Embers Ad Infinitum

As soon as Theresa finished explaining, Shang Jianyao next to Jiang Baimian laughed:

“It’s fun to wear a mask.”

He spoke Honghe dialect.

Although she can't be said to be fluent, the Red River dialect in different places has changed to a certain extent after the destruction of the old world for so many years. Theresa's own accent is also different from the one popular in Weed City.

"What?" Theresa looked at Jiang Baimian blankly, looking for an answer.

What he means is that because of wearing a mask, you can only judge whether a person is a red river type or a gray earth type from the common language, so that he talks about the bad qualities of gray language people in front of a few of us... It's good to pretend, just use it as a disguise Things get interesting when no one can tell the difference from the appearance... This is like the physical embodiment of the concept of "personality mask" in psychology... Haha, when all the Gray speakers master the Red River dialect, when you also If you have completely mastered the Gray dialect, how can you distinguish between ourselves and the enemy and form cliques? Form an "Animal Mask Party", a "Character Mask Party" and a "Monster Mask Party"? At this moment, thoughts flashed through Jiang Baimian's mind.

In the end, these turned into just one sentence:

"He's never played with a mask before."

Without giving Teresa a chance to ask further questions, Jiang Baimian said "hmm":

"The cause of death given by the police was excessive shock?"

Teresa nodded slightly:

"They were too perfunctory. This cause of death doesn't convince me."

The cause of death may not be false, the key point is what caused the excessive shock... Jiang Baimian asked thoughtfully:

"Does Mr. Herwig have any heart problems himself?"

"No, he has always been in good health and performed well whether running, jumping, or fighting." Teresa answered with certainty.

Shang Jianyao raised his hand and asked curiously without waiting for Jiang Baimian's consent:

"You only talked about his performance in running, jumping and fighting. What about other aspects?"

Teresa shook her head:

“I’m just giving a few examples.

"To be honest, he's not very good in bed."

Pfft... Jiang Baimian almost choked on his own saliva.

What is this?

Long Yuehong started coughing, but Bai Chen remained calm.

Teresa immediately explained:

“This is also a common problem among all members of our sect.

“We must always be vigilant, even when we are doing that kind of thing, we have to pay attention to the situation around us and be on guard against abnormal reactions from our partners.

"In order to ensure your own safety to the greatest extent, it is everyone's consensus to shorten the time."

Bang bang bang, this time, besides Shang Jianyao, Jiang Baimian was also applauding.

She felt it was not enough to express her feelings otherwise.

She never expected that when the word "vigilance" was used to its extreme, it would change Hongshiji's daily life so profoundly.

The only reason why Long Yuehong didn't clap along was because he was stunned.

Even Bai Chen was a little curious:

"Will you sleep together?"

"No." Teresa answered truthfully, "Distance is our real friend. When either of us thinks about it, we will agree on a time in advance."

"Where is the child?" Jiang Baimian asked.

"You can sleep with one of your parents until you are 1 year old, but you must separate after that." Teresa looked around, "Let's not waste time on these issues."

Only then did Jiang Baimian find that he was obsessed with understanding folk customs and had forgotten his mission as a hunter.

She glared at Shang Jianyao:

"What exactly did you want to ask just now?"

"Ask Heweg if he is good at holding his breath." Shang Jianyao answered confidently.

"Hold your breath... He can swim at an average level." Teresa expressed her understanding. "In short, there is nothing wrong with his body, and Weller said he found no other problems."

"Are Weller's autopsy results trustworthy?" Jiang Baimian quickly entered a professional state.

If there is no hidden disease in the body, then there is a high probability that the death caused by excessive shock is related to the awakened person.

At least Jiang Baimian now knows that two abilities can cause similar causes of death:

Nightmare Horse's "Real Nightmare" and the control of the heart from the "Command" realm.

"Although Weller is an outsider, he is also from Red River and will not be too partial. Unfortunately, his skills are limited and he is just an ordinary doctor. His expertise is not in this area." Teresa tried her best to express her contradictory thoughts.

When Jiang Baimian nodded gently, Shang Jianyao asked again:

"Why do you say 'Grey Whisperer' instead of 'Grey Earth Man'?"

In Honghe dialect, the former requires an extra suffix, making it even more difficult to pronounce.

"Ashes are everyone's ashes," Teresa replied.

Jiang Baimian secretly "tsk":

"If we accept this task, how will the reward be calculated?"

"I will go to the guild to combine this task with the task of finding arms. The reward will be half of that batch of arms." Teresa said without hesitation.

It's very rich. After completing this mission, plus the supplies saved before, you can almost buy an old model of military exoskeleton device... Jiang Baimian nodded:

"We try to get it done."

She turned to ask:

"What do you know about the arms being stolen?

"Are those bandits often active in the surrounding area, or did they appear suddenly?"

Teresa's mood became a little excited again:

"It must be those Gray Whisperers who did it! They just want to take back the arms trade!

