Embers of Embers

Chapter 233 Rat King
"Where do I start with all this?"
In the slightly narrow back kitchen, Hercule was sitting next to the cupboard. He was even more reserved than before. After all, he was tied to the chair with a rope. Lorenzo was opposite him, holding the dog called Poirot. Not far from the chinchilla, there were several spoons and forks.
"It's okay, I have plenty of time to listen to you, Mouse King, Hercule... Forget it, I don't care what you are."
By now, everything was clear, and Hercule had no chance to play tricks in front of Lorenzo.
The big mouse in his arms lay down comfortably, looking at Hercule who didn't know where to start, Lorenzo asked curiously.
"How about I ask, why do you regard it as the Rat King?"
As Lorenzo spoke, he rubbed the big mouse in his arms. Its fur was so soft that it looked like a ball of fur. According to the history Lorenzo knew, this little thing was once considered a man because of its fur. Hunted to the point of extinction, it is considered a rare thing in Ying Erwei. I remember it also has some alternative names. I remember it was called Totoro or something.
"Because this big rat saved my life. To be precise, Poirot saved my life."
Hercule followed Lorenzo's question and slowly told his past.
"I'm not from Inverg. I'm from Lish. I worked as a police officer for a period of time, but then I was shipwrecked and ended up in Inlweg."
"shipwreck?"
"Yes, I met those damn Viking pirates. I took advantage of the chaos and escaped in a small boat. They didn't chase me. After all, there is no food or fresh water in the vast sea. I am dead in this situation."
Hercule looked at Poirot as he spoke.
"But they didn't expect that there was not only me on the boat, but also a chinchilla. This little thing was used as a pet in some rich people's homes, and because it was rare and expensive, there was a businessman on the boat who brought several of them and planned to sell them. Inervig, maybe he took advantage of the chaos and opened the cage, so he escaped onto the boat with me."
"You... ate it?"
Lorenzo thought for a while, maybe he was exposed to some evil and bloody things every day, and the follow-up he thought of was also so bloody.
"How is it possible? This little thing is so cute, you are willing to eat it? And it only has a few pieces of meat... The most difficult thing at that time was the mind. In that desperate situation, I talked to Poirot all day long," Hull Kerry raised his eyebrows, "Human will is fragile. At first it was just me talking to myself, but one day Poirot replied."
Lorenzo was startled when he heard this.
"Wait! That mouse spoke?"
"That's right! It spoke and chatted with me."
In order to convince Lorenzo, Hercule spoke faster.
"Poirot and I were chatting... I was too bored in the desperate situation, so I looked back on my life. From that time on, I had a wonderful feeling. I could remember everything in my life clearly, those vague things. The story is not clear even before death.”
Hercule laughed like a lunatic, "Poirot said he also remembered that he had three brothers, and only one of his unlucky ones was caught by humans. The rest of his compatriots were still living happily in the woods. .”
"You're mentally disturbed," Lorenzo said.
"Yeah, how can a mouse talk?"
Hercule nodded, looking a little lonely.
"Just when I was about to die, I was rescued by another cargo ship. At that time, I said that I would take Poirot with me. After all, it was a life-long friendship. But when I looked at Poirot, I realized that The chinchilla has been dead for an unknown amount of time, and the body is decomposed."
Hercule said, "That's right. This little thing is very precious, and the sun's exposure will kill it easily."
"what's next?"
"Next, I was sent to Inverg by a cargo ship, which was their destination. I had no money and no proof of identity. My mental state at the time was ridiculously bad. I could hallucinate a big monster all day long. Rats squeaked in my ears, and I drifted down downtown in a daze."
"So he became the Rat King?"
Lorenzo felt that Hercule's experience was somewhat legendary from an ordinary person's perspective.
"How is that possible? You should know how difficult it is for a stranger to get along in the lower city, not to mention that I seem to have some mental illness."
"Then is your illness cured?"
"If it hadn't been good, I wouldn't be here."
Hercule looked around, his eyes seemed to see the lower city where he was hiding through the wall.
"I became a vagabond, living in confusion, but life is fair, at least to me. I suffered and gained strength. I can remember the people and things around me, even The same goes for their casual conversations.”
He stared at Lorenzo and told him bit by bit how he became the Rat King, or the man behind the Rat King.
