Chapter 36 Identity
St. Amanda's School at night, west of Eaglewind.
As night fell, after dinner, the male students who were about to attend the evening class suddenly heard loud gunshots coming from the distance of the campus. For a moment, the curious boys crowded around the windows of the classroom, looking at the darkness in the distance, and discussed fiercely what was happening outside, until the stern teacher pushed them all back to their seats.
The lights were still on in the school classrooms and night classes were in progress. At this time, in a secret and spacious basement somewhere under the school, the lights were still on.
This is a spacious space located in the basement of St. Amanda's School. Countless large hanging gas lamps drive away the darkness here and illuminate it. There are many tables and cabinets placed in this underground space, and all of these tables and cabinets are piled with various stone sculptures.
There are smaller human heads, slightly larger busts, and even larger full-body statues. There are all kinds of statues placed everywhere, on tables, cabinets, chairs, and on the floor. Each statue is carved to look lifelike. In addition to the statues, there are many uncarved plain stones of different sizes standing against the wall. There are several large vents on the wall with slowly rotating fan blades, and no one knows where the power comes from.
A layer of dust accumulated on the floor of the basement, with various stools scattered around, various hammers and chisels in the corners, and easels and drawing boards in some places. The paintings on the boards were dark sketches and structural sketches of various human portraits or complex geometric bodies, but none of them were colored. There were only pencils on the boards but no paint.
Generally speaking, this place seems to be a stone sculpture workshop, and Dorothy is standing in the center of the workshop, looking around curiously. Not far from Dorothy, Principal Dean is taking several black photos from different angles. The tool in his hand is carved with a majestic male bust, and the sound of tinkling echoes in the space.
On the open space next to Dorothy, five corpses covered with shrouds were lined up.
"Thank you so much tonight, sir, for saving me in this critical moment..."
After taking a quick look around, Dorothy shifted her gaze to Dean, who was concentrating on carving. Dean continued to work and said with a smile.
"Haha... these Communion thugs don't follow the rules and keep roaming around my territory. It's only natural for me to deal with them. Miss Meshhos, you should thank yourself for being saved..."
As he said this, Dean glanced at the five corpses on one side, and then spoke with some praise.
"You dealt with four of the five minions by yourself. I just helped you clean up the mess in the end. When I received the message from your puppet, your carriage had already set out for a while. If you hadn't forced them to rush back, I wouldn't have been able to save you at my speed..."
Then Dean glanced at Dorothy and continued.
"This courage, calmness, and thinking... it's incredible that a girl of your age can have these qualities. I'm so glad that St. Amanda has an outstanding student like you, and a girl at that. You are much better than those young masters who chatter all day long and are pretentious."
"Thank you for the compliment, sir..." Dorothy bowed slightly to Dean modestly, and then continued speaking.
"I am still far from being excellent. I still have a lot to learn, and I have many questions I would like to ask you, sir."
Listening to Dorothy's words, Dean smiled slightly, looked at Dorothy and then spoke.
"You have questions for me? Oh... Sure, but first you have to answer some questions of mine. First of all, how did you know that I'm extraordinary? Do you have any ability to identify extraordinary people?"
Dean smiled and said that after Dorothy got on the Crimson Communion car, she sent the gecko corpse all the way to the campus to find Dean, the principal who was still building the garden. She directly wrote some words of the Crimson Communion on the soil in front of him and pointed out the direction. This was one of the ways to survive that Dorothy was desperately looking for, because she knew that this old man was probably extraordinary.
Dorothy thought for a moment after listening to Dean's words, and then spoke in an analytical tone.
"You first caught my attention at the beginning. You knocked down two stone statues in front of my brother and me, and then my brother caught them all. At that time, you praised my brother and said, 'You are a good boy.'... When you praised my brother's 'skills', you had already caught my attention a little. Of course, it was only a little bit. I thought I was overthinking it at the time."
Listening to Dorothy's words, Dean nodded and spoke.
"continue."
"Then I became interested in the stone statues in the school. Because of the slight attention I had paid to you before, I chose to go to you to ask about it. At that time, you were wiping the stone statues. I observed you more and found that you wiped the stone statues very carefully... No, not only carefully, but also very methodically."
Dorothy began to walk slowly in the room, recalled for a moment and then continued speaking.
"From my observation, you didn't wipe it roughly without any method, but followed the various structures of the stone statue. You wiped several places that could be covered with one rag, and each one was on the inconspicuous structures on the face. You didn't miss some small places, such as the bottom of the eyelids.
"More importantly, the way you wiped the stone statue was quite interesting. You never wiped the stone statue with a rag like most people do, but you always wiped one direction and then started over again. It's like... when carving, the chisel can only carve in one direction. I think this might be a habit...
"Heh... To be honest, I think you are not cleaning the statue, but rather reshaping its structure, reshaping the process of how it was carved. I don't think an ordinary schoolmaster would do this..."
Dorothy stopped walking and said to Dean, and Dean had already stopped what he was doing, smiled and clapped his hands at Dorothy.
"Haha...you are very careful and attentive in your observation...you have acquired another rare quality..."
Facing Dean's applause, Dorothy did not stop, but continued to speak.
"Having come this far, I have developed enough interest in you, and I will observe you carefully next. From my observation, you are in good physical condition, and you don't show any mobility problems that an elderly person would have. You don't look like someone who can fall down from the flat ground all of a sudden. This makes me think that your previous fall was a deliberate test. Of course, up to now, these are all my supervisor's guesses and conjectures.
"I was really sure that there was something wrong with you, so I used a little trick. I controlled my small puppet to sneak into the school's archives and other places to collect information about you. Finally, I found the roster of school employees in the Finance Department, which also included the salary distribution information. There I saw that a schoolboy named Dean had never received any salary from the school.
"So here I have almost confirmed your identity. You are the principal of this school, Mr. Aldridge. Here, although I have confirmed that you are not ordinary, I still have doubts about whether you are extraordinary. However, at the critical moment before, I could not care too much and asked you for help."
Dorothy finished her analysis, and then Dean just laughed and spoke.
"Hahaha... Not bad, not bad. You really surprised me, Miss Meschos. Hello... Your analysis is very good... Yes, I am the current principal of this school, Aldridge..."
Aldridge smiled and walked away from the statue, put down the tools in his hands, then sat on the seat and looked at Dorothy and said.
"I am very satisfied with your answer. I am impressed by your intelligence, Miss Meshhaus. Now it is your turn to ask me questions."
Listening to Aldridge's words, Dorothy looked calm, then slowly spoke.
"Thank you for the compliment, Mr. Aldridge... Then my first question is... May I ask what was your motive for coming to test us on the first day? What did you discover on the first day?"
Dorothy asked Aldridge seriously. This was also a question that she was very concerned about. She was not sure whether there was something wrong with her or Greg that attracted Aldridge's attention.
After hearing Dorothy's words, Aldridge did not answer immediately. Instead, he took a sip of the tea on the table, looked at Dorothy with a smile, and continued speaking.
"What do you think, Miss Meshhaus, or... the brave little girl..."
Aldrich's words were no longer in their usual calm voice, but had the force and richness of another voice, a voice Dorothy had heard before at the secret gathering she had boldly attended not long ago.
This is the sound of "Gray Hill".
…
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com