The Wheel of Chronos

In the center of London, under Big Ben on the banks of the Thames, there is a very secret watch shop.The watch shop is not in a shop along Congress Street, but in a second-floor apartment building.There is no signboard outside, and it seems that the owner of the watch shop does not want people to know that he opened a watch shop.The name of the watch shop is "Time", and a sign with black letters on a white background hangs at the door of his apartment, which is really concise and clear.

When Xue Lun first came to this store, she deliberately checked the industrial and commercial registration, and found that this watch store was actually a legally registered store.Is there just such a business?No one understands.

She still doesn't understand it now, but she can roughly guess that the owner of this watch shop has extraordinary background. He is not short of money, nor does he want to do business. What he lacks may be some fun to satisfy his empty life.

"Dong dong", Sharon stood in the corridor and knocked on the door of the Time watch shop.Not long after, an old voice sounded inside:

"Come in, the door is unlocked."

Sharon turned the doorknob and walked in. A strong metallic smell hit her face, followed by loud ticking sounds that enveloped her ears.Looking around, there is not an inch of wall in the whole house that is not covered by clocks and clocks. All kinds of wall clocks are hung on the four walls. There are five large cabinets in the small room, which are also full of clocks, watches, Pocket watches, all kinds of strange clocks are dazzling.

This was the third time for Sharon to come to this place, and she was almost used to the scene.Bypassing the large cabinets that got in the way, she walked to the inside, and after a while, she saw an old man lying behind the workbench, repairing clocks and watches by the dim light of a small desk lamp.The old man looked quite old, his short gray hair was sparse and almost fell out, his old face was covered with wrinkles, and a frown could kill mosquitoes.A cylindrical loupe is firmly held in his right eye by the muscles around his eyes, and his expression is focused, but his hands are surprisingly young, smooth and wrinkle-free except for some age spots.

The old man never told Sharon his name, so Sharon always called him by his shop name—Tam.If he didn't object, Sharon would take it as his acquiescence.

"Come on, sit down." The old man pointed to a chair in front of the workbench as if greeting an acquaintance.His voice was cloudy and hard to listen to.

Sharon sat down and looked at the old man silently.However, the old man seemed to have forgotten her existence in an instant, and continued to focus on the watch in front of him.

Xue Lun waited patiently for a while, the old man finally put down the work in hand, took off the loupe, cleared his throat, and said to Xue Lun:

"Come on, show me your pocket watch."

Sharon took out the pocket watch from her pocket and handed it to him.When the old man took the pocket watch, his hands trembled slightly, and then there seemed to be a strange smile on his face for a moment, but it disappeared immediately.

Sharon finally asked: "You asked me to come, what's the matter?"

"Young man, don't worry, let me see your pocket watch first." The old man said slowly, and then opened Sharon's pocket watch.He took a tool in the shape of tweezers, and directly peeled off the broken glass dial of the pocket watch. Sharon was startled, and hurriedly said:

"What are you doing?"

"Your dial is in the way, don't install a dial in the future, the pointer will still turn, and you can do whatever you want." The old man said, but Xue Lun was at a loss:

"Didn't you say that this watch should not be repaired? Why now..." She asked hesitantly.

"I didn't repair it. This watch has always been very good. It couldn't be better." The old man said, "I just took off the dial so that you can use it better. This is the pocket watch's own appeal, did you hear it?"

What do you hear?Xue Lun only felt clouded and foggy.

"I don't understand. This watch has been stopped for six years. During these six years, the pointer has been showing 10:11:30, which is the moment when the church collapsed. How can this be said to be good?"

"But look, isn't this watch running?" The old man suddenly turned his pocket watch around and showed it in front of Sharon.The pocket watch really started to move, showing the position of the second hand just after 11 seconds at 27:40 in the middle of the night.It was exactly the same as the time displayed on her bracelet.

"This..." Sharon's eyes widened in disbelief.Does this old man know magic?She didn't see the old man repairing the watch at all. He just took off the dial. Why did the time displayed on the watch suddenly change?

"Take it, young man, a new world is waiting for you ahead. From now on, you don't come to me anymore, I'm leaving." The old man stood up slowly, he couldn't see much when he was sitting, and when he stood up, Only then did Sharon realize that his body was extremely dry, almost like a mummy.But his strength was surprisingly strong, he forcibly pulled away Sharon's chair, forced her to stand up, and sent her out.

"But, Mr. Tim, what you said about my sister in the fax before, how should I solve it?"

"You can check by yourself according to the clues I gave you, and you can always find out the results."

"You called me here today, isn't it for this matter?"

"I called you here just to look at your pocket watch." The old man said.

"Mr. Taim!" Sharon forcibly turned around, raised her left hand to block his pushing her hands, and said:

"Wait a minute! I still have something to ask you. Did you know why you lured my sister to your store in the first place? My sister gave me pocket watches, all of which were designed by you. Can't you see it? It's not so much that my sister gave me this watch, it's better to say that you lent her hand to me. What's so special about this pocket watch?"

