Chapter 121 Thirty-six. On the road

   Horseshoes walked across the bluestone road with morning dew, splashing with the stagnant water.

  Some shops on both sides of the street opened their wooden doors, and the sweet smell of toast wafted across the street. The men who were preparing to go to work in the early days stood in front of the door, wiping their bodies with the water from the buckets.

   These somewhat dissipated the desertedness in the gloomy and cold weather.

  The carriage stopped briefly at Mrs. Film's Bakery. Lu Li got out of the car to buy five pounds of bread. When the clerk was preparing to load up the freshly baked bread, he left the bakery and walked to the newsstand not far away.

  The newsstand truck had just put up its stand, and the rain cloth was covering the newspapers, and it was not time to remove it.

   "Give me today's newspaper. Maybe the detective agency is empty these days. The newspaper can be stuffed directly into the crack of the door."

   Thanks to his unique black hair and black eyes, it is hard for most people who have seen Lu Li not to be impressed by him. The old man in charge of the newspaper car took off his top hat and greeted Lu Li, turned around and lifted the rain cloth to get the newspaper Lu Li needed, and said, "Are you going to travel?"

"Um."

   took out a brand new newspaper from a stack of newspapers, the old man turned around and handed it to Lu Li with a strong ink smell: "I wish you a good time."

"thanks."

  Lu Li took the newspaper, returned to the bakery, and returned to the carriage with a bag full of bread.

   "So much..." Anna craned her neck and looked around.

   "It will take a day and prevent any changes in Shadow Town."

   For example, the food there is not appetizing.

   Put the cowhide bag against the edge of the carriage, Lu Li sat on the edge of the carriage, pulled the reins, and the obedient and honest horse slowly moved forward.

  dadadada——

   With the sound of hooves and the carriage shaking slightly, Lu Li put the oil lamp beside him and opened the ink-smelling newspaper.

  [The Kodak Searson (Immortal Giant) set sail at Harsco Harbor, Lennon Islands early yesterday morning]

The    title is accompanied by a low-quality black-and-white image of a steamship that looks like the Titanic leaving the port, with bunting flags hanging on the shore, and family members gathering in front of the guardrail and waving at the cruise ship.

   There is a line of text below the newspaper: "——The steel behemoth known as unsinkable"

   It seems that a giant ship with such a name and name will not end well in general.

  Lu Li thought so, simply read the news that took up half of the homepage, and looked at the second article.

  【The case of Baron Joseph has entered the stage of proof】

   [This reporter learned from the Shouwang Township Police Station that both the plaintiff and the defendant have entered the stage of proof. The lawyer hired by Baron Joseph is Sauron, a famous lawyer in Watch Town——]

The two names that appeared in    were more or less in contact with Lu Li.

   The third piece of news still concerns Baron Joseph.

  【Baron Joseph's new prey? Witnesses saw Baron Joseph leave the house of a mysterious man—]

   [Two days ago, Baron Joseph went out in disguise and went to meet someone privately in a detective agency in Sailors Street. It is understood that the detective of the detective agency here is a man with a mysterious identity. According to witnesses, Baron Joseph stayed at the mysterious person's house for several minutes before leaving...]

   What Lu Li didn't expect was that he was exposed to the public for the first time in such a way.

   But fortunately, apart from the people who knew Lu Li, the others didn't know who the newspaper said.

   Looking at the second edition, Lu Li knew why the content of the first edition, Baron Joseph, appeared on two news stories - nothing happened yesterday.

The next three editions of    are full of daily chores. For example, if a rich man is robbed on the street, if a painter criticizes other painters' paintings as a pile of shit, if a homeless body is found on the street, with no scars and a smile on his face, the police analyze that the cause of death of the homeless man is darkness middle.

   This kind of thing is not uncommon in Belfast, there are always some people who are very daring, think differently from ordinary people, bet with friends, drunk alcoholics, tramps, and extremely miserly people who fall into the dark and die. Something is different - most people who fall into darkness often end up missing rather than leaving a body behind.

   closed the newspaper and put it aside, Lu Li looked at the horses advancing along the uphill street, and asked, "Do you know Shadow Town?"

"do not know."

   Conversation is over.

  When the sky was nearly full, the carriage left the Belfast area and began to head towards the north where the terrain eased.

   Passing through a birch forest, the forest that should have been green in the past is now gray and dead, and the calls of mosquitoes and birds have never sounded or appeared.

  May is coming to an end. In previous years, the back of Mount Sugard would be a greenery composed of plants and farmland, but until now, most of the plants have not even germinated.

   Not only Mount Sugard, but the entire continent seems to be in a state where no plants can grow, and even the most prosperous northern nations have been slow to see green. I am afraid that only in aristocratic mansions will expensively cultivated plants and flowers still bloom.

   The gray and ugly surface is uneven, and the fields that have been plowed and sown by the road have not yet seen shoots emerge.

  The Allen Peninsula usually enters fall in late September, leaving little time for people.

  If the plants continue not to grow and there is no solution, this disaster will break out far more terrifying than the Night Calamity.

   As Hades once said pessimistically, the world is dying.

  The sky was fully lit, but it was still dark and gloomy, and it was raining. Perhaps the blood-colored tentacles above Shadow Town gradually became hazy, more illusory in the smoky drizzle.

   Lu Li sat in the carriage, opened the curtain and drove the carriage to the right path.

  Ann sat with Lu Li for a while, but because it was boring and there were too many carriages and trucks on the road, she hid in the compartment to read a book.

   "Too dark is bad for the eyes."

   Just picked up the book on the floor, Lu Li's voice sounded right in front of him, the oil lamp was passed into the carriage by him, and the dim yellow light dispelled the darkness.

"Oh."

  Anna subconsciously found the oil lamp. She realized what happened after her palm passed through the handle and Lu Li's fingers. Instead, she took the oil lamp with her mind and put it aside.

   Thinking of what Lu Li had asked before, Anna hesitated, "I know something about Shadow Swamp..."

   "Like?" Lu Li, who was sitting under the car curtain, didn't look back.

   "Like its long section and the species that live in it..."

  Anna's voice was getting smaller and smaller, realizing that what she knew from the textbook didn't seem to be of any use.

  Lu Li didn't speak any more, the inside and outside of the carriage fell into silence.

  Anna was embarrassed for a while, and was gradually attracted by the content of the book. Occasionally, she would raise her head, look at Lu Li's back, and continue reading.

  The road gradually became gentle, and they had completely left the area of ​​Mount Sugard. The smell of seafood is no longer in the air, but the scenery remains the same: dry and gray.

  The carriage bumped for a day, and as evening approached, a low-rise building complex on the plain appeared at the end of the line of sight.

   Looking up, the illusory blood-colored tentacles in the depths of the clouds seemed to be a little real, swaying slowly like water plants behind Shadow Town.

   (end of this chapter)