Inside the small, private room, on the soft sofa, Adele leaned against Ed and whispered suggestively into his ear. Dorothy was startled by this scene; she finally understood why Adele had immediately sensed something was off about Ed – because she hadn't felt any desire from him.
"Haha, I admit, Miss Adele, you are indeed very charming, and I greatly admire your charm, but I have my limits," Dorothy controlled Ed's body to tremble slightly, then chuckled in response. After hearing this, Adele moved away slightly, stared at Ed, and then spoke.
"Are you saying my charm isn't enough to move you, Detective? Or are you, like Maria back then, just a Corpse Puppet?" Adele said this to Ed, who immediately replied.
"Have you ever seen a Corpse Puppet like me that can talk and perform rituals?"
"Indeed, a Corpse Puppet that can talk and perform rituals is beyond common sense, even in the hidden world. But since it's Extraordinary, there are infinite possibilities, and no one says it can't have one~" Adele said lightly, then changed the subject and continued speaking. Ed also immediately replied.
"Since there are infinite possibilities, is there a possibility that I used some Extraordinary means to block your perception?"
"Hmm… that's also possible. Perhaps compared to a divining Corpse Puppet… this possibility is higher. Maybe you just possess some Extraordinary item or rune that can block emotions, a'Shadow' item. Although such items are extremely rare, they are not completely nonexistent. If those guys got hold of such things, I would be very troubled."
Adele continued, saying that while'Shadow' Extraordinary items and abilities can have a concealing effect, the scope of what they can conceal varies. Just like Dorothy's ring of concealment, it can only conceal Extraordinary characteristics, preventing one's own Extraordinary characteristics, carried Extraordinary items, and Spirituality traces from being discovered. However, it cannot conceal sound, appearance, or emotions, because these things that everyone possesses are not defined as Extraordinary.
"So, you want to investigate my truth now, Miss Adele?" Dorothy controlled Ed to ask Adele. She could now see that Adele wasn't entirely sure if Ed was a Corpse Puppet.
"No, no, absolutely not. In this situation, how could I inquire about an ally's background first? It's just that the conversation led here, so I asked a little. After all, to cooperate with your investigation, I've already voluntarily revealed some of my abilities, so I also wanted to learn a little more about yours.
"But time is short now, let's get back to the case itself, Detective."
Adele continued, and then she indeed brought the topic back to the case.
"As I said just now, within my range of perception, once someone has killing intent towards me, I can sense it. And the entire stage, as well as most of the audience area, is within my perception range. When I was dancing at that time, the only desires directed at me were various common forms of lust and desire. There was no killing intent.
"A puppeteer controlling a puppet to kill must also have killing intent in their heart. I didn't sense any killing intent, so the murderer controlling Maria is not one of the other girls."
Adele continued speaking to Ed. Listening to Adele's words, Dorothy couldn't help but frown slightly.
'Most of the audience area is within Adele's passive perception range, and Adele didn't sense any killing intent. It's clear the puppeteer is not on the stage or among the other dancers.
'That's strange. Since the other dancers are not the murderer, how did that murderer learn the accompaniment dance for "Crimson Mother"?'
Dorothy thought deeply. Ed, in Adele's room, also showed a thoughtful expression. Adele sat beside him, silently watching Ed's face.
Suddenly, Dorothy thought of something. She controlled Ed to speak again.
"Miss Adele, although the murderer is not among the dance troupe's dancers, is it possible that the dance troupe secretly leaked the dance you taught outside, and the murderer learned it?"
"Well, that shouldn't be…" Adele was about to say something when she suddenly seemed to think of something, then frowned slightly, and continued to murmur.
"No… perhaps there is such a possibility. Among the girls in the dance troupe, some often dance privately outside the theater."
"Private dances?"
"These girls who work in the theater's dance troupe don't just earn the theater's salary. Sometimes they go to other bars or dance halls after work to dance for extra money. And the girls personally trained by me, being more outstanding and benefiting from my reputation, are even more likely to be sought out by sugar daddies to dance for them individually. These sugar daddies are often very wealthy and give them surprisingly high tips. Many girls in the dance troupe have their own sugar daddies, some even have multiple."
Adele said this. Hearing Adele's words, Dorothy was stunned.
'So, it's like taking on private gigs, and there are even dedicated sugar daddies? Is Adele's dance troupe that popular?'
"I see. But Miss Adele, don't you manage this phenomenon of private dancing?" Ed nodded, understandingly. Adele immediately responded.
"Manage what? This is money they've worked hard for. As long as it doesn't affect their normal work, there's no need to manage it at all.
