Soul Echo

Zhong Ye is not very clear why the God of Nature suddenly gave him a blessing.

Just because of his talk last night?

That's just sophistry at best, taking advantage of the weakness of Druids who are not good at arguing, and venting their resentment towards this group.

apart from this, what else did he do?

Thinking for a moment, Zhong Ye put these doubts aside and looked up at the front door of the mansion.

Viscount Barnes is not the lord of Valencia, he is a fallen noble living in the city.

Zhong Ye did not know until he came to Valensay that the grandfather of Viscount Barnes was the lord of Valensay, but because of a conflict with the family of the current Lord of Valensay, he proposed to the king. After the application for a duel was obtained and the permission of the king at the time was obtained, the two families fought a battle.

And the result is as they see now, the grandfather of Viscount Barnes lost, not only losing his own domain to the family of the current Lord of Valence, but also losing a lot of the family's property .

This war directly led to the decline of the Barnes family. By this generation of Viscount Barnes, the Barnes family was almost so poor that there was only one mansion left.

Dupois Baron had mentioned to him, 'Viscount Barnes was a poor man, but for some reason bought the painting from me'.

As a fallen noble with little property in the family, and after Nemo was identified as a 'cult', he took over the painting from Baron of Dipois, no matter how you looked at it, it was very suspicious.

Zhong Ye and the others waited outside the mansion door for a while, and the door opened again.

A little boy stuck his head out from behind the door, "Three, three, please come in."

Zhong Ye They walked in, Lily stood on tiptoe, and in Zhong Ye reminded softly in his ear: "The clothes on his body don't look like clothes that servants can wear..."

After struggling to close the door, the boy silently ran to the front of the three of them without anything. Said, went straight through the empty living room and corridor, and came to the door of a room.

Knocked on the door softly, the boy shouted loudly: "father, they are coming."

father? Is this boy the son of Viscount Barnes?

Lily Lieber stared at the boy's back in disbelief.

Is Viscount Barnes so poor that he can't even hire servants? If so, why did he take over the painting by Dupois Baron?

According to Dupois Baron, although his price is not high, it is also not affordable for ordinary people.

There were two coughs in the room: "cough cough! Come in!"

The boy opened the door, then looked back towards Zhong Ye and them, and let them enter the room .

After all three of them walked in, the boy closed the door and did not enter the room.

The first thing that catches my eye is a wooden bed, but there is no mattress and pillow on the bed, only a cold wooden bed board and the quilt covered by the man lying on the bed.

The room is well-lit, and in this slightly spacious room there are two glass windows, which should be covered by curtains, judging from the traces left around the window frames.

Thinking of the empty living room and corridors that I saw before, I can imagine how the Barnes family is in decline today.

"Viscount Barnes?"

Zhong Ye looked towards the thin man lying on the bed and asked.

The man hesitated for a moment, nodded, "Yes...it feels like no one has called me that for a long time."

"Viscount Barnes, you should have read that letter, right? ?" Zhong Ye went directly to the subject, "If you can, can you give us the paintings that Nemo left behind? Of course, we will pay for them, and you won't lose money."

"cough cough!"

The thin man was about to answer when he suddenly coughed twice and his face became even paler.

He raised his empty eyes and looked towards Zhong Ye, "Sorry, I can't give it to you...because, I don't have any of Nemo's paintings at all."

"No?" Zhong Ye frowned.

"My family has run out of money. The debt came due not long ago. The moneylender took all my belongings, furniture, shares, books, and art..." Thin man Took a deep breath, with a look of sadness in his eyes, "The Barnes family has nothing left."

frowned, Zhong Ye continued to ask: "Can you tell me who lent you money? "

"If you want to track down those paintings, I can tell you that those paintings should be in the hands of the Raymond family now." The thin man Mumu said, "I didn't expect that behind my creditors It turned out to be the Raymond family, it wasn't enough for them to defeat the Barnes family, they also wanted to kill us all..."

The Raymond family...Viscount Raymond?

The family that rules Valenzay now is the Raymond family, and the current Lord of Valenzay is the Viscount Raymond!

Several decades ago, the Raymond family defeated the Barnes family to become the lords of Valence, and now the Barnes family has lost everything under the Raymond family's scheme.

"...I have something else I want to ask."

Zhong Ye looked at Viscount Barnes lying on the bed and asked in a deep voice, "I don't know about Barnes. Viscount, why did you buy Nemo's paintings from Dupois Baron?"

"At that time, my debts were about to come due, and I wanted to sell those paintings to the cultists ..." The thin man lowered his head, "But, I couldn't sell it..."

An angry expression appeared on Lily's face, but Zhong Ye raised his hand and held her down.

"Fortunately, you didn't make a big mistake"

Zhong Ye nodded to Viscount Barnes, "We still have something to do, so I will leave now. Thank you for your honest answer."

After he finished speaking, he turned around and pushed Lilian and the others out of the room. Before leaving, he walked back, took five gold coins from the purse, and put them at the end of the bed.

"Hope you get well soon."

Bang!

The door was closed, and the thin man stared blankly at the stack of gold coins at the end of the bed, silent.

…………

Leaving the mansion of Viscount Barnes, Lily also calmed down.

"Are you going to tell the local church?"

Viscount Barnes wants to sell Nemo's paintings to cultists for the difference, which means he should know some cults The whereabouts of the believers, otherwise, how could he be so poor and pay a lot of money to buy that painting from Baron of Dupois?

"Yes." Zhong Ye nodded.

"Let the church go after the cultists and we go deal with the Raymond family?" Lillian followed, asking, "Shouldn't it be the other way around?"

The influence of the church in the local area is definitely greater than those of the three of them. If the church were to deal with the Raymond family, it would definitely be twice the results for half the effort.

And not all churches have the ability to track, and their tracking technology may be better.

It stands to reason that the church should deal with the Raymond family, and they should go after the cultists.

"It should be so, but have you forgotten the Marta count?" Zhong Ye shook his head and said, "The whereabouts of the cultists are not so easy to track, let the church act first and track it down. There are clues, and after we solve the matter of the Raymond family, we will go back to cooperate with the church and deal with those cultists with them. This is the safest arrangement.”

The strength of the local church is unknown. How, but should not be as strong as him.

I don’t know how powerful the cult hidden in the dark is, and I don’t know if the Raymond family has been transformed into a cult after getting those paintings. In this case, no matter which side the church is to deal with alone Neither is a good choice.

Right now, the events of the Raymond family can be resolved in a short time, but it may take a while to track down the cultists.

They can cooperate with the church to track down the cultists after the incident of the Raymond family is resolved. In this way, they have him on both sides, which can greatly reduce the occurrence of casualties.

Right now, he's already not far from 'Legendary' -- although I don't know how long it will take, it's better to have him there than not.

"Let's go, go to the church. When I first entered the city, I found out the location of the local church."