Mount & Blade: Wind of War

Early morning, morning.

Bright Moon City, the guesthouse for foreign dignitaries and envoys.

"Raymond, I need you to help me protect someone. Although he is a little embarrassed now, I believe he will become an important figure in the territory in the future."

Calling Raymond into his room, Rhodes gave him the task of secretly protecting James.

Originally, Alleyne was more suitable for this task, but considering the two aspects of loyalty and mission execution, Rhodes still trusted Raymond more after all.

This guy Raymond, no matter what tasks Rhodes assigns to him, he will execute them unconditionally regardless of whether there is any reason for them.

"I know, Master, I will definitely complete the mission."

"While completing the mission, try some local specialties. After completing the mission, choose some that Kress likes and bring them back to her to try." As he spoke, Rhodes threw a small purse to Raymond. Of course, it is not easy for Raymond to spend money on official business.

"Okay."

Throwing the money bag in his hand, the red-haired young man left quickly.

After Raymond left the room, Rhodes called the accompanying civil servant Qiao Lin into the room.

"Qiao Lin, please help me check what happened recently in the Adelai family. In addition, I want the medical notes of all the doctors who have treated Master Hadalil. You can use all the means you can think of, but if you are detained by the police, If the officer catches you, you should carry it yourself.”

"Yes, my lord."

Rhodes also threw a money bag to Qiao Lin, and the tall man bowed his body and slowly retreated.

Qiao Lin has a knack for flattering people, and he is a typical person who bullies superiors and hides things from subordinates. However, it is undeniable that he also has his own talents. Many things can be done with him, and he will feel particularly comfortable when using them.

"Master, where are we going today?"

While Rhodes was assigning tasks, Kress stayed in the room. At this moment, when he came closer, the little girl's eyes were filled with excitement.

"Let's go to the Adelley family's manor to take a look. The Adelley family is a powerful and influential local businessman family. Qiao Lin can't find out the details of this family. I was the only one who went there by myself. ”

In this era, because doctors' disease cure rates are very mysterious, their social status is not very high. Pai Qiaolin uses money to clear the way and manage the situation, which is enough to get what Rhodes wants, but the Adelai family is different. .

"Since it will trigger a system mission, it means that there is another hidden reason for the death of Master Hadariel. The two clues of the treating doctor and the family cannot be let go."

Not only to resolve James' inner demons, after accepting this optional task, Rhodes also saw the task reward: [James' surgical notes].

Although the enchantment effect cannot be seen, Rhodes knows this piece of equipment: Surgical skill +2. Among Zhanfeng's early and mid-term equipment, it is an extremely cost-effective piece of equipment.

Driven by dual motivations, Rhodes and Kress escaped from the club room that night. Although there would be secret surveillance/protection, those people did not dare to get too close, otherwise they would be sneaky and suspicious. In this day and age, being killed is in vain.

At night, it was raining at the Adelaide Manor in the suburbs. Although Rhodes and Kress bought rain gear in time, going out at night like this would not be a particularly good feeling.

Rumble.

In the extremely dark night sky, there was a sudden flash of lightning.

Two people, one tall and one short, gradually approached while holding horses temporarily rented outside the city.

In the Middle Ages, the deposit for leasing a horse was about the same as buying it, except that most of the deposit would be refunded when you returned the horse.

"One good thing about weather like this is that any traces of what you do will be quickly erased."

After getting relatively close, they led the two horses to a relatively secluded place to hide from the rain and tied them up. They had to rely on them to drive them back before dawn.

Then Rhodes and Kress, one tall and one short, climbed over the iron fence with great agility and successfully sneaked into the Adelley family's manor.

Although this family has a large guard dog, in such weather, even the dogs are huddled in their kennels, and the heavy rain also affects their sense of smell.

Rhodes and Kress are both extraordinary beings with extraordinary strength and agility. Although the entire main building has been closed, the two of them can use each other's strength to climb directly to the top of the third or fourth floor. , they found the window that had not been closed due to the servant's carelessness, and then climbed in through the window. If there was no such window, the two of them could have slipped in through the fireplace exhaust vent/or used their vindictive energy to break the window lock.

"Master, this place is so big and has so many rooms, and we don't have inside information. How can we find the room of Master Hadariel?"

