Chapter 272 : Desire

"Miss Adèle?"

Seeing Adèle appear at the door, Dorothy feels a slight surprise. She then controls Ed, who is still in the theater management office, to stop his divination and put away the crystal pendant. Ed turns to Adèle and speaks again.

"As a key suspect, shouldn’t you be under strict police supervision right now? Are you planning to escape?"

"Running away would only confirm my guilt and play right into their hands. I’m not that foolish. I just used a little trick to move around freely for a while. Ordinary police are easy enough to handle."

Adèle says slowly, looking at Ed in the room. As she speaks, she takes a puff from a thin cigarette she holds between her fingers, exhales a cloud of smoke, and then looks at Ed with a curious gaze before continuing.

"Besides, with a wise Beyonder detective like Mr. Ed working to clear my name, how could I run away? The case is the detective’s stage, and I can’t dismantle the platform for the dancer performing on it."

Adèle continues speaking to Ed. Hearing her words, Ed raises an eyebrow and asks.

"Miss Adèle, how did you know I’m not an ordinary person?"

"Haha... that’s a woman’s secret."

"A secret..."

Ed mutters, and Adèle nods before continuing.

"Yes, a secret. Just like you have your own secrets, Mr. Detective. I doubt you’d tell me why you’re involving yourself in a case that has nothing to do with you. You even went so far as to use divination, which is no small cost. After all, the price of Revelation in Tivian is ridiculously high right now."

“I know that. I’m the one who drove up the price.”

Dorothy thinks to herself, while Adèle continues speaking.

"Paying such a high price to catch the real culprit of a case that shouldn’t concern you... Mr. Detective, I think your identity and motives are even more intriguing secrets."

Adèle speaks with a hint of laziness, her fingers holding the thin cigarette. Hearing her words, Dorothy thinks to herself.

“Well, for me, the cost isn’t that high. As long as I find and kill that guy, I’ll get everything back with interest. That’s my main goal.”

While thinking this, Dorothy controls Ed to smile and respond to Adèle.

"What if I told you that, as a detective, my goal is simply to uncover the truth and clear the name of an innocent lady? Would you believe me?"

Hearing Ed’s words, Adèle pauses for a moment, then chuckles.

"That sounds so noble. I almost thought you had some kind of method to accumulate spirituality by solving cases, Mr. Detective."

"Why couldn’t I?"

Ed shrugs and responds, while Adèle waves her hand and says.

"Alright, alright, whatever you say. Regardless of your motives, since you’re trying to find those people, we can consider ourselves temporary allies with aligned interests. I don’t know if you have any other investigative methods after divination failed, but if you can continue the investigation, I might be able to offer you some help."

"That would be greatly appreciated, Miss Adèle. I was just about to ask—do you know how much anti-divination resources they have?"

Ed asks Adèle, who glances at him before answering directly.

"Divination resources? No one knows for sure. But I can tell you this: those guys are backed by the Afterbirth Cult’s Wolf Blood Society. If the Wolf Blood Society provides them with anti-divination protection, then don’t even think about divining anything about them. Unless you have the backing of a society on par with the Afterbirth and are willing to engage in a full-scale divination war with them, you can forget about using divination to track them down."

Adèle reveals this information to Ed, and Dorothy finally begins to understand the true nature of the opponent she’s facing.

“The Afterbirth Cult... the Wolf Blood Society. So it’s an old acquaintance... But this is troublesome. If those people really have anti-divination protection from the Afterbirth Cult’s Wolf Blood Society, as Adèle says, then divination won’t work. Just the Eight-Spired Nest alone had the resources to spend tens of thousands of pounds to buy over a dozen Revelation points. A society like the Afterbirth Cult must have even more Revelation reserves, not to mention high-ranking Beyonders backing them. It’s not wise for me to try divining the Afterbirth Cult while suffering from rank penalties.”

“Although I have a lot of Revelation and can recover it, this isn’t the way to use it. And my Lantern is limited too. Unless absolutely necessary, I shouldn’t waste it…”

“This time... perhaps I can’t rely mainly on divination to solve the problem…”

Dorothy thinks this to herself, but she controls Ed to smile and respond to Adèle.

"Thank you for the reminder, Miss Adèle. I’ll keep that in mind. But I’m curious—how did you end up having a conflict with the Wolf Blood Society? Could you tell me about your history with them?"

"That... I’ll tell you after you solve the case. If you really can crack this case and clear my name, I’ll not only tell you about our history with the Wolf Blood Society, but you’ll also gain our friendship and gratitude."

