Chapter 185 - 182: The Overlooked Object
The child’s mother didn’t agree with this explanation.
"Kesby? I admit he’s got a knack for appraising paintings, but this is a mirror!"
The father, who was driving, understood his wife’s doubts and patiently explained.
"Dear, you don’t know this, but while Kesby might not recognize the patterns on the mirror, he knows a lot about materials."
As he said this, he couldn’t resist glancing at the box in the rearview mirror and even lowered his voice.
"He already checked it out privately. The mirror’s material is completely unidentifiable. The frame isn’t a conventional metal, nor is it any common type of stone. Plus, its temperature never changes, no matter the environment. And the mirror’s surface—it’s not glass or metal, and it’s incredibly hard!"
The father got worked up just talking about it and gulped.
"Dear, do you know what this means?"
The woman in the back seat started to catch on. Hearing all this, she realized the mirror seemed quite mysterious.
"In nature, highly durable, transparent materials are usually gemstones. This means the mirror’s face was likely polished from some unknown Gemstone, and the frame could be made of meteorite, or maybe even a raw Gemstone!"
"According to Kesby, if the surface is a Gemstone, then the craftsmanship alone—to be able to polish it so flawlessly smooth and flat—is worth far more than what we paid."
The atmosphere in the car grew lively, and the child’s mother started to appreciate how valuable the mirror was.
The truth was, the mirror had attracted her from the start; she was just upset about the two hundred Euro price tag.
"Actually, Kesby and I went in on it together. Since he works at the shop, it wasn’t right for him to buy it himself. So, he intentionally gave the seller a lowball offer, then had me step in and purchase it. That way, the owner only sees a mirror on the books and has no idea what’s really going on!"
"Dear, you two are so clever!"
"Of course! Kesby and I had talked about doing something like this before, but we never got the right chance. Everything went perfectly this time!"
The little girl sitting beside her mother, who had been listening the whole time, suddenly spoke up.
"But Papa, isn’t that illegal?"
"Er, Luna, what your father did isn’t illegal. He just bought an item from a store like anyone else. He just happens to have a good eye for an item’s potential value."
"Oh, then what about Uncle Kesby?"
"As for him... hmm, at most, it’s a valuation error. Not even that, really!"
the father added, looking back.
...
On a shopping street in the western part of Paris, there was a decently sized pawn and consignment shop called Angel Feather.
The pawn industry in France is quite developed. It’s one of the six types of government-authorized credit institutions. For the French, visiting a pawn shop is like going to a bank for a short-term loan, and haggling is part of the process.
Normally, people don’t let their items be forfeited, but there are always exceptions—like that man a few days ago.
He never came back to redeem his items before the deadline.
Kesby was a tidy, middle-aged man. He was currently polishing a porcelain bowl, inwardly relishing the thought of the mirror he and his friend had schemed to acquire.
He was more focused on its artistic value. The style was so unique, its beauty impossible to ignore.
The seller had come in wanting to sell it outright, but the shop had a rule against direct purchases; there had to be a loan period. So, Kesby had casually thrown out a lowball price, never expecting the man to agree instantly and then fail to return before the deadline.
As luck would have it, the owner was on vacation. And although the shop had three employees, he was the manager, so he naturally seized the opportunity when it presented itself.
Just as he was thinking about the mirror, two police officers suddenly entered the shop. Spotting Kesby’s manager name tag, they walked straight toward him.
Seeing the police, Kesby’s heart skipped a beat.
’It can’t have come to light this quickly, can it? This isn’t even illegal! Haggling is a normal part of French pawn shops!’
"Hello, has anyone in your shop seen this man?"
The police officer showed him a photo of the seller. In the picture, however, the man looked much healthier, not as dazed and gaunt as he had been that day.
The shop had security cameras, so denying it was impossible. Besides, Kesby was a fairly calm and rational person.
