Kankdar, on the south shore of the Conquest Sea.
During the day, the Kankdar Citizen's Hall was located on a street near the suburbs in the foreign residential area. This large hall, funded and built by the Kankdar municipal government, served multiple purposes. During normal times, various free cultural performances, exotic exhibitions, citizen activities, and the Mayor's speeches were held here, making it a comprehensive activity center.
And at this time, an activity was also being held at the Citizen's Hall. The interior of the hall was bustling with people, with a large number of citizens from the Kankdar foreign district gathered here. They were often dressed in black and looked solemn, as they were attending the memorial service for Prince Mazhaler, the only fatality in the recent South Station assassination attempt.
A few days after the South Station assassination attempt, the Kankdar municipal government, citing the need to express apologies to the Baruch Royal Family, held a memorial service for the unfortunately assassinated Prince Mazhaler at the Citizen's Hall to mourn this leader of the Baruch exiled Royal Family, a prince of noble character and high esteem. Due to the extensive coverage in Kankdar newspapers in the past few days, which sympathized with the Baruch exiled Royal Family and generated significant momentum, many citizens came to participate after hearing about the memorial service.
The tall Citizen's Hall lobby, constructed of white marble, stood on a wide lawn. On the path leading to the lobby entrance, citizens dressed in simple clothing came and went. Among these citizens was a man wearing a trench coat, a short top hat, with deep-set eyes, a hooked nose, and pale skin. He was looking around at the surroundings while walking along the path towards the lobby.
After a short while, the man passed through the lobby door and entered. He looked around, seeing an open space adorned with flowers in every corner. A large carpet was laid on the floor, and traditional North Wu tapestries hung on the pillars, depicting various exquisite patterns and legendary stories. In the center of the hall was a raised platform covered with various flowers. On the platform, among the flowers, was a coffin covered with white cloth.
In front of the platform where the coffin was placed, a North Wu style priest wearing a headscarf was preaching from a scripture to the citizens who came to mourn. After listening to the sermon for a while, the citizens would begin to circle the covered coffin. There was a low, ethereal string instrument playing throughout the space.
In the lobby, the slightly pale-skinned man looked around, then walked to the coffin platform. Through his perspective, the distant Dorothy couldn't help but murmur softly.
"No Extraordinary detection... it seems they don't attach much importance to this place..."
Controlling the Corpse Puppet Edrick, Dorothy remotely participated in Mazhar's memorial service. She had originally thought there might be Extraordinary detection set up here, but there wasn't. This was good news for what she planned to do next.
Dorothy used a Corpse Puppet to attend Mazhar's memorial service, naturally not to specifically mourn him, but to scout the location and conduct preliminary reconnaissance. Dorothy intended to steal Mazhar's body from here to clear the envoy group's suspicion.
According to Awei, under the circumstances where the investigating Inquisitor had a clear unfavorable bias, the evidence presented to clear the envoy group's suspicion had to be irrefutable and undeniable ironclad proof. Dorothy thought for a while about how to obtain this so-called ironclad proof, and soon she set her sights on Mazhar's body.
Due to Dorothy's secret interference on the day of the assassination, the assassin's plan was disrupted. The final assassin acted hastily as a replacement after the previous plans failed. Therefore, his shooting was not accurate; the few successful shots did not hit vital points, and the victim did not die immediately. To prevent the person from being saved, the Kankdar municipal government attempted to use a medical team to quickly finish off the victim, who had not yet died, while performing emergency treatment.
Based on Vanya's treatment of the two victims, Dorothy knew that the Kankdar medical team's method of hastening death was poison. They injected poison into the victims, directly killing those who were only injured by gunshots. Therefore, Mazhar's true cause of death was poisoning, not gunshot wounds.
Thus, Dorothy thought that if she could obtain Mazhar's body and successfully extract the residual toxin, and if she could prove that Mazhar's true cause of death was poisoning rather than gunshot wounds, then the envoy group's suspicion could be cleared. After all, the Kankdar officials publicly claimed that Mazhar died from the assassin's gunshot, and there was no possibility of poisoning.
As long as it could be confirmed that Mazhar died from poisoning and not a gunshot, it would be enough to overturn the entire assassination. Since Vanya used her ability and medicine to dissolve the toxins in the two victims she treated while saving them, no toxins could be detected in them. Therefore, the residual toxin could only be obtained from Mazhar's body.
