NOVEL FULL

Ring of Fate

Chapter 212: Bad Luck

Chapter 212 Bad Luck Breeze Ballroom. Lumian looked around in the dim light but couldn't find Charlie. This made his heart sink, and he quickly waved for Louis and Sakota to come over. "Boss, what's the matter?" Louis asked anxiously. He thought the boss was dissatisfied with some current situation in the dance hall. Lumian glanced at the waiters in vests and bow ties and asked in a chatty tone: "Where's Charlie? I have something to ask him." Louis' eyes widened instantly, and he blurted out in astonishment: "Boss, didn't Charlie just follow you out?" Me? Charlie followed me out? Lumian's pupils suddenly shrank, as if he had received too strong a light.

He asked in a deep voice: "When?" Louis thought about it for a moment, looked at Lumian in confusion and said: "Less than five minutes ago." Lumian's gaze fell on Sakota and found that this taciturn and relatively more trustworthy subordinate also had a confused look on his face. Five minutes ago? I've been in White Coat Street for more than half an hour. Besides, the last time I left the dance hall, I was a disguised drunk. It's impossible for Charlie to leave with me... Lumian quickly ruled out the possibility that Charlie followed him out of the dance hall without him knowing. This is getting weirder! Combined with Charlie's bright red and black fortune, the probability of him encountering danger is almost 100%! Lumian suppressed the various thoughts that were bursting out in his mind and said to Louis and Sakota: "Maybe someone is impersonating me, but I don't know what he wants to do with Charlie." "Impossible..." Louis blurted out. A few minutes ago, both he and Sakota greeted the boss, so it couldn't be fake! Before Louis could finish his words, Lumian gave him a cold look, and he immediately changed his stance and said in a whisper: "Maybe, it could be true or false." Lumian did not dwell on this question and asked: "Did Charlie change his clothes when he left the ballroom?" According to the rules of Breeze Ballroom, every waiter, bartender, chef, and kitchen helper can receive two sets of uniforms, but they are not allowed to take them out of the ballroom and can only be kept in the locker room on the first floor. This is caused by the cultural environment of the market area. Those bartenders and waiters may go bankrupt at any time because of their own or their family's gambling, alcoholism, illness, etc., and be forced to flee this place. If they take the uniforms back home, they will definitely pawn them to the pawnshop for cash before moving away, and they will not care whether your Breeze Ballroom belongs to a gang. Similarly, the cheap cafés in Trier that catered to scavengers, coolies, vagrants, and lower-class workers often used tin cutlery and chained it to the table, leaving just enough room for it to be quietly carried away and sold by customers. Better coffee shops also have their own troubles. In order to be decent, they tend to use silver or porcelain tableware, but some customers are not so decent, so after closing every day, the boss has to count the tableware again and again to see if there is any missing, and he usually repeatedly reminds the waiters to pay attention to similar things. "No." Louis answered Lumian's question with certainty. He originally planned to stop Charlie from walking out of the ballroom in his waiter's clothes, but because the other party was leaving with his boss, he wisely kept his mouth shut. Most of the rules in a dance hall are for waiters, dancers, bartenders, cooks, thugs, cleaners, and even managers. The boss doesn't need to follow them! Lumian nodded slightly and said calmly: "Go and do other things."

With that, he headed towards the dressing room near the kitchen area. He suspected that Charlie's disappearance was related to Susanna Mathis! The small locker room was empty. Lumian took a quick look and found the locker with Charlie's name on it. "You're quick to react. You knew to find a divination medium for me." Franca, wearing a black robe and a hood, appeared at the side of Lumian and praised him. "I'm not stupid." Lumian responded simply, took out a half piece of wire he carried with him, fiddled with it for a few times, and opened the closet where Charlie kept his clothes. Franca thought about it for two seconds, then reached out and took out Charlie's linen shirt. She then used a broom placed outside the dressing room door to do divination. “Charlie’s current position… “Charlie’s current position… "..." Franka held Charlie's clothes in her left hand, pressed the top of the broom with her right palm, and muttered something. Soon, she released her right hand, but the broom did not move and stood very steadily, as if it was still being supported by someone. After several seconds, it fell down with a snap. “Disturbed?” Lumian asked tentatively. Franka shook her head slowly: "Not like..." She quickly walked to the full-length mirror in the dressing room and stroked the surface of it a few times. Holding Charlie's clothes, she began a new round of divination. After a few breaths, the mirror became dark, as if reflecting darkness. The next second, two figures appeared, walking in the yellowish and blurry light. One of them vaguely looked like Charlie dressed as a waiter, and the other one looked very much like Lumian from behind. Beyond that, nothing can be seen. Franca examined it for a few seconds and interpreted it with a firm tone: “They’re underground! "So the divination just now can't indicate the result. The broom can't jump up by itself and stand upside down, right?" Lumian nodded, turned and walked out of the locker room, went upstairs to get a calcium carbide lamp and some things that might come in handy later, and headed straight out of the ballroom. He already had a rough guess! Seeing this, Franka once again took out the fluorescent powder and used the spell to make herself invisible. On the market avenue illuminated by the crimson moonlight and gas street lamps, Lumian walked quickly, looking for possible clues. His destination was the underground entrance in the middle of the market avenue.

