After the dramatic turn of events at the Traveler's Club dinner, Lin Jie politely declined Ethan's offer to send him ho in a private carriage, choosing instead to walk alone through the brightly lit night streets of London's West End back to Baker Street.
He needed this ti alone to process the information from the dinner.
The imnse sense of contrast was the best sobering agent. From the primal fears of the Dartmoor wilderness to the halls of Pall Mall symbolizing the pinnacle of imperial power, and back to the quiet apartnt in a middle-class neighborhood, the experience of the past forty-eight hours was enough to drive an ordinary person to madness.
But for Lin Jie, this switching of scenes and identities actually allowed him to examine his own experiences and role from the calm, detached perspective of an observer.
The morning on Baker Street was as tranquil and orderly as ever.
The rich aroma of wheat from the distant bakery, the crisp clinking of glass bottles from the milkman, and the rhythmic footsteps of the postman together composed the simple, peaceful morning life lody of the Victorian-era middle class.
Lin Jie sat at his large desk, on which rested a steaming cup of Ceylon tea and the investigative journal inherited from Karl.
With a solemn and almost ritualistic air, he recorded the key information from the Dartmoor expedition one by one: from the Black Dog's bizarre "conceptual" form to William's powerful [Zulu's Gaze], from Ethan's alchemically elegant and ornate armants to that final mysterious "wail" originating from an unknown shore.
He wasn't just recording facts;
he was also using this thod to organize and deduce, attempting to logically connect that "wail" with his existing knowledge frawork.
Unfortunately, apart from pure "sorrow" and "despair," he couldn't decipher any more valuable information from it. It was an encrypted code he couldn't crack for now.
Just as he was about to close the diary after writing the final period, a polite knock sounded at the door. It was the porter delivering today's mail.
There were two letters. In this era where communication relied mainly on telegrams and letters, each letter could be a clue or a variable.
He first opened the ordinary letter bearing a London Richmond postmark. The familiar, precise handwriting on the paper imdiately told him this was a "letter of well-being" from Arthur Weston.
The letter's content overflowed with sincere gratitude and joy.
"My most respected friend: Please forgive for not writing to you until today, for since moving to Richmond, our entire family has been imrsed in a happiness akin to being in a dream."
"The air here is fresh and the sunshine plentiful, free from the suffocating coal smoke of the East End. Our new ho has a small garden filled with roses and geraniums."
"My wife hums songs every day while pruning the flowers in the garden. Her smile is more radiant than I rember. And I can finally bid farewell to Scotland Yard's bureaucratic and stale archives, spending each day with my wife and daughter enjoying the peaceful life a normal husband and father deserves."
"And all of this is thanks to you, Lin. I cannot describe my gratitude in words. You not only saved my daughter, you saved the future of our entire family. This debt of gratitude, I, Arthur Weston, will never forget for the rest of my life."
"Furthermore, I must report so good news to you. Lily's body has fully recovered. The doctor in our new community gave her a thorough examination and confird she is as healthy as a lively little fawn. All her previous 'symptoms' have disappeared."
"It seems your and your friend's judgnt regarding 'gas poisoning' was correct. Now she tirelessly chases butterflies in the garden every day, laughing out loud. Seeing her energetic figure restored, I feel all the past hardships and grievances have beco insignificant."
Reading this, a genuinely relieved smile appeared on Lin Jie's face. This was undoubtedly the best news he had heard recently. Everything he had done was worth it.
However, when his gaze swept to the final paragraph of the letter, his brows, which had just relaxed, involuntarily furrowed again.
"But Lily has recently beco obsessed with a new ga I don't quite understand," Weston ntioned in passing at the end of the letter in a tone both affectionate and slightly puzzled.
"She loves collecting small stones of various colors from the garden or the little seashells I bring back from the seaside. Then she uses these things to arrange strange patterns on the clean lawn of our backyard, patterns I have never seen before."
"Sotis they are complex, inwardly spiraling 'spirals';
other tis they are seemingly irregular 'maze' shapes."
"These patterns possess an indescribable exotic beauty. When I ask her which book she learned these beautiful patterns from, she always tilts her little head and tells very seriously that these were taught to her in her 'dreams' by a 'beautiful lady in a green dress'."
"Of course, I know this must be another product of children's whimsical imagination, but I still wanted to share this unique 'creation' from my daughter's little world with you."
"Once again, thank you for everything. I look forward to your visiting our new ho in Richmond when you have ti. Sincerely, your friend, Arthur Weston."
After reading this last part, the smile vanished from Lin Jie's face.
"Spiral," "maze," "beautiful lady in a green dress."
To an ordinary person, these words might seem like re childish fantasy. But for Lin Jie, who had recently cramd endless knowledge about the inner world's secrets, these were symbols pointing to an ancient, dangerous realm tinged with primal nature worship!
He knew that those "spiral" and "maze" patterns, in Celtic mythology and ancient Druidic beliefs, were core mystical symbols representing "rebirth," "reincarnation," and "the path to otherworlds"!