“The best lighting in the whole building, and the relatively most comfortable ones are naturally the master’s bedroom and study room. You can find it quickly by looking nearby.”

"Oh! That's right, the master is really smart."

"No, it's just that I had already made a derivation plan before I came here. Unlike you, I don't have to think about anything."

"Hey, I don't have to think about it, because I just follow the master."

Soon, the two sneaked into the rooms facing north and south. At this time, two female servants wearing black and white maid uniforms walked past.

"Oh, madam, it's true. The young master is already dead, but we are still required to clean the young master's living room and studio every day, and we check each room very carefully. It is really troublesome. If you are so thoughtful, it will not be possible while the young master is alive. Wouldn’t it be nice to be nice to him?”

"Hey, what are you talking about? I don't want to do it anymore, don't want my life?" Because of one companion's soft complaint, the other maid was frightened. She stopped her and glanced around, for fear of being killed by the third person in the house. Three people heard it.

"That's it. How can you care about your son so much? When I look at Master Hadariel, I feel pitiful. I don't care about him. Yes, I am afraid of my wife and don't want to see her again."

As the words faded, the two maids drifted away.

Rhodes took Kress and hid behind the armor in the corner. He frowned slightly while listening to these conversations. I have a little understanding of what happened to Master Hadariel.

"That maid really went too far. The mistress of the house said such words just after her son died. If I were the mistress of this house, I would kill her even if I heard such words!" Kress said with some dissatisfaction. Language Road.

If a maid who does not have a household registration in the city is beaten to death by her master, no one will take care of her. Even if someone does, she will only be fined.

"..." After hearing this, Rhodes didn't say anything or express his position. Until now, there was too little information.

Following the traces of water that the maid had cleaned, the two found a room.

Rhodes opened the door and found that the door was locked. He slightly activated the Holy Light Qi and sent in strands of fighting energy.

In the darkness, the entire door handle seemed to glow with a faint white light. The next moment, Rhodes turned it gently and successfully unlocked the door without a key.

Pushing the door open, he closed the door and locked it. What he saw was a studio similar to an exhibition room. There were a large number of oil paintings on display. Through the moonlight outside the window, Rhodes and Kress could actually see clearly. But Rhodes blocked the curtains, lit candles and observed carefully.

In the room, every oil painting has the initials of Hadalir's name on the corner, so it can be determined that it is the work completed by this talented young businessman.

"Nice painting!"

Rhodes has a certain ability in art appreciation. He had seen too many works by famous artists in his previous life. In this life, art appreciation is a required course for nobles.

However, the paintings in the front were okay, but the closer to the back, the more strange Rhode felt.

There are various types of scenes, figures, landscapes, flowers and birds in these oil paintings, but the most frequently painted one is the classic image of the Virgin with a child.

This is a classic of religious painting. It describes the story of a pure girl in ancient times who became pregnant out of wedlock and gave birth to the son of God.

Not to mention in ancient times, even in modern times, a girl becoming pregnant out of wedlock would bring shame to the family. Many extreme fathers and brothers would even kill such relatives to avoid tarnishing the family's honor. In ancient times, one can only imagine what would happen to the Virgin Mary who was pregnant out of wedlock.

However, after giving birth to the Son of God, the Virgin loved him as ever.

This scene was captured, recorded and painted by a painter at the time. The loving and warm scene of a mother holding her beloved child has become a masterpiece handed down from generation to generation.

Therefore, this portrait of the Virgin and Child is a masterpiece that almost all painters of the past generations copied and recreated. Copying is for learning, it is a religious painting, and re-creating it is to praise maternal love, which is a reflection of the selfless maternal love that exists in every era. Praise.

Young Master Hadariel copied almost every version of the classic portrait of the Virgin with the Child in the entire room.

However, Rhodes felt something strange. He couldn't tell what it was for the moment. He just felt that these paintings of the Virgin with a child were all very strange.

"This guy is really weird. Others are getting better and better as they learn more. Why does it seem like the more he learns, the worse his painting becomes?"

"Ah, Kress, what did you say?" Rhodes was stunned for a moment. At this moment, he seemed to have grasped something and asked subconsciously.

"I said, his painting is getting worse and worse." Kress has not had the qualifications to learn painting since he was a child, and he has not much ability to appreciate art.

