The night is quiet, the moon hangs in the sky, and the people who were noisy on the street during the day have hid in their beds, looking for ways to realize their wishes in their dreams. Only the night insects are still whispering in this quiet time, telling people what they want during the day.
Noisy dissatisfaction.
No, maybe there are still people awake at this time, or even they have just woken up.
Under the dim light, Alice woke up in a daze. After she was kidnapped during the day, she was quickly knocked unconscious by the group of people. When she woke up, it was already now.
"Where is this?" Alice didn't know where she was, and she was inexplicably scared. She gradually saw the surrounding situation clearly. The old wooden boxes and cartons and equipment were placed side by side.
At first glance, there seemed to be goods in some of the boxes. It looked like an abandoned warehouse.
"This is an underground warehouse." A deep voice sounded in her ears.
The small windows on the wall are all three or four meters high, and the edges of the windows are covered with weeds.
Alice was startled, and when she turned around, she saw a blurry face less than a foot away from her eyes. She hurriedly moved back, but accidentally bumped into another person: "You...you guys
who is that?"
"Little girl, are you an alchemist too?"
"Me? No, it's not." Alice understood immediately. These people were all the same as her. They must have been caught here because of the alchemy competition.
"Alice?" A young male voice came from a dark corner.
Alice was stunned: "Who are you?"
The voice said: "It's me, Hughington." Then Hughington's face came close to Alice. When Alice was captured, he didn't seem to notice.
"Ah, you were caught by them too."
"Get out of the way." Hullington pushed away the guy next to him, sat next to Alice, and asked, "How did you get caught by them? You are not an alchemist, why did they catch you?"
Alice shook her head: "They kidnapped me and threatened Wright to abstain from this alchemy final. But I don't understand why they wanted to arrest me."
"Sure enough, it is also for the alchemy competition. They are determined to win the first place in this competition."
Alice tried to stand up, but as soon as she tried hard, her body went limp.
Hurlington said: "No need to try. They have sealed your power and abilities, including your summoning guardianship, and they will seal it again every once in a while. They will not give you a chance to escape."
Alice had to give up her efforts: "Then what should we do? We can't just sit here and wait to die. They already know my identity, and I'm afraid they will..."
Hullington remained silent, apparently not thinking of any good ideas.
Alice was very scared and leaned towards Hurlington and said: "You must protect me, Hurlington...brother."
Hullington shuddered: "Hey, don't be like this, when did I become your brother? Haven't you always hated me and called me a liar?"
"You..." Alice snorted: "You are a grown man, why are you so stingy and arguing with a little girl like me?"
"Little girl?" Hullington touched his nose, which had just recovered, and said as if he disagreed with this statement: "You are simply a little devil."
Alice hugged her knees and leaned against the wooden box sadly: "It doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, my master will come to save me. He will definitely find a way to find this place and save us."
It was still that night at Caesars Manor, and Bingzhi Evil God was eating the food on the plate carelessly. After searching for a whole night, he inquired about more than a dozen taverns, but there was no news about Alice. Finally, he inquired about a few others.
The alchemist who was allowed to participate in the finals also disappeared.
He put a piece of cold beef on his fork to his mouth, but he didn't eat it for a long time.
"How strange." Bing Zhixie thought deeply: "They arrested so many people. If it was for the first place in the alchemy competition, why didn't they also arrest Wright? Even if they were confident that they could threaten Alice, Wright would not dare to
If they continue to participate in the competition, then they shouldn't keep Wright. Aren't they afraid that Wright will lead the entire city's guards to search for them? Of course, if Wright disappears, the Duke will definitely mobilize the entire city to search for him."
He thought for a long time and asked: "Could it be that this was their mistake?" He shook his head again: "It's unlikely. From the time Alice went out, to the fact that Wright's mother was stabbed after going to the opera house.
The trap shows that they arranged it very carefully and would not be so careless. Unless...unless they deliberately did not capture Wright."
Thinking of this, Bing Zhixie was puzzled again: "But why? From what I heard in the tavern, there are other alchemists missing. In addition, there are also some materials prepared by alchemists for the finals for no reason.
Lost, this shows that there is indeed such a group of people who are planning to win the first place in the alchemy competition. It also shows that Wright did not lie, it is not that he was pretending to be a ghost and kidnapped Alice for some political conspiracy."
Bing Zhixie thought deeply for a long time and thought: "If they captured Wright, I wouldn't have any obvious clues. If they didn't capture Wright...if I didn't capture Wright, I would get the clue to this 'ancient bone snake'! Could it be that
It is said that this clue was not left by them carelessly, but deliberately? It is possible, but why? "
One o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock...the clock was ticking one by one, but Bing Zhixie never figured out the problem.
One morning one day later, after Maharoud washed her face and changed her clothes, one of her partners and accomplices came to her door.
Mahalud yawned and said, "What's going on? I have to go out for breakfast."
"Nothing, I just want to tell you that the alchemists you asked us to focus on have all been taken care of."
Mahalud said: "Oh, by the way, today is the first day of the alchemy finals. I almost forgot."
The accomplice Khan said: "Those alchemists who are powerful and threaten us have been eliminated by us. It can be said that we are guaranteed to win the first place in the finals of this alchemy competition, but there is one thing I don't understand..."
