Chapter 100 Tonight is one of the few suitable times to find Shelly.
Edith changed into clean clothes, blew on the two badges on her cloak, and wiped them vigorously with her sleeves.
In her previous life, she wore the chief badge for only one day before she died. After her reincarnation, she wore the student badge for quite a long time. It can only be said that her luck has never been very good.
"Palmer is awake." The door of the ward suddenly opened, and a doctor in a white robe walked out and nodded to Edith. "The principal wants you to come in."
Edith nodded.
She drank the medicine on the side table and strode towards the ward.
She had mostly abrasions on her body, which had now basically healed, and she felt no discomfort except for the itching from the growths. In comparison, Palmer on the bed was in a much more serious condition.
"What do you want to say?" Joyce said to the bed.
She leaned against the window, her hair messy, her arms casually folded across her chest, standing out from the crowd of school leaders sitting in a formal manner. Edith's eyes swept across the crowd: the principal looked unhappy, a group of unnamed leaders had grim faces, and Palmer on the bed curled up carefully in the quilt, trembling all over and making low sobs.
Joyce didn't seem to be talking to her.
Edith turned her gaze and looked towards the side of the bed near the window.
There, the black-haired man stared at the student on the bed without emotion, and said lightly: "I have never leaked the formula of the luck potion."
It's Shelly.
Edith felt uncomfortable for a moment, but quickly shifted her attention to what the other person was saying. Yes, Shelly was the third-year potions professor, and Palmer was most likely in his class. As a professional tutor, he would be the first person to be held accountable if something happened to the students.
"In the entire pharmacy school, only you and I are from the association. Could it be that I leaked the formula?" Near the door, a gray-haired old man poked the ground with his cane, looking unfriendly. The badge on his collar was shining, allowing Edith to recognize his identity at a glance: he was the dean of the pharmacy school.
Professors, deans, principals, and the president of the Magic Association... This doesn't seem like the standard of interrogation for cheating in a competition. Edith lowered her head, thinking: the control over folk luck potions is stricter than she thought.
"I didn't." Shelly raised his eyelids and looked at his immediate superior, with a rare hint of doubt in his tone, "What good would it be for me to tell her?"
The dean choked.
Indeed, Shelly is just a commoner with no background, and should not have any conflicts of interest.
"You have been funded by Duke Eddie for many years. His daughter was accidentally killed by Edith in the last game. In order to help the investor get revenge, you took the initiative to provide Edith's opponent with a winning potion." Joyce tilted his head and shot a sharp look at the side of the bed. "In order to show goodwill to Duke Eddie, you took the initiative to use someone else to kill Miss Griffin. In this way, your cooperative relationship can be even closer... Isn't that a benefit?"
Edith was stunned.
What?
Are they doubting Shelly?
She thought that after entering the room, she would encounter a series of interrogations of Palmer, but she didn't expect that the one who would be interrogated would be Shelly - well, no one probably believed that a third-year student could research the formula of the luck potion by himself.
She couldn't help but take a step forward and interrupted Joyce: "I'm sorry, President Walker, I think we should hear Smith's explanation on this matter."
Joyce glanced at her, not knowing whether she had misunderstood something, a trace of pity flashed across his face, and then he pulled her behind him: "It's okay, I will find out the truth and give you justice."
She lowered her head and whispered in Edith's ear, "Don't think that we won't hurt each other just because we're both civilians. There's no need to make excuses for an unfamiliar 'kind'."
"You haven't had any contact with him, so you don't know what kind of person he is. I've dealt with him in the association, don't worry, I know how to ask."
Edith: “…”
This is a big misunderstanding.
There is probably no one in the world who knows Shelly better than her.
She said helplessly: "I'm not sympathetic--"
"I did it myself."
Smith on the bed suddenly spoke. Everyone's attention was drawn to the voice. The girl's face popped out from under the quilt. She seemed to have mustered up all her courage and gritted her teeth and said, "The teacher was not involved. I researched the formula of the potion myself."
Edith breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that Palmer was not a bad person at all.
"——You teach your students well, Shelly Scott." Joyce sneered. She had a smile on her face, but everyone could see that she was angry. "Is this how you teach? Instill the sense of 'dedication' in your students? Make them protect you even when their brains are not conscious?"
Shelly frowned: "No."
"You didn't? Then how do you explain Duke Eddie's visit to the academy this morning!" The dean slammed the ground. "It happened that during Edith's competition, you welcomed Duke Eddie into the laboratory. All the professors of pharmacy saw this scene!"
"And how do you explain the explosion in the laboratory this morning?" Joyce shook the bag in his hand. There was some black powder in the thin transparent cloth. "It has just been detected that this powder contains the necessary ingredients for a series of luck potion formulas. If you didn't provide it to Miss Smith, then where is your luck potion now?"
Shelly showed no sign of weakness and met Joyce's gaze directly.
