This was a strange world. Li Jie was wearing Nightcrawler's grey hood. He stood on the Moondew Bell Tower in the Land of Dawn's Moondew City and looked down.
The black asphalt road was laid evenly. It was no different from a road that had been paved with a road roller. There were also street lamps on both sides of the street. Although they were only kerosene lamps, they were enough to provide enough light for pedestrians walking on the city's roads at night.
Most of the houses on both sides of the street were low. Two or three-story houses were the most common. There were very few high-rise buildings. Other than a huge domed building in the center of the city that was about 60 meters tall, other houses rarely exceeded 20 meters.
The tallest building in the city was the Moondew Bell, which was 280 meters tall. It was where Li Jie was standing. Standing here, he could see the entire city.
The city had walls. The architectural style was very similar to the European architectural style of the late Renaissance colonial era. Large pieces of granite or similar cornerstones were used as the foundation material. There were also decorative marble slabs that had been polished. Some were hung on the outer walls as decoration, but most were used as the floors of high-end buildings.
In terms of architectural style, it was more like the architectural style of the old western-style buildings on the Bund in Shanghai.
The city also had walls on all four sides. It was not a true open city. The 30-meter-tall walls divided the entire city into two areas, the inside and the outside.
These buildings and the city gave Li Jie an indescribable sense of incongruity. You could think of parts of the city as fifteenth-century Europe, but there were also parts that were very much like nineteenth-century Europe.
What was even more surprising was the language of this world. Li Jie noticed that this world used English. It was not the British English or American English that Li Jie used on Earth.
It was a more traditional Old English. Compared to modern English, Old English was like compared to vernacular Chinese to classical Chinese. It was different from grammar to word choice.
If it wasn't for the fact that he had learned some Old English when he was with Lan and used it to read Kamateki's book collection, it would have been very difficult for Li Jie to understand the language of this world.
Li Jie felt that if he had to define this world, the term "Steampunk" would be the most suitable. This was because he saw someone using a magic staff to release a fireball or something similar to a spell.
He also saw some huge machines that were being driven by some unknown power source forging steel parts.
Some were wearing clothes made of synthetic leather, an artificial chemical product. This proved that the basic chemistry of this world had been developed to a certain extent, otherwise it would not have been possible to make things like artificial leather.
Li Jie stood at the top of the Moon Dew Bell and looked into the distance. He could see some chimneys about a dozen kilometers away in the northeast corner of the city. Li Jie suspected that those were the factories.
The long asphalt road extended from the city to the factory area and extended even further. On the asphalt road, there were horse-drawn carriages and some mechanical vehicles.
Li Jie wasn't sure if he could call a car, because who knew if these cars burned gasoline.
"This is really strange. In Howard's notebook, there's a series of numbers following the word 'Di'. I can only assume that the calculation is about latitude and longitude." Li Jie activated his cloaking device and jumped off the Moon Dew Bell.
He only deactivated the invisibility device when he was at a place where no one was looking and revealed himself. Walking on the streets of Moondew City, he looked at this strange world and pondered, "The numbers that Howard randomly wrote down seem to be a random draft of some equation. The numbers are messy and unrelated. If I wasn't sensitive to the word 'Di', I wouldn't have noticed it.
"Furthermore, I've seen Howard mentioned in Newton's Miscellany Records. I'm afraid I wouldn't have noticed the connection between the two." Li Jie stroked his chin as he walked on the road. Before he knew it, he had reached the door of a tavern with the sign "Broken Axe Bar."
He stood there and continued thinking. "Through the calculation of latitude and longitude, there isn't any clear discovery on Earth. But when I left Earth One last time, I wondered if there was someone like me, who left a backdoor in another dimension so that it would be convenient for them to come back again. "
"And this idea seems to be correct. Is it only the guardians who can enter this special semi-dimension, or can powerful beings like Newton and Ancient One also enter? But what game are Howard and Newton playing? "Li Jie wasn't very sure.
But now his curiosity was completely ignited. He wanted to know what Newton had done before. Who was the previous owner of his pendant, Di? And what role did Howard Stark play in all of this? And was all of this related to Tony Stark?
All of this made Li Jie very curious, so curious that he became absent-minded. Until Areize pointed a short-barreled musket at his waist.
The footsteps in the tavern were messy to begin with. Areize, on the other hand, was just an ordinary scout. There was nothing noteworthy about him. Li Jie didn't even feel any danger from his upper body.
The short-barreled musket that Areize was equipped with was not even as powerful as the large-caliber pistols on Earth. But it was Areize's most powerful weapon. However, this kind of short-barreled musket could only fire two shots before it needed to be reloaded. So to supplement his combat strength, he also needed to carry a bow and a dagger.
