Chapter 106

Chapter 106: Memory

In the venue of the Igewent Charity Association, the pure and sweet voices of children were echoing in the theater space, and everyone was immersed in the innocent singing.

Bill, wearing a half-mask and dressed in the uniform of a theater staff member, slowly walked along the edge of the venue, constantly scanning the audience with his eyes as if searching for something.

What Bill was looking for was a scent, the scent he had recorded at the scene of the bloody tragedy at Buck’s house that day.

Bill was an Extraordinary Being of “Cup,” but there was something special about him. His promotion ceremony was personally conducted by the adult he was loyal to, and the ritual he underwent was somewhat different from the usual promotion ceremony for Thirsters.

In the hidden world, even if the same amount of spirituality is accumulated, the results can be different due to variations in the promotion ceremony.

After incurring additional costs, Bill ascended to become a sub-rank of the Thirster known as the “Connoisseur.”

The Connoisseur was a sub-type of the Thirster. Although their physical abilities and vitality surpassed those of ordinary people, they were still somewhat distant from the Thirsters. Instead, the Connoisseur gained some sensory expressions related to “Cup.”

Thirsters became stronger and more resilient due to the material expressions of “Cup” — flesh and bl**d expressions. However, while the Connoisseur’s material expressions were not as strong as those of a Thirster, they had additional sensory expressions.

Sensory expressions of “Cup” included olfactory, gustatory, and s*xual pleasure…

Bill’s promotion gave him an enhanced sense of smell, allowing him to discern and remember scents that others could not distinguish.

That day at Buck’s house, although Bill did not intervene directly, he knew someone was hiding in the darkness of the storage room. Before leaving, he memorized the scent in that darkness.

At the time, due to the excessive bloodiness at the scene, Bill’s memory process was disrupted, making it difficult to extract more information from the scent. He could only barely detect that it might be a female, but could not discern any further details. Nonetheless, he firmly remembered this disrupted scent information.

Unexpectedly, he smelled it again today.

Bill slowly walked around the edge of the venue, circling the perimeter of the audience seats, trying to catch that scent again, but to no avail. The scent information he had noted was incomplete due to interference, and he would have to get closer to identify it accurately.

However, doing so would be conspicuous. Even though he was currently working as a theater staff member, repeatedly walking back and forth in the audience and sniffing one by one would be extremely impolite and could attract attention, thus alarming the target.

Therefore, Bill needed to think of another method to confirm the other person’s location without raising suspicion.

After some thought, Bill had an idea.

Then, he quickly walked to the main entrance of the venue and found a form leader, then took off his half-mask.

“It’s Mr. Bill, what can I do for you?” Seeing Bill’s face, the form leader smiled and said. Bill immediately spoke up.

“Gather all the servers and instruct them to collect the audience’s invitation cards according to my method. Tell them there is a problem with the invitation cards, and we need to collect and re-check them.”

…

In the venue, the children’s singing gradually approached its end, and amidst the enthusiastic applause of the audience, the children bowed in gratitude, and the large red curtain slowly closed again.

On the audience seats, Dorothy was clapping along with the surrounding audience, smiling on her face, but her heart was heavy.

“The Lamb’s Song… The song they sang is a secret transmission, a musical secret transmission… Why is this happening…”

After the system’s prompt, Dorothy realized that the choral performance she heard was indeed a secret transmission, albeit a very fragmentary and seemingly adapted version that significantly reduced its mysterious elements. But it was still a secret transmission.

After hearing this secret transmission, Dorothy immediately extracted it into spirituality, though the extracted spirituality was so weak that it couldn’t accumulate even 1 point. However, Dorothy could still recognize that it was “Cup.”

This meant that “The Lamb’s Song” was a secret transmission of “Cup,” though the version sung by the children today had been heavily edited and altered. The purpose was certainly to avoid excessive poison contamination and to conceal things.

If not for Dorothy’s precise system identification, she might not have noticed the problem with the song.

“Why are the children from the Orphanage of Mercy singing ‘Cup’ secret transmissions at the charity event? According to the host’s previous words, they seem to perform choral programs every year, but I don’t know if they always sing this one. Is there something wrong with the Orphanage of Mercy? I’ve been there for so many days and haven’t noticed anything unusual.”

Dorothy pondered, and at this moment, her mind was filled with questions and a hint of worry.

“There’s an open ‘Cup’ secret transmission performance on stage… Regardless of the truth behind the scenes, this charity event has major problems. Although I mainly came to watch Anna’s performance, it feels like I’m taking a risk now…”

Dorothy thought, and encountering this unexpected situation made her cautious. She began to doubt everything around her.

Then, Dorothy took out a gold coin from her pocket, which had the sun on the front and the Radiant Church’s mark on the back. This was the “Lamp” spiritual storage item she obtained from Brandon, and with it, she could divine.

She needed to use divination to determine the situation around her.

In the basic divination skills Odrich sold to Dorothy, many divinations required prior rituals, but there was no opportunity for that now. However, there were a few simple forms of divination that didn’t require rituals.

One of these was tossing a coin.

“Am I currently in danger?”

As she silently spoke the divination phrase, Dorothy tossed the golden coin as low as possible, then covered it with her hand. After feeling the consumption of spirituality, Dorothy slowly moved her hand away.

On Dorothy’s hand, a coin with lost luster appeared, with the side bearing the sun facing upward, indicating heads.

“Sigh… It really is…”

Looking at the revealed coin, Dorothy let out a long breath and shook her head, ignoring the host introducing the next program, and focused on careful thinking.

“Danger, danger… What kind of danger, where does it come from, how will it come… When will it come…”

Dorothy pondered, realizing that the information she currently possessed was too limited. Then, she closed her eyes and began to carefully recall.

She started retrieving memories, recalling everything from when she arrived at the theater door until now, hoping to find some clues.

Dorothy was an Omniscient, capable of completely remembering all perceived information within half a day, even down to the number of wild grasses on the roadside. This super memory would gradually fade to normal after half a day, but consuming a bit of spirituality could permanently preserve important content.

So, Dorothy began to meticulously review every detail, corner, and fleeting glance in the theater, as well as every word she inadvertently overheard, attempting to extract useful information from these seemingly meaningless data.

Since Dorothy was an Omniscient with the ability to rapidly read and process information, this skill was equally effective in handling memory information, making her memory retrieval incredibly fast.

Before long, Dorothy discovered an important piece of information in her recent memories.

It was the memory of her just entering the theater gate, walking through the corridor with the crowd behind the main door.

By carefully examining the visual memory of that moment, Dorothy noticed a slightly familiar figure among the people walking toward her.

It was a theater staff member, a young man wearing a half-mask, revealing only his chin.

This figure felt somewhat familiar to Dorothy. There seemed to be a resemblance to another figure in her memory.

That was the young man named Bill who rescued Buck on that day at Buck’s house.

At the time, Dorothy hid in the shadows, observing this young man, using her Omniscient ability to meticulously record him, akin to a high-definition photograph.

Now, Dorothy felt that the young man she encountered in the corridor, wearing a half-mask, bore an uncanny resemblance to that Bill.