Adèle takes another puff of her cigarette and murmurs. Dorothy keenly picks up on a subtle implication in Adèle’s words.

“Adèle refers to herself as ‘we’... That means she’s not alone. She’s part of a society, one that’s opposed to the Afterbirth Cult and the Wolf Blood Society.”

“Compared to the potential legal consequences she faces, Adèle seems more concerned about her reputation. Indeed, the Wolf Blood Society’s frame job can’t harm Adèle herself—ordinary police can’t hold a Beyonder like her. But her reputation in the secular world could be ruined by this accusation.”

“The Wolf Blood Society failed to assassinate Adèle, so they resorted to framing her to destroy her reputation as a secular dance star. It seems... this reputation holds some special significance for Adèle as a Beyonder.”

Dorothy quickly analyzes the hidden meaning in Adèle’s words. She then controls Ed to smile and say to Adèle.

"I’ll do my best, Miss Adèle."

"Then I’ll be waiting, Mr. Detective. I’ll be at the police station if you need anything.”

"Oh, and one last hint: Maria was already dead before our fourth performance of ’The Crimson Mother’. What danced with me was a flesh puppet."

"So it was a flesh puppet?" Ed feigns surprise, and Adèle responds with a mysterious smile.

"I thought you’d already figured that out, Mr. Detective."

After winking at Ed, Adèle flicks her cigarette butt into the trash can and walks out the door, leaving Ed alone in the room.

“This woman…”

Dorothy thinks to herself. She then controls Ed to sit on a sofa, assuming a thoughtful pose, and begins to ponder.

“Alright, let’s try to find the culprit through other clues.”

“First, I need to confirm Maria’s true cause of death and the time of her death. Maria was still alive during the second performance, but by the fourth performance, she was already a corpse marionette. So... her actual time of death was between the end of the second performance and the start of the fourth performance... If I remember correctly, that’s between 6:32 and 6:55.”

“When I controlled Maria’s body earlier, I noticed she had no external injuries. She might have died from poisoning or suffocation.”

“In any case, I need to confirm this first…”

After settling on these points, Dorothy controls Ed to stand up from the sofa, tidy up the room briefly, and leave the management office. He heads to the theater’s backstage, where he finds the other dancers of the Soaring Dance Troupe being questioned by the police.

"Gentlemen, may I ask them a few questions as well?"

Ed says to the police conducting the interrogation. Thanks to Douglas’ earlier promise, Ed now has investigative authority, so the police allow him to proceed.

"Of course, Mr. Detective."

Ed then approaches a dancer who was close to Maria and begins questioning her. Looking at the nervous dancer, he calmly asks.

"Miss, did you see Maria between the second and fourth performances? You all returned backstage together after the second performance, right?"

"Um... between the second and fourth performances... Let me think... After returning backstage after the second performance, Maria seemed very excited and went out on her own. I asked her where she was going, but she just mysteriously said it was a secret and didn’t answer. When she came back, the fourth performance was about to start. Since we were in a hurry, she went straight on stage with us as soon as she returned. I didn’t even have time to ask her where she’d been."

The dancer in front of Ed thinks for a moment before answering. Hearing this, Dorothy frowns slightly.

“So, Maria left backstage after the second performance. But the key is that she left on her own, and she was in a good mood? What was she doing?”

Dorothy ponders this, then controls Ed to ask the dancer a few more questions, but doesn’t gain any useful information.

After thanking the dancer for her cooperation, Ed leaves the backstage area. Since he hasn’t obtained enough useful information, Dorothy begins a new round of thinking.

“It seems... I still can’t figure out what happened to Maria between the second and fourth performances... Perhaps I can approach the case from another angle.”

“First, Maria left backstage on her own right after the second performance, in a good mood. Where she went is unknown, but since this was a premeditated assassination, her departure must have been arranged. If she left so happily, it could have been due to some Beyonder influence, or perhaps someone called her out, or she had an appointment with someone.”

“Another important point is that Maria returned just in time for the fourth performance of ’The Crimson Mother’, by which point she was already a corpse marionette. Yet, during the early part of the performance, she was still able to dance alongside the others, albeit stiffly, but keeping up with the rhythm. As a backup dancer, she didn’t seem out of place to the ordinary audience…”

“This is strange. As a corpse marionette, Maria was already dead in terms of spirit and soul, yet she could still dance and accompany Adèle. This means... the person controlling Maria, likely the murderer, also knew how to dance. At the very least, they knew how to perform the backup dance, which is why they could keep up with the overall performance without making mistakes that would alert the audience…”

At this point, Dorothy realizes a crucial detail: the corpse marionette Maria was able to dance alongside the others at first. Although her movements were stiff, her timing was impeccable. Since Maria was already dead, she couldn’t have danced on her own. Therefore, it was her controller who made her dance.