"Anyway, these sugar daddies are rich. If the relationship develops smoothly, when they don't want to dance anymore and leave the theater, they can find a good place to settle down."
Adele said this. Dorothy could tell from these words that Adele seemed to care quite a bit about the other girls in the dance troupe.
"Many of these girls have sugar daddies outside, and they dance privately for their sugar daddies in their personal time. So, at this time, they might also leak the new dance you taught to those sugar daddies, right?" Understanding Adele's meaning, Ed spoke. Adele also nodded and spoke.
"Yes… although I repeatedly told them not to dance the dances I taught to others before the public performance, if those sugar daddies use money, or even love, as an offensive, some people might not be able to resist…
"Flowers, jewelry, sweet talk, eternal vows… Heh, men's utterly cliché tricks are really effective on young girls.
"If these dances were leaked to ordinary people, it wouldn't be a big deal, but if there happen to be people from those guys among those sugar daddies, that would be terrible…"
Touching her chin with her finger, Adele said with a hint of anxiety. Her words also made Dorothy think for a moment about what Maria's friend had said when she questioned her earlier.
According to her words, Maria was very happy and full of anticipation when she went out after the second act. So why was she so happy, and why was she so expectant?
"Miss Adele, do you know if Maria had a sugar daddy outside?"
Dorothy controlled Ed to ask Adele. Hearing Ed's words, Adele was slightly startled, then looked at Ed and replied.
"Are you saying… it's possible that Maria leaked the dance? Her sugar daddy… could possibly be one of those guys, the murderer?"
"Yes, according to the information I gathered earlier, Maria left the backstage immediately after the second performance. According to the other dancers, she was very happy and expectant when she left, as if she was called out or asked out by someone.
"Let's make a hypothesis. Assume Maria's sugar daddy is a member of the Wolf Blood Society. They used the identity of a sugar daddy to approach Maria, used money and love to gain Maria's trust, and made her leak your dance. After that sugar daddy learned the dance, he made an appointment with Maria to meet privately somewhere in the theater after the second act of today's performance. Then, during this process, he killed Maria, turned her into a Corpse Puppet, and brought her back to assassinate you."
Dorothy used Ed to describe her idea. This hypothesis could explain how Adele's dance was leaked and why Maria went out happily by herself after the second act.
"This… is indeed very possible. This assassination and framing were clearly planned by them for a long time. Maria, as the key prop for the plan, must have been chosen long ago, so Maria going out during the second act was not a coincidence…
"These guys approached Maria with the identity of a sugar daddy, intending to target me through her. Heh… truly premeditated."
Listening to Ed's words, Adele also nodded thoughtfully. After hearing Adele's words, Dorothy continued to have Ed ask.
"So, Miss Adele, do you know anything about Maria's patrons?"
"Their patrons... I've actually never asked. For that, you can find Luff at the theater. He's my direct subordinate and an Extraordinary. He's in charge of mail and communication at the theater, and one of his jobs is to help receive and send letters for others in the theater.
"The dance troupe often lives in the theater. If mail is sent to the theater, it goes directly to Luff, and then he distributes it to others. They have correspondence with their respective patrons. You can ask him if he has frequently delivered letters to Maria, and if so, whether he saw who the sender was."
Adele suggested to Ed. After hearing this, Dorothy didn't linger and immediately controlled Ed to stand up.
"Thank you for your suggestion, Miss Adele. Time is tight, so I'll continue investigating."
"Okay~ I look forward to your good news, Detective."
After saying goodbye to Adele, Ed left the room and went to find Luff at the theater. He directly asked the police to help him find him. Soon, the police brought the target to him. It was a middle-aged man wearing a server's uniform.
"Hello, Mr. Luff, I heard that you work in the theater, and one of your jobs is to help receive and send letters for others in the theater?"
Ed politely spoke to the man in front of him, and the other party respectfully replied.
"Yes, Mr., I will do my best if there is anything I can help with."
"Thank you, I just want to ask you... Does anyone usually send letters to Maria frequently?" Ed continued to ask Luff, and Luff thought for a moment before answering.
"Maria... poor child... Someone does send her letters usually, and it seems like more than one person. She seems to have correspondence with many people."
Luff replied like this. Hearing Luff's words, Dorothy's expression brightened, and she continued to control Ed to speak.
"Then do you know where Maria's letters are usually kept?"
"That... I think she should keep them in her room. Maria came to the city from a village elsewhere to make a living. She has only been here for two years and hasn't rented or bought a house outside yet, so she usually lives directly in the theater. Her letters should be hidden in her room."