Therefore, she couldn't see that Master Hadalir's painting skills were getting better and better, with smooth fine brushwork and full colors. The later he reached the later stage, the more he looked like a master.

"However, his earliest sculptures of the Virgin with a Child can still give people a feeling of tenderness and warmth. Although the technique is not yet mature, it is full of abundant emotions, so such works are full of appeal... But His later works tend to show off his skills more and more. Although the techniques are becoming more and more mature, they feel hollow because there is no emotion in them. "

"Because Kress has never studied this aspect, he can directly point to the crux of the problem. He has painted so many portraits of the Virgin with the Child, but his paintings have indeed become worse and worse."

At this moment, Rhode's ears moved slightly. He caught someone approaching, and the image of a woman holding a candlestick even vaguely appeared in his mind.

"call."

Instantly blowing out the candle, Rhodes took Kress and hid.

Click, along with the sound of the key opening the door, an old woman walked in carrying a silver candlestick. It was the Mrs. Adele whom she had met before.

But at this time, she was no longer as strong and valiant as she had been in the daytime when she beat James with the help of many servants. Instead, she sat on a small stool, hugged an oil painting and cried. While her tears were streaming down her face, she kept muttering and cursing something, sometimes James, sometimes her husband, and the "little bitches" in the manor. The lady had no sense of Rhodes and Cress hiding in the corner of the room.

Seeing this, Rhodes suddenly rushed over and pressed three fingers on the side of the old woman's neck. Soon, the old woman fainted.

"Master, aren't you afraid of exposing us by doing this?"

"It doesn't matter. When she wakes up, she will only think that she fainted from crying. She looks haggard and her eyes are red and swollen. It is obvious that she hasn't slept well for a long time. It would be good for her to faint and have a good sleep at this time."

"So, master, it's almost dawn, and the road is difficult to travel in rainy days. Let's go back now, otherwise I'm afraid we won't be able to get back to the embassy before dawn." Cress looked at the sky outside and said so.

"There is still some time. Let's go to the living room of this young master Hadalil and take a look. Maybe there will be other discoveries. This young master died violently in his bedroom."

At night, in the suburban manor of Adele's family.

A little maid was walking timidly in her pajamas late at night. Humans have a natural fear of darkness, not to mention that someone had died in the manor recently. A girl would certainly be very scared in this situation.

However, the little maid couldn't hold it in any longer. After asking for several times, no one was willing to accompany her, so she had to go to the toilet by herself.

At this moment, walking in the dark, the more she delayed, the more horror stories that the little sisters usually used to joke about emerged in her mind.

"Woo woo woo woo, I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid..."

At this moment, a shadow suddenly flashed in the darkness.

The little maid was suppressed against the wall in an instant. She was so frightened that she was confused for a while and couldn't see anything. She only felt that she was staring at a pair of bloody eyes.

"Tell me where is the living room of Master Hadariel, and in which room did he die, tell me!"

"Woo, tell me, tell me..."

With her brain not clear, the little maid told everything she knew when she answered almost everything the other party asked.

Then, she rolled her eyes and fainted under the powerful self-protection mechanism.

Before she completely fainted, she could vaguely hear such admiration:

"Say what you know, faint when you should. People like this are indeed the least likely to be silenced."

"Master, she peed everywhere!"

"Hahahaha, you are so scared, you have to find someone to interrogate..."

With the "cooperation" of the timid little maid, Rhodes and Cress quickly found Hadariel's living room on the third floor.

In fact, it is not too far from the studio. This room is also spotlessly clean, and all the items are kept in the state of daily use.

"It seems that there are no more clues."

Cress searched around the room, picked up the books on the table and looked at them, and found that they were all history and painting books.

There was also a notebook on the table. Rhode picked it up and flipped through it quickly, but found that it was a normal notebook. This guy didn't even record any of his thoughts. It was just a notebook to record the weather and daily life.

"Let's go, master, we still have to rush back."

"Wait a minute, the space doesn't seem right."

Rhode closed his eyes slightly, extracted from his memory the building he and Cress had just seen when they arrived at the Adelley Manor, and then calculated the size of the room in front of him.

"No, about a quarter of the area is hidden. There should be a dark room here." Rhode first went to the bookshelf to look for it, and Cress heard Rhode say this and quickly came to help find it.

Cress's search ability may be stronger than Rhode's. She quickly found a handrail with a slightly wrong color at the bed.