"I didn't know how to use this power at first. After all, I'm just a person with a good memory. But by chance, I used the gossip I heard to put together the prototype of a story. I even said I saw it. It's going..."
Here comes the weird part, Lorenzo listened attentively. This was his greatest curiosity about Hercule. To a certain extent, he had achieved a limited "omniscient" with his mortal power.
"With the mentality of giving it a try, I hid in the shadows and became the biggest winner behind the scenes. Those thugs never thought that I would interfere in all this."
Hercule said frankly.
"That was the beginning of my transformation. I knew how to use this power, and then the bad rat appeared."
"I accumulated a huge amount of wealth in a short period of time, and no one knew about it. I was like a shadow. At that time, I thought about leaving here, but something soon changed my mind. This is what I am looking for. The cause of 'you'."
This is something Lorenzo has never been able to think clearly about. It can be seen that Hercule does not have any ill intentions towards him, but he has another strange feeling. This feeling is very familiar. Lorenzo once felt it in Merlin. However, the mysterious alchemist had asked Lorenzo if he would be interested in donating his body after his death.
Hercule was curious, he was a seeker, and he longed for mysterious knowledge.
"The Rat King is just a smokescreen, a gimmick, a chinchilla named Poirot."
"You should be aware of the chaos and danger in Xiacheng District. The stronger the bad rats become, the more dangerous I am. Instead of worrying about it, it is better to transfer the conflict to it."
Lorenzo listened to his words and lifted Poirot up, "So this Poirot became the Rat King?"
Hercule nodded, smiling.
"Poirot is my lucky mouse. Although he died in the shipwreck, if it weren't for the mouse that chatted with me, I might have gone even more crazy. So after I accumulated enough capital, I started from a businessman. Bought it from the hands of the second generation Poirot."
"The mysterious Rat King manages all the bad rats. Of course, I am still the one who actually operates it, but when someone has bad intentions, they will only look for the Rat King instead of involving a small informant. "
Hercule continued, "Then it's time to get down to business, right?"
Lorenzo responded.
"You are a person who sells information. You should know the value of information. Now that you have told me these secret and deadly stories, what do you want in exchange for it?"
Hercule smiled even wider, "You are a smart man, Mr. Holmes."
"This is another story. I had wealth at that time and wanted to return to Lish with the money, but... people are always greedy, right."
"Do you desire more wealth?"
Hercule shook his head, his face flushed with excitement.
"You are a person similar to me, Mr. Holmes. Our thinking is different from ordinary people. Could it be that wealth can impress you?"
Lorenzo didn't say anything. If he really had to make a difficult decision, wealth would obviously not influence his decision. When he really needed something like that, he could just grab it. Lorenzo didn't think that the security of the bank could stop him now. .
"Yes, those are all things that are within easy reach. In fact, I was pursuing those things a long time ago, but that shipwreck completely changed me." He said.
"People's pursuit should not be those, but those things that are more mysterious, or essential, so what about the forbidden knowledge? This is what is worthy of people like us going crazy, isn't it?"
Hercule started his seemingly crazy speech, as if something was touched, Lorenzo looked at Hercule, and for the first time he felt some similarity from this guy.
"I am the Rat King, who manages all the bad rats. They run around every corner of this city, and I exchange my wealth for what they see and hear. They are my eyes and ears, constantly transmitting a steady stream of information. Sent to my mind...this is a very abnormal desire for control."
The words became heated, as if a fire had been lit.
"I can deduce the price fluctuations from the conversations of the people on the dock, and the gossip of the thugs, to piece together a smuggling operation. I even stretched my hands to the city hall."
"Don't believe it, Mr. Holmes, this is actually very simple. I can't guess what the chef will cook in the evening, but I can judge what he bought by the amount of goods in the market."
"It sounds full of loopholes." Lorenzo said calmly.
"So the stories I calculate will have a certain deviation value to allow for error tolerance in the story.
Just like you killed those thugs, the real situation is that you used a spoon to kill them... But this is really inconsistent with ordinary people's logic, isn't it?So in order to fix these 'holes', I'll make some changes to the story, like your shotgun that's flooded will fire properly. "
Lorenzo looked serious, and he couldn't help but hold on to Poirot in his arms. Although he was not a human, the big rat could feel the weight of the atmosphere. It was timid as hell, huddled in a ball, and remained motionless.