Luff continued, and Dorothy, who had gotten important clues, immediately had Ed say.
"Thank you for your clue, Mr. Luff, it helps me a lot."
Afterward, Ed said goodbye to Luff and went to find the theater manager. From him, Dorothy obtained the key to Maria's room. At Ed's request, the theater manager had a server take him to Maria's room.
In the back of the theater, in the staff living area, guided by the server, Ed stopped in front of a wooden door in a dim corridor.
"Thank you, I can handle the rest myself."
Ed said to the server who led the way, and the other party left immediately after a simple response. Then, Dorothy had Ed use the key from the manager to open the door in front of him and enter a single bedroom.
This was a small bedroom, with only a table, a bed, and a wardrobe. It was simple and clean, with no other decorations except for a few small ornaments on the table.
Entering Maria's room, Dorothy didn't blindly spend time looking for the whereabouts of the letters. Instead, she closed the door and walked to the center of the room, propping her staff in the center of the room, and then silently chanted.
'The location of the letters hidden by Maria Dokana.'
After the silent chant, Ed released the staff, letting it fall naturally. As a gold coin in the decoration at the top of the staff quickly dimmed, the entire staff fell in one direction, with the staff head pointing under the bed.
Seeing this, Dorothy immediately had Ed put away the staff, and then had him crawl under the bed. After searching carefully for a while, he finally found a small wooden box.
Dorothy took out the wooden box and placed it on the table. When she opened it, there was a thick stack of letters inside, at least thirty or forty, which surprised Dorothy a little.
'So many?! This Maria is quite chatty.'
Afterward, Dorothy took out all the letters and quickly read the handwriting of the senders using the ability of the Erudite. In a few moments, she had screened all the letters, selecting the handwriting of the four most frequent senders, who were the four people who communicated with Maria most often. Each of them had sent several letters to Maria.
'Now, I just need to see which of the four of them is Maria's patron.'
Thinking this in her mind, Dorothy had Ed select one letter from each of the four people and open them to read, wanting to determine who Maria's patron was based on the content. However, after quickly scanning all four letters, she immediately exclaimed in her mind.
'Damn... This Maria, she's a player...'
Dorothy said this in her mind. That's right, based on the content of the letters, the senders of these four letters were all Maria's patrons. She had four patrons at the same time! She danced for these four people and had ambiguous relationships with all four of them!
'Damn... Is life so indulgent? Having four ambiguous patrons at the same time, and from the lines, one of them is a woman. She's into both men and women.'
Dorothy complained like this in her mind. Although she had heard Adele say before that some dancers would have multiple patrons, she didn't expect Maria to be one, and four at that. This suddenly added a lot of difficulty to Dorothy's case.
Among these four senders, these four patrons, who is the Extraordinary, the one who killed Maria and made her into a Corpse Puppet?
Looking at the four letters placed in front of Ed, Dorothy fell into deep thought. She was thinking about a way to quickly find the real culprit.
After thinking about it for a long time, the method Dorothy finally came up with was... divination!
That's right, Dorothy can now divine the real culprit from these four candidates. Even if the other party has anti-divination, Dorothy can use the other party's anti-divination to determine which of the four senders has a problem.
Now Dorothy only needs to perform divination on these four letters one by one, setting the divination phrase to "Is the writer of this letter the Extraordinary who intended to harm Maria?"
This divination phrase directly involves the murderer himself, who is protected by anti-divination, so if Dorothy uses only a little Spirituality, she will not get a result, and not getting a result is precisely the biggest result.
Divining these four letters one by one, if a result is divined, it proves that the writer of that letter is not the murderer. If no result is divined, it means that the divination targeting the writer of this letter was interfered with by anti-divination, which proves that the writer of this letter has a problem.
Following this method, Dorothy divined these four letters one by one, and the one that was interfered with and yielded no result was the one.
Dorothy had thought of a method, but she didn't immediately put it into practice, because although this method was feasible, it might waste a lot of "Light".
'No... If I'm too unlucky and divine four times in a row, and only get the problematic letter at the end, wouldn't that cost me four points of 'Light'? The previous divination already cost two points, and now another four... This is unbearable.'
Dorothy thought this. Although this method of trying one by one is effective, it is too clumsy, like playing a mobile game character gacha pool, the kind with a four-pull guarantee. If you're lucky, you get it in one go, but if you're unlucky, you have to pull all four times and end up with a guaranteed pull.
Dorothy was not someone who liked to gamble on luck, so she was too willing to use this divination method.
'No, I can't waste Spirituality like this. There must be a better divination method that can save me Spirituality and hit the mark in one go.'