"You're so miserable."
Ember heard this and looked like he believed it.
"Yes, I'm miserable. Ember, please stop bothering me."
Xiao Lu also pulled a long face. Fortunately, his profession was a detective; if he were an actor, he would probably be weeping bitterly by now.
"Alright, I've crossed out your name!" Ember made a few more strokes, which made Shikanoin Heizou breathe a sigh of relief.
But soon, he couldn't smile anymore.
On Ember's notepad, all places where "Shikanoin Heizou" was written were crossed out with several horizontal lines.
The lines were crooked, and from them, one could vaguely make out the five characters "Shikanoin Heizou."
Rather than hiding it, it looked more like a marking symbol, drawing attention to Shikanoin Heizou's name immediately.
This was even worse than not crossing it out at all!
"How is this any different from not crossing it out!" Shikanoin Heizou's veins bulged on his forehead. If Ember hadn't committed a crime, he would have tried a Heart-Piercing Punch to test the Great Adventurer's skill.
"Don't mind those details. Aren't you a detective? Look at other things." Ember waved his hand, flipping through a few pages in the notepad.
"What's so good to see on your notes..."
Shikanoin Heizou was about to mock Ember, wondering what useful information could be in his notebook, but after seeing the content, his voice gradually trailed off.
As Ember turned the pages, Shikanoin Heizou's brow furrowed more and more, and his expression became increasingly solemn.
"Hoo..." Once all the written parts of the notepad had been thoroughly read, Shikanoin Heizou let out a deep breath.
"Is everything written here true?"
Shikanoin Heizou asked, stroking his chin with a serious expression. The matter of his name being recorded had long been forgotten.
"Of course, but there are only witness testimonies, no physical evidence." Ember nodded. When it came to important matters, he was very rigorous.
Otherwise, he wouldn't bother with "social surveys." Wouldn't it be more satisfying to just fight the Shogunate Army and the resistance from north to south?
"This is troublesome. Witness testimony isn't as convincing as physical evidence." Shikanoin Heizou's eyes darted around. If everything written in the book was true, then his attitude towards this war could no longer be so casual.
Destroying the tatarigami seal, concealing news of the tatarigami outbreak, silencing witnesses... Both the resistance and the Shogunate Army had gone too far in this war.
"No, the tatarigami guards couldn't have been so easily defeated. How could a small team from the resistance silently kill all the guards?"
"Impossible, this is absolutely impossible!" Shikanoin Heizou replayed the scenario several times in his mind, and the result was always a crushing defeat for the resistance.
This also aligned with his own understanding of the Shogunate Army. Although soldiers in other areas might be lax, or even easily defeated.
But in important places, the Shogunate's elites were not to be trifled with.
As the champion of the Tenryou Commission's Free Martial Arts Tournament, Shikanoin Heizou had often sparred with elite soldiers like the tatarigami guards and the Okuzume.
He was very clear about their strength.
"Oh, right, there is physical evidence after all, this!" Ember saw Shikanoin Heizou's conflicted expression and suddenly remembered that he seemed to have a few pieces of physical evidence in his hand.
With that, Ember pulled out a battered Delusion.
"A Vision?" Shikanoin Heizou took the dim "Vision" in confusion, his doubts still not lessened in the slightest.
What if there were Vision wielders in the resistance? Before the battle formation formed by elite Sergeants, they would only meet a tragic end.
Not to mention that there were also Vision wielders among the tatarigami guards.
After carefully examining the "Vision" in his hand for a while, Shikanoin Heizou seemed to suddenly understand something. He took off the Vision from his waist and carefully compared it with the "Vision" in his hand.
"This thing... could it be a Delusion from the Fatui?" Shikanoin Heizou returned the battered Delusion to Ember, speculating.
He had only heard that elite members of the Fatui would be equipped with Delusions, but he had never actually seen one.
"Exactly. I've pulled off several of them, and they're all identical." Ember conjured several Delusions as if by magic.
He had picked these up from Electro Cicin Mages and Debt Collectors when he had nothing to do; they were all the same style.
"Alright... well, you are truly full of martial virtue." Shikanoin Heizou's eye twitched as he saw the Delusions, strung together like copper coins, in Ember's hand.
This strength, could it be said that he truly lived up to being a Great Adventurer?
"So, Detective Xiao Lu, do you have any clues now?" Ember looked at Shikanoin Heizou expectantly. Since he was a detective, he must have seen through the conspiracy by now, right?
"Clues, what kind are you referring to?" Shikanoin Heizou looked up at Ember, saying nothing.
"Aren't you a detective? You must have deduced the question I want to know, right?" Hearing Shikanoin Heizou's question, Ember immediately retorted.
"You seem to misunderstand what a detective does. Detectives need clues to solve cases." Shikanoin Heizou sighed, covering his forehead.
Why do people always think detectives can read minds?
"You're not a very good detective." Ember first scorned Shikanoin Heizou's unprofessionalism, then, before he could react, continued:
"I'm curious where the resistance got these Delusions, and so many of them." Ember took out all the Delusions he had stripped from the resistance, a whole handful.
He had never seen so many Delusions before. When did Delusions become wholesale goods?
Ember remembered that these things were quite rare even within the Fatui. Ordinary grunts didn't have the opportunity to use Delusions; they used elemental weapons.
"For this, instead of asking me, you should ask the Fatui." Shikanoin Heizou looked down at the messy footprints on the ground and chuckled softly.
"The Fatui?"
"Just follow these footprints, and they will lead us to the Fatui." Shikanoin Heizou said, then squatted down.
"The footprints on the ground are so mixed, can you recognize them?" Ember also looked down at the footprints in the sand, asking curiously.
Among these footprints were those of the resistance, the Fatui, and wagon tracks formed by turning carriages.
With such a mess, it wouldn't be easy to distinguish the Fatui's footprints.
"There's no need to recognize the Fatui's footprints, just find the area with larger traces than the others, and that's it, right?"
Shikanoin Heizou recalled the size of Electrohammer and Anemo Boxer among the Fatui and couldn't help but sigh with emotion.
People really couldn't be generalized; their forearms were almost as thick as his thighs. He really wondered what they ate to grow so big.
Could it be that Snezhnaya's millet was more nourishing?
Soon, Shikanoin Heizou found a large set of imprints among the chaotic footprints.
One look and it was clear that the person who made the footprints was huge.
"This is it. Follow this path, and we should be able to find out where the Fatui went."
Shikanoin Heizou whistled and walked along the footprints.
Ember saw the footprints Shikanoin Heizou was following and found them remarkably familiar.
He stretched out his leg and stomped heavily. Good, an identical footprint appeared on the ground.
"These seem to be my footprints."
Ember's words made the confident Shikanoin Heizou's body stiffen.
"Are you sure you're not joking? These footprints are so big? You, with your physique, can make them?"
Shikanoin Heizou almost had "Don't try to fool me" written all over his face.
"But I'm wearing armor." Ember lifted his iron footplate. Because they were iron boots, they were a few sizes larger than other shoes.
"Then how do you explain this large area of footprints? Do you have four legs?" Shikanoin Heizou pointed at the large area of footprints on the ground. This was simply not something one person could make.
"That's because my walking posture is rather captivating." In front of Shikanoin Heizou, Ember demonstrated his erratic running posture.
His legs churned, and amidst a blur of afterimages, large patches of fresh footprints appeared before Shikanoin Heizou's eyes.
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