This means the controller also knew how to perform the backup dance for ’The Crimson Mother’!

“The controller knew how to accompany Adèle in the dance, and this dance was supposedly Adèle’s new work, never performed before... So, the murderer, the controller, must have had access to the secret rehearsals. There might be a mole in the theater?”

Coming to this conclusion, Dorothy immediately focuses. She controls Ed to go to the room where the police are holding Adèle. After greeting the officers, he enters and finds Adèle lying on a sofa, reading a magazine in the enclosed room.

"What’s the matter, Detective? Have you made any progress?"

Adèle asks, crossing her legs and revealing her pale thighs from under her red dress. She closes the magazine as Ed sits down beside her.

"More or less. I have some theories now and wanted to confirm them with you."

Ed adjusts his hat and speaks. He then shares his suspicions about a mole in the theater with Adèle, who frowns slightly before shaking her head.

"That’s impossible. It can’t be someone from the theater."

Adèle speaks with certainty, and Ed asks directly.

"How can you be so sure? If Maria was a flesh puppet from the start, it means her controller knew how to perform the dance. And since this dance was advertised as your latest work, it’s possible that someone in the theater secretly learned it."

"No, that’s not possible. To avoid leaks to the paparazzi and ensure absolute secrecy, we rehearsed this dance not in the theater but in my private studio. So, even the theater staff wouldn’t know what ’The Crimson Mother’ looks like."

Adèle continues firmly. Hearing this, Dorothy also becomes serious. The possibility seems slim.

"Then... is there any chance your private studio was infiltrated?"

"Unlikely. Although the girls didn’t know, my studio has comprehensive anti-surveillance measures in place. I’ve accounted for invisibility, small flesh puppets, ghosts, wall-crawling... If those guys could infiltrate it, I’d already be done for."

Adèle speaks seriously. Hearing her words, Dorothy feels a bit speechless.

“Using a place with security like a secret society’s headquarters for dance rehearsals... How paranoid is that? Is it really necessary to go to such lengths to avoid paparazzi? Using so many Beyonder anti-surveillance measures…”

Dorothy inwardly complains, then controls Ed to continue questioning Adèle.

"Then is it possible that one of the dancers in your troupe is the mole?"

"That’s even more impossible. These girls have all been vetted by me. Some of them are even my ’students.’ I trust them."

Adèle responds. Hearing this, Dorothy is momentarily stunned. She knows what a Beyonder means by "students"—it usually refers to lower-ranked Beyonders guided by the speaker. This suggests Adèle’s Beyonder rank is likely quite high, and some of the other dancers in the troupe are Beyonders she personally guided.

"Trust can sometimes be an illusion."

Dorothy has Ed remind Adèle. She believes that trust alone isn’t enough to rule out the possibility of a mole among the dancers.

However, Adèle’s response surprises Dorothy.

"Trust can be an illusion, but desire cannot."

"Desire?"

Hearing Adèle’s words, Ed’s voice carries a hint of confusion. Adèle looks at Ed and continues with a smile.

"Do you know why... those guys used a flesh puppet to assassinate me? It’s because... of my ability. I can sense the desires of those around me, especially... desires directed at me.”

"Whether it’s lust or hunger... I can sense the desires of everyone around me. And killing intent is, in a way, also a desire—the desire to kill someone…”

"I can sense the desires of the flesh and spirit around me. And when desires are focused on me, my range of perception expands, and my accuracy increases. So, if someone within my range of perception harbors killing intent toward me, I’ll immediately know their location."

Adèle explains slowly. After hearing her words, Dorothy falls silent for a moment. She controls Ed to speak.

"So, assassinating you is extremely difficult. And since flesh puppets have no desires, no killing intent, they chose to use a flesh puppet to assassinate you..."

"Exactly. A flesh puppet approaching me from behind with a knife wouldn’t emit any killing intent. I wouldn’t sense it, because flesh puppets have no desires..."

Adèle speaks with a hint of laziness. As she speaks, she leans closer to Ed, pressing her body against his and placing his hand on her exposed thigh.

Then, she brings her lips close to Ed’s ear and whispers in a seductive voice.

"Just like you... you have no desires toward me either, do you, Mr. Detective..."