Chapter 51: Black Cat

The copper bell chimed as the door to the secondhand shop closed behind them.

Vincent walked down the stone-paved path, glancing back at the heavy wooden door.

"Uncle Donner has always been like that. Don't take it personally."

"I don't. If he hadn't winced a little at the loss, I'd be the one upset."

Vincent laughed and shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets.

"By the way," he said, glancing sideways at Richard. "How do you plan to use those two supernatural items you just bought?"

"To aid my practice."

"Makes sense. Pure ether filtered through a supernatural item is definitely much easier to digest than drawing it straight from the air."

Vincent walked in silence for a few paces, his tone turning a little more serious.

"But I have to warn you about something."

He raised his right hand, clenching it into a fist before opening it again.

"The pure ether inside supernatural items is great, but everyone's body has a hard limit on how much ether it can absorb.

Cycling through two or three supernatural items is more than enough. Don't bite off more than you can chew.

If you flood yourself with pure ether all at once, your internal circulation won't be able to handle it, and you'll end up wrecking your own body."

He made an expanding gesture with his hands. "Best case, you get a headache and throw up. Worst case, your internal circulation gets disrupted, and you're bedridden for a long time."

"I know," Richard said, nodding.

On the surface, he meekly accepted his cousin's advice.

In truth, his search for supernatural items had little to do with accelerating his practice. What he really wanted were the usable points on his panel.

......

Passing back through the wall was a little easier than going in.

Moving outward from the inside, the interference field was noticeably weaker.

Stepping back onto the main thoroughfare of Flower Moon Street, the sudden wall of noise was disorienting.

Smoke, ringing bells, shouting peddlers, the thick scent of incense—all the bustle the wall had kept out came flooding right back into his senses.

Compared to the almost solemn silence of the stone path inside, the outside felt like another world entirely.

While waiting for a carriage, Vincent bought a bag of roasted chestnuts from a stall across the street, cracking the shells and crunching on them.

Richard stood beside him, his gaze falling diagonally across the street.

17 Flower Moon Street sat right on the main thoroughfare, its number clearly nailed to the side of the doorframe.

The storefront looked no different from the surrounding Spirit Vision shops peddling cheap atmosphere.

The curtains were drawn tight and the facade painted dark red. A copper plaque hung on the door: "Medium Madam Marie."

A black cat lay on the front steps.

It was curled into a tight ball, its tail wrapped around its paws as it squinted in the sun.

Everything looked perfectly ordinary.

But the moment his gaze landed on the creature, a sudden chill prickled the back of his neck.

The black cat opened its eyes. Its pupils were pure gold, with no gradient of color—like liquid gold.

The cat stared at him for a moment.

They were far apart, separated by a constant flow of pedestrians and vendors.

But Richard was certain it was looking at him.

After a while, as if growing bored, the black cat closed its eyes, rested its head back on its paws, and went back to sunbathing.

The chill on the back of his neck immediately faded.

Richard pulled his gaze away and turned around.

"What is it?" Vincent asked, tossing chestnut shells into a nearby bin.

"Nothing."

He quickened his pace, falling in step beside Vincent as they headed toward a carriage waiting at the intersection.

That cat was likely a Perception probe.

Madam Marie—or whoever was inside Number 17—was using its eyes to monitor everything coming and going on Flower Moon Street.

Anyone capable of that was likely beyond the Practitioner rank.

Richard climbed into the carriage, resting the leather satchel holding the copper coins and incense burner on his lap.

Vincent leaned back in the opposite seat, shelling his last few chestnuts as the carriage wheels rattled rhythmically over the stone pavement.

"Vincent."

"Yeah?"

"Have you ever been to Number 17?"

"Never." Vincent tossed a chestnut kernel into his mouth and chewed.

"The old man said that shop doesn't answer to anyone."

"Doesn't answer to anyone?"

"The official authorities have no jurisdiction over her. The academy system has no say. And the Civilian Guild certainly won't interfere."