"Wait a minute, wait a minute." Mahalud interrupted him and said, "You said it's all done. Wright, Hughington and... they've done it too?"
The friend said: "Yes, Wright followed the method you said. We used Princess Alice to threaten him and forced him to give up the competition. Not long ago, he had announced that he would give up the competition because he was not ready for the finals. The organizing committee of the competition
The meeting has approved it.”
"Oh, what about Hughington?"
The accomplice said: "That guy Hullington, because we couldn't figure out what plans and materials he prepared for the finals, and couldn't steal them, we had to kidnap his people."
Mahalud nodded and said: "That's good. Hey, what's the problem you just said?"
The accomplice said: "It's about using Princess Alice to hold Wright hostage. I've been wanting to ask you these past few days, but you stayed behind closed doors because you were making final preparations and didn't want to be disturbed. I wanted to ask..."
Maharoud raised his hand to stop him and said: "You want to ask, in the plan to kidnap Wright, why didn't we arrest Wright together, but instead deliberately showed our weaknesses to let them notice."
"Yes, that's it." The accomplice said, "Not only do I don't understand, but our bosses are also puzzled. Although boss Mahalud, your ideas are always foolproof, but we really can't think of this.
clear."
Mahalud smiled: "It's my fault that I didn't make it clear to you. Then you tell them for me that you must have a foresight when doing things, and you can't just see what's in front of you."
"What do you mean?" The accomplice was puzzled.
Mahalud said: "Assuming that we capture Wright together, the Duke's Palace will definitely ask all the guards to search for his son in the city, right?"
"That's right." The accomplice said, "But now that we haven't arrested Wright, aren't they looking for the princess all over the city? And they already know that this matter is related to the alchemy competition."
Mahalud said: "We arrested Wright, don't they know that it is related to the alchemy competition? So many alchemists participating in the finals lost their alchemy materials, and several of the most powerful alchemists disappeared for no reason. Don't they?
Will they associate it with each other? Even if they are just suspicious, they will secretly control all the remaining alchemists among us. Whoever wins the first place in the alchemy competition will be the instigator of this series of conspiracies, right?
"
The accomplice was stunned: "Then...then our work is in vain?"
Mahalud said: "That's why I asked your subordinates to deliberately leak clues to them."
The accomplice thought for a while and shook his head: "I still don't understand."
"Why are you so stupid?" Mahalud said: "If they have clues, they will naturally solve the case. If the case is solved, if I win first place, doesn't it matter?"
The accomplice was stunned for a long time, then shook his head again and said: "I still don't understand what it means. We did this case and asked them to solve it, so why are we still doing this case and going through so much trouble to arrest those people?"
Mahalud sighed: "I have made it so clear, don't you understand yet? You are so stupid!"
The accomplice could only laugh dryly: "Then please, Boss Mahalud, please make it clearer and teach me this idiot."
Mahalud said: "Let me ask you, why did we design this series of plans? Is it to catch their people?"
The accomplice asked doubtfully: "Isn't it?"
"I'm really impressed by you, your subordinates actually have a boss like you." Mahalud said: "We do these things to prevent them from participating in the competition normally."
"Yes, yes, yes." The accomplice chuckled.
Mahalud said: "First, we can't really kidnap them, and second, it's useless for us to keep them. We just prevent them from competing with me for the first place in the alchemy competition. If Wright and the others solve this case, he
Only then did he really fall into the conspiracy I designed. Because only if he solves the case, can I receive the reward for first place in the alchemy competition without any worries and go to the Holy Garden to study."
The accomplice said: "They solved the case, didn't they find us?"
"Stop it." Mahalud smiled and said, "It's not us, it's you. This matter has nothing to do with me from beginning to end, does it?"
The accomplice was stunned and smiled: "I understand."
"That's right." Mahalud said: "It is to let one of our bosses take the blame for this case. Aren't there two of our bosses who have been shortlisted for the finals? So I have already made arrangements.
When Wright and the others solved the case and found the 'behind-the-scenes instigator' designed by me, our scapegoat boss had safely left the city and was just waiting to come back from the Holy Garden in the future to share the harvest from the Holy Garden.
results."
"What a wonderful idea, boss." The faces of the accomplices all beamed with joy: "This is simply a wonderful strategy, those people must not have thought of it."
Mahalud also smiled and said: "While they are still complacent about solving the case, they have actually fallen into your step-by-step design, boss."
The accomplice asked excitedly: "Boss Mahalud, what should we do now?"
"It's very simple. Do two things." Mahalud said: "First, kidnap me too."
"Boss you?"
Mahalud said: "So many alchemists have had problems. It makes no sense that I, the first one to pass the semi-finals, don't have some problems. I just do things in a normal way. It's just that this was an attempted kidnapping."
"What about the second thing?"
"The second thing is simpler, which is to control the speed at which they solve the case. The case must be solved on the day when the finals are completed. If it is early, the person we catch will still have time to compete. If it is late, they will suspect the person who won the first place.
Me."
"How to control this?" asked the accomplice.
Mahalud said: "Why can't this be controlled? Don't forget that the clues they have now are provided by us. At what time can we give them any clues? I think they saw the 'ancient snake bones'
The day when the snake' comes out is the day when the finals end."