While Areize was gloating over the fact that he had caught an easy target (the idiot from the cult), the person he caught did not seem to be very cooperative.
The lazy voice annoyed him. "Sir, do you want me to not move, or do you want me to turn around? Your orders are confusing me. "
Areize didn't understand what Sir meant, but he could clearly hear the mockery in his tone.
It made him feel like he was being looked down upon. How dare an idiot who believed in the old cult look down on him?
Areize said fiercely, "I told you not to move. Turn around! Don't you understand? Let me see your face! "
The man in grey continued, "Are you sure?"
Areize pointed his musket at the hooded man and said, "I am very sure!"
"Well, I hope you don't regret this." The hooded man slowly turned around and looked Areize in the eye. Areize was planning to stare fiercely at the idiot from the cult and scare him until he peed his pants.
However, killing the man with a stare did not happen. Areize couldn't see his opponent's eyes, or rather, he couldn't see his opponent's facial features.
The man's face under the hood could not be seen clearly. It was as blurry as a mass of chaos. Just like the legendary Faceless Demon.
Areize's 10 years of training allowed him to pull the trigger at the first moment, and he did it twice in a row.
Bang! Bang! The loud gunshot drowned out the music and noise coming from Broken Axe Pub. Many customers swarmed out of the pub to see where the gunshot came from.
The owner of the pub, Paul, was the first to rush out. He saw Areize, who was staring blankly at the musket, and asked, "Did you shoot just now? Areize? "Areize had been a scout for 10 years. Many of the old residents in the area knew him.
"Who are you attacking?" Paul looked at Areize with a strange look. There was only the pub wall in front of Areize, and two deformed lead pellets were embedded in the wall.
"I … I just found a cultist. I wanted to arrest him, but he suddenly disappeared," Areize stuttered. He didn't know what happened in the blink of an eye.
Paul looked at Areize suspiciously, and then said, "But there's no one else here. Are you attacking the wall? Or are you hallucinating because you've been patrolling for too long recently? "
Areize opened his mouth, but no words came out. Everything that happened just now was too strange. Even if the Magician from King City was here, he wouldn't be able to explain what he just saw.
… …
"Ah!" Areize woke up from a nightmare again. This was the second dream he had in the past three days. In the dream, the faceless hooded man smiled at him eerily, and no matter how he attacked, he couldn't hit him.
In the end, the faceless man strangled him to death. The dream was terrible, but Areize felt even worse when he woke up and faced the reality.
Because the higher-ups had sent an investigation team, there were no traces of magic waves left behind at the place where Areize fired the shot, and there were no traces of the Gods or Demons.
This could basically be the work of a Magician or a God or Demon. Therefore, the psychiatric department came up with a diagnosis that Areize was hallucinating due to fatigue caused by overwork.
Because according to the testimony of Areize's colleagues, Areize often volunteered to work overtime for others, so he was under too much pressure at work, and his brain needed a way to vent the stress. Therefore, the non-existent faceless man was imagined by his brain.
And this was the reason why Areize fired the shot outside the pub that day. Regarding this point, everyone in the patrol team basically reached a consensus: Areize was under too much pressure at work.
Fortunately, because he had always been serious about his work, he rarely made mistakes. This time, he was given a punishment of accidental discharge. There was no need to circulate a notice of criticism within the team.
"Is it really because of too much pressure?" Areize went to the bathroom to wash his face with cold water. It was still dark outside, and it was only five o 'clock in the morning. But he couldn't sleep anymore.
"Maybe I'm really seeing things," Areize muttered to himself as he stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror.
But a voice that gave Areize goosebumps suddenly rang out in his house. "I say, what if you're not seeing things?"
A man in a gray hoodie whose face could not be seen had taken a can of beef from the kitchen of Areize's house. He was sitting in the living room of Areize's house, opening the can and eating as he asked Areize.
"My can of beef!" Areize's first reaction was that his can of beef had been eaten. This kind of can was not cheap, costing ten shillings a can. Areize would not eat it unless it was a holiday.
Then, his second reaction was to see the man in the gray hoodie. He shouted in horror, "It's you!" Areize's voice was a little distorted.
"Yes, it's me. But your voice is really special, isn't it? Are you a castrated singer as a side job? " The hooded man turned his head to look at Ariz. His face was still a mask of chaos.
Note: Castrated singer, before modern bel canto and soprano singing were systematically and scientifically summarized and taught. In the Middle Ages, even the pitch of a female singer could not meet the requirements of some operas.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
