Mystery: Gray Walker

Prelude to Chapter 73

[...I met Miss Marianne Lorenz at the town hall ball today. Her smile, like the first rays of spring sunshine, brightened the entire somber evening. I have never seen such an elegant and vibrant woman...]

"...We're engaged! I'm the happiest person in the world. Although my father had some reservations about the Lorenz family's merchant background, he was captivated by Marianne's charm after meeting her. She said she loved the forests and lakes of Oberhafen and looked forward to making it an even better home..."

The wedding was flawless. Mariana looked breathtaking in her wedding dress. I vow to cherish her smile and our happiness for the rest of my life...

[Marianne is pregnant! Thank God! We are about to have the fruit of our love. She hopes for a daughter, saying daughters will be more affectionate. I, on the other hand, secretly hope for a little viscount to inherit the family name... Boy or girl, they are treasures bestowed upon us by God. I begin planning the nursery, while Marianne busies herself preparing baby clothes; the entire manor is filled with joy...]

The diary is filled with trivial yet heartwarming daily moments.

They tended the garden together, chose names for their unborn child, and discussed Oberhafen's charitable endeavors... Every word they spoke was filled with genuine love and boundless anticipation for the future.

However, upon turning to the last few pages of this diary, the handwriting begins to tremble, and the content takes a sharp turn for the worse:

Mariana's face grew paler and paler; the doctor said the baby was breech... I was very worried, but she always smiled and comforted me, saying that everything would be alright for the baby's sake...

As my due date approached, I was so anxious I couldn't sleep. Mariana, on the other hand, was much calmer. She held my hand and said she believed God would bless us...

This page shows signs of water stains.

[...the long agony...the agonizing cries...the doctors coming and going, their faces grave...Goddess, please, don't take her away...]

The last item contained only a single line of crooked, almost illegible handwriting.

...Silence. Endless silence. She's gone. She took my sunshine, my future, everything...and my child...she couldn't save her either...

Why? Why her? I'd give anything for her...

This diary ends here.

Green quickly flipped through several of the diaries, the contents gradually filling him with endless sadness, self-blame, and emptiness, until they turned into the profound despair he had seen before, and then... Veronica appeared.

Green gently closed the diary and put the pages back in their place.

He felt somewhat heavy-hearted.

The Viscount's love for his deceased wife was genuine, and it was this love that left a huge void that gave Veronica an opportunity to fill it with evil lies and twisted desires, ultimately leading her to the abyss.

There are no photos of the child, and the diary rarely mentions the unborn child in its later stages.

Perhaps for the Viscount, the pain of losing Marianne far outweighed everything else. The child he never met was more like a cruel footnote to this tragedy, an unfulfilled dream buried along with his mother.

The clues are clear enough. Veronica's deception is built on the Viscount's deepest wound.

However, Veronica's purpose remains unknown.

This made Green increasingly uneasy.

Green took one last look at Marianne's portrait. The woman's gentle gaze seemed to transcend time, meeting his eyes.

In this study filled with memories, the distorted "Tree of Desire" oil painting appears particularly glaring and blasphemous.

He quietly left the study and returned to the corridor.

The second floor has been explored, and apart from understanding some of the reasons for Linus's changes, there are no other clues.

This made him turn his gaze back to the staircase leading to the third floor.

The staircase was hidden in the shadows at the end of the corridor, appearing particularly deep and secluded compared to the bright corridor on the second floor, which was covered with thick carpets and decorated with oil paintings.

He approached quietly, but his spiritual intuition began to issue sharp warnings.

The staircase itself appears to be made of ordinary oak, but between the handrails and steps, one can vaguely see dark red, fine, vein-like patterns slowly writhing, as if the entire staircase were the tentacles of some giant creature.

Just as he was about to step onto the first step, a sudden change occurred.

A cold, slippery spiritual pressure crashed down on me like a physical wall.

The space above the stairs appeared distorted and blurry to him, covered by a constantly flowing dark red film, upon which indistinct symbols flashed intermittently, exuding a unique aura, full of malice.

This is not a physical obstruction, but a deeper level of spatial rejection.

Green tried to concentrate and use the apprentice's "door-opening" ability to directly enter the third-floor space.

But it failed.

He had absolutely no 'concept' of any door, window, or even floorboard on the third floor.

It was as if that place had been temporarily erased or sealed off from the realm of reality, leaving only a hostile spiritual declaration.

Embodying its own spirituality, Green felt that the 'membrane' seemed to be absorbing the surrounding emotions and desires.

And those scattered emotions and desires are precisely drawn to the subtle fluctuations emanating from the oil paintings on the second floor, becoming nourishment for maintaining this barrier.

The nutrients were continuously transported upwards from the first floor through the oil paintings.

Forcing a breakthrough would not only immediately alert the person who set it up, but could also result in a strong spiritual backlash.

"Those oil paintings are... a transit point?" he muttered to himself.

"It seems the third floor is not for me. I'll have to leave the rest to the Night Watchmen." Green took a deep breath, turned around, and quickly went downstairs.

Veronica's security here is far better than expected, which actually suggests that the third floor is the core location. But forcing their way in would be suicidal and would only alert the enemy.

The tragedy revealed in the diary in the study, the desecration of the oil painting on the second floor, and the impenetrable barrier on the third floor—all these indicate that Linus's private physician has serious problems.

Back on the first floor, Green's figure quickly blended into the walls of the banquet hall, returning to the hustle and bustle.

In less than half an hour after I left, the atmosphere here had completely changed.

The string orchestra's performance became wild and disorderly; the notes no longer followed music theory but chased the rhythm of heartbeats and breaths, tugging at the already fragile nerves of the guests.

The light from the crystal chandelier seemed to be filtered through an ambiguous pink lens, making everyone's faces flush unnaturally.

In the center of the dance floor, Viscount Linus was no longer the melancholy nobleman he once was.

He stood on a slightly elevated platform, waving his arms, his voice hoarse with excitement and full of seductive power.

"...Binding! Those dogmas, rules, and so-called morality are all shackles that bind our souls!"

He was almost insane: "We are born with the right to feel joy, the freedom to pursue ultimate pleasure! Why suppress it? Why deny the most honest desires of this body?"

His words elicited a complex reaction from the crowd.

Some of the guests, mostly young men and women, were already dazed and behaving wantonly, cheering and moaning in approval. Their bodies swayed more violently to the music, pressing closer to each other, and the air was filled with undisguised lust.

They seemed to have found a "sacred reason" for their indulgence.

But another group of people showed signs of struggle.

Some older people or more spiritually sensitive women frowned and covered their mouths and noses with handkerchiefs, trying to resist the pervasive fragrance and sounds.

The gentlemen, their faces ashen, gripped their glasses tightly, clearly resisting the agitation stirred within them and the viscount's blasphemous words.

They sensed something was wrong, but the environment's assimilative power was too strong, leaving them isolated and helpless, and they dared not speak out easily.

And the director of all this, Veronica Thorne, was sitting elegantly in the main seat.

She was still wearing that burgundy dress, a flawless smile on her lips, occasionally covering her lips with her fan and letting out a few ambiguous laughs.

Her gaze swept casually across the room, as if admiring her carefully cultivated garden.

Ultimately, her gaze repeatedly fell on the shadow of a pillar in the northwest corner of the hall.

There, Clarice, Olivier, and two other Night's Watch members appeared to be talking in hushed tones, but their tense postures and sharp eyes betrayed them.

They kept their eyes fixed on the Viscount, and even more so on Veronica, like lurking hunters.