Cress stretched out his hand and pressed it gently.

Click, click, click, with the sound of slight mechanical gears, a wall in the room rotated.

Rhode and Cress looked at each other and walked in:

If there is any color in this world that can symbolize life, joy, pain and death at the same time, then it must be red, the color of human blood.

This is a very small secret room, but in this small room, there are dense red graffiti, abstract paintings, life, joy, pain and death. The meaning and elements can all be found in this room.

In a sense, this is almost a domain space, a spiritual domain, a forbidden area.

"Is this kid driven crazy? His paintings, his words..."

The whole secret room is full of scarlet paintings, roaring demons, twisted skulls, and a lot of "no" words!

"Master, there is a painting there."

Cress touched Rhode and pointed to an easel placed in the corner of the secret room.

Rhode walked up to the easel covered with white cloth, and then he pulled the canvas off.

"Suck..."

However, the paintings inside made Rhode and Cress gasp at the same time.

Rhodes picked up a more than half-squeezed tube of red paint next to the easel, looked at the painting in front of him, and fell into deep thought.

When Rhodes and Kress rushed back to the embassy, ​​it was almost dawn.

This caused some trouble for the two of them in their sneak back work, but fortunately, the two of them managed to sneak back to their respective rooms.

Early the next morning, Qiao Lin returned to report on the progress of the mission.

He got almost all the doctors' medical practice notes. Rhodes picked them up and looked through them one by one, and then marveled at the medical skills of the doctors of this era:

The first doctor performed bloodletting treatment on Master Hadariel. He seemed to be only good at this treatment method, believing that as long as the poisonous and harmful corrupted blood was discharged from the body, the patient could recover. In fact, this is already a relatively correct method of practicing medicine in this era.

Appropriate bloodletting can indeed help stimulate bone marrow hematopoiesis and maintain physical health. It has a miraculous effect on people with high blood pressure and thick blood.

The second doctor gave Master Hadariel a secret medicinal powder, which was made by burning the skulls and fingernails of dead people. It was said to have the effect of driving away diseases.

The third doctor put sneezing powder into Master Hadariel's nose and forced him to sneeze.

The fourth doctor induced vomiting…

The fifth physician administered an enema…

The sixth doctor shaved off Master Hadariel's hair, stamped it with a red-hot iron to eliminate the germs, and then cut open the pustule to release the pus...

"Are these doctors trained in punishment? I think they are much crueler than torture officers."

"I finally know why they are ostracizing James. James just made Master Hadariel drink chicken soup, and then covered himself with two quilts to sweat. If such a comfortable method can cure the disease, then the whole city Who is willing to endure their torture? The patients who were tortured by them in the past have to come to them to fight for their lives! This is a life and death battle between the two sides. No wonder they are suppressing James to death. "

Rhodes and Kress were flipping through their notes. Qiao Lin stepped forward and apologized: "Sir, I failed to complete the task you gave me. You asked me to get the medical practice notes of the twelve doctors. I only got eleven copies, and a doctor. I also sent local thieves in, but the guy didn't come out alive, and I didn't dare to go in. "

"Um?"

Originally, Rhodes had no interest. He had received eleven copies of the medical practice notes from twelve doctors, which was already a good job. The difference of one copy didn't matter, but at this moment, Qiao Lin's words aroused Rhodes' interest.

The Qiao Lin in front of me is a very capable guy.

Back then, under the rule of the harpy witch in the mountain fortress, he was able to become one of the human slave leaders. In addition to swallowing his anger and bullying his superiors, he had his own way of surviving.

If it were an ordinary doctor's clinic, because of Rhode's request, if he couldn't steal anything, he could bring his men in and rob it openly.

However, in this medical center, the former Dark Demon Qiao Lin did not dare to take action. He seemed to be vaguely aware of something with his keen sense of danger.

"Kress, call Elaine and Likiya Qiusha, we will go there in person today."

"As you command, sir."

Kress immediately stood up and walked out of the room.

Since they have to wait for a while before they are allowed to see Grand Duke Daenerys, during this period, everyone is free to move. Although there will be secret surveillance/protection, a group of envoys went to an ordinary hospital. But it cannot be stopped.

"Sir, this is the medical center here. According to people around, there is a doctor named Casper living there. But after the person I looked for went in, he never came out again."