"The bad rats are bringing more and more information, and the timeliness is getting higher and higher. The more I know, the clearer I understand everything about this city. It becomes clearer and clearer in front of my eyes. I can even analyze it, Come and predict anything that happens in this city!"
Hercule's eyes were fiery.
"Mr. Holmes, sometimes I feel like I am like Queen Victoria. I have mastered this city, mastered it completely."
Lorenzo looked at him deeply, and then said with some disdain.
"Impossible, mortals can't do this. Compared with what you said, I believe that you are not the Mouse King, and you are also one of his puppets. There is your archives somewhere underground in Old Dunling , dozens of people... Maybe hundreds of people, integrating the information brought by the bad rats, holding a ridiculous story meeting, and then handing it over to you, so that you can make a magic stick speech in front of my eyes."
"As expected, you also have the bad nature of a mortal. I was also unwilling to believe this at first. After all, this is beyond your imagination, right? It is something that humans cannot imagine or have witnessed with their own eyes."
Hercule laughed, as if mocking Lorenzo, which made Lorenzo uncomfortable.
"Mr. Holmes, let's go back to the reason why I am looking for 'you'. This is a very interesting beginning. At that time, I had a huge amount of information, and the operation of the entire city was so clear before my eyes, but I The harder I try to see it clearly, the more I find that there is a fog in this city that cannot be dispelled."
"It has hidden its most intimate secrets. No matter how the bad rats probe, I can't see it clearly. After so many years, all I can do now is to know that it exists. There is another person in this city. Something that is absolutely unknown.”
He spoke faster again, as if he would do this when he was excited. Perhaps the residual mental illness from the shipwreck was still there, and Hercule seemed a bit crazy.
"As you said, I am just a mortal. Mortals cannot achieve 'omniscientness'. I also have limitations. There are many things that I have not witnessed with my own eyes. I can only rely on the real basis to make predictions about the story. But in this old age There are too many stories in Dunling, and their deviations are surprisingly large."
"You may not understand this definition. Simply put, many events do not conform to common sense logic, or... there are extraordinary forces at work."
When he heard the word extraordinary, Lorenzo's pupils couldn't help but shrink, and this small change was so clear in Hercule's eyes, as if he was affirmed, and he smiled even happier.
"I started to search why this was the case. The more I traced it, the more I discovered the dark cloud hanging over the old Dunling. In this city, there is another power, that extraordinary power!"
He stared at Lorenzo and questioned loudly.
"Mr. Holmes, you also saw that monster, right? What do you call them? Demons? You must have killed it, but you didn't think about disposing of its body after killing it. It was so It’s weird, once exposed it will have a strong impact on the public, right?”
"But you still left without looking back. Do you believe that no one will find out, or do you believe that someone will handle all this after you leave?"
It was obvious that Hercule was tied to the chair by Lorenzo, but under that crazy momentum, Lorenzo felt that he was tied to the chair.
At the same time, Lorenzo also felt a bit ridiculous. If what Hercule said was true, then he was a genius or a madman. He relied on the clues revealed in the city to deduce the existence of the purification mechanism. He even The inferior secret blood has been discovered and a trap has been set up to take advantage of Lorenzo.
"Actually, those rumors are true."
Hercule said suddenly and abruptly. He broke away from the chair with all his strength. Lorenzo couldn't help but tensed his body, but Hercule didn't do anything extra. He still sat on the chair obediently.
"Like that archive, it's real."
"As I said, you are also one of the puppets. Was your group responsible for all this?" Lorenzo asked.
"No, what I said is true. It's all just me and the bad rats who helped me."
"Of course that archive also really exists, but it's here."
Hercule said, stretching out his index finger and pointing hard at his temple.
"It is right here. It records everything I have seen and heard from the time of the shipwreck to the present. It is all here. The past and future of this city, everything, is here!"
As he spoke, he quickly approached Lorenzo, stretched out his hand, under his mustache, and raised the corner of his mouth vigorously.
"Reacquaint yourself, Hercule Christie, it's okay if you call me the Rat King. After all, I have to take care of Poirot's three meals a day."
(End of this chapter)