If a normal investigation team were investigating this matter, Dorothy would only need to suggest that the investigation team perform an autopsy on the victim's body. However, given the high probability that the investigation team and the real assassins were in cahoots, such a suggestion would likely cause the assassins to immediately destroy Mazhar's body. Therefore, Dorothy could only choose to steal the body herself. After the autopsy, she would hand over the results of the examination along with the body to Awei. With this evidence, Awei could force the Inquisitors to release the people.
Dorothy controlled the Corpse Puppet Edrick to wander around the lobby, observing the terrain and the guards at various positions, and checking for any Extraordinary traces. After circling around, she found that Mazhar's memorial service seemed to be just an ordinary wealthy family's funeral, with nothing else noteworthy. It would not be difficult for her to steal Mazhar's body from here.
'No Extraordinary detection, weak guard force, no Extraordinary traces... it looks like a normal memorial service. Although it won't be difficult to steal the body, could this be a trap...'
Sitting on the hotel sofa, Dorothy thought with a slight worry. Although she was somewhat concerned that this memorial service might be a trap, she ultimately decided to try and steal Mazhar's body.
'Although it might be a trap, it's still worth trying to steal it. Anyway, I'm using a Corpse Puppet, and generally nothing will go wrong. Even if I'm discovered by an Extraordinary with Scarlet Tier strength, I can seek refuge at the White Dove Hotel. With Awei there, as long as those people don't want to fall out, they won't choose to act at the White Dove Hotel...'
After a brief consideration, Dorothy decided to steal the body tonight. Then she manipulated the distant Edrick to walk out of the Citizen's Hall lobby and head back. After that, Dorothy began to prepare for the night's operation.
...
Time flew by, and soon the sun set from the horizon, and night fell upon Kankdar. The memorial service held at the Citizen's Hall concluded at dusk. Since there was no custom of keeping vigil at night here, the Citizen's Hall closed early. The Citizen's Hall, which had been bustling with people, suddenly became quiet.
As the night deepened, the quietness of the Citizen's Hall gradually turned into cold Silence. By late night, the large hall was almost completely devoid of any life. Only a few ordinary guards were keeping watch here, yawning while waiting for the arrival of the shift change personnel. Not long after, these guards waiting outside the door saw a few figures carrying lamps entering from the hall entrance.
"Yo, it's finally time for the shift change."
Carrying kerosene lamps, several men in guard uniforms walked into the hall and approached the lobby. The guards waiting there showed a hint of joy on their faces, then hurried over to hand over the shift. After a simple exchange and completing the handover, the original guards on duty all went back, leaving their colleagues to continue guarding.
Standing at the entrance of the lobby, the shift guards watched their departing colleagues, a slight smile appearing at the corners of their mouths.
That's right, these shift guards were all Dorothy's Living Puppets. Not long ago, Dorothy used Living Puppets to ambush these guards who were coming in for the shift on the way, knocked them unconscious, drew the puppet mark on them, turned them into Living Puppets, and then controlled them to come and fulfill their duties for the shift change, thus taking control of the defense of the Civic Residence.
After the weak defense of the Civic Residence was brought under control, Dorothy did not hesitate. She immediately controlled several guard Living Puppets to enter the lobby, walked to the platform where the coffin was placed, had them move aside the flowers on the platform, and then walked to the coffin on the platform.
Controlling the guard puppets, Dorothy tore off the white cloth on the coffin and then had several puppets work together to open the sealed coffin. When the coffin lid was opened, what appeared before Dorothy was the fat, pale corpse lying inside, dressed in luxurious clothes with eyes closed. That was Baruk's last Prince Mazhaler.
After confirming that Mazhar's body was indeed in the coffin, Dorothy couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief. Then she used her ability to begin manipulating Mazhar's body, turning it into a Corpse Puppet. Under Dorothy's manipulation, Mazhar sat up from the coffin on his own, opened his eyes, revealing cloudy pupils.
After manipulating Mazhar's body, Dorothy seemed to sense that something was wrong. Her brows furrowed slightly, and a hint of doubt arose in her heart. However, at this critical moment, Dorothy only remembered this doubt and continued her actions without thinking too much. She manipulated a Corpse Puppet whose physique was not too different from Mazhar's, a real corpse. After having it swap clothes with Mazhar, she had it lie down in the coffin, and then controlled the other puppets to close the coffin lid and return the flowers on the platform to their original positions.
Next, after Dorothy repeatedly checked Mazhar's body and confirmed that there were no issues, she controlled the Corpse Puppet Mazhar to immediately leave the Civic Residence and quickly disappear into the night. As for the Living Puppet guards, Dorothy had them find suitable places to sit down, then they each erased the puppet marks on each other, and had them sit on the ground leaning against the wall, sleeping.