He told himself not to jump to conclusions, took the photo from the officer, and examined it carefully.
"Please show me your police credentials, gentlemen."
It was a reasonable request. The two officers took out their badges for Kesby to inspect. Only after seeing them did he begin to share client information.
"I’ve seen him. He came in a few days ago to pawn some items, but he never returned to redeem them."
One of the policemen’s eyes lit up.
"What did he pawn, and did he do anything else unusual?"
Kesby returned the photo.
"No. He pawned three items. He wanted to sell them outright, but regulations required us to set up a loan, so we gave him one for the shortest possible term."
Kesby slid a nearby laptop over and pulled up the information.
"Here it is. He pawned a watch, a necklace, and a decorative mirror. Since they were forfeited, we’ve already priced them for sale."
"Hold on, let me check if the items are still here. Oh, the watch and necklace are quite valuable and haven’t been sold yet, but the decorative piece has already been bought. Do you need me to bring the watch and necklace for you to see?"
One of the officers nodded.
"Yes, please bring them out for us."
Two minutes later, another clerk brought out the items: a Gold watch and a platinum necklace.
The police were also led into the back room.
However, the two officers only glanced at the items, showing no intention of taking them for evidence. They did, however, review the in-store surveillance footage from that day.
"Officers, may I ask what happened? Were the client’s items stolen? Do I need to try and get the other one back?"
The younger of the two officers waved a hand and smiled.
"No, no, that’s not necessary. The man died in a hotel. His death was... well, let’s just say we haven’t ruled out homicide yet. So we’ve been ordered to investigate his recent activities. Besides this place, he sold quite a few things recently. It seems he was trying to raise money."
"Oh, my God!"
He exclaimed outwardly.
Inwardly, however, Kesby breathed a sigh of relief. ’Looks like this has nothing to do with me,’ he thought.
"Alright, thank you for your cooperation. Sorry to have bothered you."
The two policemen exited the shop, got in their car, and left.
After watching them leave, the three employees exchanged a few words before getting back to work.
But even though Kesby felt he was in the clear, he couldn’t shake a sense of unease. He wondered if it was just because of the connection to a dead man.
Yet, he felt no anxiety about the mirror. Or rather, he was unable to feel anxious about it, as if his train of thought would automatically swerve away whenever it approached the subject.
...
Brown and the twin brothers tailed the family’s car from a distance, following it to a residential area on the outskirts of Paris that was filled with older villas.
They parked their car at a nearby intersection, watching from a distance as the family of three carried their various belongings from the car into the house.
"Those three should be human. I don’t get the feeling they’ve been parasitized or possessed, and the car seems normal now too."
He carefully observed the family and the things they brought inside but couldn’t sense anything out of the ordinary.
Even stranger, once the family was inside, the feeling he’d gotten from the car vanished completely.
Brown frowned.
"Could all three of us have had our Perception fail at the same time?"
"We’ll stay here for the night and see what happens."
"Right."
Frankly, the three of them knew they were no longer ordinary people. And as was a core tenet of Dawn, one could not ignore intuition.
That night, the mirror was placed at the couple’s bedside.
Before going to sleep, they admired it at length. The more they looked at it, the more they liked it, feeling the purchase was worth it even without considering its potential hidden value.
Mrs. Ruby even took a photo of the mirror and secretly posted it to her WeChat Moments to show it off, getting dozens of likes within two minutes.
They went to bed happy, but their sleep was anything but pleasant.
That night, all three family members had nightmares. It was the kind of terror where you can’t seem to wake up, a feeling that lingered even after they startled awake in the morning.
Mr. Ruby went to wash up, and as was her habit, the first thing Mrs. Ruby did after getting up was weigh herself.
She stepped onto the digital scale. When she saw the number, her sluggish mood from the nightmare instantly lifted.
"Sixty-eight kilograms! Oh my God, dear, I’ve lost weight! Ha ha, I’m a full kilogram lighter!"