He crushed the remaining shells in his palm and wrapped them in the paper bag.

"There are a few places like that in the Imperial Capital."

He shot Richard a look. "You aren't thinking of going inside, are you?"

"No." Richard patted the satchel, checking that the two items inside hadn't knocked together. "Just curious."

Vincent set the paper trash bag aside and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.

"You Scholars all have the same problem."

"Which is?"

"Too much curiosity."

He wasn't smiling; the usual relaxed expression on his face was completely gone.

"We Hunters stand on the front line. Blade against claw, fist against flesh. When an evil creature lunges, we can smell the stench on its breath. Sounds dangerous, right?"

He flipped his hands over, resting them palms up on his knees.

His palms were covered in calluses, with several faded old scars at the base of his fingers.

"But we know what we're facing. If an evil creature charges and I can't win, I run.

Even if I can't outrun it, my death will be simple. My head gets twisted off, my chest gets pierced through, or I bleed out on the ground... It hurts, but it's quick."

He pulled his hands back and shoved them into his coat pockets.

"Scholars are different."

"The things you face... most of the time, they don't even have a physical form."

The carriage rolled over a patch of gravel, jolting the cabin.

Vincent waited for the jolting to stop before continuing.

"The old man has a ledger in his study that records the cause of death for every member of the Ashford Family throughout history.

For those on the Hunter path, most died from trauma, combat, or mission accidents. One sentence is enough to write it down."

"The section for Scholars is only a page or two. I looked through it once."

He frowned, as if trying to recall.

"There was one who spent over a decade deciphering a manuscript from the Path of the Abyss.

When he reached the final page, his butler found him sitting at his desk with his eyes wide open, his pupils completely unfocused.

He was still alive. His heartbeat and breathing were normal, but the person inside was gone."

"His mind was hollowed out?"

"Not hollowed out," Vincent said, shaking his head. "Replaced."

"Afterward, he could still talk, eat, and recognize people, but his wife said the way he spoke had changed.

When he looked at you, it was like someone examining a specimen through a pane of glass."

"What did they do with him?"

"The ledger didn't say. The bottom half of that page was cut out. There was only a single note left: 'Properly disposed of.'"

It was identical to how the newspaper report on the textile factory incident had ended.

"There's another case from even further back."

Vincent turned his gaze out the window, where the street scene blurred into streaks of color across the glass.

"During the early industrial era, a Scholar from Ashford House was appraising a high-grade supernatural item. He tried to use his Inspiration to 'read' the information sealed inside it."

"He read the information, but that information wasn't dead."

"What do you mean?"

"Some of the knowledge behind the veil carries its own will."

Vincent spoke slowly, clearly reciting words he had been taught.

"You think you're reading it, but in reality, it's also reading you.

The moment your Inspiration probes inside, it's like handing over the keys to your front door.

And not every guest who enters is going to politely leave just because you ask them to."

"What happened to the Scholar?"

"He lived a long life, stayed healthy, produced numerous academic achievements, and earned great prestige in the Royal Society."

Vincent stroked his beard.

"But after that appraisal, every night he would brush all four walls of his bedroom with holy water.

He never missed a day for forty years. When his wife asked him why, he only gave her one answer."

"Which was?"

"'It's still watching.'"

The carriage was quiet for several seconds.

"So you understand what I mean."

Vincent leaned back against his seat, his tone softening a little.

"For a Hunter, the worst possible outcome is death. But for a Scholar... the worst outcome isn't necessarily death. It might even implicate the people around you."

He clapped a heavy hand on Richard's shoulder.

"That 'just curious' tone of yours—those Scholars from the Ashford Family probably had that exact same look.

They said they were 'just looking,' but their feet were already halfway over the threshold."

"Good thing that cat across the street was just someone's pet—no real danger.

Next time you run into something like that, make sure you know when to pull back."

The carriage left Flower Moon Street, turning onto the main thoroughfare leading back to Chelsea Road.