The magic circle he replicated was indeed based on the luck potion.
The magic circle on Edith's cup only had a surface pattern, and he needed to match the materials underneath by himself. He had never come into contact with magic circles related to the soul, and was temporarily in a dilemma.
Until later, by chance, he found a bottle of luck potion that Edith had prepared before at the bottom of the box.
Luck potions are essentially overdrawing future luck for use in the present, but if a person's luck is fixed throughout their life, can this also indirectly prove the existence of the soul?
With this in mind, he selected the ingredients in the recipe, and after several rounds of selection, he finally made a potion and melted it into the magic circle.
But this reason cannot be given.
"I'm researching a new drug," he replied. "Now that you've completed the test, you should know that there's something else in it."
The pharmacist's crucible must be cleaned very thoroughly before each use, so there is no possibility of residual traces of other ingredients.
It was impossible for Shelly to add other herbs to confuse the situation after the potion was completed. A stable potion could not react and fuse again, and Joyce knew this, so he still had doubts in his heart.
"...Did Duke Eddie come here this morning to see your 'new potion'?"
"Yes." Shelly said calmly, "I sent some gifts by the way. I didn't want them to go through the servants, so I delivered them alone."
Only then did Edith notice the change in Shelly.
The brooch on his collar seemed to have changed.
She didn't have a deep impression of Shelly's original brooch. She only had a vague image in her memory, and it should be an ordinary style. But now this new brooch is completely different. It has a dark red gem in the center, which makes people think of Shelly's eyes at a glance, which is very eye-catching.
Strangely, the uncomfortable feeling of being watched seemed to have dissipated a lot about him. If he felt it carefully, he would find that the remaining part also came from the brooch.
Joyce was still looking at Shirley.
The two showed no sign of backing down. They didn't speak, and the entire ward was eerily quiet. After a while, Joyce gave up first: "...Let's stop here for today."
"The doctor determined that Palmer's memory is not yet complete. Let her receive treatment for a day and re-examine tomorrow."
"As for Shelly...his original dormitory, laboratory, and office are all sealed off. Find him an empty dormitory to live in. He is not allowed to see anyone before the retrial tomorrow."
......
Edith quickly followed Joyce and asked bluntly, "If you find out that it was Palmer who developed the luck potion herself, what will you do with her?"
"Erasing her memory." Joyce said without hesitation. "In that case, there will be no room for privacy. The Association's Special Affairs Department will read all of her memories and then delete the part related to the luck potion."
Edith raised an eyebrow: "Read all?"
"Read all of it." Joyce turned his head to look at her, "Trust the wizards of the association. Even if you have lost your memory, they can dig out the lost part."
Edith hissed silently in her heart.
It seems that I can't use the self-destructive formula to exchange for Shelly's innocence.
"But it's most likely that Shelly made it and gave it to Palmer." Joyce said calmly, "You don't know much about luck potions. Making it requires not only a formula, but also a certain amount of magic power reserves."
"People with average magic power can't refine this. Palmer can't do it."
Edith frowned: "Can't you make it without magic power?"
This was not right. She had been refining potions well in the past when she was in the association, and there had never been any accidents. In other words, she had never heard of any potion that could not be refined with magic power.
"But I heard from my teacher that as long as you memorize the recipes and steps accurately, you can become a pharmacist without magic power," she said cautiously.
Joyce nodded. "In most cases, yes, but there are indeed a few potions that require magic power, and even fewer that have extremely high magic power requirements."
This is also the problem. Shelly's high talent made him the first suspect, but it was also because of his high talent that the Special Affairs Department was unable to successfully invade his memory, and naturally could not obtain direct evidence.
We can only hope that Palmer will remember more tomorrow and bring some important news...
......
night.
Edith was leaning against the window of the dormitory. Hedda hugged her waist from behind and tried to persuade her: "Why do you have to go today?" She heard that Duke Eddie was coming to the college this morning, so she didn't dare let Edith go out alone.
"Mu Lin will be discharged from the hospital tomorrow. Shouldn't we go to bed early today and wait to get up early tomorrow?"
"I'm not allowed to go out anyway." Edith squinted her eyes and observed the movements below. "You guys go early. I'll be back before Mulin comes back."
"You're still going to spend the night out!" Hedda was shocked. "Are you in a relationship? I won't allow it!"
Edith: “…”
Edith: "Why did you start reading romance novels?"
Hedda chuckled, "It's easy to get tired if you read too many adventure novels."
Belle was much more restrained. She kept staring at Edith's face to make sure she was not joking. She stepped forward and took Hedda's hand: "Are you sure you can come back before tomorrow morning?"
Mulin would definitely be escorted back, and the teacher might come in to take a look at Edith.
Edith said solemnly: "I promise."
She waved her hands and jumped straight down from the windowsill.
The people who were monitoring us probably haven't had time to set up the new dormitory yet, so tonight is one of the few suitable times to look for Shelly.
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