Mystery: Starting from the Shadow World

Chapter 71 Neighbors

The following day, Philip transformed into Jane Charlotte, wearing a light blue dress, dragging a suitcase, and walked out of the hotel in Hillston where he had been staying for almost half a month.

Her sapphire blue eyes glanced at the somewhat familiar streets, then turned to the rental section of the newspaper in her hand:

"17 Brown Street, Joewood. Detached house. Weekly rent £1.10 soules."

Yes, she's looking to rent an apartment.

Faced with the harsh reality of the terrifying, almost bottomless expense in the realm of mysticism, let's just let the Chinese people's desire for real estate go to hell!

The "monster" recipe, the idea of ​​extraordinary pets, the need for extraordinary items and messengers, and the purchase of related materials needed to upgrade to "zombie"—Philip meticulously listed the places where he would need to spend money next. His already weak desire to buy a house was completely extinguished.

She sighed silently to herself, hailed a horse-drawn carriage in the slightly foggy weather, and headed straight for the location mentioned in the newspaper.

In the sweltering air pollution of Backlund, the streets, which should have been unobstructed, became somewhat congested, as no coachman wanted an accident.

They were merely employees; the owners of the carriages, usually still asleep in their spacious, warm beds, awaited the pleasures of waking up.

After a journey of an hour and a half, Philip finally arrived at the residence of his next landlord, which was the house at 9 Braun Street, opposite 17 Braun Street.

She moved her body, which she had long since adapted to, picked up her suitcase, walked forward, and gently rang the doorbell.

Ding-a-ling—

After a few seconds of silence, the door was opened, revealing an elderly gentleman who was over fifty years old, with graying temples, but still dressed in a tailcoat, with an upright posture and extraordinary demeanor.

He raised his hand to adjust his gold-rimmed glasses, revealing a polite and amiable smile. "Beautiful lady, may I ask what brings you here?"

"Hello, sir." Philip, suppressing her discomfort, lifted her skirt slightly and gave a curtsy with a smile. "My name is Jane Charlotte, and I'd like to rent the house across from yours."

She made extensive mental preparations before finally transforming her originally masculine and somewhat strange appearance into that of a woman, striving to minimize the risk of her identity being exposed.

"Oh, the building at number 17?" The old gentleman closed his eyes, seemingly reminiscing, his expression revealing the wrinkles etched on his face by time, yet it did not make him look unattractive at all.

"I almost forgot, my name is Joel Chock."

After saying his name, he immediately stepped aside, gestured for the guests to enter the house, and led them into the clean and tidy interior.

"Would you like something to drink?"

Philip went in and, without making any unnecessary movements, sat down on the sofa in the living room with the other person, politely declining their offer of a seat.

"Okay." Joel sat down and called out restrainedly upstairs, "Concei, bring me that standard rental agreement."

Conseil?

Philip's expression became somewhat intriguing for a moment, but quickly disappeared as he sat quietly on the sofa, waiting for the owner of the name.

Taking advantage of this brief moment, Joel looked towards the doorway with a touch of nostalgia, as if trying to see through the partition to the house across the street. "This was left to me by my deceased brother. We have no relatives, so his house was transferred to my name."

Philip lowered his head slightly and listened quietly, without making any inappropriate remarks.

After a few seconds of sentimentality, the old gentleman suddenly broke into a smile, shrugged, and said:

"I'm sorry, that's how it is when you get old. Even though a lot of things in your mind have been forgotten, every time you think of something, it's like summoning all the sorrows from that period of forgetting."

He quickly changed the subject and instead asked Philip, "Miss Charlotte, if it is somewhat presumptuous of me, I would like to ask why you have come to Backlund?"

After a two-second silence, Philip recalled Jane Charlotte's general experiences and replied calmly, "Staying in my hometown would only add to my sadness, and I want to see what's different about this City of Hope."

"Heh, City of Hope," the old gentleman suddenly chuckled with a hint of mockery, his tone somewhat forlorn, but he didn't add anything further.

Soon, a male servant in his early thirties, with a somewhat robust build, walked steadily down from upstairs, carrying two documents in his hands.

After a moment's consideration, Philip remembered the lesson he learned in Tingen and decided to play it safe by paying only one year's rent, which totaled £65.

She counted out cash from her wallet and handed it to him. Joel quickly counted it, then put it into his own wallet, adding with a smile, "Miss, you'd better choose your job carefully. If you don't earn £4 a week, it will be very difficult to survive on your own."

"Of course, you can share that house with others. I think you should be able to tell who is qualified to live in the Joewood area and who should go to the East End, the Docklands, or the Bridge area."

The old gentleman stood up, lowered the brim of his top hat, and said, "If someone puts you in a difficult position, try to calm them down first, and then come to my house for help."

"Thank you so much."

Even though Joel Joel was very kind and polite, Philippe did not use this opportunity to get to know him in order to avoid revealing any flaws. After discussing the general matters, she was led to her future residence by the male servant Conseil.

The 30-year-old male servant was very professional, introducing the entire house in great detail. If she hadn't subtly interrupted him during his speech, it would have taken who knows how long.

Not a single mistake, not a single poem, not a single post, not a single piece of content, not a single look!

After watching the other person leave from the doorway, Philip was about to close the door and go home to adjust to his new environment when he suddenly noticed that a horse-drawn carriage had driven past the detached house on his right.

The two women were walking slowly toward the house, talking to each other. They seemed to notice Philip's gaze and turned to look at her at the same time.

Philip nodded slightly in response, but she was taken aback when she saw the face of one of the people opposite her through the thinning mist.

Fors Wall, author of the recent bestselling novel, *The Stormy Mansion*.

"What a coincidence." As she thought this, her gaze shifted to the figure beside her, who appeared to be a young girl. She stroked her chin and whispered, "Knight...training uniform?"

"Fors, she seems to know you?"

In front of 19 Braun Street, a blonde girl with delicate and gentle features, standing just over 1.5 meters tall, observed for a few seconds before speaking to her friend beside her.

"Hmm," Fors narrowed her lazy, light blue eyes slightly, pondered for a moment, carefully sorting through her memories, before gently opening her thin lips and saying, "It should be a book fan, after all, my face has been published in the newspaper."

"Hugh, what's wrong?"

Upon hearing this, the girl named Xiu withdrew her gaze and shook her head, saying, "It's nothing. It's just that our identities are special, so we still need to be careful about the people living nearby."

"Yes, that's true."

The information about Braun Street is fabricated.

Unfortunately, the book never mentions the exact address of Hugh and Fors's residence in the Jowood district; it only refers to it as a house, a building, or a small apartment.

(End of this chapter)