Whispering Poems

Chapter 3208 Searching for People and Mermaids
Mr. Mortis said that the "Potion Merchant" had his own herb hut outside the city to the west, where he would occasionally live and help the villagers in the fishing village deal with illness or injury.

The address of the herb hut was very clear, and it was a location only known to his friends. After leaving the city, Shade turned into a red butterfly and flew forward. He then walked along the muddy forest path after the snow fell for a short distance, and saw the hut surrounded by a fence in the woods, with a herb field in the yard and licorice leaves drying on the outer wall of the wooden house.

The doors of the yard and the wooden house were locked, and there were no traces of footprints on the thick snow in the yard, but there were other people outside the yard besides Shad.

A woman wrapped in a gray linen shawl, holding a child wrapped in a quilt in her arms, was standing outside the fence. When Shad appeared, she was looking into the yard, as if she wanted to make sure whether the herbalist was at home.

The child looked less than a year old, but the woman looked as old as she was already 40. Living by the sea for many years, the sea breeze had blown her cheeks into a dark red like pickled fish, and her dry yellow hair was tied into a bun with fishing net wire, revealing the sunburned skin on the back of her neck.

Xia De did not cover himself, so the woman who looked anxious and shivering from the cold also noticed Xia De. Even though she was not very experienced, she could tell at a glance that the handsome young man was a well-known city dweller.

She didn't dare to talk to Shade, and when Shade used the "Heart of Stone" to confirm that no one was in the hut, he heard the heartbeat of the child she was holding was a little fast:
"lady."

He addressed her like this, but with a slight tremor at the end to make the address seem less formal:
"Is the doctor not at home? I heard there's a very good herbalist here, and I'd like to visit him."

The woman glanced at the child in her arms. She was still a little afraid of Xia De because of the difference in status, so she replied with a guilty conscience:

"The doctor's medical skills are indeed very good, but he is not often at home. My child seems to have caught a cold, so I came to see the doctor for help."

Only then did Xia De understand that this woman, who was most likely from a small fishing village not far away, was worried that she would be mistaken for a thief by Xia De, a city dweller.

Xia De took two steps closer to her, and then imitated her and looked towards the herbalist's house:
"Is anyone home?"

He shouted loudly, but got no response. Then, unexpectedly, Xia De reached out to the child in the woman's arms, put his right index finger and middle finger together, and touched the child's forehead:
"His temperature is a little high. Take him to the city hospital. We can't delay this matter. There is a Snake Heart Hospital in the north of the city. The nuns in the hospital are very good at treating children's diseases. Don't wait here any longer."

He did not choose to treat the child directly. Instead, he gave some advice, took out a handful of change from his pocket and stuffed it into the hands of the woman holding the child. Then, ignoring the woman's astonishment and surprise, he walked away along the path in the woods.

Of course, he didn't really leave. After walking a distance, he entered the woodland on the north side of the road. After approaching the herbalist's hut again, he used "Raglai's Leap" as before to enter the room.

There were no valuable clues in the house on the ground, and when Shade tried to invade the basement this time, he encountered a slight spatial obstacle. It was a ritual power similar to the "Space Stability Aura" that was used to prohibit spatial movement within a certain range. Unfortunately, this ritual was completely ineffective for Shade, who had now mastered spatial attainments.

"Sure enough, the location provided by Mr. Mortis is correct."

The basement was no longer the herbalist's warehouse. Half-burned candles were placed on the pentagram ritual array painted on the ground. There were densely packed alchemical formulas on the blackboard against the wall. Various old books and manuscripts filled two bookshelves. A frog that had been dissected and had its heart taken out was originally lying on the alchemy table, but suddenly it opened its eyes and looked at Shade.

Its lifeless, swollen eyes turned black, and then it opened its mouth to chirp, but Shade pointed at it:
"Time stands still for Adele!"

The careless frog, who was about to open his mouth, froze on the table. Xia De walked over to observe with interest:
"Oh? Such a primitive spell?"

The magic spells used by modern ring sorcerers, except for a few created by modern people, are mostly modified from the secret magics handed down from ancient times. This modification is to make the spellcasting more suitable for the modern ring sorcerer system, and most of the secret spells that can be handed down are the essence of the past spellcasting system, but there are also a few that are quite backward, and they have not disappeared only for various strange reasons.

This kind of alchemical item with a warning effect made from animal corpses is obviously a combination of some kind of primitive witchcraft and modern spells. Even if you don't use the "high-end" time power to counter it, there are corresponding means to crack it.

Xia De was just curious about where the other party learned this technique:
"But this is quite fitting for a country herbalist."