In the illuminated area surrounded by darkness, Lumian suddenly stopped. He saw that the fence of the drainage ditch here was slightly shifted, there were a number of rather chaotic footprints on the roadside next to it, and the gas lamp pole showed signs of being hit at a height close to that of an average person's head. "It was like he slipped, and while struggling to steady himself, he tripped over the gutter and ended up crashing into a street lamp... There should have been some blood, but it was dealt with..." Franca reappeared and made a preliminary reconstruction of the whole incident based on the situation at the scene. She said to herself with a hint of doubt: "It's a bit like the unfortunate thing I saw this afternoon..." At this point, Franka suddenly realized: "That bad-luck fake Ev? He's the one who took Charlie away?" Lumian had suspected it long ago, but now he was even more certain: “If he can disguise himself as Mr. Efe, he can certainly disguise himself as me. "This ability is quite amazing..." At this point, all the details were roughly connected in his mind: Susanna Mathis was close to recovery, but she was worried that the official extraordinary people were still monitoring Charlie, so she asked the fake Mr. Efe to disguise himself as Charles and take Charlie away in a way that seemed normal and took him underground. Once they were in underground Trier, it would be difficult for the official extraordinary people to find them. If we wait any longer, even the divination might be disturbed! “Even if you’re not very powerful, you can’t hide it from the official Beyonders during the first investigation.” Franka replied, no longer invisible, and followed Lumian to the underground Trier entrance in the middle of the market avenue. As the yellowish-blue light of the calcium carbide lamp illuminated the stairs leading down, Lumian found two pairs of footprints. He was very familiar with one of the pairs; they belonged to Charlie. Judging from the footprints, Charlie was very afraid of going underground late at night, and walked timidly, but in the end he chose to trust "Charles". He shows no signs of being restricted for the time being. "Idiot..." Lumian cursed the guy. It's normal that you can't tell whether it's real or fake. After all, one is a Beyonder and the other is an ordinary person. But they have been walking side by side for a long distance. Didn't they notice anything wrong in their communication? Is it so easy to impersonate me, Lumian Lee? "Fortunately there are footprints." Franka breathed a sigh of relief. The simplified "divination rod method" is difficult to use underground, because the direction it points to may be correct, but there may not be a way. It requires taking a long detour and there is a risk of getting lost. This "witch" did not bring any lighting tools. I wonder if she was sure that she would not be separated from Lumian, or if she was not worried about the impact of darkness on her eyesight. Lumian carried the carbide lamp and walked up the stairs to the level with the names of the streets and squares. He was very fast, sometimes he had chosen a direction before he even found any footprints, and it wasn't long before he found Charlie and Fake Ev's footprints again. This made Franca confused. After a few times, she finally couldn't help but ask: "You seem to know where the fake Ev will go?" "That pervert took the same route after he knocked Janna unconscious," Lumian replied calmly. This is the most familiar and safest route for the group. Moreover, the fake Ev should be taking Charlie to see Susanna Mathis - Susanna Mathis is likely to be at the end of this route! Franka didn't say much. She used the darkness around her to half-hide her figure, sometimes searching forward and sometimes guarding the back and sides.

After walking for a few minutes, Lumian and Franca stopped. There seemed to be some collapse here, with rubble everywhere, and the footprints became messy here, eventually pointing to a small hole blocked by a pile of rubble. "The target encountered a minor landslide and was trapped here?" Franca hissed, "Isn't this too unlucky?" She immediately looked at Lumian: "Where did you buy that bad luck charm? It's so effective, isn't it?" “I’ll buy you one next time I see you.” Lumian wasn’t sure if he would meet someone as unlucky as that homeless man in the near future. As soon as he finished speaking, he saw pieces of rubble rolling down from the pile of rocks blocking the entrance of the cave and landing on the ground with a clatter. Not long after, a passage was cleared there and a figure cautiously crawled out. He had blond hair with black undertones and bright light blue eyes. He looked quite good, like another Lumian. (End of this chapter)