When the day came, Lin Sanjiu moved a chair to the window in the damp rented apartment and stared at the pedestrians on the street for some time.
Whitechapel in the East End of London was a gathering place for many poor immigrants. Most of them were from Russia or Eastern Europe. Therefore, there were always Caucasian faces on the street. Occasionally, there would be mixed-race people, but Lin Sanjiu couldn't tell where they were from. If the potato brothers changed into suitable clothes and walked on the street, Lin Sanjiu might not be able to tell if they were players or locals.
Changing into a set of player clothes wasn't a difficult task.
This pocket dimension must have existed for more than a day or two, and they were definitely not the first batch of players to enter. If a posthuman had met with an accident in this pocket dimension, it wouldn't be difficult for someone to strip them of their clothes.
The young man also told Lin Sanjiu his conjecture, "The elder brother said that he was sleeping at home. Who can prove that? I think that the elder brother is Jack the Ripper. However, it's not easy to kill him with us around, so the younger brother came with us to create chaos and distract us. Then, the elder brother would attack Annie from the other side … In history, there were people who suspected that Jack the Ripper had an accomplice! "
When he said that, his eyes sparkled.
Regardless of whether the young man's conjecture was reasonable or not, and why he was so obsessed with Jack the Ripper, there was one thing he was right about. In the 19th century London, an East Asian — to be exact, a Chinese wearing a denim jacket with a slight Cantonese accent — was definitely an outsider, just like Lin Sanjiu.
Then the next problem would be the penny in his hand …
Lin Sanjiu studied the coin between her fingers. The coin was slightly dented, and it had a white edge under the sunlight from the window. It was thin and not very heavy. People with weak hands might not even be able to throw it far.
"Can I use it to break a street lamp?"
If her ability wasn't sealed, it wouldn't be a problem. However, when Lin Sanjiu tried it on her own, she was surprised to find that she managed to break a street lamp. She realized that her physical strength was at a very delicate stage. Even though she couldn't use her evolved ability, she could still increase her physical strength. Right now, her strength was equivalent to that of a naturally strong man.
In particular, the 19th century street lamps were made very crudely and brittle. In addition, the street lamp was very close. If they had tools like a slingshot, it wouldn't be a problem …
When Lin Sanjiu thought of this, she scratched her head in frustration. She decided to throw the matter aside and not think about it.
After all, when Jack the Ripper killed five people, the game would eventually end. So what if he did not solve the mystery? At most, she would just have to be more careful in front of the potato brothers.
The day in the game was actually only about thirty minutes long. When she pushed the chair and stood up, it was already nightfall outside and the lights were getting brighter. What followed was a night that would last for four to five hours. From this, it could be seen that a large portion of the plot in the game would definitely take place at night.
Just as she stood up, the door of the small apartment was pushed open. The young man poked his head in and looked at her. Since he was carrying two loaves of bread in his arms, he turned around and kicked the door shut. "Do you want something to eat?" he asked.
He had gone out in the 'morning', but the sky was already dark after he bought two loaves of bread.
Lin Sanjiu looked at the two black and hard loaves of bread and shook her head, feeling that she had no appetite.
The young man didn't mind. He tore a piece of bread and put it in his mouth. He asked with a muffled voice, "Where are the two brothers?"
After his initial fright subsided, he began to take a great interest in the potato brothers. His attitude could be described as enthusiastic and earnest.
"They … they went to look for prostitutes," Lin Sanjiu said with a hint of reluctance and an expressionless face. She couldn't even add another word to that sentence.
Perhaps the potato brothers had realized that their identity as a tavern owner had attracted the attention of the prostitutes in the slums. Since last night, they had been wandering the streets, flirting with every woman that caught their eye. From time to time, they would follow a young prostitute and disappear into a street corner. They wouldn't come back even after a long time. In the entire day and night in the game, they only came back once, and that time, they were looking for money.
Even though the old gatekeeper had said that they could do whatever they wanted, Lin Sanjiu couldn't hide her surprise.
When the young man heard what she said, an expression that said, "Look, what did I say?" appeared on his face. He sat on the chair furthest from Lin Sanjiu. He lowered his head and chewed on the bread so that only the top of his head could be seen. As he chewed, his saliva mixed with the sound of saliva, and he suddenly chuckled.
"What are you laughing at?" Lin Sanjiu didn't like his cowardly and unexpected behavior. Honestly, if it weren't for the fact that Jack the Ripper couldn't be an East Asian, she would have thought that the young man was the murderer.
"No … Nothing." He raised his eyelids and shivered for a moment before saying, "I … I was just thinking about it. If one of them is indeed Jack the Ripper and the other is an accomplice … that would be too exciting."
Neither of them had lit up the lamp, so the darkness in the house made Lin Sanjiu's heart sink. It wasn't a pleasant thing to listen to the man describe a serial killer with his quivering voice in the dark living room. Lin Sanjiu didn't say a word. She found a few candles and lit them up.
Electric lamps should have been invented around this time, but the Dalton brothers' house didn't have such modern equipment. The orange-red light from the candles could only illuminate a small area. The shadows danced in the living room, making it seem even more otherworldly.
Lin Sanjiu didn't look at the young man in the chair. She leaned against the window and looked at the people on the street outside.
"… I think it's better for us to follow the two brothers." The young man rambled on and on. Lin Sanjiu's attention was finally attracted by his last sentence, "If one of the prostitutes they hired died in the manner of disemboweling and digging out their wombs and intestines, one of them must be Jack the Ripper!"
"If they are posthumans looking for pleasure, it's hard to ensure that they won't find us."
"But, we still have to go and take a look," the young man lowered his head and bit his fingertip as if he was pleading with Lin Sanjiu.