That "beautiful lady in a green dress" highly overlapped with the image of an ancient "Earth Mother Goddess" in Irish myths and legends, one who presided over "life," "death," and "prophecy"!
Lily's overly "sensitive" constitution had not disappeared after being freed from the Twisted Man's malicious pollution.
This discovery made Lin Jie sowhat uneasy. The crisis for the Weston family was not truly over.
They had only temporarily escaped a visible, malicious "open threat," but Lily's own special constitution, like a "signal receiver," destined her to a life unable to escape the potential threats from "hidden arrows."
He let out a long sigh, carefully folded and put away Weston's letter, then opened the second letter.
It was a heavy, encrypted package from Paris. The sender was none other than the Curator, Julian, who always seed to bring crucial information exactly when Lin Jie needed it.
The package contained two items.
The first was a bottle of top-tier Bordeaux wine ticulously wrapped in a thick wooden box. The label was slightly yellowed, and the bottle clearly marked its vintage: "1858." At the ti, this was a luxury item that could be called "liquid gold."
Accompanying it was a congratulatory letter written in cursive script, filled with French-style exaggerated praise. Julian used the most ornate language in the letter to praise the "epic" victory of the three of them in Dartmoor, calling them "new era heroes akin to Apollo and Hercules descended upon Britain."
The second item in the package was the core of what Julian truly wanted Lin Jie to see: a thick stack of papers clipped together with a paperclip.
The first page was a letter handwritten by Julian. Attached behind it was a complete copy of a plea for help sent to Julian by a history professor nad "Sean O'Donoghue" from Trinity College Dublin in Ireland.
"My dear Lin," Julian wrote at the beginning of his letter, "please first drink this fine vintage I have treasured for years to toast your victory. Then, I ask you to read the following letter from an old friend of mine in the most sober and focused state."
Lin Jie imdiately flipped to the copy of the plea for help. The letter was written in rigorous, academic English.
Professor O'Donoghue first spent a certain length in the letter describing Ireland's complex ethnic conflicts and the politically oppressive social atmosphere at the mont.
He ntioned the English governnt's high-pressure policies towards Irish Catholics, the increasingly intense "Gaelic Revival Movent" aid at reviving the Gaelic language and Celtic traditional culture.
He also ntioned the unique cultural ntality pervading all of Irish society, a mix of indomitable rebellious spirit, deep national anxiety, and reverence for the supernatural power of ancient myths.
This historically and regionally rich background successfully created a gloomy, mysticism-tinged atmosphere for the bizarre events to follow.
Then the professor finally got to the point.
"It is precisely on this unique social soil that so ancient 'family curses' and 'ill ons,' long discarded by modern science, still cling stubbornly like tenacious vines deep within the bloodlines of certain noble families."
"What I have been focusing on recently is one of the most famous and bloodiest among them: the 'Blood and Tears Curse' that has haunted the 'O'Connor' family for centuries."
"The O'Connor family is one of Ireland's oldest Gaelic noble families. Their ancestors were once national heroes who resisted the English invasion, and also ruthless lords stained with the blood of their own people. Their family history is a microcosm of Irish history itself, a tale of glory and betrayal, blood and tears."
"And their 'curse' is closely intertwined with this history."
"According to family secrets, whenever a male direct descendant of the O'Connor family is about to et his demise, a 'family guardian deity' will appear three days in advance to sing his final 'elegy'."
"It is a long, mournful, indescribably sorrowful woman's 'wail'."
Reading this, Lin Jie's breath caught in his throat!
"Wail"!
Suppressing the shock in his heart, he continued reading.
"And in the past two months, this ancient curse, dormant for nearly half a century, has activated once again."
"Both the current patriarch of the O'Connor family and his eldest son, after hearing the legendary 'wail,' died suddenly within three days in bizarre ways that defy dical explanation."
"Now, the entire family has only one surviving male descendant left: a sensitive, neurotic second son barely over twenty years old. And the entire Dublin high society is privately placing bets with gleeful schadenfreude, speculating when the death-song 'wail' will next sound for this last male heir of the family."
At the end of the letter, the professor made a sincere plea for help to Julian. He believed this hid a secret related to ancient Celtic mysticism overlooked by modern history.
He hoped Julian, a top European master of the occult and ancient texts, would personally co to Dublin.
At the end of Julian's letter to Lin Jie, the academically fervent Curator extended a formal invitation to Lin Jie with an excited and expectant tone.
"My dear Lin, do you see?! This is fate!"
"I have already submitted an application to the Geneva Headquarters to establish a 'Special Investigation Team for the Erald Isle.' I believe Sir Henderson's wise mind will absolutely not refuse such an excellent opportunity for us to delve deeply into Celtic mythology, Druidic remnants, and the roots of the Anglo-Irish ethnic conflict."
"Although the mark on Sergeant William has been removed, his iron will remains our indispensable shield."
"So co, my dear Lin. Pack your bags, forget England's dull fog and rain, and let us go together to that Erald Isle filled with green mists and sorrowful poetry to hear with our own ears the legendary death-song of the..."
"Banshee's elegy."
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