According to the informant, this is a "very normal phenomenon" in Short Ming Alley: after all, these people are not ordinary people. They have skills and backgrounds, and they live very comfortably in the wasteland. However, they usually send their family members to a livable place, and a few people will let their family members stay with them. Once they realize that their end is approaching or are aware of other dangers, they will immediately prepare an escape route for their relatives.
So something like this often happens in Short Ming Alley. When a person dies, everything related to that person suddenly evaporates from the world, as if it had never existed.
Joan Valerie had many enemies, and a big reason why she chose to live in Short Call Lane was that the name itself was intimidating and could scare off quite a few people who wanted to come and cause trouble.
She took in many children in Short Call Alley, and it is said that she would secretly train these children to become killers to serve herself. Joan opened gambling houses and taverns in Short Call Lane, even if there were people who wanted her life in Short Call Lane. Not a few either.
In the last period of Joan's life, she quietly converted these family properties into astonishing wealth, and the children who had been around her also disappeared one after another.
It wasn't until someone later met a child who had lived with Joan back then in other wastelands in District 3 that people were sure that Joan had indeed dismissed the people around her.
In comparison, Old Charlie's reputation is somewhat bleak.
Old Charlie was a widower. It was said that he had a happy family when he was young, but somehow his wife and children were separated. Twenty years ago, he suddenly picked up a daughter from outside and soon had a granddaughter.
No one knew the details behind this, so everyone speculated that this was his woman and child. Some good people even came to make fun of her, but old Charlie did not explain or even paid attention to her.
The rumors couldn't stir up waves in him and gradually dissipated. The woman and the child continued to live in old Charlie's backyard and did not appear often.
In the summer of 4619, old Charlie and his grocery store suddenly emptied out. It was said that before that, he had asked for a way to a certain wasteland in the fourth district - so he probably accidentally got into something he shouldn't have. The person suddenly decided to run away temporarily.
There is a lot of evidence that he will poach air-dropped supplies, which also requires precise marksmanship, so it barely meets Chiba's criteria for finding people.
These sudden clues were completely unexpected by Chiba. She originally just thought that Jane had already been very skilled in using firearms before receiving her special training, so she started the investigation from the shooting aspect.
"Do you remember the names of the mother and daughter adopted by old Charlie?"
"I don't know about the child. The mother's name should be Sylvia. She is very small and thin. She doesn't seem to be from the third district, but I don't know where she comes from."
"What about hair color?"
"Just the most ordinary chestnut hair, right? I can't remember clearly, they don't go out often."
Chiba did not talk more with the informant, and she had to find out the rest by herself.
…
At dusk, Hesta opened her eyes and woke up from her short rest again.
At about five o'clock in the afternoon, she heard someone enter the room. Although the person's footsteps were light, she woke up quickly from her sleep. Then, she smelled the aroma of food and knew that dinner was coming, so she didn't get up and pretended that she was still asleep.
After putting down the food plate, the man quietly backed out.
Indeed, as the warden said, this place is not like a prison at all, but like a hotel.
The dinner prepared for her by the Independence Prison was roast duck breast, red wine and a plate of mashed potatoes, but for some reason no knife and fork were prepared. She grabbed a piece of meat that had cooled down with her bare hands, and took a mouthful of mashed potatoes with her index and middle fingers without touching the wine.
Hesta finished the meal while standing at the table, chewing. After emptying the plate, she casually wiped her hands with the square towel placed under the plate, then turned and went to the bathroom.
After a while, she came out to get a few changes of clothes, looking like she was going to take a shower.
The warden, who was watching all this in front of the surveillance camera, was a little discouraged and a little annoyed, "Is this person mute? Doesn't she know how to speak? How can I tell Campbell about her situation like this?"
The monitoring officer on the side had his throat twitching slightly, "...You are lethargic and don't like to talk. Could it be that you have chelation disease?"
"No, she won't get chelation." The warden took off his headphones impatiently, "You can continue to keep an eye on her and report anything unusual to her."
"OK."
After the warden left, the monitoring officer pulled out the magazine hidden under the device. He crossed his legs and looked at the empty room on the screen for a while, put on his headphones and started reading the report he had just read half of.
There was only the sound of water in the bathroom.
Hesta stood quietly in the mist, watching a person slowly walk out from behind the storage shelf in the corner. When she came in to wash her hands just now, she noticed that there was a shadow there. Several possibilities appeared in her mind at the same time, so she took some clothes from outside and pretended to come in to take a shower, so as not to stay in there for a long time or frequent the bathroom. Arouse suspicion.
At this moment, Hesta only turned on a bathroom wall lamp, and she could not clearly see the outline of the person in front of her.
However, as the other party slowly approached, Hesta's eyes opened wider and wider——
The person who came was a woman with red hair, blue eyes, about the same height and build, and a missing right arm...
During the seven or eight steps from the bathroom to the bathroom, Hesta felt that the other person's hair color, skin color, and facial contours were rapidly adjusting.
When this man walked up to him, Hesta held his breath involuntarily.
She saw herself.
An identical face, a flawless replica.
There was something indescribably weird about all this. Hesta didn't know if it was really the case or if her perception was interfered with by the light in the mist and she had some hallucinations. But just now, she did hear some strange mechanical knobs. The sound...is like the faint sound that a camera lens makes when it focuses.
The visitor raised his left hand, and a line of words appeared on his palm——
"I am the eclipse"
For a moment, Hesta finally understood what Ava meant when she said "she will let you know in some way" when she asked Ava how she would identify the person.
Soon, the subtitles on Eclipse Palm changed:
"I'm here to take your place, and theoretically I can stay here until November 2, which is the eve of your court appearance."
Hesta opened her mouth slightly and took a deep breath. The subtitles on the palm of the eclipse immediately changed to:
"Don't talk, someone is listening."
Hesta raised her left hand and patted her heart, indicating that she knew this.
She looked around, looking for a writing tool. Suddenly, Eclipse's palm flattened, and a keyboard image made of red light appeared in the mist-filled air.
"please"
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