail ship retreated to the Fog Sea, stable Sea of Wraith spiritual fluctuations still remained in many underground areas of the docks and the Old Industrial District. We determined this was caused by the scattered rune fragments autonomously dissipating spirituality. The organization is currently discussing whether to cooperate with the Mandated Punishers to investigate the pipe network. The Secret Order can take full responsibility for peripheral reconnaissance and fragment localization."

As he spoke, he pulled out a thick volume of old municipal records, with several photocopies tucked between the pages, and pushed them in front of Lu Li. "Behind an abandoned apartment building in the River Bay District adjacent to the East Borough, there is an underground pipe network maintenance entrance. The municipal ledger notes it is awaiting maintenance soon because persistent, trace amounts of foreign spiritual residue were detected on the inner wall of the pipe."

Lu Li put away the pipe network photocopies and headed straight to the target location in the afternoon.

The maintenance entrance was hidden in a dead corner behind the wall of the abandoned apartment building. The iron fence seal was intact, the sealing wax was smooth with no signs of tampering; it was a standard seal reinforced by the Mandated Punishers several months ago.

He activated the brass compass in his waist pouch. The needle on the dial trembled slightly, unaffected by geomagnetism, and pointed steadily toward the depths of the pipe—a faint, pure, and highly recognizable Sea of Wraith spirituality, constant and undissipated.

This place was only three blocks away from the former site of Malcolm's abandoned Textile Factory array, and the pipe network paths were interconnected, making it an excellent location to hide high-level rune fragments.

The Aurora Order's remaining personnel were relying on this hidden pipe to salvage the spare fragments buried deep underground.

Twilight stained the sky over Backlund, and a pale purple sunset glow covered the spires of the buildings on Mingde Street. Lu Li arrived at Sherlock Moriarty's detective agency as promised.

The indoor light was warm and soft. Several civil case closure reports were spread out on the table, and next to them was a small bag of grayish-brown soil samples, with extremely faint silver-white fine powder visible in the crevices of the soil.

Sherlock put down his dip pen, pinched a bit of soil debris with his fingertips, and said in a steady tone, "I went to that pipe maintenance entrance this afternoon to take samples under the pretext of surveying the surrounding soil and water pollution. The soil contains residual tide dust, and its composition and spiritual characteristics are completely identical to the dust on the stone piers of the Old Wharf."

"The truth is very simple." He looked up at Lu Li. "The outside world thinks this person is buying the diluent in large quantities to resell for profit, but on the contrary, his consumption is so high that it alerted the black market owner. The recovered old rune fragments carry tide dust, which can be re-purified to prepare diluent, but the stock of fragments is insufficient to meet the amount he needs to subsequently activate the pipe network runes, so he can only hoard it directly at a high price."

"The black sail ship's puppet production capacity is insufficient, and it cannot launch large-scale operations again in the short term." Lu Li took over the conversation and informed him of all the information, including Abraham's surveillance and the Secret Order's willingness to cooperate with the investigation.

"The other party is planning for the long term, hoarding supplies and collecting fragments in advance, waiting quietly for the black sail ship to return after repairs."

Sherlock nodded slightly, having already finalized the plan. "From now on, I will normalize patrols of the area around the pipe network during my night patrols, using the detective agency's field investigations as a cover, so as not to arouse the suspicion of the Aurora Order. Once we lock onto the activities of the remaining personnel, we will pre-install hidden spiritual markers at key nodes of the pipe network and, relying on Abraham's intelligence, lock onto this person's true identity."

After saying this, he pulled open the drawer and took out the jiaowei sealing box heat-insulation rune fragment that Lu Li had previously delivered. With a slight movement of spirituality from his fingertips, he embedded the fragment into the interlayer of a self-made paper doll.

A pale blue, gentle spiritual glow spread across the surface of the paper doll, forming a thin, stable heat-insulation spiritual barrier. The paper doll slowly rotated on the table several times, its spiritual fluctuations extremely restrained, with no trace of leakage.

Sherlock retracted his fingertips and hid the paper doll into the lining of his sleeve.

Everything was ready.

Lu Li pushed the door open and walked out of the agency. The evening breeze, carrying the damp, cold air from the riverside, rushed toward him. The gas lamps on the street lit up one after another, lengthening the thin shadows of passersby.

He looked up toward the Hoi River. The thin ice on the river was still frozen; undercurrents and conspiracies were lurking beneath Backlund, quietly surging.