At this point, Dorothy finally successfully stole Mazhar's body. Now her goal was to control Mazhar's body to go to another area. There, Dorothy had already prepared the medicine that could be used to test for toxins.
...
In Kankdar in the early hours of the morning, as the first ray of dawn appeared in the sky, Robert, who was "recuperating" in the Kankdar hospital, was awakened from his sleep. When he got up from the hospital bed, the door to the ward was pushed open, and a servant walked in behind it. Upon seeing him, Robert asked directly.
"What's the matter?"
"Mr., news just came from the Civic Residence that Prince Mazhaler's body has been stolen."
After bowing, the young servant spoke directly to Robert. Listening to the servant's words, Robert paused, and finally a subtle curve appeared at the corner of his mouth.
"As expected, they still targeted Mazhar's direction..."
Robert murmured thoughtfully, while the young servant beside him saw this and continued to speak.
"Mr., should we send people to search now and find Prince Mazhaler's body?"
The servant suggested this to Robert, who chuckled softly and replied.
"There is no need... The Redemption Faction is looking for Mazhar's body simply for evidence. If they want to take it, let them take it. This is exactly what I want..."
As he spoke, Robert looked out the window at the breaking dawn, his eyes filled with the expression of things going as he expected.
...
On the other side, after successfully stealing Mazhar's body, Dorothy immediately used the prepared carriage to transport it to the local residential area of Kankdar. After circling around several times in the local residential area, which was three times larger than the foreigner residential area, the carriage, traveling through countless low-rise houses, gradually stopped, finally stopping in front of a small dilapidated house.
Afterward, Dorothy controlled Mazhar in the carriage to get off, carried a Light, opened the door, and walked directly into the dilapidated house. Then, after wandering around the dilapidated house for a couple of turns, she found a staircase leading downwards and walked down until she reached a dim basement.
In this basement were several Corpse Puppets wearing North Wu robes and face coverings, who had been prepared for a long time. They were arranged in a circle, with a straw mat spread in the middle, and a large medicine box placed beside the straw mat.
After seeing the scene before him, Mazhar walked forward and lay down on the straw mat. Then, a Corpse Puppet beside him opened the medicine box and took out an empty syringe. After rolling up Mazhar's sleeve, it inserted the syringe into the pale skin and drew out dark red blood. Meanwhile, other Corpse Puppets on the side had already taken out various items from the medicine box, such as beakers, test tubes, alcohol lamps, reagents, and microscopes, and placed them on the ground one by one, ready.
Next, Dorothy began to remotely control the Corpse Puppets to analyze Mazhar's blood. Before this, Dorothy had already obtained samples absorbed by fabric from Vanya. After some effort, Dorothy used her self-taught knowledge of this world's medicine and chemistry to determine the type of poison.
This toxin is a snake venom, originating from the highly venomous snake that lives in the local desert of North Wu, the Sand-Scaled Yellow-Spotted Snake. Its venom is a hemotoxin. After entering the human body, it harms the entire body by destroying blood circulation. It severely damages blood cells and prevents coagulation, causing death in a short time if not treated promptly. Also, because this toxin is a hemotoxin, traces of this toxin can be detected in the blood of the deceased after death, and the poisoned blood damaged by the toxin is also very different from other blood.
After focused testing, Dorothy finally completed the analysis of Mazhar's blood. The results of the analysis showed that Mazhar's blood contained a large amount of obvious Sand-Scaled Yellow-Spotted Snake venom. Based on this result alone, it could be fully concluded that he was poisoned to death, not shot. Upon seeing this test result, Dorothy couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.
'Phew... Good, the test was successful... With such obvious toxin in the blood, it can be said that this guy died of poisoning. This is solid evidence.
'As long as I hand this guy over to Awei, and then have Awei take him to confront the Inquisitor and the Kankdar authorities, then the entire assassination case can be overturned, and the special envoy group's suspicion can be cleared... right?'
Dorothy thought this in her heart. Clearly, everything before her was proceeding very smoothly. She had detected toxin in Mazhar's body, which could prove that the entire assassination case was problematic. Clearly, now as long as she gives this evidence to Awei, everything can be reversed, but in her heart at this moment, doubt still lingered.
Some seemingly not very important questionable points made Dorothy cautious before success, and one of these questionable points was on Mazhar himself.
'Speaking of which, I originally thought that Mazhar had been dead for many days and his physical functions had decayed to the point where he couldn't be manipulated as a Corpse Puppet, but I didn't expect that he could still be controlled tonight. Although the sense of control is awkward and his movements are inconvenient, he can still move. This is somewhat beyond my expectation.'