"If it weren't for them, how could there be such a powerful bandit group around Hongshiji?"

After speaking slightly hysterically, she took two breaths and said:

"Herwig didn't tell me much about this before his death. He only said that that group of people had great firepower and cooperated very well. They all wore masks and made disguises. There were about ten people who came forward, and some were hidden secretly. .

“If you want to know more, you can go back to the hotel camp and ask Lehman in Room 127.

"He is a smuggler from United Industries, my husband's partner. He and his caravan brought this batch of arms. As a result, they were robbed not long after the transaction was completed."

"Okay." Jiang Baimian asked for some more details, stood up, pointed to the ventilation duct where Herwig died, and said to Shang Jianyao, "Climb in and take a look."

"Han Wanghuo checked and found nothing." Teresa stood up and said, "It's possible that he found it, but he destroyed it."

"We will check it ourselves before we can rest assured." Jiang Baimian did not give up.

Shang Jianyao immediately pulled over the table, took off the vent grille, shined a flashlight on it for a while, and then climbed in slowly.

It's not too dirty here. People obviously hide in here often, and there are no obvious traces left.

Shang Jianyao crawled along the pipe for a while. The deeper he went, the narrower it felt.

With the help of the light of the flashlight, he checked it carefully, finally withdrew, jumped off the table and said:

"There was no trace of anyone else's activity."

"Yes." Jiang Baimian looked at Theresa, "Is the Sheriff here?"

"He went to the area where the Gray Whisperers often hide, and said that no matter what, the required procedures would be in place." Theresa couldn't fault Han Wanghuo at all.

Jiang Baimian breathed out:

"Then let's go visit Mr. Lehman first."

"Okay, as soon as possible, he doesn't know when he will return to 'United Industries'." Teresa urged.

When the four members of the "Old Tune Group" were about to walk out of the "gunfire", Shang Jianyao suddenly turned around and said with a monkey mask on his face:

"last question.

"Do you have any children?"

"Yes, two." Teresa was quite confused, "Why do you ask?"

"The body's functions are normal." Shang Jianyao commented seriously.

Jiang Baimian knew that this guy was out of his mind again, so he asked casually based on this topic:

"How old is the child?"

"The older one is fifteen years old and the younger one is twelve years old. After that, we agreed not to have any more children and used certain products produced by United Industries." Theresa did not hide anything.

After bidding farewell to the widow, Jiang Baimian took Shang Jianyao and the others back to the fifth floor and prepared to enter the parking lot.

At this time, she turned around and looked around the Red Stone Collection, which was so quiet that no one seemed to be there, and sighed softly:

“The acceptance of the ideas of the Vigilant Sect is really a necessity here.”

"Why?" When Long Yuehong listened to Gaudi's explanation, she felt that they had joined the Vigilance Sect too easily, even if the corresponding teachings could indeed improve their probability of survival.

It’s not like you don’t believe in the vigilance sect, so you can’t be on guard and hide yourself!

Jiang Baimian withdrew his gaze and sighed with a smile:

“Red Stone Market is a market town formed by the Dimarco family’s exchange of supplies with the outside world.

“Its members come from all over, speak different languages, have different customs, and have different looks and characteristics, so they will inevitably be divided into small groups one after another.

“Because of the single source of trade at that time, these small groups should have more of a competitive relationship, and they may often conflict with each other. You assassinate me, I assassinate you, you ambush me, and I ambush you.

"Normally, this would slowly evolve into the form of Weed City, but at this time, the Vigilant Sect has arrived. In this place where there is extreme distrust between people, their teachings are like a fish in water, which not only improves people's survival probability , and also rationalized, sanctified and softened this distrust, so that a relatively stable red stone set existed."

"Gaudi is a mixed race." Bai Chen pointed out a fact.

Jiang Baimian nodded:

“No matter how hostile the two groups are, love may arise, and neutrals may exist.

"Gaudi should represent the third largest group in Hongshiji, the fusion faction."

While they were talking, they got in the car, left the Red Rock Collection, and returned to the hotel camp.

Room 127 is at the other end, closer to the small lake in the Old World Park.

Outside this simple house, two strong-looking men were guarded. They were both of the Red River race, dressed in black, fully armed, and serious in speech.

Shang Jianyao came closer and "looked down" at the other party:

"We are relic hunters, looking for Lehman to investigate the arms robbery case."

He was "contacted" this time because he might need to make "friends."

When he asked, Jiang Baimian scanned around and found people looking at him from several simple houses around Room 127.

Lehman has a lot of men... As she was muttering silently to herself, a guard knocked on the door and entered the room to make a report.

After waiting for a few more minutes, the guard came out and said to Shang Jianyao:

"Mr. Lehman has two words for you:

“One, we had already left at that time, and it was completely unclear what happened next;

"Two, if there are only four of you, it is better to give up as soon as possible and change the task."