Four Split Personalities

Game Time AM10:35

Mercury City West District, "Dog Whistle" Tavern

"Here’s your beer, kid."

A middle-aged woman, carrying excess weight, squeezed through the crowd and heavily placed the dirty wooden beer mug on the table, then glanced disdainfully at the patron and asked without much hope, "Aren’t you going to order anything else?"

As one of the few taverns in Mercury City that was still open for business after the recent large-scale and far-reaching turmoil, "Dog Whistle" had been full for two consecutive days. The hall, less than thirty square meters in size, was packed with idlers, but for reasons better left unmentioned, the proportion of civilians was dismayingly low. Most customers were low-level members from various big organizations, discussing topics such as "the fall of the Marshall Family" and "reshuffling at the highest levels of the Empire," giving the civilian proprietors who had taken over the tavern just two months ago little opportunity to join the conversation.

Naturally, they had no spare time to shoot the breeze with customers. Given how busy it was, the owner, his daughter-in-law, his nephew, and his niece were all on their feet non-stop. Indeed, this was a family business, with a large family covering all duties from accounting to washing vegetables.

It must be said, they were truly lucky. Had they come a year or two earlier, by now, the SAN levels of the whole family would probably have plummeted.

After all, despite the bustling business, it must be noted that Mercury City’s population had sharply decreased by nearly seventy percent. Civilians who had lived here for more than two years had almost all been secretly converted to the Heretical Church and had perished cleanly in a recent major battle. This was the core reason behind the scarcity of open taverns and why an unremarkable place like the "Dog Whistle" could still be full.

That’s also why the boss lady was particularly dissatisfied with the young man who took up a whole table but only ordered a beer. She thought to herself that if it weren’t for his polite demeanor and decent looks, she would have kicked him out five minutes ago.

"No thanks,"

The young man shook his head amid the noise, then suddenly smacked his forehead and pulled out a shiny silver coin from his pocket. He flicked it with his finger and blinked, saying, "It’s not easy to find a place to stay, please let me sit for a bit longer."

"Look at you, sweet-talking like that, stay as long as you’d like."

The auntie beamed and threw a coquettish look, cheerfully speaking, "I’ll ask the kitchen to make you a plate of beans~"

Then she sashayed off toward the kitchen with her hips twisting serpentine-like.

"Tsk tsk, such a ferocious look."

Motan sneered, symbolically sipped his beer, and continued to scribble on the parchment on the table.

He occupied a whole table because it was covered with papers filled with undecipherable symbols—not because Motan was using Korean, Arabic, Nepalese, Bengali, and Mongolian scripts simultaneously, although he could, but because he intentionally wrote his characters so they pirouetted elegantly, resembling the prescription handwriting found in hospitals—simple gibberish.

"Oi, are you setting up to perform a ritual here?"

Moments later, a teasing voice rang out from behind him, crisp and pleasant.

"Sit."

Motan didn’t even turn his head; he knew who it was and didn’t bother to chitchat, simply slapping the seat beside him and continuing to write swiftly on the stack of parchments in front of him.

"What are you busy with that you had to come to such a rundown place?"

Double Leaf didn’t beat around the bush, plopping down beside Motan, leaning against his left side, and lazily asking with her head tilted, "Writing an observation journal?"

Motan ignored the pretty face close to him, continuing to write furiously while casually answering, "Just didn’t want to attract attention, you know, hiding in plain sight."

"Heh, so you’re studying something you don’t want others to see, huh?"

Double Leaf chuckled lightly, quickly scanning the parchments with the corner of her eye and smiling, "But from the perspective of ’not wanting to attract’ attention, this is indeed the ideal place. Others seeing all this mind-corrupting stuff will probably just think you’re scrambling to meet a deadline."

Motan glanced at her, filled the last piece of parchment, and leisurely started to pack the items on the table into his pouch while absently asking, "Meeting over?"

"I don’t know, I didn’t go."

Double Leaf flicked her hair back and removed her glasses, breathing lightly on them, "Huff~ I’ve handed all matters related to Fire Claw over to Leven. That fox seems to be regressing lately, so it’s time he used his brain more, besides..."

"You’ve cut ties with Fire Claw now, haven’t you?"

Motan casually picked up the conversation, putting the last piece of parchment into his pouch, "How does it feel to have your revenge?"

After working together for so long, he naturally had no reason not to know the reasons Double Leaf was desperate to overturn the Marshall Family, even though she had never directly mentioned it. With Motan’s ability to gather intelligence, it was impossible for him to be clueless about it, hence his very direct question.