"You will know soon." The old man's eyes were dim.

"Mr. Taim, if you don't tell me today, I won't leave!" Sharon said while holding the old man's arm tightly.

But the old man laughed strangely: "Hehehehe...Young man, what you are holding in your hand is the most dangerous thing in the world. Its name is the Wheel of Chronos. Grasp this sharp weapon carefully, and you will understand the meaning of this weapon. Everything will eventually be understood..."

Before she finished speaking, Xue Lun suddenly felt palpitations, and then her eyes turned white, and all the scenes disappeared.The soul of the whole person seems to be lifted up, and it is about to rush out from the top of the head.But at the next moment, her body sank suddenly, her vision recovered, and she suddenly found that she had returned to the corridor. In front of her was the old apartment door of the clock shop, but the "Time" sign on the door had disappeared.The dim lights in the corridor flickered slightly, and the apartment building was quiet and cold, as if no one existed.

She gasped for a moment in amazement, looked left and right, then turned the doorknob abruptly, pushed the door open and walked in.The sight in front of her made her hair stand on end.

The room full of clocks and clocks was empty. All the clocks, including the furniture, disappeared, not even a single screw was left.She froze in place for a few seconds, then walked into the room, carefully confirmed that she was not mistaken, and then slapped herself on the cheek fiercely to confirm that she was not dreaming.Immediately, she knocked on all the rooms on the second floor, and even ran up to the third floor to check. Either the door was locked and no one answered, or it was a resident of another house, and there was no sign of the watchmaker at all.She turned the three-storey building facing the street upside down, but to no avail, she quickly rushed downstairs and strode to her family's car parked on the side of the road. came out and asked:

"Miss? What's the matter?"

"Uncle Jack... did you see that old man come out?" she asked hurriedly.

"You mean the watchmaker? No, I've been waiting for you here for half an hour, but no one came out except you."

"Impossible! This apartment has no back door, only an entrance facing the street. How did the old man disappear?"

"Disappeared?" Old Jack asked in surprise.

"Are you sure you didn't see anyone coming out? Including from above?" Sharon confirmed again.

Old Jack opened the car door and got out of the car. He looked up, and Sharon also looked up into the sky. Above the street was an unsupported space formed by buildings along the street. The street was 30 meters wide, and a person could walk from this side. Does the building jump onto the opposite building?What's more, this person must carry a large number of clocks and furniture weighing at least one ton to fly from above, which is obviously impossible.

The two looked at each other, and they both saw the meaning in the other's eyes: this matter really saw a ghost.

Sharon took a deep breath, and simply opened the rear door and got in:

"Let's go, let's go home first."

Old Jack immediately got into the car, started the car and drove out, asking at the same time:

"What shall we do now?"

"I left a hidden camera upstairs. I will observe whether he will come back in the past two days. When I go back, I will check the sewer pipeline to confirm whether he has left underground. But I'm afraid... check Nothing came of it. After I was disturbed, I left him for only a second or two at most, but he disappeared from my eyes. When I woke up, I was actually standing in the corridor outside the house, exiting the house from the house I don’t remember the whole process, it’s too weird.” Sharon put her left index finger on the leather armrest of the seat and tapped it slowly, which was her usual movement when she was emotionally ups and downs.

After a while, she forced herself to calm down, and suddenly remembered something, hurriedly touched her pockets, and took out her pocket watch from the outer pocket of her jacket.The pocket watch, which had been in his hand when she and Tym had quarreled, was now in her pocket.She frowned, this matter was beyond her cognition.

She opened the cover of the watch, and the hands of the pocket watch that lost the dial were still moving meticulously, but the three hands were exposed to the outside like this, which inevitably made her a little uncomfortable.What the hell is going on with this watch?

"Miss, someone is following you!" Old Jack, who was driving ahead, glanced at Sharon through the rearview mirror.

Sharon concentrated her mind, turned her head, looked back through the rear window, and really saw a dark gray energy vehicle following behind their car.

"Get rid of him." Sharon sat up straight again, and pulled the handlebar above her head.

"Okay!" Old Jack suddenly slowed down, swung the steering wheel, and unexpectedly turned right into an alley.

The car continued to move forward along the alley, and Xue Lun turned around again, but the dark gray car didn't keep up and drove straight away.

"Who? Could it be that our investigation into the New World religion has exposed it?" Old Jack said.

"No... I'm afraid they are members of the royal family." Sharon said, "There are flagpoles installed on both sides of the front of that car, although they are stowed away. Generally, only the royal family and the prime minister use the flag-carrying cars. Especially, Princess Tianyang's performance, I am afraid that the royal family will start to pay close attention to me."