However, he didn't get a response from Lin Sanjiu. The young man looked up and saw Lin Sanjiu leaning against the window. She was squinting her eyes and looking outside. Lin Sanjiu didn't know what she saw, but the bewilderment on her face grew. Suddenly, she turned her head and said to him, "Come here!"
"What's wrong?" He swallowed a mouthful of saliva and walked closer with small steps, casting his gaze out.
In this game, it seemed that it would rain at night. The rain was drizzling in the sky, and the lights on the path in the distance were dyed into halos by the rain. Under the blurry light, it was hard to distinguish the faces of people. The young man narrowed his eyes and looked carefully for a few seconds. Suddenly, his face turned pale. "Eh? Eh? It can't be, right? "
Both of them looked at each other. Then, both of them rushed out of the door at the same time.
When they stepped on the puddles of water and ran into the small path, the prostitutes who were hugging each other and chatting under the streetlight couldn't help but look at them with astonishment. Lin Sanjiu looked around and realized that their target had disappeared. She frowned and asked the young man, "Did you see that?"
"No, no!" the young man panted, "Did we see wrongly?"
Lin Sanjiu bit her lip. For a moment, she also suspected that she had seen wrongly. She had only been out for a short while, but her head and face were already wet from the rain. She wiped her face and was about to say something, but she was interrupted by a "Pfft!"
The hoarse voice of a woman rang out. As the door opened, they immediately turned their heads, "You think I'm old? Why don't you look at how much you are willing to pay? You don't have any money, so why are you pretending to be a gentleman? "
Lin Sanjiu turned her head and saw a prostitute in a thin dress standing at the door that had just opened. She was cursing and wiping her tears as she walked out, "You are just a butcher. I don't want to spend the night with you. I don't want to dirty my dress!"
She looked up into the night, revealing a slack, snow-white face. It was Annie Chapman.
"I'm not mistaken. It's really her. She's not dead!"
Lin Sanjiu sucked in a breath of cold air and subconsciously looked at the young man. The young man seemed to be in great confusion as well. He stared at the prostitute for a long time.
Annie Chapman was wearing an old faded dress. She glanced at them, turned around, and walked in another direction. She didn't seem to be injured at all. Seeing that, Lin Sanjiu felt her mind go blank. She asked in a low voice, "What's going on?"
"I-I don't know," the young man said anxiously. Lin Sanjiu couldn't tell if he was happy or unhappy, "Don't tell me that the two brothers have nothing to do with Jack the Ripper? If that's the case, we still have to follow her … "
Lin Sanjiu couldn't help feeling a little anxious. When she looked up, she realized that someone had already spoken to Annie. A man was standing in the shadow of a corner with an umbrella in his hand. His body was so thick that it looked like a black shadow. Annie said something to him in a low voice. Then, she smiled and put her hand on the man's arm. Both of them disappeared around the corner.
"Quick, let's follow them!"
The young man jumped up as if he had been pricked. He took off running. When Lin Sanjiu reached the end of the street, she saw Annie following the man with a blurry face into a dark alley.
"Maybe that man is Jack the Ripper!" The young man was so excited that his voice became shrill. Before Lin Sanjiu could say anything, he had already entered the alley.
The alley was so dark that Lin Sanjiu could barely see the path under her feet. The young man's figure was not far in front of her. He was so blurry that she couldn't see him anymore. Lin Sanjiu could only walk forward in the darkness.
"After going one round, aren't we back to where we started last night?" Lin Sanjiu sighed and followed the young man.
Occasionally, there would be light from a low window in the alley, but it made the place even darker. After walking along the alleyway for a while, Lin Sanjiu couldn't even tell if she had taken a turn or if she had taken a fork in the road. She and the young man wandered around the unfamiliar and dark alleyway a few times. She couldn't even tell which direction they were coming from. As for Annie and her guest, they were nowhere to be found.
"Forget it," Lin Sanjiu was a little dejected. After all, she wasn't that interested in catching a serial killer from a few hundred years ago. She whispered to the young man in front of her, "Should we go back first?"
The young man nodded in the dark. He turned around without saying a word. It was obvious that he was disappointed once again.
On the way back, there wasn't even a single lighted window. In the misty rain, everything in Lin Sanjiu's field of vision was blurred into darkness. She and the young man had to make their way through the darkness as they had to avoid the debris and puddles of water beneath their feet. It was a strenuous task for them. When they finally saw a ray of yellow light at the intersection in front of them, they heaved a sigh of relief.
"We are finally out," Lin Sanjiu couldn't help grumbling, "Honestly, even if I see Jack the Ripper next time, I won't go into such an alley —"
Before she could finish her sentence, a woman's scream rang out in the distance, startling her. This time, however, before the scream had died away, the faint sound of many footsteps, questions, and shouts could be heard. Evidently, there was quite a commotion.
Lin Sanjiu quickened her pace and ran toward the intersection. On the street with the streetlights, there were quite a number of people gathering in panic. When two men walked past the intersection, Lin Sanjiu heard their conversation, "I heard there's another dead body over there …"
"Annie is dead!"
If Annie was dragged away and killed the moment she entered the alley, the time Lin Sanjiu and the young man spent chasing after Annie was just enough time for Annie's body to be found by passersby.
"It seems like we went in the wrong direction from the beginning. That's why Jack the Ripper had enough time to kill —" Lin Sanjiu sighed when she sensed the young man behind her. She lowered her head to look and felt a lump in her throat.
There was already light here. Her shadow, together with another long one, was thrown into the puddles on the pavement, and was shaken by the raindrops; on the head of the other shadow was the shape of a hat.
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