Various leather products used to make scrolls were hung on the walls, and the green light from the lighting fixtures made of plant branches made the basement not dark. There was no trace of the "potion merchant" here either, but Shade checked it without touching other people's things, and found traces of the other party's healing again.

This time he didn't just use the bloodstained cotton cloth to wipe it. He found a few unlabeled glass conical bottles with faint traces of potions. The notebook next to them recorded the production methods of these self-made potions:
"He was trying to heal himself with herbal medicine, but the more he drank the potion he prepared, the worse his injuries became."

The notebook is not a diary, but a simple record of the treatment. However, it does have dates, and the last record announcing the complete failure of the treatment was dated on the last day of the Chinese New Year, which was last Wednesday.

“Echoes of the past.”

I closed my eyes and listened to the echoes from the past, but after trying several times I didn't hear anyone talking. It seemed like he hadn't been back in the past half week.

But Shade's discovery here was not without value. The treatment notes recorded in detail the injuries of the "potion merchant" who was hit by the "magic sword".

The initial symptom was that the injured part could not heal normally and kept bleeding; three days later, it developed into necrosis of the surrounding flesh and blood, and black blood vessel marks spread throughout the body with the injured area as the center.

This middle-level warlock was very cautious and simply dug out the large piece of flesh from his left arm at this stage.

But it was too late. The blood affected by the "magic sword" had already flowed throughout the body. On the second to last day before the end of the year, large black patterns appeared on the normal skin, the black blood vessels showed signs of hardening, and the middle-ring warlock felt that his personality had undergone serious changes.

So he came here, using holy water and the herbal formula he had traded from the tribesmen at the foot of the snow-capped mountains, combined with snow-capped mountain water to prepare a potion for himself, but it was obviously of no use, or perhaps it only helped to prevent him from completely losing consciousness.

"Is the snow mountain water from the Fatumonster Snow Mountain so magical? It can be used to make tea, wine, and potions."

Shade muttered to himself, and when self-treatment completely failed, the symptoms of the "Potion Merchant" had turned into intermittent loss of consciousness, and he kept hearing strange voices in his mind giving him orders. But after waking up, he couldn't remember what those voices said.

He had become quite weak when he was awake. Although he could still control himself for the time being, he definitely could not go near a densely populated place like a city in this state.

At the end of the medical notes, he wrote "maybe I should go find someone for help", but he didn't mention who he was going to ask for help, let alone the other person's identity information, home address, hobbies, or background:

"Can't you leave me a clearer clue?"

However, the description of the "Potion Merchant" about his own situation did seem to be the symptoms of being hurt by the devil and gradually being controlled by the devil, so Shade's journey to find him had to continue:
"But is he really a demon? Why is he so high-profile?"

It was already four o'clock in the afternoon. After leaving the herbalist's hut outside the fishing village, Shad planned to walk two more stops before leaving. The task of finding someone was not very urgent. He could go back to summarize the clues first, or ask Luvia for help with divination.

The fourth stop after the shop, warehouse and herb hut is to continue moving northwest along the edge of the island. Mr. Mortis said that the "herb merchant" has a secret warehouse in the caves on the coast to store illegal materials - it is impossible for black market merchants not to be involved in this kind of material.

Mr. Mortis only knew the location of the warehouse, but didn't know how to get in. Relying on "Strong Spatial Perception", Shade finally found the well-hidden cave in the snow on the reef coast, but after entering it with great effort, he didn't find any clues.

Before he was about to continue his journey, he stood on the rocky beach, with his back to the towering snow-capped mountains, listening to the sound of the waves and admiring the beautiful scenery, when he saw something on the sea in the distance. It was not a ship, but after squinting for a while, he realized that it was actually three mermaids playing in the sea.

When Shad found them, the mermaids also found him. After a scream, the girls immediately dived into the sea and disappeared.

Of course, there would be no mermaids in a busy port like Yuewan. In addition to the deep sea, mermaid communities are also distributed in relatively remote coastal areas such as the Falling Star Bay. Island cities have never lacked legends and stories about mermaids, water monsters, and bird demons.

[Now that you have thought of legends and stories, what kind of fairy tales do you plan to encounter, Nine Rings? ]

"She" whispered in Xia De's ear as he was looking out at the sea in the sea breeze. Xia De let out a long sigh:

"Let Dorothy and Lesia decide. Maybe it can be related to snow, Snow White."

He turned around and planned to visit the last stop of today's search, but he didn't see that the three mermaid girls soon emerged from the bottom of the water again, chattered with each other for a while, and then left together.