Mermaid Reef

The street becomes a wax museum.

People kept vivid expressions and stopped at that second.

This scene is amazing, and you can see many small details that you usually don't pay attention to.

The patrolman stopped the man with the mustache and explained with impatience in his eyes.

The man with the mustache looked arrogant, because he looked down on a small patrolman, so his eyes didn't stay on the other party at all, and he didn't find the "little man's slander".He traveled in a private carriage, driven by a servant.

The servant squinted at the patrolman, noticing the "disrespect" of the patrolman towards his master, and leaned forward slightly, preparing to go over to complain to the master.

Mrs. Dutt's garden is a very beautiful house, but the atmosphere is very weird now, only the hall on the first floor is lit.

Through the glass, a group of terrified women could be seen.

There are guards around the house, especially around the door and windows, and they are not allowed to leave.

Apparently, something extremely unusual happened here, so it was blocked.

The gypsy wrapped in a cloak was also attracted by the house. He put away the newspaper, stretched out his black fingers, and grabbed it in the void.

Immediately the mist that hung around the garden began to change, forming something like a movie curtain, and the scene emerged like a mirror.The dead silent world also changed with those shadows, and a clear voice came out.

"Help, come quickly! Doctor, we need a doctor here!"

A sound film begins above Mrs. Dutt's garden:

A group of women in petticoats with disheveled hair ran in panic in the corridor, the door was wide open, and on the floor of the room was a naked man lying face down, pressing a large puddle of congealed blood, On the bed was a large ball of cocoons, with off-white silk wrapped around the bedposts and curtains.

The cocoon is translucent, and inside there is a figure curled up with its knees in its arms.

a woman.

Purple scale powder floated in the room, this terrifying scene looked a bit dreamy.

Someone tried to enter to check, but after walking a few steps, he fainted, and a group of people piled up at the door.

The screams grew louder, and then police whistles sounded.

This should be what happened this morning.

The house has been attacked by some mysterious force.

"Snapped."

The phantom disappeared.

In fact, the content of the "short film" was not finished, it was broken up by the shadow of the cloak.

Gypsy is like a fastidious viewer who stops at the beginning of a new play and loses interest, turning his head and leaving without hesitation.

He didn't approach the house, but passed through wax figures with different expressions, and walked towards the intersection with gas lamps.

A taxi was parked sideways, and the driver looked forward, as if to see what was happening in the garden.

The passenger in the car leaned sideways against the window, raised his eyebrows, and looked at the patrolman and the man with mustache in front of him, looking like he was watching a show.

Shadows passed over the gas lamps.

Four silver coins flew out of the coachman's pocket and landed on the black palm.

The gypsy made out the denomination of the coin.

A shilling is a different size and a different color than a penny.

The price of a horse-drawn carriage in London is fixed at 1 shilling within the city center, and the fare is increased by 6 pence per mile after that, because it is too troublesome to calculate the mileage, so Londoners usually come according to the distance of the marked buildings. memory.

It sounds easy, but for foreigners, it is very troublesome.

"Shh."

The newspaper disappeared, and the gypsy got another map of London.

There are all kinds of complicated lines and markings on it, which makes people dizzy, but the gypsy is not affected at all. He seems to be able to easily find the clues he wants from it, even though he had never seen this before today. map.

The coins shimmered.

"...he paid four shillings for the fare."

The gypsy talked to himself.

Then he glanced at the passengers in the carriage, and seemed to think that this guy was an eyesore, so he stretched out his hand and dragged the passengers down.

—light and fast, as easy as picking an apple from a tree.

Then the gypsy got into the carriage and continued to study the map with the four coins.

As for the passenger, he was leaning against the wheel with a schadenfreude look on his face, which looked extraordinarily funny.

"It's a long way, and he's been in the car?"

The man wrapped in a black cloak sat on the hard carriage seat, turned his head and glanced at the window, and slowly straightened his body, as if he wanted to feel what it was like to rest in a carriage.

Then a strange scene happened, the cloak grew bigger and bigger, like dough that suddenly fermented and expanded, it first filled the seats, and then spread to the entire carriage.

"..."

Perhaps realizing that this is not the correct way to ride a carriage, or that riding a carriage is really meaningless, the cloak shrinks quickly and turns back into a human silhouette.

The coins shone brightly, as if they were showing the way.

The gypsy jumped out of the carriage and walked into the depths of the fog with the map and coins.

"Uh?"

The passenger's head hit the wheel heavily, and he immediately screamed in pain.

"Sir?" The coachman was taken aback, thinking that he should not be in such a hurry to stretch his head out to watch the excitement, and fell down.

"Why am I here?"

The passenger looked puzzled. Looking at the wheels and his dusty and muddy coat, he felt humiliated. Afraid of being seen by his acquaintances, he hurriedly turned his head and climbed into the carriage.