Old Jack sighed: "Sure enough, Her Majesty and Her Majesty have vicious eyes and are as careful as dust. You can't escape their eyes if you deliberately cover up."

"I never thought I could escape the attention of the royal family. I had outstanding grades in school back then. Now, both the peace talks faction and the main battle faction are looking for talents and vying for seats in the parliament. My name should be on the wooing list of these two factions. Middle. Although six years have passed, the contacts left by my father are still there. As a staunch advocate of the war faction, my father is obviously the backbone of the royal family and the main organizer of the war faction. Now that my father is gone, his Those supporters either surrendered to the main combat faction or the peace talks faction, but most of them maintained a neutral and wait-and-see attitude. The royal family naturally set their sights on me, hoping that I could win these people into the main combat faction. It's just that I didn't expect that the royal family would be so anxious and send someone to follow me so soon. Maybe the royal family saw something..." She supported the monocle and said slowly.

Old Jack drove the car through the dark and empty alleys like a ghost. After driving for two or three minutes, the road came to an end, and the lights ahead brightened.As soon as you turned the corner, you came to a slightly bustling street.Over the years, the people of the empire have gradually returned to their nightlife habits. There are occasionally a few pedestrians hurrying past by the side of the road. Except for the 3-hour supermarkets and pharmacies, only the bars on the whole street are the most brilliantly lit.People who get drunk forget the status quo of their existence, enjoy the momentary intoxication, and make noise without knowing the heights of the sky and the earth.

These scenes passed by the car window quickly, and Sharon slowly took out a piece of paper from the inner pocket of the jacket, on which was typed a line of English typefaces with an old-fashioned typewriter:

"If you want to find out the inside story of the collapse of the cathedral, start with Claude Williams, a fourth-year student in the Department of Theology at Eton College."

It was a piece of paper that Tam had faxed to her before her second visit to the watch shop.Tim suggested she start at Eton, but Sharon was hesitant.She didn't understand why a college student in the theology department of Eton College was involved in the collapse of the church. Could it be because he was a future pastor?From his investigation, what can be found out?She has always believed that the collapse of the church was a terrorist attack by the New World Church. It was intended to deter the upper echelons of the empire, force the empire to mess up, and finally be able to surrender to the continent of Lemuria.For this reason, she spent a long time investigating this matter, but the New World Sect is secretive, and she alone is still powerless.

However, just a month ago, when she was sorting out Josephine's belongings, she suddenly found a hand-painted map in one of Josephine's favorite books during her lifetime.The location of the watch shop on Congress Avenue was marked on the map.Out of curiosity, she visited the Time watch shop.The first time she saw Taim, she gave him her pocket watch that had been damaged for six years, hoping that he could repair it, but Taim refused. He said that it would be better if the watch was not repaired. Too bad, so Sharon had to give up.She talked to Tim about Josephine, the old watchmaker who seemed to remember the beautiful young girl who had bought a pocket watch from him six years earlier.

"She has beautiful long light brown curly hair, she is really a charming girl." The watchmaker's eyes seemed to reveal some kind of lingering emotion.After a while, he didn't match his words, and abruptly took out a note from his pocket and handed it to Sharon, saying, "Prepare a fax machine, here is my number, and use fax when you are ready." Call me and I'll send you a message."

Even though she was very puzzled by the watchmaker's behavior, Sharon did it anyway, and she almost turned over the flea market in search of a fax machine.When she finally installed the fax machine and called Tym, she received a note with an inexplicable content, which was the one she was holding now.

She hurried to the watch shop to inquire face to face, but Tam kept silent, and he seemed unwilling to say more about many things.

Now, this mysterious watchmaker disappeared after her third visit, and Sharon really fell into endless confusion and surprise.

After hesitating for a moment, she made a decision, and said to the old Jack in front:

"Get ready, we're going to Eton College tomorrow."

The author has something to say: Gradually enter the main plot.

Knowledge points:

Eton College, in reality, is a famous boys' school in London.Located on the banks of the River Thames in Buckinghamshire, it was founded by Henry VI in 1440.As the most famous aristocratic high school in the UK, it ranks among the top ten in the UK.

Eaton is famous all over the world as the "cradle of elites" and "gentlemen's culture". It is also known for its strict militarized management. Most of its students have excellent grades. It is recognized as the best middle school in the UK, and it is one of the training centers for elites in the British royal family, political circles, and economic circles. land.Here have produced 20 British prime ministers, cultivated poet Shelley, economist Keynes, actors Tom Hiddleston, Eddie Redmayne, Hugh Laurie, "1984" author George O. Will, "the man standing at the top of the food chain" Bear Grylls, and the two princes of the British royal family.

In this article, it has been upgraded to a university and is a coeducational school, which will be explained later.

In addition, the famous British secondary schools include "Harrow School", "Rodin Girls' School" and so on.