He didn't dare to continue watching the excitement, and hurriedly urged the coachman: "Take me back to the place where I boarded the car today!"

The coachman glanced regretfully at the dispute in the distance, and decided to find out what happened here tomorrow.

The carriage turned around and went back on the road. The coachman felt that the sound of coins clinking in his pocket was a bit wrong. He didn't do a lot of business today, and the money was obviously missing.

He hurriedly fumbled for his pockets. Most of the fare had to be handed over to the dealership. If he lost his money, it would be a big deal.

The coachman counted and counted, and found that four shillings were missing, and he was sweating profusely.

The carriage ran slower and slower, at this moment, the driver's pocket sank, as if something had fallen into it.

He touched subconsciously, and the four shillings that he couldn't find just now appeared.

"..."

The coachman suddenly remembered that he seemed to have sent a guest this morning and received four shillings. Then he could not remember the appearance of the guest, and the wheel was broken. In the evening, strange things happened in the business, and the money still disappeared. Appear again?

The coachman's teeth chattered, and he secretly decided to call it a day and go home immediately after delivering the guest, and go to church to pray tomorrow!

***

The gypsy stood where Jason got out of the car.

On Charing Cross Road, rows of shops reveal a warm light.

The atmosphere in this city is muddy and complicated, like a maze.

It is many times larger than the largest human settlement in the memory of an ancient god, and it is mixed with many smells that the ancient god has never smelled, such as black smoke from factories and smoke from gas lamps, textile factories and paper mills. sewage, as well as wine, tobacco, perfume...

The last three smell wonderful to humans, but to the ancient gods, they are the complex smells of various plant corpses mixed and fermented.

Frankly, very creative.

They make humans smell different, adding to the fun of observation.

Humans are walking around in a labyrinth-like complex and narrow city (from the perspective of the ancient gods).

Just like humans observing ant nests in the wild, these small insects have a complete social structure, can communicate, divide labor and cooperate, and distinguish between rulers and laborers.

The insects at the bottom exude a primitive smell and have a short lifespan. They try their best to supply the same kind on the upper layer of the ant nest until they die.

Those upper-level ants who are comfortable and comfortable, in order to flaunt their different identities, add fermented scents to themselves. The higher the status, the more scent additives they have.The ant nest is also desperately producing these smelly things, and the ants are frantically pursuing them.

In the foggy shadows, the gypsy glanced at a drunken man at the corner of the alley.

It was the worst kind of wine, something that would kill a human being if he drank too much of it.

The man's clothes were dirty and tattered, and his body was thin. If the physique of ordinary humans is 50, this guy is estimated to be only 10. He is the useless and fragile type among ants.

——Even so poor, weak, and incompetent, still addicted to alcohol.

Perhaps human beings are inherently irresistible to odorants!

The gypsy pondered, continuing to look at the map.

This ant nest is quite complicated.

In addition to the multi-layer structure on the ground, many roads have also been opened up underground (Note).

Charing Cross Road is located in the busiest area of ​​the city. There are too many roads to walk and too many people.

The smell attached to those four coins can only be traced so far.

"Ok?"

The gypsy turned his head, and he smelled the butterfly again.

The city is a nest of butterflies?

After distinguishing the strength of this breath, the gypsy returned to study the map.

—weak enough to be ignored.

The black shadow of the cloak walked through the thick fog, and the places he passed fell into dead silence, and then returned to normal.

If someone looks down from a high altitude in London, he will find this terrifying phenomenon and know that there is a terrible thing walking on the streets of this city.

As the gypsy was walking, his body suddenly swelled into a shadow, like a huge black bat, flying up against the eaves.

It was very fast, passing through several streets in the blink of an eye, and then landed silently in front of the third floor window of a dilapidated apartment.

The windows are drawn with heavy curtains, and there are old stains on the glass. Under normal circumstances, it is impossible for someone across the street to see what is in the gaps in the curtains, but——

The shadow shrank to the size of a leather ball, suspended in mid-air.

The people in the room were sitting at the table writing, there were a lot of old newspapers piled up at his feet, some scraps of paper and cut-out news were nailed to the wall, and they were messily pulling threads.

There was also a wooden box on the table, the lid was open, and gold coins and precious stones were piled inside.

Shadow Ball: "..."

Threepence for a newspaper, four shillings for a carriage.

so who are you

Why did he give you so much money?

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The author has something to say:

Note: The London Underground was built in 1863, and by 1900, the minimum ticket was reduced to 2 pence

Gaimil looked at human cities, many years ago, probably you and I looked at the ant nests in the flower beds of the community, and dismissed them

Looking at human cities now, probably you and I saw African ant nests - ten meters above the ground, with a complex structure, a huge city, and an equally complex underground part

So I'm amazed (commentary), there may be a back.jpg emoticon pack here, because I didn't think of it before I saw it

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Gemil: So who are you?

Innocent, poor, and weak detective: ? ? ? ?